Atlantis Redeemed (19 page)

The vise grip that squeezed Brennan’s chest at the thought was enough to underscore Alexios’s words. “No, you are correct, unfortunately,” he admitted.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Tiernan said, glaring at Alexios. “And Brennan doesn’t need this from you after he had to face two human thugs in the hotel and three murderous vamp guards out here.”

Alexios scanned the area. “If there were three, there could be more. I don’t suppose they happened to tell you what they were up to?”

“They did, actually. They wanted Brennan and me to go back to the hotel, but when we didn’t immediately go along with the plan, they decided that they’d force us.”

Brennan tensed all over again, remembering the dead vamps’ threats against Tiernan. “They weren’t overly concerned with keeping us uninjured, either. I fear that something has changed in the overall strategy.”

A trilling birdcall sounded through the darkness and Alexios smiled. “We’re here,” he called, and moments later Grace stepped through the trees, her bow drawn and an arrow at the ready. She nodded at Tiernan and Brennan and lowered her bow.

“When I was leaving, I overheard some of the guards saying that three of the vamps haven’t reported in, so they’re going to send out a search party for you two,” she said. “This would be a good time to get out of Dodge.”

Brennan stared at her, confused, but Tiernan supplied the translation. “She means we need to get out of here, fast. Reinforcements are on the way.”

“I can’t call the portal except at a body of seawater,” Alexios said. “I’m not that strong with the magic, and it rarely answers me. Damn capricious thing.”

“Nor can I, generally, but I will certainly try now,” Brennan said grimly. He squeezed Tiernan’s hand and then released it. Holding both arms up to the sky, he closed his eyes and called to the portal. “If ever you heeded my call, please let it be now. We have need of you for transport to the shining isle.”

At first, there was nothing, but they all waited, breath held, in hopeful anticipation. After a full minute had passed, Brennan sighed, his shoulders slumping. “It’s no use,” he began, but Tiernan grabbed his hand again.

“I think you’re wrong about that,” she whispered, nodding her head toward his left.

As they all watched, a silvery glimmer of light formed in the shape of a long, straight line and then stretched and widened in three dimensions until a glowing ovoid sphere floated steadily about a foot off the ground, its shape tall and wide enough to admit them, one at a time.

“It worked,” Brennan said, filled with an awe so poignant his throat ached with it. “The portal knew I needed to protect Tiernan, and it answered my call.”

“Love conquers all,” Grace said, patting her stomach in an odd manner, and Alexios started laughing and then led the way through the portal.

“Next stop, Atlantis?” Tiernan asked, with only the tiniest quiver in her voice.

“Next stop, Atlantis, my brave warrior woman.”

Still holding her hand, Brennan stepped through the portal, bringing the woman who would change everything to the place where nothing ever seemed to change. Oh, by all the gods, this might prove to be a wild ride, but she was safe, and she was his one true mate, as ordained by Poseidon himself.

Nothing else mattered.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Litton’s lab, underneath Yellowstone National Park

 

Devon stared around the main laboratory, silently taking inventory of the destruction. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment—smashed. Shattered beyond hope of repair. Months of work—ruined. He stepped over the dead body in its bloodstained lab coat and walked over to the primary experiment chair. It was a wreck. Cables and cords yanked out of their sockets, some still sparking dangerously. The chair itself knocked loose from its base.

Litton stormed into the room, then skidded to a stop as he took in the extent of the damage. It almost amused Devon to watch all blood drain out of the scientist’s face, until his pallor rivaled that of any vampire.

Almost.

“How did this happen?” Litton said, still gaping. “Who is responsible for this?”

Devon kicked a bloody chunk of what looked like shifter fur out of his way. “The obvious answer is that you are, Dr. Litton. This is your lab.”

Litton’s face crumpled and his mouth worked, but all he managed to do was make incoherent squawking sounds.

