The Last Roman (The Praetorian Series - Book I)

  ***

  Pain induced hallucinations were a bitch. They were the ones that hit deeply, stung like hell, and were just subtle enough that they left you questioning the entire experience. Then the pain smashed into you like a boulder falling on your head. My particular hallucination this time was of my father’s disapproving eyes, staring deep into the recesses of my lost soul, before combusting into flames.

  Yeah. Real subtle.

  Just as my head started to clear and my vision returned, I felt immense pressure building inside my skull. It took me a moment to realize we had flipped upside down and that I was hanging in my seat, suspended by my seatbelt. Looking over, I could see Wang similarly dangling but still unconscious. Abdullah was slumped on the roof, bleeding from a gash across his temple. His chest rose and fell, so at least he was still alive.

  Placing one hand against the roof of the truck, I unbuckled my seatbelt and roughly tumbled to the ground. I shook Wang awake, and indicated that he get Abdullah out of the truck. He responded groggily, mumbling something about how he thought Duran Duran really wasn’t that bad after all. It took him a few more seconds to come around but when he did, I saw him take out his frustration and pain on Abdullah as he roughly tried to eject the unconscious terrorist from the truck.

  Crawling out of where the windshield had been, I hoped everyone in back had managed to jump away before we’d begun to roll. The first troops I saw were Santino and Vincent running toward my position as I crawled to my feet. They seemed fine.

  “Are you all right?” Santino asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied, smacking my head to clear it. “Help Wang with Abdullah. Where’s everyone else?”

  That’s when I noticed Bordeaux hurrying over with a slight limp. It wasn’t until he reached the light given off by the overturned truck’s headlights that I noticed he was carrying McDougal over his shoulders.

  “He’s hurt badly.” Bordeaux said. “He’s unconscious and from what I can tell has some broken bones and is bleeding from numerous wounds. We need Wang.”

  I nodded, turned around, and knelt to look inside the cab. I saw Wang hauling Abdullah forcibly out the passenger side window. He handed him off to Vincent and Santino and immediately went to work on McDougal.

  I looked around, surveying the damage, waiting for Helena to arrive.

  “Where’s Strauss?” Wang asked as he started checking McDougal’s vital signs and shining a small flashlight in his eyes.

  Everyone looked around, but each shook their head in turn, unable to locate her.

  “Stay here with McDougal,” I said. “I’ll find her.”

  I tried to determine her position via her GPS locator beacon, but where it indicated she should be, she wasn’t. It wasn’t until I saw a leg, clad in the rubbery material of a dive suit hanging out of a window that I found her.

  I ran to the window praying to God I hadn’t killed her. Fearing the worst, I found her sprawled on a wooden table, the leg dangling from the window thankfully still attached. She must have been thrown from the truck like the rest, but hadn’t been able to control her direction. Luckily she hadn’t hit the wall, not to mention the fact that the window didn’t have any glass.

  Lucky or not, she was still bleeding from a head wound and had an extremely nasty gash on the leg sticking out the window. The wound started a third of the way up her thigh, wrapping its way from the side of her leg to her hamstring, appearing to end just below her left glute, but at least it didn’t seem too deep. Looking back to call for Wang, I saw he was still working on McDougal.

  We didn’t have time for this. We needed to get the hell out of here.

  Our best bet was to get to that equipment cache and regroup.

  Moans from inside drew my attention back to Helena. She was regaining consciousness and started mumbling a name. I couldn’t make it out, but it sounded distinctly masculine. I put my hand behind her neck, propping her head up, and snapped my fingers in front of her face.

  “Helena. Wake up. We’ve got to get out of here,” I offered before lightly smacking her cheek, again to little affect. “Wake up.”

  She wasn’t responding, which was probably a good thing considering what I was about to do to her leg. Pulling out my knife, I tore open more of her wetsuit around the wound to make room for a battle dressing. I retrieved a packet of QuikClot from my pack, a powder-like substance that helped open wounds clot so that the patient wouldn’t bleed out. She’d have a scar, but at least she wouldn’t bleed to death, and Wang could stitch it properly later.

  Unfortunately for her, the stuff stung like hell.

  I paused and rolled her onto her side just before dumping it on the wound.

  “I’m sorry, Helena,” I said to her unknowing form, “but this is going to hurt. A lot.”

  Her reaction was as expected. The jolt of pain snapped her awake like she was just struck by lightning. Her body snapped into a sitting position and she threw her arms around my neck, shaking uncontrollably.

