The Tower of Nero Read online

  “I’ve got some ambrosia left.” I turned and groped for my med pack. “You need to eat—”

  The door at the end of the corridor slammed open. Gunther appeared outside our cell, holding a silver tray laden with sandwiches and assorted canned sodas.

  He grinned, showing off all three of his teeth. “Lunch.”

  The cell’s middle bars dropped with the speed of a guillotine. Gunther slid the tray through, and the bars snapped shut again before I could even think of making a move for our captor.

  I needed food badly, but just looking at the sandwiches made my stomach roil. Someone had trimmed the crusts off the bread. They were cut into squares rather than triangles. This is how you can tell when your lunch has been prepared by barbarians.

  “Get your strength back!” Gunther said cheerfully. “Don’t die before the party!”

  “Party?” I asked, feeling the tiniest spark of hope.

  Not because parties were fun, or because I liked cake (both were true), but because if Nero had postponed his big celebration, then perhaps he hadn’t yet pressed his doomsday button.

  “Oh, yes!” Gunther said. “Tonight! Torture for you both. And then we burn down the city!”

  With that happy thought, Gunther strolled back down the hall, chuckling to himself, leaving us with our tray of barbarian sandwiches.

  GODS AREN’T GREAT WITH DEADLINES.

  The concept of having a limited time to do something just doesn’t make much sense to an immortal. Since turning into Lester Papadopoulos, I’d gotten used to the idea: Go here by this date or the world ends. Get this item by next week or everyone you know will die.

  Still, I was shocked to realize that Nero was planning to burn down New York that very evening—with cake, festivities, and a good deal of torture—and there was nothing I could do about it.

  I stared through the bars after Gunther left. I waited for him to skip back into view and yell, Just kidding!, but the hallway remained empty. I could see very little of it except for blank white walls and a single security camera mounted on the ceiling, staring at me with its glossy black eye.

  I turned to Lu. “I have determined that our situation sucks.”

  “Thanks.” She crossed her stumps over her chest like a pharaoh. “I needed that perspective.”

  “There’s a security camera out there.”

  “Sure.”

  “Then how were you planning on breaking us out? You would’ve been seen.”

  Lu grunted. “That’s only one camera. Easy to evade. The residential areas? They’re completely covered with surveillance from every angle, miked for sound, with motion detectors on all the entrances—”

  “I get the idea.”

  It infuriated me, but did not surprise me, that Nero’s family would be under heavier surveillance than his prisoners. After all, this was a man who’d killed his own mother. Now he was raising his own brood of junior despots. I had to get to Meg.

  I shook the bars, just to say I’d tried. They didn’t budge. I needed a burst of godly strength to Apollo-smash my way out, but I couldn’t rely on my powers to pay heed to what I wanted.

  Trudging back to my sofa, I glared at the offensive sandwiches and sodas.

  I tried to imagine what Meg was going through right now.

  I pictured her in an opulent room much like this one—minus the bars, perhaps, but a cell nonetheless. Her every move would be recorded, her every conversation overheard. No wonder, back in the old days, she preferred to roam the alleys of Hell’s Kitchen, accosting thugs with bags of rotten vegetables and adopting former gods to be her servants. She wouldn’t have that outlet now. She wouldn’t have me or Luguselwa by her side. She would be utterly surrounded and utterly alone.

  I had a sense of how Nero’s mind games worked. As a god of healing, I knew something about psychology and mental health, though I’ll admit I did not always apply best practices to myself.

  Having unleashed the Beast, Nero would now feign kindness. He would try to convince Meg that she was home. If she just let him “help” her, she would be forgiven. Nero was his own good cop/bad cop—the consummate manipulator.

  The thought of him trying to comfort a young girl he had just traumatized made me sick to my core.

  Meg had gotten away from Nero once before. Defying his will must have taken more strength and courage than most gods I knew would ever possess. But now…thrust back into her old abusive environment, which Nero had passed off as normal for most of her childhood, she would need to be even stronger not to crumble. It would be so easy for her to forget how far she’d gone.

