All Roads Lead to Rome (The Praetorian Series Book 4) Read online

  He was… an interesting person.

  From the moment I’d met him, I’d known there was something… special about him.

  It was difficult to describe, just as he was difficult to describe. He was as much of a walking paradox as a time traveler living through a grandfather paradox. While he was perhaps the most arrogant, self-centered, macho, chauvinistic man I’d ever met, he could also be the most humble, unselfish, caring, and understanding one as well.

  He’d reminded me so much of Jacob that I’d quickly become comfortable around him, and it didn’t hurt that he was more than just a little attractive. I’d always loved a man with scars, especially when he owned them. I still didn’t know whether he actually liked me at all, although I suspected that if he did it was just a part of his endless ploy to annoy Jacob. But there seemed to be something there, although he seemed about as outwardly interested in me as a thirteen year old boy.

  Perhaps one day it would be more.

  Suddenly, the sound of a man slumping to the ground shook me from my thoughts, and I turned to see James on ground beside John’s table. Every single thought in my mind evaporated as he fell, my concern for John’s condition taking priority over everything else. Even so, I rushed to check on James first, and while I certainly didn’t have a background in medicine, I was able to find his pulse and heard rhythmic breathing.

  Relieved, but not placated, I stood up and turned my attention to John, but my all my concerns were gone when I found him lying shirtless on the table, a neat bandage covering a small wound in his lower, right abdomen. I checked for a pulse, and finding it steady and consistent, I let out a long sigh of relief. I used the back of my knuckles to lightly brush John’s cheek and smiled, but didn’t linger; fatigue was already setting in at a drastic rate. Moving to Helena’s table, I grabbed two extra blankets Jeanne had brought and covered John with one, James with the other. Since he was too heavy for me to lift on my own, I left him as he was on the ground.

  Everyone seemed comfortable except me, but with no additional blankets available and John’s table too small for me to lay on with him, I huddled in a corner of the tent, pulled my parka around myself tightly, and waited. I closed my eyes and rested my head on my shoulder, but instead of feeling a strong desire to fall asleep, all I wanted to do was cry again.

  None of this was supposed to have happened.

  I shouldn’t even be here and Jacob and Helena and all the others shouldn’t have had to suffer as they had in recent months. All this could have been avoided had we simply left well enough alone. Everything could have been different if I hadn’t agreed to participate in a rescue mission to defy all rescue missions.

  It didn’t seem like all that long ago when Jacob and his team had disappeared completely – that is, the Jacob and his team that had existed back home, in my version of the year 2021 – and a team had been sent to find them.

  All they’d found was a cargo container, a notebook, the orb, and… his body.

  Jacob’s body.

  All evidentiary procedures had confirmed it, even my own when I’d confirmed the broken leg Jacob had suffered when he’d fallen out of a tree when we were kids. But it hadn’t been Jacob, not my Jacob, not the Jacob I’d known and the one I’d grown up with. Everything in the journal from the prose style, the handwriting, and the ridiculously-Jacob sense of humor had indicated it had been him, but the carbon dating had put the body at just around two thousand years old and the context of his story hadn’t made any sense.

  It had been Jacob. A two thousand-year-old Jacob. A Jacob who had died, withered for two thousand years, and left behind a story that had confounded everyone.

  But it hadn’t been my Jacob.

  He’d written of a world so unlike the one he should have known, the one I’d known, and he’d described a device capable of sending individuals through time. No one had believed it at first, but the evidence was irrefutable: a parallel version of Jacob Hunter had existed. Those in the military who had far too much power than they had any right to have agreed that this Jacob came from a world that was similar to our own but distinguishably different, but, more importantly, was also in possession of the means to travel through time, a technology they had every intention of obtaining, reengineering, or stealing.

  Everything since had been insanity. No one had said anything about ancient wizards or magical orbs capable of destroying an individual’s mind or empresses of long forgotten empires who had far too much ambition and the bloodthirsty nature needed to take everything she wanted. All I’d wanted was my brother back, but nothing was ever that simple.

  I may have found him, but then he’d been taken from me again.

  Only this time I couldn’t just go after him.

  That wayward desire to sleep was finally beginning to settle in as such dour thoughts circulated through my mind, but just before it took hold of me completely, I felt myself being shaken roughly. My eyes flew open and I saw myself looking into the face of Paul Archer, a man I immediately wished was in a coma like the rest of them.

  “Paul…” I muttered, pulling my jacket tighter and trying to ignore him, “… now isn’t the time. I’m exhaust…”

  He didn’t interrupt me, which was odd enough to convince me that I should talk to him. I opened my eyes again and gave him a more serious look, and jerked myself backward at what I saw. Archer’s face had been pummeled. Someone had seriously damaged the man, leaving his face black and blue and puffy in all the wrong places. His once handsome face that I had loved so much – but no more – had been turned to mush.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, oddly concerned.

  Again he didn’t answer, his head swaying side to side like he was punch-drunk.

  “Who did this to you?” I pressed

  “My fault…” he mumbled. “All my fault.”