  “It’s okay,” I told her while pulling out a bandage. It’s just a scratch. Just hang on while I dress the wound.

  “Th-thank you, Jacob.”

  “Hey. Rescuing damsels in distress is part of the job.”

  I thought I felt her slug me in the arm, but I couldn’t be sure. If she hadn’t, it wasn’t a good sign.

  I attached a few butterfly bandages to keep the wound closed despite the QuikClot and wrapped gauze around her leg several times, tying it off as tightly as I could. She cried out in pain again and buried her head in my neck, trying to force away the pain

  “Sorry, but it’s got to be tight. Now hang on.”

  She clasped her hands around my shoulders and pulled herself in close, keeping her head against my neck. Determined she was secure, I wrapped my left arm around her waist, my other under her legs, staying clear of the wound, and gently extracted her from the window. With my adrenaline pumping, she felt as light as a feather.

  Helena in my arms, I made my way to the truck.

  “Put me down, Jacob. I can manage.”

  I did as I was told, only to have her stumble under her own weight. I had to scoop her back up into my arms before she put any more pressure on her cut leg. She must have hurt her other ankle as well.

  She smiled up at me, her head lolling. “Never mind. You’re doing a great job.”

  “Just don’t get too comfortable. You’re not as light as you look.”

  I waited for her head to turn and glare at me, but it only slumped against my shoulder instead.

  Definitely not a good sign.

  Back at the truck, Santino and Vincent had set up a perimeter at the end of the alley and were already trading fire with enemy combatants. It was still dark, so we had the cover of night and the advantage of our night vision at least, but we couldn’t hold out forever, especially since a third of our squad was combat ineffective.

  “How’s he doing, James?” I asked Wang.

  He looked up and shook his head. “Not well. I’ve stabilized him, but his neck is very nearly broken and he’s bleeding internally. We have to get him some place safe so that I can perform more extensive repairs.”

  Wang didn’t have anything as complete as a field hospital in his backpack, but his very large bag did have many new features of modern medicine that would allow him to perform much more complete first aid than the combat medics of even a decade ago. All he needed was time.

  “Fine,” I said, laying Helena on the ground. “She needs a shot of morphine and a bandage on her head. Bordeaux?”

  “I’m okay. Just a sprained ankle.”

  I nodded. A sprained ankle could wait.

  “Vincent!” I yelled. “We need to get the hell out of here!”

  I saw him look over at me from down the alley and nod. He patted Santino on the shoulder and indicated with the flick of a hand for him to hold the line. He came running over.

  “What’s our status
?”

  “Strauss is immobile, but should be fine. McDougal is in really bad shape. Abdullah is unconscious. Bordeaux has a sprained ankle, and Wang and I seem to be okay except for a few cuts and bruises,” I summed.

  “All right,” he said, rubbing his rough chin. “Bordeaux, you take McDougal. Hunter, you grab Strauss. Wang, don’t forget Abdullah. Santino will be on point, and I’ll be on crowd control in the rear. Let’s move out.”

  We gathered up our charges as gently as possible, except for Wang who had the hardest time with Abdullah. Once we were organized, we set out deeper into the alley and followed our map to the safe house. We needed some place to lay low and tend to our wounded.

  Santino was the first to head out as he hauled ass to the front of our rag tag line and scouted out ahead of us, leaving stealth as a mere afterthought. We managed to sneak around pretty quickly and efficiently despite our loads, but we were lucky that most of the people we encountered ran back inside immediately after they saw us. We kept to the shadows as much as possible anyway, avoiding main throughways and homes with their lights on.

  Along the way, Helena drifted in and out of consciousness, muttering gibberish. Only once did she open her eyes to look at me, brushing my cheek with a hand. I could only imagine what was going through her dazed and confused mind as she uttered my name. Her eyes rolled back inside her head and she slumped into my arms, unconscious once again.

  Hallucinations were a bitch.

  Fifteen minutes later, we reached the building we were looking for. Only a few bad guys stumbled on our position along the way and they were easily dispatched by Vincent. Santino opened the door to the house and waved everyone inside. Last in, he shut the door quietly behind him.

  The house was barren, lacking any kind of furnishing. Its walls were bare, its windowsills dusty, and it didn’t appear as though anyone had lived here for years. It was only a single story, so we headed down to the basement, the only other place left to go.

  The dark, musty, scary basement.

  Wonderful.

  The last to descend into the dark cavern, I noticed the basement door was conveniently equipped with a large wooden plank to secure it. How thoughtful of the homeowners. That would only hold off the invading horde for about twenty seconds.

