by Kristen Day
“We don’t know for sure she’s the one that’s orchestrating all of this,” I told them warily. “We need to figure that out first.” I had a feeling that if Menoetius was free, Atlantis would be the first place he’d go. And if Luna was behind this, she’d more than likely be with him.
“The first thing we need to do is find that crystal,” Liam announced as he walked out of the bathroom. His normally healthy appearance had withered over the last couple of days since Willow’s death, and I worried about him constantly. Dark purple circles hung below his blue eyes and his usual light, confident walk was now measured and forced. His scraggly blonde hair had the disheveled, just-rolled-out-of-bed look, and he reminded me more and more of a picture I’d seen on Lorelei’s website of a student who’d been busted for making meth in his dorm a few years back.
“I agree.” I nodded appreciatively at Liam. “If Menoetius is seeking revenge, I have a feeling the crystal will be his first priority. With that kind of power, he’d be able to do whatever he wanted.” I slipped on my shoes and glanced out the window. I could just make out the side of Stasia’s tree house, and wondered how she was doing. The stress of the last week had undoubtedly become unbearable, but I’d expected her to bounce back a little quicker than this.
Thankfully Amphitrite was watching over her while I handled this debacle of a situation. I hadn’t told either of them what Mom had divulged to us back in Wilmington. I figured the less people who knew the dangers, the better. I wanted Amphitrite to concentrate on caring for Stasia, while Stasia just concentrated on getting better. Besides, this had become a personal vendetta for the Sons Order. As well as for me.
“I’ll be thinking about you, Pasha,” I sent my thoughts to her. “I love you.” While I was waiting for a response that never came, I realized Ricker was talking to me.
“You have any treasure maps up your sleeve to get us there?” Ricker’s dark eyes watched me hopefully.
“I’ve got all we need right up here,” I countered with a smile and tapped my temple.
“We’re screwed,” Ian mumbled with a conspiring grin. Ricker pretended to wrap a noose around his neck and tighten it.
“You know, I can arrange that…” I threatened Ricker.
“Go ahead and put me out of my misery,” he pleaded with a roll of his eyes. “The last time we went on a hunt based on the plethora of horrible ideas in that head of yours, we ended up bloody, bruised, and naked; lying in the middle of a nymph’s river.”
“Sounds like a good time to me…” Sean wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Well this particular river nymph was a six foot-five inch behemoth with a rockin’ mullet and a bad case of the shakes,” Ian stated plainly and shook his head in disagreement. “I didn’t know whether to kill him or send him to rehab.”
“If I remember correctly,” I rubbed my chin, “and I always do – I was the one who killed him and saved your sorry ass from being eaten alive.”
“Nuances.” Ricker shrugged his shoulders.
“You were picking rice out of your hair for weeks!” Ian laughed.
“That’s because you left me there for thirty minutes while you ‘figured out a plan.” Ricker used air quotes and cut his eyes at Ian. “Unfortunately your plan had a few flaws in it – namely the part where you were supposed to rescue me.”
“I’m pretty sure the words you used were ‘I got this Ian – go find Finn’,” Ian recalled. “Plus, I couldn’t resist seeing you made into a giant sushi roll.”
“Now I get why Atlas ratted out his brother,” Ricker inferred with a hiss and narrowed his eyes. “How do you feel about Tribeca, Ian?”
“It would probably be an upgrade from the hell of seeing you every day.”
“…said no one ever,” Ricker sneered with a devilish laugh.
“Alright, that’s enough from the Golden Girls of the group.” I shot Ian and Ricker a look to let them know they were getting on my nerves. “Mom did give me something that’ll take us right to the crystal, and it’s about to burn a hole in my pocket so let’s go.” I pulled out a slender piece of crystal that Mom said had been broken off of the original.
“And here I just thought you were happy to see me.” Ricker grinned as he walked by me. I tripped him easily and he tumbled onto the porch as I closed the door behind us.
