Atlantis Unleashed (5 page)

Rowes Wharf, Boston

Alexios stared up at the enormous brick-and-granite-clad building that gleamed like new money and old arrogance in the moonlight. He whistled, a low, piercing sound of disbelief, and turned to Brennan. “Are you kidding me? This is the HQ? Whatever happened to the good old days when the Apostates of Algolagnia skulked around in abandoned warehouses and damp, leaky basements?”

Alexios almost laughed at himself, although nothing about the situation was funny. They were just having a normal conversation between a couple of guys.

If
the guys happened to be centuries-old Atlantean warriors who'd called to their power over water to ride air currents rich with the sharp tang of seawater and diesel fuel that mixed over Boston Harbor.

Christophe shot up through the air to join them, his
Firefly
T-shirt and faded jeans contrasting vividly with the dark clothing Alexios, Brennan, and the rest of the Seven routinely wore on missions outside of Atlantis. High Prince Conlan's elite guard and fighting force wasn't really supposed to look like Goth college kids playing rebel, after all.

As if he'd heard the thought, Christophe turned the full force of his gaze on Alexios, who suddenly realized that the clothes meant nothing. The weight of power, barely leashed, that glowed in Christophe's eyes made the question of his attire irrelevant—the warrior was a killer as icy as the ocean's most isolated depths.

It wasn't really the time to ponder Christophe's morality, conscience, or lack of either, though. They needed to find Justice, before all hope that he was still alive vanished under the harsh reality of passing time.

“Let's check it out,” Alexios called out quietly. Shimmering to mist, the three rose farther into the air until they hovered thirty or so feet over the icy winter waters of Boston Harbor.

Poseidon's warriors, preparing to play Peeping Tom.

The thought sickened Alexios, especially given what they might see from the members of a cult that experienced pleasure through pain. No matter, though. He'd give his life to find Lord Justice. They all would. Tracking down a few sick perverts for information seemed a small price to pay.

“Even if the venue seems so unlikely,” he added out loud.

“Catch up, already,” Christophe said, sneering. “Anubisa's twisted cult owns the lives and rotted souls of members with big bucks and bigger connections. The humans call this complex of buildings the ‘Gateway to Boston.' What better way for Anubisa's acolytes to stake their claim to the rest of the new world?”

“
Stake
their claim. I get it. Vamp-worshipping cult. Stake. Funny man,” Alexios said, not in the least bit amused. “Where are they?”

Brennan cleared his throat, as if stretching rusted vocal cords. Lately the warrior had been prone to longer and longer periods of silence. Alexios wondered, not for the first time, if the centuries of having no emotion were finally wearing Brennan down. “When Quinn sent word to Atlantis, she indicated that the cult held its rites in a penthouse suite of the Boston Harbor Hotel, which is contained within this building.” He pointed to a section of the multistoried arch that spanned a large area.

Alexios narrowed his eyes. “Freaking luxury hotel to play their sick games in. What's next? The White House? Maybe the Lincoln bedroom?”

“Abraham Lincoln would have been sickened by the weakling who holds his office today,” Brennan said, his utterly calm voice giving no hint of whether or not he shared the sentiment. “There is no evidence that President Warren has joined the Apostates, however.”

Christophe threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah, who needs to join a cult devoted to finding sexual pleasure through intense pain when you're already married to a ballbuster like this country's First Lady?”

“Perhaps we should leave the political speculation for the time being,” Brennan said, a hint of command in his quiet voice. “We are the Warriors of Poseidon, and it is not our purview to speculate on the humans and their leadership choices, much as we may dislike those choices. It is our honor and duty only to protect them from those predators who formerly kept to the shadows of the night.”

“Right. The pride of Atlantis protecting the damn sheep who invited the wolves in to dinner,” Christophe sneered. “In the decade since the shifters and vamps declared themselves to humanity, they've taken over. Vampires in Congress and now in the British parliament. Shape-shifters controlling the media. Every one of them walking around as though they owned the place. Oh, wait—they do.”

Christophe snarled a phrase in ancient Atlantean and sliced a hand downward. A funnel of churning water spiraled up through the air at his command, climbing high enough to spray water at their boots before Christophe released it.

Alexios gritted his teeth against the urge to reprimand the younger warrior. After all, Christophe was only acting out the maddening frustration they all felt. “No time for any of that now. This sect may have some knowledge that can help us find Justice. That's all we care about tonight. The mission is to get it out of them, any way we can.”

As the three warriors shimmered into mist and silently soared up toward the rooftop, Alexios forced the toxic memories of his own time as Anubisa's captive from his thoughts. Memory was such a pale and impotent word, anyway; it was more like a full-on, lights-and-sound flashback to the torture that had seared through his body and mind. Almost as though he yet again endured the lash of her metal-tipped whips or the agony of her mind rape.

Two years of imprisonment to the vampire goddess, in payment for some wrong she believed Poseidon had done to her so long ago that any memory of it was lost in the waters of time. At least to anyone mortal.

Goddesses had very, very long memories.

Two years
of being brought to the point of death and beyond, over and over and over again. That he'd survived was no testament to his own strength or courage, but rather to how low he'd been on her list of priorities. She hadn't been around to play her twisted games with him very often, or he would have been dead.

Or worse than dead. A pathetic toy to do her bidding. A man couldn't outplay a goddess, after all. Not even a man who was also an Atlantean warrior.

