by J. Armand
“At Aquae Sulis a soldier came to protect you. Why does your teacher not? He is the ninja.”
“He does, but I can’t expect others to fight for me when that’s what my powers are for.” This was becoming depressing. As much as I enjoyed Gianluca’s company, all I wanted to do was sleep and avoid discussing my future. Everything always led back to this topic.
“What is your gift? I see you fly.” He took a seat on the grass next to me and flashed a coy smile. “Like the baby chicken.”
“Funny, but chickens don’t fly, Gianluca.” He took the opportunity during our brief moment of laughter to brush his hand against mine. His touch only lasted for a second, but that second was equal parts electric and terrifying. I couldn’t let myself become enamored with emotions that would never last. “I break and destroy things. It’s a curse. I don’t have a gift for anything other than fighting.”
I fiddled with pebbles in the grass to avoid making eye contact.
“When the soldiers protect the empire they carry very, very heavy supply. Weapon, armor, food, these things. We walk for many days and it is very slow. It is not easy to walk on the hills and with the trees, so you know what they do?”
“Ride horses?”
“Hm, yes. Smart, but no. There is not horses for all the soldiers and Roma had many. Then you walk different speed and it is bad if not all have the horse. The horse is for the leaders and different kind of soldier.” Gianluca took the pebble I was playing with from me and left his hand in mine. I watched as he intertwined his fingers with mine. His hand was so much bigger. “We build the road.”
He used his free hand to draw a line in the dirt with a stick and placed the pebbles on his line as an example. “It is very easy to walk on this and the enemy cannot see the footprint of how many soldier when it is on the stone. From Roma you can go anywhere very easy now… Well, now it is different, but you know.”
“What does that have to do with my powers?” To him, it all seemed so casual, but my heart was racing. I was nervous and wanted to pull away without being too obvious, even though there was no one around to see.
“You must break the stone and make the clear path to build a road, yes? First you must destroy to make new. You cannot make the architecture without both.” I could feel him looking right at me. I kept my eyes down as though I was concentrating on his example. “This is the passion in you. Why you not use your gift for this?”
“It’s a great idea, but I can’t use my power like that. Lifting things, yeah. I can’t control how I break things.” I slid my hand free casually to give my own example. Picking up one of the pebbles, I floated it out in front of me and blasted it to pieces. “There. I created smaller pebbles.”
My control over my power had improved significantly since I started using it on a regular basis. A long time ago Noah told me my power was like any muscle in the body and would grow stronger with practice, but I doubted him. Fine manipulation and focus was still too difficult and I never saw much need for them. I could hammer nails and turn screws with my power, but the concentration it would take defeated the purpose. I could remove trees and lift heavy materials, but then I would have the nasty problem of exposing myself to humans.
“Break only the small piece. Like this.” Gianluca retrieved a larger, baseball-sized rock. He closed his left hand to grip something and forged an obsidian sword from the shadows. I thought he was going to whittle the stone down when he pressed the blade to it, but one quick movement smoothed the edges of the rock. A few more strokes, and he had an almost perfect block. The sword was gone, sent back to where it had come from in a puff of wispy black smoke. He handed me the stone block to inspect. “When I first meet you, you react badly to the darkness. It can be used for this too. We are very similar, this is why I want to know you. And you are very beautiful.”
“Thank you. So are you.” He caught me looking at him that time and we exchanged smiles.
“I think what you ask that first time. I do not know anyone like me. Maybe it does not matter, but the world is much more brighter when you have a friend. Do you think so?”
“It depends on the friend, I guess.” Noah had made the world seem so much more scary and violent than the way Gianluca saw it.
“Try this.” He held out a rock about the same shape and size as the one he had turned into a block.
“It’s not going to work,” I protested. But there was no harm in giving it a shot. I took the rock and cracked it in three pieces. Admittedly, I’d made some improvement, but nobody would be building a house with what I’d made.
“This is very good!” Gianluca exclaimed. He was far too optimistic about a pile of broken rocks. “I will help. Now try again.”
He selected yet another stone and nearly covered it with pitch-black shadow. The dark substance nullified my power, limiting me to interacting only with what was exposed. We repeated the process, each time moving the aperture to another side.
“Perfect! You see? This is the work of passion.” Gianluca removed the shadow cloak and presented me with a perfect cube made of stone.
“It’s something all right, but they knew how to make cut stone thousands of years ago. Not exactly an accomplishment.”
“You must feel pride in your work.” He threw his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. “This is one step. Think of the many things you can build.”
He waved his hand over the shadows under the tree and erected a miniature Colosseum out of the darkness. “Next you can make the diorama. Look only at what you need. Do not let your eyes be your enemy.”
Gianluca dissolved the Colosseum back into the shadows and stacked our blocks in its place.
“You are trembling.” He rubbed my arm and held me closer to warm me up, but it only made things worse. I was shaking from anxiety, not cold. It didn’t help that he was extremely attractive and his personality matched that outward appearance.
“No, I’m not,” I denied, embarrassed. I squirmed away.
“Come with me. Please.” He held out his hand again. “I will take you somewhere warm. Not far. I can return you by night for your teacher.”
