Seti's Heart

by Kelly, Kiernan

  A wild-eyed Wendy stood in the doorway, staring at the carnage being created in the bar by the storm. The woman was Logan’s friend, Seti reminded himself, even if she did serve piss-water and call it beer. He grabbed her hand, pulling her along with them. There was a door at the back of the kitchen, and Seti dragged them both through it just as he lost his grip on the storm.

  The shriek of the wind grew louder, deafening even in the back alley as the storm within the bar exploded. Seti peered into the kitchen, where he could see flashes of lightning coming from the bar as the tempest grew in power, thunder crashing, shaking the very foundations of the building.

  They needed to get away. The storm would blow itself out quickly now, and the Museum’s men would continue their search for Seti and Logan.

  “Where is your home, Logan?” Seti asked. He shook Logan lightly, until at last the fear and confusion drained away from Logan’s eyes. “Your home. Where is it?”

  “Oh, yeah…we can’t go to my place. They’ll be watching it, I’m sure,” Logan said. “We can go to Jason’s apartment.”

  “What was that?” Wendy interjected, tugging on Seti’s arms. Her eyes were still wide with terror and she shook so badly that Seti feared she would collapse.

  “Sit down, Wendy. All will be well, now. You are no longer in danger. Listen! The wind dies even as we speak,” Seti said distractedly, helping lower her to the ground. He had more pressing matters to tend to than a frightened woman. Seti turned his dark eyes on Logan. “Who is this Jason?” he asked, feeling an unexpected, piercing shaft of jealously slice through him. He shook it off, telling himself that he only cared because he wished no one else to know of his existence.

  “He’s one of my best friends – we can hide out at his place.”

  “We must go,” Seti said firmly. He didn’t like the idea of seeking shelter with this friend of Logan’s, but he realized that he had little choice in the matter. He urged Logan into motion, although it was plain that Logan did not want to leave Wendy sitting in the muck of the alleyway. “She will be all right, Logan. We will not be if we do not leave this place.”

  Logan nodded, squatting down at Wendy’s side. “You okay?” he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  “Leave her!” Seti ordered, towering over them both, glaring at Logan for disobeying him – yet again.

  “I’m not leaving until I’m sure she’s okay,” Logan yelled, scowling up at Seti. He turned back to Wendy, whose frightened face was streaked with tears. “Wendy? Are you all right?”

  Seti was tempted to pick Logan up and throw him over a shoulder, giving him no choice but to leave, every instinct telling Seti to flee. He wanted – needed - to get Logan to safety, and Logan’s refusal to leave was infuriating him.

  “Logan!” he roared. “We need to leave!”

  “You’re in trouble, aren’t you, Logan?” Wendy asked, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “You need to go, kid. I’ll be fine,” she said, giving a small laugh. “I’m a tough old broad. Listen to your friend. Go. And don’t worry…I never saw you today.”

  “Are you sure?” Logan asked, giving Wendy a hug.

  Seti’s fingers itched to drag Logan up from the ground by the hair. “Logan!” he hissed, “The storm has ceased. They will be coming!”

  “Go on. I’m fine,” Wendy said. She looked up at Seti, narrowing her eyes at him. “You take care of this boy, you hear me? Don’t let anybody hurt him, Seti. He’s like my own son.”

  “I’m a big boy, Wendy,” Logan said. Seti could tell that Wendy’s declaration had embarrassed Logan by the blush that crept up his neck. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Then go, already!” Wendy said, giving Logan a push.

  Logan stood up, much to Seti’s relief. He grabbed Logan’s arm, pulling him bodily down the alley toward the street.

  There was a huge crowd gathered outside the bar, voices chattering excitedly about the damage, survivors, bruised and bloody, wandering in shock along the sidewalk. Logan and Seti took advantage of the chaos, melting into the crowd and disappearing.

  Chapter Six

  “We have a problem,” Perry whispered angrily into his old, black rotary phone. His fingers drummed nervously on the desktop as he waiting for a reaction from the other end.

  His declaration was met by silence. Then a voice answered him in a clipped, cultured monotone. “You had better have a vital reason for calling me at this number. Any news less than catastrophic will prove detrimental to your health.”

  “It’s gone. Is that cataclysmic enough for you?”

  “Gone?” There was a hint of unease in the cultivated voice, a slight wavering of control. “What do you mean, it’s gone?”

  “Just what I said. The sarcophagus has been destroyed, and the mummy is missing.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” The voice dripped with derision. “The curse will not allow anyone to break the seals on the sarcophagus until the very last day of Seti’s sentence ends.”

  “I know the fundamentals of the curse as well as you do, Ethan. Still, the mummy is gone. What does that tell you?”

  Silence returned, thick and heavy with unspoken disbelief. “Surely you jest. Must I remind you of how little patience I have? Levity will get you killed, Perry.”

