Out of the Ashes (5 page)

He jerked to an abrupt halt as Sabina stumbled and fell. Her crumpled body lay on the ground, her hand still clutched in his. Her dazed eyes stared at the ground, and blood trickled from a wound on her head where a falling rock must have struck her.

Leaning down, he lifted her into his arms. He needed to get her away from the crowds of frantic people. He needed time to think. Having never been outside the walls of the gladiator barracks on his own,
Dacian
wasn’t sure how to get out of the city.

People dashed within the chaos, while others lay deathly still in the streets, unlucky ones who, like Sabina, had fallen victim to the stones tossed down from above.

Dacian
darted into a merchant’s shop, the vendor’s wares abandoned as if the shopkeeper had just stepped out for a moment. He carried Sabina to the back and was surprised to find a man, woman, and three children huddled in the shadows.

“Is your wife injured?” the woman asked.

“She is not my…” He paused, realizing they had not noticed his slave belt. Otherwise, she would not have made the assumption nor offered them aid. “Yes. Can you help her?”

Dacian
laid Sabina down on the cool tile of the shop floor, and the woman bent over her to wipe at the blood on Sabina’s face.

He looked at the man.

“Thank you for allowing us to come into your shop.”

“Oh, this is not our shop. My children could not go on any longer, so we came in to seek shelter from the falling stones. We will wait here until it is safe again.” The man glanced at the gladiator slave belt, visible now that
Dacian
was no longer holding Sabina in his arms. He looked
Dacian
in the eye, a silent warning in the father’s hard stare. “You and your
wife
are welcome to take shelter with us.”

Relief eased
Dacian’s
mind. Though he did not like it, the man likely realized a gladiator with fighting skills might come in handy against the panicked masses in the streets.

Sabina groaned, and
Dacian
turned to her.

“She will be fine,” the woman said. “It is merely a scratch.”

He sat down on the floor with his back against the wall and pulled Sabina into his lap, letting her head lay against his chest.

“Rest. We will stay here for a while.”

Sabina snuggled closer to him.

“That sounds wise.” She placed her small hand in his, entwining their fingers. “Husband.”

Dacian
squeezed her tight, clutching at the impossible dream of the beautiful girl in his arms ever being his.

* * *

They hid in the shop and held each other close as the world fell down around them. Pebbles and ash rained down into the room from the opening in the roof. As each hour passed, the hill of stone and rubble filling the merchant’s cistern grew taller and overflowed, forcing them all to climb the ladder to the second story to avoid being buried alive.

There they waited, until outside all suddenly grew quiet.

“Is it over?” The man shifted a child on his lap as his wife held the other two to her side.

“Do you think it is safe to leave?” she asked him.

Dacian
listened. Not a sound could be heard from the street. The stones had ceased to fall, and the world seemed to stand still.

“Let us go now,” he said, “while we have the chance.”

They crawled out an open window near the roof of the building and emerged into a changed world. The ground now rose to meet second story windows and rooftops. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was. The sky was black with smoke, the sun gone from view as if the gods had plucked it from the sky.

Dacian
and Sabina looked toward the mountain, unable to see its majestic peak in the distance. Floating soot burned their eyes, and they had to cover their mouths to breathe. They turned and followed the merchant’s family, stumbling over the debris filling the streets as they tried to make their way to the city gates.

They had taken no more than a few steps when an enormous blast rent the air, nearly knocking them off their feet. The sound of a thousand chariots roared closer and closer.

Panic seized them all.

“Run!”
Dacian
shouted.

The heat wave hit them first, the blast of hot air slamming them all to the ground.
Dacian
covered Sabina’s body with his own in a desperate effort to shield her. His large warrior’s hand cupped her head, pressing her face into his chest. A rush of searing wind surrounded them, the hot gases sucking the air from his lungs.

Dacian’s
eyes stung, and Sabina’s image blurred before him. He could feel her thrashing beneath him, struggling for a precious breath of air. But there was none.

All too soon, Sabina went still in his arms, her eyes closing as if in peaceful slumber.
Dacian
took one last look at her beloved face, then laid his head down next to hers.

As they held each other in an eternal embrace, the ashes continued to fall, covering them like a gentle blanket of snow.

“Well, I’d have to say you were right about the sparks.”

Smithers
clicked the remote control, and the screen disappeared into the clouds.

Marsha gasped. “Oh dear, what was that?”

“It’s called an eruption. Volcanoes do that every now and then.”

“Well, nobody told me about a scheduled natural disaster.” Marsha turned and glared at Hershel. “Did you know anything about this?”

“Me? No, no. Of course not.”

Smithers
drummed his fingers on his desk. “It was in the memo. Didn’t either of you read it?”

Marsha looked at
Smithers
with wide owl eyes.

“Memo? What memo?”

Smithers
sighed deeply and rubbed at his frown-creased forehead.

“The one that came out at the turn of the century. It had all the scheduled natural disasters listed, including this one.”

