Heart Of Atlantis by Alyssa Day Page B

she’d become.
    Ven threw his hands in the air in disgust. “Are we going to stand here and talk about it, or do you want to come back with me and see the impostor son of a bitch?”
    “He’s here?” Alaric’s energy spheres were already swirling into shape in the air surrounding him when Ven shook his head impatiently.
    “No, he’s having a press conference, believe it or not. Old Ptolemy is a media whore apparently.”
    They swiftly followed Ven down a few turns and twists, to find Archelaus already watching the news conference on television when they arrived in his chambers. Quinn knew from a quick study of his body language that the news was all bad.
    “He’s speaking in front of the United Nations building in New York, and he’s claiming to be descended from Atlantean royalty. It’s not good. He just told the reporters that Atlantis exists, claimed to have any number of witnesses who have met High Prince Conlan or, as Ptolemy calls him, ‘the pretender to the throne,’ and said that Atlantis is positioned to rise to the surface of the ocean any day now.”
    Ven shook his head. “We knew we couldn’t keep the secret forever, not with the way we run around protecting humanity, kicking vampire ass, and generally making a nuisance of ourselves with the big, bad, and uglies that go bump in the dark.”
    “But this isn’t anything expected, is it?” Quinn asked. “Is it possible he really is who he claims he is? I mean, he is holding your jewel in his hand, isn’t he?”
    “It must be a fake,” Alaric said. He stared at the television screen so hard she was surprised the heat in his eyes didn’t burn a hole in the screen. “Can you make the device speak louder?”
    “Turn up the volume,” Ven said.
    “As I said,” Alaric snapped.
    Quinn shook her head at the two of them.
    Archelaus pressed a button on the remote and the voice of the wannabe Atlantean king filled the room.
    “I have documented proof that I am the direct lineal descendant of Alexander the Great, conquerer and Atlantean, and I will take my rightful place upon the throne as soon as Atlantis rises from its watery grave,” he intoned.
    Ven snorted. “Watery grave? Seriously?”
    Quinn was stuck on a different part of the man’s statement. “Alexander the Great was Atlantean?”
    Alaric shrugged. “Narcissist. Lust for power. Amazing while it lasted, though.”
    Quinn studied the man standing at the bank of microphones. He definitely looked regal. He was tall and imposing, with a TV politician kind of look to him. All toothpaste-commercial teeth and good hair. Even a tan, whether real or spray-on. But under the made-for-prime-time charisma, she could just see the jagged edges of something with real teeth. Something that would chew up enemies and vomit up their remains before calmly flossing.
    She shuddered. “There’s power there. Dark power. I’ve seen enough
wrong
in the past decade to recognize it. He’s just . . . not right.”
    Alaric slanted a measuring glance at her. “I tend to agree, even without the added incentive of his ludicrous claim.”
    “He does kind of look like you,” she pointed out. “The collective you. Atlanteans. Same dark hair, same height and bone structure, but with an added layer of smarm. Are you sure there’s no chance he could be a descendant, like he claims?”
    “Impossible to tell from here,” Alaric said.
    Reporters surrounding the man shouted questions at him, but he stood calmly in the center of the firestorm of attention, smiling slightly as if he were mildly amused. Finally, he held up his hands, and the questions slowly died down as the reporters began to fall silent in order to hear what else he would say.
    “I will answer all of your questions eventually, but what I have to say now is of the most urgent nature.” He drew a sheet of paper out of a large envelope and held it tightly, making eye contact with each reporter in turn.
    “We Atlanteans have long been on a mission to