  Remember what’s important. Jason’s voice echoed in my head, but Nero’s words were knocking around in there, too. We can’t change thousands of years of our nature so quickly, can we?

  I knew my anxiety about my own weakness was getting mixed up with my anxiety about Meg. Even if I somehow made my way back to Mount Olympus, I didn’t trust myself to hold on to the important things I’d learned as a mortal. That made me doubt Meg’s ability to stay strong in her old toxic home.

  The similarities between Nero’s household and my family on Mount Olympus made me increasingly uneasy. The idea that we gods were just as manipulative, just as abusive as the worst Roman emperor…Surely that couldn’t be true.

  Oh, wait. Yes, it could. Ugh. I hated clarity. I preferred a softer Instagram filter on my life—Amaro, maybe, or Perpetua.

  “We will get out of here.” Lu’s voice shook me from my miserable thoughts. “Then we’ll help Meg.”

  Given her condition, this was a bold statement. I realized she was trying to lift my spirits. It felt unfair that she had to…and even more unfair that I needed it so much.

  The only response I could think of was “Do you want a sandwich?”

  She glanced down at the platter. “Yeah. Cucumber and cream cheese, if there is one. The chef does a good cucumber and cream cheese.”

  I found the appropriate flavor. I wondered if, back in ancient times, roving bands of Celtic warriors had ridden into battle with their packs full of cucumber-and-cream-cheese sandwiches. Perhaps that had been the secret to their success.

  I fed her a few bites, but she became impatient. “Just set it on my chest. I’ll figure it out. I have to start sometime.”

  She used her stumps to maneuver the food toward her mouth. How she could do this without passing out from pain, I didn’t know, but I respected her wishes. My son Asclepius, god of medicine, used to chide me about helping those with disabilities. You can help them if they ask. But wait for them to ask. It’s their choice to make, not yours.

  For a god, this was a hard thing to understand, much like deadlines, but I left Lu to her meal. I picked out a couple sandwiches for myself: ham and cheese, egg salad. It had been a long time since I’d eaten. I had no appetite, but I would need energy if we were going to get out of here.

  Energy…and information.

  I looked at Lu. “You mentioned microphones.”

  Her sandwich slipped from between her stumps and landed in her lap. With the slightest of frowns, she began the slow process of corralling it again. “Surveillance mikes, you mean. What about them?”

  “Are there any in this cell?”

  Lu looked confused. “You want to know if the guards are listening to us? I don’t think so. Unless they’ve installed mikes in the last twenty-four hours. Nero doesn’t care what prisoners chat about. He doesn’t like it when people whine and complain. He’s the only one allowed to do that.”

  That made perfect Nero-ish sense.

  I wanted to discuss plans with Lu—if for no other reason than to raise her spirits, to let her know that my terrific troglodyte tunneling team might be on their way to scuttle Nero’s Greek-fire Sewer Super Soakers, which would mean that Lu’s sacrifice had not been completely in vain. Still, I would have to be careful what I said. I didn’t want to assume we had privacy. We’d underestimated Nero too many times already.

  “The emperor didn’t seem to
know about…the other thing,” I said.

  Lu’s sandwich toppled into her lap again. “You mean the other thing is happening? You were able to arrange it?”

  I could only hope we were talking about the same other thing. Lu had instructed us to arrange an underground sabotage of some sort, but for obvious reasons, I hadn’t had a chance to tell her specifics about Nico, Will, Rachel, and the troglodytes. (Which, by the way, would make the worst band name of all time.)

  “I hope so,” I said. “Assuming everything went according to plan.” I did not add And the troglodytes didn’t eat my friends because we brought evil red cattle into their encampment. “But let’s be honest, so far things have not gone according to plan.”

  Lu picked up her sandwich again—this time with more dexterity. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got Nero exactly where I want him.”

  I had to smile. My gods, this Gaul…I had gone from disliking and distrusting her to being ready to take a bullet for her. I wanted her at my side, hands or no, as we took down the emperor and saved Meg. And we would do it, if I could muster even a little bit of Lu’s toughness.

