Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

back if you fell.
    The door opened and the worst of the bunch walked in. Litton. The human. The man might actually be clinically insane. A man who would betray his own kind to the monsters who wanted to enslave them—he was indeed a valuable ally.
    And he was also a traitor to be continually watched—and immediately destroyed—at the first hint that he’d turned his traitorous ways against the vampires funding his research.
    The obsequious cockroach scuttled up to him, bobbing his head, a grimace of fear mixed with triumph plastered all over his face. Devon clenched his teeth just a little to keep the sneer off his face. “Dr. Litton.”
    “Mr. Devon, I’m thrilled to be able to inform you that Mr. Brennan is here. Our generous benefactor himself,” Litton said, all but rubbing his hands together in a caricature of a mad scientist from a film.
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    “Brennan. Yes, I know that name.” Devon said, remembering the last time he’d seen the man, but keeping his own counsel. “What do we have to show him for his half million?”
    “We’ve got the model lab all set up,” Litton said, not quite daring to meet Devon’s eyes. “Just as you said.”
    One of the oldest vampires in the room, in fact one of the oldest vampires still roaming the earth, slammed a fist down on the conference table. This one called himself Mr. Jones, although Devon supposed that when you were that old and that powerful, you could call yourself anything you liked.
    “I don’t like it,” Jones said, his voice a tangle of dark and nasty things.
    Humans had been rumored to have gone mad just from the sound of Jones’s voice. Litton was unaffected, but for more bowing and scraping, thus strengthening Devon’s assumption that the man was already insane.
    “Why would we possibly waste time and effort with a human? We are near to our final goal of permanent enthrallment of the sheep and the shifters alike,” Jones continued, “thanks to this one and his colleagues. We have no need to perform like trained monkeys.”
    “I-I’m not a fan of the way you call humans ‘sheep,’” Litton dared to say, his voice shaking with either outrage or terror.
    “Of course you aren’t,” Devon said, suddenly tired of the entire game. But he had chosen this path long ago, and one of the disadvantages of his choice was the necessity of working with fools. “Are we ready?”
    “We’re ready to go forward with the next stage of human trials,” Litton protested. “We need more money for that. Lots more money. And Mr. Brennan has ten million dollars earmarked for us. He just wanted to be sure he was getting his money’s worth.”
    “A wise businessman,” Devon drawled. “Smarter than your average human, then.”
    Another of the eldest vampires spoke up. This one controlled much of the Pacific Northwest, now that Barabbas was gone. He styled himself Mr. Smith, either in homage to, or mockery of, Mr. Jones. “Why not just kill him and take his money? I have no taste for the job of humoring humans, and this century brings far too much of it.”
    “We brought that on ourselves, when we came out and let the sheep know we existed. Far better to have stayed in the shadows, as we have for thousands of years,” Jones snarled, his fangs down and glistening with spittle.
    Devon looked around the room, at each of them in turn, but skated his gaze past the far corner.
    Other than Smith and Jones, none of the vampires was willing to speak up and commit themselves to one plan of action or the other.
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    “We’re ready to go forward,” Litton repeated. “Can we bring him to the lab tonight?”
    Before Devon could reply, a knock sounded at the door, which then opened to show Litton’s nervous assistant. “Excuse me, Dr. Litton? Um, sorry to bother you, sir, but we have a little problem.”
    “I told you not to interrupt me,” Litton snapped, gesturing frantically for the man to leave.
    Devon thought not. “Come in, please, Mr.—?”
    “Wesley, sir. Er, Your Lordship, um, sir,” the man babbled, sweat dotting his forehead and the sour smell of fear reeking from his every pore. “It’s Wesley.”
    “Well, Mr. Wesley, what do you have to tell us?”
    The man’s face contorted as he tried to keep all of the vampires and his employer in sight at the same time. “Uh, well, it’s about Mr. Brennan.”
    “What about