Atlantis Awakening (15 page)

“I have done everything I can, but it's not enough.” A muscle clenched in his jaw, and Erin felt an unexpected sympathy for the man. His failure to help Riley and the baby must have been eating away at his soul—there wasn't even a trace of his usual arrogance in his voice or expression.

“Actually, I may be able to help with that,” Erin said, compelled to break the hideous tension between them. “There is a legend of a famous ruby that gem singers can apparently use to heal pregnant women and unborn babies. If we can find it, I can try to use it. Marie said she'd help me. The rumor is that it may be somewhere around Mount Rainier.”

“That's quite a coincidence,” Quinn said. “We just happen to be near Mount Rainier, and Caligula is probably underneath it. Now you're telling me this gem is there, too? I don't believe in coincidences.”

“I don't either, but it's actually not a coincidence at all, more of a cause-and-effect relationship, from what Marie told us,” Erin explained. “Evidently the presence of the gem in this area called to any child with the latent gem singer Gift, so it was more likely that a gem singer would develop her talent near the Nereid's Heart than anywhere else in the world.”

“We've got reports of a tolling noise coming from the area around the mountain. Seismologists thought it was earthquake activity at first,” Ven said. “But Marie said it very well could be the ruby coming to life, so to speak, after being hidden underground and inert for thousands of years.”

Jack suddenly made a deep, growling noise and leapt to stand next to Quinn. “I smell vampire.”

“That would be me,” a voice called out from the area by the door, where two of Quinn's men were standing with pistols trained on Alexios and Brennan, who flanked a third man. The man in the center held up his hands. “Somebody needs to shoot me, quick, because you're going to be attacked in less than five minutes.”

As they came closer, Erin realized he was a vampire, even though a golden patina disguised his pale skin. He'd had the darkened complexion to go with his black hair, once.

“Daniel, what the hell are you talking about?” Ven called out, as everybody in the room went into a blur of action and the sound of weapons being locked and loaded surrounded Erin. Alexios and Brennan strode forward, with the man who must have been Daniel keeping pace.

Erin's amber sang out with a deep, urgent song, but it was different from the discordant, crashing sound she usually heard in the presence of vampires. This had a haunting melody that sang of soul-deep loneliness and loss. “What are you?” she asked as he came nearer.

He flashed a dark look at her that measured and dismissed her. “I am nothing you have ever encountered, gem singer. Be warned to stay far away from me and my kind, because you have the scent of Fae in your blood, and magic and Fae combine to form a most potent aphrodisiac. It's part of the reason why he wanted your sister so badly.”

“What? Deirdre? Who the hell are you? What—”

“No time.” He cut her off and turned to Ven. “Less than four minutes now, Atlantean. Make it look good. But first, here's what you need to know. I was there when the tolling began, and it was nothing human-made. It may very well be that your ruby is awakening and calling for its singer.”

He turned his head and pinned Quinn with his black gaze. “My hope is that your sister be made well, brave one. You need to know this: Caligula's plan is to take the country back to the time when your rules and laws did not apply; when we who ride the night created our own anarchy. Everything he does is to further that end. His blood pride goes out every night to turn more and more humans to his service, against all the laws of your Congress and against the wishes of the other, more conservative vampires of power.”

Daniel looked up, as if listening to something none of them could hear, then nodded. “Time's up. Shoot me and make it good, Lord Vengeance. The stomach, perhaps.”

“What? What's going on?” Erin thought she might be shouting, but she didn't care. “You want us to shoot you? Where is my sister?”

The vampire flashed over to the table and grabbed a pen, then stabbed it down on the map so hard it drove into the wood and stood there, quivering back and forth. “There. Now do it, Ven. If they catch me here, I am worthless to our cause. Oh, and one more thing.” He paused, eyes focused on the gun that Ven drew from his leg holster.

“Anubisa still lives. She is plotting something that even Caligula does not know, and they have spies in all three of your groups.” His gaze encompassed Quinn, Ven, and Erin when he said it. Then his eyes glowed red and he curled his hands into claws. “Now!” He sprang at Ven, and Ven shot him in the stomach. Daniel howled out a bone-chilling scream of agony, and before he hit the ground the few windows that still had glass exploded inward as a swarm of vampires came screaming into the building, the rage of blood fever in their glowing red eyes.