I glanced back at Stasia’s quiet tree house once more before descending the stairs, and then headed off into the thick woods with Sean, Ricker, Ian, and a very reticent Liam at my heels.
About thirty minutes later, we’d made it to the deep trench I’d scaled while carrying Stasia’s limp body. The thin line of water at the bottom looked much farther away in the bright light of day. I held out the fragment of crystal in my palm just as Mom had instructed and waited for….something. Unfortunately, the crystal just continued to sit in my hand, soaking up the sunlight streaming down from above. I felt it warm considerably, but as far as any kind of clue or sign, it was keeping that door tightly shut.
“I think it’s broken.” Ian peered down at the dimly lit crystal. “What’s it supposed to do?”
“I’m not real sure,” I remarked hesitantly. As we stared at it, willing for something to happen, it began to shake. As the other guys gathered around to see what was happening, it lazily spun counterclockwise, and then levitated an inch or so off my hand before returning to stillness. I was almost resolved to the fact it wasn’t going to be able to help us when it shot straight up into the air, paused momentarily, and then hurtled itself over the cliff. We looked on with wide eyes as it fell for the twenty or so seconds it took to reach the water below.
“A suicidal crystal,” Ricker indicated, and peered over the edge morosely. “Helpful.”
“You’re about to get pushed over the edge with it,” I cautioned him with a menacing look.
“Do you think we’re supposed to follow it?” Liam spoke up beside me.
“That’s exactly what I think,” I declared in agreement. “You boys ready for a swim?”
After spending an agonizing hour convincing the guys I could actually manipulate the river enough to allow for a safe landing if we jumped, it was becoming increasingly apparent I’d just have to show them and be the first one to jump. With hands on hips, Ricker studied me with his usual exuberant skepticism.
“I need to see this for myself before I go flinging my body off a twenty story cliff.”
“This is ridiculous,” I mumbled, and stepped up to the edge with determination. I gathered up my essence and energy, knelt down, and pressed my hands against the rocky precipice. I knew my energy would channel through the rocks more quickly since I couldn’t physically touch the water yet. As the dark, warm energy shot out from my feet and hands, I concentrated on the water below.
In a matter of seconds, it started collecting directly below me and swirled until it was a perfect whirlpool. I gently tugged it upward with my energy and watched as it formed a reverse spout and crawled skyward. Satisfied, I rose to my feet and turned to face my audience.
“Watch and learn!” I sneered and leapt off the cliff with an exhilarating yelp. I continued pulling the water upwards and made sure it was directly beneath me as I crashed into its waiting, boiling arms. I sank down until I saw the river bottom below, then kicked up to the surface and waved my arms at the guys above.
I couldn’t hear anything, but their matching looks of apprehension spoke for them. I might have to instigate some kind of annual “Pick Up Your Balls and Just Do It” exercise for the Sons to learn how to be real men. This was getting pathetic. Another minute passed while they discussed something I wasn’t privy to. Just when I was losing my patience, they all disappeared from the edge and a screaming Liam flew out from the cliff into a free fall. Leave it to my guys to make the Triton go first. I submerged my hands and commanded the water upwards even further to give some extra cushion. I felt the pressure of his body hitting the top and watched him sink towards me.
He pushed off the bottom and made
it to the surface; spitting and gasping for air. Just when I thought I was going to have to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation, he pumped his fist in the air and yelled with excitement and adrenaline.
“That was awesome!” He high-fived me and found a boulder to prop himself up on while we waited for the other guys. One by one Ricker, Ian and Sean all made the leap and landed safely into the waiting tower of water.
After returning the river back to normal, I quickly surveyed our situation. The sliver of crystal was nowhere in sight, and I had no idea what to do next. Something I’d seen the day before while swimming up the river to gain access to Atlantis resurfaced in my mind.
