There was a pause as the lictors all scrambled hastily to find something—anything, really—to say in response, besides, from Kanmi’s expression, Shit, he wasn’t supposed to hear that . . . . and then Adam simply moved them on. “Worry about that later, Matru. Step one, clear the area. Step two, secure the propraetor. Step three . . . everything else.”
They got to work. Adam and Kanmi cleared the house, moving past Adam’s agitated family, Kanmi pausing just long enough to toss a smile at Adam’s young nephews as they clustered around Mikayel’s feet. They checked the house over, and then they started hustling people inside. Adam pointed at his father’s study, which was located in an inner room, without windows, and with only one door. “In there, sir. Defensible, and has the phone lines.”
Livorus, in the meantime, as calmly as if he were at a gala somewhere, had introduced himself to Adam’s parents, bowing his head very slightly over Abigayil’s hand, and giving Maor a very correct nod. “I’m grateful for your hospitality, and I apologize for requiring it of you. If I might prevail upon you, ah, ben Emmet, to arrange a call to the local Praetorian headquarters . . . ?” Livorus had already removed his cloak, handed it to Abigayil, and was rolling up the sleeves his shirt now, briskly. He rarely showed his arms, save when he wore a toga, but the house was warm, and everyone was tense and sweating.
Adam had long since stopped actively noticing it, but his father’s startled glance at Livorus’ left arm caught his own attention. Maor ben Emmet blinked, and said, in a surprised tone, “You were branded in the Legion, Propraetor?”
Officers were almost never branded. The custom had originated with common soldiers who were committed to twenty-year terms in the Legions. This had been the case even before the brief, ill-considered period of fifty years in which one particularly dim-witted Emperor had tried to ban all Legionnaires from being married—but he’d also banned homosexual behavior at the same time, as being too Spartan and Hellene for proper Roman men. All of this, on the theory that his men should take all of their sexual energies and put them into their fighting. (This set of edicts had resulted in booming business for brothels, the emergence of a tradition of camp followers, and disorderly conduct directed at native women in any number of subject kingdoms, before the emperor’s order was rescinded by his own grandson, who’d re-instituted the old customs of Caesar’s era. To whit, legionnaires could and should be married for the stability it brought to their lives, and that honorable service would be rewarded with a small parcel of land upon retirement. Later refinements to the codes had allowed for stable liaisons of a period greater than seven years with people of either gender to be considered the same as marriage.)
And, of course, officers had always been exempt from the provisions on marriage. Officers were nobles. Patricians. They were meant to stand above the common soldier, not alongside. There were rules and regulations—strict ones, at that—to prevent fraternization. Livorus had only served for a little over ten years, but he’d taken the symbol of a lifer . . . the Eagle of Rome, which was branded into their very flesh.
“Ah, yes. My men asked me to accept it shortly after the Gazaca debacle. The rank and file wanted to give me a crown of grass, but that would have required that I save the entire legion by my own hands, and all I had really done was prevent the loss of civilian lives.” Livorus sighed. “They had heard that I’d been asked to retire. They came to the command tent . . . about twenty representatives, led by my primus pilus centurion. And told me that they knew I’d never really quit fighting, even if the damned politicians at home took my command from me. And they asked me to take the symbol of a lifer. Just like they wore.” Livorus shrugged. “How could I possibly say no?” He pointed at the door to the study. “But, we have rather more urgent concerns than the distant past at the moment. If you wouldn’t mind?”
Adam turned back away, and got back to coordinating with the people setting up outside. They’d pulled the cars to the side of the house to try to look a little less conspicuous, Kanmi’s family, Poppaea, Livorus’ children, and their various servants and pedagogues had been herded to the large family room Adam remembered so well from childhood. Kanmi’s wife had managed to hiss, “What’s going on?” at her husband, but Kanmi had held up a hand in an I’ll get back to you fashion, and gotten on with securing doors and windows, warding the metal frames of each with an incipient electrical charge and telling everyone not to touch them. “You become the closed circuit on these, and it will not tickle,” he warned. “Keep the children, in particular, away. What hurts an adult might kill one of them, and I won’t be held responsible for that.”
