To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (58 page)

But the
bastard wasn’t going to give up so easily.

While I had his sword pinned, he threw an open palmed smack into my flank, right where he had slashed me earlier.  A fucking sissy boy slap, but it hurt like hell.  I grunted in pain
and stumbled backwards, giving him enough time to retrieve his sword.  He came back at me with a downward slash, easily defendable with my upraised blade, but the force of the strike was so great that I wasn’t able to keep him from slicing it into my shoulder.  His blade cut deep into the muscle, maybe an inch or two, and he yanked it out.  My right arm immediately went numb.

I switched my
sword to my off hand and he smiled, knowing I was done for.

He
took only a moment to pause for a quick breath before rushing headlong at me.  In the second it took for him to close the distance, I did the last thing he, me or anyone would expect.

I dropped my sword.

His expression of confusion was exactly what I was looking for.  In his hurry to kill me, he hadn’t noticed a piece of concrete in front of him, precariously balancing on another.  I’d noticed it earlier before I had temporarily disarmed him, somehow managing to avoid it.

The Praetorian fell into it, and he went down hard, something snapping in his leg.  I didn’t bother reaching for my sword,
for it was too inaccessible.  Instead, I grabbed one of the few remaining torches from a pillar and leapt at my foe.  I brought the torch down in a stabbing motion, impaling him through mouth.  The flames barely even sputtered and I watched as his face melted away.

But
he somehow managed the last laugh.  Whether it had been a planned attack, a gut reaction, or merely a wayward spasm, he managed to bring his
gladius
up and stab me in the stomach with it.  It didn’t go too deep, but I could almost feel it tear up an organ or two.  It got me a few inches above my bellybutton, and a few to the right.  It could have hit my liver, probably my stomach, I didn’t know.

I figured I was dead anyway.

My only thought was to find Helena.

I left t
he Praetorian to sizzle behind me and found the rubble she’d fallen down.  I crawled in after her and found her at the bottom, lying on her side, her left arm splayed out and her head resting atop its outstretched bicep.  I crawled next to her and reached out for her cheek with a bloody, shaky hand.  She wasn’t moving, and it wasn’t until I bumped into something hard and sharp, that I discovered she’d been impaled through the upper chest with a piece of metal shrapnel.

She was still breathing
and I wasn’t going to lose hope yet.  I’ve seen her come back from the dead before.

Hope for myself, however, was quickly becoming scarce.

Her eyes were still open and moving, but foamy blood seethed from her mouth, and her chest wound sputtered noisily.  My own wounds were not faring much better.

My eyes moistened.

“Not again, Helena,” I said through tears.  “I can’t… I…” but I wasn’t sure if she could even hear me.

She couldn’t move.  Not even to lift a hand like she had
the last time.  All she could do was take one last breath and go still.  My hand continued to tremble with growing severity.  I touched her stomach, hoping for something.  Anything.  But I felt nothing.  Nothing to indicate that life remained in either of the two people that shared this wonderful body and soul I loved so much.

I started to cough
.  Blood came out this time.  My vision started to narrow and the edges got hazy.  I fell to my side, right alongside Helena.

This story couldn’t end now.

Wang could still show up.

He had to show up.

He always showed up.

But, before he did, I felt my own las
t grasps of life slip away as copious amounts of blood from all three of my wounds pooled around me.

It was only a matter of time.

I reached out and closed Helena’s eyes with a brush of my fingertips, closing my own eyes at the same time, feeling both death and hope try to claw their way to the foreground of my consciousness.  I groped for Helena’s hand, hoping to hold it one more time as we made our final journey together.  Finding her right arm hanging behind her back, I slowly slide my hand down her bare arm, slower and slower, death’s twisted joke gaining the upper hand with each passing second.  I could feel her skin slowly begin to cool, but when I finally reached her wrist and found her fingers, just before I felt no more, my hand felt something hard and round.

The haze around my eyes flashed in one last blaze of resistance, and I waited
, alone, for my final journey to commence.  I could see the light coming, bright as I always thought it would be, but oddly colored blue instead of…

XII

Foresight

Tripolis, Syria

October 42 A.D.

I had to be dead, because it was the only explanation for how I felt:

Fantastic
.

Just like new, in fact.  Not even a hallucination to speak of.  That part was refreshing.  No fatigue,
no soreness or numbness, aches… pain, just… nothing.  No complaints.  That had to be what heaven was like, right?  A place where there was simply nothing to complain about.  That sounded poetic.

I think I’m going to like it here.  If only I could see something.  Everything was still black.

And then I wondered where St. Peter was.

St. Peter?

Hello?  Anybody home?

Anybody…?

What the fuck?

I caught myself
sheepishly.  It probably wasn’t a good idea to swear just before you meet The Big Guy.

I had to admit, t
his wasn’t exactly what I figured my final transition to the glorious afterlife would be like.  I always thought there’d be little cherub like angels, clouds, pearly gates, or at least some topless women.  But I didn’t see any of that.  All I saw were the back of my eyelids and I felt very surprised at just how coherently I was able to process this new information and form coherent thoughts.

Wasn’t I dead
just a second ago?

Maybe ol’ J.C. was testing me.

I risked a peek by opening my eyelids just slightly.

I almost vomited at what I saw.

No angels.  No clouds.  No gates.  Not even any breasts.

Just
…

Santino.

