Warriors of Poseidon 01 - Atlantis Rising

heart, and the vamp slumped to the ground.
     
    More men came running from around the corner of her house. They were dressed in black leather and long coats, like some terrifying biker gang. One of them, hair in a long, blue braid to his waist, broke the silence. He roared—a name, a challenge—something that sounded like "Poseidon!" then flew into the air in a wild leap, a sword and dagger held up and out in front of him. He landed on top of a vamp who'd tried, but failed, to twist out of the way.
     
    Blue-hair thrust both his weapons into the vampire's neck, twisted his clearly powerful arms, still yelling fiercely, and then yanked the blades back out.
     
    Riley stood, unblinking, hand-to-hand combat and sword-play crashing through the night around her.
     
    Focused only on the vampire's head.
     
    The head that fell off his body and rolled to a stop a few feet away, right next to her dormant azalea bushes.
     
    She clutched at the door frame with one hand, slowly shaking her head back and forth, swirling fog threatening to obscure her line of sight…
     
    Well, that didn't happen, did it? Because nobody decapitates vampires on my lawn, right? Can't be good for the grass. Or the azaleas.
     
    She recognized the symptoms, objectively. She was going into shock. Numbness, graying vision, a spreading cold—Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 90 of 351
     
    Then she looked up and met Conlan's gaze. He'd felt her terror. It must have distracted him, because she could tell he didn't notice the vampire who leapt at him from behind, aiming his sword at his back.
     
    Her numbness shattered.
     
    "Nooo!" she screamed, hurling herself off the porch and toward the two of them.
    Unthinking. Urgency driving her. She had to help him. Had to protect him.
     
    Must protect him.
     
    "Leave him alone!" she shouted. She jumped on the vampire's back, reaching around his neck to grab at his throat. Throttle him.
     
    But it was too late. The vampire hissed at her as he pulled his sword back, dripping with Conlan's blood.
     
    "You leave him alone now!" she repeated, mindless with rage. Her self-defense classes kicked in, fingers reaching, digging, in a barely remembered tactic.
     
    Go for the eyes, Riley. No matter how big they are, you can always go for the eyes.
     
    She dug her fingers in, gagging against the feel as her nails dug into squishiness. The vampire screamed with agony and twisted, heaving her arms away from him.
     
    Smashing her to the ground.
     
    He turned, clawing at his streaming eyes, and Riley tried to crawl backward to escape.
    Then the vamp roared out his anguish again, spittle flying from his cracked and twisted Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 91 of 351
    fangs, and focused on Conlan, lying so still next to her. The vampire reared back one booted foot, clearly planning to kick Conlan in the head.
     
    Riley sucked in a torrent of air and screamed with everything she had in her. She launched herself in front of the vampire to somehow block his foot from crushing Conlan's skull.
     
    And a hailstorm of coppery blades sliced through the air above her to land in the vampire's chest and throat. His foot wavered, and he staggered.
     
    An arc of blue fire—or electrical current—or something not human, no, never human, not even vampires had blue fireballs, what the helll—shot from the hands of one of Conlan's men and incinerated the vampire's head.
     
    Incinerated.
     
    Demolished.
     
    As Riley collapsed back onto Conlan's still form, she started to laugh.
     
    Then she couldn't stop.
     
    She laughed and laughed, not registering when the laughter turned to sobs, finally looking up and seeing the ring of men looking down at her, blades drawn. Her head throbbed, ached, seemed as if it would split open from the reverberations of… what, exactly?
     
    The one standing a little apart from the others tilted his head and pinned her with his icy green gaze. He was beautiful, like the rest of them, and yet his eyes were flat. Dead. In her job, she'd seen hardened recidivist criminals with more emotion in their eyes than his had.
    Atlantis Rising – Warriors of Poseidon 01
    Page 92 of 351
     
    "Conlan is not seriously harmed. The blade was coated in poison—the dose would have been fatal to a human," he stated, imperiously looking down his nose at her. "It will be little trouble to clear it from his blood."
     
    She hiccupped a little, caught her breath, and then glared her