Vampire in Atlantis wop-7

by Alyssa Day

  He groaned, a long, heartfelt sound, and she jerked back a little, afraid she’d done something wrong, until his arms tightened around her. He pulled her so close that she could feel that intriguing hardness again, pushing up against the juncture of her thighs.

  She knew what it meant. He found her desirable. He wanted her. She wanted him, too, oh, by all the gods she wanted him so much, but for some reason she hesitated. Held back. She wanted him. His kisses drove her to the brink of aching, hungry madness, but this was just . . .

  “This isn’t what I dreamed about,” she blurted out.

  He took a deep breath and blew it out before answering her, but he didn’t move his hands from her back and bottom, holding her in place against him. Part of her wanted to wriggle around and see what happened.

  And part of her realized they were lying on a couple of thin blankets on a dirt floor in a cave.

  “Dreamed?” He stared at her, and she was pleased to see his eyes were a little unfocused.

  “This. Us. Here.” She gestured around them, blushing furiously but determined to explain. “I know it’s a silly romantic fantasy, but I had not dreamed of giving up my maidenhood in such a place.”

  He blinked and opened his mouth, then closed it. “I’m a damn fool,” he finally said. “I’m so sorry, Princess. Of course you deserve candles and flowers and silk sheets. I got carried away by the feel of finally holding you in my arms. You’re just so damn beautiful.”

  She smiled and kissed his cheek. “I don’t need candles or silk sheets, but a little romance and perhaps a little less dirt would not go unappreciated.”

  “You’re amazing,” he said, stroking the side of her face. “Even in the middle of all this danger, your sense of humor is still intact. How could I ever think I might deserve you?”

  “My father often informed me I was quite obstinate and annoying,” she told him. “Perhaps I am exactly who you deserve.”

  He grinned and rolled up to sit, then stood, pulling her up with him. “I don’t know about that. If—”

  But she stopped hearing his words after that. He was still speaking, but a voice on a very old and unused mental pathway in her mind came through loud and clear and drowned out any other sound.

  Serai of Atlantis, this is Reisen of Mycenae. I bid you allow me to communicate with you in this manner.

  The response to his formal request came to her unconscious mind before her conscious mind could think of it.

  Accepted and welcome, Reisen of Mycenae. What news of the world?

  We retrieved what we needed from the bank last night. Melody, ah, the human woman Melody has asked me to meet with certain others with her this evening and then I am free to catch up to you and assist you with your quest.

  She heard the slight oddness in his voice when he mentioned Melody, but it would have been impolite to inquire as to its cause.

  You were successful, then?

  We were. Now we only need—Wait. There is someone—

  The mental connection between them snapped and then expanded, filled with Reisen’s rage.

  They found us. They’re outside. Melody—they shot Melody. I have to go. I’ll contact you as soon as I can.

  Serai gasped and Daniel was instantly there, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to steady her.

  “Are you okay? What’s happening? You looked like you went into a trance.”

  She nodded, distracted, but couldn’t focus on what he was saying.

  Reisen, I hope Melody is not badly injured. Be well and safe. Contact me when you can. My best wishes and prayers go with you.

  And mine with you, Serai. Tell that vampire that if he hurts you, he’ll answer to me.

  The connection broke, and she let it go. Reisen had enough to deal with right now. She sent a fervent prayer to Poseidon that Melody would be healed quickly and that they would be safe, and then she realized that Daniel was shaking her.

  “Serai? Serai! Answer me,” he demanded.

  “I’m fine. You can stop shaking me now.”

  He released her instantly, and then he took a step back and shoved a hand through his hair. “What was that? You were gone. Is that the telepathy thing?”

  “Yes. It was Reisen.”

  A flash of something crossed Daniel’s eyes, but he simply nodded, waiting.

  “The bank job was a success. They got what they needed, but while we were communicating, Reisen said someone attacked them. Melody got shot.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t know. He was on his way to help her and get them away, I think. He said he’d contact us again when he could.” She left out Reisen’s threat, figuring what Daniel didn’t know couldn’t annoy him.

