God of Destruction (11 page)

“
Do you realize what you have done?!” he
snarled, shoving through the line assembled around Shireen.

“
I have saved my sister from you!” she
retorted, flipping through the pages in her arms until she found
the page labeled with a bold, swirling Banishment. Mainyu’s hand
struck her throat, lifting her from the ground as easily as if she
weighed nothing at all. In her shock, Shireen dropped the book, but
her fingers remained pinched on the corner of the page she’d been
holding, tearing it noisily from the rest with a ghostly
wail.

She choked on the air trying to force itself
into her lungs. Had the situation not been so dire, Mainyu would
have laughed. As it was, however, he only smiled viciously. “You
have taken away from me the only creature I have ever loved…”

“
You cannot love,” Shireen gasped.

The grip around her throat tightened and
Shireen grimaced, letting the page in her hand fall weightlessly to
the floor below. “Hosrael,” she coughed, gesturing vaguely toward
the fallen sheet as she kicked uselessly at Mainyu’s torso. His
hand on her flesh was beginning to burn as it dissolved like
everything else he touched. Unlike everything else, however, blood
began to seep through the space between his fingers, down his arm,
and to the floor. Helplessly, the noises coming from Shireen’s
throat turned to gurgles as she drowned.

The man behind her dropped to the floor to
retrieve the paper and fell back into step beside the other
priests. “Angra Mainyu, you have no power here, no power over us,
and no power over her. You have no power here,” he read.

As the other priests picked up the chanting,
Shireen fell to the floor. Mainyu’s eyes fell on his hand as it
became translucent. He swiped at Hosrael, in vain, causing the
young man to jump and drop the paper, though he continued to lead
them in the chant. Shireen clawed at her throat. Her efforts were
futile as the burning didn’t subside and neither did the
bleeding.

“
I will kill you all!” Mainyu roared as he
realized that he couldn’t physically threaten them. The temple
shook on its foundation, sending bits of the ceiling falling around
them.

With the last bit of strength left in her
body, Shireen crawled to the paper lying just out of reach. A beam
from the ceiling fell to the ground with a hollow roar, just across
the backs of Shireen’s knees, pinning her to the floor.

Blood spewed from the once-glorious High
Priestess’s mouth as she shrieked in pain, fisting the broken page
from the book in her hand. The ceiling came down harder and faster
as Mainyu screamed, “I will make you suffer for this, Shireen!”

Filled with a newfound determination, she
unfolded the paper and coughed out the obstruction in her throat.
Her eyes were growing dim, but she was just able to make out the
words on the page before she murmured, over the rhythmic chanting
of the priests, “Mainyu, I banish you from this world.”

With another snarl, Mainyu vanished into
thin air as the temple collapsed around the priests standing in the
temple.

***

Mainyu wasn’t about to let Ziba slip through
his fingers again, he swore as the mortal beside him led him toward
the exit, where he’d seen the girl in question escape with Shireen.
This time, though, he knew he wouldn’t fail. He was the one with
all the power now, which had been proven by the unconsciousness of
the High Priestess when he came into being. He wouldn’t allow the
witch to corrupt his plans, no matter what force had brought her
into this world with Ziba.

“Mortal!” he roared, halting her as they
stepped into the light.

Natalia stopped, knowing already that she and
this meathead weren’t going to get along well. She cooperated,
knowing nothing of the damage he was capable of and not wanting to
find out. “Yes, sir?” she asked. Her head had whipped fully to the
side before she felt the pain against her cheek. Her body crumpled
to the floor.

“Damn it!” she yelled, looking around for
what could have hit her.

Mainyu retracted the hand he’d struck her
with. “You,
vermin
, will address me as
My Lord
.
Understood?”

Natalia stared up at him for a long time,
wishing she could show him who the
vermin
was here. She held
her tongue, cautiously pulling herself to her feet. “Yes, My Lord,”
she spat through clenched teeth.

“Good. Now, bring me to her,
mortal
, I
wish to see my love,” he ordered, starting back into the light.

“My Lord!” she called, catching his arm and
pulling him back in. Another strike to her face resounded through
the tunnel.

“You are not permitted to
touch
,” he
hissed as Natalia picked herself up off the floor. Her lip burned,
swelling around where he’d hit her. She pressed her fingertips to
her face, finding blood on her lower lip. She saw red, jumping up
to throttle the man before her.

His hand reached, grabbing her neck with a
crushing strength.

She kicked to no avail, trying to find the
ground with her feet.

“I will not say it again, human, take me to
her.”

Natalia fell to the floor in a heap. “But,”
she coughed, “
My Lord
, you are still weak. We must perform
the sacrifice before you walk out in the open.”

Mainyu chuckled to himself. “Leave the witch
to me. I know exactly how to dispose of her.”

Helplessly, Natalia obliged, and began
directing him to where she knew the group would have taken Claire.
Mainyu smiled to himself, thinking of all the things he would do
once he had his power back. Before anything else, he resolved, he
would tear Shireen apart with his bare hands.

Oh, yes, he’d underestimated Shireen before.
It wasn’t something he planned on doing again.

Chapter Ten

Location Unknown; June 29
^th
, 2012

“Favorite color?”

“Purple.”

“Favorite food?”

“KFC.”

“Oh, me too. Favorite movie?”

“I have a lot.”

“Like what?”

“Umm…anything Jane Austen, and anything with
zombies in it.”

“I can see the connection.”

Janie laughed at his sarcasm, feeling her
entire being lift with her smile. Of course, rotting away in a
prison cell wasn’t something to smile about, but Taran’s company
had made this nightmare livable for the first time in six
months.

