Hearts in Atlantis

by Stephen King

  "Surely the renowned and feared leader of all North American rebels isn't afraid of me," he said, smiling a snake-oil smile.

  "I'm afraid of everything until I kill it," she said flatly. "That's what keeps me alive. So what is it you want with me?"

  She studied him as he stilled, watching her with the hooded expression of a cobra preparing to strike. The smile never left his face, though.

  "I didn't think you'd come," he said, ignoring her question.

  "You have something that belongs to a friend of mine."

  He glanced at a small wooden box sitting on one end of the table. "Oh, did the big, bad Atlanteans send a weak, little human to do their dirty work?"

  "I thought I was feared and renowned. Make up your mind." She scanned the room for possible exits, threats, or allies. The windows were thick glass that was way too strong for her to break; the second door led to other offices, not the hallway; and not a single soul had dared to step into the room since she got there.

  "It's almost eight, Ptolemy. Don't you have a press conference to get to? I won't delay you. Just give me the gem, and I'll be on my way." Bluffing wouldn't work with him, but it was second nature for her to at least try, and it worked as a good stalling technique while she figured out her plan of attack.

  "I do, now that you mention it," he said, his dark eyes measuring her. Finding her wanting. "You need new clothes. I can hardly present my future consort to the world dressed in rags."

  Quinn's knees tried to buckle, and ice snaked down her spine. She grabbed the back of the chair in front of her to steady herself and then she pulled out one of her guns and pointed it at him. "What exactly did you say?"

  "I said you need new clothes," he said calmly, completely ignoring the gun. "Did I offend you? I haven't even mentioned the hair or makeup yet."

  "Consort. You said consort," she said, clenching her jaw shut to keep her from chattering. Not again. Not another one. She couldn't be trapped that way again.

  He laughed, and tendrils of terror swept through the air around her, enticing her to give in. To surrender to the roiling fear and madness he gave off like dark emanations from his twisted soul. She'd never been so afraid in her life.

  Which, of course, only pissed her off.

  "In your dreams, buster. Now, give me the gem before I turn you into a girl." She very deliberately pointed the gun at his crotch.

  He laughed. Not the usual reaction a man had when confronted with the loss of the family jewels.

  "I think your gun won't work," he said, and she flinched and cried out as the metal flashed to searing hot. She dropped it, fast, and watched in horror as her Glock melted into a puddle of shiny liquid metal, ate a hole through the table, and pooled on the floor.

  "If you have any knives or more guns on you, I'll give you a moment before I melt them, too," he said. "I wouldn't want you to suffer any burns in inconvenient places."

  The knives and her backup gun were seared to molten heat so quickly that she rushed to remove them and tossed them on the table before her clothes caught on fire.

  "Is that all you've got?" she challenged him.

  "Oh, no, I have much more," he said, taunting her. "You'll discover just how much when I impregnate you with the new heir to Atlantis."

  Reality tilted on its axis for a moment as her brain tried to process what he'd said, and her skin tried to crawl off her bones and run away from the overwhelming revulsion and terror of his words.

  No. Not again.

  She almost hadn't survived the last time.

  Alaric followed Faust out of the building into the dirty gray street, and the immediate problem became apparent. The children.

  Alaric pointed to two women on the other side of the street who were dressed in the law enforcement uniform of the city. "They will care for the children."

  Faust shook his head. "No. No way. They'll put them in foster homes. I take care of them, man."

  Alaric raised one eyebrow, but didn't state the obvious again. They were out of time for debate. "Then point me toward City Hall and remove yourselves from this place."

  Faust gave him quick directions, and then he and the children disappeared around a corner so fast it was as if they'd never been there at all. Alaric watched them go and then headed off toward City Hall, transforming into mist to travel so he could avoid any more nasty surprises. He spared a moment to wonder why the portal would send him to Faust, but then dismissed it as unimportant to the mission at hand as he sped past broken and boarded-up windows of abandoned and decrepit buildings.

