by Alyssa Day
Damn tigers were worse than house cats. All he did in this form was sleep. Although he was probably going to need to eat again soon, and she hoped that didn’t present a problem. Tigers ate a lot.
A lot.
Sushi and noodles wouldn’t cut it. Archelaus had told her there was an actual safari-style zoo at the base of Mount Fuji somewhere, and it had been supplying him with tiger chow. One problem solved, seven million to go.
A shadow blocked the entryway from the corridor, and she looked up to see the woman who called herself Noriko standing there. The Japanese woman, or Atlantean portal, or whatever she was, bowed slightly before entering the room.
“Are you aware that your companions have gone?” Noriko asked.
Quinn nodded. “Yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t hear the shouting when Archelaus told me.”
A fresh stab of pain sliced through her. Alaric had left her without so much as a “see you later,” after promising never to leave her side. When he came back, she was going to point that out to him.
If he came back.
“I’m just going to call you Noriko, because the rest of it is too unwieldy,” Quinn said abruptly. “Or, what did you say your Atlantean name was? Galillee?”
“Gailea. I have not heard that name in so long that I am as unused to it as I am to Noriko, although the one whose body this is reacts to her name, of course.”
“That’s just creepy, you know, right? Doesn’t she mind that you hijacked her body? Not that I’m sure I believe any of it.”
Noriko dropped gracefully down to kneel beside Jack. She tentatively placed a hand on his head and began to stroke his fur, and Jack’s snore changed to a rumbling purr.
“Well, at least Jack thinks you’re okay, but he once had a drinking buddy who belched the national anthem for fun, so he’s not exactly the best judge of character.” Quinn knew she sounded unwelcoming at best, and openly hostile at worst, but she didn’t have room for one more problem in what was left of her life. Her mind already felt like it was cracking a little around the edges; her future fracturing into a shattered fun house mirror of thwarted hopes and doomed plans. She tried not to wonder if Alaric had been any part of any one of her futures.
Too little, too late. If even half of her enemies had seen that broadcast, she’d be dead soon. Better to focus on Noriko’s bizarre story, rather than her own probable early death.
Noriko, unaware of Quinn’s dark thoughts, smiled, which transformed her skeletal face into something approaching loveliness. “Tigers are very wise. I’m sure his friend had a good heart, beneath his churlish ways. And, no, Noriko is at peace that she will not die from the cancer.”
“Yeah. Maybe. And you? What kind of heart do you have?”
“One that wishes to assist you in any way that I can, Quinn Dawson,” Noriko said, staring at Quinn with eyes both old and sad. “I have watched you and your sister during the past few years, and I have come to know the strength and goodness in your own hearts. Riley is truly fit to be queen of Atlantis.”
“Why did you quit being the portal?” Quinn asked, ready to change the subject. Sure, Noriko knew things she shouldn’t know, but that still didn’t mean her story was true.
“Poseidon plays his games. This is one of them. I must prove that I am worthy to be mortal again—a woman instead of an untouchable spirit.” Noriko dropped her head so her hair covered her eyes, but Quinn didn’t miss the single tear that escaped and made its way down the other woman’s cheek.
Either Noriko was telling the truth, or she was an Academy Award–worthy actress. Quinn still wasn’t betting on which one it was. She decided abruptly that she didn’t have time right now to care.
“Help me, then, if your heart is so true,” she challenged. “Noriko must speak Japanese, right? If she’s in there, too, help me find a way to the airport. I need to get to New York. Ptolemy wants me? Okay, then, he’s going to get me.”
Noriko’s eyes widened. “But your companions meant for you to stay here . . .”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to live in this century, Gailea, you need to learn something. Women do whatever they want to do these days.”
Noriko nodded and drew a slim phone from her pocket. “I will find out the fastest way to Narita International Airport in Tokyo and book you a flight. We have something called a Visa platinum card, evidently.”
“JFK Airport, please,” Quinn said. “If you have access to unlimited funds, by the way, instead of worrying about dying or Poseidon’s games, you might want to consider joining the rebel alliance and helping out. We’re humanity’s best hope.”
