God of Destruction

BY

Chapter One

Queens, New York; December
10
^th
, 2011

Kierlan Cole had been a simple thief. It was
a career he’d perfected over the last ten years, following the sole
statute that he was his own boss and always would be. And when he’d
started out as a teenager, he never would’ve thought anything would
get him to give up that creed, given his short temper and inability
to follow orders. However, as it turned out in the past few days,
his loyalties were easily swayed by the very thing that got him
into his trade in the first place.

Money.

He’d barely given the letter requesting his
presence a second glance once he’d seen the payment they were
willing to give him, and all the zeroes associated with it. The
paper his potential employer’s proposal was printed on lacked any
and all descriptions of the job, as well as a return address, but
it contained detailed directions to a meeting place ten minutes
away from his apartment in Queens.

He’d been forced to walk. The instructions
had been explicit in the sender’s demand that he was not to give
anyone
the address; unfortunately, that included his own
teammates and cab drivers, so, without a car of his own, it was his
only option.

He glided down the sparsely occupied sidewalk
like a shadow, hood pulled over his head and face to ward off the
biting cold. The first snowfall of the season blew around him.
Hands shoved in his pockets, one curled tightly around the letter
in his pocket, he walked, face down, toward the destination written
on his letter. He couldn’t help but let confusion show on his face
when the only building coming into view was casting a hot pink glow
on the shops across the street. He wondered increasingly who he was
going to meet when he read the neon sign over the front door, his
eyes zoning in on two words specifically:
Gentleman’s
Club
.

“Wha—?” he mumbled to himself, staring up at
the sign he’d seen many times before. For something so secretive,
he mused, this guy had certainly picked an ostentatious place to
meet. Running his hand over the stubble on his head, he sighed,
pulling the letter from his jeans pocket and reading the address
for the millionth time that day. It was the place. Wordlessly, he
approached the front door, eyes guarded and flickering around the
room for anything threatening. In his line of work, he was
accustomed to things going bad quickly.

Once he was inside, nothing struck him as out
of the ordinary in the dimly lit room except for the lack of
customers around him. The establishment was obviously open to the
public, but, aside from the hostess before him and the many
scantily-clad girls around the room, there weren’t any patrons
watching the poles above them. Hugging himself against the cold he
suddenly felt when one of the girls removed his coat, he glanced,
startled, up at the hostess. The tall woman didn’t look up from the
MadLibs book in her hand.

“Excuse me?” Kierlan asked, approaching the
podium.

“Yes, Mr. Cole,” she murmured, eyes still
cast downward. She pointed her heavily-chewed pen in the direction
of a booth in the corner. “Vilmore’s expecting you.”

“Vilmore?” Kierlan asked. “Wait. How do you
know my name?”

She chuckled, looking up so her heavily
made-up eyes were boring into him. “Like I said, Mr. Cole, we’ve
been expecting you.”

Kierlan nodded, starting toward the booth
she’d directed him to. Before he’d gone three steps, he froze.
“Uh,” he grunted, “there’s no one there.”

She exhaled loudly in irritation. Snapping
the book in her hand closed, she scowled up at him. “Just take a
seat, Mr. Cole. Vilmore will meet you in his own time.”

Biting his tongue so he wouldn’t say anything
he’d regret, he nodded.

“Follow me, honey, I’ll get you something to
drink,” a lilting voice murmured from behind him as a feather light
touch trailed over his shoulder. When he turned, his eyes
immediately found the enticing stare of a blonde waitress. She
pulled him across the room by the thin material of his t-shirt,
lightly shoving him into the booth. The girl leaned suggestively
over his table, supporting herself with one hand so he could have a
better view of the flesh spilling from her tiny shirt, an unused
notepad in the other. Like every other waitress standing around the
room, she was clad in tight, black jeans and a matching, sleeveless
shirt, the hem of which was ripped at the navel. “What can I get
for
you
, baby?” she inquired, smile blinding.

Kierlan had to shake his head to concentrate,
tearing his eyes begrudgingly from her breasts. “Uh, ya. I’ll—”

“He’ll have my usual,” a voice from the
shadows interjected.

Kierlan jumped, searching for the man who’d
spoken. He was unsuccessful until the huge figure separated from
the darkness, gold-flecked eyes appearing before anything else. The
waitress laughed at his discomfort, but nodded and turned on her
heel toward the bar. Left alone with the large stranger, Kierlan
stood, offering his hand to the mocha-skinned giant. “Hello,
Vilmore, is it? I’m—”

“Sit down, Mr. Cole,” Vilmore curtly said,
his thick arms remaining at his sides. “We have a lot to talk
about.”

Kierlan sank back into the booth, knowing
immediately that he wasn’t going to like this meeting, despite the
strippers staring only at him. He looked away He waited for Vilmore
to take a seat across from him before he finally asked, in a heated
whisper, “So
you’re
the one who sent the letter?”

The stranger chuckled dryly. “No, Mr. Cole.
I’m not. I am merely speaking on behalf of my employer.”

Eyes flickering about the room, Kierlan
asked, “Is he here? Your employer?”

“No,” Vilmore countered. “He doesn’t go out
much. That’s why I’m here to talk about the proposal he made to you
in his stead.”

“Can I have his name, at least?” he
pleaded.

Vilmore slowly shook his head. “That’s
impossible, Mr. Cole. I don’t know his name. No one does.”

“But…” he trailed off. “What’d you call
him?”

Vilmore shrugged. “Sir? Don’t worry about it.
It’ll come naturally if he ever calls you. ”

“Calls?” he repeated. “How should I give him
my number?”

