Mira (18 page)

           
“Bring him here tomorrow night,” Rillan said dismissively and started to move so that Arial could leave the room.

           
Showing no intention of leaving, Arial’s eyes focused contemplatively on Rillan.
 
“It’s not often that I do this for someone who hasn’t paid and demanded it,” she whispered.

           
Confusion was replaced with uncertain regret, as Rillan watched Arial drop to her knees in front of him.
 
She managed to untie his breeches, pull his limp member from his pants and wrap her lips around it, before he knew what was happening.
 
Either I’m getting slow or my guard was far too low with this one.
 
“Arial,” he hissed, trying to find the right words to stop her without insulting her.
 
His cock, betraying him, responded enthusiastically to Arial’s touch.

           
With the thought process of a philosopher examining the intricate differences between two flowers, he found himself contemplating the differences between Mira’s naïve hands and Arial’s practiced fingers.
 
Arial’s tongue swirled around the head of his cock, tracing the ridge.
 
Her small hands gripped his shaft tightly and stroked the length slowly.
 

           
Pulling her mouth from him, Arial licked the tip a couple times as she stroked it.
 
“You’re so cold,” she whispered.

           
Rillan took advantage of her having released him from her mouth.
 
“Arial.”
 
He reached under her chin and made her look at him.
 
“I have someone.
 
I need you to stop this.”

           
Disappointment filled her eyes, but she released his member from her grip and sat back on her heels.
 
She watched him rearrange himself and tie his breeches securely in place.
 
“You are an unusual man,” she said softly.
 
“And whoever she is, I envy her.”
 
Withthat
Arial quickly got to her feet and disappeared through the door, before Rillan could say anything more.

Chapter 8

           
Nightfall brought a soft knock on Rillan’s door.
 
When he opened it
,
Arial was standing there with a middle-aged, nervous man in a toga.
 
Stepping back, Rillan opened the door as wide as he could in the confined space and allowed them both in.
 

           
Arial smiled winningly at Rillan.
 
“This is Sarius.
 
He waits on Tiberius, and his wife works in the kitchens.”

           
With the mention of his wife, Sarius looked a bit smaller.
 
“Well, she used to,” he said to the air.

           
Arial shot Rillan an apologetic gaze.
 
“She’s fallen sick.
 
Sarius needs money for the apothecary.”

           
“I’m sorry for your troubles.”
 
Rillan felt little sympathy overall.
 
At least the man has a wife to be sick.
 
“I pay well, if that’s any aid to your cooperation.”

           
“I’ll cooperate,” Sarius said in a muted voice.
 
“Arial said that all you want to know is what Tiberius does all the time.”

           
Rillan nodded.
 
“That’s all.”
 
He produced several golden denarii.
 
“As much detail as you can.”

           
Rillan listened carefully as Sarius related the intricacies of a day in the life of Tiberius Caelius Novanus.
 
He looked a bit uncomfortable, when Rillan started asking questions about the number of guards in the house and where they were at night.
 

           
Neither Arial nor Sarius was fool enough to not draw some conclusions about why Rillan wanted a daily itinerary, especially after Rillan’s questions.
 
Even so, the money was enough to support Sarius’ family for the entire year.
 

           
“There is one thing that I would add,” Sarius said.
 
“Tiberius was a general before he took control in the senate.
 
You ask a great deal about guards.
 
He doesn’t have many because he doesn’t need them.”

           
“Thank you for that,” Rillan replied and added another coin to the pile.
 
“Is there anything else you would add?”

           
Sarius thought hard to come up with something else that might add another denarius to his payment.
 
Finally he shook his head.
 

           
Rillan pressed the coins into Sarius’ hands.
 
“I don’t think I have to tell you to forget that you were here.”

           
“No.
 
That goes without saying.”
 
Sarius took the coins, excused himself, and skulked off into the night, grateful that the ordeal was over.
 

           
Arial stayed behind for a short time, but once she established that she wasn’t going to be able to bed Rillan, she excused herself.
 

* * * *

           
Rillan was beginning to feel the wearying effects of all the travel, day and night.
 
Not to mention
,
the constant nagging longing for Mira.
 
The woman never leaves my thoughts
.
 
Even now, standing in the shadows of the stone wall surrounding Tiberius’ home, all he could think was,
Finish this. Then you can return to her.
 

           
Intently, he watched the windows of Tiberius’ domus.
 
The candlelight long since extinguished, Rillan was only waiting now in the hopes that Tiberius would be asleep for the attack.
 
He had dealt with warriors before.
 
It was always more difficult than the standard overfed politician helplessly cowering in a corner.

           
Impatient for an end to this assignment, Rillan took a deep breath and summoned up his demon.
 
Blood lust ran rampant through his senses.
 
This half reveled in the task at hand.
 
No remorse,
he told himself.
 
Do what must be done, because no one else can.

           
Crawling from one shadow to the next, Rillan slid easily up to the domus.
 
He scaled the wall and crept on his stomach along the burnt orange tiled roof.
 
L
a
ying along the edge of the roof, he scanned the courtyard and garden for people.
 
A large statue of a man, presumably Tiberius, dominated the center of the courtyard.
 
Intricate mosaics made up the walkways throughout the courtyard garden.
 
Lanterns illuminated the courtyard
,
fighting out the night
,
even in the absence of people, illustrating the decadence of the household.

           
The shadows within the peristyle
,
insisted that Rillan be cautious.
 
He listened for breathing or movement, waiting long moments patiently.
 
After having established no one was
a
round, he lowered himself into the courtyard. Slinking beneath the overhang, past the columns, Rillan melted into the shadows of the peristyle and followed the extravagant mosaics past the kitchen and latrine into the atrium.
 
