Alaric threw his head back, flinching, the cords in his neck standing out in stark relief as every muscle in his body seemed to tighten.

Conlan lifted his hands to Riley's shoulders, but an electric shock slammed him back away from her. For the s.p.a.ce of several seconds, the three-Alaric, Quinn, and Riley-were frozen in a painful tableau, limned in a luminous blue-green light.

Then, as one, Riley and Alaric slumped forward, gasping for breath. Conlan caught Riley before she could fall forward onto her sister, gently taking her chin in his hand and searching her face for signs that she had been harmed.

Alaric caught himself, one hand on his knee, the other still in place on Quinn's shoulder. "I do not know why you were caught up in the healing process, Riley. I have never channeled the healing powers like that before. Are you harmed?"

Before Riley could respond, a quiet, slightly husky feminine voice cut across the sound of rasping breaths. "If you move that hand one inch closer to my b.o.o.b, I'm going to cut it off."

Alaric took one look into Quinn's eyes as they opened and fell back away from her. Shooting to his feet with such speed that Conlan almost wasn't able to track him, Alaric backed away from them, shaking his head and muttering something to himself.

Conlan was unable to make out the words, but he heard the cadence of ancient Atlantean and wondered at it. He stroked Riley's hair, a brief touch more for his comfort than hers, and stood to follow Alaric.

He caught the priest on the other side of the path as Alaric began to shimmer into mist. "Stop," he commanded. "Where in the nine h.e.l.ls do you think you're going? What just happened?"

Alaric reverted to corporeal form and whirled around to face him. "You want to know what happened?" he asked, wild fury in his voice, desperation dark in the harsh lines of his face.

"You want to know what happened !" With two steps, he was right up in Conlan's face.

"I'll tell you what happened , my prince," Alaric continued, rasping out the words. "What happened was I sent my healing energy inside Quinn. Inside that human . And she grabbed hold of me."

He shoved a hand through his hair and laughed a little wildly, eyes flaring green and hot.

Savage.

"She dug her mental claws into my b.a.l.l.s , is what happened. I healed her, and she destroyed something in me. Shredded it."

"What-" Conlan never got the question out.

"My control," Alaric snarled. "The absolutely rock-hard control that I've spent centuries perfecting. Your little girlfriend's sister reached out with her emotions, or her witchy empath nature, or what the h.e.l.l ever, and all I wanted to do was f.u.c.k her ."

Conlan moved back half a step at the ferocity in the priest's voice and dropped his hands to his dagger handles. For an instant, icy death menaced in the air between them.

Alaric laughed, bitter again. "Oh, you don't need your blades. In spite of the fact that I wanted her more than I've wanted anything in my life, I won't touch her. Although, even now, my mind tortures me with images of pounding into her body, right there on the ground in the mess of her own blood, f.u.c.king and f.u.c.king her until I drive myself into her soul." Alaric viciously kicked at a tree and shards of bark flew into the air, then disintegrated in the green energy bolts he shot at them.

This was new and dangerous territory, and Conlan attempted to proceed with caution. "Alaric, you must-"

"Yes. I must . I must never succ.u.mb to any l.u.s.ts, or my power is ended. Certainly, I would be of no further use to you or to Atlantis. No use to the jealous b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a sea G.o.d whom I serve," the priest said flatly, his voice suddenly devoid of the rage and pa.s.sion that had infused it moments before.

"I must get away from her," he continued. "Now. From this place. I am ruined for this day, in any event. This... this energy drain has voided any hope I had of re-scrying for the Trident until I recover. I will meet you back at Ven's safe house tonight."

Conlan grasped his friend's shoulders, shaken by the blasphemy he'd never heard from him before. "Alaric, know that your use to me and to Atlantis goes far beyond the powers you gained from Poseidon. Your wise counsel has served me well for centuries, and I will need you when I ascend to the throne."

Alaric stared over Conlan's shoulder toward Riley and her sister. "These empaths. They signal a treacherous difference in our ways, Conlan. I can sense it. Change is coming. Peril that comes from within our very souls."

With that, he took two running steps and leapt into the air, transforming into sparkling mist that quickly vanished.

Conlan watched the air into which Alaric had disappeared for a long moment, considering his parting words.

But Alaric had been wrong. Change wasn't coming.

It's already here.

Chapter 20.

