The Tyrant's Tomb Read online

  Everyone watched as I fumbled my way through the crowd, trying not to trip on my toga.

  “Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me.”

  By the time I made it to the rostrum, the audience was whipped into a frenzy of boredom and impatience. No doubt they would’ve all been checking their phones—except demigods couldn’t use smartphones without risking monster attack, so they had no alternative but to stare at me. I had wowed them two days ago with a fantastic musical tribute to Jason Grace, but what had I done for them lately? Only the Lares looked content to wait. They could endure sitting on hard benches forever.

  From the back row, Meg waved at me. Her expression was less like, Hi, you’ll do great, and more like, Get on with it. I turned my gaze to Tyson, who was grinning at me from the front row. When you find yourself focusing on the Cyclops in the crowd for moral support, you know you’re going to bomb.

  “So…hi.”

  Great start. I hoped another burst of inspiration might lead to a follow-up song. Nothing happened. I’d left my ukulele in my room, sure that if I’d tried to bring it into the city, Terminus would have confiscated it as a weapon.

  “I have some bad news,” I said. “And some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

  The crowd exchanged apprehensive looks.

  Lavinia yelled, “Start with the bad news. That’s always best.”

  “Hey,” Frank chastised her. “Like, decorum, you know?”

  Having restored solemnity to the senate meeting, Frank gestured for me to proceed.

  “The emperors Commodus and Caligula have combined forces,” I said. I described what I’d seen in my dream. “They’re sailing toward us right now with a fleet of fifty yachts, all equipped with some kind of terrible new weapon. They’ll be here by the blood moon. Which as I understand it, is in three days, April eighth, which also happens to be Lester Papadopoulos’s birthday.”

  “Happy birthday!” Tyson said.

  “Thanks. Also, I’m not sure what a blood moon is.”

  A hand shot up in the second row.

  “Go ahead, Ida,” Reyna said, then added for my benefit, “Centurion of the Second Cohort, legacy of Luna.”

  “Seriously?” I didn’t mean to sound incredulous, but Luna, a Titan, had been in charge of the moon before my sister Artemis took over the job. As far as I knew, Luna had faded away millennia ago. Then again, I’d thought there was nothing left of Helios the sun Titan until I found out that Medea was collecting shreds of his consciousness to heat the Burning Maze. Those Titans were like my acne. They just kept popping up.

  The centurion stood, scowling. “Yes, seriously. A blood moon is a full moon that looks red because there’s a full lunar eclipse. It’s a bad time to fight the undead. They’re especially powerful on those nights.”

  “Actually…” Ella stood, picking at her finger talons. “Actually, the color is caused by the dispersal of reflected light from the sunrise and sunset of earth. A true blood moon refers to four lunar eclipses in a row. The next one is on April eighth, yep. Farmer’s Almanac. Moon Phase Calendar supplemental.”

  She plopped down again, leaving the audience in stunned silence. Nothing is quite so disconcerting as having science explained to you by a supernatural creature.

  “Thank you, Ida and Ella,” Reyna said. “Lester, did you have more to add?”

  Her tone suggested that it would be totally okay if I didn’t, since I’d already shared enough information to cause a camp-wide panic.

  “I’m afraid so,” I said. “The emperors have allied themselves with Tarquin the Proud.”

  The Lares in the room guttered and flickered.

  “Impossible!” cried one.

  “Horrible!” cried another.

  “We’ll all die!” screamed a third, apparently forgetting that he was already dead.

  “Guys, chill,” Frank said. “Let Apollo talk.”

  His leadership style was less formal than Reyna’s, but he seemed to command just as much respect. The audience settled, waiting for me to continue.

  “Tarquin is now some sort of undead creature,” I said. “His tomb is nearby. He was responsible for the attack you repulsed on the new moon—”

  “Which is also a really cruddy time to fight the undead,” Ida volunteered.

  “And he’ll attack again on the blood moon, in concert with the emperors’ assault.”

  I did my best to explain what I’d seen in my dreams, and what Frank and I had discussed with Ella. I did not mention the reference to Frank’s unholy piece of firewood—partly because I didn’t understand it, partly because Frank was giving me the pleading teddy-bear eyes.

