Hearts in Atlantis

by Stephen King

  Alaric watched, breathing hard, as the demon melted. And then he smiled.

  The creatures who'd been trying to sneak up behind him shrieked and ran away at the sight of him, but it was too late. Alaric threw a rapid-fire burst of energy spheres at them and incinerated them all.

  They'd tried to hurt his woman. They died. Nothing could be simpler.

  His gaze arrowed toward Quinn, who was standing, a gun in each hand, in front of Noriko and Riley and the baby, and he laughed.

  I see you have rescued yourself again.

  She smiled at him across the fallen bodies of their enemies.

  Not bad yourself.

  Quinn was fiercely, overwhelmingly glad that Ptolemy was dead.

  "What happened to Alaric? Why is he all Johnny Torch?" Ven shouted, but Quinn shook her head. No time.

  She pulled out the Uzi and swept the roof clear of the few remaining of Ptolemy's brethren, and she cheered at the sight until her voice was hoarse.

  Threaten to "mate" with her, would they, the little monsters? Now they wouldn't be mating with anybody.

  Quinn, my love, leave me something to kill.

  She waved at Alaric and blew him a kiss.

  I think you've done enough.

  A brief flare of pain alerted her to Alaric's injury. He was still shining, but not quite as much as he had been.

  Hey, you're hurt. You need to heal that right now.

  It is nothing, he replied.

  She started toward him. "Tell me that again, and I'll shoot you myself. Let me see it."

  She pulled his shirt up and her heart jumped into her throat at the sight of the wound. "That's not nothing. Fix it. Now."

  Instead, he pulled her closer and kissed her so deeply that her knees buckled. His magic poured into her like a high-voltage current, and for a minute she was afraid she was going to have an orgasm right there on the roof surrounded by the Atlantean royal family and a whole lot of dead demons.

  "Now I will heal it," Alaric said, when he finally released her.

  She blinked up at him, dazed, and he smiled that completely male, entirely self-satisfied smile again. It made her want to hit him.

  It made her want to kiss him again.

  She settled for neither. "You did slay an interdimensional demon for me, so I guess I'll let you get away with this one."

  His smile faded. "But Atlantis is not safe yet. Where is Anubisa?"

  As if on cue, Atlantis rocked like an earthquake had shattered its foundation, and Quinn fell against a stone pedestal and knocked off a marble statuette of a porpoise.

  With her head.

  "Ow," she complained. "Why is it always my head?"

  "Hardest part on you?" Ven suggested, and she groaned.

  "Anubisa," Alaric said, staring into the far distance at something only he could see. "By all the gods, Anubisa is going after the Trident."

  Conlan, who was comforting Riley and Aidan, froze. "Alaric--"

  "I know," Alaric said grimly, as he started running for the stairs. "If it falls into her hands, all of Atlantis is doomed."

  Jack snarled, and Quinn wanted to do the same.

  Ven groaned. "Why can't we ever catch a damn break?" He took off after Quinn and Alaric, and Justice and Jack followed close behind, silent and deadly.

  "We need to end this, once and for all," Conlan said, matching pace with Alaric.

  Alaric nodded, the movement all the more striking since he was glowing again and tiny sparks arced from his motion. "I agree. Tonight we discover how to kill a goddess."

  Chapter 34

  Alaric hit the stairs running and shot through the palace like an arrow loosed from Artemis's bow, wondering if even his newly increased power would be sufficient to defeat a vampire goddess.

  His heart ached at the idea of losing Quinn before he'd had a chance to live his life with her, but nothing mattered more than defeating Anubisa. If she managed to kill him--and the odds were against him--she'd use the Trident to destroy Atlantis and everyone in it.

  Quinn could not die. She would not die. If it took his life to save her, he'd gladly sacrifice it. But that was not the optimal choice.

  Dying was, as Ven would say, Plan B.

  He stopped twenty paces from the Trident's chamber, caught Quinn's arm, and used her momentum to swing her into an empty room.

  "You will stay here," he commanded her.

  Before she could argue, he took her face in his hands and kissed her with every ounce of his longing and his love. His entire body shook with his passion, and he felt her tremble against his body.

