The Last Disciple (3 page)

Yes. Nero was, first and foremost, an actor. Vitas counted on that.

Without hesitation, Vitas marched forward and yanked the chain from Helius. “If the emperor knows you are involved in illegal torture, he will have you destroyed!”

For Vitas, it was an all-or-nothing bluff, pretending he did not know Nero was inside the costume. Trusting that Nero would be too ashamed to admit it. Now. Or later.

Vitas shoved Helius hard toward the doorway of the small hut. “Outside! Now!”

Without hesitation, Vitas grabbed the chain and jerked it hard, treating the man in the beast costume as lower than a slave. “Don’t move. I’ll be back to deal with you.”

Vitas forced himself to pretend outrage. But this was the moment. If Nero decided he would no longer play the role, Vitas was dead.

The beast snarled at him, an echo from inside the lion’s skull. But the beast did nothing else.

Vitas knew he was safe. Temporarily.

Vitas spun on his heels and marched outside to Helius.

“You feed his delusions,” Vitas said to Helius.

The two of them stood outside the hut in the shadows of an olive tree.

Helius shrugged, a smirk visible on his face in the moonlight.

Vitas had learned in battle in Britannia how to detach himself from the emotions of the moment. Yet it took immense willpower to restrain himself from withdrawing his short sword from his toga and charging at Helius. But it would not serve the empire for Helius to die, for Nero clung to the man with a neediness that barely kept Nero stable.

“Of course I feed his delusions.” Helius continued smirking, unaware of how closely the ghost of his own murder had passed by. “That is the whole point. His power. And how I survive.”

“How does this serve Nero?” Vitas demanded, pointing at the hut behind them.

Vitas was not particularly large, but he was tall and carried himself the way a man with solid compact muscles does. He was also cloaked in his family’s well-documented patrician background of generations of Roman purity, and by the stories, almost legendary, about his bravery in battles against the Iceni in Britannia. In daylight, his flat, almost black eyes made his thoughts unreadable to his opponents, and without a smile, his face was implacable, like unweathered stone. Here, his face hidden in the shadow cast by the moonlight, Vitas was that much more intimidating. Much as Nero needed Helius, Nero revered Vitas. Only Vitas could speak to Helius in this way and not fear later punishment in the stealthy form of poison or an assassin.

“His nightmares,” Helius said, finally sensing the deadly anger simmering beneath the calm demeanor of Vitas. “Nero wants to be rid of them.”

“By this travesty of justice?”

Helius shrugged. “No worse than anything else Nero has desired in recent years.”

Vitas could not argue with that. “He is Caesar, the representative of our great empire. To protect the empire, we must protect our emperor’s dignity.”

“The empire?” Helius sneered. “You truly believe in the empire?”

That was the question, Vitas thought. Could he continue to believe in the empire? It had once been his whole life. Until that final battle in Britannia. There, he had fought to defend the empire against barbarians. Now, as Nero became more of a megalomaniac every day, Vitas wondered who were the true barbarians and if he needed instead to fight the empire.

“I believe,” Vitas answered without betraying his thoughts, “that you enjoy Nero’s worst instincts.”

Helius smiled. “Nero gets what Nero wants. I do for him as he directs me.”

“To secretly torture and kill these Christians.”

“His nightmares have worsened.”

Vitas needed no explanation. Nero, who had once shared a bed with his mother, had later ordered her murdered. As he did with his first wife, whose head he demanded as proof of death. His second wife he’d kicked to death while she was pregnant. He’d poisoned his adoptive half brother. The list went on, until the most recent atrocities—the executions of myriad Christians. It was no wonder that demons haunted the man in the dark of each night.

Yet, monstrous as the man was, Vitas well knew that to end Nero’s life would likely result in civil war, as Nero had no successor. Civil war would destroy the empire. So Vitas served Nero and did his best as a trusted adviser to lessen the monstrosities.

“He expects this to quiet those nightmares?” Vitas said, gesturing at the hut.

“It’s that Greek graffiti,” Helius said. “That one senseless word that the Christians have begun to inscribe all across the city in defiance of him.”

Vitas was aware of it. Three Greek letters. With the snake in the middle.

Helius continued. “Until tonight, their resolution to worship their Christos despite Nero’s persecution had begun to shake Nero’s belief in his own divinity.”

“A man posing as beast is hardly divine.”

“I’ve convinced him that if he defeats them as the Beast that their own prophet Daniel foretold of, he will break this curse upon himself. He has taken some potions to delude himself further.”

The constriction around Vitas’s chest eased only a little. If Nero’s mind had been influenced by potions tonight, he would be all the more determined to remain in the role of the beast instead of giving orders to execute Vitas.

“I know about the Jewish rabbi you consulted,” Vitas said. “So I also know of these Scriptures.”

“How?” Helius demanded. “Who told you that I sent for—?”

“Secrets are difficult to keep in the palace,” Vitas said wearily. “How I know is of far less concern than what I know. The prophet Daniel also prophesied that the fourth beast would be destroyed. You’ve kept that from Nero?”

“I’m not suicidal,” Helius said. “Of course I did. It’s what he believes that matters, not the nonsense of a Jewish prophet from six hundred years ago. Nero will never be destroyed and certainly never by a God of the Jews. Nero is convinced if they worship the beast or if the beast kills them, he is the victor. It’s superstition, of course, but you know full well how superstitious fear rules him.”

