Sett and his King (Demon Gods #3)

8. Drew

Drew

" S o…how do you plan on finding this eldritch witch?" Sett asked when we came out of the pyramid and we made our way back to the road where the taxi had dropped us off.

“I think I'll keep you in suspense, Your Majesty. You'll find out when we're back home."

"Mysterious. I like it," Sett answered and the way he narrowed his eyes and smirked made my body heat rise by several degrees.

I flagged down a cab that had just dropped off a bunch of tourists and rushed to grab it before anyone else had the same idea. The faster we got into town, the faster we could find the eldritch witch and the scarab they had stolen.

“You know, back in my time, you could have used any door to get back home,” Sett said, relaxing into the backseat as the driver started the hour-long journey back into Cairo. “You could have used the pyramid door for example.”

“That would be convenient. But unfortunately, I need a door with a key. I guess stēgi magic has evolved.”

“Magic always does,” Sett said. “It finds a way to adapt."

I glanced at him but he was staring out of the window, out into Saqqara necropolis. I stared at the back of his head, wondering what he was looking for.

Was he remembering way back when he used to walk these hallowed grounds as all the kings of old did?

I couldn’t even imagine what it must feel like to live for thousands of years. To see the world change so much right before your very eyes. Although, I guess Sett hadn’t seen this world change at all.

What must it feel like to be a god and everyone else so fleeting. So mortal.

Would I be like Horus if I were one? Would I see everyone around me as inconsequential and torture people in my name and immense power?

"You…” I started and hesitated. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the answer but then Sett turned to look at me with big, almost puppy dog eyes, and I couldn’t resist. “You said you know about your brother's appetites. What…what did you mean?"

Sett pursed his lips and took a deep, weighty breath.

“Let's just say I used to be you.”

He used to be me?

“That-that means…he took advantage of his own brother?"

That was disgusting. Perverted. I couldn’t imagine ever laying a finger on Gene, let alone using him in the manner Horus had used me.

Bile burned my throat.

"If there's one thing you should know about my brother," Sett said, "is that he doesn't care about anyone but himself. He doesn't care about these kinds of relations. To be honest, back then, no one really did. It was a different time. But my brother? He likes power and he will assert it over anyone and everyone, no matter what.”

That made us more alike than I cared for and I didn’t care for empathizing with a god. Who knew what kind of trouble that could land me in.

But…

If he’d been like me, maybe…

“How did you escape him? If he used his power to…to force you to do all those things, how did you defeat him?"

I needed to know. If there was another way that I could destroy Horus I had to find out. The scarab couldn’t be my only hope.

"I was given a gift. It helps me resist his compulsion. I used that gift to steal his power and trap it inside the scarab. I thought I succeeded but…it seems he found a way to escape both my tricks and my blade."

I deflated.

There was no chance I could do that. Last time he’d been defeated it took a god and a special gift to do so. I was just a mortal. A human. There was nothing I could do.

We had to find that scarab. We had to find it no matter what.

I turned away from his gaze and focused on my breathing and the information he’d given me, turning it over and over in my head, but if there was something a mortal witch like me could use in that story, I couldn’t figure it out.

Instead, the more I thought about it, the heavier my eyelids became until I closed my eyes altogether and when I opened them the view outside the windows was entirely different.

"Sorry." I sat up and rubbed my face.

Sett smiled and shook his head.

“Nothing to be sorry about. It’s been a long day,” he said.

I hated this.

Why was he being so nice to me? Why couldn’t he be brutal or rude or anything other than nice? Nice was so much harder to resist.

I needed him out of my life. I needed all gods out of my life. And the only way to do this was to find that scarab.

"You can let us out anywhere here." I turned to the driver and opened the door before he’d even come to a stop.

"We’re far away from the city center," he replied.

I threw cash at him and came out searching for the nearest side street where I could use the skeleton key quickly and quietly.

Everywhere was too busy with too many people coming in and out of buildings.

I sighed and turned to look the other way when I noticed Sett. He was taking in everything around him as if for the first time, although now his expression wasn’t one of wonder but of…sadness maybe.

"Everything okay?" I asked but he ignored me and started walking away from me, wading through people and staring at everything with a scrutinizing expression.

This was…surreal.

Seeing a god walk the streets of the place where he had once been worshipped and revered.

Even after three years I couldn’t grasp the concept of gods being real.

Horus felt like my previous master. Just a criminal kingpin with way too much power.

But Sett?

He didn’t walk around as if he owned everything and everyone. He walked with veneration and even humility.

I didn’t want to believe it, but it was clear. In the way he carried himself, the way he inspected everything, the way he watched people.

