Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion (48 page)

“Aye,” he replied, “he is.”

“I’m proud of you, Jacob,” she said, turning back to me.

“Hmm?”  I asked
, my eyes never leaving the image of my son.  “What?”

“Never mind.”

I could have watched my boy tumble and enjoy life all day long if I could, but the screen flickered and cut out a second later.

“Bloody hell,” Wang said, smacking the sensor against Helena’s knee, but when he
replaced it against her belly, nothing happened.

“What’s wrong with it?”  I asked.

“It’s been wonky since the very beginning of Helena’s pregnancy,” he answered.  “It’s been used too often over the years for other things, and this cold certainly isn’t helping.”

“Can you
repair it?”  Helena asked.

“I
’ll try but don’t expect much.  I’m sorry.”

I turned to her and she met my eye.  “At least I got to see him.”

She smiled.  “I’m glad you did.”

“
Keep your chin up,” Wang said as he packed up his things.  “Helena’s almost there.  You’ll see him again soon enough in all his wiggly glory.”

I put a hand on Wang’s shoulder and gripped it tightly.  “I can’t begin to thank you enough, James. 
You being there when I wasn’t means more than you can possibly understand.  I don’t know how to even begin to…”

“D
on’t worry yourself, mate,” he said as he raised his hands in front of him so that I could see them.  “These are good hands.  Believe me, I wouldn’t have allowed any others to do… the things that needed doing, or… the things that are still to come.”

He smiled at me but
I glared at him, and he got the message.  Gathering his things he rose to his feet and started for the exit, but turned back to Helena for one last bit of advice.

“Remember to keep your liquids up, Helena,
” he advised, “and don’t exert yourself but stay active if you can. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s going to get harder before it gets easier.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” she said.

He nodded and left, leaving the two of us alone.  Slowly, I looked at her and she looked at me, and we simply stared at one another for a while before she dropped her chin and looked at her shoulder, clearly only one thing on her mind.

“Jacob, how did you find the orb?”

I too dropped my eyes to her shoulder.  “How long have you known?”

“
Only after leaving Camulodunum, remember?  I found it in your footlocker.”

I didn’t remember.

“I didn’t go looking for it, Helena!”  I said hastily, perhaps defensively.  “I didn’t.  It found me.  It was just there one morning on our way to Alexandria, and when it was, I… I kept it.  I didn’t even realize what I was doing, but it was with me this whole time.  That I remember now.  It was in my footlocker, it…”

“Shh…” Helena breathed, reaching out to pull my head against her shoulder.  “I believe you.”

“There’s so much I can’t remember about the last few months, Helena,” I said, resting my head against her shoulder and squeezing my eyes shut as though that would help force the memories to return.  “I can see images, things like fire and people tied up and Penelope…”

“Don’t think about it, Jacob,” Helena soothed as she held me.

I reached up and grabbed her shirt near her other shoulder, and clung to it desperately.  “I’m so sorry, Helena.  I can’t believe I let it happen.  It all felt so right and it made me feel
so
good.  I couldn’t help it.  I…”

She
interrupted me by lifting my chin up with a finger.  “No more apologies, Jacob.  I don’t need them.  I don’t want them.  I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.  I should have…”

“No!”
  I nearly yelled as I pulled away from her embrace to stare at her intently.  “Promise me if I ever fall under the orb’s influence again that you’ll stay away from me.  As far away as possible!  Don’t confront me!  Don’t even come near me!  It make me… makes me dangerous!  You can’t possibly understand, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t have hurt you had you tried to intervene before.”

“But, Jacob…”

“No, Helena!  If it happens again, stay away.  You have to!  Do it for me.”

R
eluctantly, she nodded.  “I’m still sorry.”

“I understand.  Completely.  But y
ou had the little guy to think about, and you did the right thing.  My mom always told me that parenthood is all about sacrifice, doing what’s best for the baby, even if it hurts you.  You protected him, and I am so happy that you did.”  I paused and smiled.  “I always knew you’d be a good mom.”

She cocked her head to the side
and reached up to stroke my hair.  “Thanks you, Jacob.  That means a lot.  And I have to admit, such parental insightfulness is kind of a turn on…”

I smiled.  “Oh, yeah? 
So where would you like me to start?”

I placed my hand against her
bare thigh and stroked it lightly, but she laughed and pushed it away.  “I’m hardly in the mood for
that
, Lieutenant Hunter!  Look at me!  I’m hideous!”

“You’re beautiful.”

She looked genuinely happy at my comment, and reached out to cup my cheek with a hand.  “I suppose there’s hope for you yet, Jacob Hunter, but if you really want to impress me, you can start by getting me another pillow.  My back is killing me!”

I chuckled.  “
Well that I can do.  Always was good at finding things.”

She
offered me a sly smile.  “Oh, you certainly were, but there will be time enough to see if you’ve still got it later.”

I smirked and found the pillow she needed, and placed it behind her head, noticing her short, disheveled hair again
and found myself staring. 

Helena noticed my attention. 
“Problem?”

“It’s just that your hair is…”

“I didn’t necessarily want to do it, Jacob.”

I sighed.  No, she probably hadn’t
.

“
It’s just that it…” she gave me a look as I started, so I rethought my words.  “No, it looks good.  Really.  Like an 80s pop star or something.  It’s very sexy.”

She chuckled.  “
Hope indeed.”

