by Alyssa Day
Still, he did love the feel of his sword in his hands.
“You do not belong here,” the vamp in front of the group hissed at him, as Justice counted nine more laughing and skulking around to try to flank their group. “You are no villager, nor even native to this land.”
Justice raised his sword and the vamp took a step back, suddenly hesitant. “I belong nowhere and everywhere, bloodsucker. You, though, bear the stamp of the Mayan heritage, yet still you torment these countrymen and women of yours. That is the worst kind of treachery.”
Alejandro stood up, leveling his shotgun at the vamp’s head. “I propose a barter,” he said calmly.
The vamp barked out a chilling burst of laughter. “What barter could you—”
The shotgun bucked and roared and exploded the vamp’s head into acidic chunks of skull and meat. Justice shot a look at Alejandro, who shrugged as the vampire’s headless body fell to the ground, dissolving in a flood of slime. “My shotgun shell for his head. Seemed fair to me.”
Then he aimed almost without looking and took off another one’s head, still with that eerie calm.
Justice raised his sword and yelled a battle cry. “Las Pinturas!” Then he dove toward the vampires, hacking, slashing, and slicing, a study of grace in motion, centuries of training and practice evident in every move. No matter what Anubisa had done to him, no matter what battles the disparate sides of his heritage fought over possession of his mind and soul, he was an Atlantean warrior. A Warrior of Poseidon.
And these vampires were all going to die.
Two of them dove for him in a coordinated move, and he sidestepped the first, slashing into its neck as it flew by him, then circled around in a smooth motion to drive his sword into the next. As the vamp screamed and died, a rush of power so hot and powerful shot through the sword’s blade and rushed into Justice’s arm that he nearly lost his grip on it. Instead, he raised his arm into the air and shouted out his fierce joy as the sword gleamed with an inner light; first the symbols on the blade that he’d seen in the Void and then the entire blade transforming from the hated dull black to silver-blue fire.
“For Atlantis!” he shouted, and then he called the water that he’d held at bay and threw his left arm forward, pointing at a group of the remaining vampires. The water obeyed his command and shaped itself in deadly arrows of glittering ice and shot toward the vamps in a hail of sharp-edged death.
As the three fell, their heads rolling off to the sides, he heard the sounds of two different shotguns going off. Alejandro had claimed another, blowing its head off, and another villager had punched a hole in one of the vamp’s chests. Unfortunately, it had missed the heart, and the wound was closing before their eyes.
A third shotgun blast sounded, this time from behind him. Justice whirled around to see Keely standing in front of the door to the safe house. Not five feet away from her, another vampire dissolved into the ground in a pool of green slime.
Keely stood there, shaking, her hands firmly holding the shotgun to her shoulder, her eyes enormous as she looked up and met Justice’s gaze. “I . . . I got it,” she said in a shaky voice that unleashed the fury of a thousand monsters in Justice’s mind.
Hatred larger than the world swelled within Justice at the idea that one of them had come so close to her. Fury deeper than any ocean pulsed through the Nereid in waves of ice and fire.
“We’re done playing with you,” he said, and he dropped his sword, lifted his arms into the air, and roared out a sound that shook the trees themselves. Slicing his arms down through the air, he blasted a shock wave of concussive force through the clearing, knocking the villagers on their asses as it traveled straight to the vampires.
Like water crashing against the rocks, the wave of his fury smashed through the remaining vampires, and every one of them exploded into a bloody shower of acid and flesh. Justice heard screaming but he didn’t know if it came from someone else or from his own throat as the force of the power he’d harnessed tried to shake his mind free from its moorings.
Madness laughed at sanity and the power, the power, oh, by all the gods, the power of it beckoned and seduced until he began to whirl around, dripping with acid and chunks of spattered vampire, laughing and laughing and laughing. The cosmic stream of the universe flowed through him and around him, inviting him to dance a waltz of the ages.
Why didn’t you tell me? We are all-powerful! We will kill them all and take anything and everything we want! Justice demanded of his Nereid half.
The Nereid was strangely silent for a long moment. Then he finally replied. But what if everything we want is something that must be given to us, not taken?
Justice stopped spinning, frozen to immobility by the words. Then a quiet voice broke through the madness.
“Justice, come back to me. We need you. I need you. Please come back to me.”
He forced his eyes to focus on what was right before him, instead of gazing out at the energy stream of the universe. He released the colors and light long enough to figure out why the voice called to him so powerfully.
It was her. It was Keely, and she was crying. “Please. Please come back to me. You’re frightening them, and me, too.”
The sight of her crystalline tears tracing a path down her cheeks cut directly into his heart. Abruptly, he released the power and pushed through the madness.
The Nereid inside him offered up a sensation of intense joy and need. She is ours, and she has given us her love. What else can matter?
Justice held out his arms, and Keely walked into them, heedless of the mess covering him. “Is it true?” he demanded, not caring that several villagers were surrounding them, many with shotguns held at half-mast. “Do you love me?”