“Oh, pooh. How am I expected to remember back that far?”

“That was only seventy-nine years ago. It was almost yesterday.”

Marsha reached over and swatted Hershel on the arm.

“Why didn’t you remind me?”

Hershel scooted out of harm’s reach before she could bat at him again.

“If you couldn’t remember it, how do you think I was supposed to? You’re the one who always keeps track of that sort of thing.”

Marsha turned to face her boss, pulling her gray knit sweater more tightly around her frail frame. She put on her most business-like demeanor and even had the bravado to look down her nose at him—or at least try to.

“Apparently neither of us received that memo. You know how messed up the deliveries can be around here sometimes. Why, I remember once—”

“It really doesn’t matter now, does it?”
Smithers
picked up a document from his desk and waved it in front of them. “Do you know what this is?”

Marsha squinted at the fluttering paper, trying to read the small print. Hershel nearly fell out of his chair as he tried to lean closer to get a good look at it.

“It’s their contract. A contract you both signed back when Male 2028 was conceived and Female 5923 was well into the planning stages.”

Smithers
pulled a pair of bifocals from his breast pocket and perched them on his hawk-like nose.

“It clearly states here that these two mortals are to join, go forth and multiply, live a long and prosperous life, then report directly to their assignments up here when their time on Earth is over.”
Smithers
removed his glasses and set them and the contract carefully on his desk. “They can’t very well do that when they’re dead, now, can they?”

“No, I don’t suppose they can,” Hershel replied.

“So, what do you two propose we do about this little situation?”
Smithers
looked at them as if the answer should be quite obvious.

“Well, we could… maybe…” Hershel finally shrugged. “I don’t know. What’s usually done in a situation like this?”

Smithers
slapped his hands down on his desk. “Situations like this don’t happen.
He
doesn’t like it when things don’t go according to plan.”

Marsha held up her hand, a tiny space showing between her thumb and forefinger. “Perhaps we could get permission for a
teenie
, weenie miracle?”

“And just what kind of miracle were you thinking of?”

“I don’t know.” Marsha shrugged. “
He
could raise them from the dead.
He
did it with Lazarus, after all.”

“Lazarus was an old man buried in a cool, dark crypt. And his resurrection was planned, I might add. However, your clients have been barbecued from the inside out and buried under fifteen feet of ash, rock, and what’s left of that mountain. There’s not exactly a great deal left of them to raise, even if
He
was inclined to do so.”

“Oh, dear.” Marsha cast a worried look Hershel’s way. “Whatever shall we do?”

“Don’t look at me. I wasn’t the one who thought the Mediterranean would be a lovely place for them to fall in love.”

“It was a lovely place, until that volcano had to go and spoil everything.”

“Enough!”
Smithers
growled. He glared at them for what seemed like an eternity and then scribbled something down on a piece of paper. “Although this is highly irregular, I’m going to approve for Female 5923 and Male 2028 to have another life. You two find an appropriate place and time for them. And for heaven’s sake, don’t let anything go wrong this time.”

* * *

The chamomile tea was exactly the right temperature and flavored with just a hint of lemon. It did wonders to warm old bones. As Marsha raised the dainty china cup decorated with delicate pink flowers for another sip, she spied Hershel reaching for his second piece of pound cake.

A voice whispering in her ear made Marsha nearly spill the tea all over Eleanor Donnelly’s prize lace tablecloth.

“Mr.
Smithers
needs to see you both in his office. Now.”

Looking over her shoulder, she spied the messenger angel standing behind her in his crisp white suit, clipboard held firmly in hand. He wore his short black hair slicked back and a pair of half-bifocals perched on the end of his pointy nose.

Marsha glanced at Hershel, who had stopped in mid-chew with cake crumbs poking out of the corner of his mouth. He swallowed with obvious difficulty as her teacup clattered in its matching saucer.

“Whatever could he want to see us for now?” She feigned innocence, even as Hershel stared at the messenger, his eyes bugging out in fish-eyed guilt.

“I believe there has been another problem with your clients.”

“Oh, dear.” Marsha’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Not again.”

“You’d better hurry,” the angel prodded. “He doesn’t look very pleased.”

“Does he ever?” Hershel asked as he scooted his chair back.

“I’ve never seen him this angry before,” the angel said as he motioned for them to speed up. “In fact, I even heard him say something about a permanent reassignment.”

“For our clients?” Marsha asked.

“No, for you two.”

“Oh my, this does sound serious.” She stood up and brushed nonexistent crumbs from her sweater. “Come, Hershel, we’d best hurry.”

Hershel took Marsha’s arm and, with one last longing look at his half-eaten cake, followed behind the messenger angel like a naughty boy headed for the principal’s office.

Ushered by the same overly cheerful secretary into the cloud office they were becoming all too familiar with, Hershel and Marsha took their respective seats.

The statue of Apollo had been replaced with a large and rather colorful painting by an artist named Picasso. The odd placement of the subject’s features gave Marsha the willies. One eye appeared to be looking off to the side while the other seemed to be staring directly at her, daring her to deny her guilt.

