Atlantis Unleashed (42 page)

Keely cleaned herself off with water from a bucket before she went in to Eleni, so as not to traumatize the child even more. She was so angry that it was surprising that the water didn't boil into steam the second it touched her skin.

Questions crashed through her mind, faster and faster. Did she love him? Did she
love
him? He was a stupid, blind, sorry excuse for a human being. Or Atlantean being. Or what the hell ever. Damn him, anyway. Did she really have to say the words? Hadn't she proved how she felt about him, over and over? What about that hours-long sex romp in the jungle? Did he think she went around having wild sex in jungles all the time?

Energy sizzled up the nape of her neck even before the sound of his footsteps alerted her to his approach. “Stay away from me, Justice,” she warned. “I'm in no mood right now. I just killed my first vampire—my first anything—and that's pretty traumatic. Then I had to deal with you and your stupid questions.”

“Keely,” he said. Just that. Just her name.

But there was so much pain and longing in the sound that she bowed her head, surrendering her rage to a gentler emotion. The anger disappeared as if she'd never felt it, and she carefully considered what to say, still with her back to him as she knelt by the bucket. “Justice, I know. I know you're fighting this battle, and I know that you sometimes can't control the Nereid, but I kind of need for you to take some things on faith. Can you do that for me?”

She waited, but only heard silence. A healthy dose of mad started up again and she stood up, kicking the bucket over in frustration. “Look, you have to meet me halfway—”

She whirled around, ready to give him a very detailed list of grievances, just in time to see his eyes roll back in his head as he fell backward to the ground. She jumped forward but wasn't quick enough, and his body and head hit the dirt with two solid thumps that had her wincing in empathy. Oh, man, was he going to have a headache when he woke up. He'd told her using the Nereid power drained him. She had a feeling that the shock wave trick had used huge amounts of his power and energy.

She heard more steps running toward them, and then Alejandro rounded the corner and skidded to a stop. There was a long silence as he stared back and forth between Justice and Keely.

“I must revise my opinion, Dr. McDermott,” he said gravely, although there was a certain glint in his eye. “You are far too much woman for me.”

“I didn't do this,” she protested, but he just nodded, holding up his hands as if in surrender. She couldn't help it; she started laughing helplessly. The terror, anger, and exhaustion had drained her completely. She laughed and laughed until tears started rolling down her cheeks, and Alejandro crouched down next to her and touched her cheek with one hand.

“You are very courageous, Keely, but even the strongest steel can find its breaking point. Let me assist you in carrying your man to a better place to rest.”

“He's not my man; he's a thickheaded buffoon,” she mumbled, scrubbing at her face, and it was Alejandro's turn to laugh.

“All men are buffoons at times,” he said gently. “The heart of a good person cannot lie, and your heart shows plainly on your face whenever you look at him, as his does when you are near.”

She just sighed. He called out, and one of his men came over to help. Between the three of him, they managed to lift Justice's heavy form and get him inside to a pallet of blankets in one corner. As soon as she saw them, Eleni wiggled out of the arms of the woman who'd been holding her and ran to them.

“Señor Justice, Señor Justice! You cannot be hurt. I did not see you hurt,” she cried out. Then she hurled her tiny body on top of Justice's chest and put one arm around him, still holding that awful slipper in the other, and cast a reproachful glance at Keely. “Except when you hit him. You should not have done that. Hitting is wrong. We must use our words to resolve our differences,” she said in a singsong voice, clearly parroting something she'd heard many times.

Alejandro and the other man strode off, probably to return to guard duty, and Keely dropped to her knees next to Justice's still body. “You're right, Eleni. It was wrong of me to hit him, and I will apologize when he wakes up. Is that okay?”

Eleni nodded, the tracks of tearstains shining silvery in the dust coating her cheeks. “I was so afraid. Even though I did not see you being injured, I was so afraid. But you came back, like you promised.”

Keely soothingly patted Eleni's thin back and rashly made a promise—to herself and to the child. “I will always come back, Eleni. If you like, you can stay with me from now on.”

But Eleni was drifting off to sleep, still clinging to Justice, and she didn't respond. Probably hadn't heard, which was all for the best. Keely wondered if she was going crazy. Falling in love with a magical warrior and then punching him. She'd never punched anyone before in her life. Promising something to a traumatized child that probably would be impossible to achieve.

Still, she'd seen the impossible on a daily basis since the moment Liam had walked into her office talking about Atlantis. Surely arranging for one orphaned child to come home with her couldn't be that difficult.

Firmly putting all of it out of her mind, she curled up next to Eleni and Justice and put her arm over both of them. She was exhausted and needed sleep. She'd think about the rest of it in the morning. As she fidgeted, trying to get comfortable, she felt Justice's warm hand pull hers to his chest, so that it rested on his heartbeat. Comforted by the feel of it, strong and steady under her palm, Keely finally let her mind and body sink into the warm darkness of sleep.

Several kilometers away, in the temple at San Bartolo, the wounded vampire finished telling the leader of his blood pride the tale of the events of that night. Enraged, the leader's yellowed fangs lengthened so fast that they slashed bleeding ribbons in his lips. He bellowed out a howl that was so long and loud that all of his pride members in the area dropped to their knees and cowered.