Twenty minutes later, Conlan stood with Ven, grimly contemplating the pile of bodies they and the rest of the Seven had pulled behind the deadfall of trees. Centuries of serving as a warrior had yet to inure him to the foul stink of death, and his stomach growled an urge to reject its contents. He scrubbed at his hands with leaves, then realized the futility of the effort and called water from the surrounding leaves and a tiny stream some hundred yards away to cleanse his hands.

The mist became fluid in the cupped bowl of his hands and he washed the blood from hands and forearms, wondering how Reisen and his remaining warriors had escaped undetected after surviving this carnage. They must have been spattered with gore.

Except, of course, when they traveled as mist. Which may have explained why Riley no longer detected them. He'd have to test his theory with her sometime. Sometime when a dozen dead men weren't lying at his feet.

Almost involuntarily, his mind reached out to hers, but she'd slammed those d.a.m.ned shields of hers down so tightly he wouldn't know she was there if he hadn't just left her. It was better that way, though. There was only so much that she could be expected to endure.

Justice and Bastien were roaming through the woods on either side of them, searching for any sign of Reisen and his remaining warriors, while Christophe and the others stood guard.

Emotionless Brennan stood with Riley and her sister.

Riley had told him they were wasting their time. "They're gone. Or they've magically learned how to mask their emotions in the past half an hour. Because I can't feel a thing."

Conlan was unsure of how far he could rely on her ability to sense the Mycenaean warriors, given the extent of the terror she'd just experienced. But her senses, however compromised, were all he had.

Alaric was gone.

"We've got to get rid of the bodies. We can't leave this mess for the human authorities," Ven growled, wiping sweat off his forehead with his arm. "It's a nightmare."

Conlan nodded. They'd tallied seven dead shape-shifters and five Atlanteans. The evidence of the battle needed to be destroyed. "We're not exactly going to dig a big hole," he replied. "There is one way, but it will take both of us to do it to so many."

Ven shot a look at him. "You're not thinking-"

"What else could I be thinking? We must employ the final solution."

Ven whistled. "Mortus desicana. I didn't even know you knew how to channel that kind of power. Have you ever-"

Conlan cut him off. "No. Not that I wouldn't have tried it on Anubisa, if I'd had a fraction of a chance. But this is different. These men are already dead. The penance would not be tasked against us."

"Are you sure about that? What does the temple rat say?"

Conlan hesitated, unsure of how much to divulge. Alaric would hate to be exposed in any weakness.

In any event, there was no time. "He's gone. The healing-he returned to the safe house."

"What? He went all girly after healing a simple bullet wound? I'm going to give him so much grief-"

Conlan heard rustling in the trees approximately fifty yards away and concentrated. It was Justice. But the sound underscored their need for haste. "Ven. Focus. Will you help me channel the mortus desicana to destroy these bodies, or do I do it myself?"

. "I'll help you. Poseidon help us both if you're wrong about the penance. Twelve bodies... we might not survive it."

Looking around quickly to make sure that Brennan still kept Riley away from the b.l.o.o.d.y pile of the slain, Conlan took a deep breath and held his hands up, sending his call into the wind.

If she saw this, she'd think he was the same kind of monster who'd created this b.l.o.o.d.y nightmare.

Beside him, Ven did the same, and they both began to chant.

"Poseidon, Father of Water, "Lord of elements, avatar of justice for all Atlanteans, "Hear our plea, feel our need, "Lend us your power for the mortus desicana , "Hear our plea, feel our need."

For a moment, nothing. Despair surged through Conlan. Had Poseidon truly abandoned him as unworthy after what Anubisa had done to him?

Damaged goods. Damaged goods. Damaged- Then a surge of electric power stormed into his body. From the air, from the water in the ground, from the wind itself. Up through his feet, through his skin, down into his skull from the cloudless sky. The power of the elements ripped through his flesh, screamed through nerve endings, tore at his control.

He fought with it, contained it, channeled it. Not even realizing he was doing it, he roared out his dominance over the power. "I am Conlan of Atlantis, and I command you to the mortus desicana !"

With that, he flung the power out of his body through his hands at the pile of bodies and watched, gloated, gloried in the power . The roaring rush of the elements covered and surrounded the bodies of the dead, rushing into every pore in their skin, into every orifice, and did their terrifying work.

