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

by Crichton, Edward

  I yelled in pain.

  Helena finally released Agrippina’s wrists after she heard my cry of pain. When we finally hit the ground, we rolled together, Agrippina still lying where we left her. Once we stopped, we were separated, but all I cared about was the gaping wound in my side. I risked a glance at it.

  I immediately wished I hadn’t.

  I wasn’t sure if it looked worse than it felt or not. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know. The laceration was at least six inches long, from my seratus muscles around to my shoulder blade. The thing had to have been splayed open an inch deep and I swore I could see my ribs.

  Helena noticed it too and rushed to my side. She sat behind me and tried to hold me in an upright position in her arms. I felt her bare breasts push up against my back and a flood of warmth from her active body surged around my own. The comforting feeling help stave off the shock that was sure to come, but Helena didn’t have anything to put pressure on my wound with, so she simply slapped her hand on there and held tight.

  Just like all the other times, her help hurt more than the actual wounding, and I yelled in pain for a second time.

  My attacker ignored us, knowing Helena and I weren’t going anywhere. He moved over towards Agrippina to help her up, and I knew she was going to order him to kill us. I locked eyes with her for just a brief second and I saw something I’d never seen there before.

  Fear, perhaps?

  She flicked her eyes at Helena, who fumed back at her silently, refusing to leave me to die, even to kill Agrippina. The empress took a second to evaluate all her options before finally settling on that of the fleeing variety. Without another look, she and her Praetorian savior found an opening in the wall and got the hell out of dodge.

  Helena shifted her hand on my wound and I groaned.

  “Just hang on, Jacob,” she said. “Wang will be here in a second.”

  “I’ll be fine, Helena. It’s just a scratch.”

  She looked at it again, shifting her hand to do so.

  Another yell.

  “If it’s just a scratch, quit crying you big baby.”

  I smiled around the pain. She wouldn’t joke if she truly thought it was serious.

  More at ease than I’d been thirty seconds ago, I looked out over the fallen rubble, collapsed columns, and dead Praetorians, trying to glimmer an outline of my friends through the still settling dust from the explosion. I couldn’t hear the obvious sounds of a battle going on, but I did hear plenty of people moving around.

  I blinked twice, but by the third one, two figures started moving in our direction through the debris. I tensed at first, wincing at the pain from my wound. I heard Helena breath in sharply as well, readying herself for anything.

  I was reaching for Penelope, even though she was empty, when Wang and Santino came barreling through the debris, heading right for us. Both men rushed to our position, each still shirtless and sweating heavily. Wang moved towards my left side, already pulling off his medic bag which he must have found after the battle.

  He hastily batted Helena’s hand aside and inspected the wound. He used his thumb and forefinger to gently part it before shaking his head after I yelled again

  “Always have to be the hero, don’t you, Hunter?” He asked, pulling a syringe out of his bag.

  “Of course he does,” Helena replied, resting her chin on my shoulder.

  I winced. “Give it to me straight, doc. Am I going to make it?”

  Wang flicked the syringe, glancing at me like I was a drama queen. “You’ll live, Hunter. It’s just a flesh wound.”

  I sighed in relief and patted Helena’s arm, which she still had wrapped around my stomach.

  I shifted my attention to Santino as Wang jabbed me with the needle.

  I winced but kept my attention on my friend. “Sit-rep.”

  He coughed up some dust as he turned to survey the room. The blown dirt and debris continued to swirl around him, caking his perspiring body in a thick coating. He looked more like a ghost than ever.

  “We’re pretty fucked up,” he reported. “Titus is immobile. His left leg is pinned beneath a giant slab of ceiling. Gaius and Marcus are helping Vincent get him out.”

