Gladiatrix (40 page)

After saying that she rolled onto her other side, away from our eyes. Holding her stomach for comfort.

I looked at Alex in horror, and whispered, ‘Now Livia has the dagger back. She might try and do it herself.'

‘We can't sit by and watch that happen,' said Alex.

‘No we can't. We have to get out of here. All three of us. And soon. Give me the gun.'

Alex had the phactor and gun in a leather pouch around his neck. He pulled the drawstring loose, and handed me the weapon.

I checked it. It was fine. Everything in working order. Ready to go.

‘Alex, just in case, I'm going to show you how to use this.'

I gave Alex a thorough lesson, listening all the while for the guards' steps on the stairs. Because when they came down next, we were all leaving.

I couldn't waste a single bullet to let Alex make a practice shot, but he seemed to handle the gun okay. He sat there going through the paces until his actions were fairly automatic. Yes, Alex was a fighter, he knew the importance of familiarity. And this weapon was our escape route.

If something happened to me, I wanted him to be able to save himself and Julia.

A scream bounced off the walls in the other cell. I'd thought Julia had gone to sleep while we were talking. We both lurched to our feet, and stared anxiously through the bars. I said, ‘Julia! What's happening?'

Her voice was weak. ‘My water broke. I'm going into labour.'

‘Oh God,' I said. ‘We have to get the guards down here now!'

Alex and I began yelling and screaming for them to come. But there was no response.

Then Julia started screaming again. Blood was pouring out between her legs.

We did everything we could think of, to get to her. Including trying to shoot out our door lock, but to no avail. The lock had been set too securely into the stone wall, and the door was a massive structure built of heavy iron bars.

So we talked to her, tried to comfort her. She said that she wanted to die before Livia arrived; the end was cruel and hours coming. By then Alex and I just held each other for comfort.

With Julia's dying moans in my ears, I swore to myself, that nothing would stop me from saving Alex and Victoria. No matter what it took. This was all going to end with them both alive and safe.

But I had to get to Fabius to find my mother.

So I needed a strategy.

I checked the phactor for information on Livia, and made my plan. I told Alex what I was going to do and we argued, but in the end he agreed. Julia's drawn-out agony had shaken us both. He knew that if I could save Victoria I had to try.

Hours later the guards finally arrived to check on Julia, then they went racing back up the stairs again.

I gave Alex the gun. ‘If my plan fails use it to get free. Then take the money from the apartment. You know what to do after that.'

‘Kannon,' he gripped my arm. ‘You promise me you'll use the transponder to get home if you have to? You won't let them kill you?'

‘I promise.' But I had other tricks to try first.

 

The guards unlocked the heavy iron door between the two cells, and shoved me down the flight of stairs beyond.

Below was a short, dark passage followed by a long, narrow chamber lit by a dozen fiery torches. It looked like a paranoid schizophrenic's version of an Egyptian temple, and immediately verified Livia's unhealthy interest in Isis.

But this was not the goddess of love from the Iseum, this was Dark Isis.

Or more likely, Livia's own twisted version of her.

The walls and ceiling were painted blood red and the floor was black. At regular intervals along the side walls there were portraits of the allies of Isis: Anubis, Thoth and others. They were done in the traditional Egyptian style, but were barely recognisable.

In the Iseum the attending gods of Isis had been fierce, but benign. Here they were hungry demons with needle-sharp beaks and extended claws and fangs, dripping blood.

The blood looked real, too.

Then I saw. Below each figure was a pool of congealed red-brown liquid. These paintings had been given sacrifice.

The guards were marching me towards a huge glossy statue of naked Isis. Her skin was pitch-black ebony and her hair, real gold. The eyes were clusters of sapphires set in gold sclera.

Like the handle of the dagger, but on a monumental scale.

Her neck was ringed with human skulls like the Hindu goddess Kali, and what looked liked fresh blood dripped down from her fanged mouth. She'd been fed with something fleshy. It looked like a finger.

