God of Destruction (9 page)

“Hey kid?” he murmured.

“Ya?” she mumbled, too exhausted to even ask
him not to call her that.

“Why are you here?” he asked, thinking over
ways that he could lessen her pain. Ordinarily, he would have
knocked out whatever friend he was helping, but, given how thin the
girl was, such a blow to the head could kill her.

“I caught that…
Natalia
…on camera after
she robbed the British museum,” Janie explained, drawing a heart
into the dust with her index finger.

“Hm…consider yourself lucky. Anyone in her
place should have killed you.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind of that. Except,
I still have the pictures. I hid them,” she grimaced unkindly. She
hadn’t smiled genuinely since before her captivity and didn’t
expect to ever again.

“And you don’t want to die? Even after being
with Natalia for so long?” he inquired, prodding her skin while she
hissed with each painful touch.

“I think it’s more that I just don’t want her
to have them,” she amended quickly.

“She’ll make you suffer,” he warned, tearing
the leg of her tights at the knee to prevent the fabric from
sticking to the dried blood painting her shin.

“Believe me…Taran, was it?...I’ve been
suffering every day since I got here.”

“What did you say your name was?” he inquired
after a moment of mentally piecing together her face under the
thick layer of grime. He suspected she could have been beautiful at
one time, before Natalia’s malice had ruined her. He enjoyed her
attitude about her situation and her own martyrdom.

“Janie,” she informed him.

“Well,
Janie
,” he admitted, “your leg
is going to need to be re-broken if you ever want to walk again. I
can do it now if you want me to.”

Her eyes shot open with panic. “Is it going
to hurt?”

“Yes,” he answered without missing a beat,
positioning his hands where he would need to push the bone back
into place.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” she
whimpered, flailing her arms around for something to hold on
to.

“I saw worse as a Marine in Iraq for two
years and I have a basic medical training. Besides, I’ve done it a
few times,” he vowed, letting his eyes meet hers in the dim orange
light, willing her to trust him.

Biting her lip, she nodded reluctantly.

Her bloodcurdling scream echoed off the
walls, but Taran could expect no less as he broke her leg and
attempted to fit the bone back to where it should be, binding it
tightly with his belt and shoe so it would remain flat. He couldn’t
tell if Janie was still conscious, her eyes heavy-lidded but glazed
over, and the top half of her body was turned to the side. Her
abdomen heaved with useless thrusts from the otherworldly pain, but
there was obviously nothing in her stomach to expel. She didn’t
seem to be aware of his arms sliding around her slim body, wrapping
the suit jacket he’d stripped himself of around her shoulders while
he rocked her to sleep.

Chapter Eight

Paris, France; June 29
^th
, 2012

The alarm of someone’s cell phone sang
through the hotel suite, waking the sleeping inhabitants to their
third morning abroad. James was the first to lurch upright, hands
groping for the missing phone in the dark, when the thick curtains
suddenly opened, spilling bright light into the room. James, as
well as Scottie and Hayden, flinched away with startled yelps,
scowling up at Alex while she smiled cheekily in return. She held
up the screaming phone in her hand and switched the alarm off.

“Rise and shine, guys!” she sang, skipping
around Scottie’s body on the floor to hand James his phone.
“Natalia says she wants to see the Parisian Catacombs today. The
tour starts at nine so everybody
up
!”

James rubbed his eyes, flopping back against
the couch on his stomach. “Why are
you
awake?” he grunted as
Alex sat on his back.

Claire stumbled out of the kitchen,
disheveled hair pulled up into a ponytail and a Starbucks coffee
gripped tightly in her hands. “I had a n…nightmare. We went for a
w…walk to get coffee and talk about it.”

James pushed himself up, throwing Alex off
his back with a squeal. “The same one?” he demanded, staring up at
the bags lining her opaque eyes.

She nodded. “Of course.”