  She looked out toward the entrance of the cave, where it was now full dark. “Time to go. I can feel the Emperor, and it’s calling me very strongly.”

  “We’re on our own,” Daniel said.

  Serai held out her arms to the sky and pulled the strength of the Emperor to her, but this time on her terms. Its power soared through the air toward her, all but thrumming through her bones. “This is our quest to win or lose. Somehow I feel that very strongly.”

  He lifted the backpack and slung it over his shoulders again. “Then we really are on our own. Let’s find that gem before the witch starts to play with it again.”

  But it was too late. The witch forced her magic through the Emperor again, and Serai screamed, her skull nearly shattering with the force of the pain from another badly manipulated blast of the gem’s power.

  When she could breathe again, she gritted her teeth and headed out of the cave. “Now. We need to go find that goddessforsaken witch now.”

  Chapter 19

  Farther into the Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness area, inside an ancient, abandoned Sinagua Indian structure

  “I don’t know how to do it!” Ivy realized that screaming at the man with the gun was probably a bad idea, but blood ran freely down her lip and chin from her nose, and her skull felt like it might crack wide open. Whatever this amethyst was designed to be, a treasure-seeking tool aimed by a kidnapped witch was not it.

  Definitely not it.

  This try had been worse than the others, though—far worse. This time, she’d believed she’d made a connection with another woman. Another witch, maybe, or at least someone with some kind of magic that happened to resonate with the gem. The other woman had been in pain, too, and Ivy had the uncomfortable feeling that she’d been the one to cause it. She flinched a little as that concern led to another worry; they still hadn’t told her what had happened to Aretha. She didn’t buy the lame story that the apprentice had suddenly decided to take a vacation to Mexico. The girl had been flighty enough for something like that, certainly, but something about the story and the man who’d told it to her didn’t quite ring true.

  The same man now pointing a gun at her bleeding head.

  Ian was frantically digging into his backpack, and he came up with a clean bandanna, which he handed to her.

  “Mom, use this and wipe your nose. You have to stop now, this is hurting you too bad,” he said, and she would have given anything—done anything—to have spared him the pain and fear showing so plainly on his sunburned face. His bright blue eyes, exactly like his father’s, were a little shiny, but her proud boy hadn’t given in to the tears. He was worried about being strong for her.

  She was worried that Smithson would shoot Ian as quickly and callously as he might swat a gnat. Smithson had an oily, burnt-orange aura that lurched and coiled around him like a sun-drunk rattlesnake, and she had the feeling he was just as deadly.

  Which led her back to the gun.

  Oddly, however, even though night had fallen with its characteristic desert suddenness, the vampire who she’d thought had been in charge wasn’t there. Smithson had dragged her to this new location during the afternoon, after she’d barely gotten five hours of sleep. He’d forced them to eat some nasty beef jerky on the hike from the o
ther cave and given them a little water. She’d felt a dehydration headache looming even before he’d dragged her into this new structure and forced her to use the amethyst again. The vampire wasn’t with them, though, and that made her wonder if their criminal partnership was falling apart and, if so, how she could use the knowledge to her advantage.

  She put an arm around Ian and wiped her nose with the cloth he’d handed her, and then she looked at Smithson and tried to appear totally unafraid of the gun aimed at her head.

  “Where’s the vampire?”

  His eyes shifted a little, the classic “I’m getting ready to lie to you” indicator, and she wondered why a so-called criminal mastermind wasn’t a better liar. Especially since she’d heard he was a banker, too.

  Scumbag.

  “He’s no longer important. I’m in charge now. You can have five minutes, and then I want you to try again.” He waved one of his thugs over to give her another bottle of water.

  She took the cap off and handed it to Ian first, who took a drink and handed it back. She drank deeply, finishing the bottle, thinking furiously all the while. If he’d killed Nicholas, the odds were against her getting out of this alive. The vampire, at least, had seemed to have a little bit of reluctance to hurt Ian.

  If this worm hurt her boy, he was going to die in agony. She was making very sure to retain enough of her magic, protected and shielded from the damage the gem was doing to her, for a last-ditch escape attempt.

