Atlantis Unmasked (39 page)

“Redhead,” the Fae said. “A lovely, natural redhead, which is so rare these days—”

“Focus,” Grace growled at him. “Why do I find it so interesting that Vonos is coming out of the door clear over there across the room from where his goon disappeared to with the real estate guy?”

“Plausible deniability?” Alexios suggested. “He's out here in plain sight while somebody else eats the guests?”

Rhys murmured something under his breath that sounded like a chant or an incantation, then nodded his head toward the door that was opening again. Prevacek and Fuller walked out, and both looked unreasonably smug. They started walking toward where Alexios and the others stood, but for some reason swerved and avoided them, never seeming to notice them.

“Another glamour,” Alexios guessed, and the Fae smiled.

“Let's try door number one,” Grace suggested, and they followed her to the door and then slipped inside.

“Bingo,” Grace said, looking around with wide eyes. “This guy has got some money.”

The door in front of them was shaped like a giant porthole, round and with bolts all around. And it was made of some transparent material that showed them another door just like it, but made of steel, behind it.

“Money and security,” Alexios added grimly. “How are we going to get through this?”

Rhys simply waved his hands and chanted something, and the first door gently swung open.

“That's handy,” Alexios said.

“Yes, but the extent of what I can do. This inner door is solid, fortified steel, with anti-Fae spells worked into the metal. I am hopeless against—”

The soft snick of lock tumblers falling into place interrupted the elf's words and he looked around, stunned to see that Alexios had opened the second door.

“It's a water trick,” Alexios said smugly.

Grace just rolled her eyes. “Enough, boys; can't we all just get along?” She took a step into the inner room and whistled, beckoning to them to follow her in. “This is absolutely unbelievable! Vonos must have been collecting treasure forever.”

“This is unbelievable,” she repeated softly. “Look at that!” She pointed to a pyramid-shaped pile of golden objects that looked like it had been raided from an emperor's tomb.

“This isn't bad, either,” Rhys said dryly, resting a hand on a chest heaped with glittering gems. Rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds filled the chest and overflowed onto the floor around it.

“If the diamond is in there, we're in trouble,” she said. “How can we ever go through all of that? Not to mention I can't exactly smuggle the whole chest out in my bra.”

Rhys swept his icy gaze over her and then smiled slowly. “I think you might be missing that item of clothing.”

She gasped and looked down at the halter bodice of her dress, only to realize he was right.

“I think I will have your pointy ears on a platter if you mention Grace's undergarments again, elf,” Alexios said, lifting a gold-handled, gem-encrusted dagger and pointing it at Rhys.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Seriously? We're in the middle of a treasure trove like nobody has ever seen outside of El Dorado, and you're going to fight about my bra? We need to get moving before Vonos gets back, because there's no way he'd leave all of this unprotected for long. He's no idiot.”

“Thank you,” a cold, dry voice said from behind them. “So didn't it occur to you that I'd have security? I've been watching your fumbling expedition from the beginning, curious as to what you were after.”

“Oh, we're just lost on the way to the men's room,” Rhys said, looking supremely unconcerned.

“That's good,” Vonos replied. “I don't think a full bladder will bother you when you're dead.”

Grace was suddenly wishing she'd taken the time to make one final phone call to Michelle. And to Aunt Bonnie, though she hadn't seen her in years. To anybody, really. Just to say hi, how are you doing, sorry, I'm not going to be in touch much after I die an incredibly painful and permanent
death
this morning.

Yeah. Somehow that would have made her feel just a skinch better.

“Why?” The Primator stared at each of them in turn, obviously trying to use his vamp mojo on them, but he wasn't having any luck.

“We wanted to get a chance to ooh and aahhhh, that's all,” she offered, since her two companions in crime were remaining woefully silent.

Alexios kicked a pedestal and it smashed to the ground, the sound shockingly loud in the walled-in room. “So, Primator Vonos, I hear you've been holding out.” He stalked toward a tall pedestal at the center of the room that had been hidden by the fallen one. Then he pointed at the fist-sized square yellow diamond resting on a cushion. “If you'd told Anubisa about this one, there's no way she'd have let you keep your grubby hands on it, is there?”

For a split second, Vonos looked almost terrified. Then he composed his expression and laughed. “What does one such as you know of the most exalted goddess of Chaos and Night?”

Alexios turned toward Rhys. “Hit it, Your Highness.”

Rhys nodded, and instantly Alexios's face returned to normal, the glamour gone.

Vonos stumbled back a step. “No. No, it's a trick. You cannot be Alexios from Atlantis.”

“And yet, here I am,” Alexios said, stalking closer to the diamond. “This baby belongs to me, too. Or at least it belongs to Atlantis, and I'm going to take it home now. So you have two choices. You can get out of my way, or I can use it on you.”