  "If you are safe, I can survive this, I think, mi amara," he said. "Please, just this one time, stay back."

  Quinn's eyes flashed and he could see on her very expressive face the internal battle she waged.

  "Fine." She lifted her chin. "Fine. Go fight your magical battle, but you'd better remember that all you need to do is call me, and I'll be there to back you up."

  "I can never deserve you," he said roughly, his muscles tensing up at the thought that he might not live to see her again.

  She grinned her perfect, irrepressible grin. "Killing Anubisa would go a long way toward changing that."

  He laughed and headed for the most deadly, dangerous fight of his life.

  Conlan, Ven, Justice, and Jack caught up to him as he reached the door to the Trident's chamber.

  "Jack, please stay back with Quinn and protect her," Alaric asked, one warrior to another. "If I cannot . . . If I do not survive this, I will go to the afterlife knowing that you will be at her side."

  Jack roared and ran back toward the doorway where Quinn stood, watching Alaric, her eyes enormous but dry.

  "Now?" Conlan asked.

  "Now," Alaric agreed.

  They entered the chamber together, Justice and Ven right behind them. Alaric's shoulders relaxed a fraction at the sight of Anubisa levitating near the Trident's pedestal, where it still rested on its cushion. She hadn't been able to take it, yet.

  "You cannot touch the tool of the sea god, you foul creature," he told her contemptuously.

  "I kind of hope she tries," Ven said, as the princes fanned out to flank him. "I'm looking forward to watching it melt her hands off."

  Anubisa shrieked with laughter, and Alaric saw Conlan's face harden at the sound. The dark memories of torture that must be contained in her laughter for Conlan made Alaric all the more determined to kill her, once and for all.

  "You cannot stop me, even with your new abilities, O priest of light," she sneered. "Poseidon has abandoned his children while he plays power games with other pantheons, and I am delighted to step into the breach and finally, finally, murder every last one of the hideous Atlantean royal family."

  She turned her horrible red gaze to Conlan, and she cupped her breasts with her hands. "Shall I nurse your fat baby with milk from my breasts, princeling? Shall I tell him bedtime stories of how his daddy bled and screamed at my whim for seven long years?"

  "You will never touch my son," Conlan roared, and he ran toward her, raising his sword.

  "No, Conlan," Alaric shouted, but it was too late.

  Anubisa threw a spear formed of oily black smoke at Conlan. It smashed into his thigh and took him down. The spear disappeared, but the gaping wound in the prince's leg pulsed blood.

  Ven ran to his brother and applied pressure to the wound, but when Alaric tried to go to Conlan, Anubisa laughed again.

  "I think not. I like Conlan best when he is bleeding on the floor," she crooned, and she shot a barrage of magical arrows at Alaric that forced him to dodge and twist out of the way while blocking them with his own magic.

  Alaric hurled a series of energy spheres at Anubisa, but she shattered them with ease, all the while keeping up her perusal of the Trident and continuing to shoot her deadly black spears and arrows at Conlan, Ven, and Alaric.

  Justice, who had been quietly edging around the room, leapt at Anubisa from behind, but she waved a hand in the air, and he sla
mmed backward against the wall so hard, headfirst, that he collapsed, either unconscious or dead, on the floor.

  "I've wanted to kill that one for a while," she said, doing a little pirouette.

  She reached out a hand--so close, almost touching the Trident--and Alaric took advantage of her distraction to hurl a spear of his own at her. She twisted away at the last second, but the weapon, formed from pure, glowing, silvery blue light, sliced through her side, and she screamed as a flow of inky black blood stained her dress.

  "I will kill you even more slowly for that," she shouted, levitating higher and higher into the air, until she floated above them.

  Drops of her blood fell from her side, dripping steadily, but she appeared no weaker for the injury.

  Alaric called to his new power and created a magical shield between Anubisa and Conlan, and he ran to the prince and sent a pulse of healing power through the leg wound. Conlan nodded his thanks, and he and Ven stood up and ran to the side just as Anubisa hurled a blast of power at them, destroying Alaric's shield.