Sucking, draining every ounce of water-every drop of fluid-out of the bodies. Sucking it out and returning the fluid to nature, from whence it came. Drying, desiccating the bodies of the dead.

Whispering to Conlan with fury, with frenzy, with the sly Siren call of unadulterated power. The mortus desicana .

The power with the potential to suck the fluids from the tissue and bones of those who were still alive .

The sheer seduction in the thought choked him, stopped him. His horror at what he could become, at what wielding such power might do to his mind-to his soul -cut him off from the source of the elements instantly.

As he lost control, he fell back, gasping harshly, against the nearest tree. When his vision cleared of the power and the haze and dust from the dried-out bodies, he saw Ven, collapsed on the ground, trying to raise up on one arm.

As Conlan attempted to stand, to recover enough of his strength to proceed, a sharp voice cut through his exhaustion.

Justice. "Interesting, my prince. I did not know you had mastered the calling of forbidden death." Justice bowed slightly and walked around the pile of dust and bone fragments that lay where the bodies of twelve men had been only minutes earlier. He kicked at a skull that had rolled away from the rest, and it exploded into a shower of fine, dry dust.

Justice c.o.c.ked his head and stared at Conlan and Ven, eyes narrowed. "Very interesting, indeed."

Barrabas leaned back in his carved wooden seat in the center of the Primus main gallery, hours after everyone else had gone home to their meaningless lives. He was well contented by the day's work. Yet another codicil to the 2006 Nonhuman Species Protection Act he'd auth.o.r.ed-one of his proudest accomplishments-was now only a single signature from becoming law.

He'd shoved the codicil through with persuasion, charm, and brute force. The disappearance of two key members of the human houses of Congress hadn't hurt, either.

He smiled, a baring of teeth that would have terrified the weak man who probably sat, quivering, in the Oval Office at that very minute. His advisors were begging the president to veto the bill.

Barrabas knew the weakling didn't have the spine for it.

"Lame duck" took on a whole new meaning when a politician was dealing with a master vampire.

"You must be very pleased with yourself, Lord Bar-... Lord Barnes ." Drakos had entered, unnoticed, and now strode down the aisle toward him.

Barrabas didn't particularly care for a general who could sneak up on him, which reminded him yet again that he'd have to decide soon about finding Drakos's replacement.

Perhaps Caligula. The thought gave him a perverse pleasure, and he smiled again. "Yes, Drakos, I am very, very pleased. The consolidation of power is simply a matter of acquiring and honing knowledge."

Barrabas stood, then levitated from his position down to the floor of the chamber. "If you know both your enemy and yourself, you will come out of one hundred battles with one hundred victories. Know neither your enemy nor yourself, and you will lose all."

Drakos raised one eyebrow. "Sun Tzu?"

Barrabas inclined his head. "A true master strategist."

"Was he, too, one of us?"

"No, although it is astonishing that he was not. If only I'd had the opportunity... Well. No matter. What have you to report?"

"Our spies report a complete failure in determining what may have happened to Terminus and his vanguard, my lord. We-"

But before Drakos could finish his thought, a chill swept through the chamber. Though colorless, it destroyed the light. Though odorless, it reeked of bile and death.

Though soundless, it deafened them, driving both to their knees.

Choking, suffocating, Barrabas barely had time to form the name in his mind before she spoke.

Anubisa. G.o.ddess of the night.

Her voice rang with the chimes heralding the hangman's noose, the headsman's axe. The sound of ground gla.s.s shredding the vocal cords of screaming humans shrieked in her tone.

Yet, somehow, her words were quiet and still. Death stealing the breath of an infant in its cradle.

As he'd seen her do. Not merely breath, but blood.

As he'd helped her do.

He wondered at the broken shards of his long-murdered conscience as they poked at his liver.

Twisted in his brain.

He was screaming with the agony of it before she'd completed her first sentence. And then he was unable to make any sound at all.

He collapsed on his face next to the unconscious form of his general.

"You grow stronger, Barrabas," she crooned in her poisonous lilt. "When last I saw you, you were sodden with your own p.i.s.s long before I formed words."

He wrenched his head to the side, tried to gaze into her face, and the ice in the air intensified. Turned his bowels to water.

He'd pray not to soil himself, but to whom did dark lords pray?

To the b.i.t.c.h G.o.ddess in front of him, of course. And she had nothing of mercy or compa.s.sion in her.

He clenched his b.u.t.tocks together and listened.