Warriors of Poseidon 02 - Atlantis Awakening

more. He glanced at the alcove where Deirdre was imprisoned and licked his lips. Then he turned his attention back to the fools, suddenly realizing yet another who was missing. "Where is my general? Did Drakos not lead you to them?"
     
    "He did, my Lord, but he was injured badly by the Atlantean prince. He shot Drakos in the belly. We might have retrieved him, but even as we tried to break through the witch's shield, the Atlantean priest called power beyond anything we'd ever seen. He blasted some kind of lightning strike through the building and destroyed every one of us within a mile."
     
    The rage built inside Caligula's skull like a vat of boiling oil, until he was certain his very brains must be seared and bubbling from the intensity. "And yet you managed to escape this catastrophe?" He roared so loudly that sheets of ice and dirt and stone crashed down from the walls.
     
    "I, uh, I retreated when the electricity began to build, my Lord. I saw a vampire get electrocuted in a lightning storm once, and I was—"
     
    Atlantis Awakening – Warriors of Poseidon 02
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    "You were afraid," Caligula sneered. "You were more afraid of an Atlantean lightning strike than you are of me?" He dove down at the cowering vampire. "Truly you are a fool." With one slash of his extended claws, he ripped the man's head from his shoulders and then jumped up and down on the skull, shrieking, until nothing but a featureless lump of smoking slime hissed underneath his boots.
     
    After a few minutes more, he leashed his rage and carefully wiped first one, then the other of his boots on the bent back of one of his blood pride who still cowered on the ground. Then he sought to center himself and find calm within. If he had lost Drakos, and all he had remaining to him were imbeciles the caliber of these, then he would need to retreat and regroup before he could press further. If he lost Erin Connors because of it, her sister would pay for it in agony beyond any he'd visited upon her thus far. He wanted them both—it had gone beyond obsession to him some time ago—and he would not be denied.
     
    But at least he had begun the work of smashing the so-called civilizing advances the humans were forcing on the undead. He and his kind were born to rule the night, not to obey puny laws made by the sheep. His gaze raked over the worthless members of his blood pride.
     
    Well, he amended, some of his kind were born to rule the night. Some were simply cannon fodder. But the most powerful generals and emperors learned to tell the difference early on, or they were assassinated by those they'd once trusted.
     
    A slight disturbance in the air interrupted his bitter memories and heralded the approach of another vampire, one with a familiar cast to his thought patterns, although they were nearly unrecognizable under the throb of agony slicing through them. A black form plummeted to the ground before him and struck the ground hard, bouncing once and then lying still. The stench of blood and pierced intestines rose rankly through the air.
     
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    Caligula cautiously rolled the bundle of bloody clothing over with one foot and stared down into the burned and battered face of his only general.
     
    Drakos slowly opened his eyes, his entire body wincing with the effort it must have cost him. "I am here, my Lord, to report. And I know how we can capture the witch. She's on her way here to us, now." He broke off, coughing and groaning, very near to permanent death.
     
    Caligula smiled and raised one wrist to his mouth, then tore it open with his fangs. As he bent to his general and held his wrist to Drakos's mouth, he smiled the smile that had once held all of the Roman empire in terrified thrall. "Drink, Drakos. Drink and tell me everything."
     
    As Drakos clamped onto his wrist and began to drink, the hideous tolling noise began to pound through the cavern again, and his blood pride squawked and scrambled away, covering their ears. Caligula bared his teeth and snarled out a challenge to the earth itself. "I recognize your noise as the herald of my own dominion, whatever you are!" he shouted into the darkness. "I am Caligula, and I will rule the world!"
     
    The noise grew even louder, until he was forced to pull his wrist away from Drakos and cover his ears against it. Somehow, however, even over the horrible noise of the unknown bell, and though his hands covered his ears,