David McAfee - 61 A.D.

Yet for Baella, Ramah’s greatest value lay in what he didn’t know.

Taras wiped the blood from his lips with his sleeve, but only succeeded in smearing it further. The Iceni woman, her attention focused on him rather than her own feet, barreled into the last of her attackers. Both fell over in a tangle of limbs, clothes, and hair. Her fingers clawed and scratched, and the man punched and kicked. They looked like two drunken brawlers in the street. He stepped forward to intervene, but it soon became apparent that the woman, in a fair fight and left to her own devices, was quite capable of defending herself.

Military training, he realized, and wondered if all Iceni women received it. He did not intend to stick around long enough to find out. Through the small window, he noted the lightening of the sky. Dawn was close. Too close. If he meant to escape the city with his life he would have to leave soon and make his way to the smuggler’s hole. Hopefully it remained undisturbed since the last time he’d used it.

He stayed in the room long enough to hear the man scream and watch the woman remove her bloody dagger from his belly. She drove it in a second time, twisting as she went. The man’s cries could surely be heard out in the street, if there was anyone out there to hear it. Given the secluded location-the men had wanted their privacy, after all-Taras doubted it. Just so, he thought. The man deserved everything she did to him.

She stabbed the man five more times, until his screams turned into soft whimpers, then quieted to a weak, choking gurgle. By the time she finished the man lay still on the wooden floor, his blank eyes staring up at the ceiling. She spat on his face and rose to her feet. The smell of blood was everywhere, but Taras had fed already. His urge to kill the woman faded as the brigand’s blood filled his body. She was no longer in any danger from him, if indeed she ever was, but she could not know that.

As she turned around, Taras stepped behind the corner, not wanting her to see him standing there. He should leave now. He hadn’t meant to stay behind this long, but he wanted to make sure the woman lived. Now that she had, he could go underground and wait out the day.

But he didn’t.

He listened for the sound of the woman’s feet. When they finally came she sounded off balance, her feet shuffled along the floor with a soft hiss. Something was wrong with her. Probably something to do with the blood on her legs. Initially he’d thought the blood the product of the men who tried to rape her, but now he wasn’t so sure. Out in the street, weak and injured, she would have little chance if another group of Romans came upon her.

It’s not your concern, he told himself. You have helped her once already.

He stepped around the wall and looked at the dead man on the floor. A trail of blood led away from him and down the hall, spotted here and there by bloody footprints. There was too much blood for it to all belong to the dead man. Some of it must be hers.

And if it is? What is that to you?

An unwanted image came to his mind, then. Mary, lying bloody and broken in an alley in Jerusalem’s Market District. She wore the tattered remains of an expensive blue dress that would have been unseemly in the pious sect of the city. Even then, he knew she’d worn it for him. For their trip to Rome.

But Theron found her first. Had anyone tried to help her? Would it have made a difference? Probably not, but it didn’t matter. If anyone had been near to hand, they had not helped, else Taras would have found more than one body in the alley that night.

“Damn it,” he swore. He turned and followed the woman’s trail.

You’re going to die, Taras, he told himself. The sun is going to rise in under an hour, and you will be nothing but a well-intentioned pile of dust in these accursed streets. His assassin’s instincts, honed over years of serving Rome from the shadows, told him this was madness. The woman’s eyes had widened to the size of dates when she saw him. Even if he could find her, she would resist his help, and likely he would only succeed in attracting the attention of the Romans or the Iceni roaming the city, which would get them both killed. He should find his hole and get out of the city while he still could.

Mary’s still, lifeless face, laying on a slab of stone in her dark, chilly tomb, her throat torn and shredded beyond repair. A single red flower lay on her chest, unmoving in the still, stale air. He did not know the name of the flower, only that it was pretty, and Mary liked them. Her father Abraham, who thought Taras killed her. He hadn’t, but that did not stop Abraham from attacking. His body lay in the tomb, as well, their bones forever close to each other. She would have liked that.

No one had helped either of them. Just as no one had helped Taras.

“There is always a choice,” he whispered under his breath. Even if it is not a very good choice.

Taras turned and ran into the street, following the Iceni woman’s trail of blood.

Theron stared at the young princess, for once unable to think of a witty reply. Her mother, he thought. She wants me to kill her own mother. To her credit, she did not look afraid or ashamed, and after a moment a slight smile crept onto his face. I hadn’t expected that. He had thought she meant to use him as a weapon against her enemies beyond the wall, but instead she wanted to deal with those on this side of it. Interesting.

“Your mother?” he said when he found his voice. “The queen? Why?”

“That is not your concern. You have your task, Bachiyr, and precious little time in which to do it.”

“Too true,” Theron replied.

“Dawn is quite near,” she said.

Theron eyed her again. “Indeed.”

Power. It had to be for power. What else could it be? Power could drive ordinary people to great lengths. Simon, the former clerk of the Council’s Jerusalem Gate, had dreamed a similar dream. He’d wanted Theron’s power, and had gone to great lengths to try and achieve it. But Theron was the stronger, and Simon’s death had never been in question by Theron or the Council. They had sent him to die at Theron’s hand, more for Theron’s benefit than the wayward clerk’s. The Council of Thirteen could never be trusted, not even by their own servants.

Thinking of Simon always reminded him of the Nazarene. You have been lied to, vampire. Jesus’ words. And you have been betrayed. Every night Theron heard them in his head. The rabbi’s promise of forgiveness often played through his mind as he hunted those who called themselves Christians. It was all a lie, of course. Theron would no more be forgiven by the rabbi’s God than he would the Council. In the end, he was alone.

But alone was better. Alone was faster. Alone made it easier to hide and easier to feed. Alone, he could write his own rules. He could “Bachiyr,” the princess said, interrupting his thoughts. “You owe me a life.”

Speaking of which, he thought. Theron grabbed the princess by the throat and pulled her close. She struggled, but even in his weakened state she could not match his strength or speed. He turned her body away from him, inserting his leg between her feet to keep her off balance, and put a hand on the side of her head. He pushed her head to the side, exposing her pale throat. The smell of her sweat and her sudden fear excited him almost as much as the low pulse of her blood beneath his fingertips.

“We had a deal, Bachiyr,” she said.

“So we did,” he replied.

“You gave me your word.”

Theron laughed. “I did, indeed. And I mean to keep it, but your life was never part of our bargain.” He covered her mouth with his hand, muffling her reply, and tore into her throat with his teeth. The princess was young and vital, her blood filled with life and energy. It flowed into him like a warm, turbulent river, and his skin started to tingle as his many cuts and scrapes began to heal. With every passing second, he felt more whole, more alive. More himself. Theron drained her, savoring every drop as her struggles slowed, and then stopped altogether.