Fighting Fit (12 page)

Reuben silently collected up the glimmering gold fragments and returned them to the altar. It was a typically sweet Reuben-type gesture, as if he was apologising personally to the goddess.

Without her sacred flame burning on the altar, Vesta’s temple felt like a lifeless shell.

Orlando gazed around with a despairing expression. “It’s over,” he said in a dull voice.

“It isn’t over,” Reuben comforted him. “It’s just a - a bit of a setback.”

“It’s a disaster,” said Orlando. “The
Dark forces
got Lucilla and it’s all my fault.”

“We’ll find her,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “Come on, let’s go.”

Reuben shook his head. “We can’t leave the temple like this. Every evil entity in Ancient Rome will think they’ve got squatter’s rights.”

But Orlando was already on his way out of the door. “Sorry, you’ll have to manage without me. I’ve got to figure out what to do next.” And he hurried off into the night.

Until this moment, I’d put Orlando on a pedestal. Now for the first time I saw how vulnerable he was. “It’s no wonder he’s stressing out,” I said miserably. “This mission is too much responsibility for one trainee.”

Reuben squeezed my hand. “He just needs to clear his head. He’ll be back on track by the time we get back to the ludus, I bet you. Now, let’s get to work.”

“Work?” I said bewildered.

To my astonishment Reuben calmly sat down in the dark. After a few seconds, rays of pure white light started streaming from his hands and heart. Apparently Reuben intended to spring clean the whole temple!

“OK, angel-boy, I get the message,” I sighed. “But can we please make it quick?”

But he stubbornly refused to budge, until we’d neutralised every speck of PODS contamination, and filled the space with uplifting vibes.

As we left, I caught a flicker of movement in the porch. I thought it was some old rags blowing in the wind then I looked again and saw a beggar huddled in the shadows. You couldn’t really tell how old he was. He was little more than skin and bone. But something in his eyes made me look twice.

“Excuse me,” I said. “We’re looking for a Vestal called Lucilla. You don’t know what happened to her, do you?”

The beggar’s voice was so quiet, I had to bend down to hear him. “They took her to the Field of Sorrows.”

I didn’t like the sound of this. “Where on earth is that?”

“It’s where they take Vestals who offend the goddess. They’re going to bury her alive,” the beggar said sombrely.

I gasped with horror. “Just for letting the flame go out! But that wasn’t even her fault!”

“Lucilla is charged with a second offence,” said the beggar in the same low voice. “A temple elder accused her of meeting a young man in secret.”

“But she didn’t, did she?” said Reuben.

“Lucilla has served the goddess faithfully since she was ten years old,” said the beggar. “She would never do anything to dishonour her.”

“Can you tell us where to find this field?” Reuben asked.

The beggar gave us detailed directions.

“You’ve been really helpful.” I fumbled in the purse at my waist, holding out the usual small coins.

But he waved them away. “It was my pleasure to help you. Thank you for cleaning up in there, by the way. It didn’t go unnoticed.”

I stared at him. This was not normal behaviour for Ancient Roman beggars. Plus there was something about his eyes. “Omigosh!” I gasped. “You’re an—”

The Earth angel quickly put his fingers to his lips. “When you see Orlando, tell him that what happened here was not his fault. But he must hurry. He’s running out of time.”

I was still beside myself with embarrassment. “You must think I’m so rude - I had NO idea!!”

He gave a soft laugh. “You weren’t supposed to recognise me. We try to tread carefully in Dark eras. Most of us cloak our vibes to keep the Dark powers off the scent.”

“But not at the Games,” said Reuben.

“No, not at the Games,” the angel agreed and I saw his teeth flash in the shadows. “We also give the occasional cosmic nudge!” he added mischievously.

We found Orlando back at the gladiator school, battering the daylights out of a straw target in the dark. “We know where they’ve taken Lucilla!” I panted. “Plus we’ve got a special message for you.”

The Earth angel’s message had a totally galvanising effect on Orlando. He instantly threw off his depression and sent urgent telepathic signals to the rest of the task force. One by one, dazed-looking angel trainees emerged from their sleeping quarters to join us under the stars.

“What’s going on?” asked a confused-looking trainee yawning. “Are we going home?”

