by Gwynn White
Aurelia couldn’t help but laugh. “Ah, yes, the immortal rats. I remember the experiments you did in later centuries on those.”
Lucius smiled. “Well, immortal until they desiccated into nothingness.”
“I think you should have kept some alive. We’d have a fair number of pets by now, don’t you think?”
Petra feigned shock and shook her head. “Over my dead body.”
They all smiled at the irony in that pronouncement.
“You experimented on yourselves, surely?” Aurelia asked.
“Oh, yes. We knew after several weeks of testing that the mortanine was required for turning an immortal.”
“And that Petra’s blood was the true restorative to keep us young forever.” Lucius thumbed Petra’s cheek affectionately. “You’re my own personal savior, milady.”
“And you’re mine,” Petra said.
“Was it at this point you realized you no longer had need of food or drink to survive?”
Lucius nodded. “Of course, the desire for the taste of food and wine never goes away, does it?”
Aurelia smiled and shook her head. “You learned quite soon that sleep wasn’t necessary either, I assume?”
“Yes. Really, we discovered that the first night in the grove, when we ran from Clarius.”
“That may be true,” Lucius said, “but I’ll never tire of having this woman in my bed in the darkest hours of the night to while away the hours.” He patted Petra’s knee and grinned at her.
“I don’t doubt it,” Aurelia said with a laugh.
“For months and months we wandered this way,” Petra said, “crisscrossing through Italy, always keeping to ourselves. Along the way, we acquired many things: valuable trinkets, fine clothing, money. But we never stopped worrying Clarius would find us. We knew it was inevitable. With an eternity of time looming ahead, how could any of us hide from each other forever?”
Lucius looked away, toward the window. “We also knew we had something Clarius needed more than anything else in the world, something he would stop at nothing to find again: Petra’s blood.”
7
The Mortanine
Tivoli
August 13, 1 AD
This is madness, Petra.”
Lucius continued to give her grief as they made their way toward the lake near Villa di Avidus where the mortanine flowers grew. Petra didn’t want to argue any further. She just held up the empty poison phial hanging around her neck. She had long since kept it dangling between her breasts, always at the ready to use against Clarius.
“All you heard were rumors,” Petra said. “And we must have more. You know we will have need of it if he comes for us.”
“I disagree. It obviously didn’t kill any of us. The last thing we want is for him to discover its power and people the world with killers like him.”
“Like us, you mean.”
Lucius glanced sideways at her. “You didn’t hear the villagers talking. You didn’t see the fear in their eyes.”
“But none of them had actually been to the villa.”
“They knew those who had. They said he never leaves… that he looks like a monster now.”
She shook her head, not wanting to believe it. “We only need a small bunch of flowers, and then we can be on our way. He won’t even know we’re here.”
Lucius frowned at her but pressed on down the dusty path through the forested lands leading toward the lake.
“I doubt Clarius still lives at the villa,” Petra said, mostly to distract him from his annoyance.
“I wouldn’t think he’d leave his family’s ancestral lands and all the power and wealth that comes with it. He also likely thinks we haven’t gone far.”
“Maybe he’s dead,” she mused.
“Why would he be? We’re still alive. As far as we know, nothing can kill any of us now.”
“He hasn’t ingested my blood in nearly a year. We’ve already seen this with the rats. After three months they began to desiccate. And you…”
Lucius frowned. She didn’t say it, but they both remembered what had happened to him. After twelve months, the tips of his fingers had faded to grey and faint black lines had laced his skin. When she let him drink from her again, his youthful skin came back, and his agitation and anger dissipated.
“I almost want to find him, so we can see the effects of his blood withdrawal.” And then kill him, she thought.
“No, don’t even think it. You remember how dangerous he is. The risk is too great.”
“But think of what we could learn. You’ll finally know if you’re stuck with me forever, or if you can leave me to explore the far reaches of the Earth on your own.”
He immediately walked back and pulled her into a kiss that took her breath away.
“You’re stuck with me forever, Petra, so it matters not.”
While they had yet to attempt sex, they had long since learned how to kiss without taking each other’s lives—though it was not without difficulty. It surprised them both how hard the desire was to control. They had to pull away when they started to feel the vapors coming. They began to call the phenomenon an Essentian draw because when the drawing began, it felt as though their life essences were being pulled out of their bodies.
“You may not always want me, Lucius. We have no idea what the future holds, or even how long we will or can live.”
He kissed her again, long and full, his soft lips exploring her own gently. When he finally released her, he whispered into her ear, tickling the skin at her neck.
“As I said before, it matters not. I will never let you go.”
She covered his lips with her fingers and pulled back from his tight embrace. “What will we do, Lucius, if we cannot die?”
He grinned. “Simple: we will live forever.”
She frowned and playfully punched his arm. He continued on down the path with a smile on his face, pulling her by the hand. Glancing ahead, she glimpsed a small sliver of the lake between the trees.
“We made it.”
