God of Destruction

by Alyssa Adamson

  James scowled, hearing his own words in Taran’s statement. “More important than the welfare of the planet? What could possibly be more important than that?!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he countered through clenched teeth. “Sending them in will serve both our motives.”

  Kierlan stepped away, wishing he’d never signed on to this mission. Worse than that, he wished he wouldn’t have to feel what he felt now for the first time in his life. He should have been happy with Taran’s intervention. He’d managed to do exactly what Kierlan was supposed to do. Exactly what he was finding himself unable to do:

  Deliver Claire to Natalia.

  Now that his job was done, he should be happy. He’d be getting paid soon. But, he didn’t want money. His chest ached, pulled tighter than ever before.

  He just wanted to rescue the naïve girl.

  He was broken out of his reverie by James’s objection.

  “Impossible! All you’ve done since you got here is serve Mainyu’s motive. There’s no telling what he’ll do now that he has them both! What were you thinking?” James couldn’t help but turn away, rubbing the crackling electricity from his flesh.

  “Alex—” Taran began, averting his gaze.

  The angel spun back in Taran’s direction, his fist pulled back to strike; his palms heated up, glowing blue. “Alex! That’s another thing! Not only did you sell out our last hope of exiling Angra Mainyu, you might have killed the love of my life in the process! You don’t understand the severity of the—”

  The shrill cry of a cell phone interrupted his monologue.

  The three men glanced quickly across each other’s faces, waiting for the owner to answer. When no one moved to do so, Taran cleared his throat, forcing himself to feel less intimidated by the fury aimed at him. “Answer it,” he squeaked, pulling at his, already-loose, shirt collar. “It’s probably Alex.”

  “How do you know that?” James growled, letting the phone in question screech in his pocket.

  “Answer it! Before she loses her chance!” Taran snarled.

  Needing no other incentive than that, James flipped open the cell phone from his back pocket, seeing an unfamiliar number flash across the screen.

  He took the call. “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?” he repeated, louder the second time. When he still received no answer but the static, he put his thumb over the button to hang up.

  “Citchumns,” a voice crackled between the hisses of bad reception.

  “What?” he asked. “Alex?”

  “Citchicumbs,” it whispered.

  “You’re breaking up,” James said. “Baby? Alex? Are you there?”

  After a long moment, her voice screamed through the static. “Catacombs!”

  The men looked to each other, already pulling themselves into the car. “We’re coming, baby,” James vowed, throwing himself into the backseat. “Stay on the line with me. Are you alright?”

  “Where’s Claire?” Kierlan interjected, throwing the car into drive.

  Alex didn’t answer.

  Instead, the harsh accent of a woman they were all familiar with met their ears like razorblades. “A phone?! I will kill you!”

  The line suddenly went dead.

  “No,” James gasped, calling it back several times with no success. “No. No! If she dies, I’ll fry you, Taran!”

  “She’s not dead,” Kierlan said. “Natalia wouldn’t take her if she didn’t need her for something.”

  “You know Natalia?” Taran inquired innocently.

  Kierlan twitched when he realized his mistake.

  Unfortunately for him, James realized it too. “How do you know Natalia, Kierlan?”

  He couldn’t come up with a lie fast enough. “I—?”

  James couldn’t help but give out a harsh chuckle. “I knew it,” he murmured.

  “No!” Kierlan interjected. “James—”

  “A private I? After Russell?” he mocked, a menacing smile splitting his face. “You’ve been working with them this entire time, haven’t you?”

  “No!” Kierlan insisted, keeping his face directed entirely on the road.

  “Shut up!” James yelled, his voice painfully loud against the ceiling. “You’re caught! Now tell me how much you’re getting paid to keep us from Claire and Alex!”

  “It’s,” Kierlan paused, swerving to avoid an oncoming car he’d drifted into the path of. “It’s not like that.”

  “What’s it like, then?” the angel snapped, gripping the seat.

