January in Atlantis - Alyssa Day (red white royal blue .txt) 📗

the only thing that’s going to keep me alive,” she finished, her head held high.

She’d seemed like a mouse back in the bar. A terrified, trembling little mouse. But she’d shown flashes of defiance even then, and the woman he sat across from now was talking about running even while her body language said that she wanted to fight. He’d known a lot of fighters in his life, and she had many of the hallmarks of one. He just needed to push her along; help her realize that she didn’t always have to be prey.

On the other hand, she was one small woman against a black-magic user and his buddies in the Dark Angels. What chance had she really had?

He studied her, sitting there curled up on the corner of the couch, and realized a single hard truth. Whatever happened, now or in the future, Eva was never again going to have to face this Scott or his Dark Angel pals alone.

Flynn was going to protect her from them. He was going to succeed this time, even though he never had before.

This time failure was not an option.

“I need to tell you about me. About us. Atlantis and Poseidon’s Warriors. About how I accidentally wound up being one,” he admitted, leaning forward, elbows on knees and hands loosely clasped. “Their—our—sworn duty is to protect humanity, and I need to wrap my head around that. I spent most of my life running, so I do understand you. I spent a lot of time being completely selfish in all ways too. But that ended when Poseidon himself marked me—when Denal told us about the girls.”

She leaned forward. “Tell me about the girls.”

So he did. He told her everything, honestly, even the truths that made him look bad. He told her about going home to find his brothers, about Denal and the warriors, and about the mission.

He didn’t tell her about his childhood. Not yet. He figured both of them had made enough painful confessions for one day.

Eva listened intently and asked a few clarifying questions but mostly just took in everything he had to say. When he finally finished, she jumped up and started pacing.

“I think it’s admirable what you’re doing, and—hey—it’s still hard to wrap my mind around the ‘you met Poseidon’ part of this.” She flashed a smile at him. “But what I don’t understand is what you expect from me. I don’t know anything about this chapter of the Dark Angels. I just got into town a couple of months ago. Like I said, I understand what you’re doing, but I don’t see how I can help. So I’m still back at where I was: I need to run, and I need to run now.”

Flynn, quite admirably, he thought, resisted the urge to pound his head into the wall in frustration. Instead, he stood and faced her. “I get it. Your situation is terrifying, and the best way you’ve found to cope is to run. It even makes sense. I did it for years. But here’s the thing: these girls can’t run. They’re prisoners. And the things that the Dark Angels will do to them are worse than any torture you can imagine.”

She spun around, turning her back as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. “I know," she cried. “Don’t you think I know? But what can I do that the police can’t?”

“You can help me figure out a way in. You learned something about the hierarchy of the chapter back in Oregon that Scott was a member of, right?”

“Snake.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Snake.” She turned back to face him and blew out a sigh. “When Scott really got in with the gang, they started calling him Snake. Snake and Monkey: the dynamic duo.”

Flynn rolled his eyes. “Poseidon’s balls. I don’t care if his name is Snake, Worm, or Lizard. You don’t understand how bad these guys can get—”

She took a step toward him and poked him in the chest, her face almost incandescent with anger. “Of course I understand these men—”

“No. You don’t.” Flynn caught her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. “You don’t understand them because you’re still calling them men. The upper echelon of the Dark Angels—do you know why they call themselves that? Dark Angels? Because they’re demons. Actual demons. Oriax, who’s rumored to be the head of the entire operation, is one of hell’s most-trusted generals.”

She wrenched her face out of his hand and shoved him, or at least she tried to shove him. It would take more effort than she had to actually push Flynn back a step. He caught her hands and held them against his chest.

“Please listen to me. Tell me what you know, as much as you can, and then you can run. Help me find a way in so we can get these girls before it’s too late.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then sighed. Ever so briefly, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his chest, giving him the oddest sensation. Almost as if he wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her close for a very long time.