  He hesitated for a moment as he glanced towards a blown out portion of the wall. I traced his look but could discern nothing of note, except that we had been moved down to the first floor of the villa.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Bordeaux is MIA. The first thing he did after the last Praetorian went down was to radio Madrina. When she didn’t answer, he checked the UAV feed.” He paused again with a shake of his head. “The GPS beacon we gave her indicated she’s just outside and not moving. She must have come to investigate during our little nap earlier. Bordeaux ran that way.” He raised a hand to indicate the direction he’d turned his attention to earlier.

  Another loose end, but he’d be back after he found her. “What about everyone else?”

  “Everyone else has cuts, scrapes, scratches, and a few knife wounds, but you’re the worst.” He paused once again. “Of course.”

  I smiled. It did always seem like I managed to get myself hurt more often than naught.

  “What about Agrippina?”

  “She’s gone. Scurried her tight little butt out of here like a cockroach. I was able to find this though,” he said, holding up what I knew must have been the orb wrapped in a black cloth.

  “At least this mission wasn’t a total wash,” Wang said sarcastically as he stitched me up. “But we should look for Varus. If he was here, he may have survived the explosion and be in need of medical attention.”

  My chin dropped against my chest at the thought of poor Varus. I knew what the others did not; that he was already dead, probably buried somewhere here in the rubble. We owed it to him to find his body.

  “What about the other orb?” I asked

  “Unknown,” Santino said, before swiftly pulling back the orb as if something important finally dawned on him. “By the way, how did you know to reset the timer on Bordeaux’s bomb?”

  I coughed. “Let’s just get everyone situated before we get into that.”

  He nodded and I looked at Wang. He was completely focused on his procedure and was already finishing up the stitches on my side. I barely even noticed.

  “Move him forward, Helena,” he ordered.

  She did as she was told, pushing me away from her so that Wang could wrap my chest up with a few rolls of gauze. After a few wraps around my shoulder, he dug into Santino’s bag and pulled out a spare black T-shirt a size too small to add extra pressure. Once he and Helena managed to get it on me, they both helped me up, and Wang handed me a sling and Helena and Santino shirts of their own.

  Santino took his immediately, but Helena looked at it stupidly before looking down at her naked upper body, perhaps realizing for the first time how exposed she was, and she sheepishly moved to cover herself with her arms. She readily accepted the shirt Wang held out in front of him, who had in turn looked away to offer her some privacy.

  I ignored them both, my head swimming as I steadied myself on my own. I must have lost more blood than I’d thought.

  But it looks like I’ll live.

  It looks like we’ll all live.

  Thank God.

  Once Helena secured her shirt over her torso, she took the sling from me and pulled it over my head and maneuvered my arm into it. She then gripped me by my other arm and helped move me closer to the rest of the group. She led me to a slab of rock and sat me down. I winced as I sat, but I was glad to be off my feet. She brushed my cheek with a hand and leaned in to kiss me, a single happy tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away and moved to help Titus as well.

  It was then that a shirtless Bordeaux came rushing into the room, an unconscious or dead, Madrina in his arms. He threw a disgusted look at me as he passed by, calling for Wang as he set his wife down gingerly on a large, flat piece of concrete. He knelt by her, uselessly mopping her hair from her face instea
d of helping Titus. Wang went to see what he could do for her while everyone else continued to extract Titus from the rubble.

  I watched the endeavor. Gaius and Marcus already had a piece of an iron pole working as a fulcrum beneath the slab while Vincent tried to clear obstructions with his only hand. But every time they tried to move it, Titus cried out in pain. Luckily once Santino joined in, they were able to lift the slab just high enough for Helena to pull him out. Gaius and Marcus politely pushed her aside, lifted the boy, and carried him next to me.

  Wang noticed Titus’ removal, said a quick word to Bordeaux, and moved to look at the young Roman’s leg. Bordeaux angrily followed Wang’s departure until he remembered my presence. I made eye contact with him and gave him a supportive nod, but his response was the last thing I expected. His eyes blazed intensely, all the fury over his wife’s injury now directed solely at me. He sprang to his feet and moved in my direction, his hands balled into fists.

  If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he meant me physical harm.