“This way,” I instructed and dove into the water, headed downstream. I swam beneath the surface for a few minutes so I could breathe in the life-giving water of the glistening river. It tasted of salt with a slight metallic aftertaste. Not the most pleasant water I’d ever breathed, but it was clearly powerful. Somehow it reserved more energy than most water of the oceans. I felt the strong current of power running through it and made sure to pull some of that into my own body. My muscles were instantly filled to capacity with rejuvenation and vigor as I continued to take several deep breaths.
I glanced back to see where the guys were, and could just make out the motion of their legs and arms swimming a couple yards behind me. I had the advantage of breathing water, but didn’t want to restrain the incredible feeling swimming gave me. I took another deep breath and swam faster.
When the river widened and began to pulse with a slightly different rhythm, I resurfaced and took in my surroundings. In front of me was the vast Mediterranean Sea; shining with the light of the sun and ebbing to the currents of the earth. To my left was a massive wall of rock and metal, but I had my sights on what lay at the bottom of the wall. It actually looked like a giant-sized piece of coral had been shoved into the base of the mountain. There were endless holes and cavities just waiting to be explored. I hoped each one wasn’t a separate tunnel, but there was only one way to find out.
“Something tells me we’re not going surfing.” Ricker popped up next to me with a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Can’t put anything past you,” I mocked him, and pointed to the white scraggly rocks presenting us with an array of entrances. “I have a good feeling about those tunnels.”
“Let’s do it,” he agreed. With the rest of the guys following us, we swam up to the plethora of open cavities we could choose from. The ocean’s waves were calmly lapping against the stone face of the wall riddled with holes. It was as if they were daring us to choose the wrong one. One of the wider holes near the middle appeared to shimmer more than the others and I felt a stronger energy emanating from it, so I decided we’d give that one a try first.
Once we had all climbed out of the water, we teetered on the edge of the hollow, Swiss-cheese of an entrance to a tunnel that seemed to swallow up the sunlight in its thick darkness. I was the first to take the initial steps into the tunnel, and led the guys deeper into a maze of battered looking white rock. Any one of the hundreds of holes in the walls and floor could swallow a soul up forever. It would take some excellent sonar technology to find us then.
“Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re exploring a very large loofa?” Sean joked, but his voice wavered slightly.
“The fact that you used the word ‘loofah’ is what I’m more concerned about,” Ricker taunted him. Our voices echoed off the walls of the ever-tightening tunnel we headed down. I had nothing leading me except a hunch, but it was better than nothing.
“They provide a much deeper cleaning than not having one,” Sean retorted defensively.
“Thank you, Martha Stewart,” Ricker snickered.
“You should try it,” Sean insisted with a hint of sarcasm. “It’ll change your life.”
“Not likely,” Ricker contested. “I’m pretty breathtaking already. Why fix what’s already a picture of perfection?”
“What was that?” Liam asked and stopped dead in his tracks; his eyes trying hard to focus on something in the distance. I silently thanked him for interrupting the quickly escalating diarrhea of the mouth Ricker and Sean couldn’t seem to contain. “I swear I just saw something up there and to the left.”
As he spoke, I caught the tail end of a shadow darting around one of the many corners of the open cavern up ahead. We sped up our pace. The tunnel we’d just been in opened up to a rolling cavern filled with pockets of sparkling turquoise water, stalactites the size of cars hanging from the ceiling, and boulders and white stones littering every inch of floor space. Rays of sunlight streamed through tiny cracks in the ceiling high above; creating an ethereal glow amidst the entire cave. It was beautiful and serene, with a peace only found in a place untouched by the outside world.
We had climbed over and around boulders and waded across several small strips of still water when I first noticed the walls. Cryptic symbols, calligraphy and ancient drawings of medieval animals and fish decorated every wall; a never-ending story of history and hardship that captivated my attention. The metallic minerals found on the island had been fashioned to create a sort of paint used to inscribe a history in stone. I lost myself in the stories of hunting, sacrifice and plague before reaching a wall filled with war and cataclysmic disasters. Earthquakes, fire, and the destruction of homes and villages sprinkled the entire wall, and it dawned on me that I was looking at an eyewitness account to the fall of Atlantis.
