“I’m afraid I am,” Alex said. “Sorley will look after you.” He looked at the fairy. “You will protect the lady, won’t you?”
“Time in sanctuary is limited.”
“But you’ll make an exception in this case. Keep her from harm until I return or ...”
“Or what?” Sorley asked. “Is that a threat?”
“You should be warned,” Alex said. “Ree O’Connor is not what she seems. Look into her eyes and tell me that you can’t see the mark.”
Sorley took a step back and studied Ree. “She’s not fairy.”
“Not fairy, but she carries the blood of an older race,” Alex said.
Ree opened her mouth to protest, but then restrained herself. She’d often wondered what had set her and Nick and the others who’d been trained with her apart. Why was she born with abilities that others appeared not to possess?
“I’m serious, Alex,” she said. “I’m coming with you. If you’re going after Varenkov, I want to be part of it.”
“This isn’t your war,” Alex said. “You’re a civilian.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “After what we’ve been through, you can tell me that? You’ve just admitted that I have certain talents, talents that might come in handy.”
“Varenkov nearly killed you,” Alex said. “You got off with your life. I won’t place you in danger again.”
Ree stared at him in astonishment. “You won’t put me in danger? Have you lost your mind? You started this. You could have left things as they were, but no, you had to interfere. You brought me along. Now, you aren’t going to swim off and leave me here.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“How long have you been after him?”
“What difference does that make?”
She rested her hands on her hips. “Not been too successful so far, have you? Maybe you could use some help.”
“And what could you do that could possibly help me in killing a man like Varenkov?”
Ree turned toward the bed. She steeled herself, concentrated her energy, and stared at the corner of draperies. In seconds a wisp of smoke began to curl up from the hem, and an instant later, the curtain burst into flames.
“Whoa!” cried the fairy. “You can’t—”
Ree exhaled and curled her fist, willing the flames to contract into a single dancing flame. The fire leapt from the bed curtains, bounced across the floor to land in the bowl of fried shrimp. The stench of burning seafood filled the room. “Can’t I?” she said. She clapped her hands and the last vestige of fire extinguished.
Alex clapped his hands together, once, twice, three times, in slow motion. “Admirable,” he said mockingly. “Good trick.”
“Not a trick,” she said.
“Isn’t it?” His eyes narrowed. “I know a thing or two about illusion myself,” he said. “It takes more than that to hunt down and eliminate a monster.” He looked at Sorley. “Keep her here. Keep her safe.”
“No!” Ree said.
“I’ll come back for you as soon as I find reinforcements. You have my word on it.”
“I won’t stay here and—” But as she watched, Alex turned and vanished before her eyes.
“Where is he?” she asked. She ran to the spot where he’d disappeared. “How could he ...”
Sorley doffed his hat and bowed. “As Prince Alexandros said, I will keep you safe until he returns. You need have no fears for your safety.”
“Prince? He’s no more prince than you are a fairy!” She turned on the little man, but found herself completely alone. “What am I?” she asked. “A prisoner here?”
“No prisoner, but an honored guest,” came the booming voice in her head. “And as a guest, you’re free to leave at any time. Provided, of course, that you have a plan for avoiding the jellyfish, the Lemorians, and the lava flow. Otherwise, Irishwoman, I’d suggest you cause no more mischief and pray to whatever gods you worship that the Atlantean does keep his word and come back for you.”
CHAPTER 10
I
n the great throne room of Atlantis, many leagues beneath the surface of the North Atlantic, Prince Orion, brother to Poseidon, made his way through the throng of ambassadors and supplicants to the foot of the dais. The queen was the first of the royal party to notice him, and she leaned close to her husband and whispered in his ear.
Poseidon rose and raised a hand for silence. “A matter of state importance demands my attention. Queen Rhiannon will act in my name.” Motioning to Orion to follow him, the king left the dais and led the way into a small antechamber. “Have you heard from Alex?” Poseidon asked.
“From Bleddyn. He and Dewi have had contact from an unknown informant, Anuata, a Lemorian who claims that Alex escaped from ’Enakai’s prison and is safe in sanctuary under the Old City.”
“But our brother is unhurt?”
“So they believe. Dewi and Bleddyn are on their way to meet this Anuata in the caves beneath Ranirao Atoll. That’s where Varenkov’s yachts last dropped anchor.”
“But the Russian isn’t there now?” Poseidon asked.
Orion shook his head. “My guess is that Alex either decided not to attempt to take him out there or tried and failed. The boats were gone before Bleddyn and Dewi reached Tahiti.”
“Do we know where Varenkov is now?”
“I have reports of a sighting of the yachts several hundred leagues west of Ranirao, but it isn’t confirmed. There’s a good possibility that Varenkov was taken off by helicopter. In that case, he could be anywhere.”
