“Yeah. I’ve seen war,” Ray said. “I’m done with it.”
“That’s because it was terribly frustrating, I know,” Seth said. “That was before. Now with me, you’ll have so much more control over the outcome.”
“You think I’m gonna help you start wars?”
“Mortal men don’t need my help in starting wars. Your kind has been killing each other since you first crawled onto land. All I’ve done is feed off the bloody harvest of violence you mortal men sow. But chaos, lawlessness—now that is sometimes my doing. I’ve waited a long time for the whole world’s focus to turn to the desert, and even longer for a war like the one in Afghanistan, where the desert itself is starting to swallow a whole nation.”
Ray knew that thirty years of warfare had stripped Afghanistan of her forests and fertile valleys. War had made it a different place—where the only thing anybody would grow was poppy flowers, and drug lords ruled it all. The ecological and economic disaster there was plain for all to see, vegetation disappearing at an alarming rate. Is that what Seth was after? “What’s it got to do with me?”
“You have the power to make sane men mad, Ray. You’re a useful creature that I can unleash when and where I see fit. You see, I like this war very much. I like how mortal men think that it changes everything, and that none of the rules apply. You know a thing or two about that, don’t you, Rayhan?”
Ray turned his head, closing his eyes against the memories.
“You’re going to serve me well until the end of your days, Rayhan.”
As a prisoner in the dungeon, Ray had been stripped of his freedom and of any power to defend himself. He’d been degraded. Humiliated. But the humiliation of being on some evil bastard’s leash was more than Ray could bear. “I’d rather die.”
“That can be arranged, but killing you for your disobedience would be so boring. Any true student of humanity would know that there are better ways to punish you. From now on, when you disobey me, I’ll simply kill someone that you love. You have a family, don’t you? Two little nephews… Two innocent children. The mere illusion that you’d eaten their flesh helped turn you into a minotaur. Imagine how you’ll feel this time, when I make you watch as I peel the skin off their bones and force their flesh down your throat.”
Ray would never, ever, forget the taste, the horror, the bile as he vomited. The violent wish for revenge had turned him from a man into an animal. Even remembering it now, Ray quaked. Seth could get to his family and use them against him, over and over. At least until Ray could find a way to hide them.
Layla had said that Seth didn’t know everything; he could be fooled. Maybe what Ray needed was to buy time. “I’ll tell you what, Captain Sandman. You tell me who it was that got me arrested—who it was that accused me of treason—and I’ll do whatever you want.”
Seth’s smile widened so that his predatory teeth showed. “You’ll do what I want anyway. Here. Let me demonstrate. A wolf must be trained, a lion must be tamed, and a bull must be broken.”
With that, Ray felt the crushing pain of a blow to the skull. Then nothing.
Ray woke up in darkness. Fabric brushed his nostrils when he inhaled and he realized he’d been hooded. In spite of the agonizing pain in his body, he jerked his head up sharply, only to find that he couldn’t move. His head was stuck between two bars with the rest of his body free. Ray tried to feel the outlines of the contraption and his hands encountered cold, hard steel.
That’s when he heard Seth’s voice. “It’s a headgate,” the god said. “I wouldn’t want you to shift into your bovine form and harm any of my other playthings.”
Ray banged against the metal, struggling to get free as anxiety welled up inside him. He couldn’t get enough air.
“Is everything closing in on you, Rayhan?” Seth asked. “Do you feel the walls shrinking? Do you wonder if this is going to be how you die? If this is your tomb?”
Ray’s heartbeat galloped, slamming against his rib cage painfully. “Stop,” he gasped. He was going to have a heart attack. The crushing weight of it was coming down on his chest. He’d gone cold and felt the sweat drip from his body. He slammed violently against the metal, but the strength was going out of him. He was going to die. He was going to die right here in this headgate if he couldn’t calm down.
He thought of Layla. Her calming presence and the coolness of her fingers on his fevered skin. He started to count his breaths, imagining the scent of her hair, the silken feel of her skin. He should never have left her. She’d trusted him with the whole truth; she’d trusted him when no one else would, and he’d abandoned her. The only blessing in all this was that she wasn’t here to see him caged like a beast.
“Are you wondering what justice there is in the world?” Seth asked. “None, if I can help it. But you shouldn’t be so offended, Ray. You don’t care much about justice, do you? I wonder—does Layla know? Did you tell her you were an innocent man?”
“I am!” Ray roared.
“You’re only innocent of what the government accused you.” Seth chuckled. “We both know what you’re really guilty of.”
Ray thrashed in the headgate, tasting the blood in his nostrils.
“That’s right, Rayhan. Let go of the parts of you that are human. Give yourself to me.”
Ray had never known why his brother committed suicide. He’d never thought it mattered. He’d always believed that nothing—no misery—could justify leaving behind two little kids. He’d thought his brother was a coward, but maybe he’d just been in so much pain that suicide was the only way to make it stop. Now Ray was starting to think that death might be his only escape, too.
