Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome (58 page)

“No!”  I yelled, backing away from him.  “I’ll settle for never seeing you again.”  I hesitated, and then looked at him hopefully.  “Will I ever see you again?”

He shrugged.  “Time will tell.”

“God I hate you,” I muttered as I maneuvered around Boudicca’s body so that I could more easily make contact with her for our journey back to Imperial Rome.  Hand on her shoulder, I glanced down at her wrapped face one more time, but then lifted my eyes to look at Merlin one last time.  “At least give me a little more advice on how to use these things.  I think I’m getting the hang of it, but I’ll never turn away a trick or tip.”

He placed his fingers against his temples as he spoke.  “Your mind will develop tricks of its own, Jacob.  You’ll instinctually discover methods and procedures that will help you sift through the timelines and points along them.  You’ll soon discover that a logical or emotional connection may what you need at first, but in time, it’ll be as easy as stepping through an open door.”

I nodded.  “I’ll do my best to keep them safe.”

“I know you will, Jacob.  Goodbye.  And thank you.”

I set my jaw, wanting to say more, but nothing seemed nearly appropriate at the moment.  If Merlin was right about one thing, it was that it was time to start living my life.  It was time to get back to Helena, and I took a certain amount of comfort just now in the thought that even though I’d been gone for nearly two hours, I could return to Rome only a moment after I’d left.  To Helena’s eyes, I’ll only be gone a second, not enough of time for her to worry.

And it was with this thought of Helena that I learned just how easy traveling through time could really be.  Her essence shone brightly through the veils of the universe that kept normal individuals from penetrating its depths and seeing the very fabric of time and reality – what I was sure I now saw.  Maybe Merlin had been on to something when he said my mind would develop tricks and cheats to manipulate the orbs more easily, as I seemed to already have found one.  Returning to Helena was easier and far quicker than clicking my heels together three times and speaking those enchanting five words enmeshed in the minds of children everywhere.

Because as the wisest of those among us would say, home really is where the heart is, and my heart, now and forever, would be with Helena.

And there certainly was no place like home.

***

I still couldn’t keep my eyes open during one of my transitions.  I kept thinking that actually seeing the fabric of reality shift around me would be akin to staring into the depths of hell or the void that had encased Remus’ prison.  Something about that idea didn’t appeal to me in the slightest, but at least I was beginning to realize when I’d successfully transported myself, because I found myself opening my eyes only a second after I’d closed them, and found myself back in Rome, surrounded by debris from the fallen platform.

I glanced down and confirmed that Boudicca had made the trip with me successfully, and I squeezed her shoulder before I let go, stood, and turned to the only person nearby.

“How long was I gone?”  I asked Agrippina as she cowered in a corner.

She stared at me coldly as she answered.  “I blinked after you disappeared but when my eyes opened again, there you were.”

“Not bad,” I remarked as I limped over to her.  “I want answers, Agrippina.  Real ones.  No more of your games.  Your life depends on it, believe me.  So tell me, did you orchestrate any of this or were you just his crony?  His little errand girl who did all his dirty work for him?”

Her face contorted into rage, and she swiped an arm at me, but I managed to lean back and avoid it.  “I was more than just that!”  She yelled.  “I was his equal!  Destined for divinity in a way Julius Caesar or Augustus could have never dreamed to achieve.  Remus vowed to elevate Nero and me to positions unheard of since he and Romulus founded Rome!”

“And you believed him?”

“Of course I did!”  She spat, clenching her mouth and grinding her teeth.  “He was Remus, brother of Romulus, direct descendent of Mars, a god sent to man to lead us into prosperity.  Romulus may have founded the city, but Remus had been spared to lead it to true greatness.  And he was to do it by
my
side.”

“So that’s what he told you…” I muttered to myself before I lifted my chin and stared at her.  “So why poison him?  Try to kill him?”