“He already has it, Mr. Cole,” Vilmore
explained, raising his hand when Kierlan went to question him.
“Don’t ask. My employer has a lot of connections, so it’s not
difficult for him to find things out about you, like your phone
number, and how good you are at what it is you do.” He folded his
hands on the table, leaning back in the chair. “They also make it
very easy for him to know if you do something he doesn’t like. And,
just a warning, no one cheats him. Not even a contract thief, like
yourself.”

Kierlan didn’t let Vilmore intimidate him,
his intentions nothing if not pure.
Well
, he amended
inwardly,
toward the employer, anyway
.

“Given what that means if you try anything,
you still in?” Vilmore inquired.

Kierlan mimicked the other man’s cool
posture, though he tingled with nerves under the skin. “If he was
serious about that price on the letter, I don’t think there’s
anything you could say that would scare me away.”

Vilmore laughed. “Good to know. Now, if I
tell you the details of the job, telling anyone outside your team
is grounds for…termination.”

Kierlan couldn’t help but shiver. “I
understand.”

“Good,” Vilmore replied with a smile. “My
boss needs a thief, somebody good, somebody better than anybody
else in the business for this job. Somebody who
won’t get
caught
.”

The thief in question grinned smugly. “I’m
your man. Never been caught once, what’s the job?”

“It’s not something you’re used to, I’m sure.
It’s something he needs from the British Museum, one of the
artifacts.”

“I’ve done plenty of grabs on expensive
things,” Kierlan said with a small snort. “How much is it
worth?”

“Priceless, but it’s not his intention to
sell it,” Vilmore vowed cheekily.

“What else would you do with it?”

Vilmore’s strange eyes flickered nervously
around the room. “My employer is…for lack of a better word…a
suspicious man. I can’t really explain it any better than that.
Just know: it’s not something you’ll need to worry about. We have
someone else taking care of it.”

“I don’t understand,” Kierlan said.

Vilmore sighed. “I don’t expect you to.
Your job
is to infiltrate the British Museum, however you
feel is best. There should be a place in there devoted to Persia.
In that wing, you’ll find a heavily guarded piece of parchment
paper. That’s what we need.”

Eyebrow quirked, Kierlan deadpanned, “A piece
of paper? You’re paying me
obscene
amounts of money for some
paper?”

“Obviously it isn’t just
any
piece of
paper. I told you it was priceless, remember?”

Kierlan nodded. “So what’s it worth to you?
If you’re not gonna sell it, it really doesn’t matter how much
it’s—”

Vilmore slammed his hands down on the table.
“Stop asking questions. Everything from here on in is need-to-know
for you. Your job is to go to the museum and steal the page from
the Book of Eternity. That’s it. Then you get paid and you go home.
Get it?”

“Ya, ya!” Kierlan nodded fervently. “I get
it. But…I do have another question.”

“What?”

“You…” he gasped when a frothy drink was
placed before him. He didn’t look up, picturing the pretty blonde
in the back of his mind. “Thanks. You mentioned that there’s
someone taking care of the job after me. Why is that person taking
over? I have plenty of connections for artifacts, I’m sure I can
get you guys what you’re looking for.”

“Oh, Kierlan,” a cool, female voice
annunciated carefully in heavily accented English. “You do not
understand what we are doing, here.”

Kierlan’s head snapped up, finding another
woman in the blonde waitress’s stead. She was fully clothed, but
she would have fit in easily with the girls on stage, given her
tight, black camisole, leather pants, and impractically high-heeled
boots. She didn’t sit, formally outstretching her hand for him to
take. He stared for a moment before reluctantly shaking her
hand.

“Kierlan,” Vilmore said, “This is our other
contracted employee. She’ll be helping you with the heist and
taking care of any…unforeseen circumstances. Ms. Petrov, this is
Kierlan Cole: thief. Mr. Cole this—”

“Natalia Petrov,” she murmured.
“Assassin.”

Kierlan stared up at the woman, who couldn’t
be any older than twenty, and immediately sensed that she could,
and would, kick his ass if it pleased her. He said nothing,
wondering what it was one said in a situation like this. Despite
his best efforts at thinking, and common sense, the only words
coming to mind were:
nice tits.

“Yes,” Vilmore said. “We recently employed
Natalia Petrov on a long term basis. She’ll be leading your
operation in the museum.”

Kierlan stiffened, fighting the urge to jump
to his feet. “What?!”

“Relax, Mr. Cole,” Vilmore ordered, posture
as relaxed as when they’d begun.

“I thought
I
was leading the job! I
thought that was the point!” Kierlan continued, slowly climbing to
his feet. “I’m the
best
—!”

“Oh, sit down you silly man,” Natalia
taunted, shoving him back on the bench.

Kierlan scowled up at them, face rapidly
turning red with his growing ire. He winced at a forceful squeeze
to his shoulder, sinking back into his seat.

She smiled slightly, silent irritation oozing
from her in waves. “I am not here to ‘
steal thunder
,’ Mr.
Cole. This is an important job. I am merely here to make sure it
goes smoothly.”

“If I’m the one doing it, it
will go
smoothly
,” he snapped.

“Enough!” Vilmore growled. “Frankly, Mr.
Cole, you don’t
get
a say in how this will happen. So, if
you wanna get paid, you do the job they way we tell you, and you do
it well. Do you understand?”

Kierlan’s face twitched, baring his teeth. He
sighed loudly, looking away from both of them. “Fine,” he spat.

Vilmore didn’t smile. “Good. We’ll arrange
for the two of you to leave the country within the week. Mr. Cole,
we’ll be in touch.”