They came in fast and furious, and there were a lot of them. Ven slammed his Glock back in its holster, dismissing it as useless against the horde of vamps. He shrugged out of his long coat and used one hand to unsheathe the sword strapped to his back, while he pulled a dagger with his other.

He headed straight for Erin, who stood frozen in the center of the room, and herded her backward until her back was against a wall. “Stay here, and stay shielded,” he ordered.

When she started to argue, he cut her off. “I know you want to help, but we have more experience at this. Keep yourself safe.”

Alerted by the screaming sound of displaced air, he whirled around to meet the vampire diving at him. Ven hurled his dagger with deadly accuracy and it smashed into the vamp's throat. Not enough to kill a bloodsucker, but enough to slow it down.

The vamp crashed into the floor, clawing at the dagger protruding from his throat, but Ven was there in a single leap. One swift downstroke with his sword, and the vampire's head rolled away from its body. He yanked his dagger out of what was left of the vampire's neck and turned to face three more coming at him.

Everywhere he looked, Atlanteans, humans, and shape-shifters engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the vamps. The rebels fought almost as fiercely as Poseidon's warriors, but they were brutally overwhelmed in number. Ven heard shots ring out, but couldn't see who was doing the shooting over the shoulders of the vampires who were suddenly on him. Stabbing, slashing, and wishing for an armful of wooden stakes, he defended himself and blocked them from where Erin stood behind him.

There was no way he would let them get to her. He tried to console himself that her shield that could block the force of a bomb was good enough to keep her safe from vampires, but then his sword got stuck in the ribs of one of the vamps, and another came at him from above and sank its fangs into his shoulder.

He leapt sideways so that he slammed the vamp's head into the stone wall, which dislodged it from his flesh. The move gave him an opening to see Erin. She stood where he'd left her, arms out, a shimmering shield of translucent light surrounding her. Two vampires were trying to get through it, and they kept hurling themselves against the shield, which bounced them back over and over again. Either they weren't very bright, or they knew something he didn't about whether repeated force would weaken her shield or her strength.

The immense force of a massive energy burst thrummed against his skin, and he looked up to see Alaric standing in front of Quinn and calling power. Ven grinned in spite of the blood dripping from his shoulder.

“Oh, you're in trouble now, bloodsuckers! My man Alaric is going to fry some vampire ass.” He laughed when he said it, and the four new vampires heading for him paused briefly, probably unused to prey who weren't quaking in their boots. “Come and get me, girls,” he taunted them. “I don't bite. At least, not much.”

The vampires screamed out their rage, their hellish eyes glowing bloody red, and they dive-bombed him. Ven did a rolling dive to the floor and got underneath them, then leapt to his feet and slashed out with his sword, killing two of them before the other two even managed to turn around.

A woman's high, piercing scream distracted him. He whipped his head to the side in time to see Erin fall to the ground. She still held her shield intact, but it had shrunk to cover her by mere inches. Four vampires now beat on the shield around her.

A killing rage washed through him in a red tide of fury. He flashed away from the two vamps attacking him and barreled into the ones surrounding Erin. Slashing and stabbing, he made short work of the first two, but then a searing pain pierced his back. He looked down to see the tip of a dagger protruding from the left side of his abdomen, and forced himself to leap sideways away from the vamps, pushing off on legs suddenly gone numb. He smashed into the ground on his side, hard, and smacked his head on the concrete. Before he could attempt to reach around and pull the dagger out, the vamps were on him again. The largest of the three yanked Ven's hair and pulled his head up off the floor, baring his throat to strike.

Another piercing female scream sliced through the battle noise, but this one came from the center of the room. A huge roaring noise—so fierce that the vamps attacking Ven cringed away from the sound—followed the scream. In the next moment, a familiar pressure swirled through the room, then rocketed up to an intensity that Ven had never felt before.

