The Tyrant's Tomb: Chapters 13–22

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.

I was smitten. I convinced myself it was love—the one true romance that would wash away all my past missteps.

She looked at me askance. “Apollo, please. You’d be tired of me by the end of the week.”

“Nothing good ever happens to your lovers! I just wanted to be your Sibyl, and now you’ve made things weird!”
My smile crumbled. I felt my ardor cooling, turning stormy.

Venus was a wily goddess. She played games within games.

Reluctant arrow
Grant me this boon: permission
To skedaddleth

Since no war games were scheduled that evening, I could frolic through the wasteland to my heart’s content, admiring the wreckage of chariots, broken battlements, smoldering pits, and trenches filled with sharpened spikes.

Its voice resonated in my mind like a thespian tuning fork: THY WORDS ARE TRUE.

Its tone sounded less derisive than usual.

I had enough to worry about without playing matchmaker to pachyderms.

“All right,” she announced, her expression dour. “Let’s go find this tomb before I change my mind.”

So far we had not been accosted by ghouls or panhandling fauns.

The goddess of the River Styx had excoriated me for my broken oaths. She’d warned that everyone around me would pay for my crimes.

The tunnel opened into a circular room like a large cistern, the floor nothing but a narrow stone path across a deep dark pool.

Against the far wall, between two massive stone pillars, sat a sarcophagus chiseled with bas relief images of monsters and wild animals, much like the creatures on the Tilden Park carousel.

His robes had not been laundered in several thousand years. They hung off him in moldering shreds.

It is imperative we take the city first. When the emperors arrive, I want to be already in control!

Hazel jabbed her thumb toward the exit, the universal sign for LET’S VAMOOSE!

Hazel muttered a curse no proper lady from the 1930s should’ve known, drew her cavalry sword, and jumped into the fray so Meg would not have to stand alone.

I hope the Sibyl lasts long enough to see you humbled.

I had a fleeting image of us getting buried like Tarquin under several tons of rock—which, in my present state of mind, seemed like an amusing way to die.

I couldn’t see the stars or discern any landmarks.

Stuck on the tip of its horn was a crank-handled rotary cheese grater.

“I’ve never had a patient who was a former immortal. That might make you resistant to demigod healing, or more susceptible to undead scratches. I just don’t know.”

“At any rate,” Pranjal continued, “the salve I used wasn’t a cure. It will only slow down your...your condition.”

My condition. What a wonderful euphemism for turning into a walking corpse.

Inside, Reyna and Frank sat behind a long table laden with maps, books, daggers, and a large jar of jelly beans.

It’s a Greek thing, a way of beseeching Iris, goddess of the rainbow, to carry a message—in this case, a prayer to Mount Olympus.

Meg doled out a jelly bean for each dog, then ate two herself.

I’d been so angry with Meg for her recklessness in the tomb. I’d assumed she was just being impulsive, reacting to Tarquin’s plans to let the Bay Area burn.

Now, aside from all the bad memories the Roman trappings of Camp Jupiter might have triggered for her, she was faced with the prospect of losing me.

Viscous, green, and impossible to extinguish, Greek fire was just plain nasty.

When they’d finished eating, diners rose cautiously and walked away hunched over, lest they get decapitated by a flying plate of cold cuts. Except for the Lares, of course. They didn’t care what sort of delicacies flew through their ectoplasmic noggins.

How simple it would be to destroy their fragile confidence, I thought, just by describing the flotilla of artillery yachts I’d seen in my dream.

She seemed to choke on her own indignation.

“That would be my group of delinquents. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to teach them how to slay ghouls.”

Thomas and Marcus sent most of their arrows skittering across the dirt, ricocheting off rocks and into the trenches, which elicited shouts of “Hey, watch it!” from the ditch-digging Fourth Cohort.

The Fifth Cohort dropped their weapons and ran toward the next activity, leaving me to retrieve all their arrows. Cretins.

The Romans were duly impressed.

Homeless people slept on benches or fussed over shopping carts full of their worldly belongings.