Sins of the Soul

Sutekh made no move to rise or draw near in greeting. That was Alastor’s job. The prince pays homage to the king.

He wasn’t about to stutter an explanation. He didn’t owe one. And he didn’t have one. He had no idea what had made him linger in the cemetery when he should have left, or follow Naphré home and stand about like a troubadour beneath her window.

But he couldn’t regret his choice. There was something about her that made him want to look at her, tease her, spar with her. When she’d leaned out her window to demand answers, he’d simply enjoyed the sight of her in her unexpected pink flannel pajamas. Enjoyed the brief fantasy of slipping the round, white buttons free of the buttonholes to bare the skin of her chest, the swell of her breasts.

There was physical attraction there, true. But there was something more. By this point, he’d admitted that much to himself. He was far from done with Naphré Kurata.

“You have the patience of Job,” Alastor offered in an undertone, knowing his father could hear him perfectly well. Sutekh offered no indication that the sarcasm rankled, but Alastor knew it did. How ridiculous that he enjoyed that knowledge.

He slung the leather pouch from across his shoulder and hauled the darksoul forward to offer both to Sutekh. His father made no move to accept either offering, only flicked a glance at the pouch, his lip curling in distaste. “You harvested from the dead.”

“This wasn’t a typical harvest. Say hello to Crandall Butcher. I believe he saw something the night Lokan was killed.”

“You believe.” Sutekh’s head came up again with saurian grace; Alastor almost expected a forked tongue to flicker from between his lips. He waved one hand and said, “Continue.”

Alastor glanced around the garden. “No security concerns today?”

“I have culled the ranks.” There was no need to elaborate further. From that brief statement, Alastor understood exactly what his father had done.

“You found proof of involvement?”

The smile Sutekh offered was chilling. “Suspicion was sufficient.”

Yes. That was Sutekh. Brutal in the manner of a scalpel rather than a club. Sutekh had destroyed any he thought might have been affiliated with Gahiji.

Some were beings that had been serving Sutekh far longer than the nearly three hundred years that Alastor had been alive. Soul reapers, servants, Sutekh would have shown no favoritism.

No doubt he had ingested their darksouls, no trial, no defense.

Nice reward for years of service.

“Tell me about Crandall Butcher.”

“I believe he witnessed Lokan’s murder.”

“So you said.” Sutekh raised his brows in an unsettling imitation of human expression, as though he was wearing a skin suit. “Witnessed? Or carried out?”

“I have no interest in guessing games. Easy enough for you to look into it.” And by “look into” he meant that Sutekh would ingest Butcher’s darksoul. Whatever memories it harbored would then belong to Sutekh as well.

“It’s not quite that easy. You harvested from a dead man. The memories might be garbled. Or absent.” There was no way to know for certain until Sutekh unhinged his jaws and took the darksoul into him. “Have you nothing better to offer?”

There was no mistaking the derision in his father’s tone, and no doubt that his father meant him to hear it. They disagreed on how Alastor ought to manage his temper, and baiting him was Sutekh’s way of making his point.

Alastor clamped down on the emotions that surged deep inside him, the personal demons of anger and frustration squirming against the bonds he imposed. Sutekh sensed it. His head tipped up ever so slightly. His nostrils flared. A humming tension laced his frame.

“Free them,” he ordered.

Which only made Alastor tighten the leash.

Chaos. Sutekh thrived on it, fed on it. And Alastor wasn’t in the mood to provide it.

“I can offer my opinion,” Alastor said, his tone even, his expression as impassive as he could make it. “The two witnesses we knew about were a bust.”

“Frank and Joe Marin,” Sutekh murmured.

“Frank was definitely there the night Lokan was killed. He admitted as much to Roxy.” At the mention of Dagan’s mate, Sutekh’s expression tightened. Alastor ignored the reaction and forged on. “We know he was telling the truth because he described the tattoo the killers put on Lokan’s chest.” Then they’d cut it off him and sent it to Sutekh as a gift. “Frank claimed that he saw Lokan alive and that he left before the murder, and we have no way to prove or disprove that.”

“You have discovered no further leads on who killed Frank Marin?”

“None.”