To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (57 page)

I stared at his body in shock, unable to comprehend that such a violent death could come to a f
riend as close as he was.

Was.

Was…

Everyone else
struggled against their restraints again, and I found myself mindlessly joining them, momentarily forgetting about my knife.  I wanted nothing more than to rip Agrippina’s heart from her chest and shove it down her throat.  Only Helena, still in a daze, managed to avoid the image of Bordeaux’s death.

“You fucking bitch!”  Santino screamed
, his insult standing out amongst all the rest, spittle flying from his mouth.  I’d never seen him so angry.

She angrily turned to face him, pointing the gun at his head.

“Perhaps you shall be next?”

Santino defiantly turned towards me, switching to English.

“Don’t tell her anything, Hunter!  Wait for the b…”

But Agrippina pistol whipped him before he could finish.

Wait for the b…?

Wait for the what?

What had he been talking about?

Th
e bitch?  The batman?  The bomb?  The bomb!

Perhaps Bordeaux will
have the last laugh after all.

But, what time was it?  I couldn’t see my watch or anyone else’s.  How long had we been out?  I had to stall.

“You can continue to watch friends die all night, Jacob,” Agrippina said, as I watched her slowly squeeze the trigger.  “But remember, your Amazon’s death won’t be anywhere near as quick or easy.”

I opened my mouth to speak, b
ut my response was suddenly drowned out by an insistent
beep beep beep
noise, emanating from somewhere in the room.  I glanced around.  My ropes were almost cut but I had yet to determine what was making that noise.  It seemed to be coming from Bordeaux.  Agrippina looked at my friend’s body as well, hoping to discover the source of the annoyance.  I realized what it was a half second later.

Agrippina turned to look at me, anger in her eyes.  I met her stare, and offered her a cold smile.  A smile completely devoid of happiness, joy, or relief.  The only em
otion it conveyed was vengeance.

Through
clenched teeth, I whispered, “boom.”

And t
hen room was engulfed in flame.

The explosion originated from some place above us and seemingly on
the other end of the building, but that didn’t save us from the deafening explosion or the concussive blast that sent those on their feet flying across the room and those of us kneeling against the wall behind us.  I watched as Agrippina bounced off one of her Praetorians and careened across my line of sight, landing somewhere near Helena.

Luckily, the bomb hadn’t been close enough to inflict traumatic nerve damage on any of us, so we’d survive.  Had we been
too close, we could have died from any number of factors.  The fire from the explosion, the blast wave shattering our bodies, or the pressure build up liquefying our bones could have left us as little more than a puddle of goo on the floor.

Even so, my ears were ringing and I knew I wouldn’t be hearing anything for
minutes if I was lucky.  But I was conscious and I finally had the opportunity to use my knife and finish cutting through my ropes.  Santino was also up, patiently waiting for me to palm the knife off to him, which I did immediately.

I didn’t wait.  I got to my feet and searched for
Penelope
.

Helena was slow
to rise, sluggish at first, but she’d also been furthest from the explosion.  I watched as the limber woman managed to squeeze her feet through her bound hands so that they were now in front of her.  She stumbled away from me and I had to assume she was searching for Agrippina.

I couldn’t worry about her
now.  Praetorians were getting to their feet all around me. I needed my weapon.  It was time to end this.  Vespasian could live with it if we killed Agrippina.  We weren’t leaving without her, but what state she came with us in was up to her.

I thought about Bordeaux.  He wouldn’t have a choice on how he was coming home.  Gaius and Marcus were also loose ends.  I had no idea where they were.  They were probably already dead.

My mind focused when I found
Penelope
, still in the hands of the bastard Praetorian that had been fondling her earlier.  He was only a few feet away, but it felt like I was wadding through jell-o after the explosion.  I pushed through it.

He saw me coming and
attempted to draw his
gladius
, but I was on him before he could draw it from its scabbard.  With a quick punch to his wrist, his grip loosened and the sword dropped back in its sheath.  The move came at the same instant as I stomped on his foot, following that up by kneeing him in the balls.  He doubled over in pain, still gripping my rifle, so I snatched his head with my hands and smashed my knee into his nose this time.  My kneecap hurt like hell, but he was probably dead.   I pushed him over and he released
Penelope
into the air as he fell.

I snatched her out of the air, turned, and fed a round into the chamber.

It was dark after most of the torches had been snuffed out by the explosion, but the room was now dimly illuminated by the night sky, visible through the collapsing roof.  Rubble was strewn everywhere in big slabs, chunks and toppled pillars.  The level above us was visible in some places, and I notice at least one enemy Praetorian buried alive, only his head exposed.

I activated the night vision on
my rifle’s ACOG scope.

Peering through
it, I noted two Praetorians making their way towards Helena.  Once again, even through the dim green glow of my night vision, I saw evil intent on their faces, just like the Praetorian four years ago that had almost killed her.

The rest of
the boys were up now as well, searching for weapons of their own.  Wang was already getting in touch with his inner martial artist, having taken out two Praetorians with quick karate kicks to the head.  He’d been close with Bordeaux as well, former swim buddies, and his anger was obvious.  Vincent was up as well, but he wasn’t fighting.

He was grieving.

A large chunk of the ceiling had fallen during the explosion right on Titus.  I could only see the upper half of the young Roman’s body, everything from his belly button down having been crushed by the concrete.  Vincent held Titus’ visible upper body in his arm, and cried for his adopted son.  Watching the old man cry caused me to hesitate.