  Quinn, Quinn, Quinn, Quinn. Her name beat though his mind like a command.

  She could be anywhere in the world--probably was so far from him he'd never find her--but his senses automatically scanned for her in a wide pattern to try to catch any hint of her presence. Just as he did, a wave of Quinn's emotion--pure, unadulterated terror--slammed into him so hard it sent him crashing down through the air, out of his mist form, and smashed him into a parked car.

  She was here in New York. Here. He struggled to climb out of the dent his body had made in the hood of the car, and another blast of her emotion knocked him down again. Wherever she was, she was so scared she could hardly think. A renewed flare of white-hot power surged through him, and he shot into the air again, ignoring the crowd of humans that had formed around the car. Whoever had scared Quinn was about to learn exactly what the high priest of Atlantis was capable of--and it was going to be a very, very painful lesson.

  He followed Quinn's fear and rage across the city to find, to his utter lack of surprise, that it was coming from City Hall. The coincidences were just piling up, and none of them were good. He didn't bother to knock, just headed straight for the window closest to where he could sense Quinn and arrowed straight for it, planning to smash it open on the way.

  Instead, he crashed into an invisible shield of magic and bounced back through the air. The force of his collision with the shield pushed him out of his mist shape again and smashed him down to the ground. He lay there for a minute or so, shaking his head at the offers of hands up or any other help, simply trying to force air back into his abused body and snarling at the humans until they all gave up and left him alone. Ptolemy's press conference was bigger news than a man falling from midair, evidently. As he climbed to his feet, a sharp ache alerted him to the presence of at least one cracked or broken rib.

  "This day just keeps getting better and better," he growled, and a woman standing nearby pulled her child closer to her.

  He almost laughed. Even the humans he'd spent hundreds of years protecting thought he was a monster. So be it. He'd be monster enough for any of them.

  He spared a moment and the smallest touch of energy to heal his ribs so he'd be ready to fight, and headed for the stairs to the ornate building, but a truck with antennas bristling all over it drove up and parked, blocking his way.

  "Move, man, don't get in the way of the TV crew," somebody said, and shoved him.

  If he'd had the energy to spare, Alaric would have blasted the fool with an energy sphere just on the principle of the thing. Luckily for the human, Quinn's welfare was far more important than minor annoyances, so today he got to live. Alaric took another few steps before he realized he had yet another big problem. The magical wards shielding the building were far too powerful for him to take down without draining himself of the reserves he needed to continue to shield Atlantis. He'd either have to trust Quinn to take care of herself for a little while, or sacrifice all of his people to save her.

  Today was turning out to be his day for bad fucking options.

  Chapter 18

  Quinn stared at herself in the mirror. Ptolemy had handed her a red dress and heels and the choice to either wear them or watch him tear the head off one of the office workers. Like so much in her life lately, it wasn't really much of a choice.

  Now the image looking back at her in the mirror was a caricature of herself. Pale, with styled hair and skillfully applied makeup that seem
ed to float above the surface of her face. The TV people had done it. She didn't even know how to put on eyeliner, let alone all the other goop. One overly zealous woman had tried to spray her with perfume, but Quinn's expression had stopped that in its tracks, at least.

  She looked like a little porcelain doll, they'd told her. As if that were a good thing. Didn't they understand that porcelain was fragile and easily shattered?

  The door opened on silent hinges, and Ptolemy walked into the ladies' room. Quinn didn't bother to act surprised. She could already tell the man was a control freak.

  "You're as beautiful as I knew you would be, underneath that scruff and grime," he said, and she suddenly, desperately, wanted her guns.

  "You're a bullying piece of shit who needs to be put down like a rabid dog," she said, smiling sweetly. "Who are you, and what is this about?"

  "I'm not going to fill you in on all my plans just yet. I'm not some comic book villain with a need to impress," he said, walking closer.