“I wish,” someone sighed. “I’ve had enough boiled barley to feed a Roman legion.”

“Barley’s good for gladiators. It makes your blood clot,” said another trainee in a cheerful voice.

“It makes
everything
clot,” said the second trainee darkly.

Orlando was waiting until he’d got on everyone’s attention. When he finally started to talk, I was relieved to see him one hundred percent back in leader mode; calm, collected, totally focused. First he filled everyone in about Aurelia and her long lost sisters.

“The aim of this mission has always been to bring the three girls together,” he explained. “But the Agency advised me not to make this generally known. They said there were cosmic spies on every street corner in Nero’s Rome, monitoring conversations, even thoughts.” Orlando gave a rueful laugh. “I thought this was paranoid to be honest. But now it’s looking as if they were totally justified. A few hours ago we went to make contact with the third triplet. Somehow - I’ve no idea how - the Opposition found out and got there first.”

I was glad it was dark so no-one could see me going red. “That might have been my fault,” I mumbled.

Orlando looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I saw Lucilla coming out of the temple, when we were being taken to the dungeons. I was totally stunned by her resemblance to Aurelia and I just blurted it out. One of our guards must be a spy for the PODS. I’m sorry, everyone,” I said humbly. “That’s the only way it could have happened.”

Reuben was thoughtfully twiddling one of his dreads. “I don’t see how it could have been your fault, Mel. You had no idea then that Aurelia
was
one of triplets. And you definitely didn’t know she and her sisters were caught up in a cosmic tug of war.”

“It IS my fault,” I said miserably. “I’m a total motor mouth.”

“I agree with Reuben. You shouldn’t blame yourself,” said Orlando. “But unless we get Lucilla back, this mission will be a write-off.”

“So let’s get her!” called someone.

“This isn’t going to be like sneaking prisoners past drunken guards,” Orlando told him. “We’ll have to fight.”

“I thought we aren’t allowed to use angelic fighting skills on humans?” said a trainee in alarm.

Orlando’s reply sent a chill through his listeners. “The beings who took Lucilla from the temple aren’t human.”

Just occasionally you find an Earth location that feels like it’s twinned with a Hell dimension. The Field of Sorrows was one of those. It was the dead of night when we rumbled up in Festus’s wagon, but the air was so thick with human despair, you could taste it. We’d arrived just as the tail-end of a silent torchlight procession was disappearing in through the gates.

“Once we’re in there, there’s only one way out -the hard way,” Orlando told us. “So put up your energy shields and keep them up. I don’t want you guys contaminated with evil energy. I don’t want any casualties tonight. Good luck everyone.”

We slipped through the gates and began to mingle with the crowd.

“What are all these people doing here anyway?” I whispered nervously.

“It’s a public ritual,” Orlando said. “Anyone can come.”

After the Roman Games you’d think I’d be unshockable but the idea that humans would trek out to this desolate place in the dark, to gawk at a teenage girl being buried alive, left me speechless.

They weren’t all sightseers. At the head of the procession, priests, senators and government officials walked ceremoniously behind a curtained litter. The sight made me shiver. Lucilla was by herself in there, waiting to go to her death, and these people were just going to stand and watch it happen.

The procession wound its way to higher ground. In the flickering torchlight, I noticed ominous mounds like giant mole-hills.

Reuben went wide-eyed. “Is that where—?”

“Please don’t say it,” I begged, swallowing.

It was hard to talk in the Field of Sorrows actually. Those terrible vibes made the words dry up in your mouth. The only sounds were the hypnotic tramp of sandaled feet over strangely hollow-sounding ground and the occasional phlegmy cough of one of the litter bearers.

This is a
funeral
march, I thought in horror. It was like, officially, Lucilla was already dead.

The flaring torches cast dramatic shadows on people’s faces. Most of them had the sharp cheekbones of the chronically poor, yet their eyes glittered with excitement. I got the feeling that the temple scandal and Lucilla’s gruesome punishment were the most thrilling events to have happened in ages.

At last the procession stopped beside a newly dug pit. When I saw the rungs of the crude wooden ladder protruding from the earth, I had to dig my nails into my palms. I couldn’t believe these humans were going to go through with this.