“Are you recruiting me?”
Quinn shrugged. “Once a rebel leader . . . If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I need to say good-bye to a hungry tiger.”
Noriko rose and bowed again, and then left the room, tapping away at her phone. Quinn looked down at Jack and wondered how to say what would probably be her final good-bye to the best friend she’d ever had.
Jack opened one eye, probably some tiger sixth sense or something at work. Quinn dug her hands into the fur on the sides of his face and pulled his shaggy head up closer to her own.
“I have to go, fur face. I have to find out what that nut ball Ptolemy wants from me and what he’s up to. If the jewel really is what Alaric thinks it is, and it really has that much power—well, who knows how much damage it can cause. Somebody has to stop him, and I seem to be out of any other kind of job, so I guess it needs to be me.”
Jack pulled away from her and snarled, placing one heavy paw on her leg as if to hold her down.
“Look,” she said, almost desperately, fighting the tears threatening to close her throat and run down her face. “I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to do this without you. Can’t you please come back? Please be human again, just for a while?”
She stared into his eyes, searching for any trace of his humanity, but saw nothing to reassure her. Nothing but wildness and ferocity. Maybe Alaric was right. Maybe Jack really was gone—permanently gone—and only a faint memory of their friendship kept him from mauling her or worse.
She stopped fighting the tears. Nobody was around to see them anyway, and Jack deserved at least her tears.
“You saved my life so many times I can’t even count that high,” she whispered. “You loved me when I didn’t deserve it. You stood by me when I took us into trouble, and battles, and worse. You even stood by me when I fell in love with an Atlantean priest who has sworn a vow of celibacy to a god.”
He snarled again, more quietly, and gently butted her shoulder with his head.
“I never deserved you, Jack. Not your love or your friendship. Not even your amazing ability to always have my back,” she continued, openly crying now. “I never did, and now I can never hope to. I love you, you know? Not the way you want, but I love you. If you really love me, try to come back. For me. Please.”
She gave up at that point, since further words would be meaningless. Jack—her Jack—knew what was in her heart. Instead, she put her arms around him as best as she could and she cried into his soft, silky fur until it was soaked, while her heart shattered into tiny, tiger-shaped pieces.
Finally she stood up and scrubbed at her eyes with her hands. “Good-bye, my friend.”
In the most painful blow of all, he didn’t even try to stop her from leaving. He just sat there and silently watched her walk away.
Chapter 6
The Plaza Hotel, New York City
“Pretty fancy, isn’t it?” Ven looked around and whistled. “Whoever he is, he has money. This place doesn’t run cheap, and he’s in one of the best suites, from what you tell me of where you feel that magic.”
Alaric shrugged. He didn’t care about money or hotels with gold and gilt fixtures. He cared about Quinn. Her life was in danger. Nothing else mattered.
“It’s probably a private elevator to get there,” Ven said. “This could be a problem, if you want to be subtle.”
Alaric raised an eyebrow. “Elevator? Subtle? Really? Has domestic bliss befuddled your mind?”
Whirling around, he headed back out to the street, leapt on the edge of the fountain, and then shot straight up into the air, transforming his body into mist on the way. What did he care for subterfuge or hiding his powers from humans now? Ptolemy had announced the existence of Atlantis to the world, so what did it matter if a few New Yorkers saw Alaric as he claimed Atlantean water magic?
Below, he saw Ven stare up at him, cursing, and then take a less dramatic approach to achieve the same end, ducking behind one of the ubiquitous yellow taxis before he, too, transformed. Alaric felt a moment’s grim amusement at the idea that practical jokester Ven had acted with more caution than he had. He soared up until he felt the source of the magic as it pulsed and pounded in front of him, coming from behind a wall of glass.
Nice view these bad guys have, Ven sent to him on the shared Atlantean mental pathway.
Let them view this, Alaric returned, just before he blasted a hole in the window and soared through.
