Vampire in Atlantis

he ever have resigned himself to eternal night? Especially alone in the darkest reaches of his own heart. Always alone.
    Closer. Rising to his waist. Still no burning—no uncovered skin yet touched by the deadly glow.
    He took a breath, drew it deep into lungs that hadn’t breathed daylight air in so long. Closed his eyes, then opened them again. He’d face this final test with the same defiance with which he’d lived his entire life.
    Heat now. Burning. Fire sizzled across the skin of his throat at his open shirt collar. He raised his chin. Only one final moment of life—but no regrets. It was too late for that. Agony seared through him as the sun struck his face, full-on, and he clenched his teeth against the scream.
    A final blast of heat and pain crushed his courage under the sun’s indifferent power, and he fell forward into the pool, silently screaming or cursing or praying, and the vortex of light and sound sucked him in, sucked him under, pulled him through, whirling and twisting, over and over, around and around, until a shove from a mighty force smashed him face-first into a solid surface.
    He was dead, finally, finally dead. And he was lying on . . . grass?
    The afterlife was paved in grass? He’d not expected that. Not for one such as him. Maybe oceans of burning lava or canyons filled with blazing fire. The deepest levels of the nine hells were surely reserved for vampires. However, not only was he lying on grass, which smelled like a particularly ripe and blooming spring, but he was lying in the sunlight. He was lying in some verdant field of the afterlife in sunshine . . . and he wasn’t burning .
    Defiance gave way to joy, and he murmured thanks to any gods who would listen. All save one. The vampire goddess Anubisa deserved no thanks from him, and may she rot in whatever dark corner to which she’d escaped. Maybe not an appropriate thought for heaven, though.
    He rested there for a long minute, with his face pressed into the grass, every bone in his body aching with the force of the collision, and considered whether or not to lift his head and look around. Before he could make that crucial decision, the unmistakable point of a spear jabbed him in the side of his neck, and a voice that had haunted him since his first death spoke.
    “Who are you and whence did you come, Nightwalker?”
    Daniel moved his head just enough to look up into the bright sunshine, and the sharp point of the spear bit into the flesh of his neck—just as his fangs had done to so many thousands of humans during his life. Irony, again. Perhaps this was yet to turn out to be one of the levels of hell and he’d be tortured not with fire but with a million tiny cuts, until his own blood ran free and dark into eternity.
    The slender, curving silhouette of a woman wearing a long gown stood beside him. She held the non-pointy end of the spear. He could see nothing of her features at first, and then he saw her face, shining more brightly than a thousand afterlife-created suns.
    Serai’s face.
    She was to be his personal tour guide to heaven, then. Or his personal escort to hell. But her gasp spoke of disbelief, even shock.
    Her next words were nothing that he could have expected, though. “I am Serai of Atlantis, a princess of Poseidon. Remember you me, Nightwalker? Be warned that you are now my prisoner.”
    Memories long unused returned to him and allowed him to understand her. Her words were musical, the cadence liquid and lyrical. Ancient Atlantean. He answered her with the rusty pronunciation that was all he could manage. Shock and thousands of years of non-use had robbed him of fluency.
    “Serai? I have waited more than eleven thousand years to hear your voice again.” He jumped to his feet and moved to take her in his arms, but was stopped again at spear point.
    “No,” she said, the strain evident in her face, turning her perfect skin even paler than he remembered. “I’m leaving here. Now. Come with me or stay, but don’t even try to stop me.”
    For the first time, he took the time to look around at his surroundings and saw the two fallen guards lying unconscious on the ground, but when he looked up to ask her about it, the sight in front of him stunned him to speechlessness for several seconds.
    “What?” she snapped. “I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re thinking, although now that you’re a nightwalker, can’t you hear their heartbeats to confirm my claim?”
    He pointed, still unable to