Seti's Heart (19 page)

He had done it before.

He could do it again.

Would do it again.

For the first time since realizing that the curse he’d laid on Seti’s head had been broken, Setekh smiled.

 
Chapter Sixteen

Logan strode purposefully along the city streets, although his mind churned in turmoil. He found himself standing at the entrance to one of the most easily recognizable buildings in the city. Seventy-two stories of glass and steel, the Wilder Executive Tower rose as a sleek black monolith, an obsidian spear driven deep into the heart of the city.

Logan barely remembered leaving Jason’s apartment building, or crossing any of the busy streets to arrive at Wilder’s doorstep. Everything since the shooting was a blur, a maddening maelstrom of petrifying fear, white-hot pain and smothering guilt. Logan bore the weight of his emotions like a man staggering under a burden so heavy that it threatened to drive him to his knees at any moment.

The only thing that kept him upright was his rage.

Black and as sharp as a razor, his anger dwarfed everything else he was feeling. Fury at Wilder, at the gunmen, at Seti, and most of all at himself, disallowed rational thinking, allowing only one thought, vague and shapeless but nonetheless consuming, to emerge.

Revenge.

Logan narrowed his eyes and slipped his hand into his pocket, fondling the cold, blue steel that weighed it down. It was the same gun that had taken Jason’s life. Logan would see to it that it took another before long – that of the man who was ultimately responsible for Logan’s pain. He had no set plan in mind, just an overriding need to deliver justice, to avenge, to share the pain that filled him to overflowing.

He glanced up and craned his neck trying to see the top of the building. It seemed to stretch forever, the upper floors barely visible from the ground. Somewhere up there, in that black tower, sat the man whose soul was stained with Jason’s blood.

Wilder.

“I’m coming for you, you bastard,” Logan whispered. His voice sounded like a stranger’s to his ears – low, gravelly, and filled with a hate that up until today Logan would have sworn he was incapable of harboring.

“Hey. I’m Jason. Welcome to Freshman Hell. Got any weed?”

The ghost of Jason’s voice whispered in Logan’s head, catching him off guard. His breath hitched as fresh tears burned in his eyes, remembering their first meeting. Had it only been six years ago that Logan had walked into the dorms on his first day in college and found that he was to share a room with a towheaded young man with a shit-eating grin and a photographic memory?

Jason had been happy to show Logan the ropes of college life. He’d taken Logan under his wing, helping him find his classes, showing him where the library and the cafeteria were located in the maze of the university’s buildings and pathways. Helped him to register, to figure out which classes Logan needed to take that semester.

Then, later that same semester, “You’re gay, aren’t you?”

Logan had become aware of Jason’s sexuality shortly after meeting him. Jason was out publicly; never once trying to hide who he was from his new roommate. Logan admired that, lusted after that freedom, but was still too deeply in the closet to admit that he shared Jason’s choices.

Outing himself to Jason had been difficult, but it had also been a blessed relief, the first time ever that Logan could remember being comfortable with who he was.

Logan remembered that day fondly. The sex had been quick and fun, with no strings or demands on either one of them. Playful, and just a little embarrassing; they’d laughed about it afterwards. It hadn’t been the hardcore, heart-stopping, overwhelming passion that he’d felt with Seti, not by a long shot. But the memory meant a great deal to Logan nonetheless.

It was the first and last time he and Jason had been intimate, but it had paved the way for a friendship that had endured since, expanding to include Leo and Chris. The four of them were inseparable. Had been inseparable, he reminded himself with another sharp pang.

As much as he loved Leo and Chris, Jason had been Logan’s best friend. It was Jason who Logan confided in, who he’d confessed his crushes to, and who’d held his hand when his heart had been broken. It had been Jason who Logan had turned to in times of need, and who Logan had thought to go to when he realized that he needed a place to hide with Seti.

Now Jason was dead because of him.

Again a crush of guilt threatened to buckle Logan’s knees. His eyes welled with tears of sorrow and rage, his throat constricting with them as his memories of Jason danced through his mind. Logan gritted his teeth against the pain, yanking open the front door of the Wilder building and marching inside.

His first obstacle came in the form of a beefy security guard with a flat top crew cut and a belly that was more keg than six-pack. The material of his blue uniform shirt stretched tightly across his gut as he sat behind a sleek, modern reception desk. Behind him was a bank of elevators, their golden doors framed in dark, burnished wood.

“Help you?” he asked Logan, flicking his eyes up from the newspaper he’d been reading. His tone suggested that Logan must be lost, since no one who looked like Logan did could possibly have any legitimate business inside the Wilder building.
 

“I’m here to see Ethan Wilder,” Logan replied. The name tasted like poison on his tongue, and he resisted the urge to turn his head and spit.

“You got an appointment?” the guard asked dutifully, but doubtfully.

“He’ll see me. Tell him that it’s Logan Ashton. Tell him that I’ve got something for him. From Seti,” Logan replied, adding under his breath, “and from Jason.”

“Look, kid, if you’re trying to sell him something, Mr. Wilder will have your balls for breakfast. Why don’t you try across the street at the Trump Tower?”

“If Wilder finds out that I was here and that you sent me away without calling him, it’ll be your balls being served with his cream of wheat and orange juice, not mine,” Logan growled.

The guard grunted and shrugged. “It’s your funeral, kid,” he said, picking up the phone and pressing a couple of digits with a thick forefinger. He spoke quietly into the receiver. Logan caught his name and Seti’s before the guard fell silent and his eyes widened, a flush creeping up his neck.

