Heart of Atlantis

Chapter 24

It took nearly an hour of argument, during which they’d raided the refrigerator and eaten a cobbled-together breakfast, and Quinn had to pull out the “we’re soul-melded, you should trust me” card, but Alaric finally agreed to let her approach Ptolemy, so long as Alaric was within one hundred feet of her at all times. Rescuing distance, in other words.

Once an overprotective high priest, always an overprotective high priest.

He planned to travel as mist, because even if Ptolemy really did have an Atlantean mother, that wasn’t enough for him to be able to sense Poseidon’s high priest when he didn’t want to be discovered, Alaric said. Of course, he hadn’t seen the extent of Ptolemy’s power, but Quinn decided not to mention that. Alaric was already about an inch away from trying to lock her in a closet somewhere, rebel leader or no, and so she decided not to press her luck.

Another hour and a call to an associate yielded her sympathy she didn’t want and a nonmetallic, poly-fiber combat boot knife she did. She didn’t want to be at the mercy of Ptolemy’s metal-melting skills again. Alaric had leaned against the doorway like an unreasonably gorgeous bodyguard the entire time she’d spoken with the man, making both of them nervous.

“How to find him is the issue,” Alaric said. “You thought he’d returned to his demon realm?”

Quinn shuddered, remembering the burst of dark energy that had pressed against her in a suffocating wave. “Yes. But if he’s back, I figure a glory hound like Ptolemy will be making his presence known again.”

Sure enough, when she switched on the TV, his face filled the screen on both the local and national news channels, broadcasting live from the Statue of Liberty in the bright early-morning sun.

When the camera turned to the reporter, she showed no trace of the typical newscaster smile. Instead, strain drew lines around her mouth and nose as she faced the camera, her shoulders hunched over, one hand wrapped around her waist.

Quinn frowned and reached for the remote control, to toggle off the mute button. “Okay, a reporter who isn’t cheerful or perky is odd—”

Screams interrupted her as the volume switched on. The camera panned out, wide, and showed them a scene of uncontrolled chaos. Men, women, and children ran in all directions, with only one thing in common—they were running away from the reporter and her camera. As they watched, a group of three young guys knocked over an elderly woman in their panicked flight, but two of them immediately stopped to lift her bodily off the ground and then carried her with them.

“I suspect we have found Ptolemy,” Alaric said grimly.

Before Quinn could reply, the camera zeroed back in on the reporter. She visibly swallowed and then spoke, gripping her microphone with a white-knuckled hand.

“To repeat, Ptolemy Reborn, the king of Atlantis, is very unhappy with the person who stole his future bride, and he plans to kill a tourist every hour until she—”

They heard a voice in the background, and the reporter froze, and then resumed, her voice shaking as wildly as her hands. “I misspoke. He will kill many tourists, and as often as he feels like it,” she corrected, as the first tears broke free and ran down her perfectly made-up cheeks.

Quinn’s hands curled into fists. “He’s going down.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Alaric said, simultaneously.

They didn’t waste another second on talk or preparation. Quinn grabbed a few things she thought might be helpful from Lauren’s tools and then they headed out for the Statue of Liberty. She locked up the loft carefully, and Alaric took her in his arms and leapt into the air.

In spite of the danger they were soon to face, and the desperate consequences if they failed, Quinn couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the beauty and stark elegance of the city as they flew over it. New York bustled through the morning like an artist’s dream of gritty realism painted with a kaleidoscopic palette. But the fanciful imaginings faded from her mind as they flew across the water toward Liberty Island and their target.

Instead, the theme music from Underdog starting playing in its place.

When they reached the familiar landmark, all manner of police boats and helicopters encircled it. Alaric turned up the speed, and they moved through the obstacle course of official vehicles so fast that nobody had a chance to stop them. Quinn wished her hands were free to cover her ears and block the cacophony of bullhorns and loudspeakers.

“He must be there. Put me down behind the base of the statue, where he won’t see you,” she said, as they approached, flying low so that the statue itself blocked them from view. “And let me say it pisses me off that he’s using America’s best-known symbol of freedom in his twisted game.”

“Not so much a game, if he succeeds in opening a gateway to a demonic dimension,” Alaric said as they landed.

“I know. That’s why you’re going to trust me, and stay out of this for a little while, so I can figure out how to get Poseidon’s Pride without Ptolemy leaving Earth—and us—behind. You are the bravest and most powerful man I’ve ever met, but all that courage doesn’t do us any good if we can’t get to Ptolemy,” she said, for the thousandth or so time.

Alaric’s eyes glowed hot, and he clenched his jaw, probably to keep from telling her she was an idiot.