As the memories shuddered through his soul, he forced himself to focus. On the mission. On Justice—his colleague and friend. And tried not to wonder if, after four long months of Anubisa's very personal attentions, there would be anything left of Justice to find.

It took them only minutes to find the right window on the hotel's top floor. Shamelessness, or the exhibitionist tendencies of its inhabitants, meant that the curtains were thrown wide. He felt his lips curl back from his teeth as he stared through the phantom reflection of his own scarred face on the glass at a scene straight out of something Dante might have written.

The hotel furniture, probably high quality and all kinds of expensive, was shoved against the walls to make a roughly square open space in the center of the suite. Dozens of naked, sweat-slicked bodies twisted and contorted into impossible positions. The gyrating forms of several red-robed Apostates whirled from victim to victim. Each of the red robes carried whips and other, darker-purposed steel implements with which they slashed out in precise movements.

The worst part of it was that there was a deliberate rhythm to it: choreographed pain in a perverted dance.

The blood dripping from every player and soaking into the pale cream color of the carpet was shockingly vivid and almost too bright to be real. But even as Alexios watched, the robed figures sliced new gashes into flesh, causing the nude humans to cry out and writhe on the floor.

Alexios snarled an ancient curse in his native tongue and shimmered back into his corporeal form, still wrapped in shadows so the ones inside didn't see him as he unsheathed his daggers.

Brennan's thoughts swirled through the air toward Alexios, stopping him mid-motion.
Hold, Alexios. We wait for the leader. These humans do not react as you might think and will not welcome our interference, in any event, so we do no good by rushing in at this time.

“What in the hells are you talking about? They're having their skin shredded by those whips. I'd say that it's a pretty good time to welcome some interference,” Alexios returned, keeping his voice low.

Christophe shimmered into shape next to him, his eyes already glowing hot with power. “Look at the sick bastards, Alexios. They're enjoying it.”

Alexios swung his head back to stare in at the humans writhing in pain on the floor. “They're not—”

But then he stopped, the words frozen in his mouth. He'd seen it often enough from the Apostates during his captivity. They'd made a cult out of sexual pleasure through pain—that of others and their own.

But the worst of them were bloodsuckers like the dark goddess they worshipped. Part of her blood pride.

These were humans.

Humans
. And they were screwing each other as they bled, right there on the carpet.

Alexios felt the bile roiling in his gut. “Poseidon save us. That's the most disgusting thing I've seen in a long—”

Christophe cut him off. “To each his own, Alexios. Just because you didn't enjoy whatever Anubisa did to scar your pretty face doesn't mean that some of us don't like to play a little rough sometimes.”

Whirling to face the other warrior, Alexios didn't even realize he'd drawn his fist back to strike until Brennan caught his wrist in one powerful hand. “Christophe's words, as is often the case, outpace his thoughts, old friend,” Brennan said calmly. “But we are only three and cannot countenance dissension between us if we are to learn any news of Lord Justice.”

Alexios nodded, still boring a hole in the side of Christophe's head with his gaze. “You're right, Brennan. But when this is over, there will come a reckoning time.”

Christophe never even turned to face him, but remained staring into the window, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Power rolled off of him in waves, until Alexios thought the inside of his skull would burst from it.

“Christophe, ratchet it down. Now.”

Christophe didn't bother to respond, but the pressure in Alexios's head diminished as Christophe's entire body stiffened and he pointed at the glass. “I bet that's our slimeball. Look at the way all the red robes are bowing and scraping.”

The man—no, the
vampire
; anybody with a face that color of fish-belly white could only be the undead—striding into the room had to be at least six and a half feet tall. His bald head gleamed as though oiled, as did the rest of his body. Or at least what they could see of it, which was way too much for Alexios's taste.

“What is he wearing?” Christophe said, disgust dripping from his words. “The newest thing in leather and chains?”

“My eyes are bleeding,” Alexios groaned.

“Deplorable taste in clothing or not, we perhaps should act now,” Brennan murmured.

Christophe raised his palms, and two glowing spheres of pure blue-green energy instantly formed, the power of Poseidon searing through him like channeled electricity. “Now works for me,” he said.

“Don't hurt the humans,” Alexios shouted, but it was too late. Christophe shot the spheres at the enormous wall of glass, shattering it inward in a thunderous explosion.

The cult members nearest the window screamed and threw themselves away from the deadly shards of glass arrowing toward them, scrambling away on newly bloodied hands and knees. Shrieks and cries filled the air as everyone in the room ran or crawled away from the window.

Great.
That
wouldn't alert hotel security. Alexios sent a quick prayer to Poseidon that at least the security force wasn't composed of shifters, then shoved Christophe out of the way and flew through the jagged hole.

The cult members scrambled to put even more distance between themselves and the intruders as the Atlanteans soared into the room and landed on the glass-covered carpet.

Everyone but the leader. He stared straight into Alexios's eyes, and he smiled. “I expected you before this, weaklings. Do you wish to join the ways of Algolagnia? I, Xinon, would be delighted to demonstrate how pain can become pleasure.”

“I think we'd rather demonstrate how pain can be nothing more than pain, bloodsucker,” Alexios said, scanning the room for further threat. “Nice panties, by the way.”

The vamp glanced down at the leather straps he wore in place of pants, and then he smiled again. “Yes, I'd heard that you enjoyed our games when you were our . . . guest.”

The fragile control Alexios had on his temper after Christophe's idiotic stunt frayed near to snapping, and he raised his daggers. “You're closer than you know to the true death, vampire, so maybe you should keep your mouth shut.”