Fuck! Livia was nowhere in sight and this was a sacrificial space, set below the two cells for a very specific reason. This was where Julia would've been murdered using the dagger. And where Alex and I
would end up if we couldn't trick our way out of here. But where was Livia? They'd said they were taking me to her.

Even the guards were nervous as we approached the monstrous statue, but all it did was make me angrier and more determined. Bloody Livia! Orchestrating all this pain and suffering for the sheer greed of gaining a fistful more of political power? I could yell my lungs out with the sheer bloody waste of it all!

Just as I was getting ready to take on the guards, an arched entryway behind the statue of Isis became visible. The guards hustled me through, and into a much more spacious chamber, nothing like the hideous one behind me. It was still lit by torches, but resembled an Egyptian throne room more than anything else.

Armed Praetorian guards stood at attention around an elevated dais, where a well-preserved blonde woman wearing full imperial Roman dress, sat ramrod straight on the black and red throne.

I looked closer. That was Pharaoh's throne, the back a carved figure of Isis enclosing the seated figure in her protective, winged embrace.

And next to the throne on an ornately carved ivory pedestal, sat the Egyptian double crown and the crook and the flail.

Yeah, I was betting they were all the real thing too. Raided straight from Cleopatra's palace.

Livia. Grrr.

Even in her sixties, Livia was still beautiful, in an unblemished, wax mannequin kind of way. Just from what she'd done to her own stepchildren alone, my guess was no humane feelings ever touched her heart, so no lines showed on her face.

You have to actually feel something to earn wrinkles.

Whatever warmer emotions she may've ever possessed had been pruned off at an early age, making way for an icier fruit. Her father had been on the wrong side of the civil war that erupted after Caesar's assassination, and committed suicide as a result of it. Livia and her mother had run before Augustus for a time, but once they'd finally met, it hadn't taken long for like to call to like. They deserved each other.

Augustus was no bleeding heart either; he'd massacred whole bloodlines to take power and root out reprisals.

On the wall directly above the throne was an Egyptian mural of Livia as Queen Isis, with Augustus as Osiris on her right, and Tiberius as Horus on the left.

Hmm, whatever part Fabius may have had in all this, Livia, beyond doubt, was the starting point. The dagger was hers. The message was hers. She was trying to command the magic of Isis, to make sure that her son Tiberius became emperor, thus ensuring she'd continue to control the seat of power.

My lip curled.

Hiding here in her secret villa, giving blood sacrifice to inanimate objects, yet she looked like any wealthy Roman matron waiting for her slaves to bring her morning tea. A human leech, in a doting grandmother's uniform, sucking the life out of everyone and everything she came in contact with. The schizoid contrast between her ugly little church of torture next door, and this stolen throne room made my head ache.

The guards pushed me to my knees and the Praetorians standing on either side of Livia pointed their swords at my neck. Just in case I hadn't got the message about who was in charge here.

Livia deigned to consider me. The ice queen herself. ‘So finally, gladiatrix? I've heard so very many interesting things about you.' She was haughty, in a suitably frigid way.

‘What a pity you must end like this. I'd have quite liked to see you perform in the arena.' Then the haughty veneer dropped and she said, in a chilling whisper, ‘When did you first come into possession of the dagger? And don't lie to me, girl, or I'll make you very sorry you did.'

Oh, she was a piece of work.

Livia was hunting down anyone who may've seen the papyrus in the dagger handle. According to Julia, Augustus would execute her if he found out what she was doing. Or indeed, what she had been doing all these years: eliminating each and every one of his legitimate heirs, so her son Tiberius could replace him.

I knew once Livia got all the answers she wanted from me, Alex and I would be killed. Probably as sacrifice in the room I'd just been shown.

But there could be a way to make her negotiate. ‘You want to know who else saw the dagger and the spell, don't you? If I showed it to anyone. You were a bit careless, Livia, letting your gateway to Isis make the rounds of Rome.'

Livia wasn't used to forthrightness, particularly not from people kneeling at her feet. Before she could react I said, ‘Isis has preserved your secret, but she's given me a message for you.'

