The Dark Prophecy: Chapters 20–29

“He’s also vainglorious, puffed up, egotistical—”

“So Nero and the dude in the west,” Leo said, “they want Commodus to be a buffer between them. Monkey in the middle.”

She pointed to starboard.

Leo stared at the dark green water. He looked more pensive than usual, or perhaps it was just the fact that he wasn’t on fire anymore.

“Something to do with what Emmie was telling you?” I ventured.

That day would’ve been a total disaster, except that it ended with an impromptu jam session with Lead Belly.

Then, from the other side of the room, a voice shouted in Latin, “Incursion at the front gates!”

There will be chaos and spectacle, fire and wholesale slaughter, and lots and lots of pictures of Commodus everywhere.

That tune is wonderful for inducing short-term amnesia.

I watched, fascinated, as the small patch of green thickened and flourished, forcing new cracks in the slate.

Who knew chia could be so robust?

In the nearest cell on my left, huddled in a corner, two painfully emaciated teenage boys glared at me.

I studied Tall, Dark & Handsome. (I know that’s a cliché, but he really was all three.)

TD&H’s expression did not change: part anger, part disdain, part indifference—the same way Zeus looked every morning before his coffee-infused nectar.

Georgina remained docile until she saw Meg. Then, suddenly, she had a burst of strength worthy of me.

I sprinkled powder liberally around the doorway to neutralize the acid.

I couldn’t help smirking at my own ingenuity. I hoped Athena was watching, because WISDOM, BABY!

“Whatever the case,” I said, “we’ve tarried too long. Let’s get the chair out of here.”

High above, along the girders of the corrugated steel roof, bags of confetti burst, dumping a snowstorm of purple and gold that swirled around the championship banners.

Commodus waited for the roar of the crowd to subside.

Even by Commodus’s standards, the spectacle was crass and too much of everything, but I doubted I would live long enough to write a bad review.

Two of his brethren stumbled over him, creating a dangerous pile-up of feathers, legs, and razor wire.

Also, she’d just rendered useless my plan of hiding behind her.

A pack of wolf-headed warriors loped toward me—too many, at too close range for my bow.

I ripped off my bandolier of medical syringes and squirted ammonia in their lupine faces.

Something about her was so sad, so despondent, I felt drawn to her as a kindred spirit.

I pulled out my combat ukulele and strummed an elephant-friendly song: Primus’s “Southbound Pachyderm.”

Purple One vaulted onto the field at an impossibly steep angle, canted sideways, and flipped three times, bowling over a herd of ostriches and a couple of unlucky gladiators.

The wheels spun, sloughing off shavings of tread.

Well, I say exploded. More accurately, the roof crumpled inward, as roofs tend to do when a bronze dragon smashes into them. Girders bent. Rivets popped.

On one arm, she brandished a shield imprinted with the gruesome visage of Medusa—not the original, I suspected, since that would’ve turned me to stone, but a good enough replica to make even the Germani cower and back away.

But if he gets uppity en route, feel free to chuck him against the side of a skyscraper.

I crossed my arms in a petulant, Meg sort of way.

Commodus won’t wait long before he launches a reprisal.

At the bottom of the corridor, we found a perfect elephant stable with high ceilings, ample stacks of hay, slatted windows to let in the sunlight, a stream wending through the middle of the room, and a big-screen television turned to Hephaestus-TV’s Elephant Channel, showing The Real Elephants of the African Veld.

Calypso looked fully recovered from yesterday’s jaunt to the zoo.

Headless Agamethus floated among the newcomers, offering them his Magic 8 Ball, which I suppose was his idea of schmoozing.

Georgie’s head lolled toward me.

It was difficult to imagine Thalia at the edge of tears, but she seemed to be struggling to maintain her punk rock facade.

The big man swept a hand across the crowd: Hunters, ex-Hunters, an ex-god, an ex-Titaness, demigods, a snake woman, a couple of griffins, a decapitated ghost. And downstairs, we had an elephant named Livia. Rarely had I seen a more motley collection of defenders.