But
Santino didn’t see Vincent in his time of grief, or if he did, he focused on the Praetorians going after Helena instead.  He bravely body checked one of them into the other and started beating him to death with his fists.  His action snapped me from my own sadness at the loss of Titus and the pain Vincent was feeling.  I hit the second Praetorians in the back as he got to his feet with a three round burst, just before he could enact some measure of revenge on Santino.

Helena
had noticed her savior as well and helped Santino to his feet after he was finished with his prey.  She reached up and touched his cheek in thanks for the save, an intimate gesture only friends as good as they could share without it seeming awkward.  He threw her a goofy smile, gripped her hand momentarily, and rushed off to find someone else to kill.  Helena, meanwhile, spotted Agrippina and went directly for her.

A slight motion to my left pu
lled my attention away from her and I spotted one of the ninjas trying to flank me.  He rushed at me with his small scimitar blade, but instead of waiting for him to skewer me, I ran out to meet him.  Spinning at the last second, I managed to guess which way he was going to lunge and avoided his blade.  He stumbled past me and I put another three round burst into his back.

Six down, another thirty
or so to go.

I unloaded the remaining rounds in my magazine on
whatever targets I could find.

Nearing empty, I watched
Wang take a sword to his thigh, forcing him to fight on basically one leg.  A group of five Praetorians tried to overwhelm him, but I evened up the sides considerably by putting four of them down before they even reached him.  The last was no match for even a handicapped Wang.

The only thing keeping the enemy at bay was my gun fire, and as I fired off another round into the last of the ninjas,
there could still be as many as ten Praetorians still lurking about.

I looked around frantically for Helena
and found her wrestling with Agrippina a few dozen yards away.  Both women had more bruises than they’d had just after the explosion, but Helena clearly had the upper hand.  Her hands may have been bound, but she was a fighter, and a well-trained one at that.  Agrippina may have known how to fight, but she wasn’t a match for my woman.

I fired my last round at a Praetorian approaching the
two of them, shattering the left side of his skull.

Helena’s luck
was about to change when Agrippina found the orb lying on the ground beside them.  Helena was on top of Agrippina, pounding into her chest with bound hands when Agrippina managed to swing the hard ball up, smacking it into the side of Helena’s head.  The impact sent Helena rolling off her foe, but it had only been a glancing blow.  Agrippina jumped on top of her, hoping to get the upper hand, but a very nimble Helena placed a foot against Agrippina’s midsection and threw her away.  Helena quickly took advantage and repositioned herself back on top of Agrippina.

Helen
a had the orb in her hands now, having torn it from Agrippina’s grasp as she had lain stunned on the ground.  Not wasting any time on tricks or fancy moves, I watched as Helena’s smashed it into Agrippina’s beautiful and terror stricken face over and over and over again.

The first thing to go was Agrippina’s nose.  That had caved in after the second impact of the
orb.  Helena’s expression grew angrier, and even though I was busy beating a Praetorian across the face with
Penelope
, I saw her tears and spit and sweat flinging all around her as she pummeled the empress relentlessly.  Years of searing, pent up rage and frustration were finally taking over.

I watched as she slammed the
orb again and again, turning Agrippina’s eye sockets into an indistinguishable crater in her face.  Another blow and her upper teeth were shattered.  Another blow and the orb was now halfway deep into Agrippina’s head, past her none existent face.  She’d been dead after the third blow.

Helena’s rage was dwindling, but not before one more blow, this one
slamming into the floor, having gone completely through Agrippina’s skull.  The mother of my unborn child reared back from Agrippina’s lifeless corpse and her arms fell to the floor beside her.  She sat upon Agrippina’s stomach as blood covered her from head to toe, arched her back and screamed, releasing everything she had in her.  She slowly composed herself a few seconds later and turned to look at me.

Her eyes were vacant, distant, and blood streamed down her near perfect face.

It felt like the battle around me was dying down, but I couldn’t be sure.

M
y night vision scope had broken off with my melee attack, and the darkness was so deep that I had no idea who was still alive and who was dead.  I made my way towards Helena, determining it was time to extract ourselves as quickly as possible.  She simply sat there, waiting for me, when her eyes opened wide.

She noticed, before I did, a previously unknown Praetorian emerge from the shadows and take a swing at her with his
gladius
.  His attack hit her square in the chest, pitching her backwards into a slab of rubble, but the blow had been with side of his sword, not the edge, so instead of slicing her chest clean open, it only knocked the wind out of her.  It was enough to disorient her however, allowing the Praetorian the chance to place his foot against her neck and push her over the rubble.  She fell down a slab of concrete, and I lost sight of her when she tumbled into the darkness.

My fear for her
disappeared when her attacker noticed me out of the corner of his eye and instead of finishing her off, stepped around to leap at me instead, his sword held at his side.  He thrust for my abdomen, but I sidestepped left.  The sword grazed my ribcage and I felt pain race through my entire right flank.  I stumbled as I turned, clutching at the wound, but it wasn’t enough to slow me down.  This mother fucker was going to die.  I found a broken
gladius
on the ground and picked it up.  I reached out with my free hand and motioned for him to bring it.

He did.

He came at me hard and fast, putting me on the defensive almost immediately.  Block.  Block.  Stab.  Block.  Riposte.  I did everything I could to stay alive.  As long as there was still a chance Helena survived, I would too.  But he was clearly the better swordsman.  His face was mature and hardened.  He wasn’t some young rook, fresh out of boot.  He knew how to fight and he was fighting for his survival just as I was.

He stuck to his training, stabbing with the point,
rarely slashing with the blade.  He made another jab at me, which I managed to block downwards and to the right.  He stumbled from the force of my parry and his sword jabbed itself between fallen slabs of concrete, temporarily jamming it.  I took advantage and stepped down on the blade, disarming him in an instant.