"I'm not kidding. I will hand your ass to you on a plate, and you are too busy keeping the Trident from nuclear meltdown, and the dome from collapsing, to zap me with magic, so for once it would be a fair fight," the pain-in-the-ass high prince of Atlantis said.
Alaric forced himself to take a deep breath. "Fine. I will calm down. I will pretend that the entire continent is not about to be destroyed. I will pretend that the sea god is not ignoring us. I will pretend that I can do this on my own, even though the Trident grows more unstable with every second that passes, and I am nearly at the limits of my strength already."
He bared his teeth at Conlan. "Don't we all feel better already?"
His entire body pulsed with the strain of pushing more magic than he'd ever channeled, and the Trident kept increasing its erratic instability. He knew he didn't have much longer, if something didn't happen to shore up the balance on his side of the equation.
"We need one for the good guys, as Quinn would say," he said, flinching as a sharp pain stabbed him in the temple.
Conlan's eyes widened a fraction, and he reached over to touch Alaric's ear. His finger came back red with blood.
"Just how much power are you having to expend to keep the dome from shattering?"
Alaric grimly shook his head. "Trust me, you don't want to know."
A shout heralded Marcus's arrival at the head of an armed contingent of half a dozen warriors surrounding Riley and the baby, Erin, and Keely with Eleni.
Erin and Keely were both furious, and they immediately started letting Conlan know it.
"We are not about to scuttle through the portal like rats abandoning a sinking ship, when we can stay here and help," Erin said.
"I'm surprised Marcus managed to drag you out here," Alaric said, before wincing as another sharp pain in his head nearly blinded him. At this rate, he'd be dead before the dome collapsed, anyway.
"He threatened to stab us," Keely said dryly. "When we didn't believe him, he threatened to stab that guy." She pointed to a youngling barely old enough to hold his sword.
Marcus nodded grimly. "And they knew damn well I'd do that."
The young warrior gulped audibly, but stood tall and tried to look brave. Conlan laughed a little before he pulled Riley and Aidan into a fierce embrace. Alaric tried not to envy Conlan those last moments with his family, even as every fiber of his being demanded that he abandon the battle to contain the Trident and go after Quinn.
"You know, he would have done it. He stabbed me once, in training," he told the young man, whose eyes grew huge.
Keely took in the situation with her scientist's keen grasp of a problem, and then turned to Alaric. "Right. Where's Quinn? You two need to reach the soul-meld, right here and now, or Atlantis isn't going to survive."
Chapter 16
Alaric glared at the damnable woman. "What in the nine hells are you talking about?"
"I tried to tell you last night, but nobody wanted to listen. What happened to Nereus was his power increased exponentially when he achieved the soul-meld with Zelia. He became the most powerful priest in the history of Atlantis," she said. "That's why the Elders decreed celibacy for the high priest. They decided nobody should have that kind of magic. They were afraid he could gain enough power even to challenge Poseidon, if it came to it."
"So you just want them to throw down right here?" Riley's face turned hot pink. "I know this is a crisis, but after all those years of celibacy, I doubt Alaric wants to strip down in the middle of a field and--"
"No," Alaric shouted. "No, no, no. We are not having this discussion. Quinn is gone, in any event. The portal abducted her, but even if she were here, we would not be having this discussion."
Ven made a choking noise, like he was strangling on his own tongue, and Alaric whipped an ice ball right at his head, then immediately regretted it, as calling to even that tiny bit of water magic increased the strain on his overtaxed powers.
"Where is my sister?" Riley demanded, and little Prince Aidan started crying.
Alaric closed his eyes and tried to pray for patience, but he realized that he was done with praying to any gods. Poseidon could have his damn temple, just as soon as Alaric saved the people of Atlantis from this current disaster. Atlantis would rise, and he and Quinn would head to a beach. Or maybe mountains, far, far from any ocean.
Maybe the Alps.
"Alaric? Did you hear me?"
Alaric opened his eyes to find Keely staring up at him. He didn't have the strength to be angry at her.
