Heart Of Atlantis

them. Quinn wished her hands were free to cover her ears and block the cacophony of bullhorns and loudspeakers.
    “He must be there. Put me down behind the base of the statue, where he won’t see you,” she said, as they approached, flying low so that the statue itself blocked them from view. “And let me say it pisses me off that he’s using America’s best-known symbol of freedom in his twisted game.”
    “Not so much a game, if he succeeds in opening a gateway to a demonic dimension,” Alaric said as they landed.
    “I know. That’s why you’re going to trust me, and stay out of this for a little while, so I can figure out how to get Poseidon’s Pride without Ptolemy leaving Earth—and us—behind. You are the bravest and most powerful man I’ve ever met, but all that courage doesn’t do us any good if we can’t get to Ptolemy,” she said, for the thousandth or so time.
    Alaric’s eyes glowed hot, and he clenched his jaw, probably to keep from telling her she was an idiot.
    “You have five minutes, and then I’m coming after you,” he said firmly. “Five minutes, and only because the fate of all of Atlantis is on the line. Not one second longer.”
    She kissed him, hard, refusing to wonder if it would be for the last time, and before she could lose her nerve, she ran around the corner of the statue and toward the monster who wanted her to have his demon babies.
    She didn’t know whether to cry or laugh at the shocked expression on Ptolemy’s face. He and Alaric had something in common, then. They both thought she was an idiot. She was starting to agree with them.
    She resorted to her old standby: being a smart-ass.
    “Hey, did you miss me?”
    Ptolemy glared at her. He wore the same business suit, but it was immaculate. Maybe he owned a dozen of them. “Where have you been? Who took you?”
    “One of the fake Atlanteans, but he only wanted information, and when I told him I didn’t really know anything, he let me go.” She shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. Or so she hoped.
    She slowed her pace and stopped about six feet away from him, and she tried to distract him before he could wonder how she’d gotten to the island. Or with whom.
    “Like you’re going to do for the nice tourists, right? Let them go?”
    He gestured as if at an annoying bug. “I don’t care about these vermin. They can go.”
    As the people began to run away, Quinn had to resist the urge to run with them, because suddenly Ptolemy was turning the full weight of his undisguised alien eyes on her, and he didn’t look happy to see her. Not one bit.
    “You just escaped, is this what I am to believe?”
    “You come from an alien demon dimension, and you just happen to speak English perfectly, is this what I am to believe?” she said, mocking him.
    “I have studied your world for hundreds of years,” he said, raising his chin like an offended schoolgirl.
    All
righty
, then. Maybe she
could
get to him through his vanity.
    “Fine. Good. So you know all about Lady Liberty? The French actually sent her to us, you know? There’s even a hideous song they made us sing in grade school, based on the inscription on the base, ‘Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses—’”
    “I have no interest in these things,” he said. “We’re leaving. However, speaking of huddled masses, I need to prove that I will carry out my threats, or they won’t have any teeth, will they?”
    Before Quinn could blink, Ptolemy pointed his finger at an old man in a wheelchair and the equally elderly woman pushing him. They were following the escaping crowd as quickly as they could move, but it wasn’t fast enough, Quinn realized.
    Not anywhere
near
fast enough.
    “No!” Quinn screamed, but it was too late. An arrow of orange light shot across the sidewalk and incinerated the two, completely obliterating them, until only bones and the twisted steel of the chair remained.
    “I’ll kill you for that,” she said, not caring that tears streamed down her face as she reeled in shock from the realization that—however indirectly—she’d caused him to kill those people. He’d wanted to prove a point to
her
, because she’d been acting like a smart-ass.
    She looked up and saw Alaric speeding toward Ptolemy, who was clearly unaware of the Atlantean vengeance approaching, because he smiled, a slow smile, hideous in its triumph.
    “Is this our first spat, my darling?”
    Before she could answer—before Alaric could reach