I bit my tongue and forced myself not to rise to her bait.
“We just want to go home, Agrippina,” I said, my voice starting to clear. Before I continued, I noticed movement to my right, and saw the rest of my team begin to regain consciousness as well. Santino was first to his knees, also the person that had been right next to me. I turned back to Agrippina. “The orbs are dangerous. You have no idea how harmful they can be.”
“I know all about their potential, Jacob,” she said, nodding to one of her guards.
In response, he briefly exited the room before reappearing, dragging a body behind him. He dragged it out in front of Agrippina’s seated form, dumping it disrespectfully. I looked at it, seeing that the body was absent a head. I looked at it in confusion for a few seconds before glancing up at Agrippina. She gazed at me coolly, her eyes widening in realization a few seconds later. She held up a finger.
“How silly of me. You need the head, of course.”
She turned to reach for something behind her. In one quick motion, she reoriented herself and tossed whatever she was holding in one deft movement. As it flew through the air, I identified it as a human head. It hit the ground a few feet in front of me with a horrible squishing noise and rolled its way to rest between my knees. It landed face down. All I could see was a mop of dark hair.
Agrippina rolled her eyes and motioned with a hand to the same guard who had brought in the body. He marched over and rotated the head so that a set of all too familiar grey stared back at me.
Varus.
I snapped my head away, averting my eyes from the man I had come to call a friend. A man I knew to be some long descended ancestor of mine. A family man whose life was now over.
Without wanting to, I moved my attention back to his face. Even if his features had been horribly mutilated, I would have been able to identify him by his eyes alone. They were a cold grey, and set exactly like mine. But his face wasn’t harmed. His features were as clean and humanlike as they had always been. Even his normal expression of contemplative thought was still there, eternal on his severed head.
I closed my eyes and turned away.
The guard retrieved Varus’ head and brought it back to Agrippina. She accepted it, and by the time I reopened my eyes, had it in her lap, stroking poor Varus’ hair like a Bond villain and his cat. I clenched my teeth in anger once again and stared daggers at her. She was unphased by my attempt at intimidation and continued to stroke my friend’s head.
“This fool,” she said, “managed to operate the orb.” She haughtily lifted her chin again and continued. “But he did not share in my excitement. While I may know what it does, I have been unable to personally operate it, or find anyone else who can. I may have lost my temper.” She raised her shoulders just slightly. “I am the first to admit my mistake, but sometimes our emotions get the best of us, do they not, Jacob?”
I kept my mouth shut, not dignifying her with an answer.
Everyone had managed to get themselves up into a kneeling position by now, all strung out in a line, kneeling shoulder to shoulder. Only Helena remained inert. Noticing my attention, Agrippina tossed Varus’ head over her shoulder and moved to crouch besides Helena. She reached down and stroked her hair momentarily until she grew bored and pulled on Helena’s shoulders, mounting her on her knees. I was now able to see that the source of her blood was a small cut on the side of her temple, probably from a blow taken when she was knocked unconscious. It had to be why she was still out. No one else seemed to be bleeding.
Once Agrippina managed to balance her upright, she caressed Helena’s naked body with a hand, humming in satisfaction as she poked one of Helena’s breasts, but a heartbeat later, she reeled back with a hand and slapped Helena across the face, snapping her out of her doze. She cried out in pain from both the slap and quick transition to consciousness, coughing and choking, her eyes unable to lock onto anything. Her head lulled lazily until Agrippina grabbed her by the hair.
She turned to me. “I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time. I must admit that I suffer from sudden bouts of jealousy on occasion.”
Helena mumbled under her breath indecipherably. Agrippina noticed, and brought her head closer, pretending to try and hear what she was saying.
“What’s that, dear? Oh, does it hurt. I’m sorry.” And with that, she brought her head in closer, and kissed the side of Helena’s cheek, right where she’d slapped her. I couldn’t watch. She turned back to look at me once again.
“I’ve always wanted to do that, as well,” she sighed. “If only there was time for more. The three of us could have had something truly special, Jacob.”
My stomach churned at the thought.
She smiled at me and kissed Helena on the forehead before standing up and moving down past the line of captured and beaten warriors, looking at each soul in turn. She stopped at the very end of the line, in front of Gaius and Marcus.
“Traitors,” she hissed. “Your deaths will be first.”
They sneered at her but she ignored them and snapped her fingers, summoning a handful of her guards. “Take them outside and crucify them.”
Gaius and Marcus struggled against their Praetorian handlers, trying anything to break away, but there was nothing they could do. With three Praetorians on each of them, they might as well be David without a sling. They were hauled through the room’s single door and never brought back. Everyone else struggled against their restraints, all except Helena, who was merely doing everything she could to stay on her knees.
Agrippina ignored Gaius and Marcus’ removal and walked back in my direction. She turned her head and saw Titus.
“You, I have not met,” she said, gripping his chin with her fingers. “Lovely, though. And young. I think I will keep you.”
She continued, leaving each of my friends with a comment as she passed by.
“Brute,” she said to Bordeaux.
“Cripple,” as she passed Vincent
“Oriental,” to poor Wang.
“Ah, you.” Her final comment was to Santino. She almost sounded happy to see him, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines. “Stamina you may have, but as I told you before, your performance was hardly worth repeating.”
Santino just smiled at her.
I blinked as his smile reminded me of something, but what was it exactly? Oh, that’s right: that he was an asshole. But he was my kind of asshole. It’s who he was. And it was a good thing, at least in this moment, because it also reminded me who I was as well. It reminded me that I was always prepared for anything, and that I always had a knife behind my belt.
I would have smacked myself if I wasn’t tied up, but I didn’t let myself grow too excited just yet. We were still in it deep.
Agrippina moved back to her chair to consult with one of her Praetorians. I used the time to check on Helena. She was still mostly out of it, her head bobbing from side to side as it hung near her chest. Occasionally she’d snap it up like she was waking abruptly from a nap, but it would just as quickly drop again. I hissed at her, trying to get her attention, but she remained incoherent.
I decided to ignore her as I tried to budge my knife from its hiding place at my back. It was tricky. My hands were tightly bound and the knife was in there good. It was going to take me a few minutes of finagling to get it out without anyone noticing.
I decided to multitask by trying to physically get Helena’s attention with a kick of my foot. I probably hit her harder than I should have, but I had to make sure she was all right. Luckily, she reacted, and her eyes finally popped open. She craned her head to look at me and I could tell her vision wasn’t quite there yet. Her eyes were normally so piercing that she always seemed to be looking right through me, but instead, her eyes were swollen and tracking all over the place.