“Did you think we'd let you get away with that?” The cheesiest Russian accent Grace had ever heard was still menacing when it came equipped with a very lethal-looking rifle.

And the rifle was pointed right at Alexios's head.

Prevacek stepped into the room. “You called, Master?”

Grace rolled her eyes. “I can't escape the Renfields this week, can I? Was it something I did? Some karmic pay-back biting me in the ass?”

Alexios started laughing, and the sound of his voice carried something warm from him directly into her heart. She figured it was time she told him something important.

“If I don't get the chance to say this again, I love you,” she called out.

“I know,” he said smugly, chuckling to himself.

“How touching,” Vonos sneered.

“Oh, please. That's so Han Solo,” she muttered, ignoring the vampire.

“I love you, too,” Alexios said. “But can we hold the rest of that thought until I get us out of here?”

“How about until
we
get us out of here?” Grace fired back.

Rhys threw his hands into the air. “Excuse me? Is anyone forgetting the high prince, High House, Seelie Court, standing right here?”

“The what?” Vonos all but shrieked.

“Let me kill them now, my lord,” Prevacek begged.

“Nooo, no. I will present all three of them as a gift for the goddess,” Vonos said, all but rubbing his hands together with glee.

Suddenly, all the bravado currently inflating Grace's lungs vanished like a puff of imaginary smoke. Anubisa was coming. They were all screwed.

Alexios didn't dare make a move when the Russian had that gun trained very carefully right on the middle of Grace's forehead. But he knew that seeing Anubisa again might be the end of his sanity. Now was the time for the risky move.

“Why didn't you tell her?” he called out.

Vonos slowly opened his eyes; he'd been “communing” with the goddess, probably. Alexios could only hope he'd gotten a busy signal.

“Trying to move up the ladder, bloodsucker? Enthrall some shifters here, wipe out a theater troupe there, and take over the god spot yourself?”

Vonos's eyes flared red, but he didn't answer. Alexios hadn't found the right button to push, yet. So he'd try again. “I'm just curious. Is the Vampire's Bane going to be part of the gift? Or will we be the ‘please don't kill me for withholding' gift, and the Bane is the real gift? What about re-gifting? Is she really a fan?”

“I'd advise you to shut up,” Vonos snarled. “The goddess is on her way to us now.”

“There's no time for this, Alexios,” Grace said.

Rhys simply nodded, but somehow Alexios knew that both of them were telling him to spearhead a charge to escape. Two vamps, one gun, three of them. He didn't like the odds, because all he could think about was the terrifying picture of Grace lying dead from a gunshot wound.

“I don't think . . .” he began.

“Don't think so much,” she yelled. Then her hand whipped out and she grabbed a golden dish off the pedestal nearest her and whipped it at Prevacek's head. The Russian ducked, but the gun went off, shattering another pedestal inches from Grace.

Vonos realized what was going on just a fraction of a second too late to beat Alexios to the Bane, and his clawed hand closed around air as Alexios ducked and rolled, coming up on the other side of the pedestal with the Bane clutched in his fist.

“Use it now!” Rhys shouted from across the room. The Fae was tucking something silver and oddly shaped into his jacket, but Alexios couldn't get a good look at it.

“Now is a good idea,” Grace said, crouching next to him, and Alexios lifted the diamond and called out “For Atlantis!” and aimed it in the general direction of Vonos and Prevacek.

For an instant, nothing happened. Then a powerful beam of yellow light burst forth from the diamond, rimming Vonos with light so that he looked like a skeleton caught in a flood lamp. Then he simply exploded right where he stood, screaming the most unearthly sound Alexios had ever heard.

“Where was Prevacek? Did we get him?” Grace asked, but he didn't know.

“I didn't see him. Rhys?” But the Fae was gone as if he'd never been there, and Alexios and Grace stood alone in a cell with a deadly diamond, while Anubisa was on her way.

“Out! Now!” He grabbed Grace's arm and they dashed out of the room, leaping over the scorch marks that were all that was left of Vonos.

They ran, dashing through the crowded great room of the mansion, shoving politicians and vamps alike out of their way, the diamond burning a hole in Alexios's pocket, calling out to him to use it, to destroy every vamp in the house. But it wasn't time, it wasn't even necessarily right; there were actually some vamps who were living in harmony with humans.

At least a few.

And he wasn't going to be judge and jury on those who hadn't murdered, plotted, and schemed.

It was enough for now that they had had retrieved the Bane for Atlantis. Another jewel in the Trident. Another step toward Atlantis rising.

But then Alexios heard the voice he'd prayed to Poseidon to never again hear in his lifetime. It was Anubisa, and she was screaming.

May the gods save them all.