God of Destruction Read Online Free Page A

despised the basement,
but he’d never been, and never would be, one to follow orders any
less than perfectly.
    The smooth feel of the ring of keys in his
left hand was as familiar to him as the flashlight in his right. He
made to unlock the door but, as he turned the handle, his ears
caught a light sound. From across the room, he heard the small
clink of something small, a binder clip perhaps, or a pen,
skittering across the granite floor. Back going rigid, Harris
froze, flashlight poised over the basement door’s keyhole. He
didn’t dare to breathe as he spun to face the noise.
    There was nothing against the wall but a
podium devoted to paintings of the Trojan War. Even as he swung the
flashlight back and forth across the display, nothing appeared to
account for what he’d heard. And so, as anyone in such a situation
would, he passed it off as a fluke and went back to work. Hands
shaking, Harris slipped through the open doorway as quickly as he
could and bounded down the metal staircase toward the concrete
floor below.
    Behind him, veiled by the dark, a much
smaller figure, clad entirely in black, slid purposefully through
the doorway, keeping his arms crossed over his chest so the door
slid easily back into place. Black leather gloves shoved the broken
clip he’d dropped on his way into the building back into his
pocket.
    The generator was in the furthermost corner
of the room where the wires connecting it to the building’s main
box were bolted to the wall. Wiping the accumulating drops of sweat
from his forehead with the back of his hand, Harris passed the
boiler to find the generator, gasping with the sudden change in
temperature. His loud, clumsy footsteps reverberated through the
cave-like enclosure like a sad metronome, or a quickening reminder
of his impending demise. The fire raging in the boiler cast a red
glow over the room, but that was its only source of light. Harris’s
black shadow stretched out from toe to ceiling, covering every inch
of the floor before him in a shroud of darkness.
    The boiler growled with a flicker of the
vengeful flames within, spitting out a small surge of glowing
embers onto the concrete floor. As Harris approached the generator,
everything seemed normal, the large black square, undisturbed. The
building’s central power box screwed into the wall seemed untouched
as well. The thick black cords connecting the box to the generator
were hidden mostly by the shadow of the machine, but one cord was
pushed unceremoniously away from the metal strip bolting it to the
wall. Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Harris knelt to its height
and trained his flashlight onto the offending wire.
    It was cut through.
    “What the hell?” he muttered. He rolled the
wire between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully before a
movement on the floor caught his attention. His large figure had
cast a much larger shadow onto the floor, but while he was kneeling
to investigate the generator, the light from the fire was able to
illuminate the room much further. His shadow separated, without
cause from him, into another being, moving slowly and silently
around the room. The unmistakable sound of an exhale coiled
Harris’s muscles to spring. He adjusted his grip on the flashlight
as he rose slowly to his feet, skin prickling with the promise of
looming danger.
    Giving no warning, the guard spun around,
flashlight outstretched so it would give a satisfying crack against
the intruder’s head upon impact.
    That satisfaction never came, for when
Harris’s eyes eventually adjusted to the quick movements, he
realized that the head of the flashlight had fit itself into the
gloved palm of the phantom’s hand instead of his masked temple. His
brain didn’t get the message fast enough to respond as his opponent
followed this retaliation with a blow to the neck. The tips of his
fingers shot out like a snake, connecting harshly with Harris’s
windpipe, doubling him over. Ignoring the hoarse gurgle of protest
directed