Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

that Alejandro was in the game, too. As he watched, every one of the villagers stepped out of their hiding places, guns aimed and firing.
    They thought they were protecting Keely, he realized, despair flooding him. All they were doing was getting themselves killed, and her with them.
     
    Keely‟s heart started beating again when Eleni reached her, safe and seemingly relatively unharmed. But it stopped again when she realized Justice was buried under a sea of vampires who were slowly biting and clawing his flesh from his body.
    There was no way anybody could survive that.
    With shaking hands, she settled the stock of the shotgun more firmly into the hollow of her shoulder, aimed at one of the vamps holding Justice, and fired. The report nearly deafened her, and she reflexively flinched. When she opened her eyes, she saw the now-headless vampire‟s body falling to the ground.
    Another shotgun blast sounded from very near her, and another vamp‟s head exploded.
    Alejandro.
    She turned to him and he gave her a thumbs-up, smiling grimly. “If we‟re going to go out fighting, let‟s at least give them a fight,” he yelled.
    She nodded, no time or energy for talking, and took aim again.
     
    In the space of seconds, two of the vamps holding him had been blasted to the true death.
    Justice grinned at the sight of Keely and Alejandro standing practically shoulder to shoulder, firing on the vamps.
    Two to one was great odds, never mind the blood pouring down his face from a head wound.
    He slumped into a sudden deadweight, going down and taking his two remaining captors with him. It was a simple trick to snap one‟s neck and then roll over the other one, grab his sword, and chop through its neck. In a flash, he was back up on his feet and back in the fight, slicing and stabbing and hacking.
    Gultep‟can waded into the battle, his eyes glowing a vicious red, and tossed his own vampires away from him so he could clear a path to Justice. “I will kill you myself,” he snarled.
    “Come and get me,” Justice taunted, beckoning.
    A space cleared out between and around them, just like it had in the schoolyard battles Justice had fought as a child. What a circle life was. He‟d started out fighting bullies in a ring and now he would die that way.
    But he was taking Gultep‟can with him.
    He shifted a little, so he could see Keely. The vamps had stopped stalking her as they all rushed over to watch their nasty-ass leader mop the jungle floor with Justice.
    “Read the stone,” he shouted as loudly as he could. “And get the hells out of here. Now!”
    A rushing movement at the corner of his peripheral vision alerted him, and he turned fast, but not fast enough to avoid the dagger Gultep‟can hurled at him. He caught it in the ribs and staggered back. He ripped the dagger out of his chest and hurled it on the ground, then started laughing again. “Is that all you got? Big bad vampire god wannabe and all you got is a little knife?”
    Gultep‟can, enraged beyond all reason, howled and screeched and dove straight at him.
    Justice blocked the worst of the blow and sliced his sword out as best he could in the close quarters, slicing a long gash up the vamp‟s abdomen.
    “You‟ll die slowly for that one,” Gultep‟can screamed, holding in something that looked a lot like a piece of his intestines.
    Justice laughed again, just because he could. The wounds were finally taking their toll, overcoming the burst of adrenaline-fueled strength. He‟d always been immune to vampire bites but sheer blood loss could get him. He stumbled, suddenly dizzy, and the vamps took it as their cue. They all swarmed him and he went down in a tangle of arms, legs, and slashing, ripping fangs.
    The last thing he heard was the fading echo of the Nereid‟s voice. We don’t have to die like this.
     
    Keely saw Justice go down under what looked like hundreds of vampires and she fell to her knees, the gun falling from her nerveless fingers. Something fragile ripped wide-open in her chest, and she cried out in anguish.
    Eleni sat up and leaned against her, throwing her arms around her in a fierce hug. “Don‟t cry, Keely. The water god is coming, but first Justice will make the pretty blue waterspouts.”
    The child pressed something round and smooth into Keely‟s hand, and she automatically closed her fingers around it. A rock. Eleni was so traumatized, she was babbling nonsense and had given her a rock to comfort her. Keely didn‟t know