by Alyssa Day
Alejandro’s gaze skimmed over Keely and Justice, and whatever he saw seemed to reassure him, because he lowered the gun and called out, “They are safe enough. You can come out now.”
At first one, then another, then finally nearly twenty adults came out from wherever they’d been hiding behind the smoking burnings. Only after they had completely surrounded Keely and Justice did six children cautiously appear to join their parents.
Keely’s heart plunged at the sight of the children’s terrified faces. “We won’t hurt you,” she called out in fluent Spanish. “Somos amigos.”
One small girl, no older than five or six, pushed between the rank of adults and stood staring up at Keely with enormous dark eyes, clutching a dirty stuffed animal in her arms. None of the villagers rushed to claim her; in fact, many of them looked at her with varying degrees of suspicion, and one old woman even surreptitiously made the sign against the evil eye and then spat on the ground. The girl flinched and Keely suddenly, fiercely, wanted to slap the superstitious old bat’s face.
“Eleni,” Alejandro called sharply. “Don’t get too close to them.”
“But Justice will put the fires out with his water,” Eleni said. “And Dr. Keely will help us find Mama.”
Keely gasped. “How did you know our names?”
“Eleni often . . . knows things,” Alejandro said in English. “She doesn’t speak any English, though, so I will use your language to tell you that her father died long ago and her mother has been dead for several weeks. The vampires took her and left her head for me to find. We have tried to tell her this, but she either cannot or does not want to understand.”
The lines on Alejandro’s handsome face deepened and the fury in his eyes promised vengeance. Justice wore a matching expression on his face. The two warriors were nearly a mirror of each other, though from vastly disparate cultures.
Or, perhaps not. If the Atlanteans had settled in Mayan lands more than eleven thousand years ago . . . Keely shook her head to clear it of the random musings. Now was certainly not the time to lose focus.
Eleni made some small sound and looked up at Keely, deep wells of loss and sadness in her eyes. The girl made no move to come closer, but just huddled into herself as though fearing a rebuff. Keely was completely unable to maintain any kind of detachment looking at this poor child who reminded her of another little girl, so long ago.
A little girl whose own parents were afraid of what she was.
But at least Keely had had parents, even though they were unable to provide much in the way of emotional support. Poor Eleni had lost both of hers. Keely dropped to her knees and held out her arms to the girl, who came willingly to her and laid her small head on Keely’s shoulder and held up the stuffed animal for Keely to see. Keely felt a sharp wrench in her stomach when she realized it wasn’t a toy at all, but a fuzzy, well-worn slipper matted and stained with blood.
“Mama left her slipper, you see,” Eleni confided trustingly. “I’m worried that her poor feet are getting cold.”
Las Pinturas, twilight
Justice carried the last load of useable goods to the single house that had been left relatively unscathed by the vampires’ destruction and handed them to the women who were organizing the stores. Some of the canned goods had survived. Several charred-at-the-edges but still serviceable blankets. Various personal items that the villagers had pulled from the wreckage.
What the fires hadn’t ruined, he had. He walked back to look at what was left of the village, and self-disgust roiled like acid in his gut. He’d had no choice but to call water to put out the fires. They’d have lost everything if he hadn’t. But the sight of that little boy clutching his soaking-wet collection of half-burned baseball cards had turned his stomach.
Or wrenched an organ further up in his chest, not that he’d admit it.
These people reminded him of the American colonists he’d been fighting to save back on that long-ago night when he’d carved Keely’s fish. Brave and stubborn. Willing to live their lives here in the wild, by no man’s—or government’s—rules or constraints. They were farmers eking out a subsistence living, but they were proud. Alejandro perhaps the proudest of them all. He’d done the work of ten men, ordering and cajoling his people to work quickly to save all that could be saved and barricade the building so they could hide the women and children inside when darkness fell again. Proud and courageous, both. Alejandro would make a fine warrior.
