Atlantis Unleashed (7 page)

Emeralds infused with moonlight.

As if summoned by his thoughts, a face appeared in his mind. A woman. Laughing, but carrying a weight of sadness in her eyes.

Her emerald-colored eyes.

Bastien nudged his shoulder, jolting him from the vision. Justice didn't know whether to feel relief or regret. Settled on neither.

“Dreaming about that wooden woman, my friend?”

“Not a woman. Just a fish.”

Tuning out their laughter, he bent his head to the wood. He could see it now. See the elegant curves and angles of her face.

No. Not her face. The fish. Just a fish.

And yet . . .

And yet somehow far more. Somehow, something—some
one
—who gleamed like emeralds in the corner of his mind.

He'd finish it in the next several days and then perhaps gift it to one of the native children. No point to keep it. No reason to carry it back to Atlantis.

After all, fancies of emeralds aside, it was just a fish.

Present day, the Void

Sound grated through darkness to ears grown unused to listening. A distant bellow, a nearness of shambling sighs. Something large stirring in the dark.

The Void.
Justice knew those words held meaning, meaning he could not decipher. He was Justice of . . . of Atlantis.

But what Atlantis might be crouched slyly under the mist inside his mind.

The
geas
was broken—he had broken it. Centuries of being bound by a curse never to reveal the circumstances of his birth unless he immediately killed anyone who had heard him do so. Cursed forever to be separated from his two half brothers. He'd shattered that curse in those final moments when . . . when . . .

But the memory was lost in shadowed histories of pain. Sanity had waved its final farewell so long ago. Now duty and revenge beckoned to his consciousness, called out to what was left of Self. Isolated Names that carried weight and resonated with ravaged emotion, both light . . .

Ven.

Conlan.

Erin.

Riley.

And dark . . .

Justice flinched, wheeling backward in the blackness of limbo. Anguish battled rage in the murky confines of his mind.
Anubisa.
Better not to think of her.

The sounds again. Something large moaning wetly in the dark as it lurched closer and closer.

But the face. The light.
Her.
The name. He fought for it; screamed silently into the endless emptiness of Night. Failing, always failing to achieve it. Her name.

Her.

The beast—beast? Monster? The nameless evil that approached him grunted out a series of growls, growing louder in its eagerness.

Focus.
A name, not hers. Ancient wisdom passed down. Archelaus. A voice in his head.

Death. Was it his time? Would he even regret life's passing? Philosophical thoughts unsuited for the eternal dark of Void, perhaps. Why not let death approach and conquer?

End the ceaseless pain.

An arrow of golden light shot through the dark, blinding him. Light after eons of darkness, burning through his retinas and stabbing into his brain, trapping him in its glory. Refusing to let him retreat.

The light centered around a face.
Her
face, surrounded by a flaming corona of red hair. Green eyes alight with a fierce intelligence, yet shadowed by remembered pain.

She was a conundrum. She was hope personified.

She was
his
.

Justice knew, and he was transformed. He roared out a challenge to the monstrous creature that approached him, even as the golden light seared through him again, nearly doubling him over with its heat and flame.

She was
his
. And her name was Keely.

Archaeology Department,
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

Keely folded her arms, realizing that both of the men in her cramped office could read her body language like a red warning flag, but not giving much of a damn. “I don't care how prestigious it is, or what an honor, or which government is asking. I need a vacation.”

The powerful-looking man in the black suit opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand to stop him. “Look, Mr. Liam—”

“Just Liam,” he said, a trace of impatience in his voice.

She studied his chiseled cheekbones and the waves of silken black hair that were just a shade too long for him to be a standard-issue government flunky. The breadth of his shoulders and chest combined with his towering height didn't add up to cubicle jockey, either. Not with that kind of muscle. But since when did civil servants start looking like ancient warriors?

Keely blinked, and suddenly she knew. The carving resting against her chest seemed almost to burn her skin. This Liam looked like
him
. Like her warrior. The one who had carved her fish. Something about the angle of the cheekbones, or the arrogant command stamped in the planes and angles of his face.

They could have been brothers . . . no, cousins, maybe.

Then again, jet lag could be making guacamole with her brain waves.

Almost as if he could see through her skull to her thoughts, Liam's midnight-blue eyes narrowed and, for half a second or so, seemed to flash silver at her.

