One of the apes jumped on Alaric’s back and dug its sharp claws deep into muscle and flesh. Alaric roared out in wordless denial, twisted his body enough to grab the large furry head, and wrenched it to one side. The thick neck snapped with an audible crack, and the ape fell heavily to the ground. After that, it was fur and fangs and blood for several long minutes until the final ape crashed into the cave and met Alaric’s grim brand of justice.
Alaric scanned the room and glanced up at the skylight entrance, but no new creatures appeared. The room was filled with dead and dying apes, but as far as he could tell, none of his companions were injured. He knew Quinn, at least, was unharmed. He could always feel everything she felt. Every single scratch. Even the tiniest bruise.
It was enough to drive a man mad.
“Jack, hold!” Archelaus ran across the room toward the snarling tiger far faster than his age seemed to allow. “We need one of them alive to talk.”
It was a futile attempt. Jack never even hesitated as he leapt up and bit down on the shoulder and neck of the final ape still attempting to fight. The tiger shook the ape in his mouth in a grim parody of a house cat with a rat, and then he hurled the dead ape across the room and roared; whether in triumph or defiance, Alaric was unsure.
“Damn it, Jack,” Quinn said, but her voice was filled with exhaustion, not anger. “What if they were shifters? They must have been. It would have helped if we could have coaxed one of the monkeys back to human shape long enough to tell us what is going on here.”
Jack bared his fangs in Quinn’s general direction but didn’t return to human form to argue with her, unfortunately. He might never again regain human form. But that was another problem, for another time.
The floor was covered with the bloody shapes of the current problem.
“They’re definitely shape-shifters, but they invaded the sanctuary,” Archelaus said. His face was drawn and pale, as though he’d aged a hundred years in an hour.
“The
“What were those?” Quinn asked, shoving her guns into their hidden holsters under her shapeless shirt. “I’ve never seen apes that looked like that, outside of a horror movie.”
“They were a grossly distorted version of a Japanese macaque. The real thing has the same brownish fur and red face but runs about twenty-five pounds,” Archelaus said. He was breathing hard, and Alaric sent a silent, questing tendril of magic to discern the extent of his injury, if any.
Archelaus raised an eyebrow, and Alaric realized he’d been caught. “I’m just old, Alaric. Nothing you can do about that, unless you’ve suddenly learned how to turn back time.”
“I’m feeling rather old myself, Wise One,” Noriko said, finally emerging from behind her shield, which she let disperse slowly. The woman’s face was as pale as a snow-dusted grave. “I never had to deal with attacking apes in the portal. I must apologize for my cowardice. All of you fought the attackers, but I have no weapons, nor do I have knowledge of how to do battle.”
Alaric shook his head. “No one expected you to fight. You did well to protect yourself so we did not need to expend resources to defend you.”
Noriko bowed.
Quinn abruptly sat down on the floor next to Jack and started laughing. “Don’t make me get my flying monkeys,” she said, shaking her head.
Everyone stared blankly at her, except Jack, who tilted his shaggy head, his tongue lolling out, as if sharing an inside joke.
Quinn looked up and saw them all looking puzzled. “Never mind. It’s
Noriko collapsed down on a bench. “I thought the opportunity to be mortal again would be a precious gift. Instead, I find I desperately miss the power to be anywhere I want to be and nearly omniscient. What can I see— where can I go—trapped in this body?”
“Welcome to my life,” Quinn said, with only a trace of bitterness. “I’m surrounded by vampires, Atlantean warriors, and powerful shape-shifters, and all I’ve got is a gun or two and whatever street smarts I’ve picked up over the years. It’s like fighting the Spartan army armed with a toothpick.”
“I would challenge the Spartan army for you, Quinn,” Alaric said quietly. “You don’t always have to take it all on by yourself.”
“I didn’t,” she said simply. “I had Jack. And then, if only for a little while, I had you and your prince and his warriors. Now I’m not sure I want any of it. I’m tired. Ten years of fighting the good fight should be enough for anybody.”
Jack sneezed and rolled over on his back, all the while keeping those orange eyes trained on Quinn.
She almost smiled. “No, I’m not giving up and showing the bad guys my belly, fur face. And if you want to give me crap about my decisions, you’re going to have to change back into a human and do it out loud.”
The tiger deliberately turned his head away, and a shimmer formed in Quinn’s eyes before she dragged one sleeve across her face.
Several white-robed people appeared at the entrance to the courtyard, wearing expressions of horror, disbelief, and even shock. Alaric attempted to view the scene through their eyes and realized it was, in fact, worthy of horror and shock. Dead, bloody bodies lay in crumpled heaps all over the floor. The peace of the sanctuary had been brutally invaded.
He was too tired, too jaded, or too hardened to feel horror, though. Just a grim resignation that now, yet again, the battle was on. Even when he tried to escape the fight, it followed him. As did skepticism, cynicism, and suspicion. Why were these people only arriving now? Had they been part of a larger betrayal?
One of them started babbling. “Archelaus, what happened? You— We heard— The portal—”
“I’d like to know that, too.” A calm voice interrupted the man’s broken words.
“Ven,” Alaric said. “I should have guessed.”
“Somebody needed to save you from yourself,” Ven said, striding into the room. “I figured it oughta be me.”
Quinn’s lips quirked into a grin as another six and a half feet of Atlantean warrior—this one a prince—joined the party. “Ven. Always a pleasure to see you. Do we need somebody beat up and I forgot?”
Ven laughed and scooped her up off the ground and into a bear hug. “Hello, little sister. Glad to see you in one place. What in the nine hells happened here?”
“Flying monkeys.”
He roared with laughter. “So does that make kitten over there Toto?”
Quinn noticed Alaric’s face darkening as he watched her in his friend’s arms, and she didn’t have to be an emotional empath to know what he was feeling. She tactfully stepped away from Ven and glanced at Jack, who was snarling at them all.
“Don’t flash those fangs at me, Meow Mix,” Ven advised, but she could see the concern underneath the banter. He and Jack had developed a friendship over the course of time they’d known each other. Of course, it was hard not to like Ven. He was gorgeous and didn’t know it; a funny, direct, “let’s grab a beer and watch some bad movies” kind of guy, who just happened to be hell on wheels with a sword, a gun, and pretty much every other kind of weapon. He was the high prince’s brother and guardian—which made him Quinn’s sister Riley’s brother-in-law— he was known as the King’s Vengeance, and he was pure adrenaline in a battle.
And his girlfriend Erin was the most powerful witch Quinn had ever met.
Right now, though, there was no trace of amusement on Ven’s face as he scanned the destruction. “Do you want to explain this?”
Alaric scowled but said nothing, so Quinn filled Ven in on what had happened.
“That’s it? No reason? No evil villain monologuing on why he’s attacking you, blah blah blah?” Ven whistled. “This stinks of something bigger than a random monkey attack.”
“Not to mention, they’re not random monkeys,” Archelaus said, from where he’d been sitting in the shadows.