  “Paul!” I snapped, and he jerked himself into focus. “Who did this to you? What are you talking about?”

  “Jacob…” he said quietly. “Jacob did this.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I tried to stop him,” he said, his voice sad. “Felt responsible for…”

  “For what?” I asked.

  His head tilted upward, his eyes harrowed. “I gave him the orb, Artie.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You what?”

  “Aboard the ship heading to Alexandria,” he continued. “I gave it to him. I had… orders. They wanted to see what it could really do. Wanted to see the extent of its damaging effects. And they didn’t want him interfering. Jacob was… expendable.”

  “You… what?” I asked, beyond angry.

  “I was under orders!” Archer retorted. “They told me to do it. They knew you could use the orb and didn’t want Jacob getting in the way. I had to do it!”

  “You… you didn’t have to do anything, Paul!” I yelled, amazed that I could say anything at all. “You knew what could happen! You knew this would happen. You drove Jacob insane!”

  “I know!” He shot back angrily, causing me to jerk back again. “I know. That’s… that’s why I brought this. We can go back. Change it.”

  He lifted his hand, showing what he held within: a blue orb.

  I flung myself back even further, knowing that what it had done to Jacob could just as easily happen to me. I scuttled backward until I came into contact with the wall of the canvas tent. I held up a hand as though that would help ward off the orb’s power.

  “What are you doing?” I said, too scared to be angry. “Where did you get that? Helena destroyed it.”

  He shook his head. “No, we didn’t. She brought both of them to me because she thought I’d be the last person to let Jacob have them. We faked it. It was her idea not to destroy either orb, not mine.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because she’s military, Diana,” he said, a surge of confidence entering his voice. “Redundancy is crucial. Two is one, one is none. A million things could have happened that would make us regret the loss of the
orb if we’d already destroyed the other.”

  I shook my head, unable to answer.

  “Use it, Diana,” he urged. “Fix this. Don’t let me give the other one to Jacob.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” I said. “You know that!”

  “Do it!” He said angrily, shoving the orb closer to me.

  “I can’t!”

  “You have t…”

  He started to lunge for me but was unexpectedly arrested mid-motion, almost as if he’d been somehow frozen in time. In fact, that was my first assumption because of the orb’s presence, but then he started to squirm, and I realized what had happened. Jeanne had returned, probably having heard our argument, and had literally caught Archer in midair.

  Jeanne pulled his arms back and flung Archer to the ground, causing him to slide and hit the table John was lying on. The big man followed, reached down and picked him up, a fist ready to be thrown at him.

  “Wait!” I called out.

  He looked at me calmly, his breathing steady.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Let him go.”

  Archer appeared about ready to slump unconscious when Jeanne let him go, but the sudden drop to the ground gave him the energy he needed to rush from the tent and disappear.

  “What was that about?” Jeanne asked.

  “He…” I hesitated. “It… it’s best you didn’t know. For now.”

  “If that is your wish.” He said with a nod. “Are you all right? Do you need anything else?”

  I shook my head. “No, thank you. You should get some rest.”

  He threw a hand in my direction. “So should you.”

  “I think I’ll stay,” I said, holding my head in my hand tiredly. “I’ll be all right.”

  “Bien,” he said. “I’ll go.”

  I watched him go and returned to my spot on the ground, rattled, shaken, and disturbed. I’ll never understand the military and their ridiculous chain of command and justification for actions because they were under orders. Archer was a man, an individual, and should have been able to do what he thought was best, not remain tethered to a command structure two thousand years in the future, and one he may never return to.

  And now Archer had admitted to being complicit in Jacob’s descent into madness. I’d always wondered where Jacob had gotten the orb, and I felt ashamed that I’d always assumed that he’d gone looking for it, driven by his own creeping insanity. My world was falling apart around me and there was nothing I could do. John was wounded, James was unconscious, Vincent was dead, Archer was untrustworthy, Helena was… whatever she was, and even though Jeanne, TJ, Alex, and Georgia were alive and healthy, they were probably just as lost as I was.

  I’d never been so terrified and equally depressed, even after living my entire life filled with fear. I didn’t want to think about it right now, couldn’t think about it for my own sake, and found myself drifting off to sleep almost immediately, exhaustion acting as my best friend at the moment.

  ***

  I hadn’t any idea how long I’d been asleep. It could have been twenty seconds or twenty minutes, or maybe even a few hours. The ground was cold and my butt was wet thanks to the damp soil beneath me, but I didn’t care. There was too much to think and worry about without wondering if my butt would freeze.

  I started thinking about the days after discovering Jacob’s body back home again, and all the planning that had gone into the operation to bring him home, when I was distracted by a commotion coming from outside. I lifted my head, a painful endeavor after the awkward position I’d been asleep in, and glanced around. John was still asleep atop his table, as was James upon the ground, but Helena was gone.

  Curious, I cocked my head to the side, wondering where she could be, when the turmoil outside grew far worse just before it came crashing into my tent. Two individuals came stumbling into the hospital tent, one dragging the other against his will. A number of Romans entered behind them, and while none seemed eager to appease the distraught pair of individuals, none seemed very happy either. Of the six that followed, four had their hands held on the grips of their swords, while two wielded spears.

