by D C Young
“So, you have filled Caesar’s seat in Rome,” Cleopatra said between mouthfuls, “is your next mission to fill his spot in my bed?”
Marcus covered his surprise at the bold question expertly, and locked eyes with the beautiful woman, “I fought a long and bloody war to claim that seat in Rome, and still I share it with another, Octavian. To lie with you, I would fight twice as hard, but I won’t share you with anyone.”
“You consider yourself a worthy consort for the Queen of Egypt?” Cleopatra asked, the fire in her eyes erupting.
“No, but I consider the Queen of Egypt a worthy consort to the ruler of the Roman Empire,” Marcus shot back.
Cleopatra laughed, “Ruler are you? You’ve already admitted you share your rule with another. We both know you summoned me in hopes of collecting some kind of fine to pay your army. It appears your empire is on the verge of collapse. Perhaps I will just say no, and pick up the pieces when Rome falls.”
Marcus’s level of respect and admiration grew for Cleopatra, but she had missed one thing, “It is true that I hoped to use your wealth to keep my army happy, and if you had refused to come to Tarsus and pay the fine, it would have caused me problems. Thankfully, you came, traveling on a barge that screamed wealth and prosperity. Tell me, what do you think your chances of leaving are if you don’t agree to pay my fine?”
“You would threaten the Queen of Egypt?” Cleopatra spat.
Marcus smiled, and Cleopatra for the first time saw the fire in his eyes, “You rule Egypt at my discretion, which can be taken away. Caesar is gone. His worship of you died with him. I invited you here as a sign of respect, but if you refuse me, I will take what I want,” Marcus let his eyes sweep down the woman’s body, “everything I want.”
“Well played, Marcus Antonius,” Cleopatra said, sipping her wine, “Julius always complimented your ruthlessness in battle. Now that I’ve seen a sample of it for myself, I must say you are truly impressive. Let me extend a counter offer. I will give you everything you want, and more, but I want to be more than your consort. I want to be the Queen of the Roman Empire, to rule by your side.”
It was Marcus’s turn to laugh, “Your ambition is clouding your reality. As I said before, I share the rule of Rome with another. I also already have a wife.”
Cleopatra stood and the light of the room surrounded her, caressing every curve. Marcus could not help but stare at the beautiful woman and note how her deceivingly simple dress amplified her beauty.
“I am not looking to be your wife,” Cleopatra said, “I am the Queen of Egypt. I was born to rule, and have no need to be some man’s wife. Keep your wife, raise a family. I care not. It is a foolish custom meant for the lower orders. What I ask is to be by your side and govern the Roman Empire with you. With your mind and sword, combined with my wealth and slaves, we can throw Octavian out of Rome and bring more glory to what Caesar started.” Cleopatra walked to Marcus and extended her hand, “Will you be the true heir to Caesar, or stay his right-hand man?”
Marcus took hold of Cleopatra’s hand, but instead of standing up, he pulled her down to the pillows he reclined on. His mouth covered hers in a rough kiss. “I am twice the man Caesar ever hoped to be. I accept your proposal, but I want all of you.”
“Then take it, Marcus, take all of me. But the price remains the same. I must be the Queen of Rome,” Cleopatra said and pulled his head down for another kiss.
Chapter Ten
Over the next six years, Marcus and Cleopatra played a dangerous game of cat and mouse with Octavian. Marcus’s first wife Fulvia died, and he took Octavian’s sister Octavia as his wife to consolidate power. That is despite Cleopatra giving birth to a set of twins with Marcus. Octavian felt Marcus betrayed his family and declared war on Cleopatra. Marcus marshaled his forces to defend his queen, but too many Romans stood with Octavian. They were in the midst of a losing campaign, when Marcus heard the horrible news.
“Sir, a message just came from Egypt. An assassin has taken the life of Queen Cleopatra,” Tenarus, captain of the guard told Marcus.
At first, the words did not penetrate Marcus’s mind. He was too busy studying the battlefield before him. His forces were being swallowed by supporters of Octavian.