  Not attempt. A last-ditch escape success.

  “All right. Stop dawdling,” Smithson said, lowering the gun. “You don’t need to see this gun to know I’ll use it. And I won’t even use it on you, because you’re too valuable to me, at least for now.”

  He smiled and glanced at Ian. “I have heard that being shot in the kneecap is very painful. Might mess up a boy’s growth forever. What do you think about that, Ms. Witch?”

  A red wave of fury pulsed through her brain, and she had to bite hard on her lip to keep from speaking the words to a spell that would maim the bastard. He had too many thugs around the place, with instructions to take her out if she tried anything. She couldn’t get to them all before they could hurt Ian, and Smithson knew it.

  “I think there is no place in this world or the next that you can hide if you harm my son,” she said, slowly and carefully, in order not to scream, cry, or fly into a rage that would get them both shot. “Even if you kill me, my death curse will follow you and your sons and your sons’ sons for a thousand years of torment and pain.”

  Smithson paled and clenched his jaw, but then he raised the gun again, this time pointing it at Ian’s head. “Well, then. We both have the same goal, don’t we? To get this business over with quickly so you and your son can safely leave this place, and we’ll never have to see each other again.”

  One of the thugs by the door rolled his eyes behind Smithson’s back and grinned at a fellow guard. His meaning was chillingly clear to Ivy. They had instructions to kill her and her son as soon as Smithson escaped. He’d probably paid them enough to make them willing to brave a witch’s wrath.

  But none of them knew she was more than a witch. She was a sorceress of the black arts, and she would not die alone.

  Ian hugged her, and her inner bravado blew away like a tumbleweed in a strong wind. She didn’t care about taking them with her; she just wanted to escape with her son. She’d try again.

  “Tell me again,” she said wearily. “What exactly do you think we’ll find here?”

  “Rubies.” Smithson’s voice was dark with greed. “Look at this painting. The chief or medicine man or whatever, bowing to the figure with the staff. Between them, on the floor, is a pile of glowing red stones. Our pet archaeologist thought it must be a cache of rubies.”

  She caught the past tense. “Thought?”

  He grimaced. “He was a little too concerned with preserving our heritage, blah blah whatever. He didn’t survive the interview.”

  “Torture, you mean,” Ian said hotly, rising up off the ground. “You’re a monster. That vampire was a better man than you, and he sucks blood for a living!”

  Ivy grabbed Ian and pulled him back, shielding him from Smithson’s gun with her body. “Ian, stop it. He didn’t mean it; he’s just a boy. Don’t hurt him.”

  But Smithson was laughing. “Sucks blood for a living. That’s a good one. Look, I have no time for this and no intention of hurting you or the kid, if you just do your job. Get up off your ass and find those rubies. Then you’re done. Simple as that.”

  Ivy didn’t believe a single word out of his lying mouth, but it didn’t matter. She had no choice. She hugged Ian again and whispered “stay safe” in his ear, then stood up.

  “Give me back the amethyst and point me in the direction you think most likely for those rubies. I’ll make it work this time.”

  Smithson nodded to one of his guards, who held the gem in a cloth-lined wooden box. The man turned a sickly greenish-white, clearly terrified of the scary witch, but he stumbled forward, holding the box as far away from himself as his arms would extend.

  She couldn’t really blame him for that. The gem had enormous power and would probably fry his eyeballs in their sockets if he touched it with his bare hands. Only she could do that.

  Lucky her.

  She gently lifted the amethyst, and it immediately began to glow with deep purple light, warming in her hands until it felt almost malleable, and not like stone at all. She glanced at Ian again, hoping beyond hope that what she was about to do wouldn’t kill her, but knowing that she would almost certainly die at Smithson’s hand if she didn’t try it.