  The stench of evil nearly suffocated her as he drew near, and she started choking on the intangible emotion that nobody else would be able to perceive. "What are you? The only thing I can think of is demon, but it's not exactly that, either. Unseelie Court Fae?"

  He sneered. "As if I'd associate with them. No, my darling queen-to-be, you have never encountered anyone like me. Or, rather, you've encountered many like my dear, dead mother, but my father? No. He was in a class by himself."

  He bowed and motioned to the door. "Shall we do this? We have a press conference to give."

  She headed for the door, bracing her shoulders against attack from behind, but he only sniffed her hair as she passed. She didn't manage to contain her shiver of revulsion, and he started laughing. His laughter was rich and deep as it surrounded her--invaded her--tasting like burning acid in the back of her throat. She fought her gag reflex. She would not let them see her be weak.

  At the end of the hall, a man wearing headphones ushered them into another large room, and this one was set up for the press conference. Huge cameras, large, square light boxes on poles, and more wires and electrical apparatuses than she'd ever seen in one place fought for space. Two men she pegged immediately as vampires stood at the back of the room, near the podium, and another she thought was human hovered ten feet or so away from them. A flurry of people with press passes hanging around their necks swarmed everywhere, and Quinn's fingers itched for her knives.

  She took a small step toward the door, but Ptolemy grabbed her arm. He shook his head slowly, mocking her, and she wrenched her arm away from him and tried not to vomit. Whatever dark magic he had, the sensation of it had intensified a hundredfold when he touched her, even through the sleeve of her dress. If he ever touched her bare skin, she thought she would go mad.

  "Everyone who isn't absolutely essential, get out," Ptolemy said, never raising his voice.

  Instantly, the swarm thinned to only a manageable few, as most of the people in the room all but fell over themselves trying to escape. Now that she could get a better look at the men near the podium, she realized something highly troubling. One of them was the first vampire mayor of New York, and the other was the first vampire secretary-general of the United Nations. The man lurking a distance away she didn't recognize.

  "What's the plan?" she asked, sure that Ptolemy wouldn't tell her anything, but unwilling to meekly become a part of whatever evil strategy he had in motion.

  "The secretary-general will either officially recognize me as the king of Atlantis, right here and now, or I will kill him on international TV," he said, as casually as if he were discussing what to have for lunch.

  Her hand was partway to her gun before she remembered it was gone. Ptolemy dragged her to the front of the room, and the surge of nausea she'd been fighting burned through her. She was barely able to contain her stomach's urgent need to empty its contents all over him.

  "Your magic and I are definitely not compatible," she said, taking in shallow breaths. "What makes you think I'd let you close enough to me to . . . to . . ."

  "To have my baby?" He leaned closer and whispered. "You won't have a choice. Nobody said you had to be conscious during the begetting."

  Ptolemy took advantage of her shock-induced paralysis to drag her in front of the cameras.

  "This is my consort, Quinn Dawson, the only human worthy to be queen of Atlantis," he said, smiling for the international audience. "We are here this morning to accept Secretary-General Filberson's acknowledgment of our sovereignty."

  The secretary-general was made of sterner stuff than she was, Quinn thought, or else he didn't have the ability to sense Ptolemy's twisted magic at all, because he stepped right up, displaying no hint of fear or revulsion.

  "Since the secret is out, we do acknowledge that Atlantis exists and has been preparing to rise from the bottom of the ocean and rejoin the international community. However, I have been dealing with High Prince Conlan for more than a year now. This man is a pretender, and the United Nations does not recognize or support him."

  The mayor backed away from Filberson, clearly anticipating the worst. It didn't take very long for him to get it. Ptolemy reached out a hand that had transformed into that of a beast. His fingers now terminated in five-inch-long claws, and he slashed Filberson in the face. Then, before the secretary-general even hit the floor, Ptolemy kicked him so hard it caved in the side of his head.

  Quinn gasped as the secretary-general's emotions swung violently from calm determination to pain, rage, and terror, and then she slammed her mental shield into place. She knew from previous experience that she couldn't feel all of his emotions as he died and still remain conscious, and if she passed out she might wake up dead.