In more glorious times, no one would have ever interrupted Seth. Pharaoh would have sent priests to entreat with him in the desert. Lesser mortals would have whispered a prayer or made an offering. Blood would be spilled in his name. But such was the miserable, modern state of the world that Seth suffered the indignity of this silly little electronic box in his pocket. As irritating as it was to have his cell phone ring like a summons from Ra, Seth actually smiled at the name on the display.
ISABEL FLORES.
She would be thinking better of the wager they’d made, but he had no plans of releasing her from it. He had the minotaur, soon he’d have his sphinx, and then he’d have Isabel, too. Xochiquetzal. He wondered if, like the petals of a rose, she would smell more sweetly when bruised.
Leaving the minotaur locked in the headgate, Seth walked to the hallway and answered the phone on the fifth ring, a smile of smug satisfaction upon his lips. “It’s too late to back out of our bargain, my little jungle flower.”
“Qué lástima,” Isabel replied. “This is a shame for you, because I’ve already won. I found Layla.”
Seth actually laughed. It wasn’t possible that a little goddess like her—of no importance to anyone—could have bested him. “If you think to distract me with a lie—”
“She’s right here,” Isabel said. “Do you need to hear her voice to know I’m telling the truth?”
The anger started in Seth’s belly, mixing with other emotions, deeper and darker by far. “How did you find her? I want to know!”
“That hardly matters,” Isabel said. “I’m going to put you on speakerphone now so that Layla can hear the words as you release her.”
“Never!” Seth’s shout reverberated throughout the corridor.
“Have you fallen so low, then?” Isabel asked. “I thought you were a great god of Egypt. Has the Scorpion King turned into a lowly government contractor in truth? After all, only mortals think they have the freedom to break an oath.”
Outside, thunder began to shake the sky over the nation’s capital, drawn there by Seth’s rage. He couldn’t deny the truth of Isabel’s words. He was bound by oath. Kings and pharaohs had called upon him to swear witness to their pacts. History had been carved from promises in his name. He would have to let Layla go. This time for good. The realization sank to the hollow pit of his stomach.
“Layla?” he finally said into the phone.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. He knew her by the sound of her breath alone, and why shouldn’t he? Every breath she took was one that he’d given her.
Layla couldn’t speak. Hearing her god’s voice again filled her with paralyzing dread. She’d been afraid of Seth before she even remembered who he was. Now she quaked where she stood.
“Layla,” Seth said again, his voice controlled and calm, as if he were talking to a child. “I must release you.”
He sounded almost as if he were sorry. He paused for her response, but none was forthcoming. Words froze in her throat. After thousands of years, Seth was finally going to release her. She’d be free. It was what she wanted more than anything, so why did it frighten her so much?
Seth seemed to sense her fears. “Even after I release you, you don’t have to serve Xochiquetzal. You can come back to me of your own free will. If you don’t, you’ll be as lost without me as you’ve felt for the past two years.”
Seth was the only family Layla had ever known. He’d created her. Did she even know who she was without him? She’d been so desperate to run from Seth before, but now she was confused. Isabel must have noticed it, too, because she put a reassuring hand upon Layla’s arm.
“I’ve captured my minotaur,” Seth continued. “So he won’t be a distraction any longer. I’ll have the time to focus my attention on you, as you used to beg me to do. You’ll be punished, of course, but I’ll forgive you. It’ll be better between us this time.”
Sudden tears scalded Layla’s cheeks. Seth had Ray. The knowledge of it burned like acid. There was no greater injustice she could think of than Ray having taken her place as Seth’s minion. His mortal life would be made shorter every time he used his powers. That the rest of his life should be spent as a leashed monster was the most unbearable thing Layla could imagine.
She couldn’t let it happen.
Chapter 17
Live without me,
You’ll be queasy.
Give me to others,
They’ll sleep easy.
Squeezing the little phone in his hand, Seth was certain that Layla would ask his forgiveness. She’d beg him to let her return to him. She might even promise never to challenge his authority again. Seth savored the tremor he heard in her breath. “Do you have something to say to me, Layla?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Let him go.”
It took Seth a moment to even guess at who she might mean. “The minotaur? He’s mine. I created him, Layla.” Seth pulled open his tie, irritated at the way modern clothing restrained and constricted him. In the desert he’d worn nothing but a loincloth, and nothing to smother his rage. “Just like I created you.”
“It’s not the same,” Layla replied. “You made me from nothing but Ray had a life before you. He has family. He has dreams and ambitions. He has values that run counter to everything you stand for, and you won’t break him.”
“Then I’ll kill him.” It would be disappointing to have gone to so much effort to create a minotaur only to have to put him down, but Seth wouldn’t shy away from it if need be.
“Why don’t you just let him go? Give him what he needs to clear his name and live a normal life.”
Ah. So she had feelings for the man. Seth’s earlier tenderness for Layla started to melt away, and he felt his heart harden. He’d suspected the little trollop had debased herself with the minotaur. Now he was sure that Ray had plowed fields that belonged to him… Seth would make him pay for that.
“I have my memories,” Layla was saying. “If you don’t let him go, know that I have evidence of Scorpion Group’s illegal activities. How you torture prisoners, how you take them to foreign countries to get around the law….”
