Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

the blazing blue hell is going on around here?”
     
    Alexios was inexplicably glad to see the grumpy old man‟s face. But Grace needed to feel that she was in charge. She should fill Sam in on current events. He turned to ask her to do that, but she was gone.
     
    Kat was gone, too.
     
    Just . . . gone.
     
    Alexios whirled around, frantically scanning the courtyard, but Sam hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, rocked back on his heels, and started laughing. “If you could see the look on your face, boy. She and that lovely ranger woman walked by me a couple of minutes ago. Said something about a pissing match going on out here.”
     
    Alexios sighed. He should be used to it by now. As long as he expected the unexpected, he could at least pretend to understand her. “And the injured?”
     
    “Well, we‟ve got two fairly badly wounded who are staying with the doc until their families can come get them, two who are primed and ready to get revenge, and the rest are inside packing up their duffels as fast as they can, so they can get the hell out of here.”
     
    Alexios nodded grimly. “My thanks to your doctor friend. It could have been worse.”
     
    “Alaric?” Bastien asked.
     
    “Unreachable. Quinn.” It was enough of an explanation. Everybody knew about Alaric and Quinn. A shadow crossed Bastien‟s face, but he said nothing further.
     
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    “It can always be worse,” Sam said, answering Alexios‟s earlier comment. “Anybody gonna fill me in?”
     
    Blue wandered over to Ethan, sniffing curiously, and gave a tentative bark. Ethan looked down at the dog and made a growling sound that rumbled up from his chest, and Blue quickly backed off and hid behind Sam. Sam patted his dog‟s head and shot a keen glance at Ethan. “Maybe start with the panther.”
     
    Alexios made the introductions and then told Sam what they‟d learned. Sam listened intently, never once interrupting, until Alexios had finished. Then he nodded.
     
    “Matches up with what my friend the doc said. This Prevacek is a piece of work. Old-school Russian mafia turned vamp. Took a liking to hot weather and moved over here for good in the 1700s. Big, bad, and thoroughly nasty. Has political aspirations, too.
    Wants to get into the Primus, but doesn‟t have the buy-in ready. Interesting part is that Vonos is throwing a big ball for the press and the high-society types in a couple of days.
    Might be something to check out.”
     
    “Sounds like Prevacek is running his own game. Either that or he lied to those idiots about why he wanted them to come after our so-called theater group,” Alexios said. “I gotta tell you, I hate coincidences. And we are definitely going to find a way to get into that ball.”
     
    “I, too, am no fan of coincidences,” Bastien said. “However, as you yourself have more than likely realized, this attack does not fit either of the two parallel patterns. You and your „theater troupe‟ are neither a fringe group of human society—”
     
    “Unless your acting is really, really bad,” Ethan put in.
     
    “Funny man. It‟s not too late for me to kick your kitty-cat ass,” Alexios advised him.
     
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    Ethan made a “bring it” gesture, and Bastien sighed. “Nor, as I was saying, was this an attack made to look like an accident.”
     
    “They always like this?” Sam asked Bastien.
     
    “They just met. But there was a little problem with Ethan‟s alpha call, Grace‟s response, and something about ancestry and consorts,” Bastien explained.
     
    Sam threw up his hands, clearly disgusted. “Stop, already. I can‟t deal with this on no sleep and not enough coffee. Don‟t want to know; don‟t care. So let‟s say that this Prevacek is offering up a little bit of dead theater troupe to Vonos as some kind of twisted proof of his initiative and loyalty. What‟s he gonna think when he realizes none of them came back?”
     
    “We could send Eddie in with a story,” Bastien said doubtfully.
     
    Ethan and Alexios made simultaneous snorting noises, then glared at each other.
     
    “Eddie hasn‟t got the brains the gods gave a—oh, hey. Shifter,” Alexios said.
     
    “I‟d have to agree with that,” Ethan said. “He must have some Atlantean DNA in his background.”
     
    Sam rolled his eyes. “Enough, already, children. What are we going to do next?”

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