  “Nero should fear you,” I agreed. “Let’s assume the other thing is happening. Let’s also assume we can get out of here and take care of the…um, other other thing.”

  Lu rolled her eyes. “You mean the emperor’s fasces.”

  I winced. “Yes, fine. That. It would be helpful if I had more information about its protector. Jason called it a guardian of the stars, a creature of Mithras, but—”

  “Wait. Who is Jason?”

  I didn’t want to revisit that painful subject, but I gave her the basics, then explained what I had discussed with the son of Jupiter in my dream.

  Lu tried to sit up. Her face turned the color of putty, making her tattoos darken to purple.

  “Oof.” She reclined again. “Mithras, eh? Haven’t heard that name in a while. Lots of Roman officers worshipped him, back in the day, but I never took to those Persian gods. You had to join his cult to find out all the secret handshakes and whatnot. Elite, members-only society, blah, blah. The emperor was an automatic member, of course, which makes sense.…”

  “Because?”

  She chewed her cucumber sandwich. “Explains how Nero would have found this guardian. I—I don’t know what it is. I saw it only once, when Nero…installed it, I guess you’d say. Years ago.” She shuddered. “Never want to see it again. That lion’s face, those eyes…like it could see everything about me, like it was challenging me to…” She shook her head. “You’re right. We need more information if we’re going to beat it. And we need to know how Meg is doing.”

  Why was she looking at me so expectantly?

  “That would be great,” I agreed. “But since we’re stuck in a cell—”

  “You just told me you had a dream vision. Do you have those often?”

  “Well, yes. But I don’t control them. At least, not well.”

  Lu snorted. “Typical Roman.”

  “Greek.”

  “Whatever. Dreams are a vehicle, like a chariot. You have to drive them. You can’t let them drive you.”

  “You want me to, what…go back to sleep? Gather more information in my dreams?”

  Her eyelids started to droop. Perhaps the word sleep had reminded her body that this was a great idea. In her condition, just being awake a few hours and eating a sandwich would have been equivalent to running a marathon.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Lu agreed. “If it’s lunchtime now, that gives us what—seven, eight hours before sunset? Nero will have his party at sunset, I’m sure. Best time of day to watch a city burn. Wake me up when you know more.”

  “But what if I can’t get to sleep? And if I do, who’s going to wake me up?”

  Lu started to snore.

  A tiny piece of cucumber was stuck to her chin, but I decided to leave it there. She might want it later.

  I sat back on my sofa and stared at the chandelier twinkling cheerfully above.

  A party tonight for the burning of Manhattan. Nero would torture us. Then, I imagined, he would sacrifice me in one way or another to appease Python and seal their alliance.

  I had to think fast and move faster.

  I needed my powers—strength to bend bars or break through walls, fire to melt Gunther’s face the next time he brought us crustless sandwiches.

  I did not need a nap.

  And yet…Lu wasn’t wrong. Dreams could be vehicles.

  As the god of prophecy, I’d often sent visions to those who needed them—warnings, glimpses of the future, suggestions for what sort of temple incense I liked best. I’d driven dreams right into people’s heads. But since I’d been mortal, I’d lost that confidence. I had let my dreams drive me, rather than taking the reins like when I drove the sun chariot. My team of fiery horses could always feel when their driver was weak or uncertain. (Poor Phaethon had found that out the hard way.) Dreams were no less ornery.

  I needed to see what was happening with Meg. I needed to see this guardian that watched the emperor’s fasces, so I could figure out how to destroy it. I needed to know whether Nico, Will, and Rachel were safe.

  If I took the reins of my dreams and yelled, Giddyap!, what would happen? At the very least, I would have unsettling nightmares. At worst, I might drive my mind over the Cliffs of Insanity and never wake up.

  But my friends were counting on me.

  So I did the heroic thing. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

  DRIVING THE DREAM CHARIOT DID NOT go well. If the dream police had been on patrol, they would have pulled me over and given me a ticket.

