Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

would be delighted to demonstrate how pain can become pleasure.”
    “I think we‟d rather demonstrate how pain can be nothing more than pain, bloodsucker,”
    Alexios said, scanning the room for further threat. “Nice panties, by the way.”
    The vamp glanced down at the leather straps he wore in place of pants, and then he smiled again. “Yes, I‟d heard that you enjoyed our games when you were our . . . guest.”
    The fragile control Alexios had on his temper after Christophe‟s idiotic stunt frayed near to snapping, and he raised his daggers. “You‟re closer than you know to the true death, vampire, so maybe you should keep your mouth shut.”
    Brennan started circling the room, throwing stars in hand. The sight of the warrior‟s icy features had a bizarrely quieting effect on the wailing humans who huddled in the corners. As he passed each cluster, they shrank back from him and muffled their sobs with their hands.
    Brennan ignored them and called out a question. “This stinks of some form of mind control.
    Can you release them, Christophe?”
    On the opposite side of the room from Brennan, Christophe stalked closer and closer to the leader, juggling more energy spheres—this time two to a hand. His eyes glowed so brightly with power that the humans shielded their eyes from the sight. “Maybe I‟ll just kill old Xinon here and see if that does the trick,” he said.
    The vamp just threw back his head and laughed. “Do you seek to intimidate me, Atlanteans? I have lived more than one thousand years and have survived war, famine, and village mobs with flaming torches.” Xinon paused and shook his head, the silver rings that pierced his ears flashing in the light. “Such a cliché, that. But do you really believe that you pose any threat to me?”
    “Tell us where that evil whore of a goddess is keeping Lord Justice, or I‟ll show you my version of a threat,” Alexios growled. He sliced his dagger through the air in a prearranged signal, and he, Brennan, and Christophe all advanced on the vampire.
    “From what I hear, your Lord Justice went willingly into the arms of Anubisa, most exalted goddess of Chaos and Night,” the vamp taunted them, hissing a little as his fangs extended and he dropped into a crouch. “Perhaps he does not want to be found. Perhaps even now he lies in her arms enjoying her favors.”
    Before Alexios could move or even think, Brennan whipped his arms forward and down, and two of his silver throwing stars shot through the air so fast that even Alexios‟s Atlantean vision barely caught a glimpse of it.
    One after the other, the stars drove into the vampire‟s neck with such force that the first sliced halfway through and the second completed the job. Alexios stared, caught between shock and fury, as the only hope they had for finding Justice dissolved into a sizzling pool of acidic vampire slime that burned through the carpet to the concrete floor.
    He whirled to face Brennan. “What in the nine hells were you thinking? We needed to get him to talk, not to—”
    The words shriveled in his mouth at the expression on Brennan‟s face. The calm serenity of centuries was nowhere to be seen. Brennan‟s eyes burned like molten silver and his face contorted as his entire body shook with what could only be rage.
    Rage. In Brennan, who was cursed to feel no emotion at all.
    Christophe‟s low whistle startled Alexios out of his trance. “What the hells? Brennan?
    Centuries of no emotion, and you pick now to go bat shit on us?”
    Alexios couldn‟t even speak. It was as if up were suddenly down. As if fish flew and birds swam. Brennan, in a rage. The shock of it swallowed lucid thought.
    Brennan evidently had enough words for them all. A torrent of bitterness—harsh words made lyrical by the cadence of the ancient Atlantean tongue—poured from between the warrior‟s bared teeth. Brennan‟s eyes flashed that eerie metallic silver color as he spoke, but it wasn‟t until Alexios saw the blood dripping from Brennan‟s clenched fists that he realized the warrior still held the deadly sharp throwing stars in his hands.
    Brennan seemed not even to notice the blood or the pain, because he kept ranting in low, hoarse tones, now turning in a slow circle to sweep the room and the cowering humans with his gaze. The haunting refrain spilled from his lips; still in ancient Atlantean, but of course Alexios understood every word. It was, after all, their native tongue.
    “Kill them.