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.
Chapter 25
Alaric's first instinct was to shatter the Statue of Liberty into crumbling dust, and everyone still on the island with it. The berserker rage climbed up inside him again, and with the recently increased capacity of his power, he was likely to destroy the entire state of New York.
Only one thing stopped him from doing so: he could still sense Quinn. Somewhere, either so far away he had no idea of how to reach her, or else nearby with her presence blocked by the pretender, but he could still feel her. The soul-meld had given him that much. She was alive and unharmed, at least for now, and he would find her.
Now that the demon had gone, the police and other officials were closing in, fast, and it was time for him to disappear. He transformed into mist and soared up until he rematerialized on top of Lady Liberty's torch and balanced on the edge. The view was spectacular, had he cared about such things.
Below him, police and rescue workers scurried about, assisting the remaining people and searching for evidence of Ptolemy, no doubt. Alaric felt a moment's compassion for the human police, who'd had to adapt to so much when the vampires and other paranormal creatures made themselves known. Regular handcuffs didn't do much to restrain a wolf shifter in a full-on rage; he couldn't imagine that any of their weapons would have had any effect on a demon.
Quinn was definitely correct in that--Ptolemy was undoubtedly some kind of demon. The taint of his magic was so different from any that Alaric had previously encountered that he was beginning to believe the tale of a different dimension, too. If the monster had taken Quinn to a different dimension, Alaric might never be able to find her.
Therefore, it could not be so. He would not allow it.
He glanced down at his hands, unsurprised to find them glowing again, and forced his fingers to relax before he inadvertently destroyed the Statue of Liberty, thereby insulting both the United States and France before Atlantis had even had a chance to make diplomatic overtures. He almost smiled at the thought of Conlan trying to explain that one. Instead, he took a deep breath and called out to Christophe.
Status?
Yeah, hello to you, too, Alaric.
Christophe sounded weary, and little wonder. The brunt of maintaining the Trident and the dome had fallen to him.
Alaric focused his intensity and sent a greater measure of his magic soaring toward Atlantis, to reinforce the dome. The metaphysics of the connection were beyond him; the distance should have made the link impossible. He was Atlantis's high priest, however, and the bond between them was forged of unbreakable steel.
Christophe replied immediately:
Whatever you just did, that helped, man. The pain in my head lifted a lot, and Serai says the same.
Serai entered the mental communication:
You must succeed quickly, Alaric. Christophe and I, even with the aid of all of your acolytes and Myrken, can hold this for only one more day. Two days would be our very outer limit.
Alaric couldn't tell them what had happened. If they knew Ptolemy had disappeared with Poseidon's Pride, they might lose hope. Instead, he told them he was nearly there, and disconnected the communication.
He needed help, and he was willing to admit it. He sent his senses winging out over the city, until he located a certain son of the god of war. Faust probably could help him find that abandoned subway station he'd seen in his vision of Quinn during the soul-meld. There was a chance that Ptolemy had returned there to plan and plot. He certainly wouldn't have returned to that hotel.
It didn't take long before he sensed the youngling, although a police helicopter found Alaric standing on the torch at the same time. Before the annoying loudspeaker commands could begin again, Alaric leapt into the air. He hovered for a moment next to the surprised officer hanging out of the side.
"We are on the same side, human. I will find and destroy the demon Ptolemy for you, this I swear on my oath as the high priest of Poseidon."
With that, he transformed to mist and, leaving one very surprised policeman behind him, headed for the location where he could feel Faust's presence burning like a flame in the heart of the city.
Only to discover that Faust was inside a police station.
Alaric groaned as he walked out from behind the truck where he'd transformed so as not to cause a disturbance. The boy was solidifying Alaric's belief that children were far more trouble than they were worth. Although a child with Quinn . . . His steps slowed as he visualized Quinn's flat belly rounding with his baby, and he almost walked into a police car as it pulled into a parking space.
Time for mental daydreams later.
But thinking of Quinn and his future child was like gasoline to the flame of his fury. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to keep from blasting a hole in the side of the building and snatchi
ng the boy, but somehow he managed it.
Barely.
After a quick check to make sure that he wasn't glowing again--he had a feeling he'd find that hard to explain to the police--he strode into the building as if he owned the place. A quick scan revealed Faust arguing with a female police officer in front of the desk, so Alaric approached respectfully, so as not to appear hostile or aggressive. Especially since his face had certainly been on television while he destroyed City Hall. The humans tended not to appreciate that sort of thing.
