Atlantis Rising

Chapter 28

Anubisa sneered at the bowed head of the so-called master vamp. Her father-husband would writhe in shame were he to see the diluted blood of their race.

Lucky for all that she'd killed Chaos when she had. She thought back to his death with sorrow.

Sorrow that it could never be repeated.

The sheer, soul-destroying ecstasy of ripping out her incestuous lover's jugular as he climaxed inside of her. His impotent rage as his seed and his blood flowed out of his cock and his neck into her.

He'd made her a goddess of death, and she'd eaten his soul. So fitting, somehow.

But now she was left with this pale imitation of greatness who dared to try to lead.

"The fissure in the natural fabric of the elements? Did you not feel it, fool?"

He cringed at her feet, not man enough to face her. "I did feel it, Exalted One. What would you have me do?"

She almost gently swung out one silk-shod foot and kicked him with enough force to hurl his body through the air. He smashed into the wall of his chamber and slid down to the floor. Nearly boneless.

Useless.

"Rise, you pathetic sack of worm dung. What I would have you do is track it down and find these Atlanteans who dare to disturb the elements." Rage fired her eyes to a flaming red and she barely felt the blood trickling down her face from her retinas.

"And take Drakos with you. I think he may have some of the sense that you so clearly lack."

"But—"

She stilled, and the air in the chamber dropped to a temperature frigid enough to freeze human blood. So. This was what rage felt like. It had been centuries since she'd elevated her mood beyond lethargy.

"You question me?" she asked, her voice a whisper of torrid death.

"Never," he gasped, pulling himself off the floor.

"Find the Atlanteans. Now. And I may yet let you live."

Ven drove the last hundred yards or so with the lights off, burning up the street. Atlantean night vision was an asset sometimes.

Justice was out the door before Ven could shove the gearshift into park. Bastien and Alexios were out of the backseat on his heels.

Ven jumped out, looked up at the sound of wind rushing over his head. It was Christophe, determined to travel via mist, though his strength and speed were no match for Conlan and Alaric.

Ven nodded. He understood pride.

"Conlan!" Justice's voice rang out, and Ven started running.

Damn it. Not his brother. Not again.

He pounded up to the group of warriors as Justice pulled Conlan to his feet.

"Are you harmed?"

Conlan glanced at him, shook his head, sucking in air. "No, but I'm going to kick Alaric's glowy green ass for him when I get my hands on him. Bastard magicked me out of his way to get to the Trident. Wouldn't wait for backup."

Christophe shimmered into form beside them, face rapt, staring toward the ugly steel-and-block building on the other side of the field. "It's the Trident," he breathed. "It's singing. I've never felt such power."

Face transfixed, Christophe stumbled off in the direction of the building, unheeding of Ven's call to stop. Bastien stepped in front of him and casually popped him in the jaw, nearly knocking the warrior off his feet.

Blinking, eyes beginning to register his surroundings, Christophe rubbed his jaw and scowled up at Bastien. "What in the nine hells did you do that for?"

Bastien grinned. "You've had that coming for a while. Oh, yeah, and you were in some kind of trance, too."

Conlan strode forward. "Enough. We need to fan out and figure out what we're getting ourselves into. What Alaric is likely in the middle of already. If there are any sentries, take care of them. Quietly."

Bastien drew his daggers. "Quiet is my middle name, my lord. We're golden."

Christophe snorted. "Ugly is your middle name."

Alexios started forward, rammed his shoulder against Christophe as he passed him. "Another word, and you will discover an entirely new meaning of ugly, shit for brains," he growled.

With hand gestures, Conlan motioned Justice to take point toward the left and Alexios to do the same toward the right. He went straight up the middle, muttering a quick prayer to Poseidon that Alaric would hold off another damn minute.

That was when the windows of the building shattered.

Brennan's head jerked up. "Someone approaches." His hands went to the weapons that were never far from his hands.

Riley had noticed they were all like that. Even in bed with her, Conlan's daggers had been on a table within reach.

Her cheeks turned pink as she realized she was, for about the fiftieth time in the past hour, thinking about Conlan naked. Sheesh, she was turning into a guy, with sex, sex, sex on her brain. Next she'd start scratching her crotch and develop a driving need to play fantasy football.

"It's probably the pizza guy," she said. "Yippee for on-time delivery. Let me grab my wallet."

