To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (34 page)

“Aye, Hunter,” the Asian descended Brit said in his Welsh accent.

“God, it’s good to hear from you,” I said, unconditional happiness beginning to percolate
amongst my dire spirits.  Their presence was more than uplifting.  Not only did I have new allies at my side, but the only other friends I had left in ancient Rome.  Friends I hadn’t seen in years.

“Look,” I continued,
my mind clearing as the stress of the situation ebbed and my blood pressure leveled, realizing we still had work to do.  “We’ve got a lot to clean up here.  Those two Romans out there with the IR strobes are Gaius and Marcus.  Wang, find them and have them take you back to our apartment.  They know the way.  Keep it quiet.”

“I live to serve,” he joked.  He’d always been a quiet jokester, not as overt as Santino but always one with a quick quip on his tongue.

Great.

“Bordeaux,
” I continued, “we need your help policing these bodies.  We can’t have any evidence of what happened tonight.  Your gun show had to have awoken half the city, but let’s just hope they thought it was thunder, or the gods, or something.  You, Santino, and Vincent get on that.  Dump the bodies in the Bosporus.”

“Copy,” he replied.

“Helena, let’s get to work finding those IR patches scattered around and pick up the fisheye cams from Hide-2.  Also, now that we have the UAV, we’ll see if we can hunt down any remaining Praetorians.”

“Sounds good, Jacob,” she said, all semblance of radio protocol abandoned. 

I think that just about covered everything we needed to do.  During my transmission, I glassed as much of the city as I could from my viewpoint, and only saw a few innocents peeking their heads out into the very early morning sky, only to find nothing amiss, and go back inside.  I packed up my things and secured my bags before I swung my legs over the low wall and descended the ladder.

“Seems like you’re doing well as the leader of this group, Jacob,” Vincent radioed. 

“He’s not our leader,” Helena corrected quickly.  “We just like to follow him because he’s got a cute butt.”

“Yeah,” Santino agreed.  “We… wait, what
?  No, no we don’t.  People’d just think it was sexist if we followed you because of
your
cute butt.”

“Either way,” Vincent pushed on, remembering even after four years it was best to just ignore Santino
.  “It’s nice to have someone else do it for a change.”

“Honestly, sir, I’m not sure I’m up for it
,” I said from the bottom of my heart.  I wasn’t even sure I was up to it anymore.  “Want the job back?”

“No thank you,” he answered easily.  “Bordeaux’s
already filled us in, and I’m not sure I could handle it.  This is your plan.”

“Thanks,” I said with a quiet
I think
, “but things aren’t nearly as simple anymore.”

I had a lot to explain in the next few hours. 
Things weren’t nearly as crazy as capturing a child anymore, but only because I had a sinking suspicion that our lives were about to get far worse, but for now, it didn’t matter.  What mattered was cleaning up Byzantium and getting reacquainted with my old friends.  I didn’t have much to fall back on in these times of need.  Just one beautiful woman and an annoying best friend.

I needed all the friends I could get.

VII

Band

Mission Entry #7

Jacob Hunter

Byzantium, Thracia - July, 42 A.D.

No time to write.

Got the band back together.

Catch you later.

I couldn’t help but be brief in my last entry since Helena and I were way behind schedule.  Everyone else had to be back in the apartment by now, and I was way too excited to take the time to write much more.

We were so late because o
ne of the ninja-Praetorians managed to slip through our net, and it had taken us quite a while to chase him down.  We’d found him a few hundred yards beyond the city, and Helena took him down with a well-placed shot to his back.  We then had to dispose of his body, just like all the rest, and the task of hunting him down, dumping him and collecting our equipment had taken far longer than I’d anticipated.

I took the few moments Helena and I spent retrieving a small cache of indigenous clothing from its hiding place near our apartment to
jot my thoughts down.  Not overly insightful right now, but I was too giddy to form a compelling thought.  Despite being caught off guard, the night had been a major success.  We’d eliminated a numerically superior force, obtained one of the two time traveling orbs and had found our friends in the process.  All I wanted was to get back to my room and celebrate, and I knew Helena did as well.

We donned our local clothing as quickly as possible and made our way inside our building and up the stairwell, sure enough encountering the night owls
on the prowl.  I went up first and watched in horror as one of the prostitutes walked towards me, trying to solicit my attention.  I was about to deny her politely when Helena bounded up the stairs past me and body checked the nasty creature into the wall, hissing an apology as she went.  I apologized more diplomatically, but didn’t break stride until I caught up to her at the entrance to our room.  Helena opened the door and went in first while I followed, shutting it behind me.

We had
a full house.

Gaius, Marcus, Santino, Bordeaux, Wang, Vincent, and two other people, one a young male, the other a woman in her thirties, were all present in our apartment.  Space was tight, and everyone had spread out amongst the room as comfortably as they could manage.  Bordeaux and the unidentified woman sat at the far end of the table, facing the door, with Gaius and Marcus across from them, facing the window.  Between the table and the bed sat Vincent on the final chair in the room, while Wang and Santino sat on the side of the bed, alre
ady bickering about something.

I smiled at the two of them.  They had become pretty good friends in that first year they’d known each other, but always seemed
to fight over something.  Whether it was tea or coffee, cricket or baseball, football or… football, they never seemed to agree on anything except their shared hatred of 80’s music.

The final soul in the room
was a young man who leaned against the wardrobe, which stood against the wall opposite Vincent’s position

Every head in the ro
om turned to face us, eager expressions on their faces.

But no one moved.