Vitas did know full well Nero’s dread of the gods and of omens. He also knew that Nero, with his absolute power, had performed far stranger acts than this with far less motivation. In a twisted way, this horrible parody made sense. But could Vitas allow himself to stand by yet one more time?

“You think this will remain a secret?” Vitas argued. “That Nero is so afraid of the Christians he must dress up as a beast and kill them himself?” Every day Vitas was more fully aware of how the Senate would view Nero’s actions. “Think of how the tongues of the mobs will wag further when they hear this.”

“What Nero wants, Nero gets.”

“If he continues like this, there will come a point when he will no longer be tolerated. The empire will revolt against him. And you will lose your own power.”

“We are here and it is too late to stop this,” Helius snapped. “Do you expect some sort of divine intervention to save those inside? to save you from the act of defiance you have just committed against Caesar?”

Images of the final battle in Britannia flashed through the mind of Vitas. Of the power of the empire unleashed on the innocent. He spoke quietly. “The persecution must stop.”

“That’s the real reason you’re here tonight, isn’t it?” Teeth gleamed in the moonlight as Helius smiled. “Your constant and tedious arguments to save the Christians. Perhaps you are one yourself?”

“Hardly. You and I both know they are innocent of treason. The empire cannot survive if it does not serve justice equally to all.”

Helius shrugged. “Give me power over principles any day. It’s a pity you won’t learn that lesson.”

“Take Nero back to the palace. With any luck, he won’t remember this.”

“It’s too late,” Helius said. “What’s begun must be finished.”

“No.”

“No?” Helius echoed. “I doubt you’ll stop me. You’ve become too soft, Vitas. Nero might not know it. But I do. The great warrior Vitas is a toothless lion. But what should one expect of one who married a barbarian?”

His neck muscles tightened, but Vitas held himself back.

“Tell me,” Helius said, still taunting Vitas. “Is it true? Was it your sword that —?”

“Enough!”

“Enough or you’ll kill me?” Helius said.

Vitas froze.

“See?” Helius said. “The great warrior Vitas would never have meekly accepted such an insult.”

Helius turned his back on Vitas and hurried back into the hut.

“No!”

Helius had just taken the chain off the bars to the lion’s cage. The beast with the wings and head of a lion was pulling at the chain, reaching with bear claws to tear at the first of the four captives in shackles.

Vitas had made his decision. Over the last six months, he had allowed too much to happen already; his conscience could be pushed no further. He stepped back into the hut. Ready to defy Nero, even if it cost him his life.

“No!” Vitas repeated. He spoke to the beast. “This is enough.”

Nero, addled by lust and anger and the results of whatever potions he had consumed, continued to hiss and snarl beneath the costume of the beast. “Kill him!” he hissed from inside the lion’s head. “Tear his heart out! Vitas must die. I tire of his defense of the Christians!”

In that moment, Vitas knew he’d lost his gamble. Nero had stopped acting, spoken his name. No longer could Vitas pretend that he was unaware of who wore the costume. No longer was Vitas protected by his value as the only man of Nero’s inner court respected by the Senate.

“Kill him!” Nero’s voice became higher and unnatural. It goaded the real beasts in the cages into a frenzy of roars, a rumble.

“This must stop!” Vitas answered, resolute. If this was his final stand, he would not flee.

“Kill him!”

The noise of the beasts changed. Subtly at first. Then the low rumble became a distinct noise in itself, which slowly began to build and build.

The ground beneath them shook.

Helius swayed. Nero in his beast costume staggered. Vitas shifted his feet wider to keep his balance.

The cages rattled and shook back and forth.

As Vitas realized that the earth itself was quaking, lightning struck the thatched roof of the hut, and the rumbling was broken by a tremendous peal of thunder.

The roof burst into flames and again lightning struck, deafening them with instant thunder that followed.

Helius fell to his knees as the ground continued to shake.

Vitas saw that the cage doors had sprung open. That the animals were lurching out, dazed by their sudden freedom.

The huge lion advanced on Nero. He scrambled backward into the body of the first captive, then fell at that captive’s feet, moaning from inside his costume.

Vitas pulled his short sword from his toga and stepped between Nero and the lion. Nero was emperor. Even though the emperor had ordered him executed, Vitas had his duty.

The lion crouched. It weighed three times what a man did, with teeth longer and sharper than daggers, paws as large as a man’s head, and the power to take down an ox.

Vitas waited and watched, ready to fight, hopeless as it was.

Another boom of deafening thunder. The lion sank back, bewildered.

Lightning flashed again.

And the lion fled. The leopard and the bear followed.

Helius remained on his knees, cowering, tears streaming down his face.

In the calm that followed the next burst of lightning, the earthquake renewed itself.

Nero screamed, “The gods speak against me!”

He threw off his costume, dashed past Vitas, and fled the hut, leaving behind the leopard fur with its eagles’ wings. Helius, too, retreated, following Nero into the trees as lightning continued to flash upon the grounds of the palace.

Vitas kicked aside remnants of burning straw that fell from the roof of the hut.

All four captives shackled to the wall stared at him in silence.

Vitas advanced on the first one with his sword.

“Please spare the women,” the gray-haired captive said, the older one who had faced Helius with so little fear. “They have children.”

“What is your name?” Vitas asked him, pressing the flat of his sword up near the man’s chest.