Warriors of Poseidon 02 - Atlantis Awakening

Chapter 1
    Seattle, Washington
     
    "These are my kind of odds," Ven said, drawing his sword with his right hand and one of the seven daggers strapped to various parts of his body with his left. "Not even gonna bother with my Glock and its nifty new silver bullets for this mangy crew."
     
    The vamp leading the gang—flock? herd? What the hells did you call a group of vamps this big?—of vamps that had cornered them in the alley hissed, making sure to show a mouthful of fang. "Prepare to die, human. You are vathhhtly outnumbered," it threatened, with that peculiar lisp so characteristic of the recently undead. They hadn't quite yet gotten the hang of talking with a mouthful of tooth.
     
    The alley was everything an alley always was; gray stone and chipped brick, crumbled trash on the ground, and the smell of old urine and fresh despair combining to make Ven seriously twitchy.
     
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    Twitchy and amused. He laughed in the vamp's pasty face. "You've got a couple of things wrong, dead boy. First, we're not human. We're three of Poseidon's finest.
    Second, you're the one who's gonna die, so you can kitthh my atthh," he mocked.
     
    The vamp's eyes glowed redder, but it sort of danced around a little instead of charging.
    Ven figured it wasn't quite prepared to take on six and a half feet of Atlantean warrior carrying a sword at least half that size. But the creature was working up its nerve, especially with his bloodsucker buddies egging him on.
     
    "Silver bullets are not particularly helpful on vampires, as you know, Lord Vengeance,"
    Brennan replied in his usual even, calm tone, as he pulled a handful of throwing stars, no doubt with some kind of magical spell crap all over them, out of the folds of his long leather coat. "I am unsure as to whether the newly turned, such as these, would be even slightly hindered by silver. It is an interesting question, although perhaps for another time, as to why we are encountering such increasingly high numbers of the newly turned here in the Pacific Northwest."
     
    "Yeah, I'm thinking another time," Ven said, trying not to laugh. Trust Brennan to want to get philosophical when faced with imminent death-by-bloodsucker. The horde—yeah, horde was good—horde of vamps edged back a little bit.
     
    They were hissing and screaming some truly vile threats, sure, but they moved back.
    After Ven, Alexios, and Brennan had spent an entire week in this rainy part of the world, the word had gotten out about how deadly Brennan was with his pretty little toys. Too bad he'd probably had to play footsies with some witch to get the weapons magicked up. Except for bloodsuckers and shape-shifters, there wasn't much that Ven hated more than witches and their kind. Especially witches who dabbled with the dark.
     
    "Shut up, already. I'm counting," Alexios growled at them. "Seventeen, eighteen… oh, yeah, can't forget the big, bad, and seriously ugly one lurking behind the Dumpster.
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    Nineteen to one odds, girls." He shook his head. "That doesn't split three ways. I call dibs on the leftover."
     
    "Age before beauty, Goldilocks," Ven said, baring his teeth in what might pass for a smile. Then he whirled around, sword arm already in motion, to catch the vamp who'd tried to sneak up on them by scaling his creepy ass down the side of the building behind them.
     
    Ven yelled in triumph as the vamp's head smashed down on the ground. Its body followed a few seconds later. "Okay, we're all evened up. Six each, boys?"
     
    "For Poseidon!" Alexios called out in response, grinning like a fool. The scarred half of his face pulled and twisted down the side of his mouth, so he probably looked like an insane apparition or a wickedly bad dream to the newbie vamps. Ven watched as three of them in the back of the mob did some kind of signaling thing to each other and turned to flee.
     
    Quicker than a bolt of lightning riding the waves of a sea storm, Brennan's hand flashed out once, twice, three times, and the three went down, screaming, clouds of smoke rising from their backs. "I would never stab an honorable opponent in the back,"
    Brennan said. "Luckily, these undead have no honor."
     
    Brennan flashed a glance that Ven almost swore was smug—if Brennan could even do smug—at Alexios. "I believe that is fifty percent of my total?"
     
    The vamps must have taken that as a sign,