Читать книгу Dark Sins and Desert Sands - Stephanie Draven - Страница 12

A barren woman with skin cracked and dry, still enchants men though none know why.

Though Seth was a desert god, he hated the Mojave. Not just because it was a New World desert, far and remote from his own Egyptian home. He also hated the Mojave because as a war god, he believed that a desert should devour. A desert should destroy.

A desert shouldn’t give birth to a neon monstrosity like Las Vegas.

The city was like no proper desert metropolis of old. It had no citadel; it sent no chariots into the sands to conquer. It didn’t join with the sand and sun and powerful ring of mountains. Instead the Vegas architecture was a blend of archaic myth with modern excess—an adult fantasy-scape at the very edge of reality, where magic blurred with the mundane. With its garish lights and glitter, the city beckoned visitors and residents to worship the myriad relics of man’s gloried past. It became a fertile oasis for washed-up immortals. And why not? Where else but Vegas could deities walk comfortably amongst the mortals without fear of discovery? Here a primitive goddess of dancing could easily take on the guise of a showgirl. Where else but Vegas could a trickster god hide in plain sight, running a casino? Where else could a god of revelry gorge himself in an actual bacchanalia, but at Caesar’s Palace?