“Good, let’s hurry.” He quickened their pace. “I suppose I am to be your errand boy once again?” He removed his sandals and wiggled his toes into the pebbles warmed by the sun at the lake’s shore. A flock of goldfinches skirted the water’s still surface as they came in for a landing amid the reeds.
Petra flashed him a grin. “No, this time I’m coming with you. It’s an excellent day for a swim, don’t you think?” She reached up and drew him into a kiss. For a moment, they both abandoned all time and reason, drawing down deeper into a connection they alone in the world could ever experience. It was Lucius who pulled away when he began to feel the draw.
“Let us finish this and be gone,” he whispered. “We must not linger.”
He stripped off his tunic while she only removed her sandals. Lucius held the bag they had brought to carry the flowers, and then they both sank with delight into the cool waters.
The last time Petra swam in the lake was when her mother asked her to fetch mortanine to combat a severe rat infestation they were having in the slave quarters at the villa one year.
She swam alongside Lucius who proceeded to playfully splash her. She dunked him under, and they both laughed. When they reached the little island, which took no more than an hour to walk across at its longest length, he pulled her from the water.
“I’m happy to see the flowers are actually in bloom this year,” she said, wringing out her tunic and taking a look around at the patches of mortanine flowers scattered among the shrubs, grass, and occasional tree. She had always loved coming here to the lake. The island itself, though small, had always looked like a place she would want to live on forever.
“Why wouldn’t they be in bloom?” Lucius asked, bending down to study a cluster of them at his feet. The mortanine flowers had a similar shape to full red roses, but their petals curled into a more shell-like, concave form. Each flower spread from a deep mahogany at its center to a blood red at the petal tips, which P
etra found appropriate given the flower’s properties. In bright contrast, yellow-green leaves wound around each flower in tiny, tight spirals. She had never seen mortanine growing anywhere else.
“Some years, the conditions aren’t right for them to bloom.” She lifted her wet tunic to remove the dagger strapped to her thigh. “I remember my mother coming back from the lake the year of the awful drought complaining she had lost another year’s batch.”
“How did your mother even know about mortanine’s uses? Did she know what it could do to humans? To us?”
“Much of midwifery is reducing a pregnant woman’s pain. Herbs are most often used for that purpose, so my mother was quite skilled in the use of herbs and such things. If she ever learned it could change humans in such strange ways, she never told me. She only used it to kill vermin around the villa as far as I know.”
“I suppose we have your mother to thank for her skill and curiosity.”
“Yes, though there is the matter of my blood that we still do not truly understand.”
“Given that we can survive on your blood alone, I am content, for now at least, to rely on you.” He glanced up at her, looking hopelessly shy and embarrassed, holding out a bunch of the deadly red flowers in his hand to her in offering. “You who set my heart on fire.” The desire in his eyes made her long for a time when Clarius was no more, when they could make love under a morning sun surrounded by the lake and the mortanine flowers and not fear for the future.
“I’m the one on fire, Lucius.” With a smile, Petra rested her palm over his heart and stole another kiss as they crushed the blooms between them.
Eventually, they had gathered enough flowers to make several batches of mortanine poison, so they secured their bags and swam back across the lake.
As Petra squeezed water from her tunic and put on her sandals, she thought again about Clarius and all the rumors they had heard about him.
“Lucius,” she began slowly, “the rumors about Clarius…”
“I know what you would say, Petra, but if you think we would survive an encounter with that bastard, you are wrong.”
“I do think we would survive. Because we did the first time. And Clarius doesn’t know how all this works.”
“How could it possibly be worth the risk?”
“It isn’t the risk to us I am worried about.” It was partly her worry, but she wasn’t about to share that with Lucius. “It is his risk to others. He has the same power we do. The same strength. The same desire to pull the life force of others from their bodies and kill them. If the rumors are to be believed, I do not doubt he has killed many people in the time we’ve been away, perhaps even some of our friends among the slaves. If what we have is true immortality, Lucius, think of all those he could murder until the end of time. Because we know what kind of man he is, those deaths will be on our heads too.”
“What are you saying?”
She could tell by the tone of his voice he knew where this conversation was leading.
“I’m saying we have the advantage. Now. Today. We can catch him unaware and do away with him forever.”
“And if he captures us? If he kills us?”
“If he does, I will wake you with my bloody kiss of life.” She smiled, but it fell flat.
He laced his second sandal and began to chew on his lip, always an indicator he was seriously considering a proposition.
“If he has stationed guards, I don’t see how we can infiltrate the villa’s walls,” he countered.
“Let’s just get there, and then decide if there is a way to enter unseen.”
“And if we find there is no way without great risk?”
“Then I promise we will take our flowers and go.”
“I cannot lie.” He frowned, and then wiped it from his face and looked at her long and hard. “I have wanted his death since…”
“Since your father’s death.”
He squinted at her. “How did you know that?”