“You have five minutes, and then I’m coming after you,” he said firmly. “Five minutes, and only because the fate of all of Atlantis is on the line. Not one second longer.”

She kissed him, hard, refusing to wonder if it would be for the last time, and before she could lose her nerve, she ran around the corner of the statue and toward the monster who wanted her to have his demon babies.

She didn’t know whether to cry or laugh at the shocked expression on Ptolemy’s face. He and Alaric had something in common, then. They both thought she was an idiot. She was starting to agree with them.

She resorted to her old standby: being a smart-ass.

“Hey, did you miss me?”

Ptolemy glared at her. He wore the same business suit, but it was immaculate. Maybe he owned a dozen of them. “Where have you been? Who took you?”

“One of the fake Atlanteans, but he only wanted information, and when I told him I didn’t really know anything, he let me go.” She shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. Or so she hoped.

She slowed her pace and stopped about six feet away from him, and she tried to distract him before he could wonder how she’d gotten to the island. Or with whom.

“Like you’re going to do for the nice tourists, right? Let them go?”

He gestured as if at an annoying bug. “I don’t care about these vermin. They can go.”

As the people began to run away, Quinn had to resist the urge to run with them, because suddenly Ptolemy was turning the full weight of his undisguised alien eyes on her, and he didn’t look happy to see her. Not one bit.

“You just escaped, is this what I am to believe?”

“You come from an alien demon dimension, and you just happen to speak English perfectly, is this what I am to believe?” she said, mocking him.

“I have studied your world for hundreds of years,” he said, raising his chin like an offended schoolgirl.

All righty, then. Maybe she could get to him through his vanity.

“Fine. Good. So you know all about Lady Liberty? The French actually sent her to us, you know? There’s even a hideous song they made us sing in grade school, based on the inscription on the base, ‘Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses—’”

“I have no interest in these things,” he said. “We’re leaving. However, speaking of huddled masses, I need to prove that I will carry out my threats, or they won’t have any teeth, will they?”

Before Quinn could blink, Ptolemy pointed his finger at an old man in a wheelchair and the equally elderly woman pushing him. They were following the escaping crowd as quickly as they could move, but it wasn’t fast enough, Quinn realized.

Not anywhere near fast enough.

“No!” Quinn screamed, but it was too late. An arrow of orange light shot across the sidewalk and incinerated the two, completely obliterating them, until only bones and the twisted steel of the chair remained.

“I’ll kill you for that,” she said, not caring that tears streamed down her face as she reeled in shock from the realization that—however indirectly—she’d caused him to kill those people. He’d wanted to prove a point to her, because she’d been acting like a smart-ass.

She looked up and saw Alaric speeding toward Ptolemy, who was clearly unaware of the Atlantean vengeance approaching, because he smiled, a slow smile, hideous in its triumph.

“Is this our first spat, my darling?”

Before she could answer—before Alaric could reach them—Ptolemy ripped open a jagged tear in reality and shoved her into his profane version of the Atlantean portal. She screamed Alaric’s name and heard him roaring behind her, but it was too late. The opening closed behind Ptolemy and sent the two of them spinning away from Alaric, New York, and probably even Earth itself.

Despair swallowed her whole and spat her back out, after another nausea-inducing trip, into a pretty good approximation of hell.

Sulfuric fumes assaulted her nose and mouth, making it difficult to breathe. Nothing in sight lived: no trees or plants, animals or birds. For miles and miles, she could only see desert and rock and the rubble of a collapsed civilization. The sky was the worst, though. Three low-hanging moons shone a sullen orange over a blasted apocalyptic landscape.

“Where are we?” she demanded, but she was afraid she knew, and terror rose up in her, flailing around like a gibbering creature strung up in a noose. Her heart pounded so hard that she was sure Ptolemy must be able to hear it.

“We’re in my dimension now, Quinn, where you can’t play games with me, because here there are no rules but mine.” He grabbed her arm with one newly claw-tipped hand and started dragging her down a narrow path between two tumbled stone columns. “Isn’t it just what you imagined, when you dreamed of a house with a white picket fence?”

He leered at her and started laughing, but his teeth were changing and growing sharper, and his face was contorting right there in front of her. If she’d ever doubted his claim to be demon kin, she didn’t any longer.

“You know nothing about my dreams, buddy.” She reached deep inside herself to where the light of Alaric’s magic and the battered but unbroken foundation of her own courage still burned. She’d pretended to go along with one despicable monster before. She could do it again, until she’d achieved her goal. She’d be so convincing that she’d deserve an Academy Freaking Award.

