God of Destruction (25 page)

The single name didn’t go unnoticed by
Claire. “Hayden?”

Alex looked up, her gaze meeting Claire’s for
a split second before they filled with tears. Her chest shook with
sobs harder than any Claire had ever seen her best friend cry. Alex
doubled over, unable to say anything, but Claire had gotten the
message clear enough. She didn’t want to believe it, and, instead,
waited mutely for Alex to say the words that would make it real.
Every time Alex tried to speak, though, she was overcome by another
vicious wave of anguish.

Taran, unnecessarily, cleared his throat.
“Natalia sent us another video today.” He ran his hand through his
hair, agitated beyond reason and willing to deliver them to death’s
door himself if it meant saving Janie. “Scottie is…” he cleared his
throat again.

“Dead.”

Claire shook her head, feeling a familiar fog
roll through her brain. He mind cleared for a split second. She
mumbled, “What?”

Taran shrugged, eyes falling to the floor,
“Because I escaped,
Angra Mainyu
had to do his sacrifice on
someone else. Scottie was just unlucky.”

The sound of Alex’s whimpers died down, but,
for a long time, they were the only sound in the room. Claire knew
that she should be feeling the same, but all she felt was a vague
confusion muddling her brain. A voice in her mind hissed Mainyu’s
parting words over and over again,
Come to me. Come to me. Come
to me!

A dull ache began at the base of her skull
before her legs suddenly gave out.

“Claire!” Alex gasped, reaching for her
fallen friend. Claire knelt on the floor, holding herself up on the
footboard while she pressed her other palm to her forehead,
massaging away her forming headache. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head, waving off Alex’s
concern. “I’m fine, just a headache.”

“Are you sure?” Taran inquired as he bent
over to assist her.

“Ya. It’s not a big deal,” Claire insisted.
“We have more important things to talk about before they come
back.”

“You’re right,” Alex agreed, wiping away the
last of the dampness on her cheeks. Standing, and pulling Claire
unsteadily to her feet, Alex turned to face Taran. “You said you’d
help us. What’s your plan to get away?”

Taran’s eyes narrowed in Claire’s direction.
Something was off about her, but he couldn’t tell what.

“Taran?” Alex snapped.

His eyes jerked toward the other girl in the
room. “They’ve decided already that they’ll be sending you back to
the US, but they’ll have to drop the body somewhere before we can
go to the airport. I’ll tell them where to drop the body, close to
the pick-up point Natalia established. I’ll distract them while you
guys run.”

Claire’s brow furrowed. “Why would you do
that?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Why are you helping us in the first
place?”

Janie’s face flashed in his mind. “My friend
is badly injured and being held hostage with
your
friend. I
promised her I would get her out, and I don’t plan on breaking that
promise.” He gulped, swallowing his emotion. “I need you two to get
in there. I’ll give you my cell phone so you can tell us where
they’re keeping you.”

Alex nodded, holding her hand out
expectantly. Immediately, he placed the phone in her palm. “What
happens if they kill us?”

“They won’t,” he countered immediately.

“You don’t know that,” Claire
interjected.

Taran cocked an eyebrow in challenge. “Then
they’d be going through a lot of goddamn trouble just to kill you,
don’t you think?”

Claire blinked, squeezing her eyes shut as
she tried to think over the mantra replaying in her head.
Come
to me. Come to me. Come to me!
She shook her head, wiping her
hands down her face.

Alex lightly shook the blonde’s shoulder.
“Claire?”

Shivering while she struggled to get control
of herself, Claire managed to make eye contact.

“You alright?”

Claire swiftly nodded. “We gotta go, we gotta
go now.”

“We can’t go now,” Taran said. “We have to
wait for them to clean up the living—”

“No!” Claire snarled, her hand smacking down
on his shoulder when she spun to face him. “We
have
to go
now, before anybody else dies because of me.”

Taran glared at her silently, their eyes
locked. He barely registered that her eyes were no longer their
normal blue when she turned and swept out the door.

He and Alex stood in the room, wondering the
same thing.

Finally, he broke the silence.

“Didn’t she have a stutter?”

Alex nodded, giving a shaky hum in agreement.
“Something’s not right.”