During his three day stay in the cellar, she
hadn’t found out anything of great importance, like why he was
there, but he’d entertained her with trivial anecdotes about his
life for hours. She knew that his favorite color was green, he was
allergic to bee stings, and he’d broken his left elbow three times
in his life. He loved the Die Hard movies, but West Side Story was
his guilty pleasure.

“What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”
he inquired.

“Umm,” she thought it over quickly. “Oh! When
I was seventeen, I got a tattoo and didn’t tell my parents.”

“Really?” he chuckled. “A tattoo?”

“Ya, on my hip. Why? Think I couldn’t handle
it?”

“No! I just…I wouldn’t peg you for the type.
Besides, you’ve proven well enough that you can tolerate pain since
you’ve been
here
for so long.”

Janie’s smile abruptly fell. When she was
talking to Taran, it was so easy to forget where they were and what
she was waiting for: another visit from Natalia. Sometimes, though,
he would say something that forced her to remember that she hadn’t
left hell. She’d only postponed it for a while.

“I don’t have a high pain tolerance,” she
mumbled. “I cried the whole time.”

Taran snorted. “You’re hopeless.”

“Well, what about you, ya jerk?” she giggled.
“What’s the craziest thing
you’ve
ever done?”

He didn’t get the chance to answer, though,
because the sound of metal on metal screeched through the room.
Light filtered in as the door opened.

Janie’s arms instinctively wrapped around her
companion’s waist, wishing it could make the difference between
staying and leaving. Janie’s eyes squeezed shut, dreading the image
in her head of Natalia’s face as she dragged her back to the
tub.

“The warden’s here for Ms. Campbell,” an
unfamiliar voice sneered as he stomped into the room.

A hand grabbed the front of Janie’s shirt,
easily separating her from Taran when it hauled her to her feet.
Screaming in protest, she collapsed to the hard ground when her
legs couldn’t support her. Her knees crashed to the cold floor
first, sending pain pulsing through her broken shin. Moisture
welled up in her eyes as she screamed, reaching for her leg as the
bindings Taran created came undone. While she was curled up on the
ground, a warm body gently fell over her, hiding her from the man
who’d put her there.

“Leave!” Taran snarled above her, the owner
of the body covering her. “She’s not—”

A hard
oomph
interrupted Taran.

Janie assumed it was him since he instantly
fell away from her, hit by a force she could only imagine as the
intruder’s foot. At the man’s mercy once again, Janie tried to push
herself away with her good leg, succeeding only in moving an inch
before she was hauled back up and thrown over his shoulder.

“You’ll die in your own time, pretty boy.
But, you know what they say!
Ladies first
.”

Taran scrambled to his feet, still catching
his breath from the steel-toed boot he’d taken to his ribs. He
threw himself at the door as it closed with a
bang
.

“
No
!” he screamed, slamming his fists
against the cold steel, to no avail. He didn’t want to think about
what life would feel like, trapped in there alone. He didn’t want
to think about what they were doing to his new friend when he
couldn’t help her. He didn’t want to think about what he was going
to do if she didn’t come back. He sunk, dejectedly, back to the
floor.

Janie swung against her captors’ back with
each step he took, robbing her of breath. She tried to think of
anything,
anything
, but what lay ahead of her in that room,
but her only thought was of the tub. The familiar door opened
silently and light flooded the room before it slammed shut behind
them. It was the first time in months she’d seen such a bright
concentration of light and her eyes screamed for a reprieve.
Janie’s head twisted to find her captor’s face, but she only caught
a glimpse of short, black hair before she was thrown into a wooden
chair. The unstable seat swayed back on its legs before, finally,
settling haphazardly on all four.

She met the face of a giant man with shaved
hair and beady, golden eyes while he duct taped her wrists to the
arms of the chair. He gave her an unsettling smile and she averted
her eyes, finding the concrete trough of water that haunted her
dreams, now empty, under the harsh light of a naked bulb.

Her mind screamed her fears like a mantra
don’t put me back in the tub, don’t put me back in the tub,
don’t…
.

Her reverie was broken by his cruel laugh as
he followed her gaze.

“We won’t be using the tub if you behave,” he
promised, patting her on the head as he strode toward the trough.
He stepped over a hose lying on the floor, wrapped hastily around
the concrete steps leading up to the tub. The faucet it attached to
was set into the wall behind her chair, preventing her from seeing
it. She could hear it, though, when he allowed the water to rush
through the rubber tube. “My friend couldn’t be here today for
this, but she sends her regrets, Ms. Campbell.”

Janie twitched away when water spurted from
the hose’s end and pooled on the floor, inching toward her holey
sneakers.

“She also told me that you have so far
remained disagreeable to her questions. But I know that we won’t be
having the same problems, will we?” he demanded.

Janie remained silent.

He leaned down to her level, close enough
that she could feel his breath fan across her face. His expression
twisted with distaste, his body jerking away to match it. “Ugh,” he
groaned. “You
stink
.”

Despite where she was and who she was in the
presence of, Janie couldn’t help but feel self-conscious. Taran had
sat beside her, sometimes keeping his arm slung over her shoulder
while they told stories to pass the time, for three days. He’d
never once complained about the smell. Now that this guy had said
it, she wondered why Taran had kept such a close eye on her since
his arrival.

“You’re
filthy
,” he continued, bending
to pick up the hose on the floor. Closing his thumb over most of
its end, he pointed the tube at her, letting water spray in every
direction.

The arctic water melted the dirt from her
face, dripping from her chin in dark droplets. She turned her head
away from the spray, feeling the water drown her as she sat there,
and coughed when he moved the spew down the rest of her body. He
stepped closer her, clutching her chin in his free hand so she was
forced to make eye contact while he poured the hose directly into
her face. Janie spluttered, jerking her neck every which way to
escape him. After a long moment, he released her, tossing the hose
in the trough.

“A little better,” Vilmore noted, closing the
distance between them once again.