Sett and his King (Demon Gods #3)

16. Sett

Sett

F illing my Drew with power was nothing short of exhilarating. The way he fit me inside him, the way he received me and the way he shone brighter, like a star, was wonderful to witness.

He truly had no idea how powerful he was and how unique. I didn't think he believed me when I called him a king, but he was.

Reign over time was rare. So rare I'd never met anyone with the power. He may not have been a god by nature but he was certainly a god in my eyes.

"I've never felt like this before," he said.

I ran my hand across his face, savoring this moment with him, his magic emanating from him like lightning in the middle of a stormy sea. "I wasn't joking, you know. You truly are a powerful witch. I'm sorry you were led to believe you're not."

He blinked. His lips pursed into half a smile and I knew my work wasn't done. He may have reached his full potential now, but he still didn't know he was one in a million.

I guess I'd just have to keep showing him with all my being, every day, for the rest of my life, if he let me.

He took a deep breath and I matched him in intensity before I leaned on my hand and lay beside him, running my fingers across his smooth skin as if I needed this newfound magic to survive.

"What are we going to do about Horus?" he asked after a moment, breaking the sanctity of the silence between us.

I couldn't blame him.

Horus was a problem and until he was dealt with there would be no peace.

"I take him the scarab, he kills me. I don't take him the scarab, he kills Gene, or worse."

I bit back a growl and sat up. "We need to get close enough so the scarab can take every last dreg of his power," I said. "Then I can deal with him."

Drew bit his lip and looked up at me, a sliver of hope in his expression. "You think I can help now I'm strong?"

I sighed and hooked my fingers under his chin.

"You've always been strong, my Drew. After everything you've been through, how hard you've fought to protect your family, how can you not see it?"

He didn't answer, and I didn't blame him. It was a difficult question to even contemplate. But I hoped even some of my words found root inside of him. And hopefully, they'd bloom soon enough .

"Yes. Yes you are, my Drew. You have nothing to fear now. We know where Horus is. We know where your brother is. It's time we finished this thing."

Drew barely moved his head when he nodded but the determination glimmered in his eyes and he shot up. "Right. No time like the present. Let's do this." He threw fresh clothes on and gave some for me to put on as well.

A few moments later we walked into the living room and I bent down, dug through the layer of sand and picked up the scarab.

Drew watched me for a moment before he walked out and down the hall and stepped down into the reception area. I followed close and just before he opened the door, he offered me his hand and I held him tight against me.

The stēgi let us out into the entryway of a large house that looked out into a quiet road. The chilly night air tried to pierce my godly skin but its effects didn't penetrate my pores, instead it gave me goosebumps.

Drew barreled down the stairs and out of the front garden before I could stop him. I caught up with him before he did anything stupid without me just as he entered the front garden of the house next door.

"Is this it? What's going on Drew?" I tried to catch his gaze but it was focused solely on the front door of a Victorian house.

He banged on it and just as it opened everything went still.

Drew was standing in front of me waving his hand and when I blinked he sighed.

"Oh thank fuck. I was starting to lose hope," he said.

I cocked my head.

"Lose hope about what?"

He shook his head and turned to face the man standing inside the house.

"I've been trying to unfreeze you for fifteen minutes," he said and ducked under the hand of the doorman who was leaning against the frame.

I ducked too and snuck in after him. Everyone inside was frozen. Even the smoke of the cigarettes from the group of guys gathered around the table playing cards.

"Good job, Drew," I said.

He turned and grimaced. "I seriously don't know how long it'll last."

I took a deep breath and grabbed him by the hands.

"You just kept me frozen for well over an hour while you had your way with me. Trust me when I say you've got this."

His cheeks flushed red and he dipped his head.

"Yeah, but…that was just you. One person. This place is crawling with his men."

"His vassals," I corrected.

As much as I didn't care what happened to anyone other than Drew, those people were still prisoners to a sick god.

"Yeah. That. So…let's go."