“So what?” Seth barked. “Do you think the government doesn’t know?”
“I’m sure a media outlet might be interested.”
“Do you really think I care so much about this little corporation? There’s no jail that could hold me and no riches I couldn’t claim as my own if I wanted them. If you destroy Scorpion Group, I’ll start a new company somewhere else. And all the while, I’ll have the minotaur at my side.”
She was breaking, Seth thought, and then she did. “If you let Ray go, I’ll come back to you.”
It stoked the last flicker of affection he had for his creation. Perhaps he hadn’t lost Layla after all, but he couldn’t allow her to hear the relief in his voice. “You’ll return to me anyway, Layla. I’ll live for eternity and so will you. No one knows you as I do. I know your thoughts before you think them. I know your nature. Time will erode everything in your life, including this mortal man whose freedom you’re bargaining for. In the last sands of time there will only be you and me.”
“No,” Layla said. “Because if you don’t let him go, I’ll get pregnant.”
Blasphemy! That she’d threaten to take the breath of life that he’d given to her, and give it to a child… Unthinkable. He’d given her immortality. She had no right to cast it away. “What nonsense is this? Have you posed yourself a guilty riddle? Have you sent so many to take their own lives that now you wish to embrace suicide?”
“It’s not suicide,” she said, her tone withering. “Yes, I’ll grow old. I’ll return to the sands from whence I came, but at least I’ll have a child to love. A life that I created. And you won’t be able to do a thing to stop it. I’ll take the first man on the street that will have me and bear him a child.”
“Is that how you chose Dr. Jaffe as a lover?” he asked, infuriated. “I made sure he paid the ultimate price for laying his unworthy hands on something that belonged to me. I strung him up in his tiny closet and watched him gasp his last. I brought my mouth close to his face, telling him that he was going to die for your sake, then inhaled his final breath. Is that what you want me to do to all the men who touch you?”
Layla gave a choked sob and it startled him. When had she learned to cry? For that matter, when had she learned to threaten him as if he weren’t her lord and master? This was all Isabel’s fault, and he ached to make the young goddess pay.
“All you have to do is release Ray and I’ll come back to you, Seth. I’ll say goodbye to him and then I’ll stay forever by your side. I’ll serve you—”
“As you were created to do,” Seth reminded her.
“I’ll remember my place,” Layla said, a defeated whisper that was like a siren song to him.
Could he part with the minotaur? Why not? Made of rage and vengeance, the creature would either return to him eventually or burn out the candle of his life with his powers. It was a hollow bargain Layla was proposing and Seth felt as if he couldn’t lose either way. “You’ll have this one thing your way, Layla,” he said. “Then nothing ever again.”
After she hung up the phone, Layla stared at the ground as if she couldn’t believe that it hadn’t actually swept out from beneath her feet. Isabel shook her head from side to side, one hand on Layla’s. “Oh, mija. I give you your freedom, and this is what you do with it?”
“You told me to love who I wanted and make people happy,” Layla said, letting Isabel wrap her in a hug. “This is the only way that I can do it.”
The last thing Ray remembered was being in the headgate. Now he was…where? Ray blinked several times before the words on the sign by the door made any sense to him. Gallery Place—Chinatown. He blinked again. Was he in the D.C. Metro system? Had Seth seriously just let him go?
Ray knew all about how guards sometimes invited prisoners to escape so that they could shoot them dead, but this seemed like a bad place for that kind of se
tup, unless the war god wanted lots of witnesses. Ray quickly patted himself down for weapons, drugs, or suspicious gadgets that could be confused with detonators. If he was being set up, they hadn’t planted anything on him.
At least not yet.
He decided that Seth’s men were less likely to gun him down in a crowd, so Ray pushed through the door. That’s when he saw her on the platform and staggered toward her two steps at a time. “Layla…?” He said her name like a question, as if she were some kind of mirage. He couldn’t think of any other way that she could be here with him, but then she wrapped her arms around him and he knew she was real. He winced at the pain in his beaten ribs, but didn’t care. It was worth it just to touch her again. To hold her again. “Layla, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Flashing lights on the platform announced the train for the Red Line.
“We have to get out of here,” she said, grabbing his hand.
Layla pulled Ray into an empty car at the end of the metro train, and nearly sobbed with relief when the doors slid shut.
Just as she’d hoped, the metro car was apparently spacious enough not to trigger his claustrophobia, or maybe he was too dazed to notice the metal doors close tight. Though the bruises on his face told of beatings she’d rather not imagine, she could see that he was relatively unharmed. She took a grateful breath, laying her head on his shoulder, trying to memorize the outline of him with her hands. She wanted to remember always what he felt like, what he smelled like. Everything.
Confusion swirled in his dark eyes. “Layla, what the hell is going on?”
She’d meant to explain things to him calmly. Coolly. In a professional, detached tone. She’d even practiced it. But when the moment came to tell him, her lower lip quivered and she had to fight to get the words over the lump in her throat. “Seth is setting you free as a gift to me.”
Dark Sins and Desert Sands Page 18
