Vampire in Atlantis

Daniel that the priest had just made a vow he wouldn’t be able to break without serious consequence. Words had power, and some more than others. Their future would be even more complicated now.
    Alaric slashed a hand through the air, and the now-familiar portal began to shimmer in the dark.
    “You should come with us, Princess,” Alaric said. “We can help you.”
    “You need my help, priest,” Serai said, putting a hand on Daniel’s arm. “I have protection beyond your knowledge in the presence of the mage beside me.”
    Daniel didn’t deserve her praise. Skills learned as a mage millennia ago were so long gone as to be rusty with disuse. Only good for destroying furniture and cake. He couldn’t help, unless . . .
    Unless he called to the dying soul of the human—which happened to be a special talent of the Nightwalker Guild. It was better to leave a live body behind than a dead one, according to the rules they’d stuffed in his head. Common decency or morality had nothing to do with guild law, but practicality ruled all.
    “I can help, possibly,” he said. “Let me try to reach Jack.”
    “What can you do? Try to blood bond a tiger?” Quinn shook her head. “Go away, Daniel, there’s no need for your special skills here.”
    “I have forgotten more magic than most of your human witches ever possess, Quinn, and one of my talents as senior mage of the Nightwalker Guild was to teach others to call out to the souls of dying mortals,” Daniel said. “Let me try. It can’t hurt him, not now. Maybe I can help.”
    Surprisingly, Quinn looked to Serai first, then Alaric. Both of them nodded, Alaric perhaps a little skeptically, but it was still a nod.
    “Fine. Try what you can. But then we take him away and let him rest and heal.” Quinn moved a few inches to the side, keeping one hand on Jack’s fur. The tiger followed her with its eyes but made no move to attack, just sat, shivering, in the center of their small group.
    Daniel reached deep inside himself again, for the second time that night, and called for the constructive alter-ego of the destructive force he’d unleashed earlier. The power was too long unused and responded only sluggishly to his call, and at only partial strength of what he dimly remembered from days long, long gone. He’d fought with fists, daggers, and his vampire physical abilities for so long he’d nearly forgotten his magic. Perhaps he didn’t deserve a response from power he’d discarded and scorned.
    But it did respond. Slowly and painfully, but it finally answered him. He invoked words of power in languages that had existed long before French had dreamed itself into being, and the magic rose to his call, at least enough to fuel one not-so-simple question.
    Jack. Are you there? Jack Shepherd of the tiger pride, have you gone beyond reach of mortal call?
    Daniel waited for what seemed a very long time. Just when he was about to admit defeat, a weak, thready voice that was almost unidentifiable as Jack’s answered him.
    I don’t know where I am, or if I can come back. I don’t know if I want to come back. Leave me be, vampire, or magician, or whatever you are. Leave me to make my own choices. Don’t call me again, or I’ll leave forever. The choice to die is so very tempting.
    Daniel waited, but the message was complete. Jack had to choose to come back, and nothing they could do would influence him, or so the shape-shifter thought. Daniel, though, knew better. He himself had once rejoined the living for the dream of love of a woman.
    Maybe the love Jack felt for Quinn—and hers for him, though it was not the bond she shared with Alaric—would be enough. It was beyond his reach now. He turned to Quinn.
    “I don’t know if he’ll ever return,” he warned her. “All I know is that he’s somewhere in there. Deep inside, or maybe even not inside the tiger but very nearby. But he won’t come back because we push him. He warned me quite specifically that if we try, he’ll choose never to come back.”
    Quinn narrowed her eyes. “If he thinks he’s more stubborn that I am, he’s sadly mistaken. Let’s go, Alaric. Take us away, and give me time to let this tiger heal and find himself again.”
    Alaric simply nodded, then took her hand in one of his and made a motion with the other that lifted the tiger on a shimmering pillow of pure energy. The portal, now large enough for a half dozen warriors to enter walking side by side, glowed brightly in the moonlit