He slipped from my grip and rushed through the house like a man on fire. Until, that was, he came up against a dark oak door. He stared at it as if it was more than a physical barrier and I came to stand next to him.

The fear, the anticipation, the hesitation. I'd felt it all every time I'd been on the cusp of freedom. Every time there was an opportunity to put an end to Horus and his cruel ways.

I squeezed his hand and took a step to the side as Drew let himself in. I pinned myself against the wall and listened for any reaction, any hints that Horus hadn't been frozen while I summoned my khopesh in my hand.

A second later, Drew appeared at the door and beckoned me in.

I relaxed for a moment as I entered what appeared to be an office with dark red walls, stuffy and dim, that smelled of fermented tobacco and cruelty.

A man stood to attention by the desk on the other end of the room and another, more sinister man with dark hair and dark eyes just like his soul. I would recognize him anywhere, any time, under any disguise. It didn't matter what body he possessed, how different he looked, his spirit was as tarnished as anything I'd ever seen and there was no hiding such filth.

He was still as a statue and so was the poor kid acting as his bodyguard. He appeared so small, so vulnerable like this. If it were anyone else I might have felt pity, but this was the same man who had put me through eternal torment and had killed my husband. There was no shred of kindness left in my heart for him.

"It worked," I whispered as if speaking any louder would cause him to awaken, and approached him, scarab at the ready in my hand.

I reached for his chest and pressed the scarab onto his skin. The silver legs of the jewel dug into my brother’s skin and drops of blood dripped down. I put all my focus and energy into the magical siphon and tried to give it life.

That was when I noticed the smoke.

The smoke from his cigar wafted in the air and his stomach sunk.

Crap.

"Hello, brother," Horus said and turned toward me.

Drew yelped. I took a step back. My brother rose from his chair and his axe appeared in his hand.

"I can't say I missed you," he said in a tone that was almost like a hiss, and spittle flew from his mouth. "But I can thank you for bringing me a present."

He brought up his hand to touch the scarab, but, on instinct, I blocked his axe with my khopesh and yanked it out of his chest and pulled back before he could react, tripping on something and sending my khopesh skidding across the room.

"Give me the scarab, Sett!" he growled, feeling the bloody spot where the scarab had been only seconds ago.

"Your words have no effect on me, Horus!" I growled back.

His whole body trembled before he composed himself and his rage turned to amusement. "Hard way it is," he said and turned his back on me.

I frowned.

What was he doing? Why wasn't he attacking?

"Kill him," he said, and Drew launched at me from the side like an animal chasing his prey.

I stepped back and grabbed him before he could inflict any damage on me, not because I cared about getting hurt, but because I knew how fucking broken he'd be when he came out of this compulsion.

He pulled his leg back and kicked me right to the core. The khopesh flew out of my hand and skidded across the room. I let him go and smirked.

My Drew packs a punch. Or a kick as it were.

"You think this is going to save you?" I asked Horus as I deflected another attack from Drew.

Horus raised an eyebrow and took a drag of his cigar as if this was nothing but a small inconvenience.

"You think you can survive me again?" he asked as he blew smoke onto the face of the man standing by his desk. He didn't flinch or blink.

Even with a different face he was so punchable. So disgusting. I felt sorry for the man this body belonged to because no one, and I meant no one, deserved to have Horus inside them, to take over their body, their existence, their life and sully anything they'd accomplished in this world.

Drew tried to wrap his hands around my neck but I grabbed him by the wrists to stop him. So he head-butted me instead.

It was so cute. I was going to reward him so well for being such a strong man afterward. But first…

I slowed my breath, concentrated on every grain of sand, every speck of dust, every piece of earthly dirt that heeded my command and summoned it to me. The magic wrapped around me turning to sand magic and I directed it right at Drew.

It struck him in the face and his eyes rolled back, pulling him into an induced slumber. I grabbed him as he collapsed and eased him onto the floor before I turned my attention to Horus.

