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  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 façade 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.

  “Surely the renowned and feared leader of all North American rebels isn’t afraid of me,” he said, smiling a snake-oil smile.

  “I’m afraid of everything until I kill it,” she said flatly. “That’s what keeps me alive. So what is it you want with me?”

  She studied him as he stilled, watching her with the hooded expression of a cobra preparing to strike. The smile never left his face, though.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” he said, ignoring her question.

  “You have something that belongs to a friend of mine.”

  He glanced at a small wooden box sitting on one end of the table. “Oh, did the big, bad Atlanteans send a weak, little human to do their dirty work?”

  “I thought I was feared and renowned. Make up your mind.” She scanned the room for possible exits, threats, or allies. The windows were thick glass that was way too strong for her to break; the second door led to other offices, not the hallway; and not a single soul had dared to step into the room since she got there.

  “It’s almost eight, Ptolemy. Don’t you have a press conference to get to? I won’t delay you. Just give me the gem, and I’ll be on my way.” Bluffing wouldn’t work with him, but it was second nature for her to at least try, and it worked as a good stalling technique while she figured out her plan of attack.

  “I do, now that you mention it,” he said, his dark eyes measuring her. Finding her wanting. “You need new clothes. I can hardly present my future consort to the world dressed in rags.”

  Quinn’s knees tried to buckle, and ice snaked down her spine. She grabbed the back of the chair in front of her to steady herself and then she pulled out one of her guns and pointed it at him. “What exactly did you say?”

  “I said you need new clothes,” he said calmly, completely ignoring the gun. “Did I offend you? I haven’t even mentioned the hair or makeup yet.”

  “Consort. You said consort,” she said, clenching her jaw shut to keep her from chattering. Not again. Not another one. She couldn’t be trapped that way again.

  He laughed, and tendrils of terror swept through the air around her, enticing her to give in. To surrender to the roiling fear and madness he gave off like dark emanations from his twisted soul. She’d never been so afraid in her life.

  Which, of course, only pissed her off.

  “In your dreams, buster. Now, give me the gem before I turn you into a girl.” She very deliberately pointed the gun at his crotch.

  He laughed. Not the usual reaction a man had when confronted with the loss of the family jewels.

  “I think your gun won’t work,” he said, and she flinched and cried out as the metal flashed to searing hot. She dropped it, fast, and watched in horror as her Glock melted into a puddle of shiny liquid metal, ate a hole through the table, and pooled on the floor.

  “If you have any knives or more guns on you, I’ll give you a moment before I melt them, too,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to suffer any burns in inconvenient places.”

  The knives and her backup gun were seared to molten heat so quickly that she rushed to remove them and tossed them on the table before her clothes caught on fire.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” she challenged him.

  “Oh, no, I have much more,” he said, taunting her. “You’ll discover just how much when I impregnate you with the new heir to Atlantis.”

  Reality tilted on its axis for a moment as her brain tried to process what he’d said, and her skin tried to crawl off her bones and run away from the overwhelming revulsion and terror of his words.

  No. Not again.

  She almost hadn’t sur
vived the last time.

  Alaric followed Faust out of the building into the dirty gray street, and the immediate problem became apparent. The children.

  Alaric pointed to two women on the other side of the street who were dressed in the law enforcement uniform of the city. “They will care for the children.”

  Faust shook his head. “No. No way. They’ll put them in foster homes. I take care of them, man.”

  Alaric raised one eyebrow, but didn’t state the obvious again. They were out of time for debate. “Then point me toward City Hall and remove yourselves from this place.”

  Faust gave him quick directions, and then he and the children disappeared around a corner so fast it was as if they’d never been there at all. Alaric watched them go and then headed off toward City Hall, transforming into mist to travel so he could avoid any more nasty surprises. He spared a moment to wonder why the portal would send him to Faust, but then dismissed it as unimportant to the mission at hand as he sped past broken and boarded-up windows of abandoned and decrepit buildings.

  Quinn, Quinn, Quinn, Quinn. Her name beat though his mind like a command.

  She could be anywhere in the world—probably was so far from him he’d never find her—but his senses automatically scanned for her in a wide pattern to try to catch any hint of her presence. Just as he did, a wave of Quinn’s emotion—pure, unadulterated terror—slammed into him so hard it sent him crashing down through the air, out of his mist form, and smashed him into a parked car.

  She was here in New York. Here. He struggled to climb out of the dent his body had made in the hood of the car, and another blast of her emotion knocked him down again. Wherever she was, she was so scared she could hardly think. A renewed flare of white-hot power surged through him, and he shot into the air again, ignoring the crowd of humans that had formed around the car. Whoever had scared Quinn was about to learn exactly what the high priest of Atlantis was capable of—and it was going to be a very, very painful lesson.

  He followed Quinn’s fear and rage across the city to find, to his utter lack of surprise, that it was coming from City Hall. The coincidences were just piling up, and none of them were good. He didn’t bother to knock, just headed straight for the window closest to where he could sense Quinn and arrowed straight for it, planning to smash it open on the way.