They are fools, the Nereid sneered in his mind. No protection from the Guatemalan Paranormal Ops patrols this far out. They’re nothing but bloodsucker bait.
“They radioed P Ops this morning after the vamps left,” Justice said. Then he realized that he’d just answered himself out loud. “Okay, now I’m ready for the Temple protective rooms; that’s for sure.”
Keely walked across the charred ground toward him. Her face was smudged with dirt and ash, but to him she glowed like a flame. She’d tied her wealth of hair back away from her face, and he wanted to let it loose and bury his face in the silken strands. Inhale her sweet scent after so many hours of the smell of burning filling his nostrils and lungs.
“Did you say Temple protective rooms? What are those?” she asked, always the inquisitive scientist, even bone weary as she must be.
He bent his head to kiss her, because he could do nothing else. A feeling so huge coiled inside him that the pressure would surely burst his rib cage. There was nothing more important than Keely, no moment in his life from this day on that he would not spend thanking all the gods for her. He closed his arms around her and pulled her so close that he could feel her heart beating against his chest.
But a warrior preparing for battle must plan strategy with his head, not with his heart, and so he reluctantly let her go.
“I want to get you out of here,” he repeated for the twentieth time since they’d first arrived. “I have tried and tried to call to the portal, and it will not answer my call. Perhaps I am too damaged and the Atlantean magic will not recognize me again.”
“Never,” she said firmly, sending a wave of warmth through him. She believed in him, and though he could not credit her with any good sense for doing so, he offered his thanks to Poseidon that she did.
“I can’t reach Conlan or even Alaric, either,” he admitted. “They are too far, or perhaps they have turned against me. They know we are here; you told them the Star was in San Bartolo. I cannot believe they have not come to our aid, unless I truly am exiled.”
“They’re your family, Justice. They won’t give up on you,” she said. A flash of remembered pain crossed her face, but she shook her head at whatever thought had caused it. “I know about families and abandonment, and your brothers were willing to die for you. Don’t give up on them, because they won’t give up on you. I can feel it.”
Hope tried to send up a tentative flare, but he ruthlessly crushed it. Better to be surprised than to have to live with the anguish of shattered expectations. “We can discuss that another time, mi amara. If the vampires return again, I cannot bear for you to be anywhere near this place. If you are harmed, then I will drown the earth itself in my rage. Perhaps not even these villagers will be safe.”
She folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin. “I trust you. You just worked all afternoon to help them; you’d never harm them. Don’t make me have this discussion with you again. I’m not going anywhere until you can get us all out of here, and you admitted that your energy is nearly gone.”
It was true. He’d used the Nereid power of transport to take a wounded child and his mother to the nearest medical clinic, and the use of his new power had exhausted him so much that he’d nearly lost himself in the energy stream on the return trip. Once the particles of his being had been scattered and spread across the universe, he never would have returned to himself.
Never could have found Keely ever again. Terror knifed through him at the thought. No, he would not risk travel in that manner until he was sure his energies had
returned.
She put a hand on his arm. “If you could travel by mist again, or do that super-speed thing, or anything that would help move these people, that would be one thing. But you’re not superhuman—”
Suddenly she stopped speaking and laughed tiredly. “I guess you are superhuman, though, aren’t you? It’s not like the average human can do any of the things you’ve done today. Eleni even calls you Señor Superman.”
“Yeah, well, my cape is at the dry cleaners,” he said savagely. “I’m no superhero, Keely; I’m a monster. Part of me thinks these people are fools and sheep who deserve to be abandoned.”
Stepping closer to him, she put her hands on his cheeks and pulled his head down to hers. “But you won’t do it, and the choice is what makes you different from the monsters.”
Slowly, smiling up at him, she lifted her face and kissed him gently. He let her take the initiative and stood perfectly still, exquisitely sensitized to the feel of her lips on his. She feathered kisses on his lips, chin, and jaw until a flash of heat seared through his body like a stroke of lightning, and he couldn’t bear it anymore. He lifted her in his arms, flashed across the clearing as quickly as he could, and withdrew to a spot a few feet within the trees, so they were blocked from view.
