He wasn’t just parading power.
He wasn’t just taking Vegas.
He was heading straight for Timothy’s domain. The souls. The mantle. The seat Grim left behind. If Seth claimed that, he wouldn’t just control mortals. He’d control immortals. The balance. Everything.
He had to be stopped.
Before he became the god of the living and the dead.
The ground vibrated faintly beneath my feet. Seth paused mid-stride. His eyes narrowed. He sensed it too.
A hush rippled down the Strip, swallowing even the forced applause. Seth’s parade stilled. The neon seemed to dim, as if the city itself was bracing.
I swallowed hard.
“Timothy,” I whispered.
There he was, alone in the middle of the road.
Seth turned his head, slow and predatory, toward the direction of Sinopolis…and smiled like he’d just been handed the very fight he’d been aching for.
“Well then,” he said. “Let us meet with the scribe.”
The carpet surged forward, and Seth led his unwilling procession straight toward Timothy and Sinopolis.
And all I could do was follow, my feet dragging like they’d been filled with concrete, my throat so dry I couldn’t swallow, my eyes fixed on Timothy’s silhouette as if staring hard enough might somehow make him stronger than a god who’d just snapped the will of an entire city without breaking a sweat.
The carpet glided to a stop.
Timothy squared off in the center of the empty Strip, bathed in the hard glow of neon, as composed as if he were about to begin a lecture instead of confronting a god on the brink of declaring himself ruler of the living and the dead.
He wasn’t in ceremonial garb now. No armor. No theatrics.
A simple suit. His tablet in hand. His posture straight, meticulous, deliberate.
Seth slowed, amused. “Well. Look who finally decided to stop brooding and show up.”
Timothy didn’t rise to the bait. He lifted his gaze with the cool, measured clarity of a man accustomed to sorting the universe into order. “Seth,” he said, voice precise, almost gentle. “You have taken power that does not belong to you. You have compelled mortals, stolen offerings, tampered with souls, and violated every law our pantheon agreed to uphold.”
Seth spread his arms in mock offense. “Laws are tedious. You of all gods should appreciate efficiency.”
Timothy tilted his head slightly. “Efficiency,” he repeated. “Yes. And order.”
His fingers tightened minutely around his tablet, and it transformed into his staff. “Which is why I cannot allow you to continue.”
Seth laughed, loud and delighted. “You? By yourself? Where is your little mortal warrior? Where is the blade that could cut me? You look terribly…unattended.”
Timothy’s expression didn’t shift. Not a flicker.
“I am not here to posture,” he said calmly. “I am here to correct.”
He took a single step forward, the kind that needed no power display to carry weight. His voice remained level, not raised, but it carried down the Strip with absolute clarity.
“As god of the dead, I am responsible for the balance you have broken. And I will restore it.”
Seth’s smirk faltered.
Timothy straightened his cuffs, the staff remaining upright on its own. The gesture was somehow more threatening than shouting would have been. It was tidy. Controlled. Final. And absolutely Timothy.