“Did you hear, me? Cleopatra is dead,” Tenarus said again, shaking his leader’s shoulders.
Marcus slapped the younger man to the ground, “Do not say such blasphemy to me! No mere assassin could kill my goddess!”
Tenarus lay on the ground, blood pouring from his mouth, “I am sorry, Sir, but it is true. She has been taken from us.”
Marcus kicked the man once, twice in the side. He could hear the man’s ribs crack with the impact of his metal shin guards. Three members of Marcus’s honor guard grabbed him before he could do any more damage. He collapsed on the ground, eyes flooded with tears.
A member of the honor guard said, “You must be right, Sir, there is no way an assassin could find his way to Queen Cleopatra.”
Marcus shook his head, “No, the captain is correct. My love is gone, my life has no meaning!”
“How can you be so sure?”
Marcus pulled his sword from his belt, “Because it is exactly what I have told Octavian to do in the past. Kill the love and you kill the man.” Marcus took the sword in both hands, aiming the point at his stomach, “Octavian learned the lesson well.” Marcus then plunged the sword into his own body, freeing precious life blood that was trapped inside. His honor guard raced to his side, pulling the sword out and wrapping sashes around Marcus’s midsection. They carried him off the battlefield and placed him on a litter fixed to a horse. Minutes later he was on a barge, sailing towards Cleopatra’s palace in Alexandria. A day’s journey later and they arrived, but it appeared to be too late.
“What has happened to my Emperor of Rome?!” Cleopatra yelled as the honor guard brought Marcus’s body into the receiving chamber.
“Marcus received word that Octavian had you killed, and he stabbed himself,” one guard said, “we tried to keep him alive, but he slipped away less than an hour ago.”
Cleopatra pulled Marcus to her breast and wept. Her tears fell so hard that they washed away the dirt from Marcus’s face. Cleopatra’s handmaidens eventually tore the queen away from the body, telling her a priest would take care of Marcus. She went with them, but her weeping never ceased.
Cleopatra’s crying increased once she was in the bedroom she had shared with Marcus. Everywhere she turned, she saw little signs of him. She could even smell his presence.
“My queen, you must calm yourself,” one handmaiden said, “I am sure Marcus is standing before Anubis right now, being judged worthy for entrance to an afterlife of eternal bliss.”
Cleopatra turned to the younger woman with hope in her eyes, “Do you truly believe that?”
“Yes, My Queen. I am positive.”
Cleopatra jumped up from the bed and ran to her desk of perfumes and ointments. She searched through them all, knocking several onto the floor where they shattered. “Here it is,” she said, holding a dark vial in her hands. Before anyone could think of stopping her, Cleopatra drank the oily liquid. “Now I can join my beloved at the Hall of Two Truths!”
Her hand maidens rushed to her, asking what she had done. “I drank the poison of an asp, so I can join Marcus and we can rule the Afterlife together.” As they tried to persuade Cleopatra to go to a priest, she collapsed on the floor. The poison worked its way through her body with frightening speed, and her heart stopped mere minutes later.
In the receiving chamber, Marcus’s body lay motionless, covered in blood and tears. From a dark hallway, a figure draped in black robes appeared, and approached the body, its movements slow, almost as if it was in pain. For a moment it towered over Marcus, as if waiting for him to move. What it was really doing was listening to the sporadic beat of Marcus’s heart. Then the mysterious figure fell on Marcus, shrouding his body with its robes. Marcus’s legs twitched as the person covered him and drained w
hat little blood remained in his body.
“You! Stop!” yelled Sergius, a member of Marcus’s Honor Guard. The creature raised its head and issued an inhuman scream. The guard almost froze in terror upon seeing the creature‘s face, but somehow found the strength of will to throw his spear. It missed, but only because the creature vanished. The guard went to Marcus, but found his leader still dead and with a new wound.