Brennan and Denal both stood to accompany her. She planted her fists on her hips. "It's the pizza guy. Who is probably some skinny high school kid who will pee in his pants if you two come to the door looking like Conan the Atlantean. Okay?"

The doorbell rang, and Brennan shook his head. "You will not go alone."

She appealed to his logic. "Look, if you scare the guy, he'll have some big story to tell back at the pizza place, right? Do you really want the address and phone number of your so-called safe house to be stored in the computer system of people who think a drag-dealing biker gang lives here?"

Denal drew his sword, all "I'm the warrior, and you're the poor defenseless maiden" attitude.

Riley rolled her eyes. "Brennan? You're the older and wiser, right? Don't I make sense?"

The doorbell rang again.

Finally Brennan nodded. "You may go. I will stand behind the door as you effect the transaction."

"Fine. Let's go before my pepperoni gets cold."

She paused the movie—you had to love Fay Wray—and pulled her wallet out of her jacket on the way. Brennan handed her some folded bills.

"You will not pay for our food, Lady Riley. Although we thank you for the offer."

She shrugged, let him put the money in her hand. "Okay. Maybe being a royal warrior pays better than being a social worker?"

Brennan positioned himself behind the door, moving an umbrella out of the way. "Do Atlanteans really need umbrellas? I thought you guys liked water," she teased, hoping Denal would start talking about the dome again.

But Denal merely grinned and shook his head, lurking behind the closet door. She glanced down at the wad of bills. "Sheesh, we don't actually need a couple of hundred dollars for pizza. The guy would get a heck of a tip!"

Laughing, she pulled open the door, still separating the bills. "Come on in, dude, how much is—"

And was knocked backward onto the floor by the first of a swarm of hissing vampires.

Alaric faced Reisen across the heads of the cowering humans, wanting to vomit at the sacrilege of seeing the Trident in this dismal place.

With this thieving bastard.

The concussion of his first blast of energy had bounced off a circle of power surrounding the Trident and its bearer. Yet even as the Trident protected Reisen, its siren call sang ever more urgent in his head.

Rescue me, priest. Take me back to the temple of my god.

The power in it, amped up beyond any he'd known before, scorched him even while it seduced. Power beyond imagining.

And Reisen had only added the first jewel.

Yes, only the first. Restore me to my glory, Alaric, and glory and power will be yours beyond measure.

For the span of a mere whisper of thought, Alaric's thoughts turned to Quinn. But she could never be his. If power would be his only mistress, he would ride its heat.

He raised his arms, levitated into the air, and floated over the bodies of the warriors who'd fallen at his first blast.

"I'm coming for what is rightfully mine, Mycenaean," he called, his voice deep and resonating with the power he channeled.

"Yours? You claim much for yourself, priest. The Trident belongs to Poseidon. You are merely his servant," Reisen sneered. "Or do you aspire to godhood now that Conlan is dead?"

"Conlan lives, fool. He is even now on his way to defeat your pathetic force—what is left of you after the shapeshifters defeated you yesterday."

"You lie!" Reisen roared. "You would lie about your dead prince in pursuit of your own power?"

Conlan's voice cut through the hum of gathering power. "It seems the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Reisen jerked his head toward his very alive prince. Shock must have loosened his grasp, for his hands trembled on the Trident, and he nearly lost his grip on it.

Even as Reisen's warriors stirred and started to rise from where they'd fallen during the first blast, Ven, Justice, and the rest flowed in through the building's windows and a back door. Surrounded the room.

Reisen stood, gaping. "Conlan! How are you alive after seven years?"

Conlan took a step toward him, menace shadowing his features, royal command in every line of his body. "Oh, we'll talk, Mycenaean. Or rather, I'll talk, and you'll listen. But for now, you'll return the Trident to Poseidon's priest."

Reisen held the shining staff in the air. "I think not. We have decided that Atlantis shall take a new path. Even if you are not compromised by so many years with Anubisa, you are stuck in the past. I am the way of the future. With this, I am unstoppable."

Alaric drew on the elements, formed a ball of shining power and hurled it at Reisen. The Trident only deflected a part of its force, and the energy sphere smashed Reisen back a few steps. Around him, warriors of the House of Mycenae drew steel and began their approach.

Conlan turned his gaze to Alaric, nodded. "Let's play."

Riley stared up into the red and glaring eyes of the vampire whose hands crushed her throat. She heard voices; the sound of battle. Denal and Brennan roaring out the name of Atlantis and Poseidon. Yet somehow it all sounded far, far away.

