Sins of the Soul

His curiosity piqued, Alastor held his place and watched her approach. Once she paused, and her head tipped back. Her head was completely covered, so he could not see her eyes, but he knew she looked directly at him. Her glance pierced him. The sensation was chill and dreadful, not cold like fresh snow or clean ice. Not cold and clammy like the darksoul he held tethered, but rather like a slurry of fetid water that had stood through the winter then begun to rot at the thaw.

As she approached the gallery, the smell hit him so hard that he almost gagged. She smelled like rot, like fish left out in the heat for days, or like meat in a fridge that had lost power. The odor was so powerful that it was more than smell. He could taste it on the back of his tongue, and when he held his breath, it seeped through his pores into his skin.

She was directly below him now, and he saw that her raiment was not cloth at all, but a writhing, living drape of all manner of spiders and centipedes, insects and maggots that moved and shifted on her body, completely obscuring face and form. A veil and dress made entirely of crawling things. Even her hands and feet were obscured.

Or perhaps there were no hands or feet or face. Perhaps the layers of writhing insects and arachnids were all that covered her bones.

He’d never encountered anything like her, and from the looks on the faces of the souls, and even the minor deities waiting in line, neither had they.

Her attention shifted to the barricaded gates that fronted Sutekh’s palace. She was mistaken if she thought to enter his realm ahead of those who patiently waited their turns. Six servants guarded the gates, six of Sutekh’s legion, souls who toiled tirelessly in the hopes of some day abasing themselves before their master and being offered the ultimate role of soul reaper.

They were fools. Their bodies had rotted long ago. There was no vessel left to force their souls into, and so they could be corporeal only here in the Underworld. They should know that. The fact that bodies rotted was no secret to anyone. Yet hope could obfuscate the most blatant truth.

Regardless, they did their jobs with efficiency and verve.

They would stop her and send her back.





SUTEKH’S GREETING CHAMBER consisted of more sandstone. More space, vast and mostly empty. The paired columns that spanned the length of the chamber were painted with bright colors to depict scenes of the delta, the river. The first time he’d seen them, Alastor had wondered if Sutekh had had them created to remind him of a time when he had lived Topworld, when he had walked in the sun and overseen the labors of his subjects and slaves, a time before the six-thousand-year-old ceasefire that ruled the Underworld.

He hadn’t asked then, too new to his relationship with his father, too uncertain of his place. He wouldn’t ask now. The answer no longer interested him.

Continuing to the far end of the room, Alastor passed a small seating arrangement with chairs of Lebanese wood and a raised dais that contained a gilded throne. Never accuse Dad of subtlety.

His gaze slid to the spot behind the throne. It was empty, the chair that had been habitually positioned there removed the day Lokan was killed, because Sutekh could not bear the tangible reminder of his youngest son. It had been Lokan who sat a little behind and to the right of their father, Lokan who watched and listened and learned all about the political machinations of the Underworld lords and gods.

Lokan had thrived on the adrenaline high of Underworld politics.

And now Lokan was dead.

Alastor turned his attention to the far end of the room where the ornately carved wooden doors stood open. The burble of water over stone carried to him, and the scent of lotus blossoms. Darksoul in tow, he headed for the garden, then stepped through the doors into an oasis of palm trees that banked a tranquil pond.

On a large boulder beside the pond sat Sutekh. Today, his skin was sun-kissed, his hair honey-gold, trimmed close and styled. His jaw was clean-shaven, the second button of his single-breasted jacket left undone. Alastor might as well have been looking in a mirror.

But it was all a facade, a guise of humanity. And an amusement to Sutekh.

Alastor had no idea what his father truly looked like. Kemetic art showed a creature with a dog-like head, the snout of an anteater and a forked tail, but he had never seen his father take that form. No doubt the forked tail was accurate, at the least.

Head bowed, Sutekh appeared to watch the smooth glide of the exotic fish he’d had brought from the river Nile. In a perfect, calculated pose, he let one leg dangle along the face of the rock, his heel resting on the ground. The other was raised, knee bent, and his arm draped casually across. He did not look up, though Alastor was certain he knew his son had come.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Sutekh said, stirring himself at last, his movements languid as he lifted his head. “You are late.”

And only then did the difference in their appearance become apparent.

Depending on the light, the color of his shirt and his mood, Alastor’s eyes varied in shade from indigo to turquoise. Sutekh’s were flat black, soulless, without depth or emotion, a sucking vortex.