But Jack must have made some kind of signal, because Alaric spoke a single word and released him.

Jack rolled his shoulders, not looking at all pleased. But he acquiesced. "Yeah, I'll go along with your command, Conlan. As long as nothing you do puts Quinn in danger, I'm your man. For this one mission, at least."

Conlan bared his teeth in a grimace. "If you think that I would allow either Riley or her sister to be harmed, you seriously underestimate me," he snarled. "And n.o.body who underestimates me usually lives long enough to regret it."

"If we're done with the p.i.s.sing contest, let's go," Quinn said, reaching out for Riley with one hand and pulling a very deadly looking gun out of her pocket with the other. "People to meet, vamps to blow away, et cetera, et cetera..."

Conlan stopped, stepped close to Riley. "You stay behind us, do you hear me? You point that gun at anything undead that moves, and you stay out of danger. Promise me that."

"But-"

"Promise me, or I call it off now, and we'll go live on a farm in Iowa or something. Atlantis be d.a.m.ned."

She managed a shaky smile. "I'm allergic to cow p.o.o.p. I promise."

He nodded, and took the first step down the corridor. The first step leading Riley into danger. The hardest step he'd ever taken.

As Quinn had predicted, three vamps guarded the corridor at about the midway point. Conlan channeled water and shot a horizontal wall of ice at them, decapitating them before they had time to sound any alarm.

Jack let out a low whistle. "Nice trick, prince. I'm glad to have you on my team. This is going to be a Cakewalk."

"There will be more than three, tiger. Don't grow too complacent." Conlan moved further along the dark corridor, searching for any crack of light that would indicate an opening. Another hundred or so yards down the tunnel, they came across a more heavily guarded pa.s.sageway.

This time, Alaric called the electric power of lightning and shot bolts of pure energy at them, incinerating five of the six. Ven's dagger caught the sixth in the heart, and it collapsed, sizzling down into nothingness.

"Holy water on the blades. Works every d.a.m.n time," Ven observed with satisfaction. He retrieved his dagger and wiped it off on a rag he drew from his pocket, then tossed the rag on the ground. "Somehow don't mind littering in the vamp's backyard."

Conlan held up a hand for silence. "I think it may be the vamps' front yard, in fact, if the sound of screaming is any indication."

He waited while they all strained to pick up on what his Atlantean hearing had already caught. Someone was being tortured.

And somebody else was doing a d.a.m.n thorough job of it.

The instincts that had served him well for nearly three thousand years were telling Barrabas that something was wrong. He just couldn't figure out what .

He should have been well content. The Atlantean called Micah was bleeding on the floor in front of him, near death, and Barrabas could still taste Micah's blood in his mouth. Reisen hadn't found his way back to consciousness since Drakos had smashed his head into the wall.

And yet, a tiny niggling tremor of doubt snaked through him. He stared at Drakos, who gazed implacably back at him. The general had outlived his usefulness. No battle strategy, no matter how brilliant, was worth this constant suspicion.

Especially for one who was not even of his blood pride. Thinking of them made him reach out to them with his mind. Rea.s.surance from his guards would go a long way toward...

There was no response.

Nothing in his mind but a blank s.p.a.ce where his vanguard should be. He whipped his head around to find Drakos.

Who stood near the chamber door, smiling.

"Your reign is over, d.a.m.ned one," Drakos said. "Prepare to meet the future."

Before Barrabas could utter a sound, Drakos yanked the door open, and a swarm of warriors poured through. The one in front had hair and eyes as black as the deepest h.e.l.l, and death was written on his face.

"I am Conlan of Atlantis, Barrabas," the warrior shouted out. "Prepare for your death!"

No, no mere warrior. Not with that regal air of command.

This must be the prince. Barrabas hissed, called out with every ounce of his being to Anubisa.

Come to me, my G.o.ddess! Your Atlanteans are here to recover the Trident I captured for you-I beg for your a.s.sistance.

With that, he sent another mental command, and every one of his blood pride asleep in their coffins in the room below him rose and began the rush to his aid.

"You think attacking at dawn is any detriment to a master vampire of my power, princeling? We are deep under the earth, blocked from the sun by tons of concrete!" he screamed. Then he dematerialized, laughing, right from under their Atlantean noses.

Chapter 38.