Elah, Adam’s sister-in-law, had protectively pulled her children closer to her at his words, her eyes wide.
Trennus, for his part, had moved the dining room table out of his way, and set up a summoner’s binding circle, drawn in chalk, on the tile there, which had made several members of Adam’s family skitter away uncertainly. “We’ve got someone working dark magic in our house?” Mikayel called, indignantly, from the dining room, before stalking back into the living room to pull up a chair. “Where does this end?”
“Not dark magic,” Adam said, in a preoccupied tone. “Matrugena’s the best summoner I’ve ever seen. And there’s not an evil bone in his entire body.”
He put to the back of his mind that both his sisters, Rivkah and Chani, were peering in the door of the living room in avid curiosity at Trennus. This went into the category of things I do not have time to deal with for the moment. After several minutes of preparation, Trennus said only one word out loud: “Saraid.”
A pure white stag promptly manifested in the middle of the dining room, which made Rivkah and Chani squeal. “Go scout, please. See if there are any disturbances among the spirits local to us. No more than a mile, if you wouldn’t mind,” Trennus told the spirit . . . which lowered its regal head, and leaped cleanly through the wall to the left, through into the living room, darting through the bodies of those in there, who all shouted in alarm . . . and plunged through the outer wall, disappearing into the neighborhood.
“Adam, a word, please,” his mother finally demanded, as Sigrun came back in through the front door, finally taking her dark glasses off, the snowy white of her swan cloak still over her shoulders in spite of the heat that was causing her face to perspire slightly. It was the only part of her regalia she was wearing today. He watched as Sigrun put her shoulders to a wall and rubbed gently at the back of her neck with both hands, exhaling for what was probably the first time in the last hour, “What is going on?” his mother pressed. “It’s not that it’s not lovely to see you and your . . . friends . . . and coworkers . . . but a little warning would have been nice. And why are you moving them in here?”
“It’s been quite a show,” Mikayel agreed, dourly, from his seat near the window into the atrium. The house was built along the lines of a Roman villa, like many others in the neighborhood. “Nothing like seeing the big man in charge.”
Adam shot his older brother a look. He didn’t have time to deal with any of this. So he took his mother’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “Imah, I’m sorry,” he told her. “Someone summoned an efreet into the propraetor’s hotel. We should be out from underfoot as soon as we’ve confirmed that there’s a second hotel we can go to, and can secure it.” He glanced around. “In the meantime, I can introduce you to my coworkers, if you like.” He switched to Latin. “Imah, this is Sigrun Caetia. She’s been on Livorus’ lictor detail the longest. Sigrun, this is my mother, Abigayil—”
Sigrun immediately crossed to offer Abigayil a wrist-clasp. Adam watched as his mother’s green eyes widened comically for a moment as she looked up at Sigrun, and tentatively accepted the gesture, which Sigrun tended to administer with hail-fellow-well-met vigor, regardless of the recipient. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” Sigrun told Abigayil in Latin, managing a faint smile. “You have a lovely home. Our apologies for disarranging it and intruding upon your time.”
Adam choked h
is laugh into a cough, and then added, “While I’m at it, I might as well introduce you to the rest of the family. Sig, this is my brother, Mikayel—” Even as he spoke the words, Adam remembered, belatedly, that his brother had adopted much more conservative ways since marrying Elah; her family was actually quite orthodox in most respects. And he’d gotten deeply involved in their entire social circle over the years, which had altered his views and behaviors.
As such, as Sigrun extended her hand for a wrist-clasp, Mikayel just looked down at the offered appendage, and then back up again at the valkyrie, nodding once. “Nice to meet you,” was all Mikayel said, in Latin, and Sigrun let her hand drop, her incipient smile faded, and she shot Adam a sidelong glance.