  The car raced down the street to the soundtrack of blaring horns, and, though he couldn’t die when he was technically already dead, James urged the driver to go easy on the car, if only to remain unnoticed by the authorities. He didn’t know what would happen if they were brought into custody in a foreign country. He wasn’t eager to find out. “Slow down!”

  “You wanna find ‘em or not?” Kierlan challenged.

  Taran’s head hit the glass beside him…again. Glowering up at the larger man, he muttered, “What do you care?”

  “Alright, listen!” the driver roared. “I’m taking you to the catacombs because I’m going to help you save Claire and Alex. That’s the only reason! And if you have a problem with me, then save it ‘til this is over!”

  James’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t care if you believe me or not! I’m here to help and you can’t stop me.”

  “Why would you do that?” Taran demanded.

  Kierlan gulped. He didn’t know what to say; he could answer it to himself. Finally, after moments of contemplation and in voice that didn’t sound convincing, even to himself, he clarified, “This whole…thing…has just been blown out of proportion. I didn’t sign on to start the apocalypse, I was just supposed to steal from a museum,” Taran’s eye twitched, “and bring Claire to the catacombs. Besides, it’d be pretty hard to spend that money when the world’s come to an end.”

  James nodded, biting his tongue. “I…I guess that makes sense. After all this, though, I don’t think I can trust you.”

  “What other choice do you have?” Kierlan demanded incredulously. He jerked the steering wheel in the direction of the street they’d occupied this morning.

  James nodded. “You’re right.”

  Silence passed between them for the rest of the journey. As the entrance of the catacombs came into view, James broke the silence. “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “Do what?” Kierlan asked, pulling up to the curb a few blocks down when he noticed guards at the threshold to the underground.

  “Why didn’t you bring Claire to Natalia?”

  Kierlan shifted uncomfortably. “I tried, but Russell brought us back to the hotel. He wanted to deliver all of you at once.”

  “But…” James trailed off. Something still wasn’t adding up. “I left you alone with them for hours,”—internally, he mused, stupid, stupid, stupid—“and you didn’t even try—?”

  “No,” he barked. “I didn’t.”

  “But, you had the perfect chance—?”

  Kierlan threw a withering glance back at James, urging him to let the conversation end with this. “But I didn’t. I was supposed to. I was being paid a lot of money to. But I didn’t. I just…I couldn’t bring that girl to that monster. She was like a kid, and I couldn’t put her in danger like that. Even for money.”

  James smiled. “Glad to have you on board, let’s go.” The angel threw the door open, ready to take on the mortals guarding the catacombs.

  Taran hung behind, placing his hand on Kierlan’s shoulder to keep him firmly in place. When James was out of earshot, Taran’s dead face met Kierlan’s startled expression. “You put her in that prison, didn’t you?”

  “Who?” Kierlan asked, staring down at the hand on his shoulder.

  “The girl with the pictures. Janie.”

  Guilt washed over Kierlan in a way he’d never felt before, but he didn’t let it show on his face. Brea
thlessly, he muttered, “Yes.”

  If possible, Taran’s face fell further. He paused, mouth opening and closing as he contemplated his next words. Finally, he deadpanned, “She’s dying. Because of you.”

  Kierlan shook his head. “No, she’s dying because of Natalia. I haven’t touched her since I brought her into that place.”

  “To die.”

  “I didn’t have a choice!” Kierlan swore.

  “No choice? Unless it’s a cute blonde, right? Then you can do whatever the hell you want, right?” Taran spat venomously.

  Kierlan exhaled slowly, clenching and unclenching his fists. “She had pictures I needed. If she’d given them up, I wouldn’t have had to—!”

  “I don’t care why you did it!” Taran growled, pushing his door open and stepping out to begin their last adventure.

  Over his shoulder, he exclaimed, “If she dies, so do you!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  629 B.C.