  I’d never seen such anger in the man before, especially not directed at me. He was normally so gentle despite his size that we always joked he was just a big kitten. But now, it was like watching Bill Bixby transform into Lou Ferrigno on one of the greatest TV shows ever created.

  His large body bounded to where I sat in less than two seconds as I watched in wide-eyed terror. He reached out and grabbed the collar of my shirt, his right hand rearing back behind his head, ready to strike.

  “You!” He roared, attracting the attention of the others. “First you tell me to reset the timer!? Then to trust you!? Look what happened to my wife!”

  I squeezed my eyes and looked away, bracing myself for the punch I knew would probably take my head from my shoulders. Luckily it never landed. Helena leapt onto his arm before he could take a swing at me, but all she could do was hold on like a child dangling on a playground monkey bars set. Even still, he almost managed to throw it all the same. Santino also tried to get between me and my attacker, but Bordeaux seemed intent on killing me. He shrugged Helena off like she was a rag doll and pushed Santino to the ground. It took the combined efforts of Marcus, Gaius, Santino, and Helena to stop him from crushing me.

  Once they pushed him far enough away from me, Vincent stepped in to glare at him.

  “What the hell are you doing, Lieutenant?!” He yelled.

  It wasn’t the voice of a friend or father figure, but of our old commanding officer. Captain Vincent was demanding why one of his men had just tried to strike a fellow officer.

  That calmed Bordeaux down.

  But only a little.

  “He told me to trust him,” he yelled. “Said thirty five minutes would be enough time. I would have set it for an hour. This may never have happened!” He finished his point by jabbing a finger at his unconscious wife.

  Wang turned his head to face the raging Frenchman, setting Titus’ leg as he did so.

  “She’s just unconscious, Jeanne. Her vitals are good. She’ll be fine.”

  Bordeaux was now taking tremendous deep breaths, his veins pulsing like a blowfish. He stared at me, but I tried to hold his gaze coolly. He was suffering from a post combat adrenaline rush. Nothing gets the blood flowing like fighting for your life, but if he wasn’t careful, he could wear himself out into a coma if he didn’t get his heart rate under control. It wasn’t a foreign concept to soldiers, sometimes leading to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

  Vincent put his only remaining hand on Bordeaux shoulder. A very trusting gesture considering his disability.

  “Calm down,” he said. “Everything’s fine. All of us are still alive. That’s the only thing that matters.”

  Bordeaux shifted his attention away from me and down at him. Vincent held his stare like a rock and after a few moments, Bordeaux finally calmed his breathing and settled down. He moved back towards Madrina, sat beside her, and held her hand. No one else moved for a few seconds after that, everyone still in shock and awe at not only the battle, but Bordeaux’s explosion.

  Helena was the first to recover. She moved to sit next to me, wrapping her left arm around my back, holding me well below my wound. She rested her head against my shoulder and placed her other hand against my chest. She immediately pulled it back and moved her head to look at me.

  “Your heart’s racing.”

  I turned to look at her. Very slowly. My face must have been completely white.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life.”

  She felt the seriousness in my voice and moved her head back to my shoulder. She started rubbing my chest around my heart, as if that would help. I didn’t know if it would slow my pulsing blood pressure, but it felt good all the same.

  Vincent still stood where he had talked Bordeaux down. He waited there for another second before dropping his head and turning to face me.

  “How did you know to reset the timer?” He asked without hesitation, his only hand on his hip.

  He didn’t look angry but to deny him an answer was completely out of the question.

  I panned the room, noticing everyone besides Wang had their attention on me. Bordeaux Especially. Even Titus, who moaned every now and then from the pain, was groggily glancing in my direction.

  I sighed, shrugging. “Agrippina was right. I’ve been here before. This is the second time I watched this fight go down. I figured out how to use the orb in the previous timeline and did so…” I trailed off, expecting someone to cut me off, but everyone only waited patiently. I continued. “The first time, things didn’t turn out so good. You two,” I said pointing at the former Roman Praetorians, “were taken out back and crucified immediately. And you,” I pointed at Bordeaux, “well, Agrippina killed you before the bomb even went off. She shot you in the head with Wang’s pistol.”