"He can't risk it," Conlan said. "Even if Quinn were here. The Elders say the loss of celibacy is the end of power. If there's even a chance that they're right--the Trident would destabilize and we'd lose the dome and everyone in Atlantis. It's not a chance we can take."
Alaric closed his eyes again, as rage and humiliation battled for supremacy inside him. He'd be better off if he just let the damn dome collapse.
A piercing whistle interrupted his misery, and when he opened his eyes, everyone was staring at Erin.
"Alaric, you don't have to have sex to reach the soul-meld. If we can find Quinn, and she agrees, you can soul-meld and expand your power without risking the anti-celibacy oath-breaking thing," she said, her cheeks flaming red.
"I cannot believe everyone in Atlantis is discussing my sex life," Alaric said from between clenched teeth.
"Actually, we're discussing your lack of sex life, dude," Ven pointed out.
"If you call me dude again, I will drop the dome on your empty head."
"Can he do that?" the young warrior asked.
"Silence," Marcus said, staring at the dome, where the warm light of magically created dawn highlighted the water trickling down, now in a small but steady stream.
Alaric tuned them all out and searched for the still, cold center of his being, where he retreated when there was no choice but blood, battle, or death. He reached a conclusion so devastating that it pushed everything else out of his mind.
"Here's the situation," Alaric finally said, pretending to be calm, as if the lives of all of his people were not at stake. "Even drawing upon the magical reserves of everyone in Atlantis, I am not quite powerful enough to hold the increasingly unstable Trident and also support the dome. We need Poseidon's Pride, we need to return it to the Trident, and Atlantis must rise. However, there is no one else who is strong enough to retrieve the gem without being burned to ash by its power. So, as I see it, we have two choices. First, I can do nothing but what I'm currently able to do, and Atlantis will slowly be destroyed as the leaks increase and my magic is depleted. Everyone dies."
He took a breath and continued. "Second option: I can somehow find Quinn and attempt the soul-meld, if she agrees, and hope that the story of Nereus is true and it gives me enough power to solve these problems. The issue there is that I'll be channeling my magic at a very long distance, if the portal even takes me to her, which will further weaken me. And if the story of Nereus is false, everyone dies."
He looked around at the people he could finally admit he loved. His family. He would willingly die for them. And he probably would. Soon.
"Bye-bye, Alaric," Eleni said, smiling a sweet, gap-toothed smile.
Everyone stared at her. The child had the ability to see a short distance into the future, so of course she must see that she would be leaving through the portal. He wondered, though, why she'd named him in particular.
The portal flashed into existence before anyone could venture an opinion, and again that deep male voice called out to them. "You need?"
"Wait," Conlan shouted, but the light flashed a brilliant sapphire blue, and two things occurred simultaneously: Riley, Aidan, Keely, Eleni, and Erin all disappeared, and Christophe and his soul-melded mate, Lady Fiona, flew out of the portal and landed on their asses on the ground.
Then the portal winked out of existence again.
"I have had enough of this," Conlan said.
Alaric could only nod, as he stumbled forward, the pressure in
his skull reaching an unbearable level. "Christophe, I'm going to need some help," he said, and then he fell forward into the relentless dark.
When the world snapped back into focus, Alaric realized that his subconscious had somehow maintained his magical hold on all the dangerous balls he was juggling, and the dome had not collapsed.
He somehow wasn't even shocked to see Christophe sitting across from him on the grass, grinning.
"Please tell me this is all part of the nightmare," Alaric said wearily.
"Got your back, my friend," Christophe said smugly. "Feel free to say thank you at any time."
Alaric took stock and realized that the warrior was indeed carrying some of the magical load. Quite a bit, in fact. He leaned back and took his first full breath since the crisis began.
"Thank you," he said, and then enjoyed watching Christophe's shock. Alaric didn't have a history of expressing appreciation or gratitude.
"We were a bit worried for a moment," Lady Fiona said in her crisp British accent. "Lovely to see you up and about. Now what do we do?"