  She closed her eyes and centered her power in her mind, carefully building it from a flicker to a flame before aiming it at the gem and trying again to combine the resonance of her magic with that of the amethyst. The gem held an old and enormously potent magic, but most of its power was far beyond her reach. This treasure-seeking ability felt like an afterthought to her; almost like a parlor trick tossed off by a master magician simply to amuse the children. She had no idea what the true extent of its power might be, but she had a feeling that even a fraction of it would be enough to burn through her, leaving behind only the smoking husk of her body and mind, if she were foolish or unlucky enough to ever try to access it.

  But she didn’t need to try this all on her own. The other attempts had felt awkward, straining. This time she would pull out her not-so-secret weapon and open herself to the vortex energy in the area. Traditionalists and so-called practitioners of New Age mumbo-jumbo claimed the vortex energy was limited to Sedona itself, but she knew better. She could access the power for hundreds of miles, especially that from Bell Rock, her totem rock.

  She’d just see what the massive power of Bell Rock had to say about one ostrich egg–sized gemstone and its dangers.

  Calling silently to the vortex to lend her its strength, she opened her mind to the power of the amethyst, which was now pulsing in her hand like a beating violet heart.

  Lend me your power one last time, please, spirit of this gemstone. My son is held hostage to a greedy man’s whims, and I offer you a mother’s love and a sorceress’s magic as consideration for this request. Help me find the rubies for this monster, before he harms my child.

  An image appeared in her mind; a beautiful dark-haired woman, drawn and pale, who seemed to be staring through space, time, and magic directly at Ivy. The woman fell backward, pierced by a spear of purple light. The image disappeared when the amethyst’s magic smashed into Ivy, combining with the energy from the Bell Rock vortex, and levitated her within a column of glowing purple light until her head gently bumped the ceiling. She looked around, and a slim beam of light flashed out from the column around her and illuminated a tiny drawing on the ceiling; a miniature of the design Smithson had pointed out to her below. She lifted a hand to touch it, and a stone panel slid aside—more magic—and a waterfall of sparkling red began to stream out of the hiding space in the ceiling. She tried
to move out of the way, but the column of light held her fixed and nearly frozen directly in the path of the falling treasure.

  All she could do was shield her head and face with her hands, and try not to cry out when the sharp edges of the stones struck her skin. She could hear Ian shouting something, but the magical light acted as a sound buffer and she couldn’t make out the words. She tried to smile reassuringly at him but a falling stone smashed into her cheek, cutting her skin, so she covered her face again, deciding she could reassure him after she got out of the path of the rocks.

  Long minutes later, the beam of light finally released her. She fell awkwardly to the ground, which was at least two yards beneath where her feet had been hanging, suspended, in the air. She hit the ground hard and crumpled as her ankle twisted underneath her.

  This time she cried out. She couldn’t help it.

  Ian rushed over and helped her up so she could limp, leaning heavily on him, across the floor to sit down near the wall farthest from the enormous pile of rubies. Dozens of small cuts and scrapes from the falling gems ached and bled all over her hands, arms, shoulders, neck, and face.

  “I guess whoever hid the gems wanted anybody who found them to pay for it,” Ian said bitterly. “It was like one of those Indiana Jones traps.”

  “Luckily not a rolling boulder,” she said, trying to smile. Judging from Ian’s reaction, she must have looked ghastly.

  “Mom, your nose is bleeding again, plus all these cuts, and your ankle—I have to get you to a doctor.”

  “If only you were old enough to drive,” she murmured, suddenly dizzy and faint. If the exhaustion or the drain of her magical powers didn’t get her, the dehydration would. Either way, she would be just as dead, and her son in just as much danger.

  Smithson, meanwhile, was ignoring her completely as he all but danced around the pile of rocks. His rubies, then. They must be. Ordinary rocks wouldn’t have caused this level of capering glee. She’d seen them anyway, on the way down. Uncut and rough as most of them were, the occasional deep red glow, even in the unusual purple light, had told her all she’d needed to know. There was probably millions of dollars of rubies in that pile—maybe more, she didn’t know, she was no gemologist—and surely, surely Smithson had to be happy now. His thugs were quickly gathering all the rubies into a dozen or so large duffel bags and, one by one, heading out of the cave.