Warriors of Poseidon 03 - Atlantis Unleashed

Even from way back then?”
    Justice shrugged, his powerful muscles tensing and then relaxing against her. “It‟s not that long ago, right? You said 100 B.C.? Hells, we just defeated Barrabas, and he was young by her standards.”
    “Fine. Glamour shots of Anubisa on a mural with the god of popcorn. We get it,” Ven said, standing up again. “But what about the Star? If it can really help Justice, we need to know where it is. Not to mention the part about Atlantis not rising without it.”
    Keely leaned back against Justice, suddenly exhausted. “I‟m sorry. I got distracted. The Star is hidden in a niche in the rock. It‟s placed precisely behind the eye of a fish.”
    Justice stiffened and then jumped up, still holding her in his arms as though she weighed nothing. “Then we go there. Now. We recover the Star and—”
    “Not so fast,” Conlan cautioned. “There must be Guatemalan guards on site, and the excavating team. Not to mention how are we going to explain that we want to deface an important historical site to pull out our astonishingly valuable, enormous sapphire and remove it from the country? I‟m sure the Guatemalan government will have something to say about that.”
    Keely struggled in vain against arms like iron bands and finally gave up. She fixed her fiercest professorial glare on Justice. “Let go of me, now.”
    To her surprise, he did. But he kept an arm around her waist, almost as if he couldn‟t bear to lose contact with her.
    To her further surprise, she didn‟t mind that at all.
    “Government, guards, whatever. It‟s not like they can keep us out, with Poseidon‟s magics on our side,” Ven said.
    Keely shook her head. “You don‟t understand. The government doesn‟t control the site anymore. A band of rogue vampires took over the entire Peten region a few years ago.
    Nobody has been able to get them out, even Interpol‟s P Ops division. Too much jungle and too many hiding places. Without burning down the entire jungle, there‟s nothing anybody can do. The nearest village is only a couple of miles away from the site, and they‟ve been cut off from civilization for some time. From what I understand, they‟ve been given up for dead.”
    Justice started pacing the room, tension in every line of his body. “It‟s Nereid in origin, isn‟t it?”
    “What?” Ven said.
    “The Star of Artemis. Doesn‟t the legend hold that it was originally a gift to Poseidon from the Nereid high priestess?”
    “Yes, that‟s true,” Conlan said. “Some of us paid attention in class, Ven.”
    Ven rolled his eyes. “I paid attention when it mattered. Ask me about the twenty-eight ways to kill a vampire without a weapon.”
    “Twenty-eight ways?” Keely started a mental count, but could only come up with five.
    “Really? Can you show me—”
    Justice blurred across the room until he was blocking her view of his brother. “If you think you will ever get close enough to a vampire to try any of those techniques, you are sadly mistaken,” he said, his voice pure silken menace.
    “Hey, some of the worst grave robbers are vampires—”
    “If it is of Nereid origin,” Justice continued, cutting her off, again, which was really beginning to be a very bad habit, “then I may be able to track it. If I go to the Guatemalan jungle and find this San Bartolo, even if the Star has been moved, perhaps I will be able to sense it.”
    “Unless somebody found it and stole it thousands of years ago and it‟s long since been cut up and set in a couple dozen necklaces and earrings,” Keely pointed out, a decided bite to her voice. “Also, quit interrupting me.”
    “In any event, it is of no matter,” Conlan said. “You cannot go anywhere until Alaric has time to . . . visit with you.”
    “Time to trespass in my mind, you mean,” Justice said darkly. “I‟m in control for now. I‟ve reached an accord with the Nereid. Do not force me to do something that might breach the fragile nature of that agreement. I will travel to San Bartolo and see what I can discover.”
    “If you‟re going, I‟m going with you,” Keely said, and all three of them glared at her, turning the full power of their arrogant Atlantean warrior attitude on her poor little human female self.
    Boy, did they have a lot to learn.
    “Not happening,” Ven said.
    “I forbid it,” Conlan said.
    “Not a chance,” Justice said. But then something glittered in his eyes and his face . . .
    changed. Somehow took on