Alaric stood up and nodded to her. "Welcome. Now that Christophe has taken more than his fair share of the magical burden, I can leave to find Poseidon's Pride. All we need is for the portal to--"
"You need?" came the voice and flash of light, and Alaric went spinning through the vortex.
"I know you're sentient. I met Gailea," he shouted. "What in the nine hells do you think you're up to?"
"Ask your sea god," came the cryptic response, and then Alaric plummeted down through an early-morning sky. Before he had time to transform into mist, he crashed through a skylight made of blacked-out glass, and he landed on his feet in the middle of at least a dozen vampires.
"This," Alaric said, looking around for who he'd have to kill first, "I did not need."
The room was high-ceilinged and lit only by a couple of bare lightbulbs hanging drunkenly from frayed cords. Stark black-and-red graffiti, both words and images, crawled across the walls like the spreading stain of blood from a wound. The stench of vampire permeated the room, making him think the abandoned building must have long been their lair.
"You've interrupted lunch," one of the bloodsuckers hissed. "That means you become part of it."
"Always with the cheesy dialogue, as Ven would say." Alaric shook his head and got ready to turn into mist and escape, until he saw exactly what they were preparing to eat for lunch.
Whom they were preparing to eat for lunch.
Damn.
It was kids.
"You again?" The kid in the red shirt looked familiar, and Alaric realized it was the same boy he'd saved from Ptolemy.
"That is far too large a coincidence. What are you doing here?"
The vamp who thought he was the leader snarled at Alaric. "You can address me if you have something to say."
"Shut up. You were saying, kid?"
The kid jerked his chin at the group of five smaller children who were huddled and crying in the middle of the group of bloodsuckers. "I take care of them."
"Not very well, apparently."
The kid lunged at Alaric, trying to get away from the vamp who held him, but bloodsuckers had unnatural strength, so it was a futile struggle.
"You're angry at the wrong person, Faust," Alaric advised, forming a sword out of pure energy and slicing off the kid's captor's head before anybody could move. "I'm not the one trying to eat you and your friends for lunch. What do you say we take care of this and get out of here?"
Faust dropped to the floor, pulling a gun out from underneath his shirt in one quick motion and firing on the nearest vamp before Alaric had come to the end of his sentence.
"Guns don't work on--"
"Silver to the brain stem does," Faust interrupted, surprising Alaric. Not many humans knew that. "Help me get these kids out of here?"
The vampires started shrieking, hissing, biting, and clawing--all the things vamps usually did--but Alaric had endured too damn much to put up with any of it. He set to work with the shining sword, with Faust at his back taking aim with his gun.
Within minutes every vamp in the room was dead and dissolving in a pile of acidic slime, and only one of the children was badly injured: a girl with a nasty bite on her neck bleeding out on the floor. Alaric could feel her life force ebbing as he watched, and she was a tiny bit of a thing, probably no older than five.
"I need to get her to a doctor, man," Faust said, panicking.
"There's no time," Alaric said, as gently as he knew how.
The boy ignored him and carefully gathered the girl in his arms, and in the space of those few moments, Alaric considered his options. He was teetering on the edge of overuse of magic as it was; would the energy to heal one human child who was already so close to dying send him over the edge? Could he risk it, when the result might be to condemn thousands of Atlantean children to death?
The girl cried out, and he realized he didn't actually have a decision to make at all. He couldn't do nothing and watch this child die.
He stopped Faust and placed his hand over the site of the wound. Blue-green light flared as Alaric's healing energy swept through him and into the child. She stiffened in the boy's arms and then sat up, grinning.
"Do it again!"
The bite on her neck was gone as if it had never happened.
"But--" Faust looked wildly from Alaric to the child. "How did you--"
"The bite is healed and any vampire venom is completely destroyed, so she is not at risk from the blood bond, either," Alaric told him. "I have to go now. Try to stay out of trouble, won't you? I don't have time to keep rescuing you. I have to go kill that impostor who calls himself Ptolemy."