I hesitated and thought of Noah’s warning. This is how it starts. He seems nice now, but what happens when I’m lured in? Noah wasn’t right as often as he wanted me to believe though. And if the spirits regrouped and came after me before night fell, at least I know Gianluca could handle them.
“I do not like to see you like this,” he insisted.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Hotel. In the city. You will be safe, I promise.”
“You have a room?” I was surprised he knew what a hotel was. Did they have those in Ancient Rome?
“I borrow it.” He smiled and took my hand. In an instant we were inside a lavish hotel room overlooking Bath. That was faster than traveling with Noah and a lot less jarring, I thought. “See? For you. For a short time,” he added with a laugh.
I sat on the bed and he chose a chair, helping himself to some grapes that had been left as a gift for guests. I pictured him dressed like a Roman, eating grapes from the vine and sipping wine at the baths.
“Your clothes… You dress very, modern, for someone your age.” The Archios were always in style too, but except for Aurelia, the ones I’d met were much younger than Gianluca.
“You like them? I make it myself.” He demonstrated by dissolving the cuff of his sleeve and changing the opacity. “I see in the store what the people are wearing so I copy. It had color, but I can only make black and a little lighter. I think it is nice.”
“Yeah, I like it a lot. If it’s made of shadows why doesn’t it disappear in the light?”
“Because my dark is very, very strong. Natural light does not make a problem.”
I figured light would be his Achilles’ heel, since lightning, wind, and steel did nothing to him and neither did my powers. If he did turn on us we’d be in big trouble. Maybe it was better to appease him, but I couldn’t see him becoming that diabolical. Th
en again, I had to keep reminding myself that William had been a saint when we met. So had Aurelia. How twisted am I that the first issue I think about is how easy it would be to kill someone?
“Why does your armor look like a knight’s and not a Roman soldier’s?” I asked. “You sound like you’re still in love with the Empire. I would have thought you’d be wearing their armor.”
“Yes, there is much love in my heart for Roma. When I wake one time I see the steel men walking the castles. I think, ‘This men are invictus, they cannot fall’.” Gianluca produced an instant example from the shadows in the form of a tiny knight. The armor was bulkier than his armor, and his put more emphasis on the chest and abdominal muscles, like the molded armor of ancient times. From what I remembered, Gianluca’s armor was also quite intricately detailed. It was much more of a work of art than the traditional steel plating. “Their armor is much heavier than Roman, this is true strength. I watch them protect the people and I think I want to be like this. They have the bravery and honor like the Roman soldier. This is what we call virtus. It is what makes you a man.”
The knight took a bow and disappeared. I laughed, probably louder than I should have. “You like protecting things, huh?”
“Yes, this is what I love. It is important for me. For many, many years I see so much bad things happen. I was once part of this and it hurts my heart. Now I feel most strong when I protect something beautiful. Not just the beautiful person like you, but the art, or the city. How can the architecture survive if there is no soldier?”
“That’s very noble of you.”
“I will not lie to you. When I wake up this time, short time ago, because I feel you, I was thinking, ‘Is this my enemy?’ I look for you because I do not know if you will be hurting the innocent people or doing the bad things.”
“Not on purpose. I don’t want to fight at all if I don’t have to.”
“I see this now. It is in your eyes. You have a good heart.” Gianluca leaned forward in his chair and reached out to take my hand in his. My ‘good heart’ was racing again. I wanted to make a joke to change the mood, but I couldn’t get the words out.
“You’re so tan,” I blurted, noting the sharp contrast in our skin tones. Not the smoothest thing I could have said. I was already cursing myself for saying it. He just smiled politely and interlaced our fingers.
“You are very shy,” he said after a few seconds of letting me stew in my own awkwardness. “I like this, but I do not make you uncomfortable?”
“No, I’m not uncomfortable. I’m not really used to anyone acting this way.” It was a nice change from being berated by Noah. To me, Gianluca was also far more attractive, even if he lacked the supernatural allure.
“You do not like it?”
“I do! It’s just new for me. That’s all.” I was worried that I had given him the wrong impression.
“Why is this? I think many people would like to, no?” Gianluca looked off to the side, breaking his focus on me for the first time since we had met.
“Not that I’ve met.”
“I have to go,” he said without even looking at me, and took his hand back. My heart sunk. I had just blew the first small stroke of luck I’d had in forever by sending mixed messages.
“Okay,” I sighed quietly.
“Stay here. You will be safe.” He vanished from the room without so much as a goodbye. I waited a few minutes, hoping he would pop back in with a smile and laugh that he was teasing me again, but it didn’t happen. The best I could do was clean up before heading back out to the spot where I’d wait for Noah.
After a hasty shower, I took advantage of such precious rare amenities as toothpaste and hair products. I flipped on the TV to kill time. I was a bit worried that housekeeping would come through, but I’d dealt with worse. The problem was that the windows didn’t open this high up in most hotels, so an aerial escape wouldn’t be an easy option. I turned to the local news in time for the humans’ account of last night’s events.