“If that translates to ‘why, yes, Devon, I am at fault and will be glad to explain how I let a multimillion-dollar experimental lab be destroyed
the day my new benefactor comes to town to see it
, I would love to hear more.”

Devon stalked across the room to the bank of computer stations where the techs recorded data, as he knew from the single time he’d been able to stomach watching. Paths and choices, he reminded himself. He only needed to stay focused and the real prize would soon be his.

Litton was reduced to sputtering now, but still nothing that made any sense was coming out of his mouth, and Devon quickly grew tired of waiting for him to regain his powers of speech.

“Guards,” he called out. “Clean up this mess. We need it to be in perfect shape by tomorrow afternoon.”

Three of the shifters and two vampire guards rushed into the room and immediately began working. One of the shifters pointed to the dead scientist.

“What do we do with him, sir?”

Devon shrugged. “Whatever you want, as long as there isn’t as much as a sticky spot on the floor tomorrow to show that he was ever here.”

One of the vamps eyed Devon cautiously before speaking up. “Sir, I’m sure you’ve thought of this, but is there a record he was working with Litton? If there are any questions about his disappearance, we don’t want him connected to the project.”

“Good point. We’ll take care of that. Thank you.” Devon made a mental note to remember the face of this vampire with such excellent strategic thinking skills. It would be very useful for later.

Another of Litton’s scientists, a human, wandered in from the doorway that led back to the holding area. The man was covered in blood and seemed to be in a profound state of shock, judging by the blank stare and stumbling gait. His name tag was dangling from his ripped lab coat, so Devon had to tilt his head to read it.

“Dr. Orson, what happened here?”

It took Orson a while to focus, but he finally managed to train his gaze somewhere near Devon’s shoulder. The man’s eyes were rolling around in their sockets, though, and the effect was quite unpleasant.

Devon steeled himself to objectivity; Orson was a man who had chosen to experiment on his own kind. He was one of the worst kind of sheep and deserved no pity.

“The shifters,” Orson mumbled. “The shifters can’t all take it. There were two of them at one time, you know, we had the new chair, and they both broke free and attacked.”

Devon turned to Litton, who was still wringing his hands in a corner, staring at the wreckage of his pride and joy. “What is he babbling about? What new chair?”

“What? Oh, the chair,” Litton said, waving a hand at it. Unfortunately, it was as badly damaged as the primary chair. “We just connected the second chair yesterday so we could run two test subjects through at once. Too many of the shifters’ brains rejected the treatment. Something about their brain patterns is so different from human brain patterns that we couldn’t quite overcome it.”

“What happened when you couldn’t overcome it?” Devon demanded, pretty sure he already knew the answer, but wanting to hear it confirmed.

“This happened,” Litton shouted, waving his arms at the destruction. “They go nuts, become wildly aggressive and violent, and we have to put them down.”

“Put them down?” Devon repeated. “You have to
put them down
?”

Even Litton, the king of self-absorption, must have noticed the deadly menace in Devon’s voice, because his head snapped up, and after one look at Devon’s face, the scientist backed rapidly around to the other side of the destroyed chair.

“What else could we do? They were horribly dangerous. Not just to us, but to each other and to themselves. They even cannibalize each other.” Litton shuddered, his lip curling back from his crooked teeth. “Sometimes it happens here, but sometimes, like this week, they seem fine and under control, and we release them to perform some task and they blow up. Sort of a delayed reaction to the mind control.”

“So much blood. All over the place, blood and blood and blood,” Orson added, still stumbling around. “So much blood. Going to take a shower now.”

Devon and Litton watched him in silence as he wandered back out of the lab, smacking his head on the doorway as he walked through it.

“You’d better get him some medical treatment,” Devon ordered one of the guards.

The man nodded and rushed off after Orson, and Devon returned his attention to Litton.

“So, this brilliant success,” Devon said, making perfectly sure that Litton heard the harsh sarcasm in his voice, “this made you think it was a good idea to experiment on two shifters at once?”

