Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

sanctified places, as you probably know. So they burn the churches first.”
    He indicated the largest of the smoking piles of rubble, and Keely gasped when she saw the charred remains of a large wooden cross.
    “But . . . the people? Do you think they got them all?” Tears ran down her face, unheeded, at the thought of the villagers being burned alive in the church.
    The unmistakable sound of a shotgun shell being cham bered came from behind them. “No, señora, they did not get us all. Do you and your friend intend on finishing us off?”
    Justice snarled a string of words so harsh and guttural that she was sure she never wanted to understand what he‟d said.
    He whirled around, placing himself between her and the man with the shotgun.
    “We are not your enemies, but if you threaten my woman, you will welcome the return of the bloodsuckers in comparison to what I will do to you and yours,” Justice growled. “What is your name and what is the name of your village?”
    Keely peered over his shoulder at the man with the gun. He was lean, with shaggy dark hair falling into his eyes. He wore jeans and a torn white shirt that gleamed against his bronze skin.
    His facial features bore the clear evidence of his Mayan heritage.
    The man shrugged, either unimpressed or too weary of violence to respond to Justice‟s threat.
    “My name is Alejandro and you are in Las Pinturas. As to the rest, I care little for your threats, sword or no. However, I do not harm women, unlike those vampire bastards who attack us again and again.”
    “Why are you still here?” Justice asked. “You‟re fools if you think they won‟t come back again and again.”
    Alejandro‟s eyes turned to ice. “You think I would not have removed my people from danger if I could? The first things they destroyed were our vehicles.” He indicated a smoking pile of metal nearly hidden behind one of the buildings. “We have our radio, and we‟ve radioed for help, but there is apparently a wave of violence occurring right now and we are low on the priority list.”
    “We‟ll help, won‟t we?” Keely said, putting a hand on Justice‟s arm. “We have to do what we can.”
    Justice said nothing but gave a slight nod, his expressionless face giving away nothing of his feelings. Keely tentatively tried to reach out with her emotions or her mind, but encountered nothing but darkness. He‟d shielded his mind from her, and she didn‟t know enough about the soul-meld to understand how to break through. She moved her hand to clasp his, anyway, and the slight pressure of his fingers reassured her. He‟d gone into protective warrior mode; that was all.
    Looking around at the destruction, she couldn‟t exactly blame him.
    Alejandro‟s gaze skimmed over Keely and Justice, and whatever he saw seemed to reassure him, because he lowered the gun and called out, “They are safe enough. You can come out now.”
    At first one, then another, then finally nearly twenty adults came out from wherever they‟d been hiding behind the smoking burnings. Only after they had completely surrounded Keely and Justice did six children cautiously appear to join their parents.
    Keely‟s heart plunged at the sight of the children‟s terrified faces. “We won‟t hurt you,” she called out in fluent Spanish. “ Somos amigos .”
    One small girl, no older than five or six, pushed between the rank of adults and stood staring up at Keely with enormous dark eyes, clutching a dirty stuffed animal in her arms. None of the villagers rushed to claim her; in fact, many of them looked at her with varying degrees of suspicion, and one old woman even surreptitiously made the sign against the evil eye and then spat on the ground. The girl flinched and Keely suddenly, fiercely, wanted to slap the superstitious old bat‟s face.
    “Eleni,” Alejandro called sharply. “Don‟t get too close to them.”
    “But Justice will put the fires out with his water,” Eleni said. “And Dr. Keely will help us find Mama.”
    Keely gasped. “How did you know our names?”
    “Eleni often . . . knows things,” Alejandro said in English. “She doesn‟t speak any English, though, so I will use your language to tell you that her father died long ago and her mother has been dead for several weeks. The vampires took her and left her head for me to find. We have tried to tell her this, but she either cannot or does not want to understand.”
    The lines on Alejandro‟s handsome face deepened and