Atlantis Rising

Chapter 29

Conlan stood with the points of his daggers pressing against two different throats. The warriors he'd disarmed held their breath, backed against the wall, no doubt reading their deaths in his eyes.

The whooshing noise of steel through air warned him to the danger seconds before yet another of Reisen's men fell dead next to Conlan's feet. He turned to see Justice wiping his sword on the fallen man's clothes. "Just watching your back, Conlan."

Conlan nodded. "Literally, I see. I owe you one."

Justice raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I think we shouldn't start keeping track, my lord. Because the 'you owe mes' are up to the double digits, now."

Ven and the others held the rest of the Mycenaean warriors at bay behind the barrels of semiautomatic shotguns. The problem with Ven's toys was that the reliability of machinery was chancy at best around anyone channeling the elements.

Dangerous at worst.

Ven always said he liked to live on the edge.

Alexios moved among the humans, checking on their well-being. They all wore odd robes and expressions of terror mixed with awe. Conlan caught the murmurs of "Atlantis, Atlantis."

Another problem to add to his ever-growing list.

On the makeshift stage, Alaric faced Reisen, who still held the Trident. A shimmering wall of energy flared up and between them, wavering toward first one, then the other.

Reisen had no training in using objects of power, but Alaric had once told Conlan that the Trident seemed to have a mind of its own. "More fickle than a beautiful woman" had been his expression.

But Alaric seemed to be winning this battle.

The men on the other ends of his blades twitched, and Conlan pressed the daggers a fraction of an inch deeper into the tender skin of their throats. "Do you think I'm distracted? Do you plan to make your move now?"

They stood silent, eyes widening in denial. Afraid to speak, probably.

Terrified of a prince come back from the grave and turned savage killer.

Good.

"Who knows what Anubisa did to me while I was gone?" he asked, mocking them. "Maybe I'm secretly a vampire, too."

He leaned closer to them, pulled his lips back over his teeth, and hissed.

The man on his right made a squeaking noise, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped like a stone. Conlan barely had time to jerk the blade away before the damn fool impaled himself on it.

The warrior on Conlan's left wasn't the slightest bit intimidated. "Maybe you are worse than a vampire, if you play childish games like that with men who deserve better, my lord."

The words stirred a distant shame. Then anger followed it. "You dare to chastise me? Remember anything about treason? Blaspheming against the Temple of Poseidon by stealing one of its icons? Daring to attack your high prince?"

The man's defiance never lessened. "I am Micah, first of Reisen's Seven. We believed you were dead, and that Atlantis had no leader. You—"

"Ven was heir to the throne, and everybody knew it. Nice try at rationalizing, though."

Micah sneered. "Ven? How many times has he made it clear that he wants no part of rule? He's more at home in a tavern than in the palace. Reisen also has the blood of kings in him, and he would serve our people well."

Conlan stepped back, sheathed his daggers. Flicked a contemptuous glance down and back up the warrior. "So you think to lecture me on the demands of the throne? Go back to your mother's skirts, boy, and leave the thinking to the men."

Micah roared out his defiance and charged, exactly as Conlan had expected. He snapped out his fist and smashed Micah in the face.

Micah blinked, then fell forward and landed on the floor on the nose that was probably already broken.

"You picked a bad day to land on my shit list, warrior," Conlan said, almost to himself. Then he swung around to head for the magical battle of wills still raging in the front of the room.

Alaric had fought his way to the Trident, and he was inches away from laying a hand on it. The shock wave of power that blasted out in concussive circles had driven everyone else in the room to their knees.

Conlan started toward them, and another blast of power poured out of the Trident, waves of blue-green and silvery light sparkling with heat and thunderously loud. He ducked, and most of the energy passed over his head.

The second it was past, he dashed toward Alaric and Reisen, determined to bring an end to the standoff.

"For Atlantis! For Poseidon!" The words ripped out of his throat, no less powerful for being involuntary.

He was back. By the gods, he was back.

