Suddenly and without warning, Helena shoved me into a door frame with enough force to knock the wind out of me. I stumbled forward a step as I caught my breath, but before I could ask her what the hell she was doing, she tackled me into the door again, planted her lips on mine, and started making out with me like a drunken prom date.
Without another thought, I closed my eyes and drank in long lost smells and tastes that had eluded me for far too long. They were intoxicating, possessing my mind with happier thoughts than I deserved, but there was something particularly different about how Helena was currently kissing me. It lacked the passion and intensity she normally brought with her, as though it were all just for show. I opened my eyes and noticed how her own weren’t focused on me, but on the street. I decided to roll with it and wait for her to make the next move.
Nearly a minute later, she tugged on my tunic to pull me from the door, making it appear like we were passionately switching positions, with me pressing her against the door this time. She continued raining kisses on me, but with less vigor now, just enough for me to speak.
“Not that I mind, but…”
“Shhh,” she whispered, as her teeth tugged at my lip. She moved her head to the side of my neck and spoke softly into my ear. “I noticed two men down the road staring at us. Don’t worry, I didn’t make eye contact, but I knew they were looking at us. I figured we could play dumb and duck in here.”
“How very James Bond of you,” I said, the first joke I’d told in months.
She pulled away from my ear and planted another long kiss on me, this one with the feeling and intensity I’d come to expect over the years.
She pulled away again. “I swear, if we ever make it home, we need to watch these movies because I never have any idea what you’re always talking about!”
I chuckled at her ignorance of movie gold.
“What about your two marks?” I asked.
She glanced over my shoulder again, scanning the passing traffic as she nipped at my neck. Besides a pair of giggling teenage girls pointing at us and a mother shielding the eyes of her two young children, no one else seemed to be paying us any attention.
“Looks like they’re gone,” she reported, pulling me out of the doorframe by my tunic and dusting off my shoulders. She wiped the corners of her mouth and looked at me naughtily. “Let’s save some of that for later, Lieutenant.”
I always loved it when she called me by my rank. I smiled and inhaled deeply, trying to determine what part of my mind had convinced me that I couldn’t trust this woman.
I wanted to know so that I could have Wang surgically remove it after we found him.
I fought for an answer to a question that demanded one, but could find nothing. There wasn’t a rational part of my mind that could explain away the fact that I had been simply too dimwitted to trust her. The only things I’d needed were a few kisses, a rush of adrenaline and the use of my rank to turn my whole life around. It made me wish Helena had taken the initiative on her own earlier, but I trusted that she knew better than anyone when I needed space and when I was ready for help.
I reached out to grab her shoulders and pull her close again, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two men who could only be the ones she’d spotted earlier. One was staring right at us while the other scanned in the other direction as though he was covering his friend. I tried to look away but like an idiot, and unlike Helena, I couldn’t help but make eye contact.
The man reacted instantly, yelling to his friend as he rushed towards us through waves of busy locals.
Aw, shit.
“Come on!” I yelled, pulling Helena’s arm as I took off.
Her confusion lasted all but a second as the men approaching left subtlety behind with their first step, and Helena fell into pace with me immediately. She only made it a few yards before she stumbled, her loose outfit flowing over her feet and tripping her up. In response, she tore off the outer garment, revealing a shorter silken skirt she wore beneath that flowed loosely along her upper thighs. One of her first lessons in survival had been to always be prepared, and it was nice to see she came ready to bug out quickly if needed.
The two men were dressed like any other local but something in their faces seemed familiar as well. Their eyes were cold. Calculating. Roman. Praetorian. I knew I had the means to stop them at any time with my Sig, but that would defeat the purpose of us lying low. I pulled out my radio instead.
“3–3, 3–1, over.”
Nothing.
“3–3, come in.”
“No, Santino?” Helena asked, sidestepping a small child and his mother before returning to my side.
“Guess not,” I said, tossing the radio back in my bag.
“Never around when you need him, always around when you don’t.”
I didn’t answer, but kept running as I followed just behind her. We’d moved well beyond the bazaar and into a more residential area of the city, but there were still hundreds of people lining the streets going about their daily business. I didn’t waste time looking behind me as I tried to maintain a good pace while simultaneously avoiding civilians. Helena grabbed my hand and yanked me down a side street with nothing but a single vendor stall. As I ran by, I pulled it to the ground with a small exertion of strength. It toppled easily and would maybe buy us another few seconds, but the screams of an angry merchant was a price I was willing to pay for them.
Helena pulled out in front of me again and I saw her hop onto an empty crate, followed by a jump to a second story balcony, before making a final leap, just far enough to get a grip on the ledge of the roof. Hauling herself up effortlessly with a simple exertion of strength, she waited for me to join her. Having passed the first crate, I kept running until I reached the wall that dead ended the alleyway. Instead of turning right down another alley, I leapt and planted my foot against the wall, pushing myself off with all my strength. I found a handhold on the frame of a window and hauled myself up, Helena helping me scale the wall and onto the roof.
I took a moment to analyze the terrain, noting that the rooftops around us were of different height, but mostly at our level. Like many homes in the Middle East during the modern age, they were close together and easily traversable. I looked back to see the pair pursuing us trip and fall as they ran full boar into the vendor stand, tangling themselves in the stall’s wooden beams and cloth canopy. I considered taking them out with my pistol when Helena yanked on my sleeve and I saw other figures on a rooftop a few homes away from us. They were dressed in the same black ninja suits as the men who attacked Santino and me on Agrippina’s barge. Helena’s attention had shifted to the right, and I noticed another group of four there as well.
This was idiotic. Running from ninjas upon the rooftops of Ancient Byzantium?
Who cames up with this stuff?
I was so fucking sick of Ancient Rome.
“Come on,” I said, pulling Helena again. “Got anything in that bag of yours that won’t draw any attention?”
“No,” she answered.
“Great. Time to go hot then,” I said, pulling out my suppressor equipped Sig P220. I planted my feet, turned and took a knee, observing at least a dozen black clad ninjas running towards us from three different angles. I unloaded half a dozen rounds at the center group before popping off my remaining rounds at the group coming in from our left.