  "You cannot escape me, fools," she said, twirling around in midair. "I am all powerful. I am the goddess of Chaos and of Night. I am--"

  "You are an ugly, twisted, sadistic, old hag, and my entire family has had enough of you," Conlan said, moving to stand side by side with Alaric.

  Anubisa snapped to attention at his words, and her howl of outrage nearly shattered Alaric's eardrums. From the way the princes flinched, he could tell they'd felt it, too.

  "Hag? Did you call me an ugly hag? I'm the most beautiful woman any of you have ever seen," she shrieked, floating down nearer to them either by intent or through sheer rage.

  Ven took his place on Alaric's other side, quickly catching on. "Have you ever seen a vamp blood junkie? All strung out and filthy, hasn't bathed in weeks? Most of them are better-looking than you, you ugly, washed-up, old woman."

  She howled again and began firing her dark spears, but Alaric blocked and destroyed every one of them. He glanced at Justice, wondered briefly what was even possible with his new powers, and decided that nothing ventured . . .

  He threw a burst of healing energy across the entire chamber toward Justice, still lying on the floor behind Anubisa, and Justice sat up and grinned and gave Alaric the two-thumbs-up signal.

  Anubisa never noticed a thing, because she was still shrieking with rage and throwing energy bolts at them with manic, deadly intent.

  Justice, using the stealth he'd gained during centuries as one of the most lethal warriors in Atlantis, ran up behind Anubisa, raising his sword, and swung it with every ounce of his strength at her neck.

  At the last possible second, some primal instinct warned the vampire, and she ducked, but the blade caught her in the shoulder and sliced her arm from her body. She screamed so long and so loud that Alaric was sure his skull would explode, but he ignored the pain and ran toward her, gathering every ounce of his magic as he ran.

  This is it, Quinn, my beloved, my life, he sent to her. If I survive this, I will never leave you again.

  She sent back no words, but simply a wave of courage and reassurance and warmth--she enveloped him in her love, and it gave him the courage to do what he almost certainly would not survive.

  He put his hands around the throat of a goddess.

  "You dare to touch me! I will kill you all," Anubisa screamed in his face, and a blast of such twisted, black, and powerful magic smashed into him that he very nearly lost his grip on her as she hissed, clawed, and fought him.

  She regenerated her arm with little effort and swung out at the princes, but Conlan easily ducked her spear this time.

  "Good-bye, Anubisa," Conlan said. "You are done. This is for my mother, and for seven long, wasted years."

  With that, Conlan pushed Alaric to the side and plunged his sword into Anubisa's heart.

  "This is for my mother, and for the lifetime I missed with my brothers," Justice said, and he plunged his sword into her neck.

  "This is for all of our family over the last five thousand years who suffered because you didn't know how to take rejection," Ven said, and he shoved his dagger into her gut.

  Her black, black blood spattered across the marble floor like macabre patterns of evil traced on a pristine scroll, and she screamed and screamed, calling so much dark power to her that Alaric knew she'd be able to heal her wounds and escape them before long.

  He had only a single recourse available to him, and he had no way to know if he'd survive it.

  He must use the Trident.

  He leapt into the air, shot over to the pedestal, and dared to borrow the greatest power object of the sea god to whom he had once, so long ago, sworn his life.

  "I call upon you for assistance, in the name of Poseidon, and in the name of Atlantis," he told the Trident, making the words both plea and command.

  And, by all the gods, the Trident heard and responded.

  It leapt into his hand, and Alaric whirled around and plunged its tip into Anubisa's body. The Trident blazed up with a corona of pure, silver-blue energy--power that nearly seared Alaric's skin off the bones of his hand where he held it. Power that no mere mortal was meant to wield rushed through him, and he shouted as the vampire screamed.

  The room lit up with the glow of the Trident's magic, and Alaric was sure he would either explode or die from trying to channel it, because there was too much--far, far too much. It was pure, ocean-based life force--it rang with the song of the whales; it danced with the joy of the dolphins. It soared with the majesty of all sea creatures in Poseidon's dominion, and Alaric's body shook with the power of its mystery and majesty.

  It was life force, and as such, it was anathema to a vampire, especially one who claimed to be a goddess of death.