James opened his mouth to question her, but
silenced when Russell strode from the bathroom, drying his hair
with a towel. “Shower’s free,” he mumbled, throwing the towel at
Claire when she passed him.

She glared at his back, disgustedly pulling
the towel from her face with her thumb and forefinger, before he
disappeared into the room he shared with Natalia. She let herself
cool while she placed her coffee on the side table and stepped into
the bathroom. The sound of running water followed soon after her
departure.

Alex frowned deeply at the look on James’s
face and consequently punched him in the shoulder when he relaxed
into the couch beside her. “Ouch!” he yelled, waking Scottie as he
tried to fall back asleep.

“You’re hiding something from me!” she
accused under her breath when Scottie shot her a look.

James faked being wounded, leaning away from
her to avoid another smack. “I am
not
. Would you quit
hitting me!” he pleaded, holding her by the wrists.

“If there was something important happening,
you’d tell me, right?” she demanded, glaring up into his face.

“Of course I would, sweetheart,” he lied,
pressing his lips to her forehead. “Don’t worry about it.”

She smiled, despite her reservations, and
hugged him tightly. “Okay,” she grinned, placing a chaste kiss on
his lips. “Love you.”

“I love you, too,” he replied reflexively,
waiting until her chin was rested on his shoulder before he let his
guilt show. Natalia stepped out of her room, looking around at
those convened around the floor and spurred them into action. She
was ready to get the job done.

An hour later saw them sitting groggily in
two taxis on their way to the entrance of the Underground. As they
approached, Alex could see a line already formed and stretched down
the sidewalk. Two green buildings sat beside the sidewalk, an older
man in the window of one with a cashbox in his grasp. James and
Natalia wordlessly approached him while the others ambled, heads
hung and eyes heavy-lidded, to the back of the line.

“I need seven for the tour,” James asked,
pulling his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans.

While his attention was diverted, Natalia
shared a smile and inconspicuous wink with the man at the cashbox.
The old man cleared his throat. “Of course, young man, you and your
friends can jump in with the next group.”

James turned to pointedly stare at the line.
“But…what about…?”

He smiled. “I always like to help out some
friendly tourists.”

James, anxiously, scratched the back of his
neck. “T…Thank you, sir. How much will that be?”

The man waved him off. “Nothing. Just go
ahead in.”

James’s jaw dropped. “Sir! I can’t
possibly…”

“Please, I insist. Take it as a gift for your
very pretty friend,” he said, staring flirtatiously at Natalia, who
rolled her eyes.

“Thank you, very much,
monsieur
,” she
laughed, turning to return to the group.

James reluctantly shoved his wallet back into
his pocket. “Ya. Thank you, monsieur.”

“Do not mention it,” he chuckled, waving him
away as the next group of tourists approached the window.

James approached his friends at the back of
the line with a small smile.

“Hey, Jimmy, d’ya get the tickets?” Alex
asked, interrupting the conversation she’d been having with
Claire.

“Uhh, no, he told us to just go in,” he
replied, holding out his hand for her to take.

Claire smiled, looking over at the man as he
watched them with a similar expression on his face. “That was
n…nice of him.”

James led them toward the entrance, ignoring
the looks from the tourists who’d been waiting in the line for
hours. James’s group stood at the entrance with others who’d go
next, but they were too engrossed in their excited chatter to
really pay attention to the others. Only Claire surveyed the other
tourists, merely out of curiosity, but, when her gaze settled on
nothing miraculous, save for a man in sunglasses she
swore
she’d seen somewhere before, she turned her attention back to her
friends. Then, they were inside, following the tour guide through
the inner labyrinth of the catacombs.

Fortunately for one, no one in their small
party seemed aware of his eyes on them.

The halls of the Parisian underground were
lined with walls of neatly piled human remains, separated only by a
row of skulls. There were no windows and the room was stuffy with
the summer air trapping itself inside. Three spotlights lit up the
room from the ceiling above them, their wires bolted carefully to
the ceiling. The main room broke off into smaller, circular rooms
with walls of the same material, but each space was roped off with
yellow tape.