  “Since Tarquin was the one who originally purchased the Sibylline Books,” I summed up, “it makes a twisted kind of sense that he would reappear now, when Camp Jupiter is trying to reconstruct those prophecies. Tarquin would be…invoked by what Ella is doing.”

  “Enraged,” Ella suggested. “Infuriated. Homicidal.”

  Looking at the harpy, I thought of the Cumaean Sibyl, and the terrible curse I’d laid upon her. I wondered how Ella might suffer, just because we’d coerced her into entering the prophecy business. Lupa had warned me: You will face more sacrifices. Death. Blood.

  I forced that idea aside. “Anyway, Tarquin was monstrous enough when he was alive. The Romans despised him so much they did away with the monarchy forever. Even centuries later, the emperors never dared to call themselves kings. Tarquin died in exile. His tomb was never located.”

  “And now it’s here,” Reyna said.

  It wasn’t a question. She accepted that an ancient Roman tomb could pop up in Northern California, where it had no business being. The gods moved. The demigod camps moved. It was just our luck that an evil undead lair would move in next door. We really needed stricter mythological zoning laws.

  In the first row, next to Hazel, a senator rose to speak. He had dark curly hair, off-center blue eyes, and a cherry-red mustache stain on his upper lip. “So, to sum up: in three days, we’re facing an invasion from two evil emperors, their armies, and fifty ships with weapons we don’t understand, along with another wave of undead like the one that nearly destroyed us last time, when we were a lot stronger. If that’s the bad news, what’s the bad news?”

  “I assume we’re getting to that, Dakota.” Reyna turned to me. “Right, Lester?”

  “The other bad news,” I said, “is that I have a plan, but it’s going to be hard, maybe impossible, and parts of the plan aren’t exactly…plan-worthy, yet.”

  Dakota rubbed his hands. “Well, I’m excited. Let’s hear it!”

  He sat back down, pulled a flask from his toga, and took a swig. I guessed that he was a child of Bacchus, and, judging from the smell that wafted across the senate floor, his chosen beverage was fruit punch Kool-Aid.

  I took a deep breath. “So. The Sibylline Books are basically like emergency recipes, right? Sacrifices. Ritual prayers. Some are designed to appease angry gods. Some are designed to call for divine aid against your enemies. I believe…I’m pretty sure…if we’re able to find the correct recipe for our predicament, and do what it says, I may be able to summon help from Mount Olympus.”

  No one laughed or called me crazy. Gods didn’t intervene in demigod affairs often, but it did happen on rare occasions. The idea wasn’t completely unbelievable. On the other hand, no one looked terribly assured that I could pull it off.

  A different senator raised his hand. “Uh, Senator Larry here, Third Cohort, son of Mercury. So, when you say help, do you mean like…battalions of gods charging down here in their chariots, or more like the gods just giving us their blessing, like, Hey, good luck with that, legion!?”

  My old defensiveness kicked in. I wanted to argue that we gods would never leave our desperate followers hanging like that. But, of course, we did. All the time.

  “That’s a good question, Senator Larry,” I admitted. “It would probably be somewhere between those extremes. But I’m confident it would be real h
elp, capable of turning the tide. It may be the only way to save New Rome. And I have to believe Zeus—I mean Jupiter—set my supposed birthday as April eighth for a reason. It’s meant to be a turning point, the day I finally…”

  My voice cracked. I didn’t share the other side of that thought: that April 8 might either be the day I began to prove myself worthy of rejoining the gods, or my last birthday ever, the day I went up in flames once and for all.

  More murmuring from the crowd. Lots of grave expressions. But I detected no panic. Even the Lares didn’t scream, We’re all going to die! The assembled demigods were Romans, after all. They were used to facing dire predicaments, long odds, and strong enemies.

  “Okay.” Hazel Levesque spoke for the first time. “So how do we find this correct recipe? Where do we start?”

  I appreciated her confident tone. She might have been asking if she could help with something completely doable—like carrying groceries, or impaling ghouls with quartz spikes.

  “The first step,” I said, “is to find and explore Tarquin’s tomb—”

  “And kill him!” yelled one of the Lares.

