Atlantis Betrayed

“Do you really want to leave your calling card before you take the Siren? They’ll throw everything they have at the Tower to prevent you coming back, after you made Scotland Yard and Interpol look like fools the last time.”

She shrugged, glancing down at the silver gilt card with the tiny figure of a scarlet ninja embossed in its exact center. “It’s only sporting, isn’t it? Besides, they’ll think I’m taking the entire sword. Perhaps that will mean different security measures.”

“Sporting might get you killed. Or sent to prison for a very long time.”

“Not tonight. This is just a scouting trip.” She shouldered her small pack and grinned up at him.

“After all, how dangerous can it be?”

Chapter 2

Christophe soared through the air in mist form, circling the Tower of London as he had many times before, but this time with the goal of finding a way inside, instead of admiring the exterior. He recognized the irony of planning to steal William the Conqueror’s sword, famously and prophetically named Vanquish, from the tower whose construction old Will had first begun. Technically, he didn’t need the sword, and Prince Conlan probably wouldn’t like it if he took it—interfering with sovereign possessions and so forth—but just taking the Siren from the sword’s jeweled hilt seemed like a waste of opportunity.

Not that he had much need for what rumor claimed was a ceremonial-only, badly balanced sword. His own, left in Atlantis this trip, was utilitarian, simple, and deadly; undecorated except for the single emerald on its pommel. A line from an old nursery tale flitted through his mind, though perhaps in a different form than he’d heard as a child.

The better to fight evil with, my dear.

But, after all, why not? Calculating the ways and means of how he might remove the entire sword from one of the most fortified locations in the world made for an amusing way to pass the time. An endeavor that didn’t bore him.

Passing over the main gate and the long-unused moat, he floated over the bridge where millions of tourists crossed into the Tower grounds every year. He could have taken the easy route and made his way in as a tourist during the day, except first, he didn’t like crowds of smelly humans, and second, when had he ever done things the easy way? Not to mention that asking himself rhetorical questions was probably one of the unpaved steps on the road to insanity. Not far up from talking to pigeons.

The pale yellow brick glowed in the night air, resonating with the quiet dignity of walls that had stood sentinel, indifferent and stoic, as the tempests of humans had ebbed and flowed over the centuries. If walls could talk, as the old saying went, these would offer a history lesson on power—or a cautionary tale for those in search of it.

Somewhat like the ancient tales of Atlantis herself.

Floating over the spot where the Duke of Wellington’s statue had been before somebody decided to banish it to the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich—ha, the fleeting nature of fame, Duke, old boy—he examined the exterior windows of the Waterloo Barracks, opposite to the scaffolding and white stone of the White Tower. A flicker of light glinted off a gargoyle as it . . . moved.

Damn. Either imagination or adrenaline was working overtime, because Christophe was sure that the gargoyle had moved an inch or two. He approached it, still suspended as mist, only to find exactly what he should have expected: there was no way the gargoyle had moved since somebody put its butt-ugly self there in the first place.

He must be having hallucinations.

It was adrenaline. The excitement of doing something different for a change, instead of the same old same old. He’d had enough of killing vampires and smiting shape-shifters to last a lifetime. And Atlantis was no better. It was getting crowded in the palace, with all of his fellow warriors finding women. Not temporary women, either. No, these were keeper women, the long-term, asphyxiate-a-guy kind of women.

No, thank you. Not for him. He was going to steal the Siren, the enormous aquamarine that graced Vanquish’s hilt, and take it back to Atlantis so it could be reattached to Poseidon’s Trident, where it belonged. Hand that sucker straight over to Alaric. Or better yet, instead of to the high priest in person, to one of his minions, so there would be no repeat of Alaric’s most recent lecture: Why Christophe Was Wasting His Magical Abilities by Refusing to Join the Priesthood, Part 784.

He didn’t want to be a priest. He wanted some fun. Like this job. It was a heist, pure and simple. Fun.

The jewels were housed on the first floor, with nobody but the Tower Guard, various electronic devices, and the Yeomen Warders to protect them. Of the three, only the Yeomen Warders concerned him at all. The shape- shifters in that group were rumored to be pretty damn tough, and no few of them claimed to be descended from the shape-shifters who’d been among the original Warders back in 1485.

Of course, back then, shifters weren’t roaming around in broad daylight, with everybody knowing who and what they were. Vamps, either, for that matter, but the past decade-plus had brought big changes to the world.

Mostly for the worse.

The Tower Guard was part of the Queen’s Guard, according to the handy tour guide a tourist had conveniently left on a bench for Christophe to find. They didn’t live in the Tower, but the Warders still did, unfortunately. If only everybody trusted their electronics these days. Atlantean magic wreaked holy hells on electricity.

The thought of powerful Brennan, locked in that electric cage with Tiernan, flashed through his mind, and his mood soured. Sometimes the electricity won.

Christophe eyed a tiny crack in the casement of a third-floor window on the tower, just to the left of the main doors. Not even a large insect could fit through that crack.

Mist, however, could get in just fine.

* * *

Fiona had timed out the midnight-to-eight A.M. shift patterns of the Tower Guard and the Yeoman Warders on multiple occasions over the past several weeks. One thing was certain: the men and women, human and shifter alike, who guarded the Jewel House, were serious, dedicated professionals. No mere thief would get anywhere near those jewels.

Good thing she was no mere thief. She was world class.

Stealing onto the grounds had been child’s play, but breaching the Waterloo Barracks and the Jewel House would be a little trickier. She knew her . . . talent would keep them from seeing her, but shadowing only completely fooled living eyes and cameras. Motion detectors made for trickier adventures.

From her position leaning against a tree in the courtyard at an angle to the main doors, she saw the team of two stride around the corner of the building exactly on time. Two A.M. on the dot; one could set her clock on the punctuality of the guards. These were two enormous, burly men, probably shifters, having a lovely conversation about rugby or something else vital to England’s national stature.

She slowly leaned farther back into the rough bark of the tree, concentrating fiercely. Shifters were tougher to hide from than humans—she’d have to bend air as well as light, and the shifters’ minds were not as easily amenable to clouding.

Ribbons of silken moonlight danced through the air surrounding Fiona and the tree, circling her with nearly imperceptible shadings of dappled light. A spill of liquid darkness spread over her— through her—so gradually that only the keenest observer would have felt even a tingle of awareness. Light and the very air itself bent to her will as Fiona focused on dispersing her scent and disappearing from view.

The shorter of the guards stopped suddenly, his body tensing and leaning forward in the unmistakable sign of alert. He held up a hand, and his partner whirled to face the direction from which they’d come and settled into the same wary crouch. Precision back-to-back stance; these were no decorative guards put in place to amuse and delight tourists with their furry hats. These were the guardians of the dark hours between dusk and dawn, and their