Everyone just sat in their seats, unsure or unable to do anything.  All we needed was a spark to set the room off, which occurred when Helena dropped the 2x4 that secured our door with a loud clang.  With that, the room erupted into excited confusion.  I felt a flood of raw emotion overwhelm everyone as conversations were restarted, smiles blossomed, and Helena and I moved around to greet our long lost friends.

I quickly shook Bordeaux’s hand, as I’d seen him
only a few months ago, but moved over to embrace Vincent and Wang, pounding each man on the back exuberantly, exchanging a few words with each.  Helena likewise embraced her friends but also offered quick kisses on their cheeks as well.  While Helena and I welcomed our friends, Gaius and Marcus moved their chairs near the door and Bordeaux angled the table so that it, the benches, the chair, and the bed formed a loose oval around the perimeter of the room. Once everyone was settled, Helena and I moved to sit upon the table, silence befalling everyone once again, no one sure where to begin.

And as if on cue, Santino spoke up first.

“Don’t everyone start at once,” he said, breaking the tension as always.

We all laughed, eliciting Bordeaux to speak up.

“Perhaps you should start with what you’re doing here,” he offered from his seat next to the unknown woman.  “I thought we were meeting in Valentia a month from now.”

Even though I knew it was coming, I found myself taken aback by his comment.  I honestly wasn’t sure how to respond.  The only reason we were here was because I fucked up
with Agrippina.  I looked around, noticing everyone had their attention focused squarely on me.  They were expectantly waiting for an answer while Santino rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.  I noticed in particular the two new faces in the room, and realized I couldn’t say what I had to say in front of them.

I felt Helena, seated to my left, reach out and grip my hand before she answered for me.

“We had some trouble obtaining Nero,” she said.  “I take it you filled everyone in on what we were trying to do?”

“They understand
,
oui
,” he answered.

“Good.”  Helena continued.  “We encountered Galba on campaign in Germany under Vespasian…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Vincent said, shaking his head.  “Vespasian?  In command in Germany?”

“It seems you’re out of the loop, sir,” I said.  “Things are changing.”

“It seems so,” he agreed, looking at the floor in thought.

“Anyway,” Helena started again, “we found an opportunity to take Nero, who was in the company of Agrippina as she prepared to take control of the army.  Or so we thought.  She set a trap for us.  Jacob got pretty banged up by the same people we encountered tonight,” she pointed at Gaius and Marcus as examples, “and we had to flee the area and lie low.  Jacob decided Byzantium was a good place to stop since he knew you’d have to come through the area to get back to Europe.”

Our three friends nodded their heads, accepting her story completely.  I squeezed her hand in a silent thank you.  She looked over and smiled, but it wasn’t completely compassionate.  I owed her something.  Probably a back rub or some other equally fun punishment.  She was a nice taskmaster like that.

“So,” she said, letting go of my hand, “who are your friends?”

Bordeaux and Vincent looked at each other, before Vincent offered his only remaining hand in Bordeaux’s direction.

The big Frenchman nodded politely, and stood.

“This,” he said, indicating the tall, attractive, redheaded woman who I knew could only be one person, “is my wife.  Madrina.”

Madrina smiled and stood next to her husband.  Just as the picture indicated, she was
enormous, almost my height.  She seemed older than in the picture, but her pale skin, high cheek bones and cute dimples made her a very comely woman.

“Madrina,” Bordeaux continued.  “This is Jacob and Helena.  The silly one over there is John, but
just call him Santino.”

She smiled at each of us as
Bordeaux ticked off our names.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said in Latin but with a very thick accent that sounded almost like modern German.  “I have heard a lot about all of you.  Especially, you… Santino?”

She looked up at Bordeaux curiously as she tried to pronounce his name properly.  Bordeaux nodded.  It had been pretty close.

“I’ll take that as a
compliment,” Santino said with his typical smile.

“I wouldn’t,” Madrina finished, before
retaking her seat, almost embarrassed she may have offended him.

Santino just kept smiling.

“I like her,” Helena said, smiling at Bordeaux. “It’s nice to meet you too,” she told Madrina.  “It’ll be nice to have another girl around here for a change.”

Madrina returned Helena’s smile, and I feared the
ir potential girl talk.

No man knew what happened during those little pow-wows.

“What about your children?”  I asked.

“They are on their way home with some of Madrina’s family that came with us,” Bordeaux answered.
  “They should be in Illyricum by now.

“Wait,” Helena said, looking at Madrina.  “You aren’t going home with them?”

Bordeaux and Madrina exchanged glances before the redheaded woman answered.

“They will be fine, but m
y place is with Jeanne.”

“We aren’t going anywhere safe,” Helena informed her.

Madrina looked up at Bordeaux, and wrapped her hands around his gigantic left arm.

“I know,” she said as Bordeaux leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

Bordeaux had a family now, yet he was still willing to risk his life to help us.  But why?  Duty?  The idea that deep down if he turned his back on us, his absence may result in not only our failure, but possibly our deaths?  Madrina, on the other hand, had no such sense.  While she was his wife, she was also a mother.  Did her willingness to aid her husband, possibly putting herself in harm’s way, make her a bad one?

I wasn’t sure I could answer any of those questions, particularly the last.

I wasn’t a mother.

What I did know was that they must have shared a truly intimate connection.  Madrina wasn’t the first woman Bordeaux had shared such a
bond with, but the first had been taken from him by hate filled men willing to sacrifice their own lives for seventy two imaginary virgins.  Having to watch Helena almost die seemed trivial in comparison.  She had survived, his first wife hadn’t.  Madrina must have meant the world to him.