Warriors of Poseidon 06 - Atlantis Betrayed

a little. “Not human. Not breakable.”
    Holding his hands up in a placating gesture, Punk Boy floated back and away from him. “Got no beef with you. Just surprised to see somebody in my spot.”
    “You’re Queen Victoria, then?”
    The vampire laughed and, surprisingly, seemed to be genuinely amused. “Know your Latin, do you?”
    It was Christophe’s turn to shrug. “I get by.” But then an inconvenient twinge of duty nagged at him, and he sighed. “You planning to kill any humanity tonight?”
    “Any humanity?” The vamp floated a little closer, but carefully still out of reach, his pierced eyebrows drawing together as he studied Christophe. “What are you talking about?”
    Christophe slid the dagger from its sheath and studied its liquid silver gleam of reflected moonlight, not raising his gaze to the vamp. “Duty, sacred oath, blah blah blah. If you’re planning to kill any humans, I need to end you.”
    “I’d be stupid to say yes, then, wouldn’t I?” The vamp’s voice held genuine curiosity, and not a little wariness.
    “Stupid. Vampire.” Christophe shrugged again. “Yeah, those words have gone together a time or two.”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    Atlantis Betrayed – Warriors of Poseidon 06
    Page 4 of 188
    The vamp eyed the dagger. “No, I’m not planning to kill anybody tonight. Or ever, for that matter. Who needs all the trauma, with synth blood and donors?”
    Christophe judged the vamp to be sincere enough. He considered killing him with a thrown dagger anyway, just for something to do, but didn’t really feel like chasing his dagger all that way down after it sliced the vamp’s head off. Especially since his night wasn’t over—he still had to go steal one of the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
    He slid the blade into its sheath and shot a considering stare at the bloodsucker. “So. Here’s a question.
    Was Jack the Ripper a vampire?”
    Campbell Manor, Coggeshall, Essex
    Fiona pulled the scarlet leggings up, then the trousers, tying them at the waist, knees, and ankles, and fastened her belt over her jacket. Technically, it wasn’t ninja gear, but it was so important to have the right accessories these days, although no fashion magazine would ever feature her hand-worked leather tool belt with its many compartments on an Up-and-Coming Trends page. A memory flashed into her mind, though, as her fingers checked the snap on one tiny pocket that held her backup switchblade, and she laughed. Her assistant Madeleine had rushed into Fiona’s office just last week waving a glossy magazine in the air. Vogue UK had done a spread on the new color for spring: a gleaming scarlet. The red of a slash of bold lipstick—of freshly spilled blood. The red on Fiona’s calling cards, which the entire world had seen by now. TV presenters delighted in spouting breathless and inane theories as to her identity while showing the cards in their full silver-and-scarlet glory.
    The Scarlet Ninja was setting fashion trends, even though everyone thought she was a he.
    “Sorry, Dad,” she murmured, glancing out the window into the uncharacteristically clear night sky, as if he might be looking down at her from heaven. Spring weather was wet, wet, and more wet, but she’d planned this little outing for the one night this week that the meteorologists had promised would be dry. So unpleasant to plan impossible heists in the pouring rain, after all.
    The expected knock came, and she heaved a sigh. “I’m not decent, Hopkins, please go away.”
    The door opened and the man who was the nearest thing to a grandfather she’d ever had walked in, carrying a tray. “I prefer indecency in both women and foreign films. Chocolate?”
    Fiona sighed again and tried not to grit her teeth at the sight of his perfectly combed silver hair and his perfectly proper black suit. It was after midnight, for heaven’s sake. “I don’t have time for chocolate.
    And I’m not a little girl anymore, whom you must coddle out of her nightmares. You should be in bed, wearing your lovely pajamas that Madeleine gave you for your birthday. You look like a butler, Hopkins.”
    “I am a butler, Lady Fiona,” he responded, exactly as he had a billion or so times since they’d started this verbal dance more than twenty years ago, when her father died. “I was your father’s butler, may he rest in peace, and before that your grandfather’s butler, may God rot his vicious soul.”
    “You’re not supposed to speak