Immediately, the two of them followed her out
the door. They found her in the kitchen. A long, silver chef’s
knife had already found itself in her hand, the blade reflecting
her tired, black eyes back at her.

“Claire!” Alex shrieked, shoving past Kierlan
while he scrubbed the red out of the carpet on his hands and knees.
She grabbed for the knife. Claire swiftly ducked out of the way,
shoving it into the pocket of her jeans. The sharp point sliced
easily through the material, hanging at her hip in its makeshift
holster.

“Relax, Alex!” she said, holding her friend
at arm’s length when she went for the knife again. “It’s for
later,” she added in a whisper, catching the glance Kierlan was
throwing their way.

Alex made an incredulous face. “You think
you’re gonna use that against a
god
? Something’s up with you
and I want to know what it is, Claire!”

“It’s wrong now to want to protect myself?”
Claire demanded, shoving Alex away from her so she could take
another knife.

Alex didn’t move, watching her with guarded
eyes. “It’s
wrong
that you’ve gone from being too scared to
go after Hayden and Scottie one minute to arming yourself for war
the next. I think he got to you. What’d he do?”

“Nothing!” she replied, though she was
startled to admit that the words hadn’t come of her own
volition.

“You’re lying!” she insisted. “Give me the
knife, Claire!”

“No!” she growled, pulling the blade from her
pocket and pointing it threateningly in Alex’s direction.

Alex barely bat an eyelash.

Realizing what she was doing, Claire let her
arm fall, her shoulders collapsing inward as she cried loudly. “I
don’t wanna die, Alex!”

Alex sighed, watching her pitiful friend fall
slowly to the floor. “Claire.” The other girl gave no hint she’d
heard her. “Claire?” She knelt beside her, embracing her tightly
while she soothingly combed through the golden hair with her
fingers. “We’re not gonna die. I promise. I won’t let them kill
us.”

Claire chuckled dryly. “As if you’d have any
say in it.”

Alex laughed along with her. “I know. But I
mean it. We’re going to get out of this, Claire, alive. Maybe not
unscathed, but I think we can stop him.”

“How’re we supposed to do that?”

Alex shrugged, her shoulders feeling heavier
now than ever before. “I don’t know. But, according to James, we
did it before.”

“Do you remember that first time?” Claire
demanded. “’Cuz I definitely don’t.”

The brunette exhaled deeply, wishing she
could come up with something comforting to say. Unfortunately,
nothing came to mind. “No,” she said, releasing Claire and looking
her in the eye. “But we’ll figure it out. We have to.” A thought
suddenly struck her, looking into Claire’s face. “What’s the matter
with your ey—?”

“Alex! Claire!” James called from the living
room just before he fell into the room.

They immediately looked to him. Alex cleared
her throat, momentarily forgetting the change in Claire’s eyes.
“What’s the matter?”

He shifted uncomfortably on his feet,
expecting a less than pleasant response. “We’re going to the
airport, now. Kierlan got you two on a flight out of here in the
hour.”

Alex twitched with sudden rage. “Alone?”

He nodded. “We decided it would be best if we
stayed in Paris. Mainyu’s not gonna stop unless we send him back
where he came from.”

She bit the inside of her mouth, holding back
all the nasty things she wanted to say. She knew where they’d be
going anyway if Taran held up to his part of the deal. She spat out
through clenched teeth, “And Russell?”

“Taran said he’s going to show us place to
dump the body. We’ll just have to wait until we have you guys
safely on a plane to do it.”

Claire snapped to attention. “After? Why
after?”

“We don’t have time to dump the body and
bring you two to the airport. He can wait,” James explained.

Taran stepped into the room behind him. “I’ve
been telling him it’s on the way, but he won’t listen to me.”

“I can’t risk it,” James said with a note of
finality.

A thought suddenly struck Claire through her
muddled state. “How’re we gonna get to the airport?”

James ran his hand through his hair, casting
a begrudging look toward the living room. “
Kierlan
has
informed me that we will need to steal a car. With the body needing
transportation, we wouldn’t be able to take a taxi.”