“The Parisian Catacombs is the resting place
of over six million people, as you can easily deduce by looking
around. You can see around the room that there are other pockets of
bones, but, unfortunately, they have been condemned until further
notice while we repair them—”

Claire tuned the tour guide woman out while
they walked, clinging to Alex’s free arm. She hated thinking about
death in every way shape and form and she hated this creepy place.
She was ashamed to admit it when she thought about her practically
fearless best friend, but Claire had the weakest stomach on the
planet and she was the jumpiest of anyone she’d ever encountered.
This scene might’ve been the kind of thing that Natalia and Alex
loved to see, but Claire couldn’t even sit through an entire horror
movie, let alone the real thing, played out right before her eyes.
She wanted to go back to the hotel.

“Claire!” Natalia gasped, breaking her from
her reverie when she tore her away from Alex. Alex and James spun
to ask what the problem was, but Natalia waved them off. “I need to
talk to Claire, we’ll catch up.”

Alex’s eyes bounced between them before she
shrugged. “Alright. Don’t take too long. God knows you’ll get lost
in here.”

Natalia watched them leave earshot. “I can’t
find Russell!” she hissed.

Claire jerked back from her grip. “What?
Where would h…he go?”

“I have
no
idea. I need you to help me
find him!” she pleaded.

The blonde girl nodded fervently. “Of course!
You t…take that side, I’ll take this s…side.” She ran from Natalia,
missing the smile that passed across her face.

“Sweet girl,” she shook her head, her accent
showing through. “Not too smart, though.”

“Russell,” Claire hissed, turning around the
corner, back the way they’d come, peering around the walls of human
remains, careful not to touch. Quietly, she sang, “Russell! Where
are you?”

“Claire?” his voice called back from the
other side of the dividers. “Come look at this, it’s
amazing
!”

Rolling her eyes, she followed the sound of
his voice, watching the tour group vanish in the tunnel far ahead
of her. “We have to c…catch up with the tour group or we’ll get
i…in trouble,” she hissed, leaning over the rope divider to search
the room. “You’re gonna g…get hurt in there. Or, worse, you’ll
b…break
something! Get out of there.”

The room was circular, unlike the halls, but
lined completely with bones in crisscrossing patterns beneath
hundreds of skulls and a sign, written in French. The ceiling
seemed to be supported by a beam of remains in the same pattern,
occupying a great deal of the center of the room. It truly was
amazing, she thought; if you were Michael Meyers. It was spooky,
she mused, until the rooms started getting mysteriously darker;
then it was terrifying.

She looked around, hearing screams from the
tour group up ahead when the bright spotlights illuminating the
halls started going out with loud shatters.

One. After. The. Other.

“Everyone, do not panic!” the tour guide
shrieked over the screams of terror. “We’re just experiencing some
technical difficulties. Everyone, please just hold onto someone
next to you and we will find the exit, just up ahead.”

“Claire!” Alex yelled.

“I’m over here,” she called back.

Claire didn’t scream when the last light went
out. She grasped the rope tightly in her hands, forcing her eyes to
adjust to the darkness, and stayed completely still. Another wail
echoed through the catacombs and, though she shook with terror,
Claire made no move to run, knowing she would never be able to
navigate the halls without a guide.

“Russ?” she whispered, her voice loud in the
silence. She was greeted with no answer. “Russell, are you
okay?”

She’d resolved to step over the divider and
find him when a sudden grip on her shirt sent her sprawling into
the room, scraping her face when it met the floor.

She shrieked.

A phantom hand grabbed her arm, dragging her
across the rough floor before it, gently, dropped her beside the
ancient wall. She frantically tried to pull herself to her feet,
finding a hard body obstructing her path when she made to run. The
ground swirled up to meet her again.