Right. The amazing changing-eye-color trick. Sheesh. She wasn't just tired; she was at a whole new level beyond tired. Zombified, maybe. She suddenly felt in need of protection and glanced at her discarded gloves, which lay on her desk. But she didn't need them; everything had been cleared. She was safe in her office. “Okay, Liam. Here's the thing.”

She lifted her shoulders and rolled her neck to try to alleviate the tension that had knotted her up into hunchback status. “I spent eighteen months out of the past two years working the Lupercale, in three-month stints. Eighteen months, three cave-ins, one mugging, and two trips to the emergency room.” She shook her head. “You'd think my Italian would have improved more by now.”

George Grenning spoke up from where he hunched in a chair by the door, seemingly trying to fit his lanky frame into the smallest possible space. She'd worked with him for five years. George was a renowned researcher, frequent publisher, and Indiana Jones wannabe. Even though he was head of her department, therefore her boss, and had fifteen years of age and experience over her, he still didn't have any self-confidence. “The Lupercale. The actual cave where a she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome. I'd give my left arm to have been invited on that dig.”

Keely's eyes narrowed, but George's open, affable face showed only a touch of awe, no envy. Archaeology was a small world, and academic politics sometimes lent themselves more to backstabbing professional jealousy than any true camaraderie, as she'd learned, painfully, through her own experiences. Even though he outranked her in the office and in the field, her special . . . talent . . . meant that she was highly in demand.

Highly in demand, in spite of the fact that nobody she'd ever worked with had known that she was anything but normal. They all credited her with “amazing cognitive leaps” or, less generously, “women's intuition.”

If she'd told them the artifacts literally talked to her, she'd be coordinating her future digs from the loony bin.

Liam turned the full effect of his “I am in command” stare on George, who shriveled even further. “Dr. Grenning, while I appreciate professional curiosity, I have very little time. Perhaps you could excuse us while Dr. McDermott and I discuss the parameters of our request?”

Keely almost laughed at the sheer nerve of the man. He'd just dismissed George from
her
office. “George stays,” she said flatly, lifting her Diet Coke and downing a healthy gulp. Maybe a little caffeine would help. “And you're not the only one with very little time. I said no, so perhaps you should be on your way?”

Liam clenched his jaw, and the illusion of pleasant persuasion he'd worn like a mask faded, leaving stark arrogance and command stamped on his features. “I would be more than pleased to accept your denial, except that my high prince has tasked me with this mission,” he gritted out. “We are aware of your Gift, Lady Keely. We know you are an object reader, and as such you possess a Gift believed long lost in the waters of time. For that reason, and because of your reputation as a brilliant archaeologist of impeccable integrity, it is my honor to invite you to Atlantis.”

Keely's laughter got trapped in her throat as she looked into his eyes, which now smouldered with pure liquid silver, distracting her. “How do you do that thing with the eyes? And, seriously? Atlantis? The lost continent? You—”

The beginning of his statement suddenly registered, and she shot an alarmed look at George, who was staring avidly at the psycho who claimed to be from Atlantis. “My gift? I don't know what you're talking about, and clearly you're a nutcase. Atlantis, right. Sure, let me pencil that in.”

She pretended to scan her desk calendar, but the phrase “object reader” whirled in her mind, scratching at something buried deep. Ignoring it, she smiled sweetly and utterly insin cerely at Liam. “I can fit Atlantis in two weeks from now, right after I excavate Oz.”

Liam never cracked a smile. “I know not this Oz, but your priorities just changed.”

“Look, I'm going to call campus security,” she began, standing up and scanning her desk for anything she could use as a weapon if he got violent. The marble bust of Philip of Macedonia had possibilities, but it was too far away.

“Of course you must call whomever you wish,” Liam said. But in a movement too fast for her to actually see, he leaned across her desk and pressed something into her hand, then folded her fingers around it.

Instantly, the sheer age of the smooth stone in her hand registered in every one of Keely's nerve endings. “No! No, my gloves—you don't understand—”

Then the history enveloped her. Centuries of presence whirled her into the maelstrom, and her body arched into a painful spasm as she fell across her desk, crying out, her last sight the slight hint of regret shadowing Liam's face.

Unprepared—completely and utterly unprepared—she went under.

“I need you, my darling.” The words came from Keely's lips but the voice was not hers. She looked down at the blue silken gown she wore over a voluptuous body and realized the body was not her own, either. As often happened, she was trapped in the vision—an active participant in the life of someone who'd had vivid emotions involving the object she held.