“Are you okay?” I asked, catching up with him.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

"I was hoping more would have changed, but it seems like…" He glanced at a young kid plowing through the crowds with his hand in the air, begging for any spare change. "Nothing really has. There’s technology and cultural progress and yet people still starve in the streets. It’s not…it’s not right.”

I followed the kid with my gaze and as he passed by me I tossed him a few coins.

“That’s capitalism for you."

"‘Capitalism’?" Sett stared at me when his expression stilled and understanding brought back the sadness in his face. “Oh. That-that’s horrible.”

"How do you do that?" I asked him and gestured toward a quieter street up ahead.

"Do what?"

"I don’t know. I’ve seen that look on you a couple of times. You don’t know some modern words and yet you know what a car is. It’s like…like you have a dictionary in your head or something.”

"I kind of do." He chuckled. "There's a remnant, a whisper, of the soul that belongs to this body. It's filling in all the gaps in my knowledge."

"What? Does that mean his soul is trapped inside you?”

If it was, did that mean Loki and Hades also had souls speaking in their heads. Did Horus?

"No. Perhaps…I wouldn't know. I'm not a necrogod. I can only feel a…a consciousness. It's meant to help us adjust to the times we’re invoked in."

"So it’s a slave to you and this body?”

“No.” Sett turned to me and took my hand. “No. Not my slave. Just a remnant of what came before.”

“Does that mean the soul can’t move on? Can’t you save it?”

He pursed his lips into a smile and patted my hand. “I can't even speak to it. But there are other gods, gods of death and of the dead, that could do that. But once a god possesses a human body, it's theirs. I wouldn't be able to give him his body back even if it was within my power. He's been dead for a very long time, so his soul wouldn't be compatible with his body anymore."

"That's fucked up."

"It is. It wasn’t always like that. We used to be able to cross into your world within our own godly bodies, but the demon queen? She cursed us all.”

"Demon queen?"

There was a demon queen?

Of course there was.

He shook his head and waved off my question. "It's a long story. There's a reason why we've not been seen in your world for thousands of years. The gates between our worlds have been sealed off by the demon queen of compassion."

"I’d love to hear the full story at some point."

“I’d love to tell you,” he said.

A screech cut the air in half, sending a chill down my spine.

A woman had dropped to her knees, crying, screaming, as a motorbike with two riders sped away.

“Fuckers!” I spat, immediately recognizing what was going on.

I took a deep focused breath, felt the magic of time crackle around me and held my breath, putting it under my command.

The world came to a stop before me. Sett, the screeching woman, the speeding motorbike, the people crowding the streets, the birds flying up ahead.

I wasted no time. I ran. I ran toward the bike as fast as I could and kicked it and its riders to the ground and snatched the bag they’d stolen out of their hands.

The woman screamed in my face when time came rushing back and with it the dizzying attack of breathlessness.

"I believe this is yours," I panted.

The woman jumped and took her handbag before I collapsed in front of her.

"Thank you. Thank you so—" she started and dropped back down on the ground along with me, easing my fall. “Are you okay?”

I opened my mouth but before I could answer, the thieves had caught up with me and yanked the woman back by the hair.

I growled at them but even that made me cough as an asthma attack overwhelmed my body.

One of them focused on me and kicked me. I closed my eyes but the impact never came. Instead, I heard a groan and opened my eyes just in time to see the man land a few feet ahead like a sack of potatoes.

The other guy let go of the woman and tried to attack Sett. He ended up flying across the street right next to his friend.

Sett crouched down beside me and took my hand.

“Are you okay? What did they do?”

I opened my mouth to thank him but all that came out was a wheeze.

“Need…inhaler…can’t…breathe.”

The woman crawled toward me and started patting my pockets.

“Where is it?” she asked.

“H-home.” I wheezed. How could I have forgotten my inhaler?

I never made that mistake. Ever. What was wrong with me?

“What can I do?” Sett asked. “Drew, what can I do?”

“He needs his medicine,” she told him.

I put my hand in my pocket and took out the skeleton key.

“Unless you live around the corner, I doubt that’ll work,” said the woman.

I wanted to tell her that was exactly where I lived. Around the corner. But I couldn’t speak. And besides, Sett found that opportunity to sweep me off the ground and carry me toward the nearest door.

My breathing turned heavier. It got even harder to breathe. My wheezing turned so high-pitched it was like a whistle.

At this rate, I’d be dead before we found the nearest door.

See? That’s what playing superhero gets me.

“Fuck!” he grumbled and stopped walking, put me back down and grabbed me by the back of the neck and drove his mouth to mine.

What the hell!