  The large Frenchmen held my look for another heartbeat. He tore his eyes away soon after and closed them. Everything must have been falling into place for him.

  “And that slab didn’t just break your leg last time,” I told Titus directly. “It killed you.”

  The young Roman blinked, still half out of it.

  “As for you,” I said, shrugging Helena off my shoulders to look at her. “I had to watch you die in…” I looked into Helena’s eyes, unable to finish the thought, and her face said it all. She was just as ill as I was at the thought of the both of us going through that again, and I wondered if she was angry at me too for getting us into yet another life or death situation. At my own words, I felt my heart sink into my stomach as my adrenaline left my system and the horrific memories returned.

  “What about me?” Santino asked.

  I snorted in amusement, thankful that Santino would always be there to pull me from the brink, just as Helena could. “Honestly, I don’t know. You were probably fine. I’m pretty sure you can’t even die, just so you’ll always be around to annoy someone.”

  Santino crossed his arms and beamed with pride. He looked amongst our friends hoping someone would give him the benefit of making eye contact with him, but no one did. Each was too preoccupied with his thoughts.

  “I even thought I died,” I continued, my shoulders suddenly very heavy. “I was hit in three different places and was losing a lot of blood. I didn’t even know I activated the orb when I did. That’s why I thought I was dead back in the treasure vault.”

  “What did you do to make the orb work?” Vincent asked.

  “I’m really not sure,” I explained.

  But before I had the opportunity to explain, if I even could, another large slab of concrete fell from the roof and landed between Santino and Vincent, and the building began to shake.

  Violently.

  More slabs of the building and other debris started to fall all around us. Bordeaux moved to cover Madrina, while Wang protected Titus.

  Santino managed to look up in time to see a column from one of the floors above him break apart and head straight for him through a hole in the c
eiling. He dove out of the way, dropping the orb when he hit the ground. I watched as it shed its cloth and rolled away from him, tracking it as it started moving to my left before shifting directions sharply, making its way directly towards me. I tried to justify it by convincing myself that it had met an impediment in its travel that knocked it towards me, but I hadn’t seen anything.

  It rolled possessed, seemingly of its own volition.

  I looked down at it while I remained nonchalantly seated on my concrete slab, Helena trying to protect us both. But the only thing I could focus on was the orb, the collapsing building not even on the backburner. It rolled up against my boot, bounced off, and hit it again, settling against my toe. The compulsion was there again, but it seemed controllable, like craving a food that I knew I could resist, albeit with some trouble.

  Clouds swirled within, just as they always seemed to when it had something to say, but something was different this time. The clouds settled, revealing something I’d never see within the orb before, but something familiar.

  I looked closer.

  Revealed within was a room with a white ceiling and floor that almost seemed to glow. Two walls on the sides were also white, but the third wall was nothing but glass. The fourth was out of view. Behind the glass wall stood men in white lab coats, complete with pocket protectors and black rimmed glasses.

  How odd.

  But within the room was by far the oddest part of the scene. Dark forms stood patiently, while others sat on rectangular boxes. Men from the looks of it.

  My hand moved on its own, reaching ever so slowly for the orb. I didn’t even try to fight it. Something about this one felt right. My bare fingers spread across the smooth surface, now as soft as a stress ball, but it did nothing. As I brought it closer to my face, I saw one of the figures, the smallest of them, holding the orb as well in a gloved hand. The figure spun the other, bare, hand in a circle, a motion that suggested someone should do something.

  All I could think about at the moment was how much I wanted to go home but even so, nothing happened. I remained in the blown out building with Helena still wrapped around me. When the building finally stopped shaking seconds later, she slowly lifted her head. She saw I was holding the orb in my open hand and she looked between it and me.