God of Destruction (4 page)

“Your team’s equipment is crap, Kierlan! It
was by no fault of mine,” she insisted, becoming immediately
defensive, as she always was when her work ethic was
questioned.

“Or, could it be, that you’ve just become
careless over the years, Natalia? You seem to be losing your touch!
Dropping your only way out? Letting your target hear you coming?”
he made a face under the ski mask he wore as he stared at her in
accusation. “When I heard you were the best I was expecting
something a bit more professional.”

Natalia’s freckled face turned bright red.
Kierlan could hear her teeth grinding together from across the room
and inwardly grinned. He loved making her upset. “Do you have the
page, then? Since you can stand there and criticize my work! Where
is the page?” she growled, trying her best not to shriek at
him.

“Killing was never part of this plan, we
were just supposed to get the page and go,” he protested, coming to
the realization that he would have to end the life of the much
younger man upstairs. Kierlan had never done the killing before;
he’d always had someone on his team willing to do it for him.
Thievery was his game, and he was good at it. That and
organization; he could organize a murder, but he would never have
the stomach to carry it out himself like Natalia could. He took no
joy in killing, nor the chase, nor the mockery that followed.

“Ohh grow a pair! I have been in this trade
since I was fifteen, you worthless man! Even you can certainly
manage it once,” Natalia snarled. She gathered herself after a
moment of peace and softly added, “I cannot wear this man’s
uniform, Kierlan. Would you prefer it if I dispatched Mr. Reyes
myself?”

Kierlan knew he should’ve said yes, but his
mind had warped Natalia’s words into something condescending. Ms.
Petrov wasn’t kind, not now, not ever, and even the strange
attraction she had developed towards him wouldn’t change that.
Feeling the sting of her ridicule reverberate through his brain, he
let a moment of silence pass between them before he finally
whispered, “No. Don’t worry your pretty little head about me. I’ll
do it myself.” His voice was quiet, but steely, and as cold as ice.
Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode back up the
steps, blending easily into the shadows.

Natalia was fully aware that she’d wounded
the less experienced man and gloried in it. She was accustomed to
being worshiped and sought after for her talent. She was the best
in the world. She was paid well every time outside parties hired
her, and this time was no exception.

Nevertheless, she was never one to simply
overlook a chance for advancement in anything, especially money, so
she stooped beside the body she’d turned cold, pulling her gloves
tightly against her small fingers, and searched the corpse for a
wallet.

Upstairs, Reyes was becoming uneasy by
Harris’s extended absence. He’d also been unable to find
batteries.

Without company or a distraction, he was
officially creeped out and bored. Slapping his hand onto his head
to adjust his hat, he pulled himself to his feet without much
hesitation and resolved to look for his partner. “Harris!” he
called, enjoying the sound of his voice echoing through the
abandoned building. Any second now, he told himself, Harris is
gonna turn out of some corner that he was, miraculously, able to
hide his fat ass in. He’s gonna threaten to kill me if I keep
acting like a child, just like he always does.

No such response ever came. No response at
all.

“Harris!” he repeated in the same manner as
the first time. When he was, again, ignored, Reyes’s tone took on
an air of desperation. “Henry! I’m not fooling around!” When
Reyes’s latest attempt produced the same result as the first, he
pulled out his flashlight and journeyed further into the depths of
the museum, focusing his eyes on the ground so he wouldn’t startle
himself with the sight of mummies in the dark.

Unlike Harris, Reyes’s death was swift and
painless. It was debatable, in fact, whether or not he knew what
was happening at all. A hasty kick to his tailbone sent the guard
sprawling to the floor, dazed as he flattened himself against the
granite. Above him, two legs straddled his back as a pair of gloved
hands found either side of his face and swiftly twisted, ending
Fred Reyes’s short life.

Kierlan had to swallow back shame, and
possibly bile, before he could stand and face what he’d done. It
was over now. I don’t need to worry anymore, he reminded himself,
but he couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that had overtaken him
with his first kill. He stood over the body, still warm under his
hands as he pried them from the man’s neck. Still warm. It would be
so easy to pretend that he was only sleeping.

“Not bad,” her sultry voice made him want to
jump out of his skin when she suddenly appeared beside him. She did
that a lot. “Not a drop of blood spilled. Could not have asked for
a better job well done, myself.”

For a rookie…

The words were left unspoken but they hung
in the air, nonetheless.

Natalia didn’t find her compliments
offensive; she’d meant it when she told him how well he’d done.
After this job, she hoped that she could possibly convince him to
train with her for a time. She wasn’t stupid, and her astute
observations as an experienced assassin made her far from
oblivious. She knew raw talent when she saw it. And Kierlan Cole
definitely possessed that raw talent.

“Take off your mask, Kierlan; enjoy your
work!” she suggested cheerfully, pulling the ski mask off in one
fell swoop.

Kierlan Cole was a handsome man with
chiseled features and closely shaven black hair. He was large,
almost as large as Harris, and between the ages of twenty and
thirty, though it was unclear which he was closer to. His eyes were
the darkest of grey, like a storm-cloud, and were bordered by dark
circles, displaying a worry and exhaustion far beyond his years.
His face had obviously gone unshaven for the last few days while
they stayed in London waiting for their chance, but its ordinarily
tan glow was sallow with nausea.

“I’m gonna to throw up,” he informed her,
covering his mouth and circling his arm around his abdomen.

“No! They cannot find any evidence!” Natalia
snarled, beginning to strip Reyes of his uniform. Once Kierlan had
sufficiently calmed down, she continued, “Go to the basement and
take the other uniform. The next shift will be here soon.”

Wordlessly, the broken man did as he was
told.