Did he really think this was the time to use me? He was just like his brother. He was a monster too.

Only…he wasn’t kissing me. Not really. Hell, there wasn’t even any tongue. Instead, I felt a rush of oxygen push down my throat, and fill my lungs.

He was breathing air into me. He wasn’t kissing me. He was saving me.

Although…this wasn’t supposed to work. I needed medicine during an attack. The steroids that could kick my system back to gear.

And yet, it was working.

With each new breath I wheezed a little less until…until I wasn’t wheezing anymore.

"Are you okay?" he asked, letting me go.

I nodded with a cough.

"You really are a god, aren’t you? I said after a moment. “That shouldn’t have worked.”

He didn’t reply. He simply put his hands all over my face as if testing my physical state.

“I’m okay. I swear,” I said when he didn’t let go.

I had to admit. It was cute. The concern on his face, in his actions.

“I’m fine. Whatever you did, it worked. For now. I just need to get home."

He nodded and helped me up. I closed my fist around the key in my hand and searched for the nearest door when I noticed.

The woman whose bag I’d just saved was staring at us. All the people around us were staring.

I didn't know how many were looking at us with hostility and how many with admiration and I didn't care to find out. I just took Sett by the hand, dragged us into the next alley and put the key in the nearest door.

"Let's just get out of here before things get ugly," I said.

"Why would things turn ugly?" Sett asked.

I stopped and stared at him.

Oh crap. He didn't know, did he? Had the soul living in his head not filled him in on homophobia?

"A lot of places in the world are not very accepting of same-sex relations," I said. "They see queer people, that is people of all genders who like the same sex or both sexes or all the genders, as wrong and perverted."

Sett grimaced and glared at the people who were stalking after us.

I opened the door back home and beckoned him inside. "Come on," I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

He stomped inside and I shut Cairo back out. That didn't stop him from glaring at the door as if it was a villain.

"That's why they erased us,” he hissed.

"I'm sorry?" I asked.

What did he mean?

He blinked and after a second’s pause shook his head. “Nothing. You need your medicine, right?"

Right. First things first. Don’t die, for starters. I could wait to interrogate the god at my doorstep later.

I walked toward the coat hanger and dug through the pockets to find one of the dozen inhalers I always had on the ready.

How the fuck did I forget it?

"So this little thing can save your life," Sett asked after I'd taken two puffs and put it into my pocket.

Didn’t need to forget it again.

"Yup. Modern medicine mixed in with a little fast-acting healing potion that prevents further attacks. But it doesn’t help if I run.”

“Or if you forget it at home.” He raised an eyebrow and my heart fluttered at his remark.

“Or that,” I said with a chuckle.

He didn’t seem amused.

“So you can stop time?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, I can stop time as long as I hold my breath. Ironic, isn't it? That I'm asthmatic."

Sett shrugged. “Or maybe it's nature's way of saying maybe you shouldn't have all that power for yourself."

I laughed.

“If nature was funny like that, it wouldn’t have given Horus all that power without a drawback.

“Nature’s a bitch,” he said without pause.

“It is,” I said, biting back a laugh. He was so cute. So different from his brother. "If it weren't for you I might have died."

I took a step toward him and took his hands in mine.

"I wouldn't have let you die,” he grumbled.

His voice reverberated through me like a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm that roused my body from slumber and illuminated the darkest parts of my soul.

His breath on my face made my skin tingle and my body alight.

“I…I don't know how to thank you," I whispered and made my move.

Fuck it.

He had saved me from death. He’d agreed to help me find this scarab and he was hot as sin. I couldn’t resist him any longer.

I searched for his lips with mine but he leaned away, stepping back, before I could show him my gratitude.

"Oh!" I gasped. "I'm sorry. I…I don't know why I did that. I thought you liked me but I guess I read the signs wrong?—”

"No, that's not it,” he said.

“It's okay. I understand I…not everyone likes men. Especially dirty men like me. Horus ruined me for everyone, I guess. Of course you wouldn't want someone like me."

I didn’t know what hurt my pride more.

That the one man I’d been genuinely interested in didn’t want me back or the fact that the one time I’d taken some of my own initiative it had backfired like that.

I thought I was worth more as a man. But Horus had taken that from me too. He’d taken so much from me.

My dignity. My honor. My self-esteem. My confidence.

I hadn’t been anyone but Horus’s for three years. I hadn’t been allowed to be free. To be my own man but for some reason I thought I could escape his grasp with Sett.

I was clearly wrong.

Even when he couldn’t control me, he was still here, haunting my every move.

Would I ever be my own man again? Or had Horus stolen that from me for life whether I destroyed him or not?