Atlantis Rising

from the ceiling, still in seated positions, resting on glowing balls of blue-green light.

'How's that?' Alaric demanded. 'Or how about this?'

He sliced both hands in a downward motion, then raised then, palms up, muttering something under his breath. The women plunged down toward the floor, then a fountain of water caught them and gracefully lifted them both back onto the couch.

With another abrupt hand movement, the water disappeared. Neither Riley nor Quinn had a drop on them.

Riley gasped a little. 'Wow, that was pretty… that was—'

'Cute parlor trick, fish face,' Quinn said. Then she feigned an enormous yawn. 'Are we done with the smoke and mirrors? Or, excuse me, that was water and mirrors, right?'

In the space of a single heartbeat, Alaric was lifting her off the couch and up against him. 'Don't push me, female. We would both regret it.'

But it wasn't anger that Conlan heard in Alaric's voice. It was an almost-pleading desperation.

When Quinn answered, her voice was so quiet that Conlan could barely make out her words. When he did, they didn't make any sense.

'Forget whatever you think you saw in me, beautiful one,' she murmured. 'I am ruined.'

What she did next sent both Conlan and Ven rushing across the room to protect her. Because she lifted her hands and put them on Alaric's face.

A sound Conlan had never heard before issued from the priest's throat, a hard, choked sound filled with soul-destroying pain. A shock wave of a sound that literally smashed Conlan and his brother backward, landing them hard on the floor.

In the seconds it took for him to catch his breath and look up, Alaric was gone. Quinn stood alone, hands still frozen in place where Alaric's face had been.

Tears running down her own.

Riley jumped up and put her arms around her sister. 'Maybe we should put this off until the morning,' she said, glaring at Conlan. 'I think Quinn has been through enough today. We've both been through enough. I need to take her home, Conlan.'

Before Conlan could utter a word of protest, support came from an unexpected source. Quinn wiped the tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands, then cleared her throat.

'No,' she said. 'I think you should stay with them.'

The four of them sat around the kitchen table, Riley and Quinn holding mugs of hot, sweet tea. Conlan and Ven each had a beer. Conlan sat near enough to Riley that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to.

It's not like she needed to touch him.

Much.

Most of the other men had all stopped by, trailing in by ones and twos, some bringing food and beer, some bringing news.

None bringing results. Reisen had vanished.

Riley had tried to smile at each of them, especially Denal, who'd kneeled in front of her and presented an armload of flowers, then backed out of the room, careful to maintain a safe distance from Conlan and Ven.

Ven had made some crack about Denal's schoolboy crush, but nobody'd even mustered up a smile.

Now they sat, each of them lost in his or her own private thoughts. When Justice appeared, it was almost a relief.

'So, the gang's all here,' he said in that smart-ass way he had. Of course, anybody who could carry off a waist-length blue braid worn over a sword strapped to his back probably could be as much of a smart-ass as he wanted.

She'd seen what he could do with that sword.

'My lawn will never be the same,' she muttered.

Quinn looked up from contemplating her mug and caught sight of Justice. 'You!' she gasped. 'I thought you were an urban legend.'

Ven leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs. 'Right. The nutball axe murderer who hangs out at Lover's Lane, and Justice. Makes sense, really, when you think about it. Both of them give you a case of the ugly creepies, right?'

Justice ignored the ribbing and focused in on Quinn. 'What exactly have you heard?'

'Oh, defender of the weak, modern-day Robin Hood, blah blah blah. You're a little hard to miss,' Quinn returned, sweeping her gaze from his boots all the way up the six and a half feet or so to the top of his blue-plaited head.

Justice bowed slightly. 'You, too, would be difficult to miss. Your fury and grief burn brightly enough to light up the city. You might wish to learn from your sister the technique of shielding your emotions.'

With that, he left the room, long strides eating up the floor, leaving Quinn scowling at his back.

Riley thought it was past time for her to intervene. 'What is going on, Quinn? I'm getting the feeling that you're not an administrative assistant for an insurance company, after all.'

Quinn's laugh sounded rusty, as if it had been a long time since she'd found anything funny. 'No, not for an insurance company. Like I said before, I need to know what the deal is with the Atlanteans before I tell you anything.'

She pinned Conlan with a stare. 'What side are you coming down on?'

'Side of what?' Riley asked. 'What are you talking about?'

'Side of the revolution, baby sister.'

Riley sucked in a breath. Sure, she'd heard rumors of a revolution against the rapid encroachment of the supernatural species into human society and government. But she'd stayed out of it. She wasn't political—she had enough to do just trying to keep her clients healthy and fed.

And alive.

Conlan nodded slightly. 'Okay. Here's as much of the truth as I'm willing to tell you right now, and I do it on the condition that neither of you share this information with anyone.'

Ven's chair came down on all four legs with a bang. 'You can't do this, Conlan. You can't—'

'Riley has a right to know, since we are taking her home with us. And her sister must therefore know, as well.'

Riley felt the nerves in her neck go board rigid. 'You said that before. Funny, I don't seem to remember being asked to go anywhere.'

Conlan took her hand in his and squeezed it. 'Do you trust me?'

'I—' She paused, thought back to the glimpses she'd had into his memories; into his soul. 'Yes. I trust you. This aknasha thing we have between us—it may be overwhelming my common sense, but I do know that I can trust you. But where is home? Are you really talking about the lost continent of Atlantis?'

Ven snorted. 'We were never lost. Just hiding from you fools.'

Quinn leaned forward, resting her folded arms on the table. 'I'd watch who you called fools if I were you, fish boy.'

He grinned. 'Wanna check me for gills?'

'Enough! Can we quit with the bickering and just get on with it?' Riley asked.

Conlan nodded. 'Yes. We're from the continent of Atlantis. More than eleven thousand years ago, the Seven Isles rode the surface of the waters as do your own lands. Our civilization and technology were far superior to that of the humans of the time, but we shared such knowledge of the sciences and the arts as we deemed appropriate.'

'So you condescended to help out us poor lowly humans?' Quinn sneered.

'Quinn. Not helping,' Riley murmured, and her sister rolled her eyes, but subsided.

'As often happens, the humans with whom Atlantis had always enjoyed a peaceful coexistence became greedy,' Conlan continued. 'Not all; not even most. But a few corrupt ones in power. Enough to push the idea of conquering our lands and taking for themselves what was ours.'

'Yeah, like especially the gold and anything of value,' Ven growled.

'We could have worked it out. According to the ancient scrolls, we were on the verge of working it out. But