Unknown to the guard, a change had started in Marcus that wouldn’t be fully revealed until several hours later that night. The honor guard had carried his body to the priest’s chambers and placed him on a slab, telling him about the self-inflicted wound and the attack from the strange creature. The priest had poked and prodded Marcus’s body, making sure there was no sign of life. When Cleopatra’s guards brought in their queen’s body, the priest forgot about Marcus, and tended to her, trying desperately to revive some spark of life. When he realized there was no chance, the priest left in tears, but not before covering Cleopatra with a cloth and several flowers.
After the priest left, Marcus gave a small cough, then a bigger one. His eyelids flickered several times and then shot open. He gradually sat up on the slab. His hands went to his stomach, where he had stabbed himself, but the wound was gone.
“It must have been a dream. My Cleopatra must still be alive,” Marcus said to himself. He looked around the room, “But where am I? How did I get here?” Marcus stood up and walked around the chamber until he saw a body draped in cloth and flowers. He walked over to the body and inched the cloth of the body, slowly revealing Cleopatra’s lifeless body.
“No! It cannot be! Not my beloved!” Marcus yelled. He cradled her body in his arms, ignoring the coldness of her body. The love they had shared had driven him to take over the Roman Empire. Now, with her gone, Marcus did not know what he would do with his life.
That is how the priest found Marcus and Cleopatra when he returned, his emotions under control. When he saw Marcus standing, holding his queen, the priest was amazed that he could have missed the signs of life.
“My Liege,” he said, “I am glad to see you are feeling better. I am sorry that I mistook you for dead.”
Marcus did not turn to the priest, instead he continued to hold Cleopatra and hum a tune to comfort the corpse.
The priest said, “My Liege, please put the queen down on the stone slab. If I missed signs of life in you, perhaps I did the same with her.”
That got Marcus’s attention, and he did as he was asked. The priest walked to Cleopatra’s body and pressed his ear to her chest, but heard nothing. Next, he moved to her mouth and sniffed for signs of breath. Instead, he only got a whiff of death. The priest walked to Marcus, who was waiting for some sign of hope, “I am sorry, but I hear nothing from her heart or her lungs. She is gone.”
Marcus became angry, “You fool! She cannot be. She is Cleopatra, ruler of Egypt! Here, put your head to my heart, so you know what life sounds like, so you will recognize it in her!” Marcus grabbed the man’s head and slammed it to his own chest. The priest did as he was told, but then his worst fears materialized. He didn’t hear Marcus’s heart beat either. The priest moved his head up and down, left and right, but it made no difference.
“My liege, your heart has gone silent as well,” the priest said. He moved his nose to Marcus’s mouth and sniffed, “And there is no breath in you.”
Marcus pushed the man away, “How can that be? I stand before you, do I not?”
The priest’s eyes widened as an idea came to him, “My liege, you were attacked before your honor guard brought you here. I think that creature infected you with something I have only heard whispers about. If I am right, your days of walking in the sunlight are over. You have become a creature of the night, feeding on the blood of others. It will make you stronger and faster than other men, and you will stay the way you look now as long as you stay out of the light.”
Marcus scoffed, “You speak of superstitions, priest.”
The priest put Marcus’s hand on his chest, “Here, can you feel my heart beat?”
Marcus nodded, “Of course, I can practically hear it.”
The priest nodded and then put Marcus’s hand on his own chest, “And what do you feel now?”
Marcus concentrated, but felt nothing. He moved his hand all around, but the result was not the same. The realization hit him and he ran from the room and out of the palace. He did not stop running until he was deep in the jungle that surrounded Cleopatra’s palace. Darkness had fallen and Marcus quickly became lost, but he did not care. He had lost his love, his army, and it appeared, his humanity. Marcus wanted to die, but he soon found out there were worse things than dying when you are undead.
Chapter Eleven
30 B.C.
As the night became old, Marcus continued wandering. His grief at first masked a dread that was inching its way into his body. With dawn relentlessly chasing night into the past, Marcus began hearing strange noises all around him. At first, he dismissed them as tricks played by his grief-stricken mind, because they sounded like heartbeats. Then Marcus heard the sound of small feet falling on the jungle floor. He stopped moving because the sound was coming from behind him, and there was something odd about the feet. There were more than two of them and the sound was muffled, as if the feet were covered in fur. Just as Marcus wondered to himself how he could know the difference fur made to footsteps, they stopped. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and Marcus noticed the heartbeat he was hearing the loudest was speeding up. His warrior mindset took over, and suddenly Marcus knew his attacker would soon strike.