“You have no idea what a joyous day this is about to become,” Ptolemy said, dragging her along. His laughter grew more and more shrill, until it didn’t sound anything close to human, but that wasn’t the worst part of it. Not at all. The worst part was the twisted, grayish-orange creatures that had started crawling up out of the rubble and following them. They didn’t have any recognizable limbs or appendages at all. Mostly, all they had was teeth. Lots and lots of teeth.

Hours or minutes later—Quinn couldn’t be sure which, since time seemed to run sideways here—they reached their destination. The building, built in a twisted approximation of a Greek—or maybe Atlantean—temple, was at least partially still standing. Ptolemy dragged her inside an open stone doorway and then finally released his grip on her arm.

She rubbed her wrist and looked around warily, mostly to avoid looking at him. He’d become more and more bestial as they marched across the hideous terrain of his world, until now he was almost impossible to look at without flinching. There was something simply wrong about him. Dark and hideously twisted; just like his magic. She cast a glance back over her shoulder to see if the grotesque creatures following them were anywhere near the building, but the doorway remained empty.

The room they’d entered, though—the room was incredible. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was as beautifully ornate as any of the rooms she’d seen in the Atlantean palace. Vividly blue marble mosaics lined the walls, which were decorated with images of ocean waves, fish, mermaids, and fantastical flowers portrayed by ancient craftspeople with amazing artistic sensibility. The floor was cool tile in jade green—or maybe it really was jade—and it, too, was beautifully designed.

“Well,” Ptolemy said, his voice gravelly, as though his tongue no longer worked quite right. “What do you think?”

“It’s magnificent,” she said honestly.

He whirled around and snarled at her, and she took a prudent step back.

“You mock me?”

“No. Trust me, when I’m mocking you, you’ll know it,” she said bitterly. “Like ‘Hey, troll face, nice teeth.’ Or ‘Hey, way to show your courage by murdering helpless old people.’”

A flash of an indefinable emotion crossed his face, and if he’d been anyone else, she’d almost have said it was shame.

“It was my mother’s room,” he finally said, turning away from her.

He jerked his head at one corner of the room.

She walked over to where he’d indicated, and found a portrait hidden in a niche. It looked incredibly old, but somehow the colors were still as fresh and vibrant as if newly painted. The subject was a woman, clearly Atlantean—she could have been Serai’s sister—holding a baby.

“She’s beautiful,” Quinn said, feeling an unwanted flash of compassion for the monster beside her. Beauty had borne the Beast. How much must that have hurt them both?

Ptolemy must have been able to read Quinn’s sincerity, because his hunched posture relaxed, and his features resumed somewhat of their human cast, at least enough so she could bear to look at him.

“Yes, she was. She was also one of the aknasha’an, like you.”

Quinn whirled to look at him. “Is that why? You—”

“My kind is unable to bear children without a female who can read emotions. Whether by reason of an ancient curse none of us remember, or simply because of a cruel twist of fate, we must steal women from other dimensions in order to procreate,” he said. “You became known to me when I was studying your world, and I would have taken you simply for your abilities alone, but your exploits as rebel leader fascinated me until I became obsessed. Your strength and courage. Your leadership skills. These are qualities I want for my heirs.”

His sincerity made her teeth hurt, so she told herself she was simply dealing with a man with serious mommy issues. “You do realize that you can’t just go around stealing women to use as breeders, right?”

He smiled at her with teeth that were still far too sharp, and quite possibly serrated, from the look of them. She repressed a shudder.

“But that is exactly what I have done, my dear wife.”

“Don’t call me that.” She thought longingly of the knife in her boot and forced herself to change the subject when he leered at her again. “What happened here?”

He paced around the room slowly. “The same thing that always happens with warlike creatures. We destroyed each other and our dimension. We’ve had to roam farther and farther afield for mates, and many of our people never return to this blasted wasteland of a realm, for obvious reasons.”

“Why did you? What is there here for you?” She pointed at the landscape through a crumbling window frame, its glass, if it had ever had any, long gone.

“Why, my brothers are here,” he said, and then he threw back his head and made a long, ululating whistling noise that she was sure would make her ears bleed.

She clamped her hands over them and almost missed what he said next.

“When you and I rule Atlantis and then the rest of your world, they will serve as my most trusted advisors and staff.”

Her mouth fell open. He was bat-shit crazy.

“I don’t think Anubisa is going to go along with that plan.”

He sneered. “Anubisa is a mad relic of a time long gone. I will have no trouble with her, as you’ve seen. I plan to rule her vampires, too, or destroy them. It matters little to me.”

She didn’t have time to form a response to that, before his brothers started arriving. And if she’d thought Ptolemy was hideous, she’d sorely underestimated the meaning of the word. He was Prince Charming compared to his family.

She gritted her teeth and fought really, really hard not to scream.