God. I do not have time for this, was his sole thought as he sighed and was about to move on to introduce Sigrun to his sisters, who still hadn’t left the dining room area. They were apparently fascinated with watching summoning magic being worked, so Adam decided to skip them for the moment. “My father’s in the study, I can introduce him later. That over there is Elah, Mikayel’s wife . . . and, ah . . . I have absolutely no idea who you all are,” he told the other people crammed into the living room with the propraetor’s family, Kanmi’s family, and everyone else, “but I’d guess you’re neighbors.” Adam gave them a slightly apologetic smile, and stayed in Latin to add, “Sorry about earlier. I don’t make a habit of introducing myself with a gun in my hands.”
His mother actually draped a hand over her eyes for a moment. “Ah . . . well. We’ve only just recently been introduced, ourselves,” she said, awkwardly. “This is Avishai ben Ilan, his wife Menuha, and their daughter, Nahal.”
Adam nodded at each, briefly, noting in passing that Nahal, the daughter, wore her dark, slightly wavy hair uncovered, and didn’t seem to have a wedding ring on any of her fingers. A distant voice at the back of his mind remarked that she was pretty enough—dark eyes, honey-touched olive skin, a heart-shaped face and a pert nose. All of that, however, was lost as suspicion rushed back into his mind. Sudden, inexplicable acquaintanceships, and he was trusting these people around Livorus and all the other protectees? “What do you mean, you’ve only recently met?” he asked, frowning.
“Oh, this is unbelievable,” Mikayel groused. “It’s bad enough that I dragged my entire family over here in the middle of the week for your shidduch and to meet the prospective bride, but now I have to watch the whole ‘look at me’ show, too.”
That hit Adam from two different directions at once. He had never really gotten along well with his older brother; even as children, doing their schoolwork, memorizing Torah verses, or untangling one of their father’s cryptographic exercises, Adam had always been a little bit better than Mikayel, and no matter that his brother was several years his elder. The one time he’d come home on leave from Praetorian work in India, Mikayel had told him bluntly that joining the Guard was just another way in which Adam was showing off, somehow. Just like being invited into JDF Special Forces had been, somehow, showing off, as well. Adam had bitten his tongue, and in the spirit of family harmony, walked away, not knowing how to explain to his older brother that their parents’ love was not a zero-sum game, that none of their affection for Mikayel was diminished by Adam’s accomplishments . . . or that all he ever heard about from their mother was how wonderful Mikayel was. How exceptional his life, his wife, his family all were, how happy Mikayel was, and why couldn’t Adam be just a bit more like his brother?
That was one layer of the irritation searing through him; and that it was the third such comment since walking through the door just made it kerosene atop kindling. The actual match to the fire was the word shidduch. Formal matchmaking. His mother had hired a shadchan, a professional matchmaker, who’d studied him and his family, and neatly slotted him next to a woman and her family, and then his mother had invited them all over to get to know them, to see if the two families might get along . . . and had intended to drop the entire thing in his lap. Look, see? We found you a wife. Do you like her?
This, in spite of the fact that he’d told her, repeatedly, not to do exactly this. Adam’s teeth hurt from clamping them together, and he was dimly aware that there had been at least fifteen seconds of total silence around him. He caught Sigrun looking back and forth in confusion between him and his family. The whole conversation had been in Hebrew, which, of course, Sigrun didn’t speak.
“Imah,” Adam said, very quietly, and still from between clenched teeth. He didn’t dare speak any louder. If he did, he was going to start shouting, and from there, it would get progressively uglier. “I am unsure what part of no you did not understand the first three times I told you not, under any circumstances, to engage a matchmaker for me. That I would not, ever, consider an arranged marriage. That I can and will find someone for myself, when I’m ready and I choose to do so.” In spite of every effort, his voice rose anyway. “Your friends and their daughter should leave now. I have nothing to say to any of them, and I trust we will not meet again.” He saw the man’s face set in grim lines, and the wife and daughter’s expression crumble in humiliation, and he briefly regretted his intemperate words were, but he was too angry at the moment to rein it in.