  Deep in her mind, Ziba thought their first kiss would be enough. Once she knew what it felt like to be loved, she fully intended to denounce any of her deepest, selfish wants and desires. She would go back to the endless hours of prayer she was accustomed to. She would beg Kurshid for forgiveness. She would never stray again.

  Unfortunately, as time went on, she realized that it was virtually impossible for her to go on with her life as expected.

  Bomani had left for his army’s base camp a day’s journey outside the city just a few hours after their tryst in the temple, giving her one last kiss before he said his goodbyes. It had been a bittersweet affair, but Ziba tried her hardest to forget about him. It consoled her that even if he could stay, she couldn’t keep him. Sadly, the memory of his sweet words haunted her dreams when she slept and lingered in her mind when she woke. The feeling of his lips, even sweeter still, burned hers.

  For days she had walked around as a shell of her former self, going through the motions of praying in the temple, but she was feeling lost. The sight of her goddess’s sanctuary didn’t bring her the same joy and fulfillment as it once had, before Bomani stepped into the temple. She feared she would never feel the innocent contentment that had gotten her through the days ever again. If it was so, she didn’t know how life in the temple could ever satisfy her.

  Those two weeks without him had been the longest of her life.

  After those long days Bomani had returned to the temple in secret, hiding around a corner in the corridor she had seen him. On her way to her chambers that night, Ziba had been dragged into the niche with a hand clasped over her mouth, muffling her shrill scream. Once his face had come into focus against the faded light of the dying candles, she’d thrown all her reservations away and kissed him like she had wanted to since their last rendezvous.

  He’d done the same with abandon, kissing her senseless. They had stayed there for hours, sharing the occasional kiss between brief periods of talking about meeting more often.

  Six months went by with these visits brightening the lives of both the warrior and the priestess, despite their worry that they would be caught and shamed. When they thought about life alone, it did not matter the risk. Nothing mattered more than the nights he would find her again. After those six months, Ziba could easily claim Bomani was her newest worship, greater even than the Gods she had sworn years ago to hold above everything and everyone else.

  They had been living in sin for so long, and it only seemed to get better as the days went on.

  At least it was, until the Gods themselves decided to protest to their blasphemous love.

  It had been late in the night during the greatest heat wave in years that Ziba was woken from a deep sleep by a peel of thunder. Rain hit the ceiling in torrents for a long time after she opened her eyes to darkness, exhausted but unsure of why she had woken. Another crash of thunder reminded her and she jolted into a sitting position, wrapping her blanket around herself. It did not happen ordinarily that the sky produced such a violent storm. Ziba had never really gotten used to the noise and bright lightning.

  “Are you alright, my love?” the groggy voice of her lover asked from his place beside her on the bedroll.

  Ziba wiped the sleep from her eyes with the back of her hand, pulling her knees to her chest as she tried to tone out the noise outside. “I am fine, Bomani. I cannot sleep with that noise outside.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  She looked down at Bomani’s face as he held it up with his hand, supported by his elbow. His brown eyes melted when they met her blue ones, all the love he felt for her swimming in their murky depths. Feeling safer than she had when she woke, Ziba laid back down beside Bomani with a content smile on her face. “Not with you here beside me, My Lord. I could never feel afraid with you beside me.”

  One massive arm wrapped itself around her waist, pulling her against his bare form. “I should hope not, my love.”

  Ziba pushed her face into the hollow of his neck, inhaling his scent as she fell slowly back into a deep sleep.

  The unmistakable knock against the temple doors echoed through the building, sending Ziba, as well as most of the others asleep in their chambers, sprawling off their bedrolls.

  “What is going—” Bomani began, sitting up to roll Ziba back onto the roll, but she was already standing, reaching for another robe to pull over her nightdress, knowing it would be inappropriate to run to help the way she was, wearing only one thin, white robe.

  “Do not move,” Ziba ordered, placing a light kiss against Bomani’s lips. “Do not make a sound. I will be back.”

  “Ziba—”

  “Shh!” she hissed as she opened the door, throwing a final glance his way.

