Warriors of Poseidon 02 - Atlantis Awakening

permeated his berserker fury.
     
    Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
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    He whirled around in a full circle and realized he was standing in the center of the cavern, surrounded by nothing that still lived.
     
    Erin stood tall, shining so brightly with silver-blue light that he had to squint to see her.
    Deirdre still lay at her feet, and Caligula himself knelt in front of her.
     
    Ven ran across the room with some thought of protecting her from the master vamp, but she stopped him with one upraised hand. "This is mine to do," the dual voice that was Erin and yet not Erin proclaimed.
     
    He slowed to a stop and drew a dagger, recognizing her need for revenge, but not wanting her to suffer another death on her soul.
     
    "I sentence you to the true death, Caligula of Rome. For the thousands of innocents you have murdered over millions of years. For your heinous atrocities. For the evil pleasure you took in destroying lives."
     
    She raised her hands, and basketball-sized spheres of pure light formed on each one, as Caligula cowered before her.
     
    "Your sister is dead," Caligula sneered, a final act of defiance. "You can live with the knowledge that I raped her a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, after I turned her to the undead."
     
    "You can die with the knowledge that Deirdre yet lives," Erin replied. Then she slashed her arms down, and the spheres of power rocketed across the space between them, smashing into Caligula's chest, at the same time that Vert let his dagger fly, straight and true, into the vampire's black heart.
     
    Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
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    Caligula shrieked the shriek of the damned, which he surely was, and as Ven watched, he incinerated from the inside out, blue flames shooting out from his mouth and eyes and nose before he finally exploded.
     
    Ven put an arm around Erin's waist and yanked her back and away from the disintegrating vampire, but she threw up a shield and none of the acidic slime touched either them or the body of her sister.
     
    "Is she really alive?" Ven asked.
     
    Erin suddenly collapsed, all of her strength and any remaining vestige of the Goddess vanishing. He caught her and the ruby before she hit the ground.
     
    "She is not truly dead, but so close it hardly matters," Erin said, weeping. "I want to stay with her until the end, Ven."
     
    A weary voice interrupted before Ven could reply. "That may not be necessary."
     
    Ven jerked his head up to see Daniel slowly approaching them. "I can help her, Erin.
    From what I hear, you need to get that ruby back to Atlantis."
     
    Ven raised his sword. "As if I'd trust you ever again, you traitorous—"
     
    Erin touched his leg with her hand. "He's telling the truth, Ven. The ruby would warn me of any dark purpose."
     
    He hesitated, unwilling to trust Daniel again but urgently aware of the need for haste in returning to Atlantis. Finally he nodded. "Fine. But we'll be back to check on her. If she's—"
     
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    "I know, warrior," Daniel said, dropping to the ground to raise Deirdre's head into his lap.
    "I know. Now go."
     
    Erin pressed one final kiss to her sister's forehead, then stood, clutching the Nereid's Heart. "Now, Ven. Something tells me we have to go now."
     
    An icy wind swept through the cavern at her words, and Ven smiled. "Picked a fine time to show up, Alaric. Didn't want to get your hands dirty?"
     
    The priest shimmered into form and raised one eyebrow. His face was pale and drawn, and he looked as though he'd aged centuries in the space of the last few days. "I do what I can, Lord Vengeance. May I interest you in a portal to Atlantis?"
     
    "Best idea you've had in a long time," Ven said. "But first we have a tiger to heal."
     
    He took Alaric over to where Jack lay, seriously wounded but still breathing, in spite of the numerous claw and teeth marks streaming blood from his body. Alaric knelt down and held his hands over Jack's body, and the shifter's eyes suddenly snapped open as the healing blue-green light shimmered over his body, leaving whole skin where wounds had been.
     
    Jack sat up, holding his head. "Why do I feel like I missed something?"
     
    Ven held out a hand to help him to his feet. "You missed a lot. Daniel will fill you in. Find out what he did with Quinn."
     
    Jack bared his teeth. "He did something to Quinn?"
     
    "It's a long story, and we