Heart Of Atlantis

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