The Tower of Nero: Chapters 8–13

I was getting emotional whiplash from my exhilarating surges of godlike power, my depressing crashes back into mortal frailty, and my adrenaline-charged bouts of terror.

He looked the same as he had for the past half century: a short middle-aged man with a potbelly, sagging jowls, a red nose, and curly black hair.

Dionysus’s eyes remained fixed on me, his tone infused with joy.

Across the green, I spotted two of my own children—Austin and Kayla—but as much as I wanted to talk with them, they were embroiled in some sort of conflict resolution between a group of security harpies and a new kid who had apparently done something the harpies didn’t like.

Compared to the camp’s Greek temples and amphitheaters, the four-story sky-blue Victorian known as the Big House looked quaint and homey.

Dionysus gestured listlessly at the card table. “I was attempting to teach Will and Nico the rules of pinochle, but they’re hopeless.”

“Nico,” Will chided. “Don’t pressure him.”

In every direction, glass walls looked out over the spires of Manhattan.

Austin introduced them casually, like I know you don’t have a clue who these three kids are that you sired and forgot about twelve or thirteen years ago, but don’t worry, Dad, I got you.

A steady plume of smoke rolled into the heavens.

A rivulet of cold sweat trickled between my shoulder blades.

Dionysus held up a cream-colored piece of stationery between his fingers, like a magician producing a card.

“I’ve always liked Nero. He has panache.”

Nico di Angelo wasn’t physically imposing like Sherman Yang.

He was deceptively quiet. He appeared anemic and frail. He kept himself on the periphery.

Python was a more nebulous threat, harder to quantify, but potentially a thousand times more dangerous.

Delphic prophecies were not simply glimpses into the future. They shaped the future. And you did not want an enormous malevolent monster controlling a wellspring of power like that, calling the shots for all human civilization.

Believe me, child, I would rather not be here with you delightful rapscallions, either.

Just this morning, scientists released another study tying soda to hypertension. If they continue to disparage the name of Diet Coke, I will have to smite someone!

“I could do some research,” he offered. “We could come up with a solid intelligence dossier and a plan of attack.”

TAKEST ME NOT TO THE GROVE, PERNICIOUS LESTER!

ONE SMALL BRANCH, EXPENDABLE, FORGETTABLE, EXILED FROM THE CHORUS OF TREES UNTIL I SHOULDST PROVE MYSELF!

I wondered, bitterly, if there was anyone I hadn’t neglected, hurt, or overlooked during my time as a mortal—strike that—during my four thousand years of existence, period. I could only be grateful that my shoes were not sentient.

I was almost to the edge of the forest when I heard laughter—the laughter of dryads, I deduced, based on my centuries of experience as a dryad stalker.

I followed the sound to a nearby outcropping of rocks, where Meg McCaffrey and Peaches were hanging out with half a dozen tree spirits.

The dryads were fawning over the fruit spirit, who, being no fool, was doing his best to look adorable for the ladies—which meant not baring his fangs, growling, or showing his claws.

And former arrogant gods like me couldn’t hang around other arrogant gods and expect to stay unsullied.

But, like the rest of Brooklyn, the neighborhood was rapidly becoming gentrified. Across the street, a building that looked like a onetime machine shop now housed a café promising avocado bagels and pineapple matcha.

I had never met Mr. Dare, the real-estate mogul, but I felt I didn’t need to. I understood gods and their palaces. Mr. Dare was operating along the same principles: Look at me, look at my massive pad, spread word of my greatness.

“The cattle are watching.”
“Yes, I said cattle,” she told me, preempting my question as we walked through the house.

The mansion was organized around a central atrium—Roman style, looking inward, so peons outside the walls couldn’t ruin your view.

His atrium featured a giant stack of iron and stone that was either a brilliant avant-garde sculpture or a pile of leftover building materials.

Rachel herself seemed small and out of place here, a warm, colorful aberration padding in her bare feet through an architectural mausoleum.

At first glance, the works appeared to be abstract. Then I stepped back, and the shapes resolved into scenes.

If I failed to defeat Python, he would continue to grow stronger. He would eventually control the very flow of the future. And since Rachel was inextricably linked to the Delphic… No. I couldn’t bear to think what that might mean for her.

About a hundred yards away, between us and the river, a line of three cattle cars sat on the railway tracks. Each car was occupied, as evidenced by the bovine snouts that occasionally poked out between the bars.

“Since the cattle seem to be calm at the moment, let’s circle back to that subject after we’ve discussed what we came here to discuss, yes?”
“The Tower of Nero,” Rachel surmised.

“Did it ever occur to you,” Nico said, “that troglodytes might go out of their way to hide from a sun god? They hate the light.”

Then, with sickening dread, I realized this smoke was the wrong color: pallid yellow instead of dark green.

“Apollo’s flesh and blood shall soon be mine.
Alone he must descend into the dark,
This sibyl never again to see his sign,
Lest grappling with me till his final spark
The god dissolves, leaving not a mark.”