The Lost Centurion

by Monica La Porta

  ****

  Under Laura’s scrutiny, Diana was scrubbed until her skin shone pink, then she was massaged by two women who barely exchanged a word between them. When she had thought the ordeal was ending, an older woman had entered the massage room in the baths, carrying a wooden box. Once opened, the box revealed a great variety of small glass vials.

  “She is the one ascending tonight?” The older woman gave Diana an assessing look.

  She was lying on the massage table completely naked and felt exposed. “What is she talking about? Ascending to what?”

  Laura grunted a “yes” to the older woman and glowered at her.

  Diana hugged her chest and rolled to the side, her knees up. The older woman selected several vials from the box, then proceeded to move Diana around to position her with her back on the mattress and her legs and arms wide open.

  The woman slapped Diana’s right hand in place when she moved. “Don’t worry. You’ll smell pretty for your first night.”

  “What are you talking about?” Diana asked directly to the woman, who raised an eyebrow and looked at the girl in response.

  Laura shook her head at the old woman, then turned her angry stare at Diana. “Sire will ascend you as his new bride tonight. It’s an honor not everybody experiences in a lifetime.”

  “I won’t—”

  The door opened and Claudius entered and kept it open with his hand. Laura and the older woman bowed and exited.

  “I won’t be your bride.” Diana grabbed the terry cloth robe from the back of the chair by the massage table and covered herself.

  “I should be offended by your rejection, but your stupidity entertains me to no end.” Claudius circled the massage table, then took the chair by the wall, dragged it closer to the table, and sat. “As if you have a choice.” He relaxed against the backrest, crossed his legs at the ankles, and folded his hands behind his head. “One touch and you’ll beg me to take you right here right now.” He didn’t move and kept his eyes on hers.

  Diana refused to cower and lower her face. Instead, she raised her chin and stared back at him. “You can only force my body to respond to your commands.”

  “The more you struggle, the more I will take later on.” A cold light flickered in his eyes.

  Diana shivered, wondering if he could influence her without physical contact. “I’ll find a way to break free from you.”

  “Only your death will tear us apart.” He smiled and lowered his hands to his chest for a loose hug.

  “So be it then.” Diana had already thought about it. She couldn’t live beneath the vampire and she wouldn’t survive outside the nest.

  “I already told you I am the one who decides your fate.”

  You aren’t always around and wood isn’t hard to come by. A smile tugged at her lips, but she immediately composed her face to a neutral expression.

  “I am here not to discuss nest laws, but to explain to you why you’ll play the happy bride before our guests tonight.”

  “I already—”

  Claudius leaned toward her and reached for her exposed leg. He touched her calf. “You’ve talked enough. Now listen carefully.”

  Diana was paralyzed once again. She cried inside, but no tears left her dry eyes.

  “As I was saying before you interrupted, you’ll become my bride in a public ceremony later tonight. For reasons that will become clear, I need you to willingly participate. Last time, it was a dry run of sorts to see how things would play. Tonight is the main show.”

  Dozens of questions went through Diana’s mind, but Claudius kept his mental hold on her tight.

  “It is in Marcus’s best interest that you obey me.” He smiled at her and patted her leg in a paternal gesture. “I’ll free you now.”

  Diana felt the mental cage lift and she was able to command her body again. She breathed deeply in and out. “Will you spare his life?”

  “Of course not.” He stood and looked down at her. “I thought you were smart.” He turned the chair and rested both hands on its backrest.

  “Why would I want to cooperate?” Diana was grateful he had moved slightly away from her. The vampire’s mere presence made her feel sick to her stomach. “There’s nothing I want if Marcus dies.”

  Claudius’s hands left the chair, and she automatically moved to the other end of the table, fearing his touch.

  “I don’t need to touch you to make you obey.” He walked a step closer to the table. “And that excites me. There are very few things that have the power to excite me nowadays.”

  His eyes locked with hers, and Diana automatically clutched the lapels of her robe against her chest.

  He sat on the edge of the table, his fingers traveling on the mattress toward the hem of her robe. “And for your information, there’s always something you want. You just don’t know it yet.”

  She started shaking her head, but his fingers climbed inside the robe and he caressed her thigh.

  “I won’t remove your free will, but you must listen like a good girl.” He circled her leg with light fingers and pressed his palm against the inside of her thigh.

  Diana hurried to nod, wanting more than anything for him to stop talking and leave her alone.

  “Marcus is going to die, but it’s up to you how. I can give him a swift and merciful death.” His fingers started wandering higher.

  Diana’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Or I can torture him for months.” He stopped his hand just below her bikini line. “What are you willing to do to spare him such pain?” He pinched her skin and laughed when she cried.

  “Whatever it takes.” Diana lowered her eyes, unable to look at him any longer.

  Claudius patted her leg. “What I wanted to hear.” He closed the lapels of her robe and leaned away from her, but didn’t leave as she had hoped. Instead, he explained at length what was expected of her. “Is everything clear?”

  Diana was trying and failing to accept her orders, but shakily nodded.