A half-second later, he felt the attacker launch off the ground five feet behind him. Marcus ducked and spun with a speed that shocked himself. His eyes picked out the dark shape of a lion hurtling through the air above him. To Marcus, it looked like the beast moved in slow motion. He reached up to touch the lion, but instead he swatted it, sending it crashing into a large tree. Marcus watched the lion as it collided with the tree and crumple to the ground. He ran to the large predator, to see how badly it was damaged, and that’s when he noticed blood seeping from a wound in its side. Marcus’s eyes widened at the sight of the dark red liquid spreading over the lion’s orange and white fur. His mouth filled with water, and when he went to swallow, Marcus found something else. Two of his teeth were now much longer than the others.
Marcus had no time to explore that development, because the lion came out of its daze and growled at him.
“You want nothing from me, great beast,” Marcus said, “somehow, I am your better tonight.”
The lion disagreed with a growl and leaped at him once again. Marcus caught the cat’s front paws, as the claws came within an inch of his chest. The lion roared again and moved its head in to bite Marcus’s neck. The fallen Roman moved out of its reach and threw the lion to the ground using inhuman strength. Marcus pounced on the beast, taking its head in his hands and twisting until its neck finally snapped. The lion stopped moving instantly and Marcus let it fall limp to the ground. He stood, straddling the lion’s body as he turned his gaze across the jungle. Marcus heard heartbeats and footsteps, but they were now far away and working to get even further away from the man who had taken down the lion.
Marcus looked down on the beast he had bested, and once again saw blood flowing from a wound. Before he realized what was happening, Marcus was back on his knees, his face buried in the lion’s fur, his teeth penetrating its flesh. Blood filled Marcus’s mouth, awakening a hunger so deep he almost got lost in it. A part of his mind screamed at him, asking what he was doing. Marcus shut the door on that voice and continued drinking, letting the warm fluid fill his throat, his stomach, and his soul.
As he drained the lost drop of blood from the lion, Marcus felt raw power surge through his body. It made him smile and then laugh. He felt more alive and powerful than he had his entire life. It was a good thing that his strength was renewed. Before he could come to a standing position, Marcus heard a loud hiss and
then another creature was on his back attacking him viciously and with a supernatural speed.
At first, he thought it was another lion but quickly dismissed that notion. Perhaps, it was the creature that had tried to finish him off on his deathbed returned to get the job done right. Swiftly, he flipped the creature over his back so he could face his attacker properly. But what he saw stopped Marcus dead in his tracks.
It was Cleopatra. She was standing before him with her hands over her face sobbing hysterically. Without questioning what he was seeing, Marcus rushed to her and took her in his arms. He hushed her, trying his best to calm her down so he could explain everything that had happened to them. As she clung to him, Marcus’ senses came back to him. Everywhere around him, he could hear footfalls of the smallest forest creatures, the air as it moved in and out of their lungs and their hearts beating as the blood moved through their veins; some of them overlapping, too many heartbeats to count.
Yet as he held her tighter to his chest, he could hear none of these coming from the woman in his arms. No breath, no heartbeat, no warmth radiating from her flesh.
Suddenly, he grabbed the creature by the upper arms and held it at arm’s length then watched as its face became distorted and resembled that of a decaying body.
“What in the name of the gods?”
“I am the dødehekse, vampire. I am here to harvest your blood and your new power!”
“Not if I kill you first, beast!”
The fight was violent and the creature matched Marcus well, despite his military skill and incredible new strength, and they dueled for a long time then the sun filled the jungle with light and Marcus with pain. He felt his skin sizzle wherever the light touched. The creature screamed and transformed into a ball of light which fled in the blink of an eye.