And seemed to be happening in slow motion.

All she could focus on was the drop of saliva gathering at the corner of the vamp's mouth as it killed her. As it drew back its lips over yellowed and cracked fangs and reared its head back to strike.

She was going to die at the fangs of a vamp with bad teeth.

I never told Conlan that I love him.

Despair gave her power. She thrust her arms up, then out, in the tactic she'd learned to break the grip of an attacker.

Of course, that had been with attackers who couldn't lift her house with one hand, like a damn vampire would be able to do.

But still, it weakened his grip for a split second. Enough for her to slam her knee up into its crotch, wondering as she did it if vamps even had testicles.

Its hideous shriek told her they did.

She rolled out from under the screaming creature, and she was screaming herself. Shattering the night with an ear-splitting, wordless scream.

Sending her thoughts and terror out to Conlan, more powerfully than she'd ever broadcast.

Vampires! Too many! Denal—oh, God, no.

She froze for a moment, overwhelmed with horror. Too many, too many, too many.

And I'm not going to die like this.

She grabbed the umbrella that still, improbably, leaned against the closet door and ran for the four vamps that were attacking Denal.

"Get your lousy hands off my friend!" she screamed, even as Denal stabbed the point of his sword through the chest of the vamp in front of him. It must have hit the heart, because the vamp exploded into a nasty mess of blood and bone onto the carpet.

Even as Riley forced herself to run through it, the pointy end of the umbrella aimed at another vamp, the mess began to dissolve.

Brennan shouted at her from the corner, where he battled three more. He must have already killed some of them, because there had been far more than seven pouring through the door.

"Riley! The one who attacked you! You must take its head!"

She stopped, stared at Denal, then Brennan, then back at the vamp, now trying to stand.

"With a freaking umbrella?" she yelled.

"Behind you! The closet!"

She yanked open the closet door and saw a roomful of weapons. "What—"

She grabbed the closest thing, something that looked like a battle-axe from an old movie. "What the hell. I always wanted to be a Viking."

Stop babbling, Riley, she told herself, scared nearly out of her last wit.

"Riley! Now!"

She jerked and whirled around, axe held out in front of her.

And sliced off the top of the head of the vamp crawling up behind her. Blood and brains cascaded out of its skull, splashing gore on her legs and boots.

Which drove the last ounce of sanity out of her mind. "There are brains on my legs!" she screamed, hacking and slashing at the dying vamp, one stroke taking the head off at the neck.

"I can't stand this! I. Can. Not. Stand. This."

She ran from the room, slid in the blood and brains on the floor, nearly fell. Sobbed in terror and sheer, spiking adrenaline.

Ran for the vamps surrounding Denal, still hacking and slicing with the axe. "No, no, no! Leave him alone!" she sobbed, screamed, roared. Not making any sense. Not caring.

It was way past time for sense. "There are brains on my legs! I am a social worker! I will cut off your head in triplicate!"

Blind rage overcame her, and she swung from right to left, putting all the fury and uncertainty of the day into her stroke. The axe sliced into the shoulder of the vamp in front of her and sliced all the way down into the center of its chest.

As it fell to the ground, shrieking, the axe went with it. She couldn't pull it out. It was wedged in the vamp's bones, in its rib cage.

"Riley!" Brennan's voice thundered at her. "Get out of here now! Get out—run to safety. Now!"

Denal, still battling fiercely, sword in one hand and dagger in the other, stared at Riley over the shoulder of the vamp attacking him. "Lady Riley! Please! Away to safety! Let me fulfill my role as your protector."

She stood there sobbing, frozen between the two battling groups. Brennan brought down another vamp, and only one stood against him. Denal still fought two.

"Must get another weapon. Must help," she cried out. "Conlan! Where are you?"

But when she tried to reach him, all she felt was that curious blankness that Reisen had surrounded himself and his men with earlier.

She turned around, forced legs covered in gore and dripping with blood to carry her back to the weapons room. Had almost made it when she heard the loud thud and Denal's anguished bellow.

Turned around to see. Screamed again and fell to her knees.

Brennan stood, gasping, over the now-headless body of the final vampire.

Denal lay on the floor, impaled by a sword that the vamp had driven through his stomach before it died.

As she watched, tears nearly blinding her, the life and the light in Denal's eyes dimmed and went dark. His head fell to the side, and he died.