“Because I later learned that he was nothing more than another treacherous
man
!”  She yelled again, unable to contain her fury, a loss of control I’d never seen in the woman before.  “I had no idea he intended to capture sacred Romulus and use him so.  What’s more, he promised to teach my son and to advise him in all things.  Prepare him for leadership, instruct him in governance, and tutor him in military doctrine.  To ready him for godhood!  He promised me, his mother, all of this!  But once we had retrieved Romulus, he no longer promised anything.  His only vow was to allow Nero to live as long as I sired heirs for him; to use me as a… a breeding farm for little bastard gods!”

I would have smiled if the implication behind her words weren’t so haunting.  The fact that she had echoed the exact sentiment Santino had joked about the other day wasn’t even remotely humorous.  The idea that Remus was prepared to force her – and force her he easily could – into making babies for him to supplant over Nero, was monstrous.  Even Agrippina, who deserved to be punished for a great many things, didn’t deserve that.  Nor did Nero, who was still only a child.  If what Agrippina had said was true, and Remus had already broken his promise to her once, it wouldn’t have been farfetched to surmise that he would simply kill Nero as soon as he had a few heirs of his own.

Agrippina would have suspected this.  She understood duplicity as well as anyone – probably
better
than anyone – and it was of no surprise to me that she’d taken matters into her own hands by using her old standby assassination method: poisoning.  And it wasn’t even that naïve of a concept, as numerous gods throughout mythology had been affected by poison.  Perhaps she’d thought Remus in mortal form was more vulnerable, and therefore easily dispatched.  For that, I could forgive her.  For that, I could almost sympathize with her. 

But that didn’t forgive everything else she’d done. 

It couldn’t possibly erase the fact that she’d personally tried to have Helena killed on a number of occasions or that she’d been manipulating me ever since Britain.  I didn’t care if she’d been “under orders” from Remus.  The Nazis had tried that argument at Nuremburg and it hadn’t worked out well for them then, and it certainly wouldn’t for her now.

“So you will kill me now, Jacob Hunter?”  She demanded, her voice bordering the frenzied, almost insane, spectrum.  “Is that what you will do?  Murder me in the streets in front of my people?!  Leave my son motherless?!  After everything I’ve told you and everything we’ve been through together?!”  Her voice and disposition grew even wilder now as she seemed to lose even more control, flailing her arms as she made her points.  “It doesn’t have to be this way!  With Remus gone, you can finally take your rightful place at my side!  We can rule together as we were always meant to!  With the orbs, you can do anything…
we
can do anything!”

I felt my hand move toward the pistol securely sheathed at my thigh, but I pulled it back. I wouldn’t let her goading drive me to murder her, and I knew that the moment I yanked my pistol free was the moment I lost all ability to restrain myself.  The blue orb had done its part to tear apart my soul and sanity well enough, and its scars still lingered, but I wouldn’t let her own misplaced mind be the thing to destroy my humanity completely.

“You know I can’t do that,” I said, punctuating each word carefully.  “There’s too much at risk.  I have a responsibility now to safeguard the inherent danger these orbs possess.  I can’t use them for my own purposes any more than I can use them for your own.”

“That’s not the reason,” she said quietly, almost as though she were explaining it to herself.  “It’s that Amazon bitch.  You still will not leave her for me.  Why?  How many times must I offer to share my bed with her?  How many times must I try to have her killed?  How is that she has survived this long at all?!”  Her voice rose again, and her eyebrows were furrowed in hatred and anger.  “She has survived everything!  Blades cannot cut her!  Flames will not touch her!  Poison cannot destroy her!  She has…”

“Wait,” I ordered, holding up a hand.  “When did you ever poison her?”

She didn’t answer as she coiled her body into a submissive position, pulling her knees to her chin and wrapping her arms around them.  She rested her head against her knees and started to rock, smiling at me, fitting the image of someone who belonged in an insane asylum.

“When, Agrippina?”  I asked again, surprised by my own calmness.

Her smile grew and her eyes opened wide, and then she lunged at me again, uncoiling like a snake from her seated position.  I jumped back this time, startled at her aggression, and had to fight through another burst of pain in my leg as I looked into her eyes that shifted back into crazy again.