"I'm not the same man who fought you before. So yes. I think I can survive you. Now…how about you fight me like a man?"

As I turned to Horus, I glanced at the frozen man beside him and breathed a sigh of relief that he was still a prisoner of time. It only gave me reassurance that the rest of Horus's harem was also incapacitated. So Horus’s unfreezing must have something to do with the scarab.

Interesting!

"Fight you?" Horus laughed, shaking so violently his cigar splintered into two, one half falling to his desk and setting his whiskey on fire.

“Yes, fight me. Like a man. I don’t know how you escaped last time but this time I’ll make sure you die.”

Horus hissed.

“How I escaped? How? Well, let me tell you brother, I didn’t. You stole my power and you took my life. You killed me.”

I groaned.

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be standing here.”

He smiled.

“Well, yeah. See, something saved me that day. Something saved me from you wiping me out of this world. My magic. Whatever godly magic was left inside after you robbed me shifted. It changed. It evolved. It took my soul and split it into fragments. Fragments of consciousness buried into every one of my subjects. It guided them. It drove them. They worshipped me because they could feel a part of me inside them. That was the only thing that kept me…alive. If you can call that living. You might have killed my body but you butchered my spirit. And I had to fight tooth and nail to put it back together.”

The revelation made a chill rush down my spine.

That sounded…horrible. Horrible and terrifying.

What if we could never kill him? What if he survived again? What if there was no way to rid the world of his evil?

“If any of that is true, how do you still have your compulsion powers?”

Horus slid a hand down the middle of his chest like a creep.

“Oh I have this body to thank. He was born with compulsion powers like my own.”

That wasn’t possible. Even if that was the case Horus shouldn’t be able to use them. The powers of the body he possessed should have died with the last remnant of the man’s soul.

But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it didn’t matter in this case. Horus was a perversion of magic and nature. The rules may not apply where he’s concerned. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think.

“You were always a leech but you’ve taken it to a whole other level.”

He shrugged. “I care very little what you think. Now you will give me the scarab."

“Like I said, you’ll have to fight me for it.”

He stopped laughing and turned to me with an overconfident grin.

"I don't need to fight you, dear brother. I actually know you'll give me the scarab in the next five seconds."

"How are you so sure?" I asked and he grabbed the blazing and ash-filled whiskey and downed it as if it wasn't poison.

When he was done, he threw the glass across the room and it smashed on the wall behind me but I didn't let that faze me.

I knew my brother. He was always confident but this was different. He had an ace up his sleeve.

"You'll give me the scarab, Sethie, or…" he grabbed a remote control from the desk and pressed a button. The TV behind him came to life. "I'm going to send your son to join his father in…oh wait. There is no afterlife on the blade of my axe."

The image on the TV was of an enclosed room. Probably the basement of this very building. A figure with a buzz cut and wearing glasses hunched over his lap and rocked back and forth.

I recognized him from the pictures all around Drew's home.

Gene.

But he wasn't alone.

There was also another kid with him. He was tall and dark with coily hair and he rubbed a hand along Gene's back, whispering something to him.

He looked nothing like my son. My son was big and strong, thousand years old and most importantly of all, he was in the Duat. His very own realm.

But despite all that I knew. I knew deep in my heart this was Anubis.

"You bastard," I spat.

I had to get him out. I had to get both boys out but now that Horus had revealed his ace, there was no telling what he would do.

And Drew and I? We'd lost the element of surprise.

I was back into a corner and Horus would get his scarab no matter what.

Unless…

Unless I did something stupid.

Something unpredictable. Something Horus couldn't control or stop.

I took a step forward, staring at the desk between us. I noticed something silver. It was sharp. It could work.

I took a deep breath and threw the scarab at Horus while I grabbed the paper knife with my other hand and ducked back toward Drew.

Just as Horus jumped into the air to grab the scarab, I sliced Drew's neck.

That should be enough, but just in case it wasn't…

I sliced my own too.