“Steal a car…” Alex trailed off. “And what’re
we gonna do if we get stopped in this stolen car with a body in the
trunk?
Oh, sorry, Officer, this is all just a misunderstanding.
We didn’t kill him, Angra Mainyu did
,” she mocked in a poor
impression of James’s voice. “That’ll go over great with the
police. And we’ll be sitting ducks in prison! We
have
to
drop the body first.”

Behind James, Taran gave Alex an appreciative
nod. “She’s right, James. This is our best shot.”

James’s jaw locked. For a long moment, he
contemplated her reasoning. “Fine. We’ll drop the body first. But
we’ll need to leave now, or we won’t make the flight. Claire, empty
your bag.”

“What? Why?” she asked.

James reasoned, “It’s the biggest. We’ll need
it to get Russell to the car undetected.”

Claire nodded, shivering with the mental
picture of Russell’s body curled up inside her father’s sea-bag.
“I’ll be right back.”

“Wait! Wait.” He gestured to her pockets.
“What’re those for?”

Claire tested the knives, making sure they
were secure. Her face appearing graver than any of them had ever
seen it, she replied, “In case Natalia comes back.” Then, she
disappeared to retrieve her bag.

Alex and James watched each other, waiting
for the other to make the first move. It was Alex who broke their
uninterrupted stare first, turning to the counter for a moment to
pull two smaller knives from the block. She shoved them into her
pockets like Claire had done. At James’s questioning look, she
shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”

Not ten minutes later, the group, save for
Kierlan, stood in the elevator while they waited anxiously for the
ding of the first floor. Taran stood in the corner behind the
girls, eyes completely guiltless when he looked over at James. The
angel stood in the furthermost corner, his back slightly hunched
with the weight of the green canvas bag slung over his shoulder.
Some kind of black liquid stained through the bottom, but, whatever
it was, they knew no one would assume it was blood. Claire and Alex
hung their hands awkwardly over the knives in their pockets,
concealing them from the public.

Kierlan had left them earlier in search of
transportation, something they hoped would be available when they
reached the street. Their worries were unnecessary in that regard.
They noticed the gleam of a black BMW against the curb the moment
they stepped out of the hotel lobby. Kierlan stood against the
front door, watching for any sign of a threat on the street.

James was the first to get to the car,
throwing the body easily into the trunk before he pulled himself
into the passenger’s seat. Taran and the girls sat in the backseat
while Kierlan drove in the direction Taran explained to him,
conveniently leaving out the name of their destination. Ten minutes
later found them pulling into an empty parking lot.

“This the place?” Kierlan inquired gruffly,
trying not to look at Claire while she stared absently out the
window.

Taran pointed to the river not twenty feet
away. “Ya, this is the place. We just have to throw him in and the
water will take care of the rest.”

“Okay,” James nodded. “Let’s get this over
with. The plane leaves in…” he briefly checked his watch, “forty
minutes.”

Kierlan and James stepped out of the car,
slamming the doors behind them.

Taran was instantly upon them. “Alex, call me
as soon as you get there, even if they’re watching. Or take a
picture. Just send us a clue, any clue, of where you are and we’ll
find you.”

Alex nodded ardently. “Ya. I will.”

The two of them reached for the door opposite
the River Seine. “Wait!” Taran yelled.

The girls abruptly froze.

“If Natalia was telling the truth then
they’ll be waiting for you about a mile that way.”

“Okay,” Claire said, reaching for the
door.

“Wait!”

“What?” Alex demanded.

Taran gripped Alex’s hand tightly in both of
his. “When you see Janie, tell her I’m coming to get her.”

A smile broke out on Alex’s face. “I
will.”

“Thank you,” he sighed. “I’ll hold them off.
Just go.”

They nodded, throwing open the doors and
sprinting out into the night.

“Where the hell is Taran?” Kierlan grunted,
throwing the heavy bag into the water with a huge splash.

“Right here,” he said, approaching them.
“Need any help?”

“No, I think we’re good,” James replied.
“Let’s get back; I don’t like leaving them alone.”

Taran snickered. “I don’t think they would’ve
had the chance to do anything reckless by now.”

“I was talking about Natalia and Mainyu being
on the loose,” he amended. “I’ll take the backseat this time, just
in case.”