“I would do it again!”  She yelled, her mouth wide and flinging spittle in my direction.  “I’d have her stabbed and burned and poisoned and torn apart again and again if I could!  And I would crave every instance of it.”

I couldn’t help but feel sad at how pathetic she seemed, at a complete loss as to why she really hated Helena so much.  I felt my hand lowering itself to rest atop the grip of my pistol as I continued.  “Why, Agrippina?  Why?”

“Because she has what I never will,” she said, her voice almost returning to normal.

I narrowed my eyes at her.  “Me?”

She started to laugh, a low one that slowly turned maniacal before she found moments to speak in between outbursts.  “You foolish man.  Not
you,
but your ability to wield the orbs!  Such power you possess!  But it’s hers… not mine.”

She was insane.  Completely and utterly insane.  But still one question remained.

“When, Agrippina?”  I asked in a hushed tone.  “When did you poison her?”

Agrippina smiled again, the kind that could ensnare the heart of a man who did too much thinking with body parts other than his brain.

“In Britain,” she said with a girlishly innocent and completely insane giggle.  “After you’d returned from Merlin’s domain.  I couldn’t very well have you rejecting the orb and giving up your own quest for power so that you could raise a family and fuck your ever-fattening wife for decades to come, now could I?  I wanted you.  I needed you.”

I was silent.  Not because I couldn’t find words but because I couldn’t physically bring myself to utter them.  I now understood what had nearly killed Helena as that battle had raged against Galba’s legions back in Britain.  And I now understood what had
killed
my baby boy, and what had driven me back to the orb.

Agrippina.

It had always been Agrippina.

I drew my pistol so fluidly that I didn’t think Agrippina could even track the motion, but I wanted her to see it coming so I didn’t immediately fire – which is what inevitably saved her life.  Rage seethed from every molecule in my body, frustration pulsing through my veins, and a sense of sadness in my bones.  Rage at Agrippina, frustration at myself for not seeing the truth of her meddling sooner, and sadness at the world I lived in, sadness that people like Agrippina could coexist with the rest of humanity, sadness that people like Agrippina would always exist, from now until the end of time.

And I had to live with them.

I had to live with all those people.

But I didn’t have to live with Agrippina.

Not anymore.

I felt my finger squeezing around the trigger, every impulse in my body demanding that I shoot her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Try as I did to convince myself that I’d earned the right to kill her, that I owed it to society to put her in the grave myself, I couldn’t squeeze the trigger.  If I did, I knew I’d be no better than Agrippina herself, the kind of person who could give into base instinct and kill someone without the logical mind to think the action through.  I’d done too much killing.  Too much evil. And I didn’t need Agrippina’s death on my consciousness now either.

Besides…

I lowered my pistol and returned it to my holster.

“And now you will not kill me,” Agrippina said, a cocky little smile spreading across her face.  “I always knew you were weak, Jacob Hunter.  Just a child.  A little baby boy…”

I forced the anger down again, the act being so, so difficult.  I tried to smile at her, but I couldn’t.  I wanted to taunt her.  I wanted to be cocky back at her.  I wished I was Santino in that moment, able to weather any emotional firestorm and put on a shit eating grin and insult her back with the calm demeanor of a maniac.  But I couldn’t.  All I could do was be honest with her.

“I won’t kill you, Agrippina,” I said as I took a step to the side and waved my hand at her in a
go ahead
gesture. “But only because I’m not the one who’s earned it.”

Agrippina looked at me in confusion, not quite understanding what the hell I was talking about, but then she looked past me and off into the distance, and her eyes widened with complete realization.  She started to turn back to me, scrambling with her hands to grab at my feet, words on her lips that I was sure would be a plea for mercy, but then her head exploded brilliantly, and bits of blood, brain matter, and skull fragments painted the wall behind her in a sticky crimson mess, erasing her beautiful visage from society forever.  Her body slumped to the ground in a pool of her own blood, shuddered once, and then went still.