Litton made those odd scrunching motions with his mouth again, and Devon wanted to weep that he’d been reduced to working with such a blind, pathetic fool. He wondered, yet again, how far he was willing to take this path. Did the end truly justify the means, or was that merely a convenient excuse for morally ambiguous madmen?

“We had plenty of guards,” Litton finally said weakly. “I don’t understand—”

“I know you don’t understand, you egomaniacal idiot,” Devon shouted, cutting the damn fool off. “You don’t understand anything about shifter packs or prides or any other units of family, but you dare to experiment on them?”

Litton puffed, drawing himself up to his full height, but he still had to look up to meet Devon’s gaze. “I beg your pardon, but I happen to be the neuroscientist here, and I—”

“Know nothing. You know nothing,” Devon said quietly, realizing shouting wasn’t accomplishing anything, however much better it might make him feel. “If two shifters are from the same pack, for example two wolves from the Yellowstone Pack, then being in close proximity to each other strengthens them far beyond any resistance they might have on their own.”

Litton scoffed. “Moral support means nothing against science.”

“I’m not talking about moral support. I’m talking about power. Real power. Magic.” Devon shot a pointed look down at what remained of the experimental chair. “The kind of magic that allows them to shift in the first place causes an actual change in their brain patterns, you incompetent fool. Did you think that human brain patterns stay the same when the humans shift into animal form?”

Litton hooked a finger in his collar and nervously yanked it away from his neck. “Ah, we were working on that, but—”

“But you got your asses handed to you on a platter. By shifters. Where are they, by the way?”

“Where are who?”

It took everything in him to keep from smashing the doctor’s head into his own computer bank. “The shifters, Dr. Litton. Where are the shifters who caused all this?”

“They’re dead, sir.” The helpful vamp spoke up again. “They killed each other before we could stop them.”

“Right,” Devon drawled. “I’m sure stopping them was such a priority.”

A flash of hate skittered over the vamp’s eyes, but he simply nodded and got on with the cleanup.

Litton, however, wasn’t smart enough to let it be. “They’re not humans at all,” he said. “The shifters. They’re freaks of nature. Mutations. Most people think they should be destroyed, but we want to study them so we can learn how to control them. Harness them for the good of others. We should be rewarded for this humanitarian service, not forced to hide in the dark.”

Devon studied the man. Was Litton brave or stupid? Strangely enough, he was never quite able to come to an answer on that. “Interesting you’d say ‘freak of nature’ to a vampire. Especially when you—a human—betray your own kind.”

“I don’t—”

“Experiment on humans? No? You forget, Doctor, that I’ve seen your tapes of the various test subjects.” They had sickened him, not that anybody but Deirdre had ever seen his weakness.

“Scientific experimentation is the purest form of scientific pursuit,” Litton snapped. “When the International Association of Preternatural Neuroscientists meets in Ireland in a few months, I should have very interesting data to present.”

“Will you?” Devon slowly turned his head from side to side, studying the room once more. “Or will you be out on your ass now that you have let your lab be destroyed? We need Brennan and his money. Why would he give it to us now, when it’s clear we’ve wasted what he already donated? You may have killed this project before it really had a chance to begin. Congratulations, Dr. Litton. You’re still the same royal screwup you were at USC. Only now, you don’t have tenure.”

Litton slammed a hand down on the nearest computer and then jumped back when sparks showered from its damaged monitor. “You’re not in charge as much as you think you are. When the others get here tomorrow, they’ll listen to me.”

“Oh, I’m sure they will listen,” Devon said, baring his fangs. “I’m not at all convinced, however, that they’re going to like what they hear.”

He’d had all he could take. It was time to go before he added Litton’s corpse to the tally of mess that needed to be cleaned up. He turned and headed for the door.

“I want this spotless and ready for demonstration by tomorrow afternoon,” he called out to Litton, not bothering to look back. “Or you may find your brain is the next one to go under the probes.”