Conlan watched as Barrabas did exactly what he'd expected, and he slashed a hand down in a signal to Alaric. Alaric threw his arms into the air and called water with such torrential force that the walls themselves seemed to reel under the power of it.

Barrabas rematerialized, bouncing off one of the walls.

And Conlan laughed. "Didn't your G.o.ddess mention that Poseidon's power over the element of water is the light to your dark? We cannot kill you with the mortus desicana , for your undead tissues have no living fluid to surrender."

He unsheathed his sword. "But we can block you from the use of your power. Prepare to die, bloodsucker."

Barrabas pulled a sword of his own. "I don't think so, little boy. Didn't you take a moment to see what I did to your friends?"

He pointed to the far wall, and Conlan glanced over to the shadowy corner. Reisen hung by one wrist from a manacle chained to the wall, b.l.o.o.d.y and broken. Another warrior lay near him, in similar condition.

"Ven! To Reisen!"

As Ven, daggers unsheathed, ran across the room, a grinding noise in the floor underneath warned Conlan in time to leap to the side. A panel in the floor opened up, and a black wave of vampires rushed up and into the room.

Justice and Denal ran up to flank him, swords at the ready, and he heard Jack's full-throated roar from behind him. Then he was too busy to notice anything else, as five vamps headed straight for him, fangs and claws bared.

Riley! Get out! Get to safety!

Her voice came back to him immediately.

I think Poseidon promoted one of his p.a.w.ns.

He tried to see over the warriors and vampires battling all around him, but couldn't see her. Desperation tore at the last shreds of his sanity. "To me, Warriors! For Atlantis!"

And he sliced the head off the vamp in front of him, trying to work his way through to Barrabas. "For Atlantis!"

Riley watched while the floor opened up a doorway from h.e.l.l and devils came pouring through to attack Conlan. She held the gun out in front of her, but couldn't shoot. Everywhere she looked, vamps and warriors and freedom fighters were locked so closely in battle that she had no chance of a clear shot.

A second wave of vamps broke through from the corridor. Quinn had been right about Daniel, at least. He was fighting against the vamps, using their own tricks against them. She shuddered at the sight of his bloodied fangs ripping into yet another of them.

Alaric flashed into the s.p.a.ce in front of her, pushing her and Quinn behind him and against the wall, as more of the vamps headed for them. Alaric threw out wave after wave of the energy bolts, but the vamps kept coming as fast as he could mow them down. One of them threw a dagger and Alaric leaned over to s.n.a.t.c.h it out of the air.

But it must have been a ploy of misdirection, because the vamp whipped a second dagger through the air on Alaric's other side, and it pierced Quinn in the thigh. Quinn screamed, and Alaric's attention jerked around to her, the sound distracting him.

Useless, trembling, Riley saw the vamp aim his sword at Alaric. She fired the gun, but missed him completely. Almost in slow motion, she watched the point of the blade drive deeply through Alaric's chest. He fell forward, onto Quinn, and Riley screamed again as the point of the sword, driven clear through Alaric's body, impaled her sister.

Heard Quinn's voice, weak, in her mind.

It's burning like acid, Riley. Poisoned, probably. If you've been touched by a G.o.d, now would be a good time to page him.

In front of her, she saw Jack transform in a roaring frenzy from man to tiger and tear into the vampires with teeth and claws. Conlan and Ven fought side by side in the midst of a dozen or more of them.

She didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to call a G.o.d. Didn't know magic or have powers or anything . She was a social worker, d.a.m.nit. She stood there, sobbing, anguish and fury searing through her, and heat and power climbed through her, raged through her, until she thought she might detonate from it.

That was when the hand wrapped around her throat.

The pure evil of the voice rang through the room. "I have your woman, Atlantean. What value do you place on her life?"

All sound and motion stopped as if the world had frozen around him, and Conlan zoomed in on the source of the voice he most despised.

It was Anubisa, and she had her fingers on Riley's throat. Conlan's vision sheared a brilliant blue-green, then grayed out to almost black. As the vampires groveled and cringed their way to the sides of the room, genuflecting to their G.o.ddess, he saw Alaric lying on the floor on top of Quinn. A sword run through their bodies.

Their blood pooling on the floor.