Luckily, there was no sign of recognition on the policewoman's face. Lots of frustration, but no recognition.
"I apologize for my son, officer," he said. "Is there restitution to be made?"
Faust started to protest, but Alaric shot him a stern look. "You're in enough trouble, young man."
The officer shook her head. "No restitution, but he can't keep hiding street kids from the authorities. I'll let him go this time, since he was clearly trying to help those children, but you'd better straighten him out before he gets in real trouble."
Alaric took a firm grip on Faust's arm and started walking, thanking the officer as he left. It was always better to cooperate with law enforcement, a lesson the boy at his side had yet to learn, from the sound of the tirade he was spewing as they left. Something about bureaucratic idiocy, but Alaric didn't care and he definitely didn't have the time.
When they reached a corner alley several streets away from the police building, on a street lined with small shops and eateries, Alaric finally let go of the youngling.
"Silence," he commanded, and Faust stopped speaking, mid-sentence, and changed course.
"Um, are you going to kill me?"
"Why would I bother to remove you from police custody, if that were the case? I could have killed you there far more easily, and without having to listen to your incessant babble," Alaric pointed out reasonably.
For some reason, Faust did not seem to be reassured by his words. Stupid human.
"I told you I'd take care of you and your friends," he told the boy. "You can all move to Atlantis and live happily ever after, once I retrieve the tourmaline, and save the dome, so Atlantis can rise. But for now, I need your help."
Faust backed away a little. "You're completely off your rocker, aren't you? Atlantis?"
"You've seen the sea god in action, and you doubt Atlantis? You're not particularly intelligent, are you?"
He started to turn away in disgust, since he would clearly receive no useful help here, but a stray thought stopped him. "How is the child?"
Faust grinned at the reminder of his tiny friend, and his shoulders relaxed. "She's fine, thanks to you. Perfectly healthy and doesn't even remember what happened."
"She had no need to remember the trauma, so I removed it from her memory."
The boy looked up at him with a new measure of respect. "Really? You can do that? Well, thanks."
Alaric considered the boy. "How old are you?"
"I'm eighteen."
Alaric said nothing, simply waited.
"Okay, I'm sixteen, or at least I will be next month," Faust finally admitted. "But my ID says I'm eighteen, and I've been taking care of myself and the kids for almost two years."
"Admirable."
The boy visibly puffed up a little, probably surprised to hear approval instead of condemnation from an adult, even one he considered to be off his rocker.
"If you would thank me, do so by helping me find an abandoned subway station," Alaric said, making a sudden decision to trust the boy.
Faust backed up as a group of women walked by, chattering about lunch plans. He waited for them to pass before he shook his head.
"For reals? Those places are seriously scary, and that's before you get into the new players like this Ptolemy guy. I'm talking gang hangouts, rats, drug dens, rats, shorted-out electrical wires, and rats."
Alaric raised an eyebrow. "You're afraid of rats?"
"Heck yeah, I'm afraid of rats. They carry all kinds of freaky germs, like the next bubonic plague, probably."
"You may be right. I will destroy the rats. Now, can we go?"
Faust sighed, and then brightened. "I'll do it for a hundred bucks. I can feed the rest of the kids for a week on that, if I'm careful."
"I don't have any of your currency."
"Man, that sucks."
Alaric felt the new magic boiling up in him, wanting to destroy, and he forced it down again. "I will obtain some, or give you gold in the equivalent of five thousand of your dollars, to do this for me. Now. We're running out of time, and I'm running out of patience."
Nearly three hours later, Alaric admitted defeat. They'd searched every tunnel and hole that Faust could find, but there was no trace of Quinn. Finally, they'd come to a room that he was sure was the one from the vision, even down to the shabby sofa, but there was no trace of Quinn or Ptolemy, except perhaps for a faint trace of her scent.
Frustration borne of helpless despair rose up in him, and he blasted the couch into tiny shreds.
"This isn't working," he said, all but snarling at the boy, the room, and the situation.
Faust stared at the black hole in the concrete where the couch used to be. "I don't know, that seemed to work fine."
The boy flicked his finger like a gun and shot a thin finger of flame across the room to incinerate a pile of newspapers.