  I turned my head to the initial pair again, and took notice that one was also a Roman, although his armor was different, fancier. I’d never seen him before, although he looked to be someone of importance even though he wasn’t a particularly pleasant looking man. While his arms appeared quite strong and muscular, it was impossible not to notice an ugly face with fat jowls hanging from his jaw that seemed completely out of place on such a fit form.

  Dragging him, however, was an even bigger surprise.

  It was Helena.

  No one who entered the tent even noticed me as I sat curled up in the corner – that is, until someone tripped over James, jerking him awake. The Roman glared down at the small medic, and I found myself moving forward, wrapping James up in my arms, and doing my best to drag him out of the way as the important looking Roman started to speak.

  “Unhand me, woman!” I thought I heard him say.

  I held onto James, and looked at his dazed eyes. “Are you okay, James?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Smidge woozy. What day is it?”

  “I haven’t any idea, I said. “Now shut up and listen. Translate for me.”

  He looked at me, his face contorted in annoyance, but he did as he was told and translated.

  “By the gods, you are strong!” The man repeated thanks to James. “Unhand me!”

  I knew he was speaking to Helena, but my rational mind was still unable to process how she was even moving, let alone manhandling a Roman soldier in impressive physical shape. He struggled again, but instead of letting him fight against her, Helena released him as she remained silent. The Roman took a step back but didn’t attempt to exit the tent. His soldiers moved to surround him but he held up a hand, and they stayed back. He stared at Helena, who returned his gaze even more angrily, and it was then that the man’s posture slackened and he shook his head. He lifted it and turned to see John sitting atop the table, and then shifted his eyes and saw James and me huddled in the corner.

  “He did this?” The Roman asked, looking back at Helena.

  “I told you he did,” Helena growled.

  “And Vincent?” The Roman inquired.

  Helena simply nodded.

  He looked saddened for a moment but continued. “And your blond friend? The one that is concussed?”

  “He’s not my friend,” Helena pointed out, “but, yes. I already explained this. Jacob is possessed and we have to go after him. We have to help him.”

  The Roman folded his arms. “From how I understand it, he chose this path for himself. He willingly requested your orb. This is the report I have received from Centurion Minicius. Do you dispute that?”

  “You don’t understand, Galba,” Helena said, throwing her arms out wide in frustration. “He’s addicted to the orb! You can’t blame him!”

  “Do not play coy with me, woman!” Galba shouted. “Do not think I will be swayed by your misguided love for a man who has singlehandedly done everything possible to destroy my empire. How can you be so quick to forgive when he chose to escape detention with the likes of Agrippina? Agrippina! Whom I know you despise. Your hatred for her is legendary among legion gossip.”

  “It was out of his control,” Helena explained slowly, as though she was still trying to rationalize it to herself. “He didn’t choose to become addicted to it, it was forced on him, and now he’s no more in control of his mind than you are of your so-called empire.”

  Galba recoiled at the insult, but he wasn’t finished. “And what of your son?” He countered. “Is it not because of him that he too has been lost to you?”

  “My…” Helena started to say, confusion overtaking her, “… my… son?”

  The poor girl was still in denial, and I wasn’t about to let her wallow in those thoughts much longer. “That wasn’t Jacob’s fault either,” I finally said, finding the confidence buried deep withi
n me as well as the translation. But that was all I could think to say, and ordered James to translate for me. He nodded. “He took a risk, and we all paid dearly for it, but it wasn’t his fault. He had nothing to do with the loss of their son.”

  Helena stood there in a daze, the nature of the conversation turning far and away from her.

  Galba, however, wasn’t as easily deterred as he whirled around to face me. “And who are you? Your Latin is even worse than the others’.”

  “I’m Jacob’s sister,” I said proudly on my own. “My name is Diana.”

  Galba recoiled at this announcement, as did a number of his soldiers.

  “Do not tell me that you too are a god,” he said, his voice just barely above a whisper.

  “I’m not a god,” I said, condescension in my voice at such a stupid statement. “And neither is Jacob. I’m just named for one.”

  Mom had always been a voracious reader, but her favorite subject had been the obscure stories found in Greco-Roman mythology… what little of it was known. I’d only ever seen one slim book on the subject back in her library, but it was one she read often. There were only a dozen stories in there, but an odd majority of them had revolved around a goddess of the hunt named Diana, who some theorized had also been named Artemis in a previous incarnation.

  Which is where I got both my name and my nickname from.

  Galba didn’t seem to understand what I’d said, but he didn’t seem quite so edgy either. “Yes,” he said, “well… indeed. At least you admit as much. If you were to believe the camp stories that have spawned after recent events, you would believe Hunter to be Remus reincarnated, the son of a god returned to wrack havoc on our great empire and destroy Rome itself in vengeance for what Romulus did to him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.

  “Do not discount my words, girl,” Galba said. “I will freely admit that Hunter has experienced a great many negative things in recent times, but that does not excuse his actions. Nor does it free the rest of you from his agreement to come with me to Rome under guard.”