Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

did an excellent job as second-in-command in the Florida region. He was top-notch at security, as well. But he had an unfortunate habit of talking too much.
     
    Vonos scanned the room in question, then nodded in satisfaction. The renovations had proceeded quickly, after a visit to the contractor‟s wife had convinced the recalcitrant human that an estimate of completion date did not mean that the work would be finished two weeks after that date.
     
    Or even one week.
     
    Or even one day.
     
    He smiled, reminiscing about that visit. The woman had been singularly unattractive, her tanned and leathery skin almost too thick for his fangs to penetrate.
     
    Almost.
     
    He‟d only drained a mere fraction of her blood before her husband “saw the light,” as it were, and moved every one of his crews, available or not, onto Vonos‟s renovation project.
     
    He wasn‟t an evil man, Vonos mused. Simply one who preferred order and organization in all things.
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    “Of course, we needed a room where no sunlight could possibly enter. Those double default doors were brilliant,” the general rattled on, his Russian accent thickening as it usually did in times of stress, until he sounded almost like a caricature of himself. Not that any ancient Russian mafioso didn‟t sound like caricature, given what Hollywood had done to them.
     
    Addendum. Prevacek talked too much and he was a suck-up. Vonos could never fully trust a man who was either, let alone both. But that worked out fine for him, as he never intended to trust anyone. He had done so before and been betrayed, just like so many others had been betrayed.
     
    Drakos. The name burned through his mind as if the sunlight had managed to find the inner recesses of his skull.
     
    “Explain this to me. This theater troupe.” He drummed his fingernails on the slate desktop. He‟d ordered the furniture from Pottery Barn, simply because the irony of it amused him. “Why exactly would you order an unscheduled attack, potentially destroying months of my careful planning, merely to go after a group of amateur actors, may I ask?”
     
    “They were flaunting their disrespect, Primator,” Prevacek said, bowing low. “They were using the fort as a venue, even after we made it clear that the anti-vampire history of the fort was horrific to us.”
     
    “And you didn‟t think that this open display of aggression might provoke closer attention to our experiments with shifter enthrallment than I either wanted or needed at this stage?”
     
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    Prevacek flung himself forward, prostrating himself on the dark gray carpet. Carpet Barn. It fascinated Vonos how the humans had a “barn” for every need, when they were little better than farm animals themselves.
     
    “Please accept my profuse apologies, my lord,” Prevacek all but wept. “I will never do anything but exactly what you order, again.”
     
    Vonos silently considered the advantages and disadvantages of simply ripping the vampire‟s throat out and then burning his bones. It would be messy, true, but he had people for that. He wasn‟t sure the blood would come out of the new carpet, though, and really, he had no time or patience for a new installation before the ball.
     
    “Oh, get up and get out. Don‟t ever do something like this again, do you hear me?
    Especially considering that the ball is coming up so quickly. We have many important guests arriving, and I want very much to impress them.”
     
    Prevacek shot up off the carpet, not knowing how close he‟d been to the true death.
    “Oh, no, never, my lord, never,” he babbled. “I mean, yes, my lord, of course.”
     
    As Prevacek scurried out of the room and Vonos returned to his paperwork, another thought occurred to him. “Stop. What happened? What did the panthers report?”
     
    Prevacek froze, his hand on the door handle, and then slowly turned back around to face Vonos. “That‟s somewhat of a problem. They haven‟t checked in yet.”

Chapter 25
    St. Augustine, the beach
     
    Grace tried to absorb the fact that she was walking along a beach, in the daylight, hand in hand with an Atlantean warrior who claimed to love her.
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    It wasn‟t working.
     
    First, the day itself was only a brief respite in her duty. Alaric was due to arrive back at the fort to meet