Of all the guides to the afterworld, I get Santino?  I mean, Dante got fucking Virgil as a guide!  Where was my ancient Roman poet?  A Roman I could actually stand to be around right now.

There weren’t that many of those
left…

“You al
l right, Jacob,” the Ghost of Christmas Santino said to me.  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I
am
seeing a ghost,” I pointed out, surprised when the finger I jabbed at his chest touched something solid.  I recoiled my hand like I’d just touched a hot stove, gripping it protectively against my chest with my other hand.  “Because if
you’re
my guide to heaven, you must be dead too.”

He chuckled and glanced behind me
.  “Jacob, what the fuck are you babbling about?”

Suddenly, I wasn’t
so sure.  My eyesight had been pretty blurry when I’d first opened them, but now I could see that while the room was lit in an amber glow, it was still dark, not exactly the bright clouded area I assumed was heaven.

“Oh, my God.” 
I dropped my voice to a whisper and leaned in closer to Santino.  “Am I in Hell?”

Santino’s eyes narrowed, and he put his hands on his hips.  “You
’re about to be if you don’t tell me why you’ve gone insane on me all of a sudden.  You off your meds?”

Another voice behind me spoke up, saying,
“What’s wrong, Santino?”

It was an angelic voice
.

A fe
minine voice.

Helena’s
voice.

I turned to see her standing there.  Alive, healthy, and as beautiful as ever.  I blinked.  Nope.  Still there, and no wings.  Making my way to her in two long strides, I
wrapped my arms around and kissed her as hard as I could.  If God was in fact sending me to Hell, I was going to drag her with me.  I didn’t care what she thought.

The ghost of Helena shoved me away, but she didn’t look mad.

“Jacob,” she whispered shyly, “what are you doing?  We’re on a mission.”

A what?  Is that what they called it here in… purgatory?

Was that where we were?

Helena’s ghost pointed to her right.

I looked at what she was pointing towards, hoping it wasn’t Satan.  The room looked oddly familiar.  It was large with numerous tiered levels that descended from where I stood.  I also saw people and enough treasure to fill Ft. Knox.  Wang and Vincent were there.  As was Titus.  Gaius and Marcus as well.  Bordeaux!

I was in the
goddamned treasure room.

The
same damn room I’d stood in fifty minutes ago!

But h
ow was that possible?

I looked at my hands.

I was holding the orb.

I looked towards the heavens, or at least just the ceiling, my eyes furrowed in confusion… thinking.

Déjà vu?

Had I gone back in time?

I had to have.

Wait, wait, wait.

If I’d gone back in time, where was the second orb?  And why hadn’t the transition hurt like hell?  And if the orb transported all matter within a room with it, where was all the rubble, dead Praetorians, and a horribly disfigured Agrippina? In fact, since I was transitioning back to a point in time where I already existed, shouldn’t there be two copies of me?  And of all my friends too?

I looked at Helena and poked her
cheek, definitely feeling resistance.  She looked at me angrily and poked me back.  I felt that too.  Just in case, I gave her a little shove.  She stumbled back a step.  In response, she slugged me in the shoulder.

It
hurt.

I met her eyes.  “You’re alive?”

“Last time I checked, Jacob,” she said, looking at me like I belonged in the loony bin.

I smiled and leaned her back as I kissed her again
, pulling away quickly and tossing the orb in her direction.  She made a grab for it but bobbled it a few times before finally catching it awkwardly.  I made my way to Bordeaux as she called after me.

He was setting the bomb he’d already set once upon a time.  I nearly tackled him as I ran to where he was burying it beneath the treasure.

“Wait, you big, beautiful, beast of a Frenchman, you!”

He gave me a funny look.  “I’m flattered, Hunter, but I’m married.”

I shook my head, still amazed at what was happening.  I would have kissed him too if I’d had the time.

“Set it for thirty five minutes,” I ordered.

“I was going to set it for…”

“Just do it.  Trust me.”

He shrugged reluctantly.  “You’re the boss.”

He reset the timer and placed it beneath the treasure.

Everything made sense.  Everything! I knew how the orb worked.  I knew what it was intended to do.  How it could take us home.  And I knew what was about to happen.  And how I could fix it.

I turned to see Titus
once again analyzing the box, his hand poised to open it.

“What’s thi…”

I struggled to find my voice as I grinned like an idiot. “Wait, stop, don’t do tha…” I repeated for no one’s benefit but my own.

And there was the white burst.  M
y eyes immediately went blank, but unlike last time, I laughed, groping about like a zombie.  Then I waited for the sound of clinking armor running into the room.  And there it was.  Now, time for the…

***

I’ve been knocked unconscious quite a few times in my life.  More than the average…

I squeezed my eyes tightly, the muscles in my face recoiling from the pain.

Really?  Even my post black out monologues were the same?  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since the pain sure felt the same.  Despite knowing what to expect, I still felt like shit as I slowly regained consciousness.  I used the time while my body recovered to hash out the last of the details about the orb.  I couldn’t believe how simple it was.  Varus had been right.  Our usage of the orb had been much too complicated.  Far too random.  Using it properly was in reality almost elegant, if not genius.

I couldn’t explain what had happened when I first touched the
orb but Helena had noted a flash of blue light at the time.  Something I hadn’t noticed.  I’d been out of it, but she must have clearly seen the orb activating itself.  How I activated it was something I still didn’t know, but I suspected I knew someone who did.  I only hope he left a trail for us to follow when we got out of this.