I finally allowed myself to look at Helena, concluding she seemed mostly fine. Besides her bleeding feet, any additional cut and bruise seemed minimal, and none of her limbs appeared broken, but I couldn’t know for sure.
Her clothing hadn’t spared nearly so well.
Most of her outfit had been made out of a thin silk like material – not overly durable – and had been torn to shreds during our run, leap and fall down the stairs. At least she’d had the sense to wear her modern undergarments beneath, her sports bra and tight short shorts basically all she had left.
She began to cough uncontrollably where she lay, doubling over in pain on the ground. She curled into a ball and clutched her side before a spasm forced her to uncurl and arch her back so violently that I feared she’d fold in half in the wrong direction. Every muscle in her body seemed contorted and close to bursting from her skin at the exertion. For a moment I thought she was experiencing a seizure, but the muscles at the small of her back loosened and her body relaxed. She curled into a fetal position again and wrapped her arms around her stomach to stave off the pain, the latest painful throes of yet another of her attacks ebbing away.
I crawled as fast I could to her side and flipped her onto her back, hoping beyond hope that she was still conscious. When she opened her eyes, I saw them full of pain and, as ever, directing pure rage at me and me alone.
“How… in the name… of God, have you survived… your life, Jacob?!” She yelled through her agony, punching me square in the jaw to punctuate her words. “You have to be the biggest klutz on the entire planet, from now until the goddamned future and everything in-between!”
I held a hand to my sore jaw and forced myself to keep from smiling. A moment later, I held out my other hand, indicating that she shut up when I heard a banging noise above us. Our leap of faith had to have thrown off some of those chasing us, but it seemed like someone had come to inspect our house.
Helena got the point quickly and I helped her to her feet as she fought off the last of the pain. Together, we shuffled over to a dark corner of the house. I heard voices from the level we had just vacated and hoped for a miracle that there was only a few of them. I retrieved my Sig from the floor, my bag having spilled its contents everywhere, and quietly reloaded it, thanking God I’d left a bullet in the chamber so I didn’t have to make any noise pulling back the slide. Helena retrieved a small knife from her own bag.
“Let’s try and take these guys alive,” I whispered, my adrenaline pumping once again. “Find out who the fuck they are.”
She nodded and scampered off beneath the stairwell, waiting for the men to come downstairs. I waited as well, crouching in the shadows directly to the left of the stairs. I tried to take a deep breath to calm my nerves but winced after just a quick one. I needed to get my chest taped up soon or I’d be having serious trouble breathing pretty quickly.
The voices upstairs stopped, and I heard them shuffle towards the stairs. Not a second passed before the first set of black footed men descended to our level, passing Helena without a thought as to what lurked beneath the stairs. The man stopped on the landing and waited, scanning the dark room with eyes that hadn’t had enough time to develop their natural night vision. As a result, he failed to notice my presence mere feet from him in the dark corner, and I made my move.
I sprung from my hiding place and grabbed him by the neck with my arm. I brought my hip into his body and tossed him to the ground. I placed a hand against his face and smashed the back of his head into the floor to keep him quiet. I snapped my head around to see Helena grab the feet of the second man before he could reach the bottom of the stairs. He tripped and fell, knocking his head into the wall as he went. He crashed onto the floor and Helena was on top of him in an instant. She rested her knife against his neck, and I was just about to order her to cut his throat, just to scare my guy a little, when he cut me off with the use of my name.
“Hunter! Wait!”
I looked down at the man I had subdued and wondered who the hell he could be. I reached down to pull his mask off to reveal a very familiar face.
“Gaius!” I practically screamed, looking down at one of my closest Roman friends. I looked over and saw Helena pull off her own victim’s mask to reveal my other friend, Marcus.
I was stupefied. What the hell were they doing here?
I turned back to Gaius. “What in the name of almighty Jove are you doing here?!”
Gaius looked scared shitless as he coughed in pain. “That, my old friend, is a very long and interesting story.”
***
Relative to the rest of the day, our trip back to our apartment had been rather dull.
Once our initial confusion had worn off, Gaius and Marcus had been quick to assure us that they were not our enemies. According to them, they hadn’t had any idea they were chasing Helena and me until I pulled my gun on them. They hadn’t been much more forthcoming than that so far, indicating they needed the relative safety of our apartment before they could explain themselves.
I agreed, and the four of us had made our way back to Santino and the safe house. Before we left, Helena spent a few minutes rummaging through the lady of the house’s collection of clothing. She hadn’t found much, but she’d managed to pilfer a black robe for herself. The last thing we needed was her walking down the streets in her underwear. That would draw far too much attention.
After donning her new outfit, I helped her limp along to the house. I bandaged her feet with the limited medical supplies I had in my bag, but each step had to be like stepping on glass for her. We also had to take a moment to wrap Marcus’ sprained ankle, a result of his tumble down the stairs. Finally, even though I needed it for my own head, I offered Gaius the disposable cold pack from my med-kit. The only thing we couldn’t fix was my cracked rib. It would have to wait, even though every breath I took felt like someone was sticking a knife into my lungs, and every step hurt more than the last. After the time it took us to find our way home, it wouldn’t have surprised me to discover that my lungs had been shredded to pieces, but a lack of blood in my mouth quelled those fears.
