More helpfully, Temi pointed her flashlight at the body. My breath caught. His eyes were open, his face contorted in a rictus of pain. As with the other warriors, his chest had been torn open by claws and his neck slashed, but the creature must have been in a hurry for it hadn’t severed the jugular. The man tried to turn his head to look at us, but ended up gasping, short wheezing breaths. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
I wasn’t sure whether to run from him or try to comfort him. Was he an enemy? Or a friend? Or neither? Just a victim?
Temi didn’t hesitate. She knelt by the pile and took the man’s hand.
He looked at her, his dark brown eyes full of pain. He whispered something, urgency lacing his tone.
“What?” Temi asked.
I crept forward. I could barely hear him.
“I don’t know what he’s saying,” Temi told me. “It’s not English.”
I knelt at his head. “It’s Latin.” I didn’t know if that made perfect sense or blew my other theory out of the water. If some American geneticists were engineering super warriors for who knew what purposes, why wouldn’t they teach their soldiers English? Who was even around to teach Latin any more, especially the verbal form?
“He keeps saying the same thing over and over,” Temi said. “What does it mean?”
“I am my own... man? No, erus is master. Lord.”
The centurion turned his head toward Simon, gasped, and tried to sit up. Rubble tumbled down the pile. He spit out another sentence, then coughs overtook him. Blood sprayed from his mouth and he flopped back down. He tried one more time to speak, but failed. The rigidity left his body, and his eyes rolled upward, unfocused.
I rubbed a hand down my face, blinking a few times. All of this was too strange, too upsetting. Why’d we ever get involved?
“Uh,” Simon said.
He’d turned toward the tunnels the monster had used to leave the chamber. Two familiar figures were standing there, one holding the curved sword, its silver glow illuminating the air around him more effectively than a flashlight. Jakatra. Eleriss stood at his side, staring at us in disbelief.
I realized the Roman hadn’t been looking at Simon when he spat out those last words.
“What did he say?” Temi whispered. She must have realized the same thing.
I responded in a whisper of my own, not wanting our black-clad friends to overhear. “Don’t let them enslave you.”
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER 25
I hadn’t needed to worry about whispering. Eleriss and Jakatra were busy pointing at us and arguing with each other in their own language.
“I don’t suppose you know what they’re saying?” Temi murmured.
I was still waiting for the final verdict on the language, but I ventured, “If I had to guess? ‘How did those idiots get down here?’”
I stepped away from the Roman to join Simon in facing Eleriss and Jakatra. A few minutes ago, I would have been relieved to see them. After hearing the soldier’s last words, I was less certain that their appearance was a good thing. What if they were the mad scientists behind everything?
The argument ended, and Jakatra strode toward us. His gaze flicked toward Temi—she’d come up to stand at our backs—but it returned to Simon, as if he were in charge. Jakatra stopped two paces from him and extended a hand, one long finger pointing between Simon’s eyes. The fact that he held his big sword in his other hand made the gesture all the more threatening. I fingered the grip of my bullwhip, though I didn’t fancy the idea of skirmishing with him again.
“You will leave now,” Jakatra said.
“We came to warn you about the creature,” I said. “It dropped in through the ceiling back there. It’s here now. Close.”
Jakatra glanced at the destroyed alcoves. “Obviously.”
“Has it attacked you? What does it want?”
“This is none of your concern. It’s—”
“Jakatra,” Eleriss whispered. He had his own weapon out, the serrated dagger, and he’d turned to face one of the dark side passages.
Jakatra sniffed the air, and he too spun in that direction. I hadn’t heard a thing yet, but their reactions told me enough. I grabbed an arrow out of my quiver and readied the bow. Rock scraped rock behind us. I whirled, expecting to see the creature charging from that direction, but it was Temi, pulling the spear out of the first alcove.
“Good idea,” Simon muttered and grabbed a katana out of the ninja’s stash.
I eyed the centurion’s sword for a second, but decided it’d be better to stick with a weapon I knew how to use. Jakatra waited in a combat stance, the sword raised to shoulder level, blade pointed forward, ready to strike.