The next wall contained something even more awe-inspiring. It was a further historical account of the island, but this time it was the unprecedented raising of Atlantis. The portrayal of sea creatures and sea Goddesses, along with a crowned Atlas surrounded an island with raised arms and closed eyes.
“Dude, come look at this.” Ian motioned to me with urgency. The other guys had already gathered around him with wide eyes and slack jaws. When I came to stand beside him, my mouth hit the floor as well. Once again Atlas stood strong in the presence of a beautiful Goddess with flowing hair that was colored silver. She knelt in front of a smiling Atlas with outstretched arms. In her hand was a large golden crystal.
“The crystal,” I whispered aloud without realizing it. The faint sound of shuffling feet across the cavern caught my attention. My instincts had me stepping in front of the group and crouching into a fighting stance, while my eyes swept the ceiling, rocks and crevices within the walls. I didn’t have to search long before I found the source of the sound.
She stood perfectly still next to an array of symbols along the back wall of the cavern. She shone with her own light, and the white-blonde of her hair almost blended in with the walls. She stepped forward into a single ray of sunlight, and my jaw set when her violet eyes settled onto mine.
Chapter 27
Olivia
“Seriously?” I cut my eyes at a cavalier Sebastian. “You made us walk halfway around the world last night when we could have just taken this?”
“Labeling the five miles we walked as ‘halfway around the world’ is a tad dramatic,” he snickered and leaned back; clasping his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes, but the smirk remained. The white linen shirt he wore emphasized his muscular shoulders and arms, which brought my thoughts again to the washboard stomach I’d seen yesterday. It was a pity someone so fine was such a pain in the ass. I wanted to smack that smirk right off his face, but my mind momentarily drifted to his lips and I wondered if he was a good kisser. Not that I wanted to find out. If he so much as tried to kiss me, I’d knock him into next week.
I peered out the small square window and tightened my jaw. Apparently Atlantis had an extensive underground system of canals that ran throughout the island; providing its people with a faster mode of transportation than simply walking. It also beat traversing mile high root bridges that promised a long, agonizing fall to a quick and messy death.
We were sitting in what I would consider to be an Atlantean version of a subway car, except this car was armed with a propeller. The su
bmerged vessels shot through the canals at a dizzying speed. The small window along the sides were for cosmetic purposes only, considering they provided absolutely no view. Only darkness. The only light was inside the slender vessel itself. According to Sebastian, the cylindrical crafts had been made from a reinforced metal created from a mixture of all the different metals found in the island’s soil. The seats lined the sides; forcing you to face whomever sat opposite of you…which in my case was golden boy. Surprisingly, the seats were extremely comfortable. They were made from the leaves of a banana tree woven tightly around a metal frame.
“What exactly do you do?” I crossed my arms and stared at him with annoyance. “I mean, when you’re not trying to ruin my life.”
“I specialize in ruining lives.” He smiled brightly. “But my official title is the Atlantean Historian.”
“The Atlantean Historian?” I scoffed. I immediately pictured him as Indiana Jones and laughed. “And what exactly does a historian do?”
“Laugh all you want.” He raised his blonde eyebrows at me, flexed one arm and kissed his bicep. “But around here…I’m kind of a big deal.”
“Somebody’s been lying to you.” I giggled and he narrowed his eyes at me, but the humor dancing in his eyes betrayed his true feelings.
“You’ll see,” he retorted with a confident smile and a wink. He held my gaze for a second too long, and shivers danced up my spine before I averted my attention to anywhere else but his scorching blue, soul-stealing eyes. I sat up straighter and cleared my throat. Before my emotions got ahead of my control, I reminded myself I probably wasn’t the first girl to get lost in those eyes. I was sure he had plenty of Atlantean girls throwing themselves at him. I wasn’t going to let him get in my head. I didn’t throw myself at anybody - especially not self-centered guys like Sebastian. Guys threw themselves at me. And I was going to make sure it stayed that way.