I pumped a fist in the air lightly in triumph, but couldn’t think of anything else to say, although I was content not to
say anything at all so that I could simply enjoy the moment.  But then a sudden and urgent thought entered my brain, one so dire I nearly shouted at Helena as I spoke.

“Wait!  We need to pick a name!”

She belted out a quick laugh, probably surprised by the randomness of my comment.  “I did have a few in…”

“Augustus!”

“Uh… no.”

“Julius!”

“
No
…”

“Galba?”

“Really, Jacob?”

“What about Jacob?”

“Well, it was on my list…”

“Oh… I got it! 
What about Romulus Remus van Strauss Hunter!  It’s got a ring to it…”

“
Jacob
…”

“How about…”

***

“Well you look as pleased as peaches this morning, Mister,” Santino said from beside me.

I glanced to my right and over at my friend as the two of us rode side by side, unsurprised to notice that there was a smile on his face.  I felt like returning it, but didn’t want to give him the acknowledgment that he was in fact quite right.

I
was
as pleased as peaches this morning.

Emotions still whirled
within me, anger, guilt, and shame all still there and many more, but I no longer felt alienated and lonely, nor did I feel unwanted or hated by those who called me their friend or from those who loved me.  I felt my old, self-deprecating, bearing-the-world-on-my-shoulders self again, but that was okay, because that’s who I was, and that also meant I had the love and friendship that defined me as well.  Everyone carried negativity around with them, perhaps me more than many others, but that was a burden all of humanity shared.  It was only by the ways we dealt with those emotions that gave us our own unique individuality – that is, unless under the influence of the orb.

I’d had a lot
of time to think about it last night, and I was certain I understood it now.

It was a simple drug, one that seemed to work by taking
all of a person’s pain, his anger, his darkness, and all of his unrealized negative intentions for use as fuel to power the body’s impulses.  Personal values were rendered moot, replaced with a sense of confidence and superiority, but at a grave risk.  With the loss of inhibitions came the loss of good judgment, and the orb only magnified that loss, replacing clear headed thinking with something much worse.

No one had
yet told me what I’d done while under the orb’s influence, but I knew it hadn’t been good.  In fact, I knew I’d done horrible things, but the entire experience had given me perspective.  Carrying around all my negativity was a part of who I was.  It defined me as equally as my positive attributes did, but it was through the help of friends and loved ones that those issues could be dealt with and contained, something made all the more clear to me after spending the entire night with Helena, to whom I felt closer than any other person throughout my entire life, a bond made all the more inseparable by her inability to abandon me even after everything I had done.  No person really deserved that kind of love, but I would take it and hold onto it for as long as I possibly could.

That still did not explain
the orb’s other apparent ability to drive men insane, but I figure such a stage would have only been just around the corner had I not been parted from it.

“Don’t give him a hard time, John,” Artie said
from my other side.  “He’s been through a lot.”

“
He’s been through a lot?”  Santino demanded.  “
He’s
been through a lot?? 
I
was the one who had to deal with a best friend who’d gone crazy!  Me!  Not him!”

“And I’m just
so
sorry to have let that happen,” I said, happier than I could possibly describe just by being here with them.

“You’d damn well better be,” Santino responded, but then he sighed and seemed to grow sad.

“What’s wrong?”  I asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he answered, clearly not in a mood to talk about it until a half second later
when he was clearly in the mood to do just that.  “It’s just that you weren’t any fun when you were crazy and Helena’s pregnancy has taken all the fun out of my jokes.”

“
Excuse me?”

“There’s jus
t no fun in the sexual innuendoes anymore, man!  Kinda gross actually, but that was my thing!”

“Yeah,” I said gratingly.  “I remember.”

“It’s just not funny anymore when I say something that references Helena and…”

“
Shut it, John!”  Artie scolded.  “You shouldn’t be thinking about those things anyway.  Ever!  You should be thinking about m…”

Artie’s voice trailed off and I
snapped my head to the left to see what it was that had kept her from finishing.  She seemed fine but her eyes were looking past me and toward Santino.  I snapped my head around but found my friend staring off into the distance, not paying either one of us any mind.  I eyed him suspiciously before turning back to Artie.

“Mind finishing that
thought?”  I asked.

She flushed
red.  “Um, no, not really.”

“Uh-huh…” I said, giving her an equally uncertain look.  “That’s what I thought.”

She smiled at me awkwardly but didn’t turn to face me, settling instead with simply glancing at me out of the corner of her eyes.  I sighed but realized that if the two of them were messing around there was little I could do about it.  At least they had the common decency to try and keep it from me.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this,” I said, “but I think
I’d rather go ride with Agrippina for a while.”

“Oh, Agrippina,” Santino said lustfully.  “How I cherish those memor…”

He too cut himself off midsentence, but instead of wasting time glancing at him first, I looked to Artie instead, but she didn’t seem even the least bit curious about what he’d said.  Slowly, I turned back to Santino, who was also looking away, inspecting a dead branch from a tree as he rode by.

I looked away from them both
, frowned, and noticed Boudicca riding silently in front of us beside Archer.  She hadn’t understood a word of our conversation, but she didn’t seem to mind either.  She simply rode in silent contemplation, content with simply being here, but not needing to get involved.  She was my stalwart protector it seemed, and while I didn’t think I needed her, I appreciated the gesture.

Besides, Wang wasn’t here, so she was her usual dour self when he wasn’t around.