Heart Of Atlantis

Conlan shouted, but the light flashed a brilliant sapphire blue, and two things occurred simultaneously: Riley, Aidan, Keely, Eleni, and Erin all disappeared, and Christophe and his soul-melded mate, Lady Fiona, flew out of the portal and landed on their asses on the ground.
    Then the portal winked out of existence again.
    “I have had enough of this,” Conlan said.
    Alaric could only nod, as he stumbled forward, the pressure in his skull reaching an unbearable level. “Christophe, I’m going to need some help,” he said, and then he fell forward into the relentless dark.

    When the world snapped back into focus, Alaric realized that his subconscious had somehow maintained his magical hold on all the dangerous balls he was juggling, and the dome had not collapsed.
    He somehow wasn’t even shocked to see Christophe sitting across from him on the grass, grinning.
    “Please tell me this is all part of the nightmare,” Alaric said wearily.
    “Got your back, my friend,” Christophe said smugly. “Feel free to say thank you at any time.”
    Alaric took stock and realized that the warrior was indeed carrying some of the magical load. Quite a bit, in fact. He leaned back and took his first full breath since the crisis began.
    “Thank you,” he said, and then enjoyed watching Christophe’s shock. Alaric didn’t have a history of expressing appreciation or gratitude.
    “We were a bit worried for a moment,” Lady Fiona said in her crisp British accent. “Lovely to see you up and about. Now what do we do?”
    Alaric stood up and nodded to her. “Welcome. Now that Christophe has taken more than his fair share of the magical burden, I can leave to find Poseidon’s Pride. All we need is for the portal to—”
    “You need?” came the voice and flash of light, and Alaric went spinning through the vortex.
    “I know you’re sentient. I met Gailea,” he shouted. “What in the nine hells do you think you’re up to?”
    “Ask your sea god,” came the cryptic response, and then Alaric plummeted down through an early-morning sky. Before he had time to transform into mist, he crashed through a skylight made of blacked-out glass, and he landed on his feet in the middle of at least a dozen vampires.
    “This,” Alaric said, looking around for who he’d have to kill first, “I did not need.”
    The room was high-ceilinged and lit only by a couple of bare lightbulbs hanging drunkenly from frayed cords. Stark black-and-red graffiti, both words and images, crawled across the walls like the spreading stain of blood from a wound. The stench of vampire permeated the room, making him think the abandoned building must have long been their lair.
    “You’ve interrupted lunch,” one of the bloodsuckers hissed. “That means you become part of it.”
    “Always with the cheesy dialogue, as Ven would say.” Alaric shook his head and got ready to turn into mist and escape, until he saw exactly what they were preparing to eat for lunch.
    Whom
they were preparing to eat for lunch.
    Damn
.
    It was kids.
    “You again?” The kid in the red shirt looked familiar, and Alaric realized it was the same boy he’d saved from Ptolemy.
    “That is far too large a coincidence. What are you doing here?”
    The vamp who thought he was the leader snarled at Alaric. “You can address me if you have something to say.”
    “Shut up. You were saying, kid?”
    The kid jerked his chin at the group of five smaller children who were huddled and crying in the middle of the group of bloodsuckers. “I take care of them.”
    “Not very well, apparently.”
    The kid lunged at Alaric, trying to get away from the vamp who held him, but bloodsuckers had unnatural strength, so it was a futile struggle.
    “You’re angry at the wrong person, Faust,” Alaric advised, forming a sword out of pure energy and slicing off the kid’s captor’s head before anybody could move. “I’m not the one trying to eat you and your friends for lunch. What do you say we take care of this and get out of here?”
    Faust dropped to the floor, pulling a gun out from underneath his shirt in one quick motion and firing on the nearest vamp before Alaric had come to the end of his sentence.
    “Guns don’t work on—”
    “Silver to the brain stem does,” Faust interrupted, surprising Alaric. Not many humans knew that. “Help me get these kids out of here?”
    The vampires started shrieking, hissing, biting, and clawing—all the things vamps usually did—but Alaric