He put his hands around the throat of a goddess.
“You dare to touch me! I will kill you all,” Anubisa screamed in his face, and a blast of such twisted, black, and powerful magic smashed into him that he very nearly lost his grip on her as she hissed, clawed, and fought him.
She regenerated her arm with little effort and swung out at the princes, but Conlan easily ducked her spear this time.
“Good-bye, Anubisa,” Conlan said. “You are done. This is for my mother, and for seven long, wasted years.”
With that, Conlan pushed Alaric to the side and plunged his sword into Anubisa’s heart.
“This is for my mother, and for the lifetime I missed with my brothers,” Justice said, and he plunged his sword into her neck.
“This is for all of our family over the last five thousand years who suffered because you didn’t know how to take rejection,” Ven said, and he shoved his dagger into her gut.
Her black, black blood spattered across the marble floor like macabre patterns of evil traced on a pristine scroll, and she screamed and screamed, calling so much dark power to her that Alaric knew she’d be able to heal her wounds and escape them before long.
He had only a single recourse available to him, and he had no way to know if he’d survive it.
He must use the Trident.
He leapt into the air, shot over to the pedestal, and dared to borrow the greatest power object of the sea god to whom he had once, so long ago, sworn his life.
“I call upon you for assistance, in the name of Poseidon, and in the name of Atlantis,” he told the Trident, making the words both plea and command.
And, by all the gods, the Trident heard and responded.
It leapt into his hand, and Alaric whirled around and plunged its tip into Anubisa’s body. The Trident blazed up with a corona of pure, silver-blue energy—power that nearly seared Alaric’s skin off the bones of his hand where he held it. Power that no mere mortal was meant to wield rushed through him, and he shouted as the vampire screamed.
The room lit up with the glow of the Trident’s magic, and Alaric was sure he would either explode or die from trying to channel it, because there was too much—far, far too much. It was pure, ocean-based life force—it rang with the song of the whales; it danced with the joy of the dolphins. It soared with the majesty of all sea creatures in Poseidon’s dominion, and Alaric’s body shook with the power of its mystery and majesty.
It was life force, and as such, it was anathema to a vampire, especially one who claimed to be a goddess of death.
Anubisa glowed a bright, terrifying blue, and light streamed from her eyes and nose and mouth and ears, and then she screamed and begged as the Trident stripped her magic, her powers, and, finally, her beauty from her, leaving her a shriveled, wasted creature lying on the ground.
They stood in a loose circle around Alaric and Anubisa—Conlan, Ven, and Justice—impassive, weapons ready, and they watched the monster who had tortured the Atlantean royal family for millennia as she died.
Alaric yanked the Trident from her skeleton and replaced it on its pedestal after cleansing it with a burst of purifying water magic, which took the very last ounce of his energy. Channeling the power of the Trident had exhausted him, and he had no idea when—or if—his magic would replenish, but he decided that must be a worry for another time.
“Atlantis is safe, and I have you to thank for it,” Conlan said to Alaric, reaching out an arm to clasp his friend’s.
“Thanks for the help,” Justice told Alaric. “We were afraid we were done for.”
Together, the four of them walked around Anubisa’s body to stare at the Trident, now resting silently on its cushion but still glowing with barely contained power.
Ven whistled. “I can’t believe you used that thing without getting blown up.”
“Nor can I,” Alaric confessed.
“Do you think Poseidon even knows Atlantis has risen?” Conlan asked.
A tiny sound alerted them to movement far too late for any of them to do anything about it, and the bolt of black magic smashed them all to the floor, face-first.
“He won’t know until you are all dead,” Anubisa shrieked.
Alaric raised his head to see a creature from a nightmare—all bones and melted flesh—hovering behind them, prepared to fire a death blow of magic, and Alaric called to magic that would not answer.
He’d burned out his powers wielding the Trident, and now his mistake would cost them all their lives.
No. Not Quinn. He reached deep inside himself for a reserve that he couldn’t have guessed he had, and he came up swinging a sword of pure silver light. From seemingly out of nowhere, a small form came running across the floor toward Anubisa at the exact same time, firing bullet after bullet into the vampire.
“I think not,” Quinn shouted.
When Anubisa whipped her head toward Quinn, Alaric’s blade sliced in an arc of flashing silver fire, and the vampire goddess’s head flew through the air.
Anubisa’s body, separated from her head, melted into a spiral of oily black smoke and then disappeared.
Alaric strode over to Quinn, who dropped the gun on the floor in a clatter of metal on marble.
“Your excellent distraction saved our lives,” Alaric said, and then he lifted her into his arms and kissed the very breath out of her.
“I think it was your magic that saved our lives, and all of Atlantis,” she replied, when she could talk again.
“We all did it,” Alaric said, looking around the room. “Together.”
Conlan walked over to Anubisa’s head, which was slowly disintegrating against the wall. “If I were one of my ancestors, I’d display this on a pike on the castle walls.”
“She’d deserve it,” Justice snarled.
“But who wants to look at her ugly mug?” Ven said. “I’m going to go find my woman, if we’re done fighting demons and vampires and any freaking other thing that might want a piece of us.”
“Your woman?” Erin said, entering the room. “Really? We’ve been looking for you for half an hour.” She looked around the room. “Why are you here? Taking a break?”
“They killed a vampire,” Riley said, walking into the room holding Aidan.
“To be fair, it was the vampire. Anubisa is finally dead. And we killed a demon and all his brothers, too,” Ven said, pulling Erin into his arms.
Keely ran into the room and headed straight for Justice. “Don’t you ever, ever do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Nearly die. I could feel it,” she said, before kissing him.
“It wasn’t on purpose. But now we feel like we can sleep without tainted dreams again,” Justice told Keely. “We can’t believe she’s finally dead.”
“Who’s cleaning this up?” Erin wanted to know, gesturing to the two oily black stains on the floor, which were all that was left of Anubisa’s head and body.
“Since when is Alaric super-light-up man?” Keely asked.
“Later,” Quinn promised. “Do we still have more vampires to kill?”
Keely shook her head, her red hair flying. “Nope. Anubisa must have been controlling them, because just about the time you must have been killing her, the rest of them melted and vanished. All of them. The only live vampire left on Atlantis is Daniel, and trust me, he killed his share of Anubisa’s minions.”
“He, too, has a special reason to hate her,” Alaric said.
“Past tense,” Quinn pointed out. “He had a special reason, because the wicked vampire goddess is dead!”
Alaric caught her when she leapt into his arms, and he turned and headed out.