Poseidon ran his fingers through his blond hair. “This isn’t the best time for our brother to start making mistakes. We’ve an oil spill in the North Sea, major cruise ship pollution in the Caribbean, and the slaughter of dolphins by the Danes. Not to mention the ongoing overfishing near the Georgian Banks. Varenkov’s factory ships and wholesale netting must be stopped if we have any chance of stopping the decimation of the pilot whale population in the North Atlantic.”
“I know we’re stretched thin, but—”
His older brother grimaced. “I should be out there helping instead of dealing with bureaucrats and delegations from the Silkie Nation and the Mayan royal family. I’m not cut out to be king, Orion.”
“Don’t look at me. If you’re thinking of abdicating, Alex is your best bet.” Orion went to a table and poured himself a measure of wine. “Have you discussed this with Rhiannon? As it stands, Perseus is your heir. Would your wife want to see her son passed over?”
“The crown is heavier than you think. And our son may be as ill-fitted for the throne as I am. Rhiannon never wanted to be queen. We both expected father to live a long time.”
“Didn’t we all?”
“At least until our children were grown.”
“So what do we do about Alex?”
“We wait to hear from Dewi or Bleddyn. Unless you want me to go—”
Poseidon shook his head. “Good try. I can’t spare you from the city. I’m sending Paris and twenty men to the Faroes to try and save as many pilot whales as he can. You’ll remain here in charge of the city’s security, and Alex will have to finish what we sent him to do.”
“Where does that leave the oil spill and the Caribbean mess?”
“Another day, brother. We do what we can. I do what I can. We aren’t gods. We’re only Atlanteans.”
In sanctuary, Ree practiced her martial arts discipline, stared out at the ever-changing ocean beyond the crystal windows, and waited for Alex to return. She wouldn’t allow herself to think of what she would do if he didn’t come back. That was beyond her control.
She saw no more of her fairy host, but food and drink continued to magically appear, and when she demanded reading material, that too was provided. Unfortunately, the scrolls and tablets were all written in languages that she couldn’t understand. As for the maps, or what she supposed passed as maps, they were drawn of the seafloors, and she was unable to find any point of reference. Volcanoes, mountain ranges, deep canyons, and coral reefs had been sketched onto paper-like material. The drawings were beautifully done, but gave her no indication of the area, or how large an area the maps covered.
Never had Ree been out of contact with her handlers for so long a period since she’d been sent on her first assignment. She had no way to communicate with her superiors, and if she did, what would she say? They would be more than likely to think that she’d had a mental breakdown than to accept what she’d come to accept as reality.
She had died or experienced a near-death situation. She’d been rescued or kidnapped—depending on your point of view—by an Atlantean who claimed to be a prince. And now, she was being held against her will in an underwater sphere by a fairy with a bad attitude.
None of the above sounded plausible, yet it was all true. Had she made contact with her handlers, she would have refrained from mentioning the fantastic sex she’d shared with the said alien prince. Her personal recreation was nobody else’s business. That said, she’d enjoyed every moment of the encounter and hoped to repeat the process as soon as possible. That was, if she didn’t kill him first for abandoning her, leaving her—so to speak—like a bird in a gilded cage.
Varenkov could be in Moscow by now. Or Paris or New York, even Singapore. Wherever he was, he was up to no good, and had she completed her mission, his criminal career would have been over and drugs flooding Ireland and Scotland from the former Eastern Block countries would be reduced by thirty percent. But, despite months of preparation, she’d failed thus far to eliminate Varenkov. Headquarters would not be pleased with her. She’d worked too long to reach the top of her field to allow another agent to take down her target. The alternative was unacceptable.
Assassins who lost their edge were pulled out of the field, supposedly reassigned to teaching positions or desk jobs. Oddly, she’d met few of them, and she suspected that a peaceful retirement wasn’t in the works. At the top of her game, she could pretty much live as she pleased, enjoy the finest food and scenery she wished, take vacations anywhere in the world, and indulge herself in petty pleasures such as investigating the inner workings of the British Secret Services and their actions in Northern Ireland during a particular ten-year period.
She hadn’t committed herself to a plan of personal vengeance where her parents’ deaths were concerned, but the idea had crossed her mind. Meanwhile, her search was an excellent mental exercise, much as playing competitive chess might be. She’d found and followed dozens of leads, including two solid possible hitters, both of whom had sadly already passed to a greater reward in whatever waited beyond the limits of this world.
She’d never considered herself a vigilante. The people she’d killed had been deserving of death, and she hadn’t made the decision. She had faith in the organization’s decisions. They were not made lightly. No innocent people were targeted, and none were selected who weren’t personally responsible for the deaths of multiple victims. More than ten was the rule. Ree took no pleasure in eliminating these bad guys or in her own ability. It was what she did, what she was trained to do; it was her purpose for being. But if she ever learned who had ordered her father’s death or who had lit the match that had ended her parents’ lives, she was certain that she might take some satisfaction in righting a wrong long overdue.