  He put a finger under her chin. “My innocent vestal bride. Corrupting you is worth delaying your centurion’s death.” As a parting gift, he bent over her and brushed her lips with his.

  She waited for him to be outside the room, before running to the sink by the wall and dry-retching for several seconds. Meanwhile Laura and the older woman had come back and were both looking at her with disgust written all over their faces. They didn’t give her time to compose herself. The girl ordered Diana to cleanse her mouth with a minty mouthwash and threatened her to call back her sire if she didn’t cooperate. Before she finally left the massage room, Diana was anointed with different oils for different parts of her body. She was touched in the most intimate ways and yet she didn’t feel anything.

  ****

  Outside his cell, once they reached the first landing at the end of the dim hallway, they made Marcus strip and forced him to walk completely naked the rest of the way to the baths. They passed several vampires, men and women, who looked at him with unabashed interest.

  “You might get lucky before the night ends, centurion.” The taller of the two vampires escorting him was also the most prone to idle conversation. He had opened the door to the baths for him as if he were a guest and not a captive to be executed. But at the first hesitation on Marcus’s side, the shorter vampire had used the baton he kept strapped to the side of his pants to convince him to move along. Marcus didn’t give the man the satisfaction of crying out when the wooden cylinder hit the back of his leg, but the pain that followed reminded him of his current station once again.

  The place resembled the Roman baths from his youth. He was told by the tall vampire that Claudius had used the spring of thermal waters running under the palace to supplement the water for the calidarium, the hot water pool. After the impromptu tour of the premises, Marcus was led to the shower stalls and had to bathe with the two vampires watching his every move. He wondered if the two of them were enjoying the show too much.

  “May I have a chan
ge of clothes or am I supposed to join the ceremony naked?” He knew he was dead already, but he had enough of Claudius and his minions thinking they could humiliate him.

  The two vampires exchanged amused glances and laughed. Then the shorter of the two exited the room and came back a few minutes later with a full change for him.

  Marcus donned the clothes before the vampires, then defiantly went to the door. “Where to?”

  Two batons hit his back at once and he collapsed on the floor. He wanted for the farce to end once and for all, but the door opened on him before the vampires could beat him unconscious.

  “Sire—”

  “The prisoner wasn’t cooperating—”

  Marcus’s head was kept on the floor by a boot that was immediately lifted as Claudius’s polished shoes came into view once again.

  “Take him to the waiting room. Then go to the dungeon. You know your punishment for disobeying my orders.” Claudius gave Marcus a look, then stepped out of the room.

  The two vampires pulled him up and escorted him out without a word. Marcus noticed the look of terror both men sported, but at least he was left alone. They walked in complete silence through several hallways, then left him in a small room, and closed the door behind them.

  Marcus took a look around and saw the second door opening on the left wall, and the big window that occupied the opposite wall. He took the frail-looking bench sitting on his right and pushed it toward the window. The time spent in the dungeon made him appreciate open air now that he didn’t know how much time he had left. He sat on the bench with his body angled toward the window. He opened the panels and leaned outside. His head throbbed and his back hurt, but he didn’t move. His eyes were filled with all the tears he hadn’t shed yet. He had been trying to accept Diana’s death. His mind told him she was no more, but his heart wouldn’t let him believe so.

  He was left by himself long enough to start dozing. When the door on the left wall opened, it startled him awake. He had been dreaming of Diana.

  A majordomo entered the room, followed by a servant who held what looked like a doctor’s bag. “The ceremony is about to start.”

  Marcus rose from the bench.

  “There’s something we must take care of first.” The majordomo made him sit back down. “We must be quick, otherwise it spoils,” he said to the servant.

  The second man opened the bag that, as Marcus had correctly guessed, contained medical supplies of the kind used to collect and store blood. Without any explanation, the majordomo asked for his right arm and proceeded to tie a rubber strap above his elbow. A few minutes later, the man had filled half a plasma bag with Marcus’s blood, which he immediately handed to the servant who put it away. “It should suffice. Store it in the fridge.” He then gave Marcus permission to stand up while the servant hurried out of the room with the bag.

  Marcus tried, but was on his feet too fast and swayed, feeling all his blood traveling down to his extremities. It took him a moment to regain his equilibrium, but he followed the man outside and into a short hallway that must have been the servants’ and had doors and louvers opening into it. From the louvers, Marcus observed a flurry of activities. They took two flights of stairs and walked into an even smaller hallway with no louvers and only five doors.

  The majordomo opened the fourth door on the right and led him inside a sumptuous ballroom. “You’ll be sitting at the front.”

  His escort led him through the whole length of the room that was elegantly decorated with dozens of glass vases filled with floral arrangements, and garlands made of lemons and roses festooning the walls. A white grand piano, a second Steinway from the look of it, had been pushed toward the left wall, between two French doors opening to a balcony. Beyond the glass panels, a long marble staircase led to the manicured Italian gardens. He looked back inside the room. Two harps stood near the piano. Halfway through his stroll, Marcus put into focus several details that gave him chills. A big marble table took the central space on the raised dancing area. The table’s top was covered in red rose petals. Pitchers containing blood were placed on one end of the table. The bay-windowed dancing area was illuminated by a crystal chandelier holding hundreds of candles instead of light bulbs. Pale light from the outside entered from the arched window facing the rest of the ballroom. Three stained glass panels depicted a more modern scene compared to the one on the ground floor. Three women wearing long, loose dresses and holding rose garlands in their short hair chased each other in a stylized rendering that was pure Art Deco. The whole place was set up as a romantic vignette.