“He’ll see you, Mr. Ashton,” he said, setting the phone down in the receiver. “Come with me, please.”

Whatever Wilder had said to the guard had made an impression, and the use of a salutation with his surname was not lost on Logan. The guard was almost reverential, leading Logan past the desk to the bank of elevators. He pressed the button, ushering Logan inside, removing the set of keys that jangled at his sizable waist. Selecting one, he inserted it into a keyhole below the floor buttons on the elevator panel.

“This will take you straight up to Mr. Wilder’s penthouse,” he said, backing out of the elevator. “Look, I’m sorry I gave you a hard time,” he apologized as the doors slid shut and the elevator began to glide silently upwards. Logan had no idea what threat Wilder had made to the guard if he let Logan leave, but the man sounded as if he might pee his pants.

Logan kept his hand inside his pocket, his fingers curled around the cool, comforting metal of the gun. For the briefest moment a new worry surfaced as he rode the elevator up toward the penthouse. Logan had never shot a gun in his life.

“Don’t be stupid,” he chided himself. “You’re a college graduate. You’ve got your degree. It’s a simple piece of machinery. You can do this. Point and shoot.” He had no more time to doubt his abilities as the elevator stopped with a slight jerk and a gentle chime announced that he’d arrived at his floor.

The doors slid open, revealing a plush outer office. Logan whipped the gun out of his pocket, swinging it in a wide arc and trying not to think about how badly his hand was shaking.

Then he remembered Jason and how he’d looked like a discarded marionette laying on the floor of the apartment, drenched in blood. Logan’s hand steadied even as his expression darkened.

The outer office was empty. Logan stepped out of the elevator onto carpeting so plush that he felt like he’d sunk in it up to his ankles. Burnished mahogany molding accented rich, cream-colored walls. Heavy, Victorian-styled furniture was scattered in neat, tasteful groupings, dominated by a receptionist’s desk that had probably cost more than Logan made in a month. Three flat-screen monitors sat on the desk, dark.

A pair of enormous double doors stood sentry at the far end of the room. There then, Logan thought, is where his quarry lie - the lair of the beast. Shh, he thought, stifling a hysterical giggle that threatened to bubble up past his lips. I’m Elmer Fudd, and I’m huntin’ millionaires.

Above the doors, a tiny blinking red light drew Logan’s attention to the closed circuit camera poised above the jamb. He grunted, resisting the urge to hurl profanities at Wilder through the magic of television, since he was certain that he was being watched. His face crumpled into a scowl as he strode toward the doors.

They opened before he could reach for the handle. Silently swinging inward, they revealed an immense space much larger than the outer office. From the threshold, Logan could see clear through to the other side of the room and out into the city through the ceiling to floor windows. To his left, Logan saw a deadly array of weaponry hung for display. Axes, swords, scimitars, daggers, and spears, all antiquities, were affixed to wall plaques and gleamed under spotlights.

“Mr. Ashton. Do come in,” a cultured voice called to him in a clipped, British accent. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Logan’s head snapped to the right. There, seated behind a desk that dwarfed the one in the outer office, sat a cadaverous old man. Sharp features on a skull tightly wrapped with skin bore the mark of his advanced age, his hair was snowy white and neatly styled. A dark blue suit that had the look of money hung on his thin bones. An arthritic, liver-spotted hand waved Logan deeper into the office.

He was not what Logan had expected. In his mind, Logan had demonized Wilder, envisioning him as a fanged, scaly monster with the blood of the innocent dripping down his chin. Outwardly, Wilder looked like a harmless old man, someone’s grandfather. Then Logan looked into Wilder’s eyes and saw the truth of him.

There was nothing grandfatherly about Wilder. His eyes sparked with intelligence and fiery fanaticism. Logan could see the snake coiled just behind Wilder’s eyes, ready to strike and sink venomous fangs into Logan’s flesh.

Logan’s hand rose, pointing the gun at Wilder. “You bastard! You sent those assholes after me and now Jason is dead because of you! You killed Perry, too. Why? Before I do the world a favor and put a bullet between your eyes, tell me why!”

“Why? I should have thought you’d have figured that out by now, Logan. I’d heard that you were a clever young man. Tsk, tsk. Sadly, it seems reports of your intelligence were sadly overrated.”

“Tell me why!” Logan roared, his finger itching to pull the trigger and blow Wilder’s pompous ass into the next world.

“Why, Seti of course. Surely you’ve realized by now that he’s special. Unique. And he is mine. I discovered him. It was my money that brought him here, that greased the palms of customs officials to get him in, and paid to keep his existence a secret from the world. He belongs to me.”

“Seti is human! He doesn’t belong to anyone!”

“Seti is most assuredly not human. In his veins flows the secret to immortality! That secret would have been mine by now if it weren’t for you, you insignificant worm! You nearly destroyed my life’s purpose!” Wilder screamed. His eyes darted to a spot just behind Logan.

Suddenly the press of cold metal touched Logan’s temple. His eyes shifted to the right, meeting those of a man who’d snuck up silently behind Logan while his attention had been focused on Wilder. A bodyguard, perhaps, or another hired killer. Either way, Logan realized he was a dead man if he so much as flinched.

Ice loosed Logan’s bowels as the grim realization that he’d failed sunk in. A large hand snatched his gun away from him, pocketing it. Logan forced himself to look back at Wilder, wanting beyond anything else to smash the supercilious smile from Wilder’s face.