This time though, he was the one to back away. Tender emotions were vastly more terrifying than demons, and much harder to understand than even the insane sexual attraction between them that was silent now but pulsing just beneath the surface of his skin. He was afraid of what might happen if he touched her—really touched her—afraid he’d lose all control.

Better to stay away because he would never, ever take a chance on frightening this woman.

“I’ll help,” she told him. “I’ll tell you whatever you need to know. We need to save those girls, you’re right. I can’t live with this on my conscience.”

“Thank you.” He touched her face gently. “Thank you.”

He started to say more, but then he heard Griffin calling to him on the Atlantean mental communication pathway. A few seconds later, the knock sounded at the window.

Eva gasped, stumbling back a step. “They found me. No, wait. That was— What was that? That’s the window over the garage. There aren’t any steps there.”

Flynn crossed to the window and jerked the curtains open to reveal Griffin’s face on the other side of the glass. He looked down and realized that Griffin was floating in midair outside the window.

Of course he was.

Mages. They were all a bunch of damn show-offs.

Flynn jerked his thumb to the side of the apartment where the door was, and Griffin nodded. He shut the curtains and turned to face Eva, whose face was pale. She was close to cracking, and he needed to tell Jake and Griffin: no more weird shit for a while.

Not that “no weirdness” would be easy to pull off with a mage and a mermaid rescuer for teammates.

He sighed.

“It’s okay. He’s with me. Sort of. He’s a mage, before you ask, so he’s odd, and he’s got these freaky silver eyes and white hair, but he’s definitely on my side. Not only is he sworn to Poseidon, but on top of that, mages despise demons.”

Eva nodded. “Fine. Sure. Of course he’s a mage. You’re an Atlantean, he’s a mage, and here we are. If a horse with a long face walks into my apartment next, we’re going to have the makings of a really great joke. Or an apocalypse.”

Flynn frowned at her. “Don’t all horses have long faces?”

She was still laughing when he opened the door but wouldn’t tell him why. He made the introductions and was perversely pleased when Eva made a point to stay closer to him than to Griffin.

“I’ve been all over town,” Griffin said, nodding to Eva but talking to Flynn. “No luck. I haven’t been able to locate the kind of magic signature that would signify the gathering of a large group of magic users, or demons, or both. I don’t know if that means they’re blocking it or if their location is somewhere outside town.”

“Outside town would make a lot more sense,” Flynn said.

“I don’t know where they could be because I haven’t seen any of the Dark Angels in town before tonight,” Eva put in. “Are you sure they even have a base here?”

Griffin looked at Flynn, who shrugged and answered, “I don’t know if it’s a base or just a onetime deal, but the sources we have definitely traced the girls here. The problem is local law enforcement and even Nevada’s governor are blocking P-Ops from coming in. They’re making noise about jurisdiction, but we suspect that either they’ve got somebody in the Dark Angels, or they’re being paid off. Either and/or both are likely. The gang controls too much crime, magic, and money.”

“The head of the group that just came into town, probably for the human sacrifices, is a seriously bad actor named Narco,” Griffin told them. “The rumor is that he was a mage, too, before he turned to black magic.”

“There have been rumors that the governor has ties to the gang,” Eva told them before she started to pace again. “I don’t know much, but here’s what I do know. Every local chapter has a leader. They call him an archangel, which is blasphemous, which seems to make them happy. He reports up the chain to a regional leader they call a demigod, also a bad joke, and the regional leaders report up to one head guy.” She glanced at Flynn, and he hated the fear in her eyes. “Or head demon, I guess.”

“And how do they take in new members?” Flynn asked, forcing himself not to go to her and scoop her up in his arms. Take her away from here. Never let her be afraid again.

The mission. The girls.

Eva shook her head. “There’s not a chance you or your friend could get in that way. At least not quickly. You impress them by doing something bad, and they might invite you. Isn’t that what your friend the surfer boy is doing?