Petra looked down, feeling rather ashamed she had seen his memory and never told him of it. “I saw it in your mind. On the day I killed you—”
Lucius pulled her into an embrace. “No, I have told you before. You were not to blame. Being that close to you before I—before it was over—was the single most pleasurable moment of my life.”
“I saw only pain in your eyes.”
“As you well know, an Essentian draw is both a pleasure and a pain. If I ever truly die, Petra, I want it to be in your arms.”
“There’s only one man I want to kill, Lucius, and that man will never be you.”
8
The Bargain
August 13, 1 AD
Can we enter through the servants’ door?” Petra asked Lucius, hiding her bag of flowers in the shadows under a broken donkey cart. The walls surrounding the Villa di Avidus stood cold and uninviting today, but Petra remembered a time when Lucius Avidus still lived, when the villa felt like home. It never would again.
“I think so, but it is the heat of the day, and it’s strange to hear no sounds or voices coming from the courtyard.”
Petra nodded. “Not even the sounds of the donkeys or pigs. Do you think Clarius is here?”
“It’s possible. We need to be careful.”
“Are you ready?” she asked, rising from her crouched position and pulling her dagger from its sheath.
“Wait, Petra.” Lucius pulled her back down. “I want you to promise me something. If our plans go ill, and you have a chance to escape… take it. Do not try to save me.”
“I am in far less danger than you are. You know this. I would rather die than abandon you, but we both know that is impossible. We will survive this day.”
His deep frown told her he did not agree, but he made no further demands. She pulled away from him and made her way toward the door. It was slightly ajar. More and more she wondered if Clarius had quit the villa altogether. If he had, they could raid it for anything useful he left behind.
When Petra slipped into the outer courtyard, the stench hit her before the images registered in her mind. Bodies lay everywhere, strewn across the mosaics and stones and scattered hay of the courtyard, most left to rot in dried pools of blood fading into the tiled images of the gods below them. The horror of their deaths lay frozen in their decaying eyes, and their torn-out throats were laid open to the elements.
“What happened here?” she whispered. but she knew the answer before the words left her.
It was indiscriminate. Servants, slaves, and men and women and children in the more elaborate garb of plebeians and patricians lay dead before them. She even spotted several Roman soldiers among them.
Petra stepped out of the shadows of the wall surrounding the courtyard to examine a body more closely, but Lucius pulled her back. His face didn’t show horror.
Anger moved from his eyes to curl his lips into a snarl. “Clarius murdered them all.”
“He didn’t just murder them. He drank from them. From their necks, like an animal. Is that how he gains strength? How he feeds?”
Petra saw a change come over him. His chest heaved, his hands curled into white-knuckled fists, his body trembled with a growing rage. She touched his arm, and he shook his head, as if to tell her it was not safe to come near him.
“We will find him and kill him,” she said simply, shocked at her own lack of emotion. She felt nothing, but she was determined to see Clarius pay for his crimes. For her mother. For Lucius’s father. For all the innocent victims who lay before them. She stepped again into the full light of the day and marched across the mosaics of the gods among the bodies of the dead.
Such was their anger that they no longer cared to hide their presence, entering the house through the master’s entrance as they had always been forbidden to do as slaves. In the lararium, the shrine off to the side of the atrium pool, the altar had been destroyed, its elaborate stonework crushed into pieces and scattered across the damaged mosaic floor. Petra covered her nose as they inched past a bloat
ed body whose legs half floated in the water, his blood turning the color of the water a hideous shade she could not even name.
“He has become a monster,” she said.
“I am what you made me, slave.”
The moment Petra heard Clarius’s voice, she knew without seeing he had become something far beyond what they had. When she turned, she didn’t immediately see him, but then a slight movement from the shadows along the far wall caught her attention. She thought him at first one of the bodies, and even as he moved, he looked as one dead. His skin had taken on a dark grey pallor, his eyes glowed a pale silver, and black veins wove across his jaw, neck, and forehead. She recoiled at the sight of him.
“You have gone mad, Clarius.” Lucius strode forward, unafraid, and Petra knew his use of their old master’s praenomen was purposeful.
“I am what I have always been.”
“True. But no longer. You will not live out this day, Clarius Avidus. You will answer for your crimes.”
“For the killing of my mother,” Petra said, walking forward to stand beside Lucius.
“And the murder of my father.”
“So my little slave children have returned to seek revenge, have they?” Clarius slowly rose to his feet, taking another swig of wine from the half-empty bottle in his hand as he did so.
“We seek justice for the wrongs done to us, and to every life you have taken here,” he said, his voice unwavering.
Clarius laughed. “I am a god now. No man can touch me.”
“You forget we were made in the same way,” Petra reminded him.
“Yes, and we’ll get to that before I drink you dry. I wonder how you’ll taste compared to these humans, Petra. Sweeter? Or as sour as your soul?”
“Do not underestimate our strength,” Lucius countered, his voice betraying no hint of fear.
Petra shared his confidence, even though they were surrounded by dozens of Clarius’s kills. Her desire to see him fall far outweighed the chance of losing her own life.