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.
But the bastard wasn’t going to give up so easily.
While I had his sword pinned, he threw an open palmed smack into my flank, right where he had slashed me earlier. A fucking sissy boy slap, but it hurt like hell. I grunted in pain and stumbled backwards, giving him enough time to retrieve his sword. He came back at me with a downward slash, easily defendable with my upraised blade, but the force of the strike was so great that I wasn’t able to keep him from slicing it into my shoulder. His blade cut deep into the muscle, maybe an inch or two, and he yanked it out. My right arm immediately went numb.
I switched my sword to my off hand and he smiled, knowing I was done for.
He took only a moment to pause for a quick breath before rushing headlong at me. In the second it took for him to close the distance, I did the last thing he, me or anyone would expect.
I dropped my sword.
His expression of confusion was exactly what I was looking for. In his hurry to kill me, he hadn’t noticed a piece of concrete in front of him, precariously balancing on another. I’d noticed it earlier before I had temporarily disarmed him, somehow managing to avoid it.
The Praetorian fell into it, and he went down hard, something snapping in his leg. I didn’t bother reaching for my sword, for it was too inaccessible. Instead, I grabbed one of the few remaining torches from a pillar and leapt at my foe. I brought the torch down in a stabbing motion, impaling him through mouth. The flames barely even sputtered and I watched as his face melted away.
But he somehow managed the last laugh. Whether it had been a planned attack, a gut reaction, or merely a wayward spasm, he managed to bring his gladius up and stab me in the stomach with it. It didn’t go too deep, but I could almost feel it tear up an organ or two. It got me a few inches above my bellybutton, and a few to the right. It could have hit my liver, probably my stomach, I didn’t know.
I figured I was dead anyway.
My only thought was to find Helena.
I left the Praetorian to sizzle behind me and found the rubble she’d fallen down. I crawled in after her and found her at the bottom, lying on her side, her left arm splayed out and her head resting atop its outstretched bicep. I crawled next to her and reached out for her cheek with a bloody, shaky hand. She wasn’t moving, and it wasn’t until I bumped into something hard and sharp, that I discovered she’d been impaled through the upper chest with a piece of metal shrapnel.
She was still breathing and I wasn’t going to lose hope yet. I’ve seen her come back from the dead before.
Hope for myself, however, was quickly becoming scarce.
Her eyes were still open and moving, but foamy blood seethed from her mouth, and her chest wound sputtered noisily. My own wounds were not faring much better.
My eyes moistened.
“Not again, Helena,” I said through tears. “I can’t… I…” but I wasn’t sure if she could even hear me.
She couldn’t move. Not even to lift a hand like she had the last time. All she could do was take one last breath and go still. My hand continued to tremble with growing severity. I touched her stomach, hoping for something. Anything. But I felt nothing. Nothing to indicate that life remained in either of the two people that shared this wonderful body and soul I loved so much.
I started to cough. Blood came out this time. My vision started to narrow and the edges got hazy. I fell to my side, right alongside Helena.
This story couldn’t end now.
Wang could still show up.
He had to show up.
He always showed up.
But, before he did, I felt my own last grasps of life slip away as copious amounts of blood from all three of my wounds pooled around me.
It was only a matter of time.
I reached out and closed Helena’s eyes with a brush of my fingertips, closing my own eyes at the same time, feeling both death and hope try to claw their way to the foreground of my consciousness. I groped for Helena’s hand, hoping to hold it one more time as we made our final journey together. Finding her right arm hanging behind her back, I slowly slide my hand down her bare arm, slower and slower, death’s twisted joke gaining the upper hand with each passing second. I could feel her skin slowly begin to cool, but when I finally reached her wrist and found her fingers, just before I felt no more, my hand felt something hard and round.
The haze around my eyes flashed in one last blaze of resistance, and I waited, alone, for my final journey to commence. I could see the light coming, bright as I always thought it would be, but oddly colored blue instead of…
XII
Tripolis, Syria
October 42 A.D.
I had to be dead, because it was the only explanation for how I felt:
Fantastic.
Just like new, in fact. Not even a hallucination to speak of. That part was refreshing. No fatigue, no soreness or numbness, aches… pain, just… nothing. No complaints. That had to be what heaven was like, right? A place where there was simply nothing to complain about. That sounded poetic.
I think I’m going to like it here. If only I could see something. Everything was still black.
And then I wondered where St. Peter was.
St. Peter?
Hello? Anybody home?
Anybody…?
What the fuck?
I caught myself sheepishly. It probably wasn’t a good idea to swear just before you meet The Big Guy.
I had to admit, this wasn’t exactly what I figured my final transition to the glorious afterlife would be like. I always thought there’d be little cherub like angels, clouds, pearly gates, or at least some topless women. But I didn’t see any of that. All I saw were the back of my eyelids and I felt very surprised at just how coherently I was able to process this new information and form coherent thoughts.
Wasn’t I dead just a second ago?
Maybe ol’ J.C. was testing me.
I risked a peek by opening my eyelids just slightly.
I almost vomited at what I saw.
No angels. No clouds. No gates. Not even any breasts.
Just…
Santino.
Of all the guides to the afterworld, I get Santino? I mean, Dante got fucking Virgil as a guide! Where was my ancient Roman poet? A Roman I could actually stand to be around right now.
There weren’t that many of those left…
“You all right, Jacob,” the Ghost of Christmas Santino said to me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I am seeing a ghost,” I pointed out, surprised when the finger I jabbed at his chest touched something solid. I recoiled my hand like I’d just touched a hot stove, gripping it protectively against my chest with my other hand. “Because if you’re my guide to heaven, you must be dead too.”
He chuckled and glanced behind me. “Jacob, what the fuck are you babbling about?”
Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. My eyesight had been pretty blurry when I’d first opened them, but now I could see that while the room was lit in an amber glow, it was still dark, not exactly the bright clouded area I assumed was heaven.
“Oh, my God.” I dropped my voice to a whisper and leaned in closer to Santino. “Am I in Hell?”
Santino’s eyes narrowed, and he put his hands on his hips. “You’re about to be if you don’t tell me why you’ve gone insane on me all of a sudden. You off your meds?”