Atlantis Betrayed

Chapter 20

Fiona bumped her head on the roof of the car as she shimmied out of her gown.

“I must be blessed beyond all men,” Christophe said. “This is twice so far this evening I’m getting you naked, and the night’s not even half over.”

“A gentleman would turn his head,” she said, pulling her shirt over her head.

He started laughing. “You’ve got the wrong guy, Princess. I don’t plan to ever miss a chance to see you without your clothes on.”

She called the shadows and, bending light and dark to her will, disappeared from view.

“That’s so unfair,” he growled.

“Don’t mess with a ninja.”

“You know, you could have done that in the museum if anybody walked in on us.”

“And wouldn’t you have looked foolish standing there alone with your bits hanging out?”

He grumbled something in that melodic language. She wanted to ask, but was afraid he’d say it was, indeed, Atlantean and they’d be back to that. She pulled on her underwear and jeans, tricky but not impossible in the backseat of the moving automobile, and finally dressed, she released the shadows and lowered the privacy glass and pushed her dress through to the front passenger seat. It landed in a heap with the bodice sitting upright.

“Brilliant,” Sean said. “It looks like I was driving along, and my date melted right out of her dress.”

“Better work on your conversational skills, friend,” Christophe advised. “You probably bored her to death.”

Sean glared at Christophe then met Fiona’s gaze in the mirror. “So, do you really like this guy? Do I have to be nice to him?”

“Play nice, boys. Please. Sean, do you have my bag?”

He handed the leather tote back to her, and she pulled out a handful of chunky costume jewelry, her makeup kit, and a short black wig. She quickly donned the bracelets, rings, and necklaces, and then examined herself in the rearview mirror, considering. She added a pair of giant hoop earrings she’d never normally be caught dead wearing. Then she brushed on a thick layer of dark makeup. Smoky eyes, dark red lipstick, and bronzer. The final touch was the wig. She fit it around her head, pinning her hair underneath it. When she was satisfied that not a single strand of blond showed, she leaned back in her seat and turned to Christophe.

“What do you think? Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, right?”

“Who?”

“No movie theaters where you come from?”

“Sadly, no, but the prince’s brother Ven has TVs and DVD players in all of his safe houses, so we’ve watched a lot of films.”

“Of course. The prince’s brother. Anyway, watch that one. American classic.”

“I like the look. It’s kind of hot.”

She narrowed her eyes, and he raised his hands.

“Not as hot as you usually look,” he said, backtracking.

“Way to go, mate,” Sean said. “Smooth. Really smooth.”

“Yeah. It’s a gift,” Christophe muttered.

“This is not a nice part of town,” Sean said, turning down a road that was no bigger than an alley. “Are you sure about this, Lady Fiona?”

“Yes, I’m sure. We’re going to The Melting Moon, and we need—”

Sean’s yelp cut her off. “What the hell is that?”

He swerved the car and then slammed on the brakes.

A black vehicle—big, some kind of SUV—seemed to fill the windshield as it hurtled toward them at a very high rate of speed. Fiona cried out a warning or prayer or call for help; she wasn’t sure which.

Suddenly, the bright glow of blue-green energy filled the car. Christophe grabbed her and yanked her down to the seat, covering her with his body. But the expected crash never came; instead the loud screech of brakes sounded in front of the car and, seconds later, on each side of the car, too.

“We’ve got trouble,” Christophe said, unnecessarily. “Stay in the car.”

He kissed the top of her head, threw the door open, and leapt out of the car. She heard a loud hissing noise and immediately flashed back to a visceral, terrifying childhood memory, and her blood turned to ice in her veins.

Vampires.

Daddy.

“No. Not again. Sean, stay in the car and get down on the floor.” Calling to the shadows, she slipped out of the car behind Christophe, hiding from sight in the darkness and scanning the area. The dark forms advancing on them from the vehicle on this side of the car weren’t alone. More shadowy shapes climbed out of the vehicles in front and on the other side, and as she watched, a fourth pulled up behind them. They were barricaded in like sheep in a pen.