Ven changed back from mist to his body mere seconds after Alaric did, and the first thing he did was punch Alaric in the arm.
“Way to go. Seriously, nice stealth move.”
Alaric ignored him, concentrating on the group of green-robed humans cowering on their knees in the room. “It’s them again. The Platoist Society. Remember, with Reisen? They worship anything they think is Atlantean.”
“They don’t have to wonder if I’m Atlantean. I have already told them, and the world, that it is so,” Ptolemy said, stepping out from behind a teenage boy who was the only human standing.
The boy was trying desperately to look brave, but sweat stood out on his dark skin and his eyes were wild. Ptolemy still carried the enormous tourmaline, but he’d fastened it to the end of a gaudy gold-gilt scepter. It glowed faintly, and Alaric could feel pure Atlantean magic course through every nerve ending in his body. From underneath and around the shimmer of power, however, the tainted pulse of demonic magic bit into him with jagged teeth.
“What are you, really?” Alaric demanded. “Tell me now, and I may at least make your death quicker.”
“Ah, such a generous offer,” Ptolemy said. He laughed mockingly. “Who exactly are you that you dare to make it when I hold the most powerful jewel of Atlantis in my hand?”
“How do you know that jewel is Atlantean?” Ven asked, edging closer to Ptolemy’s right, to flank him.
Ptolemy pointed the scepter at him. “You must be one of the false princes. I recognize the stench of undeserved arrogance.”
“I am the King’s Vengeance, and you are going to die if you don’t start answering questions right now.” Ven pulled his daggers from their sheaths and dropped into a battle-ready stance.
Ptolemy aimed the scepter at Ven and fired off a blast of sickly reddish-orange power that slammed Ven into the wall. When Alaric called to his own magic and drew back his arm to hurl an energy sphere at the pretender, the man yanked the teen boy in front of him.
“I think not,” Ptolemy taunted Alaric. “Not unless you want to kill this boy, and you don’t do that, do you? You think you’re the good guys. Humanity’s heroes from legend—what a joke. Which one are you, anyway?”
“I am Alaric, high priest to Poseidon, friend to the true ruler of Atlantis, and I am the one who is going to rip your intestines out by way of your throat,” Alaric told the impostor. His teeth ached from the residue of tainted magic, and he still couldn’t figure out exactly what Ptolemy was. Demon or human? Not vampire, that much was clear.
If demon, he was the most skilled demon Alaric had ever encountered. Most of them couldn’t hide their true forms for longer than a few seconds, or a minute at most. This one had done the press conference, and still now he stood before them in human form.
As Ven struggled to his feet, swearing a blue streak, Alaric decided simply to ask, “What makes you think you’re Atlantean, demon?”
Genuine surprise crossed Ptolemy’s face. “Demon? Oh, no, you have me mistaken for something far less powerful, priest. I am the king of Atlantis. I am the wizard who will destroy your house, enslave your women, and make your false princes my pets. Watch me and learn.”
Ven lunged for the man, trying to create a distraction so Alaric could strike him down, but Ptolemy must have been anticipating just such a move. He leapt to the side, dragging the boy with him.
“Choose now,” he taunted. “Save the boy or catch me. His name is Faust, by the way. Don’t you find that deliciously ironic?”
With that, he lifted the boy and threw him out through the shattered window in one powerful heave, slammed the scepter against his chest, and disappeared in another flash of light. Alaric had a split second to decide whether to save the boy or try to follow the emanations of residual magic from the scepter.
It wasn’t really even a choice.
He caught the boy five feet from the sidewalk below, and Ven was right behind him.
The upper floors of the hotel exploded into a ball of fire over their heads.
* * *
Tokyo, Japan, in a car on the way to Narita International Airport
Quinn stared out the window at the passing scenery, not really seeing any of it. She listened with a fraction of her attention as the elderly Japanese man driving her to the airport tried to give her a history lesson on the area. He was gracious and kind, and she was in the mood for neither. She’d left her only real friend trapped in a tiger’s body, with no hope of ever seeing him again, and she had no idea where Alaric was. Not to mention that she’d never yet met her only nephew, who just happened to be the heir to the throne of Atlantis, and now she probably never would.