None but Alaric could channel the elements with a power level even approaching that. Ven attempted another laugh, and stabbed his knife upward through the bottom of the neck of the vampire trying to bite him. “It's all over now,” he began, and then the air in the warehouse went supernova. A blinding blue-green light filled the room and seemed to sear right through the skin of the bloodsuckers who were pinning him to the floor. Their skulls lit up like Halloween decorations, and the unearthly blue light sizzled out from behind their eye sockets and their open mouths. The hideous stink of burning vampire wafted over him and he rolled out from underneath them, swearing when the handle of the dagger still protruding from his side pounded into the floor and stabbed deeper into his flesh.

He tried to push himself up, but was unable to fight his way through the pressure from the energy still crackling through the air. He shoved the smoking carcass of a dead vamp out of his way so he had a clear line of sight to Erin. She was crouching against the wall, somehow still holding her shield. The bodies of three or four vampires lay on the ground in front of her, flames licking over their clothes and skin.

Something inside Ven's ears popped with a sudden release of pressure, and he tried to stand up again. This time nothing stopped him, and he ran toward Erin, scanning the room. Humans, shape-shifters, and Atlanteans alike were all down. A quick glance told him that many were wounded and some might be dead. Smoking heaps of bloodsucker littered the room, and Alaric was the only one standing, completely unharmed, blue flames surrounding him and licking at his clothes and hair. Whatever in the nine hells the priest had managed to do, Ven wanted to learn it. Soon.

He reached Erin and crouched down, wincing at the pain from his side. He put a hand back and yanked the dagger out by its hilt, tossed it across the floor, and pulled her into his arms. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Are you wounded?”

She pulled back and put her hand on his side, where blood was streaming down. “I'm fine. I'm not hurt. What happened to you? You're bleeding. A lot.”

He shook his head. “It's nothing. Don't worry about it. If they had harmed you—” He left the rest of the sentence unspoken, not sure how to say “my universe would have ended” without freaking her out.

He was freaking out his own damn self, with the intensity of the rage that swept through him at the thought of them hurting her. He covered the wound on his side with his hand, and they stood and faced the room.

“Right now we need to help everyone else,” he said.

She nodded, although her face was white with exhaustion. They stepped around the disintegrating mess of dead vampire on the floor and made it two or three steps before she grabbed his hand and stopped. “The gems, Ven. I can try to use the gems to sing healing for you.”

“No! You're too exhausted, and the healing would drain even more of your strength. I'm fine, this is just a scratch.”

She glared at him. “I think we need to have that conversation about you telling me what to do sooner rather than later,” she said. “But not right now.”

With that, she placed one hand on the entry wound and one hand on the exit wound, opened her mouth, and began to sing. Before Ven could protest, the delicate notes of her song washed over and through him in a glaze of silver light. A burning heat centered within him in the path the dagger had taken, and he somehow knew the notes of her song were calling to the molecules of his skin to knit themselves together, to heal his torn flesh.

She stopped singing, sighing with weariness. As her song trailed off, the sensation of heat penetrating his skin did, too. He looked down at his side and was unsurprised to see the flesh sealed back together, the gaping wound gone, and nothing but a thin pink line remaining where the dagger had pierced him.

“Now I'll go help everybody else,” she said. But before he could utter a word, her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed. He caught her before she could hit the ground and lifted her in his arms, then turned and started toward Alaric, who had dropped to the ground and was cradling Quinn on his lap.

Quinn's limp body looked lifeless, and the rage in Alaric's eyes promised a screaming death by torture to those who had engineered the attack. Ven's arms tightened around Erin, and he made a grim vow to the gods, speaking the words aloud to underscore his vow. “I swear on my own life and on my honor as a Warrior of Poseidon that Caligula will not survive to hurt any under my protection again.”

 

Erin fought her way to consciousness, but lay still without opening her eyes, wondering why she ached so badly in every part of her body. Pain danced behind her eyelids, pirouetting through her brain, a macabre ballet of agony. The hangover of magic use was all too familiar. The level of intensity was not.