“They dare? They dare to threaten me?” he screamed. “We shall see who lives to threaten whom after this night!”

“Perhaps,” ventured the vamp whose leg was still trying to heal, “we could wait for the rest of us to return at dawn from hunting and go in strength when night next falls?”

The leader swooped down on him, eyes glowing red and savage. “You dare to question me?” he hissed.

“Never, never, my lord. But if you could have seen the power of the explosion . . . I only suggest that we return with sufficient force that no hint of danger could come near to touching you.”

The leader drew back, a calculating expression on his face. “Perhaps you are right. A true leader never risks himself; I am far too valuable to take any chances of facing the true death.”

He slowly turned to face the mural of the goddess Anubisa preparing to feast on the puny maize god of the ancient Maya. “We will destroy this new threat in your name.”

Behind him, the others mewled and whined varying noises of agreement but he ignored them. One day he, too, would be a god, as vampires before him had been worshipped by these Mayan sheep.

One day quite possibly as soon as tomorrow.

Keely woke slowly, climbing up through stages of sleep as though her weary body and mind were protesting every step. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to see sunlight slanting through the building and falling like bars of gold on the wooden floor. Justice and Eleni were gone, but a blanket had been neatly tucked around Keely's shoulders. She sat up, grimacing at the foul taste in her mouth, and an equally foul smell coming from somewhere nearby, and wished for a shower and a toothbrush, in no particular order.

“Señora would like to accompany us to wash up?” Keely looked up at the question and found the shy woman from yesterday sitting at a battered wooden table, folding clothes and sorting them into piles. “We thought you might enjoy a change of clothing.”

Keely's nose wrinkled when she realized that the foul smell was coming from herself. Hiking through the jungle, having vampires disintegrate all over you . . . it was no way to keep fresh as a daisy.

“Yes, I would love that,” she said gratefully. “I'm sorry, I don't know your name.”

“I am Maria,” said the woman—girl, really. She couldn't be older than eighteen or nineteen years old. “Follow me, please.”

Keely followed Maria out into the bright sunlight and automatically glanced up at the sky. It had to be mid-morning. She couldn't believe she'd slept so long. She scanned the clearing as she followed Maria to a path that cut into the trees, but there was no sign of Justice or Eleni.

“Maria, do you know where Justice is?”

Maria glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. “He and Eleni went with Alejandro to patrol. That one is such a man, no? You are lucky to be his woman, and he, too, is lucky to find a woman with fire in her spirit as well as in her hair.”

“I'm not his woman,” Keely grumbled, picking her way through trees and over wildly overgrown plant life on the path. Suddenly she looked around and wished for her shotgun. “There aren't any jaguars that like to take this path, are there?”

Maria laughed. “No, they stay away from the village and our paths. The smell of cooking fires . . .”

Her voice trailed off and Keely knew they were both thinking of other fires.

“I'm so sorry,” Keely said. “I can't begin to imagine how much you've suffered.”

Maria's shoulders slumped but then squared again. “Alejandro will take us out of here. We have only ever had random attacks before; a single vampire would try to take one of us. This has only happened twice in the entirety of my life. But this—this is organized warfare and we cannot stand against it. If your man were to stay with us and guard us . . . I heard of his magic. But you cannot stay, can you?”

She turned to fix a measuring stare on Keely, hope mixed with resignation in her eyes.

“No, I'm sorry. We will stay until your P Ops unit comes, but we must finish up our . . . mission and return home.”

Maria nodded. “We understand. Alejandro will save us.”

The words fell from her lips like a benediction, and Keely, who rarely noticed interpersonal relationships, had a sudden flash of insight. “He's
your
man, isn't he? Alejandro?”

“I would like that,” Maria said, blushing. “But he still thinks of me as a child.”

They rounded a curve in the path and a stream lay in front of them, sparkling in the sunlight that danced on its surface. Keely stopped and took a deep breath, content to see something beautiful after the night's terror and death.

“We will wash up and you can wear these clothes, if you like,” Maria said shyly, holding out the bundle in her hands. “They are mine and we are very nearly the same size.”

Keely looked at Maria's voluptuous curves and doubted her own less bountiful shape would fill out any of the other woman's clothes, but didn't let anything but thanks show on her face as she gratefully accepted the fresh clothes. Well-fitting clothes, after all, were the last thing on her mind, even if the teensiest bit of vanity wanted Justice to see her looking at least almost as pretty as the beautiful Maria.

They stripped down to their underwear and waded into the stream to wash, sharing a bar of soap that felt like silk and smelled like delicate jungle flowers. Keely washed her hair, too, and nearly cried with the sheer relief of being clean again. When they were done, they headed for the stream bank, chatting about inconsequential things, striving for mundane and normal as a respite from horror and death.

The loud crack of a branch breaking rang in the air, and they both froze. Maria started crying, and Keely put her arms around her. “It can't be vampires, not in the daytime,” she soothed, while wondering what other dangers they'd overlooked in their little bathing adventure.