“The effects of a small earthquake were felt across Bath last night when geothermal pressure from the famous hot springs forced rushing water to overflow the sewer system and open sinkholes just outside the city. The damage was compounded by a passing thunderstorm, causing chaos in the flooded streets. Fortunately, the natural disaster only lasted a few minutes and no severe injuries were reported.”
“Natural.” Yeah, right. People are so quick to believe anything when they don’t have an answer. It worked in my favor, so I shouldn’t complain. That veil of ignorance was the only thing keeping the hounds from my door, so to speak.
The light in the room dimmed momentarily and Gianluca stepped out of the shadows. I jumped up from my spot on the bed with an audible gasp, thinking he was one of the spirits at first.
“You know, that is kind of terrifying, Gianluca.”
“Oh, I am sorry. I was not thinking.” His smile was back. That was a good sign. “Who do you talk to when I was away? I hear the voices.”
“Huh? Oh… I must have been talking to myself when I was watching TV. I do that sometimes, I guess. I get lonely a lot.” Why had I said that? Could I make myself any more of an idiot around him? I was never this bad around Noah, though he would probably disagree. “Where did you go?”
“Eh, first I have a question.” His smile changed to a more pensive expression. “These people, at Aquae Sulis, why do they hurt you? The truth, please.”
I was taken aback by the question, and then the fact that he thought I might try to lie to him. “Noah tried to steal a sword from their temple when we were in Japan for training. One of them came after us when we returned to New York and Noah had me take the sword from them. I didn’t know Noah had started it at the time, I swear. The man was hurting people, so I took his weapon away. Since then it keeps getting worse every time they regroup. That’s the truth.”
“I believe you.” I was relieved to see his smile return again. “Why the man brings the sword to you if he does not want it removed from the temple?”
“That’s… a really good point. I hadn’t thought of that.” Despite the language barrier it hadn’t taken Gianluca long to find an inconsistency in the story. I would have thought Vance the one to recognize it, but he was too caught up in wanting to study the sword.
“I leave because I sense these people. I cannot understand their words, but they attack the ones like your teacher in the cities here. I think they come for you, so I stop them.”
“They’re back already?” I was a bit flustered. If Gianluca hadn’t been here I would’ve been screwed. “They’re attacking the undead during the day? Why? It’s Noah and me they wanted.”
“You say they do this in New York too, no? It is not you. They look to kill many people. Why do they bring the sword, then kill people you do not know? This does not make sense.”
“I thought they were trying to lure us out in New York, but they’ve never had problems finding us since then now that I think of it. I thought they stopped hunting the other undead once they tracked us down. Noah can understand them, but he’s not one for talking things out.”
“I can understand this. I have trouble with the English. If Latin or Italiano, okay, but I do not think they speak this.”
“I think you speak English really well. I haven’t had a problem understanding you. When did you learn?”
“Hm, maybe… two years? I do not know. I hear many people speak it, so I listen and watch from the shadow, but I do not practice much. It is good we meet because you will teach me.”
“I’ll try.” I felt my face turning red and the flirtatious glint in his eyes told me he noticed. “I’m so impressed you learned a language on your own in just two years.”
“You think so? Maybe then I will be a master when I watch your lips.” He casually closed the gap between us by standing against the wall next to me. He was just close enough that I had to tilt my head slightly to make eye contact, which I got the feeling he liked.
“Ah, so an
yway, I was thinking…” I took a seat on the bed behind me to give me some room, but that just made it worse by putting his crotch in my direct line of sight. “What if those spirits weren’t guarding the sword? What if they were waiting to be released?”
I jumped up from the bed before I continued and tried to play it cool, but Gianluca still smiled in amusement at my flailing. “I hear the sword has an aura, like it’s alive, and when I was cut by it I saw visions of Hell.”
“It is daemonium. A devil, no?”
“Then that would most likely mean the spirits are under its control. The sword drinks blood, like a sacrifice. The undead are easy targets, especially the innocent ones. They aren’t going to draw attention to themselves to get help. This is really bad.”
“Do not be afraid, Dorian. I will protect you.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You did not ask. It is what I want. I am a soldier without the empire, but I am still a man with a heart filled with passion.” Gianluca came over to me and placed his hand on my cheek. The warmth of his touch filled me with a comforting sense of security. I closed my eyes, and for a second considered that this was another trick my mind was playing on me. “We can both have what we want. I will find you the safe place to build and I will fight the devils.”
“Noah’s not going to like that.”
“Then I will speak to him as men.” Gianluca’s chivalry was like a dream, but I had to remind myself that dreams weren’t real.
“Thank you, Gianluca, but I don’t need to hide while someone fights for me. I don’t like to fight, but I’ll do it if it’s to help people.”
“You are a stubborn little one.” He smiled down at me and moved his hand from my cheek to my shoulder.
“I’m not little and I’m not helpless.” I locked eyes with him in defiance.
“Helpless, no, I know this. You are very strong, but still the little one.” He chuckled at my disdain. “Do not be mad, I like this.”
“If you say so.” I was quick to put to rest the reminder that I wasn’t, and never would be, the strapping Adonis that Gianluca was. “You say you can travel anywhere through the shadows? Do you think you can take me somewhere?”