  “No, Marcus Apulius!” scolded one of his peers. “Tarquin is as dead as we are!”

  “Well, what, then?” grumbled Marcus Apulius. “Ask him nicely to leave us alone? This is Tarquin the Proud we’re talking about! He’s a maniac!”

  “The first step,” I said, “is only to explore the tomb and, ah, find out the right things, as Ella said.”

  “Yep,” the harpy agreed. “Ella said that.”

  “I have to assume,” I continued, “that if we succeed in this, and come out alive, we will know more about how to proceed. Right now, all I can say with certainty is that the next step will involve finding a soundless god, whatever that means.”

  Frank sat forward in his praetor’s chair. “But don’t you know all the gods, Apollo? I mean, you are one. Or were one. Is there a god of silence?”

  I sighed. “Frank, I can barely keep my own family of gods straight. There are hundreds of minor gods. I don’t remember any silent gods. Of course, if there is one, I doubt we would’ve hung out, me being the god of music.”

  Frank looked crestfallen, which made me feel bad. I hadn’t meant to take out my frustrations on one of the few people who still called me Apollo unironically.

  “Let’s tackle one thing at a time,” Reyna suggested. “First, the tomb of Tarquin. We have a lead on its location, right, Ella?”

  “Yep, yep.” The harpy closed her eyes and recited, “A wildcat near the spinning lights. The tomb of Tarquin with horses bright. To open his door, two-fifty-four.”

  “That is a prophecy!” Tyson said. “I have it on my back!” The Cyclops stood and ripped off his shirt so fast he must have been waiting for any excuse. “See?”

  The spectators all leaned forward, though it would’ve been impossible to read the tattoos from any distance.

  “I also have a fish pony by my kidney,” he announced proudly. “Isn’t it cute?”

  Hazel averted her eyes as if she might pass out from embarrassment. “Tyson, could you…? I’m sure it’s a lovely fish pony, but…shirt back on, please? I don’t suppose anyone knows what those lines mean?”

  The Romans observed a moment of silence for the death of clarity that all prophecies symbolized.

  Lavinia snorted. “Seriously? Nobody gets it?”

  “Lavinia,” Reyna said, her voice strained, “are you suggesting you—”

  “Know where the tomb is?” Lavinia spread her hands. “Well, I mean, A wildcat near the spinning lights. The tomb of Tarquin with horses bright. There’s a Wildcat Drive in Tilden Park, right over the hills.” She pointed north. “And horses bright, spinning lights? That would be the Tilden Park carousel, wouldn’t it?”

  “Ohhhh.” Several Lares nodded in recognition, as if they spent all their free time riding the local merry-go-rounds.

  Frank shifted in his chair. “You think the tomb of an evil Roman king is under a carousel?”

  “Hey, I didn’t write the prophecy,” Lavinia said. “Besides, it makes as much sense as anything else we’ve faced.”

  Nobody disputed that. Demigods eat weirdness for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  “All right, then,” Reyna said. “We have a goal. We need a quest. A short quest, since time is very limited. We must designate a team of heroes and have them approved by the senate.”

  “Us.” Meg stood. “Gotta be Lester and me.”

  I gulped. “She’s right,” I said, which counted as my heroic act for the day. “This is part of my greater quest to regain my place among the gods. I’ve brought this trouble to your doorstep. I need to make it right. Please, don’t anyone try to talk me out of it.”

  I waited desperately, in vain, for someone to try to talk me out of it.

  Hazel Levesque rose. “I’ll go, too. A centurion is required to lead a quest. If this place is underground, well, that’s kind of my specialty.”

  Her tone also said I have a score to settle.

  Which was fine, except I remembered how Hazel had collapsed that tunnel we’d taken into camp. I had a sudden terrifying vision of being crushed under a merry-go-round.

  “That’s three questers, then,” Reyna said. “The correct number for a quest. Now—”

  “Two and a half,” Meg interrupted.

  Reyna frowned. “Sorry?”

  “Lester’s my servant. We’re kind of a team. He shouldn’t count as a full quester.”

  “Oh, come on!” I protested.

  “So we can take one more,” Meg offered.