  “Do I sound as if I’m joking? Your threats mean nothing to me at this point, Ethan,” Perry hissed, spittle coating the telephone receiver. “You were wrong! I’ve asked you repeatedly over the years to let me verify your research-”

  “My data was sound, Perry, and my translation was accurate. The curse will be broken in exactly one month from today. You tire me with your incessant worrying.”

  Perry snorted, a dry, humorless sound. “It appears that your translation is flawed, Ethan. Your dates are off by thirty days. That sarcophagus was broken out of, not into. He’s come back, and now he’s loose in New York.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  “Evidently not. This is what comes of your pretentious, arrogant, supercilious attitude, Ethan. You never trusted any of us with the translations. You had to prove that you were the most brilliant, the most crucial to our cause. You were so afraid that one of us might find an error in your work that-”

  “Enough! I didn’t waste my time and fortune only to have victory snatched from my hands by a few days! If it’s true that Seti has returned, then he couldn’t have gotten far. He would have no idea of where he is, of what the world had become in his absence. He’d stick out like a naked thumb on the street. Find him.”

  “I’m certain that he’s with my assistant, Logan-”

  “Your assistant? Do you have any idea of what might happen if he talks to anyone about who and what Seti is?” Perry could hear the fury fueled by fear rising in Ethan’s voice. His carefully cultured voice became strained and strident. It was almost worth losing Seti just to hear Ethan Wilder lose his composure.

  “I’ve already sent security to find them-”

  “Kindly tell me you weren’t stupid enough to tell your rent-a-cops anything!”

  “Of course not. I may not be the exalted Ethan Wilder, but I’m not an idiot. I told them that my new assistant had stolen a valuable gold torc – the one Seti should be wearing. When they find Logan and Seti, they’re to bring them both back to me.”

  “Everything we’ve worked for these last fifty years hinges on finding him, Perry. He’s an Immortal. The secret to everlasting life runs through his veins. I want that secret, Perry.”

  “So do I, Ethan.”

  “Then find him!”

  “I will. But I need you to tap into your vast resources. Find out all you can about Logan Ashton, my assistant. Who are his friends? Where is his family? If security comes back without Seti, I need to know where to send them next. I need to know where Logan would go for help.”

  “I’ll get back to you as soon as I get the information. And, Perry? Do not fuck this up. Seti was your responsibility, and I will not let such failure go unpunished.�
�

  The phone went dead as the connection was broken, leaving Perry listening to dead air.

  Dead, just like Perry himself would be soon enough, if they didn’t find Seti. He’d been battling liver disease for years, hoping and praying that it didn’t kill him before Seti’s awakening.

  Fifty years ago, five scientists working on a dig in Egypt had discovered a tomb buried in the sand. No pyramid marked the grave, and yet the sarcophagus had clearly been that of someone of high status. The tomb chamber was an anomaly – its seals had been completely intact with no signs of pilfering by thieves, and yet no artifacts aside from the sarcophagus had been found within it. No utensils or pottery, no riches that normally littered such a site were in evidence. Whoever the mummy had been in life, he had been buried without any of the luxuries he’d left behind.

  Strange hieroglyphics had been carved into the base of the sarcophagus, markings that were not easily translated, even with the help of the Rosetta Stone. But Ethan had worked on the translations day and night, and when the meaning had finally become clear it had rocked the team to their cores.

  Every one of them was aware of the legend of Seti, the king who had been cursed by his namesake god. No corroborating evidence had ever been found that indicated that Seti ever really existed, and yet the myth persisted, references found in papyri scattered throughout the region. It was said that, cursed and entombed in his sarcophagus as punishment for his transgressions, Seti would walk the earth again after five thousand years, doomed to an eternity of wandering.

  But gleaming in the lantern light of the dig was what the team was certain was the final resting place of Seti. The facts were irrefutable. The figure sculpted onto the sarcophagus wore a torc that not only signified the mummy within to have been a king, but the style of the torc dated the sarcophagus to a time before the Sphinx had been built. The hieroglyphics proclaimed him to be Seti, the one who had defied the god Setekh, just as the legend had claimed, and spoke of the curse in great detail.

  Most interestingly, the sarcophagus had proven impossible to open. Crowbars snapped when applied under the lid. Chisels, no matter how hard they were hammered, could not move the lid a hairsbreadth. True to the myth of Seti, no man could open the tomb until the curse was lifted.

  Could the rest be true as well? Would Seti awake in just another half century, fully restored after five thousand years? He would if Ethan’s translations of the hieroglyphics and his dating of the tomb, were accurate.

  It was a bet that the small group of anthropologists was willing to take. For fifty years they’d kept their discovery a secret from the rest of the world. Perry used his position as a curator with the National Museum of Natural History in New York to secret the sarcophagus away. It had remained hidden in the basement of the Museum for a half a century, untouched and unviewed by anyone but himself.

  Three of the team, Petrovski, Roman, and Hill, had left Egypt to pursue careers in academia, all three becoming full professors at prestigious universities. They’d lived comfortable lives, retiring within ten years of each other. Now all three lived in retirement communities in Florida, golfing and basking in the warm sun, waiting for their chance at immortality.