She had no intention of being a sheep.

Sean jumped out of the driver’s seat, a very serious-looking gun in his right hand and a wooden stake in the left. Hopkins must have been training him to do more than drive her around. She wanted to throw herself in front of him and protect him, as she had when she first met him, but she realized she’d do more harm than good. She was definitely firing that boy later, for his own good. For now, she flanked Christophe and ignored his stream of Atlantean cursing.

“Fiona, I can smell you,” he said softly. “If I can smell you, don’t you think they can? Or hear your heartbeat? Run, damn it.”

She’d forgotten. A childhood memory of fear had driven away common sense. She called to her Gift again and used wind and shadow to disperse any sound and scent. In seconds, no trace of her remained, and yet Christophe turned and stared right into her eyes.

“I will always be able to find you. Get out of here before you get hurt. Please.”

She knew what it had cost him to add that “please.” He was a man used to issuing commands and having them obeyed. She could tell that from the effortless way he’d taken over a leadership role in their quest for Vanquish. She wasn’t much for obeying, and she had a trick of her own—literally up her sleeve.

A ninja never left home unarmed.

“Nice night for an ambush,” Christophe called out to the vamps as he balanced energy spheres in each hand. “Didn’t have anything else to do? Polish your fangs, for instance?”

“You were heard inquiring about the Siren, human,” the lead vampire hissed. “We would suggest you drop your inquiry.”

“You need four carloads of goons to tell me that?”

“Bit melodramatic, wasn’t it?” Sean said, moving into place with his back to Christophe’s back. “I thought vamps could fly.”

“Some can. This lot are obviously the weaklings.”

“We plan to kill you,” the vampire said. “Unless you tell us, right now, who has Vanquish and where it is.”

“Interesting form of suggestion,” Christophe said. “Lots of vampires have planned to kill me before, bloodsucker.”

He hurled the energy spheres, twin gleaming arcs of death that exploded the heads of the speaker and another vampire on contact.

“Usually only once,” Christophe added.

The rest of the vampires, shrieking and hissing, leapt and crawled toward Christophe and Sean in a dark swarm of evil, bending and twisting in such inhuman ways that the mere sight of them almost made Fiona’s heart stutter in her chest again. But she mentally kicked her own arse to get moving.

She was the Scarlet Ninja, for Saint George’s sake. She was not a helpless ninny. She threw herself into a low somersault between the legs of two vampires leaping around the back of her car, and escaped the closing perimeter of attackers.

When she looked back at them, Christophe had daggers in each hand and was—unbelievably—grinning. It was the fierce, exultant joy of a warrior in action, and she instantly knew in her heart that everything he’d told her about Atlantis was nothing but the truth. She ran back a few steps, carefully checking the vampire’s vehicle to be sure no one was hiding in it, and pulled the slender vials out of the pouches inside her sleeves.

One of Hopkins’s inventions, the thick plastic vials hid in the draped fabric of her loose sleeves. They fit in the palms of her hands and she could rapidly uncap them with a thumb, which she did. Then she headed back into the fray to surprise a few vampires.

She dashed out from behind the SUV then stopped, frozen in shock by the battle being waged with tooth and dagger in front of her. Never once in her time as a thief had she encountered violence on an up-close-and-personal level, and it was nothing like in the films. This blood didn’t spray artistically through the air.

No, it stained the side of Sean’s head and ran down Christophe’s arm and the side of his chest. They were black stains, glistening wetness in the dark. The vampires didn’t bleed, though. They exploded into a greenish-black wave of slime, which she knew would be acidic to the touch. Christophe and Sean had already killed at least four of them, maybe more, but there were seven left and they were attacking in waves, too close for one of Christophe’s magic spears to be effective.

He sliced at one’s head with his dagger and it yanked its head back, laughing and hissing at him.

“Fool. Do you think we are all so easy to kill? I have—” It stopped talking and shrieked, looking down. Though Fiona couldn’t see its chest, it was easy enough to see what had happened.

There was a silvery tip poking out of the left side of its back.