Life was just peachy.
She’d left Archelaus with only a hasty good-bye, as he worked the phone and his contacts to try to discover what the monkey-shifter attack had been about. Hello, more chaos. She had a feeling that there was more than enough on her plate at the moment, though, so she decided to stop worrying about flying monkeys—shape-shifters or otherwise. The two-hour hike to the parking lot at Fifth Station, midway down the mountain, had provided more than enough time for every worst-case scenario—many involving her own torture and death—to circle through her mind like wastewater through a gutter.
“I don’t understand this,” her driver suddenly said in an entirely different tone from the tour guide voice he’d been using. “We have no bad weather forecasted for this area today.”
Quinn sat up in her seat and stared forward, into a sky that had gone suddenly dark and sullen. Clouds whipped in a frenzy of storm formation, and apple-sized hailstones began to pummel the car and the road around them. The car just in front of them in the long line of crazy Tokyo traffic swerved and almost hit the car next to it, and a domino effect of near-collisions began all around them.
Quinn’s driver slammed on the brakes, throwing Quinn forward and almost into the dash, and then he made a weird yelping noise and pointed to his left. Quinn stared out at what he was indicating, and recoiled in horror. She hadn’t seen anything like that outside of a bad movie.
It was a funnel cloud, and it was heading right at them. The car behind them stopped too late and almost rear-ended them, throwing Quinn forward again. Score one for excellent seat belts. The air bag didn’t deploy, though, and she almost had time to wonder about that before the funnel cloud touched down in the single open spot of road in front of them, and a dark shape walked out of its heart.
Alaric.
He raised his arms as he walked, and the tornado flew up and away from the road at his command. He kept walking, never looking back or to the side, all of his grim focus on Quinn.
“Apparently this is my ride,” she said apologetically to her terrified driver. “Thank you, and I am so sorry for your fright.”
She unbuckled her seat belt, climbed out, and then stood, fists on hips, as Alaric approached.
“You don’t get to hurt innocent people, Alaric.
That puts you on the wrong side of the equation, and I won’t stand for it.” She was proud that she stood her ground while a whirlwind of fury and magic in the shape of a man stalked toward her, caught her around the waist, and leapt into the air.
“No human is injured,” he told her. “Not even their machines.”
“You frightened them—”
“You will never leave me again,” he said into her hair, and his voice was agonized; crazed. The voice of a man driven to the brink of madness. “If Ptolemy captures you, or any of your enemies find you, now that your face is plastered across the news all around the globe . . . Quinn, you would not want the world to try to survive my insanity if I lose you.”
Quinn drew upon reserves deep within herself to remain calm as she found herself swirling counterclockwise in the heart of a tornado, somehow protected by Alaric’s strength and magic.
“You can’t do this, ever again. You cannot hold innocent lives hostage against my cooperation. That makes you no better than the murderers—human, shifter, or vampire—who kill people every day. The ones I’ve spent ten years fighting,” she said, her mouth close to his ear so the wind didn’t snatch her words away.
He shuddered against her, as if fighting a tidal wave of emotion. “I know. Don’t you think I know? I, who pride myself on my logical, rational state of existence? I don’t know what to do, Quinn. You must help me.”
“I’d be better able to cope if we weren’t flying around inside a freaking tornado,” she shouted, finally losing the edges of calm. “Get me out of here!”
He nodded, and the glimmering oval of the portal appeared underneath them just before he dropped her. She screamed all the way down.
Chapter 7
An island in the Bermuda Triangle
After Alaric had calmed the storm and dispersed the tornado so none of the humans would be harmed, he followed Quinn through the portal to the beach on the other side, but prudently walked ten or so paces away, to give her a moment to recover from the fall. Now that he had time to consider the matter, it seemed that dropping her the five or six feet to the beach like that had perhaps not been the wisest course of action. After all, the woman was armed and definitely dangerous.