Faust called out to him before Alaric reached the doorway. "I can take you to him. He's getting ready to have a press conference at City Hall at eight o'clock."
Alaric paused and then swung back. "We're in New York?"
The little girl he'd healed giggled up at him. "Mister, you're not very smart, are you?"
He shook his head. "No, sweetling. I'm not very smart at all."
Chapter 17
Outside City Hall, New York
Quinn stood on the sidewalk in City Hall Park, staring up at the grand limestone facade of the beautiful building, and considered her options. She'd been thinking subtle: steal her way into the building and find Ptolemy; confront him privately. See what he had in mind for Atlantis. For Poseidon's Pride.
For her.
No dice, though. The public hadn't been allowed into City Hall since a horde of drunken wolf-shifters had eaten all the tour guides one day a few years back, or so her laminated map said.
She was running out of choices, and Atlantis was running out of time.
Well, as Jack always said, the best defense was a good offense. She squared her shoulders and swallowed the lump of pain and regret that formed in her throat at the thought of him. Later. She could think about Jack later. For now, she'd walk right up to the front door and show them her best credential.
Her face.
The guard just inside the door didn't look up. She was seated at an old wooden table that may have dated from as far back as the building itself and was oddly incongruous next to the modern doorway-shaped metal detector. "Next."
Quinn was doing enough looking up for both of them, though. The soaring rotunda and magnificent staircase that winged to each side transported her to a world of nineteenth-century New York aristocracy, glittering with sparkling jewels and even more sparkling conversation. Oddly enough, it reminded her a little of the Atlantean palace, if not on nearly as grand a scale.
"Next," the guard said again, louder. The woman was built like a warrior: sturdy muscle packed into a small, stout body. Her tightly curled gray hair was cut close to her head, and her face, like Quinn's, was devoid of makeup. Quinn might have smiled, recognizing a kindred spirit, under other circumstances.
"I'm Quinn Dawson."
"Key card."
"I'm Quinn Dawson,"
she repeated slowly. "Ptolemy is looking for me."
"I don't care if you're Elvis, you're not getting in here without a . . . Oh. My. God," the woman said, finally looking up at Quinn. "You're her? The rebel leader?"
Quinn drew a deep breath and admitted it. Out loud. "Yes."
The sturdy woman practically hurled herself out of her chair and around the metal detector to grab Quinn in a crushing embrace. "My Johnny wouldn't be alive without you people. You got him out of a gang before he could make the ultimate bad decision and go vampire. I can't thank you enough, young lady."
Quinn was finding it hard to breathe by the time the woman finally released her--a combination of overpowering emotion, boiling up from the woman's genuine gratitude, and the sheer force of her hug--but she did take ruthless advantage of the moment to edge around, instead of through, the metal detector.
"I'm so happy to hear that, Ms. Rutkowsky," she said, reading the guard's name tag. "I really do need to see Ptolemy as quickly as possible, if you could . . ."
"I'll take you right up there myself. Personally," the flustered woman promised. "Frank! Get over here and watch the door."
So within minutes of entering the building, Quinn found herself in a stately, elegant conference room, staring down the length of an enormous, shiny table at the man she'd seen so recently on television, destroying her life. She ignored the seat he gestured for her to take.
"I'm Quinn Dawson. I hear you want to meet me."
Ptolemy was even more imposing in person. He exuded a dark, menacing charisma, like most of the best con men, vampires, and criminals. He was a thug dressed up like a politician, but he remained just unpolished enough for anyone meeting him to know that here was a man who would do his own dirty work, and--what's worse--he'd enjoy it. She scanned for his emotions, but what she found was so alien she had no way to read it. It was twisted and oily and viciously gleeful, like nothing she'd ever encountered before, and suddenly she had to work hard not to show that she'd noticed.
Right now he was smiling at her like she was Santa and the Easter Bunny all wrapped up in one pint-sized package, and the reek of his perverted glee, which wafted across the room, made her nauseous. He headed down the room toward her, arms outstretched, and she backed away, circling to the other side of the table.