What I couldn’t divine, however, was if any of Gaius and Marcus’ comrades were following us. The two Romans claimed to be on our side, and I really wanted to believe them, but it was hard to trust anyone these days. If only we had Santino’s UAV to provide rear reconnaissance, but I had to settle for surreptitious glances over my shoulder as we rounded corners and pushed our way through people. I hadn’t noticed a tail so far, but that didn’t guarantee our trip wasn’t being watched.
Twenty minutes later, our apartment was within sight. We passed by the waiting wenches hanging around outside and in the hallways and stairwells, each giving Helena an annoyed glance as we passed by. These particular whores would have rated very low on any man’s scale, and they knew if Helena tried to bust in on their action, they’d be put out of business quickly.
At the end of a long hallway on the third floor of the building, we found our door, opened it, and went inside to find Santino leaning back in a wooden chair, his bare feet on the table, apparently spending his time counting something on the ceiling. He turned his head to see what the commotion was, but because Helena and I weren’t the first ones in, he flew into action when he didn’t immediately identify Gaius or Marcus.
In one swift move, he fell off his chair, and rolled under the table, flipping it on its side to rest it in front of him. The next thing I saw was his HK416 pointed in our direction, which he kept duct taped to the bottom of the table for this very reason. Helena had her P90 hidden under Santino’s bed, and I kept Penelope over the door inside the apartment’s sole bedroom.
“Get down,” Santino yelled from his defensible position.
“Stand down,” I ordered, but all the same, stepped out of his line of fire. “It’s Gaius and Marcus.”
“Gaius and Marcus?” He asked no one in particular. The two men entered the room, shutting the door behind them in silence.
I hauled Helena over to Santino’s bed, sat her down and began the process of removing her blood soaked bandages.
“I recall telling you a long time ago that you weren’t allowed to get hurt anymore,” I told her, pulling out an iodine pad to clean her wounds.
“Right,” she answered. “You said only you were allowed to get hurt.”
“You’re breaking the rules,” I quipped, holding her foot still as she winced at the cold sting. “Again.”
“Jacob, if I only let you get hurt, you’d be dead a thousand times over by now. Probably from your own damn clumsiness.”
“Good point,” I conceded, spraying some antiseptic on her wounds and wrapping a gauze bandage around it. I finished her left foot first before starting work on her right. Meanwhile, Gaius helped Santino turn the heavy wooden table back on its legs. Santino gave him a proper handshake, grasping his forearms just below the elbow, while giving Marcus a friendly bear hug, lifting the smaller Roman off his feet. Marcus had saved Santino’s life the day Caligula had been poisoned, and they’d bonded immediately.
I finished with Helena’s second foot as Santino poured steaming cups of tea for each of us.
“I’d stay off your feet for at least a day,” I recommended to Helena, giving them one last look over.
“A whole day?” She asked, feigning disappointment. “What ever will I do for a whole day with nothing to do? In bed?”
“Don’t get any ideas,” I joked with a sly smile, before turning to Santino. “Hey, Santino, toss me Wang’s medical kit.”
He nodded and went to retrieve the enormous bag Wang had put together years ago. We had more medical supplies than we knew what to do with, but those were stored away. Wang’s bag, however, had everything we could ever need at moment’s notice, and everything was organized so that I could find whatever was needed by touch alone.
I pulled out two giant rolls of gauze, dropped the bag to the floor and handed them to Helena. I took my shirt off and noticed a large bruise starting to swell exactly where my breathing hurt.
“I think I cracked a rib,” I told her. “Wrap me up good and tight.”
She gave me a very annoyed look. I hadn’t mentioned my injury earlier and she must have been getting very tired of patching me up these days. She reluctantly rested the end of the gauze against my chest and started to wrap.
“Next time you want to talk about me getting injured, you’d better think again,” she said matter of factly.
“I just wanted to…”
My response was cut short when she pulled the gauze tight around my chest. This time it felt like Santino had shoved his scimitar through my rib cage.
“Never mind,” I wheezed. “I’ll just shut up now.”
Helena nodded curtly, offering me a humph.
Ignoring the increasing pressure and pain Helena was inflicting upon my chest, I tried to ease myself into a comfortable sitting position. Santino pulled his chair near the bed while she worked on me, and Gaius and Marcus joined us as well. We all just stared at each other, everyone wondering the same thing.
“So what the hell are you guys doing here?” Santino asked, never one for awkward silences and always speaking what was on everyone else’s mind.
Both members of Agrippina’s Sacred Band squirmed in their chairs, before Gaius, the slightly older of the two, stood and paced around the room. Only a year or so younger than me, his face was hard, like any Roman soldier’s and seemed far older than even my own, which had seemed to age a decade in the past few years.
