Free Wrath of Rome (Book Two of the Dominium Dei Trilogy) by Thomas Greanias Page B

could learn from this one, Virtus.”
    “Does the Dei want me dead or alive, Croesus?” Athanasius demanded. “Because right now I’m terribly confused.”
    “Yes, you are,” said Croesus and looked over John’s letter and made a face at Polycarp. “This Caesar code is unreadable without the key word. What is it?”
    “Poseidon,” Athanasius blurted out. “The key word is Poseidon. Ironic, yes? That is your code name in the Dei, is it not?”
    Croesus wasn’t amused.
    “Let me show you,” Athanasius said, and jumped forward to grab Croesus, spinning him round as a shield to face the point of the legionnaire’s sword that had been at his own back. He then pulled out his dagger and put it to Croesus’s throat. “Back away,” he told the legionnaires. “Back away or Poseidon is dead.”
    “You really are a fool in the end, aren’t you?” said Croesus, raising his own hand to his lips to kiss his ring.
    “No!” shouted Athanasius, trying to pry it out of Croesus’s mouth. “No poison to save you this time, old man.”
    “Kill me, idiots!” shouted Croesus.
    To Athanasius’s shock, the three legionnaires moved quickly across the rug to finish the job on Croesus themselves. Then Virtus, thinking quickly, pulled the rug out from under their feet, tripping them on their swords.
    Athanasius hurled his dagger into the first legionnaire’s face, striking him in the eye, and he went down. Virtus picked up the javelin that the legionnaire had dropped in his fall, plunged it into another’s back, then broke it off and used the sharp end to stab the last legionnaire in the gut under his breastplate.
    Polycarp, who proved cool under pressure, nevertheless looked bewildered as Athanasius tackled Croesus and struggled to keep the old man’s hand out of his mouth, but he was too late. Already the eyes were dimming.
    “You’re going to talk, Croesus,” Athanasius growled. “You know you can’t escape. No poison to save you. What does the Dei want?”
    “Everything.”
    “By putting Rome at war with the Church?”
    The old man looked at Athanasius, genuinely shocked. “You really don’t know, do you?” He began to laugh heinously, then coughed up blood.
    Polycarp said, “He has a devil inside!”
    “We are legion, Bishop,” Croesus hissed. “We will take over the world!”
    He then began to choke, and his head fell to the side.
    Polycarp was stunned. “You murdered him!”
    “He killed himself, Bishop,” Athanasius said and held up Croesus’s dead hand with the ring. “Smell it, it’s poison.”
    Polycarp sniffed and turned away, gagging.
    Then Virtus turned the body over and ripped away the tunic to reveal the tattoo of the Dei to his bishop, who could only stare at the black
Chi
symbol.
    “I don’t understand. He was a pillar of the church.”
    “Yes,” Athanasius said dryly, “and pillars hold things up.”
    Athanasius helped Virtus drag the body of Croesus to a corner and began to strip Poseidon of his effects, starting with his ring. It had the
Chi-Ro
emblem, but no Greek letters nor any jewels, which indicated a mid-level officer in the Dei, but clearly much higher than the lowly
Chi
ranks.
    Polycarp, who looked to be in shock, stared at the corpse of his church’s key financial backer and fell to his knees in prayer, begging the Lord Jesus for forgiveness in associating with this man and his money, and vowing to renounce any hint of materialism the rest of his life as a minister of The Way.
    “What are you going to do, Athanasius?” Polycarp asked weakly.
    “I’m going to follow the wine to this Lord’s Vineyard in Cappadocia,” Athanasius announced, handing Croesus’s ring to Virtus. “And Virtus here is going to follow Croesus’s shipment to Rome.”
    “It won’t work,” Virtus said as he took the ring. “As soon as Croesus fails to disembark in Ostia, the Dei will know he’s dead.”
    “Which gives us three weeks from the time you land in Rome and he doesn’t,”