Heart of Atlantis

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.

Instead, he crashed into an invisible shield of magic and bounced back through the air. The force of his collision with the shield pushed him out of his mist shape again and smashed him down to the ground. He lay there for a minute or so, shaking his head at the offers of hands up or any other help, simply trying to force air back into his abused body and snarling at the humans until they all gave up and left him alone. Ptolemy’s press conference was bigger news than a man falling from midair, evidently. As he climbed to his feet, a sharp ache alerted him to the presence of at least one cracked or broken rib.

“This day just keeps getting better and better,” he growled, and a woman standing nearby pulled her child closer to her.

He almost laughed. Even the humans he’d spent hundreds of years protecting thought he was a monster. So be it. He’d be monster enough for any of them.

He spared a moment and the smallest touch of energy to heal his ribs so he’d be ready to fight, and headed for the stairs to the ornate building, but a truck with antennas bristling all over it drove up and parked, blocking his way.

“Move, man, don’t get in the way of the TV crew,” somebody said, and shoved him.

If he’d had the energy to spare, Alaric would have blasted the fool with an energy sphere just on the principle of the thing. Luckily for the human, Quinn’s welfare was far more important than minor annoyances, so today he got to live. Alaric took another few steps before he realized he had yet another big problem. The magical wards shielding the building were far too powerful for him to take down without draining himself of the reserves he needed to continue to shield Atlantis. He’d either have to trust Quinn to take care of herself for a little while, or sacrifice all of his people to save her.

Today was turning out to be his day for bad fucking options.

Chapter 18

Quinn stared at herself in the mirror. Ptolemy had handed her a red dress and heels and the choice to either wear them or watch him tear the head off one of the office workers. Like so much in her life lately, it wasn’t really much of a choice.

Now the image looking back at her in the mirror was a caricature of herself. Pale, with styled hair and skillfully applied makeup that seemed to float above the surface of her face. The TV people had done it. She didn’t even know how to put on eyeliner, let alone all the other goop. One overly zealous woman had tried to spray her with perfume, but Quinn’s expression had stopped that in its tracks, at least.

She looked like a little porcelain doll, they’d told her. As if that were a good thing. Didn’t they understand that porcelain was fragile and easily shattered?

The door opened on silent hinges, and Ptolemy walked into the ladies’ room. Quinn didn’t bother to act surprised. She could already tell the man was a control freak.

“You’re as beautiful as I knew you would be, underneath that scruff and grime,” he said, and she suddenly, desperately, wanted her guns.

“You’re a bullying piece of shit who needs to be put down like a rabid dog,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Who are you, and what is this about?”

“I’m not going to fill you in on all my plans just yet. I’m not some comic book villain with a need to impress,” he said, walking closer.

The stench of evil nearly suffocated her as he drew near, and she started choking on the intangible emotion that nobody else would be able to perceive. “What are you? The only thing I can think of is demon, but it’s not exactly that, either. Unseelie Court Fae?”

He sneered. “As if I’d associate with them. No, my darling queen-to-be, you have never encountered anyone like me. Or, rather, you’ve encountered many like my dear, dead mother, but my father? No. He was in a class by himself.”

He bowed and motioned to the door. “Shall we do this? We have a press conference to give.”

She headed for the door, bracing her shoulders against attack from behind, but he only sniffed her hair as she passed. She didn’t manage to contain her shiver of revulsion, and he started laughing. His laughter was rich and deep as it surrounded her—invaded her—tasting like burning acid in the back of her throat. She fought her gag reflex. She would not let them see her be weak.

At the end of the hall, a man wearing headphones ushered them into another large room, and this one was set up for the press conference. Huge cameras, large, square light boxes on poles, and more wires and electrical apparatuses than she’d ever seen in one place fought for space. Two men she pegged immediately as vampires stood at the back of the room, near the podium, and another she thought was human hovered ten feet or so away from them. A flurry of people with press passes hanging around their necks swarmed everywhere, and Quinn’s fingers itched for her knives.

She took a small step toward the door, but Ptolemy grabbed her arm. He shook his head slowly, mocking her, and she wrenched her arm away from him and tried not to vomit. Whatever dark magic he had, the sensation of it had intensified a hundredfold when he touched her, even through the sleeve of her dress. If he ever touched her bare skin, she thought she would go mad.

“Everyone who isn’t absolutely essential, get out,” Ptolemy said, never raising his voice.

Instantly, the swarm thinned to only a manageable few, as most of the people in the room all but fell over themselves trying to escape. Now that she could get a better look at the men near the podium, she realized something highly troubling. One of them was the first vampire mayor of New York, and the other was the first vampire secretary-general of the United Nations. The man lurking a distance away she didn’t recognize.

“What’s the plan?” she asked, sure that Ptolemy wouldn’t tell her anything, but unwilling to meekly become a part of whatever evil strategy he had in motion.

“The secretary-general will either officially recognize me as the king of Atlantis, right here and now, or I will kill him on international TV,” he said, as casually as if he were discussing what to have for lunch.

Her hand was partway to her gun before she remembered it was gone. Ptolemy dragged her to the front of the room, and the surge of nausea she’d been fighting burned through her. She was barely able to contain her stomach’s urgent need to empty its contents all over him.

“Your magic and I are definitely not compatible,” she said, taking in shallow breaths. “What makes you think I’d let you close enough to me to . . . to . . .”