His chiseled features, small nose, inquisitive eyes, dark hair and perpetual five o’clock shadow gave him a look that belonged on the cover of a Harlequin romance novel, even if he was only five and a half feet tall. Like Marcus, he was short by modern standards, but his height was ideal for his kind of work. Marcus had a similar complexion, but his face was round and more akin to cheery expressions.
Gaius was still pacing, so I gave him some prompting.
“Why don’t you start with…” but I winced again when Helena adjusted her wrapping to go around my right shoulder.
“Sorry,” she apologized.
I gave her a doubtful look before turning back to Gaius. “Why don’t you start with why you’re dressed like that and why you and your buddies seem so… not Roman.”
“Well, Hunter,” he said nonchalantly, flipping a hand over his shoulder, “you have you to thank for that.”
“Me?” I asked.
“All of you,” he answered, never one for nonsense. “Agrippina had some interesting ideas for her new Sacred Band after you fled Rome. Ideas she learned from you. She had these black suits fashioned after your own combat clothing, although obviously not as advanced, and ordered us to develop a new fighting method that made us more spies and assassins than soldiers. We even work in pairs, just like you do, as well as in a larger group of eight people. An octetus.”
I assumed an octetus was the term for their new squad, taken from the Roman term octet – eight legionnaires who shared a tent in a legion camp.
“We may not have your rifles or gear,” he finished, “but we have groomed ourselves into a formidable group.”
“So,” Santino mumbled, pinching the sides of his forehead, “Agrippina has some grand idea for better bodyguards and makes you figure it out for yourself on how to do it?”
I raised a hand in the air. “What part of that was confusing?”
Santino shrugged. “Just inefficient is all. And lazy on her part.”
“Basically, you are correct,” Gaius clarified. “She gave us very loose orders to develop something more akin to your method of waging war. Subterfuge, infiltration, stealth… assassination. We were to become something she could use more indirectly than a legion. We borrowed heavily from what you taught us during our days in the Primigenia’s camp, but also hired out experts from Persia, Egypt, Germany, India, and as far as the Orient to teach us whatever techniques they knew.”
“Very thorough,” I complimented.
“What about you two?” Helena asked. “Why is it that of every member of the Sacred Band, you two are a part of this new group of thugs?” She paused to tie off my wrap as tightly as possible. “There, Jacob. I also recommend that you stay off your feet for a day or so,” she finished as she slid off the bed to sit next to me, her shoulder touching mine.
Gaius and Marcus looked at each other before Marcus spoke up from his chair.
“We are not embarrassed to admit that we are… well… in awe of you. From the day you defended Caligula with your life, owing him nothing, we both knew you were something special. Our only regret is that we know we’ll never be as good as you are.”
“You two handle yourselves just fine on your own,” Santino offered. “You’re handier with a blade than I am, and that’s saying something.”
“True,” Gaius answered, now leaning on the back of his chair, “but you have abilities we don’t even understand. That is why when Agrippina called for volunteers for her new unit, we left our command positions and spent the next few years after you left training. Our entire force was ready only a year ago.”
“So if you’re not Praetorians, then who are you?” I asked.
“We have no name,” Gaius said with a slight shake of his head.
“Right,” Marcus picked up, right where his friend left off. “We are still technically members of the Sacred Band, and will serve alongside the Empress should we need to go to war, but unofficially we are on special assignment. We have no new title, and while we no longer carry the rank of primus prior, we are still Praetorians.”
“Interesting,” I said.
It really was. Here was another deviation from the tim
eline. Rome had always employed assassins, thieves, and spies, but never had there been an official group of well-trained ones, specifically not on the payroll of the empire. As far as I knew, they’d never had anything akin to something like the CIA or the Hashishin employed by the Ottomans. Not only that, but they were using fighting techniques we had taught them, and being the crafty Romans they were, had built upon them, probably creating something pretty impressive. A head of state with these men at their disposal, especially since they were so devoutly loyal, as the Sacred Band most surly was, would have quite an asset at her disposal.
No one said anything for some time.
“I think the real question,” Helena said slowly, “is what are you doing in Byzantium, if you’re not trying to kill us?”
That was a great question. I shifted my look from her to the Romans, waiting for their response. Both men glanced at one another once again, looking very worried. Gaius sighed, moved around his chair, and retook his seat.
“We’re looking for the orb,” he said.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Santino said, punching out open hands with each “whoa”, “you mean the blue one? The one that got us here?”
“You mean as opposed to the red one?” Helena joked, inciting Santino to smirk at her.
“The one that there are actually two of,” I reminded.
“That is correct,” Gaius continued. “We seek the orb stolen on the battlefield just after Rome was retaken in Caligula’s name. No one is sure where it is, but one of our tasks is to find it and retrieve it for the Empress. She has given us substantial free reign to track it down and obtain it, however we see fit.”
“You mean steal it back?” Helena scoffed.
“That was not to be our first approach, no,” Marcus answered. “We hope to purchase it legally.”
“That is correct,” Gaius said. “We have a lead here in Byzantium, and the two of us along with the rest of our octetus have been asking around the city for any further information.”
“So we ask again,” I said, insistently. “Why were you chasing us?”
To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) Page 19