Anubisa hadn't won, after all.

He'd nearly reached them when Riley's voice, her emotions, pounded into his head with driving rage and pain.

Conlan!! Death anger sorrow death death death nooooooooooo!!

The shock wave of her emotion knocked him off his feet, and he fell to his knees, choking on her pain, a few paces away from Alaric and Reisen.

Come to me now!! I need you need need need powerrrrr!!

Riley had no voice left for screaming. Had no strength left for sobbing. She fell, dragged herself, crawling, through the unspeakable residue of vampire guts and blood and death coating the floor with its filth.

Somehow made it to Denal just as Brennan reached them both. She tried to focus through eyes drenched with tears, realized Brennan was wounded. Badly.

He limped. So many cuts and bites and blood covered him, she didn't know how he was still standing.

Bites. Oh, no.

"Brennan? Can Atlanteans turn into vampires?"

He shook his head, fell to his knees beside Denal's body. "No," he ground out, shuddering. "Virus. Not—not vampire. Kills us or we shake it off."

He gasped and clutched at his neck as his body arched back in the throes of a terrible convulsive spasm.

She reached out to hold his hand, not knowing what else to do to help.

"Might be bad this time," he gasped. "Must get you to safety."

"I tried to reach out to Conlan. Nothing—only blank, dead space where his emotions should be," she said, fighting back more tears.

Then letting them fall. What did it matter now?

Denal deserved at least her tears.

"Take it out! Brennan, we have to take it out," she begged, knowing she didn't have the strength left to pull the sword from Denal's body.

Brennan nodded, silent and grim, his skin already shriveling back into the bones of his face. His skull clearly visible under the flesh of his face.

He took a deep breath, and rose to grasp the hilt of the sword. Used it to pull himself up, then gathered his last energy. With one powerful jerk, he pulled it out of Denal's body and flung it away from them down the hall.

Then he collapsed next to Riley, strength spent. "I can no longer protect you, my lady. I have failed you. I am sorry."

She shook her head, tears still falling. Then she bent over Denal and lifted his head and shoulders into her lap. When she'd managed that, stroking Denal's lifeless face with one hand, she reached out to twine her other in Brennan's hair, trying to give some comfort.

"No. You never failed me, neither of you did. It was your stupid worthless excuse of a sea god. Where was your precious Poseidon when we needed him?"

She realized she was shouting at their god, didn't care. "Where were you when your prince needed you, you selfish bastard? Swimming around and frolicking with a fucking Nereid?"

Brennan tried to raise his hand, but it fell back against his side, shriveled and ancient. He was wasting away in front of her eyes.

"Where are you now, huh? You prick! I challenge you!! Heal these men, your warriors, if you're so all-powerful!" She screamed her rage until her throat burned and her skin caught fire from the inside.

An inferno of pain seared, burned, roared through her and into the room, scorching her breath as it came out of her lungs. She laughed, wild and savage.

"Yeah? Is that all you got? Come on and smack me down in person, you rotten coward! What kind of god are you, anyway? Come on! I dare you! Come heal these men!"

A cascading torrent of flames twined with water burst out of the ceiling and flooded the room. Surrounded Riley and the two fallen warriors. Branded her flesh with its searing intensity. In the midst of the pain, Riley found an oasis of calm inside herself. A moment of reflection cast upon her by desperate need.

So this is how I'll die. Mocking a god.

A voice resonating with power beyond anything she'd ever imagined thundered through the room, through her head, through the fabric of her reality:

MAGIC COMES ONLY AT A PRICE, AND LOVE COSTS ALL. DO YOU OFFER YOURSELF FOR THESE MEN?

The pain stopped. All that she knew was light and color and the cool mists of an ocean breeze. She was wrapped in the sea and filled by the voice of the sea god.

She'd dared to love a prince, and now his god would kill her for her temerity.

The voice blasted through her again, resonating in her bones, her teeth, her blood.