She clutched his shirt for a moment, then stepped back from him and looked up at him, disbelief plain on her face. “Do I love you? Do I love you? Are you freaking kidding me? Do you think I’d go through hell like I have for the past few days for just anybody?”
Turning on her heel, she started to stalk away, but he raced forward and caught her arm, knowing that he must hear the words. “Tell me now. Is it true?” he repeated. “Do you love me?”
“Yes, I love you,” she said, all but spitting the words at him. It wasn’t how he’d envisioned her declaration of love, but it was a start.
“Keely, you must know that—”
“Oh, shut up,” she cried, and then she hauled off and punched him in the face.
Chapter 35
Justice rubbed his jaw, which actually ached. For a scientist, she packed a hell of a punch. A smile spread over his face, which made his split lip hurt, but he didn’t care.
By all the gods, she was magnificent.
Alejandro lowered his shotgun and whistled, staring after Keely. “If I’d seen her first, you’d have quite a fight on your hands,” he said admiringly. “That is one fine woman.”
Justice narrowed his eyes and growled at the upstart. “Go near my woman and I’ll—”
“Yeah, yeah. If you’re done going crazy on us, we have a hostage,” Alejandro said, cutting him off. “And if there’s any way you can teach me that explosion thing, I’d give my right arm to know that trick.”
“That trick, as you call it, is a power granted to me by my Nereid heritage,” Justice said, for the first time in his life claiming his mother’s people with pride. Something inside him warmed and expanded at the realization. “I cannot teach it to one who is not Atlantean and Nereid.”
“Too bad,” Alejandro said with a rueful grin. “But thanks for not exploding all of us. I was afraid when you saw Keely was threatened that we were all going to be collateral damage.”
“It was a valid fear,” Justice admitted, then looked around. “Did you say a hostage?”
“Over here,” one of the men called, and two of them walked up, dragging one of the vamps between them. It was the one who’d been shot in the chest, and the wound was still closing. “He must have fallen to the ground from the injury, so
he escaped being caught in that wave of death, or whatever you call it,” the man said, bowing his head a little toward Justice but staying a careful distance away.
Alejandro cocked his shotgun. “Easy enough. Stand away from him,” he ordered his men.
“No,” Justice said. “I have a better idea. We send him home with a message.”
“Fine. Here’s a message,” Alejandro said, lifting his shotgun and firing in one smooth motion. Half of the vamp’s right upper leg disappeared and it started shrieking.
“I actually meant a verbal message, but that works, too,” Justice said, admiring the man’s handiwork. “You’re pretty good with that shotgun.”
“We will kill you all,” the vampire shrieked. “We will come back with all of our blood pride and tear you into tiny pieces and—”
“Do you want me to let him take your head off with that thing?” Justice asked, tilting his head to one side as if truly interested in the answer.
The vamp stuttered to silence, clutching his wounded leg as it began to heal and shooting death glares at all of them.
“Good. So here’s the message. You and yours stay away from Las Pinturas forever. If we ever see even the slightest sign of any of you, we will hunt you down and destroy you, and believe me when I say that the exploding vampire technique was only a party trick compared to the destruction I will rain down upon your bloodsucking asses,” Justice said.
His calm tone seemed to terrify the vampire, who bobbed its head and tried on an ingratiating smile. “Yes, I hear you. I will give the message,” it whined. “If you let me go now, I will hurry to spread your message to the four corners of the region.”
Justice looked at Alejandro. “Are you satisfied?”
“I can live with it. Can I shoot him again?”
Justice shrugged. “Your town, your call.”
The vamp screamed, then fell to the ground and started crying red, bloody tears. “No, please no. I can’t spread the message if I’m too wounded to move,” it blubbered.
Alejandro stepped forward and kicked the vampire in the face. “You have killed the last of my people, you undead bastard. Mind that you never, ever return or I will personally cut your balls from your body.”
“Yes, yes, I mean, no, no, whatever you say,” the vampire gibbered and Alejandro motioned to his men, who put even more distance between themselves and the vamp.
“Then go, and don’t forget to spread that message,” Justice said.
Still sobbing, the vampire backed away from them, dragging its wounded leg, greenish brackish blood pouring down its face from its broken nose. “Yes, yes, yes,” it kept saying until it reached the trees, and then it gave one harsh cry of rage or defiance and sped off into the night.
They stood staring after it for several long moments, and then Alejandro raised one of his arms and stared at the globs and spatters of vampire slime that coated his sleeve and skin. “So, about that trick with the water you did earlier on the burning houses. Does that work for a shower?”
Justice laughed and channeled the water that came so eagerly to his call. “All part of the service. Exploding vampires; hot and cold running showers.”
As they washed themselves the best they could under the gentle, welcome rain, Justice realized he still faced his most terrifying encounter ever.
He had to go apologize to Keely.
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 cling
ing 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.”