Sean cried out as a vamp sank its teeth into the side of his neck, and the sight broke Fiona out of her shock. She heard a scream, the sound like that of a banshee’s death herald, but she was running before she realized that she was the one screaming. She hurtled full speed into the back of the vampire attacking Sean, and dashed the entire contents of the vial onto the side of its face.

The vampire shrieked so loudly something in her ear canals popped with the pain, but she held on desperately to its shoulders as it released Sean, flailing around and clawing at the smoking ruin of its face and eye. The holy water carved crevasses in its flesh, and she threw herself away from it as it fell to the ground, screeching and hissing.

She dropped the empty vial, still holding on to the shadows that concealed her from sight, smell, and sound, and ran to the left a few paces away from the dying vampire. The rest of them had to know someone—or something—had attacked from behind, and she didn’t want to be caught in a blind sweep.

“Princess, I’m going to kill you when we get out of here,” Christophe yelled, fury riding the planes and angles of his face.

He launched himself into the air, pure blue-green fire shimmering in glowing streams around his entire body, and tackled three of the vampires who’d decided to leap over her car toward him and Sean. It was like watching a martial arts film where the action star was a master sorcerer. He twirled in midair and leveled a flying kick at the first vamp’s throat, then followed it up with a dagger in its heart as it fell backward. Before that vamp even hit the ground, Christophe grabbed the head of the second vamp and slammed its face down onto his knee so hard that the resulting crunch sounded like lightning snapping a dead tree trunk. Energy pulsed between his hands, brief but fierce, and the vamp’s head imploded, then disappeared.

Fiona didn’t have time to watch any more, though, because one of the vampires was sniffing the ground, crawling on hands and feet like a deranged hound from hell. Its body moved in ways that bodies were not meant to move, as though it were boneless or at least had a flexible spine.

“I know you’re here, Princess,” it hissed, the sibilants hanging in the air. “Playing with toys you shouldn’t have? I’m going to crunch on your bones when I’m done draining you dry.”

She waited, silent as the grave she had no intention of going to—at least not today—until it was in range. Then she hurled the contents of the second vial into its face and threw herself back and to the side as fast as she could, to escape the reach of its arms as it threw its body forward in a last, desperate leap even as it screamed and squealed its way to a horrific death.

Over the drops of water that had fallen to the pavement a faint golden glow hovered for an instant before winking out, and she had a heartbeat of crystallized time in which to wonder what God thought about blessed water being used to kill. But then Christophe pulled her up and into his arms, crushing her in a fierce embrace until she thought her lungs might burst.

“Don’t ever, ever, ever, do that again,” he commanded, somewhat ruining the severity of his command by compulsively kissing her again and again.

She pushed him away after a minute or so, shoving against the rock-hard wall of his chest. “Really? Don’t join in the fight when people I care about are in danger?” She glared up at him. “Have you met me?”

Then she ran to Sean, who was leaning back against the car, bent over and breathing hard, and threw her arms around him. “Are you okay? How bad is it?”

She pulled his head up so she could examine his neck. The wound was ragged but only dripping, not spurting, blood.

“Thank God, thank God, thank God,” she said, over and over. “If you died because of me—”

“I’m too tough to kill,” he said, managing a grin. “Anyway, this wasn’t because of you. Far as I can tell, it was due to those vamps. Six of which I killed, by the way.”

He straightened, puffing out his chest, and she couldn’t help it. She pulled him to her and planted a big kiss on his cheek. Even in the dim light, she could see him flush hot.

“That, youngling, is why men the world over will do anything for a beautiful woman,” Christophe said dryly. He gently nudged Fiona aside to examine Sean’s wound. “You’re going to have a scar, but it’s not bad. Unfortunately, better clean it out.”

He turned to Fiona. “Do you happen to have any more of that holy water, Invisible Girl? Sooner is better.”

“This is going to hurt really badly, isn’t it?” Sean’s throat worked but he tilted his head so they could get at his neck.

