Heart Of Atlantis

thank.”
    “Right,” Quinn said. “I know this trick. Your minions catch her right outside the door.”
    “I don’t need minions,” he said gently, and it was more terrifying than if he’d shouted. Quiet confidence meant that he really
was
exactly as powerful as he claimed to be, in which case Quinn had no chance.
    None at all.
    The girl ran out of the room, and Ptolemy approached Quinn.
    “You’ll have to tolerate the transport once more, and then you can rest.” He waved his hand, and a spiral of orange light enveloped them both. Quinn experienced another moment of gut-roiling nausea, and then they were somewhere else.
    Somewhere far fancier, where polyester had probably never been allowed to rear its ugly head. It looked like a deluxe suite in a fancy hotel, not that Quinn had much experience with those, but she’d watched the occasional TV show.
    “Are you planning to untie my hands before I lose all circulation and they fall off? And when are you going to tell me what you want with me? If you think I can convince the rebellion to work with you, you’re out of luck,” she said, sneering. Why bother with politeness? She had nothing left to lose.
    He said nothing, merely turned her so he could reach her hands, and as his fingers unfastened the knots in the rope, Quinn scanned the room and stopped, frozen in shock, when her gaze reached the far wall. The entire wall was plastered with hundreds of photographs.
    And every single one of them was a picture of her.

Chapter 20
    Alaric slowly rotated in the air fifty feet up above City Hall, his arms thrown wide to the sky, glowing with so much power that he wondered briefly if he would go supernova and shatter into a thousand miniature suns. Even in death, he could rain destruction down on the humans who had allowed his woman to be captured and harmed.
    Kidnapped.
    He couldn’t survive if he focused the blame on where it really belonged—himself—so he closed off that part of his mind. He could indulge in self-hatred after he’d found her.
    The gods alone knew what that monster might be doing to her. A fresh burst of wrath infused his power with a further wave of deadly rage—enough to build up the leading edge of the tsunami bearing down on the city to even more towering heights. He’d kill them all. Drown the city, drown the state, drown the world.
    He called to the portal, but silence was his only answer. Silence from the portal—silence from Atlantis. Poseidon’s Pride was gone; there was no chance to save Atlantis. Perhaps it was already lost. Quinn was gone; so the world must die. He spared a thought for Nereus, his kindred spirit. No wonder he’d nearly destroyed Atlantis when Zelia died. It must have seemed a minor price to pay.
    A small voice somewhere deep inside him—a voice that sounded suspiciously like Quinn’s—yelled at him to
cut it out
. But he had no time for auditory hallucinations, so he shut it down, shut out the phantom Quinn, and continued to channel all of his pain and fury into the storm.
    For a moment he thought he heard another voice telling him to stop, this one coming from far below him, but it was easy to ignore. It didn’t sound
at all
like Quinn. But then a bolt of searing flame shot through the air toward him and sliced through the leg of his pants, blazing a path of pain across his right knee.
    Now
he paid attention. He hurled down toward whichever stupid human dared to shoot at him, and found himself on a collision course with the only man idiotic enough to be still standing in range. But it wasn’t even a man—it was a mere boy.
    It was Faust.
    Alaric managed to keep from slamming into the boy, but only barely. He landed on the rubble of destroyed pavement next to Faust, grabbed the kid by the throat, lifted him off his feet, and spoke very, very softly.
    “What exactly do you think you’re doing, you stupid boy? Do you have a death wish? Did I save you for no discernible reason?”
    Faust made a choking sound, and Alaric realized he had to loosen his grip so the boy could talk. He dropped him on his ass, and Faust rubbed his throat while he glared up at Alaric.
    “You can’t do this, man,” the boy finally choked out. “I saw the news. That wave is going to kill millions of people.”
    Alaric shrugged. “This means nothing to me. Leave if you want to live.”
    “It’s too late,” the boy shouted. “Nobody can get out in time. You’re going to kill us all. Children and babies and old