"Why would you fear rats, when you have that power?"
Faust shrugged his thin shoulders. "I don't really know how to control it. My mom kicked me out when it showed up and I started fires in the house," he said, staring down at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. "Maybe you could, you know, take me on as an apprentice when this is over."
"I won't be taking on any more acolytes, ever. I told Poseidon that I'm done with him."
The boy's shoulders slumped, but then he grinned. "You really told Poseidon--the Poseidon--that he could take his job and shove it?"
"Shove it where?" Strange human.
Faust laughed. "Never mind. Old saying. It was a song, I think."
"I don't care about songs or old sayings. If we don't find Quinn soon, my entire civilization will be destroyed," Alaric said, and then he raced out of the room and out of the tunnels, until he reached fresh air, or at least as fresh as it got in New York.
Dusk had settled its shadowy cloak around the city, and Alaric was no closer to finding Quinn. Faust arrived, slightly out of breath, and Alaric realized he had no idea what to do next. He sent his senses searching for Quinn, but only the faintest murmur of her existence echoed back to him.
Random searching was worse than useless.
He had failed. Atlantis and Quinn were doomed, and it was entirely his fault.
"What we need is some food," the boy said.
Before Alaric could answer, that damnable voice was speaking to him again, and he whirled around to find the portal forming behind him.
"You have need?"
"No," Alaric shouted, but yet again it was too late, and the portal took him. He and Faust fell tumbling through the vortex and into Atlantis.
"Take me back, now. I must find Quinn and Poseidon's Pride," Alaric roared, but the portal blinked out of existence.
A solid minute of calling it yielded nothing but a hoarse voice.
"Somehow, sometime, I will find a way to choke you to death," Alaric told the spirit of the portal, which apparently either wasn't listening or chose not to respond to the death threat any more than it had listened to his calls to return.
Gathering the tattered shreds of his calm, Alaric turned to find Faust slowly turning in a circle, trying to see everything at once.
"Oh this is wicked cool," the boy yelled, gazing openmouthed up at the dome, as Marcus and the portal guards stared at the two of them in surprise.
"You would think so," Alaric said. "Don't start any fires. Marcus, please ask one of your men to take the youngling to the kitchens and see that he's fed. I'm going to find Conlan and Christophe
and Serai and see what's happening before I completely lose my mind."
"You know that you're glowing, right?" Marcus's face was impassive as he posed the question, as if it were a regular occurrence for Poseidon's high priest to light up like a bonfire.
"Yes. It's a new development," Alaric said tersely. "I'll explain later, if we survive this."
It was a very big if.
When he reached the palace, it was to find Conlan attempting to destroy the throne room, using his royal sword to smash his throne into shards of wood, gems, and precious metals, while Ven tried in vain to stop him. Conlan's shirt was loose, and his back was wet with the sweat of exertion, so he'd been at it for some time. The high prince whirled to face Alaric.
"Alaric? Do you have the stone?" Conlan pointed the sword at him. "Where is it? We need to get out of here and find Riley and Aidan and the others. Did you hear from them?"
"We need to find them, now," Ven said, his eyes wild.
"And I thought I was the only one going mad," Alaric said, calmly enough for a man who'd managed to lose the woman with whom he'd soul-melded. Even as he thought it, he realized Conlan and Ven were in the exact same situation.
"We will find them again," he told them. "Healthy and whole. I swear it."
Or he would destroy the entire world.
But they need not know he held on to sanity by only the slenderest of threads.
"We need--" Ven began again, and then the godsdamned portal decided to materialize in the middle of the throne room.
"You have need?"
And it dumped out a precious cargo, indeed: Keely and Eleni walked out, followed by Erin, and then Riley holding Aidan.
As Conlan dropped the sword and ran to embrace his family, and Ven did the same with Erin, Alaric watched the portal, hoping without cause for one final traveler, but it again vanished before he could reach it.
"You're defective," Keely shouted after it, and he noticed that, oddly enough, her nose was sunburned. Her entire face, actually.
"Where were you?"
Riley looked a little embarrassed, but she held up Aidan for everyone to see, which was tough since Conlan was holding his family so close. When she finally managed to squirm free, Alaric saw that the baby was wearing a shirt that said ALOHA.
"You were in Hawaii?" Ven swung Erin around and then put her down. "Hawaii? While we were here going out of our minds?"