“Does he know who he is?” Alaric demanded.
Serai shook her head but then nodded. “I think so?” The power had gone from her voice, and all that remained was exhaustion.
“Honestly, I don’t know what he knows,” she admitted. “Or who he knows. If he has reverted fully to tiger and only tiger, he’s not safe to be around.”
Quinn squared her shoulders but then dropped down to put a hand on Serai’s shoulder. “Thank you. No matter what else, you brought him back from death. We’ll figure the rest out. I owe him that much.”
Alaric called to his own particular brand of Atlantean power, and a silvery blue light soared up from the priest’s hands and then spread out to surround the tiger, who snarled weakly and then sat up, shivering in the light. Jack’s bloodstained fur was dark and matted, but the gashes were healed.
“I can’t tell,” Alaric said. “I just don’t know. Shape-shifters are too different from Atlanteans, and Poseidon’s power recoils from trying to analyze the mind of a tiger.”
“Your magic is unbalanced without the soul-meld,” Serai said absently, brushing Alaric aside as if he were a troublesome child.
The priest stared at her, his eyes widening. “What do you mean? I am the most powerful—”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard it,” Serai interrupted. “Most powerful high priest in the history of Atlantis. But it’s not true, you know. I’ve been around for all of them since Atlantis dove beneath the sea. Your power is not even close to that Nereus wielded. At least, before his wife died and he almost drowned the world.”
“What—”
Quinn cut him off, and her voice was hoarse with barely repressed pain. “I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it right now. Not the bankers, or the rebellion, or any damn part of it. I sure as hell don’t care about Atlantean ancient history. I’m leaving, and I’m taking Jack with me. Somewhere he can be safe, until we figure this out. I owe him that. I owe him my life, several times over.”
Alaric took her hand in his and nodded. “Of course. I know just the place. I’ll take you there now, and I’ll never, ever leave your side again.”
The shimmer of magic that surrounded Alaric as he said it told Daniel that the priest had just made a vow he wouldn’t be able to break without serious consequence. Words had power, and some more than others. Their future would be even more complicated now.
Alaric slashed a hand through the air, and the now-familiar portal began to shimmer in the dark.
“You should come with us, Princess,” Alaric said. “We can help you.”
“You need my help, priest,” Serai said, putting a hand on Daniel’s arm. “I have protection beyond your knowledge in the presence of the mage beside me.”
Daniel didn’t deserve her praise. Skills learned as a mage millennia ago were so long gone as to be rusty with disuse. Only good for destroying furniture and cake. He couldn’t help, unless . . .
Unless he called to the dying soul of the human—which happened to be a special talent of the Nightwalker Guild. It was better to leave a live body behind than a dead one, according to the rules they’d stuffed in his head. Common decency or morality had nothing to do with guild law, but practicality ruled all.
“I can help, possibly,” he said. “Let me try to reach Jack.”
“What can you do? Try to blood bond a tiger?” Quinn shook her head. “Go away, Daniel, there’s no need for your special skills here.”
“I have forgotten more magic than most of your human witches ever possess, Quinn, and one of my talents as senior mage of the Nightwalker Guild was to teach others to call out to the souls of dying mortals,” Daniel said. “Let me try. It can’t hurt him, not now. Maybe I can help.”
Surprisingly, Quinn looked to Serai first, then Alaric. Both of them nodded, Alaric perhaps a little skeptically, but it was still a nod.
“Fine. Try what you can. But then we take him away and let him rest and heal.” Quinn moved a few inches to the side, keeping one hand on Jack’s fur. The tiger followed her with its eyes but made no move to attack, just sat, shivering, in the center of their small group.
Daniel reached deep inside himself again, for the second time that night, and called for the constructive alter-ego of the destructive force he’d unleashed earlier. The power was too long unused and responded only sluggishly to his call, and at only partial strength of what he dimly remembered from days long, long gone. He’d fought with fists, daggers, and his vampire physical abilities for so long he’d nearly forgotten his magic. Perhaps he didn’t deserve a response from power he’d discarded and scorned.
But it did respond. Slowly and painfully, but it finally answered him. He invoked words of power in languages that had existed long before French had dreamed itself into being, and the magic rose to his call, at least enough to fuel one not-so-simple question.
Jack. Are you there? Jack Shepherd of the tiger pride, have you gone beyond reach of mortal call?
Daniel waited for what seemed a very long time. Just when he was about to admit defeat, a weak, thready voice that was almost unidentifiable as Jack’s answered him.
I don’t know where I am, or if I can come back. I don’t know if I want to come back. Leave me be, vampire, or magician, or whatever you are. Leave me to make my own choices. Don’t call me again, or I’ll leave forever. The choice to die is so very tempting.
Daniel waited, but the message was complete. Jack had to choose to come back, and nothing they could do would influence him, or so the shape-shifter thought. Daniel, though, knew better. He himself had once rejoined the living for the dream of love of a woman.
Maybe the love Jack felt for Quinn—and hers for him, though it was not the bond she shared with Alaric—would be enough. It was beyond his reach now. He turned to Quinn.
“I don’t know if he’ll ever return,” he warned her. “All I know is that he’s somewhere in there. Deep inside, or maybe even not inside the tiger but very nearby. But he won’t come back because we push him. He warned me quite specifically that if we try, he’ll choose never to come back.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes. “If he thinks he’s more stubborn that I am, he’s sadly mistaken. Let’s go, Alaric. Take us away, and give me time to let this tiger heal and find himself again.”
Alaric simply nodded, then took her hand in one of his and made a motion with the other that lifted the tiger on a shimmering pillow of pure energy. The portal, now large enough for a half dozen warriors to enter walking side by side, glowed brightly in the moonlit night. Daniel looked around to see that the piles of decaying vampire remains had all melted into the ground and vanished in the darkness.
Reisen, who’d been standing behind the group around Jack, and whom Daniel hadn’t even noticed until then, gazed at the portal with such stark longing on his face that Alaric paused when he saw the warrior.
“Do others here need healing? I forget my duties.”
Reisen shook his head. “No, we have only minor injuries in those still alive. You . . . you go to Atlantis?”
“You can return home,” Alaric told Reisen. “Your exile was self-imposed. Conlan offered forgiveness and healing.”
Reisen took a deep breath, but stayed where he was. “I have one final mission to perform for Quinn.”
Melody, her face badly bruised from the fight, looked up at Reisen and put a hand on his arm. “Thank you. For what you did during that fight, too. I’d be dead on the ground if not for you, and the world would be short one majorly terrific hacker.”
She tried to smile but failed miserably, and tears ran freely down her face as she turned her gaze to Quinn. “Take care of Jack for me, Boss. I’ll be on top of things here.”
Quinn nodded, but didn’t even glance back. She was already walking ahead of Alaric to the portal, one hand still in Jack’s fur.
Alaric turned to Daniel just before he stepped into the glowing oval of light. “Six women and the fate of Atlantis herself depend upon what happens to that gemstone, Daniel. Don’t let them down. Since she won’t return to Atlantis, I’ll send help. A lot of help.”