Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

spear.
    The pointed end. And he was pushing it into his chest.
    She screamed and started running, knowing she couldn‟t make it in time. “No! It was the music; it was just the music! Somebody stop him!”
    Startled, the warrior looked up at her. In an instant, one of the others knocked the spear out of his hands. Keely was running too fast to stop, though. She skidded right into the two of them, knocking them both over. As she lay there, flat on her back with the wind knocked out of her, she started to laugh. Once she started, she couldn‟t stop.
    Two faces came into her field of vision, looking down at her. The two warriors she‟d bowled over with her not-so-graceful approach. They looked concerned, which made her laugh harder.
    “This must be a nervous breakdown. I‟ve been working too hard for too long, and so my brain is just taking a little vacation. This is a fantasy, which is why I‟m surrounded with magic and vampires and gorgeous men, oh my,” she managed to say, in between almost painful, gasping breaths.
    One of the men grinned, but the other—the one who‟d been on the point of shish kebabing himself—remained sol emn. “I know not why the music affected me so, my lady,” he said.
    “But I am forever in your debt that you would save me from my own actions.”
    He held out his hand for hers. As he pulled her to her feet, she tried desperately to regain control of herself. As the last of her laughter faded, she heard a different sound.
    This time, it was definitely not music. It was a terrifying, soul-searing howl.
    “It would appear that your magic has affected the entryway insofar as to remove the sound barrier,” Alaric said to Erin, who had moved to stand near Ven. “I am not sure it is an improvement.”
    “I‟ve never heard a sound like that come from Justice,” Ven said. “Whatever Anubisa did to him—” He left the thought unfinished as he moved to shield Erin, drawing his daggers from their sheaths. “It‟s party time. Here‟s hoping he‟s at least a little sane, or that you can stop him before he gets hurt, Alaric.”
    Keely‟s gaze shot to the entryway, and any last vestige of laughter inside her disappeared as though it had never existed. Because her warrior—the one they called Justice—had reached the window, and his horrible screaming stopped, as if someone had flicked a switch. He caught her in his gaze, face hardening as if he dared her to look away.
    Up close, he was even more terrifying. Under the blood, grime, and tangled hair, she saw that he resembled his brothers, except for the blue hair. Under all that filth, she knew it was blue.
    She knew it was beautiful. She‟d seen his hair clean and shining, so many times over the years, as he bent to the task of carving her little fish.
    Beauty was the right word, she realized, still trapped in his gaze. Justice had a dark beauty, as if a fallen angel had turned predator and stalked the earth. But more than that, beyond any physical characteristic, there was something in his presence—something in his eyes—that called to a primal part of her in a way that had never happened when she‟d seen him in her visions.
    The connection was so intense that she stumbled, forgetting how to breathe. Her entire body strained toward him, intent on anything he might say or do.
    But he stood silently, simply staring at her, as the hideous-looking creature behind him shuffled ever closer. Then Justice raised his sword and pointed it directly at her, looking beyond his brothers, Alaric, and the rest of them as though they didn‟t exist. Justice simply stared at her, his face drawn in icy lines almost as though he knew her, almost as though he despised her. She shuddered in reaction, but was unable to speak.
    He mimicked her silence, saying nothing for nearly a full minute longer.
    Conlan glanced at Keely, then turned back to his brother. “Justice? Can you hear us?”
    Justice‟s gaze flickered toward Conlan, but he gave no other sign that he had heard or understood the words before his gaze locked onto Keely again. After another breath of silence, in which nobody seemed to know what to do or say, he spoke, in a harsh, rasping voice. “You are her. You are Keely.”
    His words were a demand, not a question. She found herself nodding, as though compelled to respond. “Yes,” she replied, voice barely above a whisper. “I am Keely.”
    He smiled a slow, dangerous smile, and the whiteness of his teeth was almost shocking