The bearers set down the litter at the edge of the pit. Two temple flunkeys drew back the curtains and lifted Aurelia’s sister out, bound and gagged and still dressed in her white tunic and gauzy bridal veil.

It seemed the authorities couldn’t just dump a dishonoured Vestal virgin in a hole and leave her there. First they had to blow horns and chant, and a priest had to say pompous words in Latin about how wicked and sinful she was.

The dreary ritual seemed to go on forever, yet Lucilla stood perfectly motionless, with her bound hands clasped in front of her, looking completely serene. Even her thoughts were serene. I know this because I could hear them as clearly as if she’d spoken them aloud.

Mother goddess, you know I am innocent. Give me the courage to bear my fate.

At the end of the ceremony, five women stepped forward, all looking as if they were going to some bizarre kind of housewarming. Two were clutching dishes of food, a third carried a jug of wine and the fourth hugged a folded blanket in her arms. The fifth woman held a lighted lamp, and seemed to be having trouble sheltering the flame from the wind that blew over the open ground.

“They have to leave Lucilla enough provisions to last twenty-four hours,” Orlando whispered. “Otherwise it’s sacrilege.”

“But it’s totally OK for her to be suffocated from lack of oxygen, is it?” I hissed angrily.

“Of course it’s not OK. But most of these people believe she insulted the goddess. To them that’s like insulting Rome. They think she’s a traitor to Rome. The way they see it, if they don’t punish Lucilla, the goddess will withdraw her protection and the Roman Empire will fall.”

People had started to crowd closer to the pit. I could feel their excitement rising. I broke into sudden goose-bumps as I recognised the PODS who’d been at Quintus’s nightmarish banquet, then wondered bitterly why I was surprised. They had framed this innocent girl to stop us reuniting her with her sisters. Naturally they’d be in at the kill. For PODS this was like the ultimate cosmic joke. And, like always, they’d been able to manipulate gullible humans into doing their dirty work for them.

One of the flunkeys started to untie Lucilla’s ankles and I felt myself go dizzy with horror. They were actually going to make Aurelia’s sister climb down into her own grave!

Next minute Orlando’s signal flashed through me like electric volts down a wire.

Go, go, go!

In that confused nanosecond, before that mixed-up schoolgirl Melanie Beeby turned into Helix, the heavenly whirlwind, I briefly relived my fantasy: me and Orlando fighting bravely side by side. Well, now it was happening for real. And it wasn’t thrilling and it certainly wasn’t romantic. The world had narrowed down to a single urgent thought; saving Lucilla.

I have a theory about what happened. I think these particular PODS had been sponging off Ancient Roman humans for too long. They’d got the impressive spy network, plus they could bump off inconvenient humans if they had to, and they thought that was enough. They’d lost their edge, basically. It didn’t occur to these creeps that a ragtag bunch of unarmed celestial trainees might come charging out of the crowd and put a stop to their murderous plans.And as every warrior knows, surprise is the best weapon.

OK, so I might have squealed like a girl when my first Roman lookalike melted in front of my eyes, but then all those hours of training kicked in and I focused like I’ve never focused before.

Fighting PODS is unbelievably hideous. One minute I was kicking the sassafras out of something that looked like a human. Then -
euw
! I was grappling with a slimy monster from my darkest nightmares. Plus, whenever I glanced up, I’d see my fellow angels doing battle with their own horrors. Strangely enough, though, that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was getting up close and personal to beings that are basically pure evil energy.

This all-out cosmic combat lasted ten minutes max from start to finish. For the bona fide humans in the crowd, it must have been a horrifying spectacle. Most of them fled in terror including, it has to be said, the priests. But one by one the PODS were beaten back, their borrowed human forms dissolving harmlessly into the earth. The only sign they’d ever existed were these like, glistening trails of slime.

Reuben and I immediately started to untie Lucilla.

Orlando sounded so totally normal that you’d think we’d just completed a successful Dark Studies exercise back home. “Excellent work, team,” he told everyone. “Now let’s get out of here. We’ve won the battle, but that doesn’t mean we’ve won the war. Next time they’ll be ready for us.”

Lucilla was gazing at him in awe. “Did the goddess send you?” she asked.