“Justice,” she said with a little gasp, but he swallowed her gasp and lifted her, pressed her back against the tree, and caught her mouth with his own. He kissed her and every ounce of finesse, every art of gentleness he’d ever known deserted him so that he was as rough and clumsy as a school-boy.
He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. How could he be so unrestrained? The need was too great, too overpowering, and if he didn’t have her wrapped in his arms and naked underneath him soon, the pain would take him again, back to madness and burning and the dark. Every ounce of his being was centered on his lips as they devoured her and on his cock as he bucked against her.
He must have her, or he would be lost forever.
But he was saved; he was whole. She was his well-being and his heart and his home. She was kissing him back, and all was right with his world. The warm taste of her mouth, sweet from the cup of hot chocolate she’d drunk with their meager dinner of canned goods, teased and tortured him and swept sea-tossed tempests of longing and hunger through him. His body actually shuddered with the enormity of his need, and he raised his head, gasping for breath.
“Keely, I need—I need—”
“Señor Justice?” The small voice came from behind him, but it took a moment for it to register in his frenzied mind.
“Justice, put me down,” Keely whispered urgently. “It’s Eleni.”
He clutched her tighter for an instant, then reluctantly released her, breathing hard and trying to regain his equilibrium. Keely ran over to the child and knelt down in front of her.
“Are you okay, Eleni?” she asked in her beautifully accented Spanish. “Is anything wrong?”
Eleni clutched that pitiful slipper to her and shook her head. “They’re coming, Keely. The bad ones are coming back and they’re almost here.”
Chapter 34
Keely lifted Eleni into her arms and wished desperately that she could take the child far, far away from danger and superstition.
Justice’s face hardened and he drew his sword from its sheath, grimacing at the blackened blade. “I would have thought they’d be sated from last night’s raid for at least a week,” he said grimly. “Either there are more vampires in this blood pride than Alejandro knew, or these are very greedy bloodsuckers.”
Eleni shivered and Keely shook her head at Justice. The child didn’t need to hear about it; she’d lived through it and lost both parents to the vampires. He inclined his head in acknowledgment and then strode out of the trees and back toward the village. She followed, holding Eleni, who clung to her like one of the native monkeys, her painfully thin legs and arms clutching Keely and the ever-present slipper, stinking of the rust-like smell of old blood, between them.
The village was almost tranquil in the dusky shadows of twilight. A few scattered people moved about or stood in small groups, talking quietly. Two men stood guard, shotguns at the ready, scanning the perimeter. They reflexively raised their weapons when they saw Justice and Keely, then lowered them again, nodding their recognition.
Alejandro appeared suddenly, almost materializing out of the dark. “I am not of a mind to rest our guard until we are safely ensconced in the vehicles of the P Ops unit,” he said. “I know you have done the work of five men, and I do not know how much using such amazing powers tires you, but would you be willing to take a shift? Your sword—”
“They’re coming,” Justice said flatly, cutting him off. “Eleni warned us, and we’re going on the assumption that she’s right. Round up every able-bodied man—”
“And woman,” Keely interjected. “It will take all of us to fend them off.”
Justice glared at her but didn’t respond to her comment. “You said there were no more than a dozen last night, Alejandro?”
“Yes, and that was the most they’ve ever sent. I think that was the entirety of the blood pride.”
“A dozen vampires is what we call ‘a good beginning’ in Atlantis,” Justice said, grinning wolfishly. “You and I and two or three of your best marksmen will easily handle them and make them regret ever stepping foot in Las Pinturas.”
The white gleam of Alejandro’s teeth flashed, startling in the growing dark. “I find that I like you very much, although I reserve judgment on your claim to be from the continent beneath the waters.”