One thing was blatantly obvious as Ree filled her hours with repeated physical exercise. Not only had she completely recovered from her injuries, but she was stronger, faster, and less fatigued than she’d ever been in her adult life. Alex had said that she was no longer entirely human, that she was now some sort of Atlantean hybrid. It seemed that there might be some truth in that, and if he’d been right about that ...
She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. She’d spent a lifetime perfecting her body and mind to be the perfect weapon. And if she was some sort of bionic woman now, Varenkov didn’t stand a chance.
Caddoc cringed as his mother threw him a withering stare. He should have known better than to answer her summons. When had catering to her whims ever been to his advantage? Even looking at her as she was now sickened him. Better she had died than have her beauty turned to that of a wizened crone.
Why hadn’t he had the nerve to advise ’Enakai to refuse her admittance to Lemoria? It would have been kinder to give her a merciful death after she’d fled from Melqart’s ruin. No, he’d had to admit that she was his mother and beg for ’Enakai to provide for her in the manner to which she was accustomed.
When his father had been alive, Halimeda had been a queen and a favorite of Poseidon, wealthy and powerful, widely acknowledged as the fairest woman in Atlantis. Now, her body bent and twisted and her once beautiful face a macabre mask, she was nothing but a thorn in his side. Yet, he could not free himself of her, and her words still had the power to wound him.
“What do you mean that your brother murdered your bodyguard and escaped?” she demanded. “Your Samoan was supposed to kill him, not the other way around. Are you so dim-witted that you can’t carry out a simple order?”
“Have you forgotten, old woman? You no longer give orders to me or to anyone but three-fingered servants.”
“No? You think not, you cowardly half-wit? It wasn’t I who allowed Alexandros to escape. And it’s hardly my fault that he killed your pitiful excuse for a bodyguard.”
“Tora was a mighty warrior. If Alexandros bested him, it must have been through trickery.”
“By Zeus’s balls, have I taught you nothing? Trickery is the name of the game. Your brother was unarmed, locked in a tiny cell of rock. All you had to do was open the door and cut off his head. Would that have been so difficult?”
“I sent Tora because I was otherwise occupied,” Caddoc retorted.
“Swiving ’Enakai. And not well, or you would be richer than you were when last I saw you. If you possessed the talented prick of your late father, ’Enakai would have given you an army by now and you might have reclaimed your throne from your bastard brother.”
“Morgan is no bastard. Well”—Caddoc admitted—“he may be a bastard, but he’s my father’s lawful son.”
“He’s the son of that bitch Korinna, not my son. And he’s younger than you. You should have been crowned the next Poseidon.”
“Perhaps I would have been, had you succeeded in poisoning my father. But you couldn’t get that right, could you, mother?”
With a shriek, she threw back the sheets and rose from the bed, leaving a naked guardsman cringing and trying to cover his private parts. Caddoc turned away in disgust. His mother’s body was not one that a man could look upon without heaving. Her flesh had peeled away in strips, and her once shapely breasts and hips were little more than sacks and bony sticks. Open sores ran and dripped yellow mucus, and raw red eruptions threatened to burst and spray the room with noxious odors.
Not that he had ever particularly enjoyed viewing her naked body, regardless of the pleasure she might have taken in being viewed. He suffered the curse of being her only son, taking suck longer than was decent, and having far too much of her attention in the years since his birth. He had long come to accept that she was utterly without morals, but just once he would like to come into her presence without being belittled and made to feel inadequate.
“Get out!” Halimeda ordered her bedmate. “And next time I come for you, bring two companions. You aren’t man enough for me.”
The poor fool bowed low, snatched up his garment from the floor and fled the room.
“Well?” Halimeda hissed. “What are you staring at? Did you want to use him yourself before I sent him on his way?” She moved to a table and draped herself in a length of cloth. “Surely you aren’t such an innocent that you believe your mother past the age of passion?”
“No,” he answered curtly. Strips of seaweed framed the bed ... strong, pale green lengths of foliage. Caddoc could feel the texture of it between his fingers, imagine what it would feel like to loop a section of it around his mother’s throat and pull it tight. He could almost see her eyes bulge and her tongue protrude as the noose severed her throat.
He could do it. Once she had held the power of the black arts, but with Melqart’s diminished strength, his mother’s had become puny. Once, she could freeze him with a glance, cause him to choke on unclean objects, drive his mind to the point of madness.
“How weak are you, Mother?” he asked softly.
“Try me and see, my darling.”
She smiled at him, and the hideous gap in her lips, the shattered teeth, and her blackened tongue brought a clot of thick bile rising in his throat. He was afraid of her. He’d always been afraid of her. Yet, in some perverted way, he loved her. And in some small, almost invisible part of his mind, he admired her. Men scoffed at him. No matter what his mother said, he was no fool. Not a great warrior or legendary prince, but no fool either. He knew that he was the butt of jokes. And no one suffered more from his failures than he did. But for all his weaknesses, he was persistent. Sometimes, the ability to carry through without giving up was enough. Sooner or later, his luck would change.