  Marcus couldn’t shake the feeling that something horrible was going to happen on that table. The majordomo showed him his chair that was situated at the center of the front row. One second look to the side of the room and Marcus saw several vampires observing him from behind columns. They weren’t hiding from him. He turned to face the marble table and realized the vampires were positioned as not to be seen from the dancing stage.

  “We have a tight schedule, if you please.” The majordomo barely waited for him to sit and removed a pair of handcuffs from inside his vest. “Your hands.”

  Marcus offered his hands united to the wrists, his eyes on the closest vampire to his right. The man had a gun trained at Marcus’s head. He didn’t have to turn around to know every one of those vampires had a gun pointed at him. “Your master wants to be sure I focus on the show.”

  The majordomo didn’t waste any more words on him and left. Marcus looked at his handcuffed hands, a sense of uneasiness growing inside of him until he was gasping for air. While he fought to calm his nerves, the ballroom started filling with people. Soon, all the seats behind him were taken while he remained the only occupant in that first row. A quiet melody reached him from the other end of the room. He turned on his seat to the disapproval of the couple sitting behind him. The two harps were being played by two girls wearing long, pleated tunics. The string duet ended between a burst of applauses. A low murmur collectively rose from the assembled crowd, and Marcus dared a second glance behind him above his shoulder. A young man sat at the piano and played several songs. Marcus had no idea who the boy was, but every head in the room was turned his way, and he had a moment to look around again. The ballroom was full, and a few guests were still being accompanied to their seats, but Marcus saw the army of servants moving around to extinguish the candles from every chandelier but the one illuminating the marble table.

  The boy played one last ballad, gracefully stood to receive his grand applause, bowed low, then was escorted out of the room. The murmur that had accompanied the concerto the whole time ceased as if an orchestra director had shut every mouth in the room at the same time. Marcus felt something gnawing at his stomach. Eyes turned to the front and he turned too to face the empty bay window. He had the feeling everybody was looking at the back of his head. His shackled hands lay in his lap. He had kept moving his wrists and the metal handcuff had chafed his skin.

  A soft chant reverberated in the silent room. From a door hidden by one of the columns framing the bay window, several people entered in a single row. They all wore black hooded tunics and each held a red candle. Their singing had an eerie quality and increased Marcus’s uneasiness. The hooded people formed a semi-circle around the table, keeping the side facing the rest of the room free. The illumination on the stage was dramatic but wasn’t enough to show any of those hooded people’s faces.

  Marcus’s chest raised and lowered with great strain. Two more people entered the stage by the hidden door. A man wearing a red-hooded tunic held his hand out for a small woman wearing a white one. Marcus’s heart stopped beating. An invisible string pulled him to that woman.

  It was Diana.

  He knew. He didn’t know how, but he felt her, saw her under the garment that covered her completely. Her name was on his mouth, but he didn’t dare speak. She wasn’t fast enough to fall in step with the man, and he grabbed her wrist. Marcus couldn’t keep still on his seat. He watched as the m
an rather forcefully led Diana to the table, then made her climb steps Marcus hadn’t noticed before. The man arranged her on the table, opening her arms and legs.

  Marcus felt like throwing up. He turned to look to his right. A moment later, he wasn’t alone anymore. The man in red was at his side, having moved from the stage to Marcus’s seat in the blink of an eye.

  “You’ll watch as I claim my bride.” Claudius was staring into Marcus’s eyes, and a manic light shone into his. He turned slightly toward the table. “My love, show your face to our guests.”

  Marcus froze on his seat.

  The small form on the table slightly rose on her elbows and lowered her hood. The chandelier above her illuminated her pale face and her big hazel eyes. Diana’s shorn locks came into sight next.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Diana!” Marcus tried to leap to the stage, but Claudius stopped him by simply laying a hand on his chest. “Diana.” He didn’t struggle against the vampire. He knew he didn’t have the strength anymore, but the man owed him answers. His heart had told him all along she was alive, but he had seen her die. “How?”

  “Nothing more than a magician’s trick. Smoke and mirrors. Your mind was already addled. It didn’t take much to make you see what I wanted you to see. I planted the wooden stick just a hair south of her heart. You removed it just in time for her to start healing.” Claudius pressed his hand over Marcus’s shirt to keep him down. “Love, say hi to our guest of honor,” he called to Diana, who shielded her eyes from the candles’ glare.

  She searched the crowd, and when her eyes landed on the first row, she seemed startled by Marcus’s presence, but didn’t acknowledge him. He called her again and she looked away.

  “She was playing you all along.”

  Marcus’s head whipped toward Claudius who was smiling at him.

  “Did you really think she would betray her own race for a renegade immortal? You had no status, no allegiance. She came to me voluntarily.”