SGA
Smithers
entered the office and walked around them to stand at his desk. He threw a handful of papers on the tabletop and sat down without acknowledging their presence. Reaching out his hands, he calmly placed them on either side of the stack of papers.

His quiet demeanor unnerved Marsha. She’d much rather have him yelling and screaming at her than this calm reserve. She had absolutely no idea what he was thinking.

Finally he looked at them, staring first at her and then at Hershel. Marsha could hear Hershel squirming in his chair without looking at him. It took everything in her not to squirm a little herself.

“Do you mind telling me what the problem is with your two clients?”

“Well, Mr.
Smithers
, it seems we’ve run into a few minor glitches with them.”

“A few
minor
glitches? I don’t call sending these people back not once, not twice, but three times a minor glitch. It’s been over eighteen centuries since this whole fiasco started, they’ve been returned three times, and you two still haven’t gotten it right. What is it going to take?”

Marsha cleared her throat.

“Well, to be honest, not all of it was our fault.”

“Not your fault?”
Smithers’s
bushy brows rose so high on his forehead that Marsha thought they were going to disappear into his scalp. “How is it not your fault? Please explain it to me.”

“Well, first there was the volcano incident.”

“I know, I know. You missed the natural disaster memo. We’ve been over that one.”
Smithers
picked up a paper from the stack in front of him. “It says here that you then sent them back to the fifth century. Ah, I see that Female 5923 did get married.”

Marsha nodded in agreement.

“Yes, as a matter of fact she did.”

“To Attila the Hun! Exactly how did that mix-up happen?”

Marsha placed her hands on her knees, trying to stop them from shaking beneath her navy wool skirt.

“Well, it was all planned that she was to be betrothed to Attila, but Male 2028 was supposed to save her before the actual wedding took place.”

“Yes, I’m listening.”

 
“Apparently there was a typo on the relocation application for Male 2028.”

“Really?”

“You see, he was supposed to return as a Hun on horseback.”

“And he was sent back as…?”

Marsha and Hershel glanced nervously at each other.

“A monk with a hunchback,” Hershel mumbled as he sank lower in his chair.

“I see. And did either of you proof the relocation form before it was sent down?”

“I thought Hershel had done it.”

Hershel looked at Marsha as if she had just implicated him in a murder.

“Me? I thought you did it.”

Smithers
held up his hand, effectively halting what could have turned into a full-blown spat. He glanced down at the paper in his hand and then back at the two of them.

“So, Attila died on his wedding night.”

Marsha raised her finger in the air. “Now, that was planned.”

“Yes, I know. However, he was supposed to die a brutal warrior’s death. It was the least he deserved. After all, he wasn’t called the Scourge of God for nothing.”

“Yes, well, things got a bit out of hand.”

“A bit out of hand? The girl clobbered him in the face with a serving tray. She knocked him unconscious, and the man died of a nosebleed in his own marriage bed.”

“Could you blame her?” Marsha huffed. “I certainly wouldn’t want to see that filthy, drunk barbarian coming at me with lust on his mind.”

Smithers
closed his eyes and shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter now. At least Attila reached
his
final destination on time. So what went wrong with the two of them after that?”

“Well, Male 2028 did rescue her as planned.”

Drumming his fingers on the desk,
Smithers
looked expectantly at each of them.

Marsha and Hershel exchanged wary glances. Finally, Hershel spoke.

“His mule trampled him to death while they were trying to escape.”

“How unfortunate. Not altogether surprising, considering you two, but unfortunate nonetheless. So, what became of Female 5923?”

“It seems she spent the rest of her life hiding in the Caspian Mountains from the Huns, who wanted to execute her for killing Attila.”

Smithers
breathed a heavy sigh.

“I supposed that’s understandable, given the circumstances.”

He picked up a second piece of paper. If it were possible,
Smithers’s
scowl deepened even further.

“I’m not sure I even want to go into the Middle Ages episode. Why, they didn’t even manage to meet each other that time.”

Marsha shuddered, the memory of that past life still fresh in her mind.

“Well, they might have if it hadn’t been for that nasty Black Death thing going around.”

“Yes, sending him back as a rat catcher during the plague wasn’t the brightest of ideas, was it?”

Marsha cast her eyes down to her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Hershel tried to look anywhere else but at
Smithers
.

Scanning further down the page,
Smithers
read on.

“I see while I was on vacation, you two managed to send them back for a third time.”

“Yes, well, it didn’t seem like it would hurt.”

“No, at this point I suppose it wouldn’t have hurt… if they had been sent back so they could have been reasonably close in age.”

Marsha glared at her husband. “That was his fault.”

Hershel grew pale, small beads of sweat popping out on his shiny bald head.

“Tell him, Hershel.”

Hershel cleared his throat and tugged at the edges of his cardigan sweater, trying to regain some composure.