  Once below, we found a few light bulbs dangling from the ceiling. Their illumination revealed a very plain room as completely barren as the rooms above except for a few cots and a half dozen metal containers about the size of queen beds stacked along the wall. I gave the containers an annoyed look before heading over to one of the cots.

  I lowered Helena gently onto the soft fabric, afraid that even the slightest impact might break her in half. She looked peaceful in her drugged state, but I knew she had to be suffering. I stayed only long enough to check her pulse and brush some stray locks of hair away from her face. Giving her shoulder a quick squeeze, I stood to survey my surroundings.

  There wasn’t much to see, only a mostly empty basement, but Santino seem perplexed at what he was seeing.

  “What the fuck?” I heard him yell from the rear wall. “Jacob, get over here.”

  My eyebrows creased in suspicion, but I did as I was told. I passed by Wang along the way who was still working on McDougal. He had a scalpel out and looked ready to perform an incision and Vincent was there to assist in any way he could. Not knowing much about medicine, and always rather squeamish during medical TV shows, I averted my attention. Bordeaux, meanwhile, was charged with the dual tasks of watching Abdullah and the door.

  I found Santino rummaging through one of the containers, already having opened three others.

  “What’s up?” I asked. “Did they forget your blankie?”

  He glared. He must be getting used to it these days.

  “Funny. Look at this,” he said, opening another one. “These are filled with enough supplies to last us years. That first one has nothing but MREs, enough to last each of us for months. There are explosives, replacement parts, ammunition out the wazoo, extra magazines, and even a few rifles, not to mention clothing, cooking equipment, bottled water, filters, toiletries, survival gear… and I’ve only opened half of them. Why would they give us enough supplies to set us up as an independent mercenary force?”

  I had no idea.

  “Have you tried your radio yet?” I asked, hoping for some good news.

  “Yeah, but all I get is static. These fucking Ragheads are probably jamming the signal.”

  I smirked. Cultural expert indeed.

  I gave him a doubtful look. “That doesn’t seem very likely considering what we’ve seen from these guys so far.”

  He shrugged. “We know the Russians have been supplying terrorist cells with some of their fancy new equipment. It wouldn’t surprise me if they could block our satellite uplinks.”

  I didn’t have much time to think on it when the door leading upstairs began to shake.

  So much for our “safe” house. I glanced at Santino who rolled his eyes, retrieved his HK416, and helped me pile the containers for use as barricades. We stacked them three high and two wide, enough for about ten feet in length and five feet high of coverage. We piled them around McDougal’s inert form, and I dragged Helena next to him. Those of us who still could, took up positions behind the containers and trained our guns on the narrow door.

  And we waited.

  I had to give these terrorist bastards some credit they were patient and had themselves some style. Instead of merely beating down the door, they used a directional explosive to direct the force of the blast toward us, but we were ready for them. We had decent cover and the additional protection of our electronic ear buds. The little devices allowed ambient noise to flow through the eardrum, but as soon as they detected any sudden deafening noise, would activate to block it from entering the ear. The end result was a few seconds of slight deafness until the filters allowed sound to flow through them again, but alleviated any symptoms of distortion that would occur from an explosion.

  When the bad guys finally blew their charge, we shrugged it off as though nothing had happened. Then they started to pour through. One after the other, they came through the door only to get mowed down by my precision shooting and hails of gunfire from Bordeaux’s big ass gun. Ammo wasn’t an issue anymore. Theoretically, we had enough to kill a million of them if we wanted to.

  Hopefully, we wouldn’t have to.

  There were lulls in the battle when either Bordeaux or Vincent would chuck a grenade through the door and force the bad guys to either run or be killed. We timed it so that we had fresh magazines in place before they came back for more. Occasionally, the enemy would lob their own grenades, but our containers were bullet proof and could easily handle shrapnel from second hand grenades. Especially ones that probably began their lives in some shady Russian manufacturing plant. I was surprised none of them went off in their hands, but so many had been exchanged by that point, maybe I’d missed one that had.

  Most landed in front of the containers and the rest fell harmlessly enough that we just kicked them away, but I still managed to get nicked in the leg with a glancing piece of shrapnel when I covered Helena from a grenade that went off on top of our barricade. Most of the team took a piece of something here and there. But we were holding. Hopefully not for much longer, because we had to counterattack and get the hell out of there fast.