  Ethan – the least scrupulous of all of them, had transformed himself from an anthropologist into a grave robber. He’d pillaged site after site, stealing Egyptian artifacts and selling them on the black market. Over the years, he’d parlayed his wealth into a fortune.

  All the while Perry had continued to slave away in the bowels of the Museum, as poor as a church mouse, the ever faithful watchdog.

  He hadn’t cared. When Seti awoke and they had drained the secret of immortality from his veins, wealth would mean little. Perry would be a god.

  Now the one slim straw Perry had been grasping at was gone, and all because of Ethan’s egotistical claim that his data had been foolproof.

  Perry ground his teeth as impotent rage washed over him in great waves. Damn Logan Ashton! If he hadn’t been forced by Administration to take Logan on as an assistant, then Seti would have awoken to find Perry waiting for him, not that snot-nosed graduate student. Perhaps Perry might have been able to garner the secret of everlasting life from Seti before Ethan and the others were even aware that Seti had returned! Perry would have had the entire world at his feet and Ethan’s wealth in his pocket.

  Now he’d be lucky if he survived long enough to see Seti recaptured, to witness what the miracle of his rejuvenation had wrought. Perry’s health was on a serious decline. His heart had been irreparably damaged by the treatment for his liver disease. The doctors had given him a month or so to live.

  Pain clawed at Perry’s chest as his anger grew. He removed a prescription bottle from his coat pocket, emptying a small white tablet onto his palm. Placing it under his tongue, he forced himself to relax and let the nitroglycerin work.

  Perry slid the bottom drawer of his desk open, taking out a legal pad and an envelope.

  It was only a matter of time before Seti would be found, and Logan with him. Unfortunately, Perry now realized that Ethan only needed Seti, and no one else.

  Not even Perry.

  He’d been a fool to believe that Ethan would allow him to share in whatever miracle Seti’s blood had to offer. If his physical ailments didn’t kill him, he could be certain that Ethan would.

  Removing his pen from his breast pocket, Dr. Lincoln Perry began the last letter he would ever write.

  ***

  Ethan hung up the phone, swiveling in his chair to look out of the window of his penthouse office at the city that sprawled at his feet.

  He’d spent years trafficking on the black market at great personal peril, using his gains to set up bank accounts in Switzerland, offshore in the Bahamas, and a few fat ones right here in the States under dummy corporations. His plan was much simpler than his convoluted bank accounts. As soon as Seti was revived, he was going to drain him of every last ounce of his blood, dissect him under a microscope, and do anything and everything in his considerable power to isolate whatever it was that made Seti immortal. And then Ethan was going to use his findings to cheat death forever.

  Of course, the other four members of his group thought the same thing, but Ethan knew that they could never be trusted to keep secret their findings. He planned on killing them all once they were no longer needed.

  As a matter of fact, with only a month to go until D-Day, he’d already sent a couple of men down to Florida to see that Petrovski, Roman, and Hill didn’t live long enough to collect their next social security checks.

  He’d thought to allow Perry to live a while longer. Ethan needed him to keep watch over Seti’s sarcophagus, but had decided that the moment the lid cracked open, Perry would be as dead as any of the fossils in the Museum.

  Now, all of Ethan’s carefully laid plans were at risk because of some idiotic, meddling graduate student who’d managed somehow to wake Seti and had spirited him away from the Museum.

  Damn it! Well, one thing was for certain. He didn’t need Perry anymore.

  He picked up the phone and placed two brief calls. One to a man who owed Ethan a favor or two - a man with tissue-thin morals and a very big gun.

  The other call was to a private detective agency that Ethan had dealt with on numerous occasions. Discreet and trustworthy, willing to bend the law when necessary, he put them on the trail of Logan Ashton and his new friend, Seti.

  Chapter Seven

  “If you’re selling Girl Scout cookies or want to recruit me for the neighborhood watch program, be warned that I have a very short temper and a very big Louisville Slugger.”

  “Jason! It’s Logan! Buzz us in!” Logan said, when Jason’s sleepy, irritated voice sounded on the apartment building’s intercom.

  “Since when is there more than one of you?”

  “Just press the freakin’ buzzer, Jase!” Logan said, even as memories of their first meeting replayed themselves in his head and heart.

  Jason had been Logan’s
college roommate, and the first to suspect Logan’s proclivities. At the time Logan had been out to himself but to no one else. Jason helped him feel comfortable in his own skin, shown him that Logan needed no one’s approval.

  He remembered what happened moments after outing himself to Jason. One minute Logan had been laying on his bed trying futilely to memorize the human reproductive system, worrying about how his confession was going to change his relationship with his roommate, and the next he’d been flat on his back receiving his first ever blow job from a man. He returned the favor, hesitantly, unsure of himself, but quickly growing more confident. From that day on Logan was firmly, unabashedly out.

  Jason was his best friend, as close as any brother could be, and it only seemed natural that he was the one Logan turned to when he found himself needing a safe haven.