He counted doors along the wall, until he came to the one that
D
S
arius had indicated belonged to Tiberius.

           
With a practiced hand, Rillan lifted the latch and slowly pushed the door open.
 
As small and rancid as his room at the inn was, this room was spacious and fragrant.
 
Incense burned somewhere in the darkness.
 
There was a sitting area with several large chairs.
 
Columns acted as the divider between the entrance and the chairs and the bed chamber.

           
Spying the mounded blankets on the large bed, Rillan moved through the darkness to the bedside.
 
As he reached the piled blankets, he knew something was wrong.
 
He heard no breathing, smelled no blood or sweat.
 
No human is that clean,
he thought.

           
Rillan sensed the attack, just as a wicked spatha sliced through the air and bit into the mattress, sending a cloud of soft down into the air.
 
Instinctually, Rillan sank into the shadows.
 
Moving faster than Tiberius’ eye could follow, he scaled a column and watched the man search for him from the darkness.

           
“Rillan ap Tiernay,” Tiberius said with grudging awe and respect.
 
“Vampire assassin.
 
I wondered when you would come for me.”
 
Tiberius held his spatha lightly in his hand, as he cautiously searched the shadows, careful not to let his guard falter.
 
“I was told not to take this domus.
 
The senate believes it cursed.
 
Do you have any idea how many druids I had to interrogate before I found out what demon they commanded
?
.
”

           
Rillan knew that Tiberius was taunting him with intent.
 
The man moved as if he was more than familiar with the weapon in his hand, and he was confident enough in his abilities that he chose not to call his guard to his aid.
 
Rillan decided to watch a bit longer.
 
The man had earned some respect.

           
Tiberius shifted his search from the large deep shadows to search the less obvious possibilities.
 
“There are legends still told about you,” he spoke into the darkness.
 
“Stories about the great warrior Northman who held back our armies for years before vanishing.
 
What was it?
 
The destruction of your army?
 
The death of your family?”

           
Tiberius was taking it too far.
 
Rillan could feel the anger edging him closer to attack.
 
He didn’t care about the cost at this point.
 
He knew that he couldn’t be defeated.
 
The Fates will never bless me with an easy or honorable death.

           
“As I understand it,” Tiberius continued, as he exhausted the possible hiding places on the ground and turned his eyes toward the ceiling.
 
“You were given the choice between joining our cause or seeing the death of your wife and child.
 
You chose to watch them die.
 
How does it feel to hold your ideals so high as to make that kind of sacrifice?”

           
Tiberius’ words summoned up images in Rillan’s mind of his wife and daughter consumed in the fire that destroyed his home and life.
 
He could still hear the screams, as he was forced to watch them burned alive.
 
Their horrified cries failing to the crackling of the blaze, the executioners held him there long enough to see the flesh charred and fall ashen from their bones.
 
Anguish and misery hazed his senses, and Rillan fell upon Tiberius.

           
Drawing his falcata, Rillan lunged haphazardly at his target, anger blurring his reason.
 
Tiberius crouched back, as he whirled to face the vampire.
 
He was in no way prepared for what he saw coming at him.
 
Translucent skin pulled taught against his skull, sunken black eyeless sockets stared into him, and lips drawn back in a sneer revealed dozens of dagger like teeth protruding manically from a mouth too large for his face.
 
Tiberius lost all ability to speak or think, as he stared entranced at the monster descending upon him.
 

           
Lifting his curved blade, Rillan aimed for Tiberius’ skull.
 
At the last minute Tiberius recovered enough sense to thrust his spatha up into Rillan’s stomach.
 
The falcata slashed through flesh and bone from Tiberius’ shoulder, through his chest and across his stomach.
 
Rillan released his weapon and staggered back.
 
Blood sprayed from the sliced artery in Tiberius’ neck and dribbled from his mouth, down his chin.
 
Looking down, Tiberius saw his intestines spill out of his opened stomach, and he collapsed on the floor.
 

           
Rillan held the sword lodged in his own stomach.
 
Thick, dark, brown-red blood oozed out around the blade.
 
Taking hold of the hilt, he pulled the sword out, only barely stifling a painful moan.
 
Rillan stared at the gaping wound in his stomach, knowing that he wasn’t strong enough to heal without fresh blood.
 
The vampire looked to Tiberius momentarily, before turning away in disgust.
 
I’ll lie down and turn to dust first.

           
Rillan managed to force the demon under control.
 
He knew that it would be easier to blend in and escape as a human.
 
Still, the compulsion was already taking hold of him.
 
Blood lust.
 
His mind raged.
 
Mira.
 
The thought of her forced the vampire down.
 
He had just enough sense left to know that it was nearing dawn, and he couldn’t travel during the day like this.
 

           
Warm copper tainted the air Rillan breathed.
 
Heat seeped through the sole of his soft leather boots.
 
Looking down Rillan watched red pooling around his feet.
 
Without another thought
,
he walked out of the room, as if he was walking down a hallway in his own home.
 
A small child emerged from the latrine as Rillan passed, wordlessly down the hall.
 
The little boy followed him a few feet, before looking down and seeing the bloody footprints Rillan was leaving behind.
 
Rillan could hear the child’s cries echoing through the peristyle, as he swung himself up onto the roof and clumsily dragged himself over the apex and down the other side.

           
The inn seemed to be days away.
 
Rillan stumbled through the streets.
 
Coming to the front door of the inn, he found it bolted.
 
Arial was the one who answered his pounding.

           
“Are you insane?
 
You’ll wake the whole inn.
 
An accomplishment, considering most of them are passed out.”
 
Arial stood aside to let him in, and then bolted the door behind him.