He fought the howl of utter despair rising from his soul at the sight of Riley held helpless in the hands of a creature who could kill her with a breath.

"Leave her," he commanded. "She is nothing to me. Are you so weak you make war on human females now?"

She laughed, and the sound rang with pure malice, so dark and twisted that Riley moaned and tried to put her hands over her ears.

As Conlan watched, trickles of blood began to drip from Riley's nostrils and the corners of her eyes. A killing rage swept through him. A memory, a vow, burned through him.

Anubisa will beg, before I'm done with her.

"Let her go, and you can take me back to your happy little love nest with you, Anubisa."

She turned her head to the side, as if entranced. "Oh, look at the precious kitty!"

Jack, in his tiger form, shot through the air, five hundred pounds of lethal killing machine headed for her head. She waved at him with two fingers, and his body slammed backward, tumbling end over end until he crashed into a line of groveling vampires, knocking them down like a row of dominoes.

None of them moved after that.

Conlan took another step closer to Anubisa, and her fingers tightened on Riley's fragile neck, a clear warning.

"Oh, I think not, princeling. I can smell your c.o.c.k on her. So this is the s.l.u.t you would have willingly , when I had to take you by force?"

She flicked a contemptuous glance up and down her captive, then almost negligently tossed Riley across the room so hard that he heard her head smash against the wall. "You know I don't share my toys."

He tried to run to Riley as she slid down the wall into a broken heap on the ground, but Anubisa caught him in a fire-bolt of power, chaining him in place with invisible bands of her dark magic.

Barrabas crawled toward Anubisa on his hands and knees, babbling. "My queen, my G.o.ddess, thank you, thank you. You came, you are here, and all will be saved."

She curled her index finger, beckoning Barrabas to her. Conlan fought to channel the elements, call any power at all, but he was as helpless under her control as he'd been during his captivity. All he could do was watch as she called her minion to her.

Anubisa smiled, delicately stepping over the body of a fallen shape-shifter. "You are my first, Barrabas. My oldest child, my precious one. Of course I would come when you called."

Her eyes glowed red, and she parted her lips to show Barrabas a mouth crowded with razor-sharp fangs. Punishing, ripping, and tearing fangs.

Conlan knew all about those fangs, would have shuddered if his body hadn't been held in a vise grip of power.

Barrabas swayed, trapped hypnotically in his master's deadly pull. "Yes, your first, my G.o.ddess."

She gracefully lifted a hand to touch him, ripped the shirt from his body. "Then why ?" she screamed, rage suddenly lighting her face into incandescence.

"Why did you not tell me you had the Trident?" she roared, and the sound of it smashed all the gla.s.s in the room. Burst eardrums. Curdled the blood of anyone still conscious.

Gave Conlan hope. If rage overwhelmed her, there was a chance he could defeat her. If Riley still lived-and he refused to believe that she did not-Poseidon would find a way to heal her.

If Riley is dead, not one undead creature will leave this room, except as ash.

Barrabas shrieked, and the sound pierced Conlan's skull. He jerked his gaze back to the vamps in time to see Anubisa lift her head from Barrabas's shoulder.

What was left of Barrabas's shoulder.

A chunk of it was in her mouth.

She smiled at him again, blood and pieces of flesh trapped in her fangs. "You have failed me. Worse, you tried to deceive me, fool."

She flicked out a hand, ripped his pants from him. The vampire knelt naked and bleeding in front of her, sobbing and shrieking in a hideous cacophony of pleading and apology.

"We have to set an example, don't we, my dear?" she murmured, voice almost gentle. Then she curled her hand into a claw and it shot out toward Barrabas's groin.

A tortured shriek beyond any Conlan had ever heard since leaving her lair ricocheted through the room, and he watched in utter horror as she opened her fingers to show Barrabas the b.l.o.o.d.y spectacle of his own b.a.l.l.s in her hand.

"Yes," she repeated, delicately sucking the meat out of her hand. "We have to set an example."

As Barrabas fell over, still screaming, her hand shot forward again.

This time, she came back with his heart. Barrabas never uttered another sound.

Riley felt consciousness coming back to her in ripples, as muted waves of sound and light washed into her mind. Conlan's horror, unshielded, nearly made her vomit, but some instinct told her to play dead.

She d.a.m.n near was, if the pain crashing through her head was any clue.