  Frank sat up. “I’d be happy to—”

  “If you didn’t have praetor duties to attend to,” Reyna finished, giving him a look like, You are not leaving me alone, dude. “While the questers are out, the rest of us have to prepare the valley’s defenses. There’s a lot to do.”

  “Right.” Frank slumped. “So, is there anyone else—?”

  POP!

  The sound was so loud, half the Lares disintegrated in alarm. Several senators ducked under their seats.

  In the back row, Lavinia had a flattened pink gum bubble smeared across her face. She quickly peeled it away and stuck it back in her mouth.

  “Lavinia,” Reyna said. “Perfect. Thanks for volunteering.”

  “I—But—”

  “I call for a senate vote!” Reyna said. “Do we send Hazel, Lester, Meg, and Lavinia on a quest to find the tomb of Tarquin?”

  The measure passed unanimously.

  We were given full senate approval to find a tomb under a carousel and confront the worst king in Roman history, who also happened to be an undead zombie lord.

  My day just kept getting better.

  Romance disaster

  I’m poison for guys and gals

  You wanna hang out?

  “LIKE CHEWING GUM IS a crime.” Lavinia tossed a piece of her sandwich off the roof, where it was immediately snatched up by a seagull.

  For our picnic lunch, she had brought me, Hazel, and Meg to her favorite thinking place: the rooftop of New Rome University’s bell tower, which Lavinia had discovered access to on her own. People were not exactly encouraged to be up here, but it was not strictly forbidden, either, which seemed to be the space Lavinia most liked inhabiting.

  She explained that she enjoyed sitting here because it was directly above the Garden of Faunus, Reyna’s favorite thinking spot. Reyna was not in the garden at present, but whenever she was, Lavinia could look down at the praetor, a hundred feet below, and gloat Ha-ha, my thinking spot is higher than your thinking spot.

  Now, as I sat on the precariously slanted red clay tiles, a half-eaten focaccia in my lap, I could see the entire city and valley spread out below us—everything we stood to lose in the coming invasion. Beyond stretched the flatlands of Oakland, and the San Francisco Bay, which in just a few days would be dotted with Caligula’s luxury battle yachts.

  “Honestly.” Lavinia threw another piece of her grill
ed cheese to the seagulls. “If the legionnaires went for a stupid hike once in a while, they’d know about Wildcat Drive.”

  I nodded, though I suspected that most legionnaires, who spent a good deal of their time marching in heavy armor, probably wouldn’t consider hiking much fun. Lavinia, however, seemed to know every back road, trail, and secret tunnel within twenty miles of Camp Jupiter—I suppose because you never knew when you’d need to sneak out for a date with some pretty Hemlock or Deadly Nightshade.

  On my other side, Hazel ignored her veggie wrap and grumbled to herself, “Can’t believe Frank…Trying to volunteer…Bad enough after his crazy stunts in the battle…”

  Nearby, having already plowed through her lunch, Meg aided her digestion by doing cartwheels. Every time she landed, catching her balance on the loose tiles, my heart free-climbed a little farther up my throat.

  “Meg, could you please not do that?” I asked.

  “It’s fun.” She fixed her eyes on the horizon and announced, “I want a unicorn.” Then she cartwheeled again.

  Lavinia muttered to no one in particular, “You popped a bubble—you’ll be perfect for this quest!”

  “Why do I have to like a guy with a death wish?” Hazel mused.

  “Meg,” I pleaded, “you’re going to fall.”

  “Even a small unicorn,” Meg said. “Not fair they have so many here and I don’t have any.”

  We continued this four-part disharmony until a giant eagle swooped out of the sky, snatched the rest of the grilled cheese from Lavinia’s hand, and soared away, leaving behind a flock of irritated seagulls.

  “Typical.” Lavinia wiped her fingers on her pants. “Can’t even have a sandwich.”

  I shoved the rest of the focaccia in my mouth, just in case the eagle came back for seconds.

  “Well,” Hazel sighed, “at least we got the afternoon off to make plans.” She gave half of her veggie wrap to Lavinia.

  Lavinia blinked, apparently unsure how to respond to the kind gesture. “I—uh, thanks. But I mean, what is there to plan? We go to the carousel, find the tomb, try not to die.”