Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

this new threat in your name.”
    Behind him, the others mewled and whined varying noises of agreement but he ignored them.
    One day he, too, would be a god, as vampires before him had been worshipped by these Mayan sheep.
    One day quite possibly as soon as tomorrow.

Chapter 36
    Keely woke slowly, climbing up through stages of sleep as though her weary body and mind were protesting every step. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to see sunlight slanting through the building and falling like bars of gold on the wooden floor. Justice and Eleni were gone, but a blanket had been neatly tucked around Keely‟s shoulders. She sat up, grimacing at the foul taste in her mouth, and an equally foul smell coming from somewhere nearby, and wished for a shower and a toothbrush, in no particular order.
    “Señora would like to accompany us to wash up?” Keely looked up at the question and found the shy woman from yesterday sitting at a battered wooden table, folding clothes and sorting them into piles. “We thought you might enjoy a change of clothing.”
    Keely‟s nose wrinkled when she realized that the foul smell was coming from herself. Hiking through the jungle, having vampires disintegrate all over you . . . it was no way to keep fresh as a daisy.
    “Yes, I would love that,” she said gratefully. “I‟m sorry, I don‟t know your name.”
    “I am Maria,” said the woman—girl, really. She couldn‟t be older than eighteen or nineteen years old. “Follow me, please.”
    Keely followed Maria out into the bright sunlight and automatically glanced up at the sky. It had to be mid-morning. She couldn‟t believe she‟d slept so long. She scanned the clearing as she followed Maria to a path that cut into the trees, but there was no sign of Justice or Eleni.
    “Maria, do you know where Justice is?”
    Maria glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. “He and Eleni went with Alejandro to patrol. That one is such a man, no? You are lucky to be his woman, and he, too, is lucky to find a woman with fire in her spirit as well as in her hair.”
    “I‟m not his woman,” Keely grumbled, picking her way through trees and over wildly overgrown plant life on the path. Suddenly she looked around and wished for her shotgun.
    “There aren‟t any jaguars that like to take this path, are there?”
    Maria laughed. “No, they stay away from the village and our paths. The smell of cooking fires . . .”
    Her voice trailed off and Keely knew they were both thinking of other fires.
    “I‟m so sorry,” Keely said. “I can‟t begin to imagine how much you‟ve suffered.”
    Maria‟s shoulders slumped but then squared again. “Alejandro will take us out of here. We have only ever had random attacks before; a single vampire would try to take one of us. This has only happened twice in the entirety of my life. But this—this is organized warfare and we cannot stand against it. If your man were to stay with us and guard us . . . I heard of his magic.
    But you cannot stay, can you?”
    She turned to fix a measuring stare on Keely, hope mixed with resignation in her eyes.
    “No, I‟m sorry. We will stay until your P Ops unit comes, but we must finish up our . . .
    mission and return home.”
    Maria nodded. “We understand. Alejandro will save us.”
    The words fell from her lips like a benediction, and Keely, who rarely noticed interpersonal relationships, had a sudden flash of insight. “He‟s your man, isn‟t he? Alejandro?”
    “I would like that,” Maria said, blushing. “But he still thinks of me as a child.”
    They rounded a curve in the path and a stream lay in front of them, sparkling in the sunlight that danced on its surface. Keely stopped and took a deep breath, content to see something beautiful after the night‟s terror and death.
    “We will wash up and you can wear these clothes, if you like,” Maria said shyly, holding out the bundle in her hands. “They are mine and we are very nearly the same size.”
    Keely looked at Maria‟s voluptuous curves and doubted her own less bountiful shape would fill out any of the other woman‟s clothes, but didn‟t let anything but thanks show on her face as she gratefully accepted the fresh clothes. Well-fitting clothes, after all, were the last thing on her mind, even if the teensiest bit of vanity wanted Justice to see her looking at least almost as pretty as the beautiful Maria.
    They stripped down to their underwear and waded into the stream to wash, sharing