“Yeah, well, let’s get all girly and talk about our feelings later,” Justice said. “Keely, to the safe house. Now. Take the girl with you.”
“She can stay with the others,” Keely protested. “I’m a damn good shot and I can help.”
“I don’t care if you can shoot out the eye of a bloodsucker at two hundred yards,” Justice snarled. “You need to be safe or I will lose my precarious hold on sanity and destroy everything and everyone that moves for miles around.”
Alejandro froze, his hands tightening on his shotgun. Then he turned to Keely. “I do not doubt that he means it, señora. Please do as he says.”
“Fine,” she snapped. She wasn’t going to waste valuable time arguing when the minutes until the vamps arrived were ticking down. She’d get Eleni to safety then find a gun. No way was she huddling in a corner like a scared rabbit.
As she ran across the clearing, she heard Justice and Alejandro shouting orders behind her. The men came running, weapons in their hands and grim determination on their faces.
One of the women met Keely at the door and held her arms out for Eleni. “Come to me, little one,” she soothed. “Let the doctor be for now.”
Eleni cried out and dug her heels into Keely’s kidneys. “No, no, no. Want Keely!”
“It’s okay,” Keely said, moving into the room and looking for a pile of blankets where she could deposit Eleni. “Eleni, you have to listen to me. I need to help Justice—”
“Señor Superman does not need our help,” Eleni said mu tinously. “You stay with me.”
Keely knelt down on the floor and tried gently to pull Eleni’s arms from around her neck. “Please, sweetheart. I promise to come right back to you, okay? But even Superman needs help sometimes.”
Abruptly, Eleni let go of Keely, wrapped her arms around herself and started rocking. “You won’t come back. Nobody ever comes back to me.”
Keely hugged the child, but she’d gone as stiff and unyielding as a board. “I will. I promise you.”
But Eleni’s eyes had gone wide and shocky; she began humming a discordant tune to herself and Keely knew she didn’t have time to break through to her. Only returning as she’d promised would reassure the child.
The kind woman who’d met them at the door knelt down beside Keely, a shotgun in her hands. “I will care for her, Dr. McDermott. I am not as superstitious as these others. You take this and help protect us from the
se devils.”
Keely nodded her thanks, unable to speak over the lump in her throat. She pressed a kiss to the top of Eleni’s head and then took the shotgun from the woman and ran for the door, hoping she wasn’t too late.
Justice called for water and was relieved when it immediately answered his call, trembling in wait at the edge of the clearing as he’d commanded. At least one of his Atlantean powers had not been lost, then, even though the capricious magic of the portal to Atlantis would not respond to him. Twilight had turned to full dark and the rich, earthy smells of the jungle pressed in on him, counteracting the residual stench of burned buildings and charred dreams.
Alejandro knelt behind an overturned cart a dozen paces away, leveling his shotgun in the direction that the attack had come from the night before. Of course even bloodsuckers knew enough to vary their methods and directions of attack, but it was a matter of seconds to turn to meet the threat.
“I can hear them coming,” Justice said quietly. “Be ready.”
Alejandro nodded and passed the word to the other men, who stood strong and resolute, even though their faces were pale with dread. All of them had lost family members to the vampires. They knew what they faced, and they had no powers other than their simple shotguns and a pile of wooden stakes next to each man.
The trick was getting close enough to use one of those stakes.
I have a surprise for you, if you insist on helping these pathetic humans, the Nereid said smugly.
What is it? And it had better be fast and useful, Justice warned.
You decide, the Nereid replied, then flashed a series of visions—of knowledge—through Justice’s mind so fast that he nearly stumbled with dizziness.
Suddenly he knew. It was as if he had always known. Known how to access the power of his other half, of his Nereid ancestry. He could wield water as an Atlantean.
He could wield madness as a Nereid.
As both, he could bring utter destruction to the vampires who chose that minute to soar through the trees and land on the ground not ten feet in front of him. Madness and confusion, and it would be so easy.
