Heart Of Atlantis

people—what have we ever done to you?”
    “You let Quinn be taken,” Alaric said implacably, barely managing to keep the rage boiling inside him from overflowing and incinerating the youngling. “You will all die. Get out if you can. Take the children.”
    “With what? I can’t do it, man,” Faust said, all but crying. “I don’t have a helicopter. Only the rich people are getting out, and some of them are being beat to death for their choppers. You gotta stop it, man. This just isn’t right.”
    “Find Quinn. Then I’ll stop it,” Alaric responded. He turned away and leapt back into the air, ignoring the boy’s shouts, until another bolt of flame hit him in the other leg. This one was a direct hit, not a graze, and he had to waste energy healing himself. He flew back down at Faust and yanked him up into the air by the front of his shirt.
    “Where is the gun you are shooting at me? Do you want to die right here and now?”
    The boy’s bravado was betrayed by the slight quaver in his lips, but Alaric had to respect his courage.
    Faust held up empty hands. “I’m not shooting a gun, you lunatic. I’m a flame starter. It’s a curse or a gift or a talent, I don’t know what, but if you don’t make that tsunami go away, I’m going to set your damn ass on fire.”
    Alaric nearly dropped the boy. A flame starter? He hadn’t heard of that gift since before Atlantis sank beneath the waves. All the old abilities really
were
coming back, just in time for Atlantis to be destroyed. The irony was not lost on him.
    Which meant nothing, since Atlantis was surely drowned by now, and Quinn was gone.
    “Give it your best shot, kid,” he advised. Ven would be proud of him for using slang.
    If Ven and Erin weren’t dead.
    He dropped the boy, who fell the half dozen feet to the pavement, but this time he landed on his feet.
    “Try to burn me again, and I’ll kill you now, so those children you care for will die alone,” he told Faust, and then a voice he hadn’t heard in far too long crashed through the air and buffeted him, nearly knocking him out of the sky.
    YOU MORTALS ALL DIE ALONE. IT IS SAD THAT MY HIGH PRIEST HAS BECOME A DERANGED FOOL.
    The sea god, Poseidon himself, appeared in the clouds above Alaric’s head.
    “I don’t think you have much room to talk about deranged fools,” Alaric shouted, committing blasphemy, idiocy, and possibly suicide all in one sentence.
    Shockingly, Poseidon bellowed a booming thunder strike of a laugh.
    WHY DO YOU DO THIS? YOU MAY NOT TAMPER WITH MY SEAS IN THIS MANNER. YOU WOULD DESTROY MILLIONS OF LIVES, AND YOU ARE NOT A GOD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH FOR SO MANY.
    “I am tired of gods choosing between life and death. Why aren’t you helping in Atlantis when the dome is in danger of failing? All of your children will die. Why didn’t you answer my call about the Trident? What good is a god who doesn’t even answer his own high priest in the times of dire need?”
    I HAVE BEEN BUSY. THE SECOND DOOM OF THE GODS—A NEW
RAGNAROK
—IS UPON US, AND I HAVE BEEN LOCKED IN BATTLE WITH ARES AND A FEW OF THE NORSE AND EGYPTIAN GODS OVER HOW TO SAVE MY ATLANTEANS AND AS MANY OF THE HUMANS AS POSSIBLE FROM ANOTHER CATACLYSM.
    “Well guess what? You’re too late!” Alaric threw even more power toward his tsunami, only to find that Poseidon was in the process of dispersing it into gentle swells of manageable waves.
    Alaric’s grief, rage, and helplessness overpowered him, and he gathered everything he had and poured every ounce of that energy into the blast—and he aimed it at Poseidon.
    “You’re going down,” he shouted, knowing it would mean his own death, but not caring.
    I said,
cut it out
,
you idiot
, Quinn screamed inside his head, and this time he knew it wasn’t an illusion, because she proceeded to call him every inventive name she could think of, and his own subconscious wasn’t nearly that creative.
    The shock drove him down out of the sky, and he almost fell on top of Faust, who was staring up at Poseidon with his mouth hanging open.
    “Now would be a good time to get out of here,” Alaric told the boy. “You’re safe. The tsunami is gone. You don’t want to be caught up in whatever punishment Poseidon metes out to me.”
    “No thanks to you,” Faust said, still eyeing the sea god. “Hey, you don’t deserve it, but I’m going to put the call out to my contacts and see if we can find your girl. If, you know, Poseidon doesn’t