“You can’t tell our mother whom to invite into her own house—”
“At the moment, yes I can!” That actually was a shout. “I could have had them sent away in the first ten minutes, but didn’t, out of nothing more than courtesy and a desire not to embarrass my parents any further. Apparently, no one here has any concern along those lines for me!”
Dimly, Adam was aware, as his brother stood up to shout at him again, and his mother hastily stepped in between her two sons, that Trennus had moved out of the dining area, eyes afire, literally, as his spirits showed him what they perceived in the distance. Trennus’ words were a faint buzz for him, in Latin. “We have a problem,” but he was talking to Sigrun, though his eyes were on Adam and his family. “I need a minute here.”
And then Mikayel was back in Adam’s face again. “Just who do you think you are, little brother? You don’t have the right to raise your voice in this house—”
Sigrun’s voice, rising in mild amusement. “Trennus, I’m listening to people shouting in a language I do not speak. Is it a big problem or a small problem? I do not know if we can handle any more big problems today.”
“Who do I think I am?” Adam dropped from a shout back into a cold, clipped, utterly controlled tone. “I think I am a Praetorian Guard. I think I am the chief lictor to a propraetor, whose life is in my hands. And I think I don’t need any further useless distractions.”
Trennus again. “My forest-spirit spotted something as she was scouting. It’s big, it’s heading our way, and she and my other spirit don’t recognize it. Neither do I.” The summoner pulled Sigrun out of the room, to a window at the front of the house; Adam could just see them out of the corner of his eye through the long hallway, but the situation seemed to be handled, and he still had his older brother approximately two inches from his face.
“Useless distractions? What, we’re worthless to you now, big man? We only have value when you need us for something, huh?”
The radio at Adam’s belt crackled. “We’ve got something overhead. Not a plane. Moving like a large bird. Can’t get a good read on it.” That was the voice of one of the Roman lictors they’d placed on rooftop duty.
“Mikayel, please. Just stop. This is my fault,” their mother interjected, but that was just more fuel to the fire for Mikayel.
“No, it’s not your fault. It’s his fault. He thinks he’s better than us. He thinks he’s better than everyone—”
“Back off. Sit down. Now.” This was the command tone Adam had learned as an officer in special forces. Pure steel.
Mikayel actually stepped back, and Adam was still staring at him when a hand tapped his shoulder from behind. “What?” he asked in Latin, but didn’t turn away.
“Adam, I don’t know what the problem here is, but if it’s no
t life-threatening, it needs to end now. We need your mind in the fight,” Sigrun informed him, tightly.
Adam’s head snapped around, and his brain re-aligned. “What have we got?”
“That,” Trennus said, pointing at the front windows. “Whatever it is, it’s big, it’s flying, and I think it’s circling the house right now.”
“Powerful,” Kanmi added, coming in from the direction of the atrium. “I’ve been trying to get a read on it. It’s not a construct, it’s not human, and power’s coming off of it in waves.”
Adam moved cautiously to a window. “We’re talking a summoned creature, then?” Not a god, right? Just a perfectly ordinary spirit of some sort?
“I think so,” Trennus admitted, as something overhead briefly blotted out the sun. “L . . . the phoenix says it smells old to her.”
It does. The words slipped into everyone’s mind. It smells of dust and tomb air. Whatever this is, has not walked the earth in millennia.
“That’s . . . comforting.” Adam looked down in time to see a massive winged shadow pass over the neighborhood street outside, over the bicycles of the neighborhood children, dropped on their sides at the bottom of gravel drives, when the children had, in the last hour, come home from school to houses probably filled with worried parents peering out their windows at this house. “So we’re talking a very powerful summoner, to have pulled this thing up out of time’s abyss?”
“Someone with access to old materials, like one of the Magi, possibly. Or, as I’ve told you before . . . it could have been bound into a storage matrix,” Trennus returned, crisply. “All you’d need to do is put an object like that somewhere where someone else shattered it . . . atop a partially opened door, like a bucket of water in a stage comedy, would do, if nothing else.”
“I’m laughing already,” Kanmi said. All four of them watched as the shadow passed by again, this time clearly larger and lower.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 57
