Warriors of Poseidon 05 - Atlantis Redeemed

mostly ignoring them and arguing about some bet they’d made on sports, from the sound of it.
    “Now,” Brennan said, “we make a plan.”

Chapter 27
    Tunnels, deep underneath Yellowstone National Park
    Devon might have thought he currently stood in the worst situation in his long existence, had Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
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    he not previously faced down insane ancient vampires and—only once, but that had been far and away enough—the vampire goddess herself.
    This, however, was running in the top five.
    If all of them made it out alive, it would be the first vampire conclave he’d ever attended where that was the case. Even the notion of vampires, who were notoriously unable to play well with others, forming alliances was ridiculous.
    He spotted Jones over where the powerful vampire was holding court on one side of the long, bare room. Jones was the one who had discovered these tunnels more than a century ago and expanded them with the help of a large work-force of slave labor who later did double duty as food. Now only the bones of the dead workers knew the location of the vampires’ meeting halls, and as everyone knew, dead men told no tales.
    Unless the dead men were vampires. Then the tales were not only told, they were embellished, or exchanged for outright lies.
    He needed Tiernan Butler. Although, perhaps not. Her Gift apparently did not extend to vampires or psychopaths. Since many vampires were psychopaths, he idly wondered if that made their lies more impenetrable to her or if the two conditions canceled each other out. He’d have to ask her.
    If he lived to ask anyone anything, ever again.
    Smith drained the goblet of very fine brandy he’d been sipping and slammed it down on the table. “Who was that on the phone?”
    Devon glanced down at the cell phone he’d just disconnected, then back at Smith. “It was Dr.
    Litton, our favorite evil genius. He has captured Brennan.”
    “The rich human?”
    “Precisely.” Devon frowned. “I’d specifically told him to hold off and play along, but he claims that the man instigated violence.”
    “I wonder how Litton manipulated him into doing that,” Jones said, sneering. “He is one of the most unpleasant of the sheep I’ve ever had the bad fortune to encounter, but he is a clever little bastard.”
    “Does it matter?” Smith asked. “We have our money now, don’t we? Isn’t Brennan some kind of billionaire?”
    Devon shrugged. “Perhaps. But how pathetic are we that we hide in tunnels and depend on humans for our finances? Which among us is qualified to be a leader if we cannot fund our own plans?”
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    He knew that of every vampire in that room, he alone was rich enough to take on any and all political challenge. Everybody else knew it, too.
    Jones spat on the floor. “We know you have money, Devon, you don’t need to drop these heavy-handed hints. But why spend our money when we can so easily control the sheep?” He dropped an arm around his current blood slave, a dim-witted bottled blonde who was the heiress to some kind of soap products fortune.
    Jones had always chosen his food wisely, but in spite of the string of rich women he’d enthralled over the years, he never managed to hold on to much of the wealth.
    Why bother to save money when you could simply enslave another rich woman?
    Devon struggled to keep his expression calm and not show the disgust he felt. “The question at hand is which of us will run for the office of Primator? The concern, of course, is that if the office lies vacant too long, the humans will begin to wonder if there is any need for a Primator at all. And if no Primator, then why a Primus? They muddled along with only two houses of Congress for more than two hundred years, after all.”
    Smith nodded. “Some of the humans are already making noises that we are too violent and unstable to be in Congress. Plus they’re holding town hall meetings across the country, and there is very strong sentiment among those who dare speak up against us.”
    “The humans are less afraid to speak up since the rebels have been so successful on their many incursions against us,” Devon said.
    Jones hissed, his eyes glowing a vivid red. “We must squash these rebels once and for all. They are doing all they can to smash holes in our carefully constructed image of ourselves as law-abiding citizens.”
    “If they can get us