  He smiled and pulled the blanket over his head through the dark, hidden again, like he had been when she found him there earlier that evening. She hated to leave him, especially after such an extraordinary night, but she desperately needed to know who was knocking at this hour. As she threw herself out the door she crashed into her sister as Shireen sprinted down the hall. She pulled the other robe on as they walked, padding after Shireen.

  “Ziba,” her sister greeted in disapproval. “Go back to bed.”

  Her blonde counterpart narrowed her eyes. “No. I have just as much of a right to see who has come than anyone else here, High Priestess. What if the poor soul needs help?”

  “What if they do?” Shireen challenged, arms outstretched toward the door.

  As she pulled it open, the weight of a body leaned against the doors gave way and a man fell before their feet, bleeding from cuts across nearly every inch of his body, bruised, and broken.

  “Goddess!” Ziba cried, falling to her knees beside him. Her hands prodded lightly across his skin, looking for some kind of clue as to what could have injured him in such a way, but she was afraid to touch him. “Shireen, surely you do not expect that you will be able to attend to him on your own! Look at him!”

  A moan from their guest drew the eyes of all those convened in the room to his face. Ziba’s attention, however, became suddenly ensnared by his hand as he lifted it off the floor, with great difficulty. Delicately, his palm touched the back of her hand where it rested on his chest, but the shock that coursed through her veins when their flesh met burned her.

  Instinctively, she withdrew her hand as fast as she could, but his was faster, reaching out to grab her forearm and hold her in place. Ziba gasped as she trailed her eyes up his body, appraising his exposed skin, stretched taut over his wiry muscles, his numerous open wounds, gaping like screaming mouths, to his pointed chin. As she glanced over his pinched lips and sharp nose, she found his open eyes, glowing red like a demon’s.

  Terror caught the young priestess in its fierce gaze, willing her to stay completely still while it searched her soul.

  “Hosrael!” Shireen called, spinning around to turn her frosty gaze on the fatigued priests standing in a line behind her.

  One priest straightened up to face her. “Yes, High Priestess?”


  A small, infinitesimally small, smile turned up Shireen’s lips as she gestured to the man on the floor, practically cradled in her sister’s arms. “Please, take your priests and find something to clean this man’s wounds. The rest of you, help him to a room. He will catch his death laying out here in the rain.”

  “Yes, High Priestess.”

  Two of the priest’s stooped down to lift the man into their arms; still, he didn’t relinquish his hold on Ziba. She followed closely beside the priests as they carried him toward the corridor of bedchambers, but she tried fruitlessly to free herself the entire way. Even as they placed him on an empty bedroll at the end of the hall he held her hand captive. His grip was merciless and, as the moments went on, she began to lose feeling in her fingers.

  “My Lord,” Shireen said, breaking his eye contact with Ziba as she knelt between them.

  Taking advantage of his distraction, Ziba viciously tore her hand away from him and relished in the sudden relief flowing through her hand. She deeply regretted going to the door now. Bomani was waiting for her in her bedchamber and she had a horrible foreboding that she would not be seeing him again before he slipped out of the temple at daybreak.

  “What is your name?” the High Priestess finished, pulling his hand into both of hers.

  Ziba could feel him looking in her direction as he answered, in a clipped voice, thick with an oncoming groan, “Mainyu.”

  “What has happened to put you in such a state, Mainyu?” she continued as the priests strode into the room with a rag, a pail of water, and a stack of robes. “Thank you,” she said as she turned to them. “Return to bed, now, the Lady Ziba and I can take it from here.”

  “Yes, High Priestess,” they chorused, bowing deeply before they backed out of the room, leaving behind a quiet room.

  Ziba submerged the rag in the water as Shireen continued to stroke the hand of their visitor. She placed it gingerly to the gash cutting across his chest. He hissed and his back arched against the sting, but Ziba gave comforting hums in the hope that he would calm down. “Mainyu—?” Shireen trailed off.