‘A message? Through you?' She was enraged at my impertinence. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that?'

I persisted with the plan, trying to win her interest. ‘Isis has sent me to you. She wants you to fulfil the Sibylline prophecy. It's all part of her grand scheme.'

I was depending on Livia being superstitious enough to at least hear me out.

‘She's chosen you to usher forth the new Horus. She wants you to reunite the Earth under one monarch — under your son Tiberius.'

Livia gazed down at me, shrewdly. ‘Very clever, gladiatrix, but you've told me nothing that any desperate person couldn't have put together. Especially after a chat with my loving granddaughter, Julia. Why should I believe you?'

‘Because Isis has sent me to help you. I retrieved the stolen dagger. Now, because of me, you have it again and you're safe. That's true, isn't it?'

She didn't respond, her expression stony.

I pushed the hook in a little harder. ‘If you listen to me, Tiberius will be emperor and you will become a goddess. You will be deified, your children will rule Rome, and temples will be erected in your name across the Empire.' It was actually the truth, all of that would happen anyway.

‘Why should I believe this rubbish?' But a crafty glint lit her pale eyes. ‘Show me proof.' She was convinced I couldn't, but was superstitious enough to ask just in case.

And it was just the question I was waiting for. ‘By the grace of Isis, I can do much more. I can show you your future.' With a flourish I opened the phactor. It was booted and ready to go. Holding it out towards her, I asked, ‘Do you want to see what may come, if you listen to me?'

Surrounded by her guards Livia felt safe enough to motion me closer. Her eyes grew narrow when she took in the strange metallic object at close quarters.

She snapped, ‘What's that?'

‘It's the goddess' own book of magic.'

‘That's a lie,' she sneered.

As soon as she finished speaking, I touched the screen.

The opening chords of Voodoo Chile, the Jimi Hendrix version turned to full volume, poured out of those cunning little speakers.

Victoria's personal taste in music had proved useful. Alex and I had run through the lot last night, but no-one did it like Hendrix.

As the screeching guitar solo wailed into life, everyone around me exploded into reaction.

I smiled. You'd think I'd just detonated a bomb!

The guards peeled away from me, making jerky signs to ward off the evil eye as they ran. Livia, meanwhile, dived onto the floor, then scrambled on all fours behind the throne. She probably hadn't moved so fast in years.

Wah. Ah Wah. Wah. Wah … Hendrix caressed those guitar strings into a rage that matched my own, then in liquid chocolate tones sang, ‘Well I stand up next to a mountain. And I chop it down with the edge of my hand …'

I stared down at Livia without pity.

Serves her right, the malicious bitch! I'd spent too many hours last night listening to Julia and her child die, not to derive some small measure of satisfaction from Livia's dread. I let her cower just a little longer, then cut the music.

Livia slowly rose to her feet, both hands holding onto the throne for support. I filmed her, plaited hairdo shaken loose and chest heaving with panic.

She screamed, ‘You're a witch, aren't you? Who sent you here?'

In answer I touched the screen again, turning it so she could see it, and replayed the footage I'd just taken,
along with the soundtrack of her screaming, ‘You're a witch, aren't you? Who sent you here?'

She dropped down behind the throne again, sobbing in panic.

Good. Her nasty little obsession with the occult was working against her.

You are what you think. Her whole world was based on harnessing black magic. And that was her weakness. So what I'd shown her had to be magic as well. Which made me a powerful sorceress. A person to be respected. And listened to.

‘That's the present, Livia. But it's your future that concerns us. So I will ask you again, and this time carefully consider your answer. Do you want to know what your future could be?'

Livia faintly nodded.

I moved up to stand beside the throne, so she could see the screen. She was terrified, but her eyes were riveted to it anyway. Her curiosity greater than her fear.

It was a photo of a marble statue of Livia the Goddess, her title carved in Latin at the base. It was real.

In the future, Augustus and Livia would both be worshipped as divine. As gods.

The future emperors would find it very useful to come from divine antecedents.