Sins of the Soul

“What made you think that?”


“Mick’s story is that he got drunk with Butcher two nights after Lokan’s murder. The wanker said that Butcher had taken to constantly looking over his shoulder and kept muttering about Underworlders who’d come after him if they knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That’s the question of the day. Mick got Butcher drunk, and Butcher rambled about something he’d seen that was going to get him dead and buried.”

“And of course Mick couldn’t supply details of what that something was.” Sutekh’s voice was low and smooth.

Alastor tried to ascertain the level of sarcasm in his father’s questions, but found none.

“No. Maybe Butcher saw the killer’s face. Or some other identifying feature. Why ask me when you can ask—” Alastor tugged the writhing darksoul forward “—him?”

Sutekh flicked a glance at the darksoul, bobbing on its tether of fire. “Barely a snack,” he observed.

Alastor made no reply. Sutekh never changed. He fed on darkness and chaos and rage. Any tumultuous emotion was his succor. But Alastor had no intention of feeding his father anything but the darksoul he’d brought for that exact purpose.

Stepping closer, Sutekh inhaled deeply. Given that he had no need to breathe, the action was telling.

“The scent of a female clings to you.”

Alastor fought the instinct to keep his father from knowing a single thing about Naphré Kurata. She was his. He didn’t want to share even the most innocuous detail about her. Not with his father. Not with anyone. But he had to say something, so he offered the least he possibly could. “Butcher had an apprentice. She was there when I claimed the darksoul.”

“And is she a witness as well?”

“No.”

The silence hung between them. “So quick to deny the possibility. Are you so certain, then?”

Was he? Didn’t matter. He was not harvesting from Naphré Kurata. No one was. He’d stand toe to toe with Sutekh on this one.

“Ask Butcher.” He jerked the leash of fire so the darksoul bobbed and dipped. Sutekh was taking his sodding time about this, and Alastor’s patience was wearing thin. Of course, that was likely his father’s exact intent. The chaos generated by a down and dirty father/son row would suit him to perfection.

“His heart?” Sutekh prompted.

Alastor took the mangled heart from his leather pouch and set it on a gold dish that an unobtrusive servant rushed forward to hold before him. The man’s eyes had been sewn shut, his ears removed. Sutekh’s thoughts propelled him, guiding him though he could not see or hear.

If Gahiji could turn after nearly two thousand years, then none of the servants were trustworthy. So Alastor understood why Sutekh felt it was necessary to ensure that his closest personal servants had no way to hear or see anything that might be used to betray him. Still, he was repulsed by his father’s brutality.

Sutekh’s brows rose as he took in the state of the heart. Alastor offered neither apology nor explanation. It was what it was. Finally, Sutekh turned his gaze to the darksoul that bobbed and dipped above Alastor’s shoulder.

“You could not question him while he was alive?”

“He was dead when I got there. And buried. I had to—” He paused, unwilling to divulge more information about the girl than was absolutely necessary. “I had to climb into the grave to retrieve his heart and darksoul.”

That revelation elicited a rare and surprising flicker of response. Sutekh’s brows drew together and the skin at the bridge of his nose crinkled.

“You took him from the grave?”

Wariness slithered through him at his father’s uncharacteristically sharp tone. “Is that a problem?”

“It could be, as you well know. Was he buried by a religious cleric?”

“No.”

“Were words said?” Sutekh pressed. “Was he consecrated to another?”

Alastor froze. Bloody hell. He hadn’t even thought of that. He knew that if the darksoul was already pledged to another Underworld god or demigod, then he had no right to it. Usually, he didn’t even bother with that issue because his victims were alive when he got to them and because it was usually Sutekh guiding his choice of harvest. But tonight had been different and he was only now realizing that he might have stepped on a live land mine, the rare sort that would explode whether he stayed on or climbed off.

In his mind, he ran through the events in the graveyard. He’d heard Naphré speak over the man’s body, words from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. No problem there. She hadn’t said the right things to actually award the kill’s soul to anyone in particular. It could have gone to Osiris and Anubis or to Sutekh or even Ammut.

But what if she’d said things, done things, before he got there? Butcher’s soul could be promised to pretty much any one of the Underworld gods and demigods, in which case, nabbing it for Sutekh was a major political no-no.