  Twenty minutes into the firefight, it got to the point where their dead provided extra coverage in front of our barricade. Their bodies also littered the stairs and blocked the doorway. We were just about to try the radio again when our prisoner decided to wake up. It must have taken him a while to fully regain consciousness, but all of us were too distracted to notice. Still tied, he got up and made his way to the bag Santino had put his glowing ball in. It wasn’t until he took the ball out, and the blue light illuminated the room, that I noticed him.

  Ball in hands, he lifted it
high over his head, staring right at me.

  “With this device, the servants of Allah will finally…”

  A stray bullet from the enemy upstairs nailed him between the eyes. He fell to his knees, eyes rolling into the back of his head, dead before he hit the floor.

  I caught Santino’s eye and he smiled at me.

  As Abdullah’s body crumpled to the floor, the sphere fell from his hands and rolled in my direction. I was immediately enticed by its glow as I watched it roll closer and its allure only grew as it thudded against my boot. Staring down at it, I saw clouds swirl within it like the epicenter of a hurricane, revealing a cavern filled with men dressed in white robes kneeling reverently. An additional lone figure stood in the background, clearly not a part of the group.

  Unable to contain my desire to reach for the orb, I bent over and picked it up in my gloved left hand. I barely noticed the bullets whizzing their way around my head as I peered ever closer. I couldn’t discern any details from the images within, nor were they overly interesting. They appeared as a still photo would and were grainier than a photograph from the 1940s, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Like the blaze of a fire or the steady drip of a leaky faucet, for some reason I was entranced by what I was seeing.

  With my right index finger, the only finger not covered by my gloves, I poked at the sphere. My hand moved without thought, without conviction, but it moved all the same. The globe felt soft, despite its apparently hard façade, made out of a material completely foreign to me. I felt my finger begin to push through the surface. At this point I was completely oblivious to the sounds of battle raging on around me. All I could think about was the silky surface of the sphere and how I knew I had to probe deeper. Buried to the second knuckle, my finger suddenly felt resistance, then, a tugging sensation. It was gentle at first, but soon became very persistent, steadily pulling my finger inside. It wasn’t long before my entire hand was submerged in the sphere.

  That’s when I started to panic.

  I didn’t feel any pain at first, but when the tugging stopped, my eyes widened in terror at what I somehow knew was coming. It was the calm before the storm. In a single moment, all the insanity occurring around me became nothing, before becoming something again. The globe instantaneously sucked the entire room inside out in one fell swoop, taking everything with it in a brilliant blue explosion. The dead bodies, my friends, the containers, even the staircase. It was the single most nauseating experience of my life. More so than the roller coasters as a kid, the weekend drinking binges during college, or the life threatening rolling truck little more than an hour ago. It was the same with the pain. Unlike anything I’ve ever felt, or dreamed I could have felt, it was if my very soul was being ripped from my body only to be stitched back together, piece by piece.

  I fell to the floor and felt my muscles automatically clench in the vain hope of staving off the pain. My body tried too little, too late. My eyes stung, my mouth parched, my brain fried, my stomach churned, my bowels threatened to do something I’d soon regret, and every shred of my being seemed to be on fire.

  But, as quickly as the pain began, which seemed like a million years ago, it just as quickly ended. It was gone. In the blink of an eye, the most unimaginable pain I’d ever experienced receded to nothing and even the memory of what it had felt like quickly faded.

  I blinked my eyes.

  We were in a cavern, a big one, with dead bodies littered all over the place. Before I could take in more of my surroundings, the stair case behind me collapsed and fell to pieces. My first thought was to make sure Helena was all right. I struggled to my knees and felt her neck for a pulse. It was steady, and her breathing was normal, but even though she was drugged before the transition, the painful reentry had jarred her awake. Her eyes fluttered open and slowly focused on me.

  “What happened?” she asked weakly, before going under again.

  “I have no idea,” I responded to myself.

  Santino was already on his feet, eyes darting back and forth, looking for a way out. He noticed I was also conscious and helped me up to survey the area with him. I was looking at the pile of corpses in front of us when he poked me in the arm. I turned to see him staring in the other direction.

  “What…” I started to say just as I noticed what he was looking at. What I saw couldn’t be real. I was looking at the same group of toga wearing men I had seen through the orb. They were in the same semicircle I saw before, all kneeling in our direction. And they all seemed just as surprised as we were.

  Santino and I exchanged glances, but it wasn’t long before he couldn’t help but say something.

  “Togas?” He asked, peering at the men. “So, where’s the keg?”

  Part Two