“Like all the fires of the nine hells are searing your flesh,” Christophe admitted, far too cheerfully. “Every warrior worth his daggers goes through it at least once, although our remedy isn’t quite the same as yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” Christophe looked around them, his eyes narrowing. “Anybody notice something odd here?”

“You mean, we’re still in London, one of the busiest cities in the world, and nobody else has come down this alley during this entire time?” Fiona nodded, pulling another vial of blessed water from her sleeve and holding it up to Christophe, who nodded. “Yes, I noticed. In fact, how are they—”

“Accomplices,” Sean said. “It’s how we used to do it. Bloke at each end when there was going to be trouble. We’d call out a warning.”

“A warning is one thing,” Christophe said. “An empty alley for the better part of half an hour is another. I’d guess sorcerers. If they’re enthralled, we’re either in big trouble, or they’re dead. Interesting that they thought we knew where the Siren is. Must mean the vampires don’t have it. Or at least this group of vamps.”

“Let’s do this,” Fiona said. She took a deep breath as if she would feel her own flesh sear. She wished it could be. She deserved it, not Sean. Her games as the Scarlet Ninja were what had put him in jeopardy.

“Just do it, Princess. Quick and get it over with,” Christophe said, not unsympathetically. “The anticipation is almost worse.”

She held her breath and upended the vial over Sean’s wound, which sizzled and hissed like butter on a hot griddle. Sean sucked in a sharp breath and then said a few words she hadn’t known he even remembered from the old days.

“More,” Christophe said.

“But—”

“More.”

She opened her last vial and poured it directly on top of the bubbling mess on Sean’s neck, feeling the hot tears escaping her eyes. By the time she’d finished the vial, it poured clear and all signs of steam or infection had disappeared.

“That should do it,” Christophe said, nodding once. “When it doesn’t react any more, it’s cleaned out. Now we get out of here.”

“Home. Sean needs to rest. And you’re bleeding, too.” Relieved of the worry over Sean, she was swamped by fear for Christophe. She tore open his shirt like a wild woman to look at the wound in his chest.

He caught her hands in his own and kissed her knuckles. “I’m fine, mi amara. A scratch. Atlanteans heal faster than humans, too. Now we need to get out of here. Sean?”

Sean nodded and headed for the vehicle blocking their way, while Christophe headed for the one parked in the middle of the street.

“Search for anything interesting,” Christophe called, and Fiona ran around her car to the SUV on the other side, leaping over the piles of still-dissolving slime that was all that was left of their attackers. A great many people were warning them away from the search for Vanquish. The important questions were why and who had it.

She made quick work searching the SUV, and found nothing, which was what she’d expected. The percentage of vampires who bothered to register with authorities and get any kind of official papers was still frighteningly small. Why lease a car when you could enthrall a human into giving it to you?

She made sure not to leave her fingerprints anywhere, slammed the door shut, and returned to Sean and Christophe. “Nothing.”

“In either of these two, either,” Christophe reported.

Sean shook his head, strain showing clearly on his face. “Not this one, either.”

“Now. We leave now,” Christophe said.

“I’m driving,” Fiona announced. “Sean, you rest in the back.”

Sean tried to protest, but Christophe opened the door to the backseat and pointed, and Sean half climbed, half fell into the car, the reaction from the battle finally hitting him. Christophe closed the door and turned to Fiona.

“I still need to go to those pubs and find out what in the hells is going on,” Christophe said.

“Not without me.”

“It’s not like I will allow you to drive home unaccompanied, either. Not after that attack.” He tilted her chin up with his finger and kissed her.

“I’m not a fan of the word ‘allow,’ but I’ll admit the more the merrier,” she said.

“Please, then. Please get in your vehicle now and drive home as quickly as you can, in a straight line.”

She opened the door and paused. “Wait. Where are you going to be?”

He pointed up, then leapt into the air and, right in front of her eyes, transformed into a sparkling cloud of mist that soared into the air over the car and hovered there.

Please drive now, she heard in her head, and she didn’t have any energy left to debate the possibility or impossibility of telepathic conversation. She just slanted her body into the car, turned the key in the ignition, and drove.