  Immediately, a psychic crosswind caught my consciousness. I tumbled through the floor, falling past stairwells and offices and broom closets, swirling into the bowels of the tower like I’d been flushed down the cosmic toilet. (Which is a disgusting plumbing fixture, by the way. No one ever cleans it.)

  GO UP, GO UP! I willed my dream, but I couldn’t seem to find the reins.

  I plummeted straight through a vat of Greek fire. That was different. I hit the tunnels below Manhattan, glancing around desperately for any sign of my friends and the troglodytes, but I was traveling too fast, spinning like a pinwheel. I broke through into the Labyrinth and hurtled sideways, swept along by a current of superheated ether.

  I can do this, I told myself. It’s just like driving a chariot. Except with no horses. Or chariot. Or body.

  I ordered my dream to take me to Meg—the person I most wanted to see. I imagined my hands reaching out, grasping reins. Just when I thought I had them, my dreamscape stabilized. I found myself back in the caverns of Delphi, volcanic gasses layering the air, the dark shape of Python moving heavily in the shadows.

  “So, I have you again,” he gloated. “You shall perish—”

  “I don’t have time for you right now.” My voice surprised me almost as much as it did the reptile.

  “What?”

  “Gotta go.” I lashed the reins of my dream.

  “How dare you! You cannot—”

  I rocketed into reverse like I was tied to a rubber band.

  Why backward? I hated sitting backward in a moving vehicle, but I suppose the dream was still trying to show me who was boss. I did a roller-coaster rewind through the Labyrinth, the mortal tunnels, the stairwells of the tower. Finally, I lurched to a stop. My stomach clenched, and I retched up…well, whatever ethereal spirit-stuff one can retch in the dream world.

  My head and stomach orbited each other like wobbly lava planets. I found myself on my knees in an extravagant bedroom. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Midtown all the way to the Hudson River. The cityscape was still mercifully un-torched.

  Meg McCaffrey was busy trashing the bedroom. Even without her blades, she was doing an A+ demolition job with a broken chair leg, which she swung wildly into just about everything. Meanwhile, a Germanus stood blocking the only exit, his arms folded, his expression unimpressed. A woman in an old-fashioned black-and-white mai
d’s uniform wrung her hands and winced every time something went CRASH. She held a stack of what looked like party dresses draped over one arm.

  “Miss,” said the maid, “if you could just choose an outfit for tonight. Perhaps if you didn’t…Oh. Oh, that was an antique. No, that’s fine. I’ll get another— OH! Very well, Miss, if you don’t like those bed linens I can— There’s no need to shred them, Miss!”

  Meg’s tantrum raised my spirits considerably. That’s it, my friend! I thought. Give them Tartarus! Meg threw her broken chair leg into a lamp, then picked up another whole chair and raised it over her head, ready to hurl it at the window.

  A faint knock on the bedroom door made her freeze. The Germanus stepped aside, opened the door, and bowed as Nero swept into the room.

  “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry.” The emperor’s voice oozed sympathy. “Come. Sit with me.”

  He moved smoothly to the bed and sat at the edge, patting the ripped comforter next to him.

  I silently rooted for Meg to brain him with the chair. He was right there, in easy reach. But I realized that was Nero’s intention…to make himself seem to be at Meg’s mercy. To make her responsible for choosing violence. And if she did, he would be free to punish her.

  She put down the chair, but she didn’t go to Nero. She turned her back and crossed her arms. Her lips trembled. I wanted so badly to go to her, to shield her. I wanted to drive my dream chariot into Nero’s face, but I could only watch.

  “I know you feel terrible,” Nero said, “after what you did to your friend.”

  She wheeled around. “After what I DID?!”

  She picked up the chair again and threw it across the room—but not at Nero. It whanged off the window, leaving a smudge but no cracks. I caught the flicker of a smile on Nero’s face—a smile of satisfaction—before his expression fixed back into a mask of sympathy. “Yes, dear. This anger comes from guilt. You led Apollo here. You understood what that meant, what would happen. But you did it anyway. That must be so painful…knowing you brought him to his end.”