  "This is unfortunate," Ptolemy said calmly, wiping his bloody hand on the side of Quinn's dress.

  She silently vowed to kill him. Slowly. She wanted him to suffer for what he'd done to Filberson. For what he'd done to her.

  Ptolemy pointed to the mayor with his hand, which was still smeared with blood despite his use of Quinn's dress. "Do you have something to say?"

  The mayor stepped over the moaning secretary-general and faced the cameras. "Yes, we agree," he said hastily. "The city of New York recognizes you as King Ptolemy of Atlantis. No problem. No problem at all."

  "And you?" Ptolemy pointed again, this time to the man who still lurked a dozen or so paces away.

  Quinn didn't know who he was, but he looked familiar. He walked slowly to the podium and stepped carefully around the dying vampire on the floor before facing the cameras.

  "I will absolutely recognize you as king of Atlantis or any other damn continent you want to rule," he said slowly. "I have a family and grandchildren, so I don't want to die. And this will be my last official act as governor of New York."

  The governor walked carefully away, down the long conference room and out of the door, undeterred by anyone in the room. Quinn looked at Ptolemy, surprised that he'd let the man escape, but he shocked her by laughing.

  "And so it begins," he said. "Now, my beautiful wife-to-be, to prove your loyalty I only have one request. I need for you to end what's left of the life of this miserable worm on the floor. If you disobey me, I will kill every human in this building, slowly and painfully--"

  "Done," Quinn snapped. She whirled around to grab a rather flimsy-looking wooden side table and snapped one leg off over her knee. Then she knelt down next to the secretary-general.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, before she plunged the makeshift stake into his heart.

  She'd just committed murder on live TV. Another act for which she could never, ever forgive herself. She opened her mental shield, just a crack, for just a moment.

  Good-bye, Alaric.

  The blast of Quinn's pain and remorse swept through Alaric with the force of a tidal wave, before she shut it down hard. She was trying to tell him good-bye.

  Alaric needed to kill something.

  Bad.

  "Oh, my god, she really d
id it," shouted the man with the portable viewing device. It had been Alaric's only window to Quinn and Ptolemy for the past several minutes.

  She'd had no choice. Yet again he had the thought that they were all ultimately helpless pawns in a chess game played by gods. Another stain on her soul, and Quinn had already been sure that she could never atone for the dark deeds she'd performed in her short life.

  He, of all people, knew what it had cost her to kill that man. Even though the secretary-general had been a vampire, he also had been a man working for good in the world, not trying to conquer and enslave humanity. Even though she'd been forced to it--even though she'd clearly given him a quick end when his alternative was a long and agonizing death--and in spite of the threat that Ptolemy would kill humans if she did not comply.

  It didn't matter. She'd killed, again, and this time not in direct self-defense, or at least so she would believe. Alaric's skin heated up as his very bones vibrated with fury. If he did not find an outlet for his rage, he might very well set off an explosion. The humans closest to him backed away as Alaric's body began to glow with hot, silver-blue energy.

  "Ah, hey, man, are you all right?" one of them, braver than the others, dared to ask.

  "No," he managed to say. "No, I am very far from all right. You should leave now. Leave and take all of your friends. This area is about to become very dangerous."

  "Oh, wow," the man with the viewing device yelled. "The king of Atlantis is getting ready to do something bad, again. He has that woman he called his consort by the hair--"

  "Move, fool." Alaric snatched the device from the man, just in time to see Ptolemy pull Quinn up into his arms.

  "Now I'll be a little busy for a while," Ptolemy said, smirking directly into the camera. Quinn's eyes were wide and blank, staring at nothing, like she'd reached and then moved past the end of her endurance. Alaric's mind stuttered at the thought of what else Ptolemy might have done to her in that building.

  He wondered how long he could make it take for Ptolemy to die.

  Ptolemy's next words smashed through Alaric's plans of blood and death.