  Anubisa glowed a bright, terrifying blue, and light streamed from her eyes and nose and mouth and ears, and then she screamed and begged as the Trident stripped her magic, her powers, and, finally, her beauty from her, leaving her a shriveled, wasted creature lying on the ground.

  They stood in a loose circle around Alaric and Anubisa--Conlan, Ven, and Justice--impassive, weapons ready, and they watched the monster who had tortured the Atlantean royal family for millennia as she died.

  Alaric yanked the Trident from her skeleton and replaced it on its pedestal after cleansing it with a burst of purifying water magic, which took the very last ounce of his energy. Channeling the power of the Trident had exhausted him, and he had no idea when--or if--his magic would replenish, but he decided that must be a worry for another time.

  "Atlantis is safe, and I have you to thank for it," Conlan said to Alaric, reaching out an arm to clasp his friend's.

  "Thanks for the help," Justice told Alaric. "We were afraid we were done for."

  Together, the four of them walked around Anubisa's body to stare at the Trident, now resting silently on its cushion but still glowing with barely contained power.

  Ven whistled. "I can't believe you used that thing without getting blown up."

  "Nor can I," Alaric confessed.

  "Do you think Poseidon even knows Atlantis has risen?" Conlan asked.

  A tiny sound alerted them to movement far too late for any of them to do anything about it, and the bolt of black magic smashed them all to the floor, face-first.

  "He won't know until you are all dead," Anubisa shrieked.

  Alaric raised his head to see a creature from a nightmare--all bones and melted flesh--hovering behind them, prepared to fire a death blow of magic, and Alaric called to magic that would not answer.

  He'd burned out his powers wielding the Trident, and now his mistake would cost them all their lives.

  No. Not Quinn. He reached deep inside himself for a reserve that he couldn't have guessed he had, and he came up swinging a sword of pure silver light. From seemingly out of nowhere, a small form came running across the floor toward Anubisa at the exact same time, firing bullet after bullet into the vampire.

  "I think not," Quinn shouted.


  When Anubisa whipped her head toward Quinn, Alaric's blade sliced in an arc of flashing silver fire, and the vampire goddess's head flew through the air.

  Anubisa's body, separated from her head, melted into a spiral of oily black smoke and then disappeared.

  Alaric strode over to Quinn, who dropped the gun on the floor in a clatter of metal on marble.

  "Your excellent distraction saved our lives," Alaric said, and then he lifted her into his arms and kissed the very breath out of her.

  "I think it was your magic that saved our lives, and all of Atlantis," she replied, when she could talk again.

  "We all did it," Alaric said, looking around the room. "Together."

  Conlan walked over to Anubisa's head, which was slowly disintegrating against the wall. "If I were one of my ancestors, I'd display this on a pike on the castle walls."

  "She'd deserve it," Justice snarled.

  "But who wants to look at her ugly mug?" Ven said. "I'm going to go find my woman, if we're done fighting demons and vampires and any freaking other thing that might want a piece of us."

  "Your woman?" Erin said, entering the room. "Really? We've been looking for you for half an hour." She looked around the room. "Why are you here? Taking a break?"

  "They killed a vampire," Riley said, walking into the room holding Aidan.

  "To be fair, it was the vampire. Anubisa is finally dead. And we killed a demon and all his brothers, too," Ven said, pulling Erin into his arms.

  Keely ran into the room and headed straight for Justice. "Don't you ever, ever do that again."

  "Do what?"

  "Nearly die. I could feel it," she said, before kissing him.

  "It wasn't on purpose. But now we feel like we can sleep without tainted dreams again," Justice told Keely. "We can't believe she's finally dead."

  "Who's cleaning this up?" Erin wanted to know, gesturing to the two oily black stains on the floor, which were all that was left of Anubisa's head and body.

  "Since when is Alaric super-light-up man?" Keely asked.

  "Later," Quinn promised. "Do we still have more vampires to kill?"

  Keely shook her head, her red hair flying. "Nope. Anubisa must have been controlling them, because just about the time you must have been killing her, the rest of them melted and vanished. All of them. The only live vampire left on Atlantis is Daniel, and trust me, he killed his share of Anubisa's minions."