DO YOU OFFER YOURSELF FOR THESE MEN?

She hesitated, knew the answer must be utter truth. Looked down at their faces and into her memories. Joyous Denal, shy behind a bouquet of flowers. Emotionless Brennan, hungering for the feelings that were stolen from him.

And now their lives. This was her cost.

Will you let Conlan know that I loved him?

YOU DO NOT BARGAIN WITH A GOD.

She bowed her head, ignored the tears streaming down her face. The pain that shredded her heart.

She nodded.

Said the words out loud, needed to hear them. A promise. An offering. A solemn oath. "Yes. I offer myself for these men."

SO BE IT.

The water spiraled up from the floor, out from the walls, and down from the ceiling. Cushioned Riley and the two warriors in its curling caress.

Somehow, she knew to hold out her hands.

Somehow, she knew what appeared in them.

Shining with the glare of a dozen suns, the image of the Trident coalesced across her palms an instant before she felt the weight of it.

SO BE IT! THIS I COMMAND!

A fierce luminosity spread from the Trident across Riley's body to encompass first Denal, then Brennan. Quickly it grew so bright that she was unable to see them, had to shut her eyes against the glare. But she felt their still forms next to her.

The water turned to fire, and it seared across her back like the lash of a flame-tipped whip, driving her down, screaming, falling, burning.

As the blackness came, she welcomed it. Her life for theirs. Her final thought was of her sister.

Hey, Quinn. You'd be proud of me. Took me dying to do it, but I'm finally part of your revolution.

Even as Conlan fought to raise his head, the Trident had disappeared in a blaze of color and light. Reisen and Alaric had screamed as they were thrown back by an explosion of power that blew out every light in the building.

By the time Ven and the others had gotten their wits back enough to pull out the flashlights they carried, Conlan had jumped up on the wooden stage to find Alaric.

He knelt beside his friend, relieved beyond measure when he heard the priest still breathing. In the light shining from Ven's flashlight, Alaric was dead white. Alaric's eyes opened, and the fiery green glow in them burned up at Conlan. "The Trident?"

A rasping voice came from behind him. Reisen. He whirled to protect himself from the danger he'd ignored like a fool in his fear for Alaric.

But Reisen was no threat. If anything, he looked worse than Alaric. Blood trickled from the corners of his eyes and from his nostrils. "It's gone," he gasped. "That voice—in my head—talking of death. Then the Trident blew up in my hands."

Reisen dropped his head in his hands, not paying the slightest attention to the half dozen swords, daggers, and guns aimed at him from close range. "It's gone. What have I done?"

"You heard her, too? You heard Riley in your head?" Conlan grabbed Reisen's arm, shook him. "You heard her call?"

"We all heard her, brother," Ven said. Conlan scanned the group, registered the nodding heads.

Leapt to his feet, then took to the air. "Then she needs us. Denal, Brennan—they all need us now."

And he transformed to mist, soaring across the room to the window that would lead him to the outdoor air and back to Riley.

Calling out to her with his emotions as he did.

Praying, when he felt only blankness, that it wasn't too late.

Reisen opened his eyes. The power drain had taken him under, probably for a while, if the stiffness of the arm bent under his body was any indication. He struggled to sit up, looking around the dim room. The moonlight through the windows shone the only light on the devastation.

Bodies, both human and Atlantean, lay scattered on the floor. Many were stirring even as he watched; not dead, then, but caught in the blast.

Then he realized what was missing. Conlan and the Trident were gone.

He'd failed.

Reisen closed his eyes as the impact of his failure crashed over him. He was out of options and should end his own life. His death would be marked as the passing of the traitor who had destroyed the honor of the House of Mycenae.

The shouts snapped him out of his indulgence of self-pity. Wave after wave of vampires flew in through the windows to land on his warriors and the defenseless Platoists.

A full dozen headed for him.

He smiled, unsheathed his daggers. At least he'd die as a warrior and take some of the infernal bloodsuckers with him.

"Bring it on."