Intensity. The battle.

Her eyes flew open. “Ven,” she croaked out. Her vocal cords burned as if she'd swallowed a fire-sword. She struggled to sit up, and in an instant Ven was kneeling beside her.

“I'm here,
mi amara
. How are you feeling?”

“I feel like a boulder smashed into me,” she admitted. “But other than a massive magic hangover, I think I'm fine. And you?” Suddenly frantic, she pulled his shirt aside to see his wound. “Did I do it? Are you healed?”

He showed her the healing flesh that was the only sign of the vicious stabbing, and she collapsed back against the cushions in relief. He bent and pressed a quick, hard kiss to her lips. “Thank Poseidon you are well,” he said, his voice rough. “And yes, as you see, your singing healed me, but we need to talk about this propensity you have to put yourself in danger. The healing drains too much of your energy.”

She mustered up a weary smile. “Add it to the list of things we need to talk about, then.”

Reassured that Ven was fine, Erin finally looked around the room and recognized the gathering room in the Circle of Light headquarters. She lay on the burgundy striped couch farthest from the windows, and several men and women she recognized as being part of Quinn's group were lying on pallets on the floor and on the other couches in the room.

Justice leaned up against one wall, streaks of dark red blood staining his blue hair. His shirt was unbuttoned, and bandaging encircled his chest. Alaric, Quinn, the tiger, and the rest of the Atlanteans were nowhere to be seen.

“Is Justice badly injured? And the others? Quinn? Are they—”

Ven shook his head and his eyes darkened. “Justice is the least injured. Quinn nearly died; she took a knife thrust in her lungs. Brennan and Alexios were badly injured, as well.”

She struggled to stand up, forcing her bruised and battered body to cooperate. “Let me up! I can help them. I can sing—”

“Shh,” he soothed, gently pushing her back against the cushions. “Alaric has healed them all, as much as he could before even his energy faltered. That trick he pulled off nearly killed him, I think, but he won't admit it. He saw Quinn fall and went ballistic. Your friend Gennae said that somehow he pulled magic from every witch in the city and channeled it along with his own in order to send that destructo-bolt of lightning through the warehouse. It was powerful enough to incinerate every vampire in a two-block radius on contact. We found piles of melting vampire slime all around the building. Clearly they were sending reinforcements.”

“What about your friend? Daniel? Was he destroyed as well?”

Ven shook his head. “I'm not sure I'd call him a friend. Seems like a friend could have warned us earlier or warded off that attack completely. To answer your question, I don't know. The last I saw, he was hitting the ground with my bullet in his gut. It seems unlikely that he could have gotten away.”

A flash of something grim crossed his expression, and Erin impulsively reached out for his hand. “It's not your fault. He asked you to shoot him. He must have known the danger he was in.”

His dark eyes iced over, and he pulled his hand from hers and stood up. “I feel no guilt for the death of a vampire. It has been our sworn duty for more than eleven thousand years to destroy their kind. If you are sure you are well, I need to go find Jack and ask if he will help me search for Christophe and Denal. I need their assistance to transport our wounded to Atlantis.”

She nodded and watched him walk away, thinking that whether he admitted it or not, he almost certainly regretted causing the death of even a single ally when the world seemed filled with enemies.

A familiar tingle of magic flickered at the edge of her consciousness, and she turned to see Gennae crossing the room toward her, her arms full of blankets. A young novice witch followed her with a tray of cups and mugs. Gennae nodded at Erin, then distributed the blankets, taking time to be sure her patients were comfortable. She and the novice handed out cups and mugs to any who were awake, and then Gennae carried a steaming mug over to Erin.

“Drink this, child.” She handed the fragrant tea to Erin and sat on the edge of the couch near Erin's feet. “Are you well? That warrior seems to have appointed himself your personal bodyguard and would scarcely let me get near you.”

Indignation furrowed her brow. “As if I would hurt you. All he kept saying was, ‘We have traitors, lady, and I don't know if you're one of them.' That Alaric person finally had to tell them that he'd scanned me, and I was no traitor. The nerve of them both!”