Ten minutes later, two uniformed men strode
down the long set of stairs toward the sidewalk, passing two other
men in similar uniforms as they approached the doors of the museum.
The smaller of the two departing guards kept his hand fixed firmly
around a fragile piece of parchment paper, knowing it wouldn’t be
missed for at least a day. A tendril of blonde hair threatened to
fall from the cap, but the guard’s particularly feminine lips blew
it out of its owner’s face. Both guards kept their faces directed
pointedly toward the ground, obscured by the lack of light. The
smaller guard smiled a predatory grin.

“Evening, Reyes,” one of the replacements
smiled. “Harris.”

The larger guard merely gave an
unintelligible grunt in response, whereas his companion gave no
retort at all. The two stepped out into the street, seeing their
car at the very end. They never lifted their heads, even when they
pulled themselves into the front seats.

They got away.

Chapter Four

London, England; December
20
^th
, 2011

Janie Campbell had never been one of those
people who involved herself in other people’s business. However,
even she knew when it was time to intervene, namely when it
concerned the murders of two local men. The twenty-year-old girl
had run from her hiding place near the museum until she was doubled
over and wheezing back at her hotel, letting her camera swing
heavily against her chest. She clutched the pictures in her hands
so tightly her fingernails had drawn blood, staining the stiff
paper.

Janie was an aspiring photographer from a
Texas university, abroad on a school trip with her Creative Arts
class. She was of average height and tanned from the Southern sun,
a feature that made her stand out in London, where it was often
raining. Her face was soft and round with glowing hazel eyes and
her hair was long and auburn, tied back in a braid that hung
against her spine. Tremors violently shook her body, despite how
warm she felt from the run. She was far from stupid, but, after
this ordeal, she didn’t credit herself as the
most
intelligent person she knew; after all, the thought that London was
colder than her favorite state had never entered her mind.
Therefore, she was clad only in thin leggings, a button down
blouse, and a pair of high-top sneakers.

The power hadn’t returned yet, the reason
behind her journey to the museum in the first place. Her roommates
had fallen asleep hours ago when there was nothing left to do.
Janie was bored, but she couldn’t get to sleep. Instead, she’d
taken her camera and gone to photograph the beautiful sights around
the city. The museum’s beautiful architecture had struck her from
the beginning, and she’d innocently only wanted a few photos to
bring back to her parents. Now, she’d stumbled upon something that
would change her life forever.

“Oh my…God,” she sputtered, erupting in a
fierce coughing fit.

As she tried to catch her breath, she
realized that her sweaty palms were beginning to sting.
Reflexively, she loosened her tight fists, allowing the developed
pictures clasped in them to fall clumsily to the floor in crumpled
balls. Her hands were crisscrossed with paper cuts from the
offending photographs, and she saw that the ooze of red had soaked
onto some of the pictures. Trying to push the pain to the back of
her mind, she collected the pictures back into her hand, smoothing
them out so she could study the faces of the man and woman who’d
infiltrated the museum. She clung to them like a lifeline, willing
the images trapped inside to become anything else.

The first picture was of the woman with
blonde hair and the face made of ice. She stood in the window,
watching the man in the mask stalk the guard with a smile on her
face.

The next was of the man, unmasked and
horrorstruck, staring straight into Janie’s lens without seeing
it.

The next three were taken with only a
second’s interval. Dressed in their stolen uniforms, the thieves
hid under the brim of their hats as they passed the genuine guards
with blank expressions. They strode nonchalantly toward a silver
car at the end of the street.

The last picture, the most important, was a
perfectly clear image of the license plate.

A situation like this was never something
brought up when she’d heard the “Right and Wrong lecture” from her
parents. Internally, Janie could feel herself losing any shred of
calm essential at a time like this, and she feared that she’d be
heaving her dinner into the potted plant behind the hotel entrance
at any moment. Lips pursed, she staggered through the lobby in
search of a garbage can to vomit into. When none could be found,
she leaned over the large pot and allowed herself to finally relax.
The question she couldn’t answer was always the same: What was she
going to do? What do you do when you witness a murder in a foreign
country?

Stupid girl
, she told herself,
you
should know this
. Her muscles twitched, and she eventually
allowed herself to slump into a heap on the ground, finally unable
to support her own weight.

It happened so fast, she recalled with a
silent whimper, wrapping her arms around herself and shutting her
eyes tightly. It didn’t help. The tighter she shut her eyes, the
more vivid the image of the guard’s death seemed to be as it
replayed itself in her head, over and over again. She wanted
desperately to assist the police in the search for the killers.
But, at the same time, she
really
just wanted to forget the
whole thing ever happened. Even if she did search for help, where
would she go? Other than what her class’s tour guide had showed
them, she was entirely ignorant of where help
was
in this
city. More than that, she wished that she could go back to the way
things were yesterday, when she didn’t have to think about
death.

The sound of quiet footfalls in the ear she’d
pressed to the floor hinted that she wasn’t alone in the lobby; she
jolted upright, gasping for breath.

“Miss, are you alright?” a male voice
inquired from beside her.

Janie wobbled on a weak neck, glancing around
the room. She hadn’t stopped to notice before, through her reeling
thoughts, that the lobby was lined with bellhops and other workers.
It was the manager who stood behind her, concern and annoyance
warring behind his eyes as he shot fleeting looks at the pot
through the dark. Janie couldn’t find a way to put her situation
into words that would express its severity. Rather than stumble
through an explanation, she shook her head.

“How can I help, Miss?”

Janie wrung her hands. “The police. Call the
police. The museum’s been robbed.”

His eyes bugged, clearly not expecting this
twist, but he quickly obliged, pulling a cell phone from the pocket
of his uniform. He stepped away from her to make the call, leaving
Janie with her thoughts.