The Whispers of the Counted

Rome, 23 BC.  The Pax Romana, a golden age of peace and prosperity under Augustus Caesar, hides a chilling secret. A census, a seemingly mundane bureaucratic exercise, unleashes a terrifying curse upon the city. Titus Flavius Sabinus, a meticulous census taker whose world revolves around the comforting predictability of numbers, finds his ordered existence shattered.  Those he counts, perish. Not by violence or disease, but by a swift, silent withering, as if life itself is being tallied and then stolen away.
Whispers of a dark magic tied to the census snake through Rome’s bustling streets and shadowed alleys. Titus, a man of logic, initially dismisses these rumors. But the mounting deaths, each one following his visit like a malevolent shadow, force him to confront the unthinkable: the curse is real.
Driven by a gnawing unease, Titus embarks on a clandestine investigation, his sharp intellect now a weapon against an unseen enemy.  He finds an unlikely ally in Julia Procula, a Vestal Virgin whose serene exterior masks a deep well of arcane knowledge and a troubled past. Julia reveals the chilling truth: the curse is an ancient pact, reawakened by the insatiable greed of Senator Marcus Licinius Crassus.
Crassus’s complex tax fraud, woven into the very fabric of the census, isn't just enriching him; it's feeding the curse. With every name Titus records, the curse strengthens its grip on Rome, paving the way for Crassus’s ultimate ambition: to seize the throne amidst the ensuing chaos.
Together, Titus and Julia navigate the treacherous labyrinth of Roman politics and the encroaching darkness of the supernatural.  They uncover Crassus’s web of conspirators: Aemilia Lepida, a cunning courtesan whose whispers sway the senate; Gaius Cassius Longinus, a praetor consumed by bitterness; and Publius Vedius Pollio, whose opulent feasts mask his decadent cruelty.
As the curse intensifies, whispers turn to screams, and shadows take monstrous form. The mundane and the supernatural collide in a terrifying crescendo.  Titus’s meticulous nature becomes the key to unraveling the curse’s mechanics, while Julia’s knowledge of ancient rituals and forgotten lore becomes their shield.
Their pursuit culminates in a heart-pounding confrontation beneath the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the very heart of Roman power. Here, amidst flickering torchlight and the chanting of his followers, Crassus prepares to unleash the full force of the curse.  Titus and Julia must confront not only Crassus and his co-conspirators but also the terrifying entities he has summoned, creatures of myth made flesh, fueled by the stolen lives of Rome's citizens.
The fate of Rome, and perhaps the world, hangs in the balance.  In this desperate hour, Titus and Julia must find a way to break the curse, to sever the pact that binds Rome to its forgotten deities, before the whispers of the counted become a deafening roar, plunging the world into an unending night.