Page 12 of Seth
He slipped off the bed and darted out of the bedroom and into his studio. With a frantic swipe of his forearm, he cleared his desk then grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil.
His hand moved in chaotic strokes, transferring the glass heart from his dream to the paper. It was a rough sketch, but in it, Seth saw the finest details of the future masterpiece.
* * *
For the second day,eyes followed him around. Glaring stares drilled his back. He feltthem wherever he went.
Somehow, it didn’t surprise him. No question rose in his mind as he knew who they were and what they wanted. A man who walked the streets at night with a security team must have many enemies, and Justin’s death, his body, had provided an opportunity to remove a few of them via Seth’s hands. The following gazes assured him of that.
While the man studied him, dissected him, Seth waited for a chance for one-sided surveillance to become an exchange of information. Sooner or later, someone would approach him to make terms. Seth preferred it to happen sooner rather than later as the bloodless sand refused to talk to him.
Days passed in vain as he locked himself in his glass studio in the basement. He tried to recreate the shape from his dreams but, despite the perfect form of the glass, the object felt hollow, soulless—nothing like in his dreams.
He knew he should stop, yet he was stuck in constant beginnings. With every failure, the emptiness and darkness oppressed his soul. In the black haze of his rancor, he continued mixing colors and textures, breaking and melting glass, breaking again to fuse everything together.
His breath became short, and the room swam as his smartwatch beeped and flashed red. He stepped away; focus chained to the black, ulcerated knot laying in front of him. Matte, it didn’t emit any light but absorbed it instead. Ugly and lifeless, it had the same texture and color as the ulcerated obsidian skin in his dreams. The skin of the dead, forsaken god cursed to roam the desert for centuries.
He didn’t know where the black color originated. He hadn’t added any, yet the glass was impenetrable and grim. It wasn’t the heart from his dream, pure and transparent, but a dead and hollow knot of soulless muscles putrefied with unhealed scars of betrayal.
Without a second thought, he lifted the glass heart and threw it at the wall. A loud shriek echoed through the basement, and a myriad of tiny shards, glinting with sharp edges, littered the smooth, gray floor.
Turning off the furnace, Seth rushed upstairs. He needed his sand back, and for that, he had to meet the man again.
* * *
Dressedin a blackbutton-up and slacks, Seth stood in front of the mirror. His fingers clasped the black belt buckle checking twin punch daggers hidden within. Short, sharp blades were a poor choice of weapon for combat, but they should be enough for self-defense or a surprise attack.
Strolling around the loud city didn’t appeal, especially as it was Friday evening and summer, but he wanted to provide his stalkers an opportunity to approach him in a public place.
He reached for the door handle when his cell phone rang.
“Mayr?” Portia, the personal assistant of the director of the Global National Bank, all but yelled out his name. His hand jerked away from his ear as he gave the device a scornful stare. “The presentation has already begun. Please, tell me you are just running late. I have to remind you that according to your contract you have to—”
Seth hung up, glanced at the date on the screen.
The presentation…He tsked, remembering the invitation Günter Wagner gave him the other day. He kicked off his shoes and strolled back into the bedroom to change. Having an eccentric reputation meant he could be unreasonably late as long as he showed up.
* * *
Today might havegone differentlyif only the last days hadn’t been this unbearably mundane. If Loco had left his villa for anything but groceries to provide Gustavo food for thought. If the endless paperwork hadn’t buried his desk. If his lovers hadn’t canceled on him at the last moment. If anything had gone differently, Gustavo wouldn’t go to the presentation, but he was bored.
The party was in full swing when Gustavo entered the chain of ballrooms. The doors stood wide open, creating two parallel corridors decorated with white marble arches. Soft music streamed in the air, accompanied by clinking glasses, laughter, and murmurs.
Even in the vast space, he instantly spotted Seth. Sipping his wine, the murderer kept to the side. Among the prim crowd, impeccably dressed according to the black-tie dress code, Seth’s unbuttoned black shirt underneath the modern three-piece suit was a fresh breeze of rebellion. The black snake of his tie hung lifelessly on either side of his neck. Even in the soft, orange light from the crystal chandeliers, his obsidian, messy hair, longer at the top, had a bluish glint. The darkness of his clothes, eyes, and hair only accented his smooth, alabaster skin.
A pearl among peas.Gustavo almost cringed from the cliché that came to mind, yet it suited Seth so well. The daylight softened his features, but at the same time, it accented his neurotic, aristocratic look. The suit he wore hugged his body so tight that it made him look almost supple, delicate. If Gustavo hadn’t seen him shirtless, he would have never believed muscles corded underneath his clothes.
Seth tilted his head, long fingers, full of languid sensuality, toyed with a napkin. His full lips parted, and Gustavo habitually compared him with the sculpture of Narcissus by Ernest Eugene Hiolle8. The same grace, beauty, and longing gaze.
Gustavo’s possessive instinct stirred as he remembered how he’d failed to obtain the sculpture. Now, the marble faded in comparison with the living thing.
Seth leaned one elbow against the tall, round table, his other hand dropped the napkin, lifted a fat glass, and swirled the red wine about it. An ephemeral illusion of lazy gentleness cocooned him.
Gustavo wavered. He’d half-expected to be disappointed by this meeting as the magic the blood and gore created in the shadows of the unfinished building would certainly vanish in the daylight.
Partially, his prediction came true.
That night, he saw a wild beast. The beast he could vie with, tame and break. His course of actions had been solely dictated by the adrenaline overflow and the fleeting impression he’d had that night. Now, he wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore as Seth was nothing like he’d imagined.
