To 8Ball3- Agree to disagree? And yes, come here. You can come and deal with Trump's clone, good old Boris. Did you see that thing about Trump by the way? Apparently, and I don't know how true this is, so help me out here, but he apparently wanted to come out of the hospital acting all frail and weak and sickly only to rip his shirt open and reveal a Superman shirt underneath. How can he compare himself to my boy Clark? For starters, Clark ain't orange AND he has nothing but high levels of respect for women; humble, honest country bumpkin Clark who is also an alien and Trump doesn't like aliens, does he? And yes. I really do enjoy torturing Lou. Wait until you've see what I've done in her backstory, you're going to hate it. I, personally, love it, but that's because I'm just like that ^_^
Apollo could not wait to learn what his special job was tomorrow. The anticipation was killing him. Or, more likely, it was the poison in his veins. As soon as they returned to their room above the coffee shop, he crashed on his bed, all but face-planting his pillow.
"It's still light outside." Meg huffed. "You slept all day."
"Not turning into a zombie is hard work." Apollo muttered into his pillow.
"I know!" She snapped, making him jump. "I'm sorry!" He looked round carefully, surprised at her tone. She kicked an old paper latte cup across the room, plopping onto her bed to glare at the floor.
"Meg?" In the windowbox, irises grew with such speed that their flowers crackled open like corn kernels. Just a few minutes ago, Meg had been happily insulting him and gorging on jellybeans. Now… was she crying? "Meg." He repeated, sitting up and trying not to wince. "Meg, you're not responsible for me getting hurt." She twisted the ring on her right hand, then the one on her left, as if they had become too small for her fingers.
"I just thought… if I could kill him…" She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "Like in some stories. You kill the master, and you can free the people he's turned."
It took a moment for her words to sink in. He was relatively sure what she was describing applied to vampires, not zombies, but he understood the sentiment.
"You jumped into the throne room… because you wanted to save me?"
"Duh." She retorted, without any heat.
He lay his hand on his bandaged abdomen. He had been so angry with Meg for her recklessness in the tomb, assuming she was being impulsive as usual, reacting to Tarquin's plans to let the Bay Area burn. But she had leaped into battle for him, in the hope she could kill the king and erase his curse.
"Oh, Meg." He shook his head. "That was a crazy, senseless stunt and I love you for it. But don't beat yourself up. Pranjal's medicine and Louisa's healing bought me some extra time. And you did too, of course, with your horn-grating skills and magical chickweed. You've done everything you could. When we summon godly help, I can ask for complete healing. I'm sure I'll be as good as new. Or at least as good as a Lester can be." Meg tilted her head, making her crooked glasses just about horizontal.
"How can you know? Is this god going to give us three wishes or something?"
"I don't know." He confessed, thinking back on his time as a god- he had only really granted wishes when it was something he wanted to happen anyway. "You're right. I can't be sure everything will be OK. But I can promise you I'm not giving up. We've come this far. I'm not going to let a stomach scratch stop us from defeating the Triumvirate." Meg sniffled, wiping her nose again.
"I don't want to lose somebody else." She mumbled. His mental gears weren't turning at full speed. He had trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that by 'somebody else', Meg meant him.
He recalled one of her early memories, which he had witnessed in his dreams- she had been forced to gaze upon her father's lifeless body on the steps of Grand Central Station while Nero, his murderer, hugged her and promised to take care of her. He remembered how she had betrayed him, Apollo, to Nero in the Grove of Dodona out of fear of the Beast- the emperor's dark side- and how horrible she had felt afterwards, when they had reunited in Indianapolis. She proceeded to take all her displaced anger and guilt and frustration and projected it onto Caligula. Meg, being unable to lash out at her so-called stepfather, had wanted so badly to kill Caligula in his place. That night had not gone as she had planned.
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 him. In a moment of shock, he realised that despite all the grief she gave him and the way she quite enjoyed ordering him around, she did care for him. For the past three months, he had been her one constant friend, just as she had been his. The only other person who might have even come close was Peaches, the little fruit-tree spirit minion (demon) that they hadn't seen since Indianapolis. At first, Apollo had assumed the little bugger was just being temperamental about when he wanted to appear, like most supernatural creatures. But if he had tried to follow them to Palm Springs, when even the cacti were struggling to survive… he didn't like a peach tree's odds of survival there, much less in the Burning Maze.
Meg hadn't mentioned Peaches once since they were in the Labyrinth. Now he realised his absence must have been weighing on her, along with all her other worries. What a horribly insufficient friend he had been.
"Come here." He held his arms out. "Please?" Meg hesitated. Still sniffing, she rose from her bed and trudged towards him. She fell into his hug like he was a comfy mattress. He grunted, surprised by how solid and heavy she was. She smelled of apple peel and mud, but he didn't mind. He didn't even mind the snotty nose and tears soaking his shoulder.
He had always wondered what it would be like to have a younger sibling. Sometimes, he treated Artemis as his baby sister, since he had been born a few minutes earlier (depending on who you asked), but that had been to annoy her more than anything. With Meg, he felt as if it were actually true. He had someone who depended on him, who needed him around no matter how much they irritated each other. He thought about Hazel and Frank and the washing away of curses. He figured that that kind of love could come from many different types of relationships.
"OK." Meg pushed herself away, wiping her cheeks furiously. "Enough of that. You sleep. I'm… I'm going to get dinner or whatever."
For a long time after she left, he lay in his bed staring at the ceiling. Music floated up from the café, the soothing sounds of Horace Silver's piano, punctuated by the hiss of the espresso machine and Bombilo singing in two-headed harmony. He drifted off to sleep, listening to these sounds that had become homely in such a short time, hoping to have warm, fuzzy dreams of sunlit fields and elephants, unicorns and metal greyhounds.
Instead, he found himself back with the emperors.
On his list of places he least wanted to be, Caligula's yacht ranked right up there with Tarquin's tomb, the eternal abyss of Chaos and the Limburger cheese factory in Liège, Belgium, where stinking gym socks went to feel better about themselves.
Commodus lounged in a deck chair, an aluminium tanning bib around his neck, reflecting the afternoon sun directly onto his face. Sunglasses covered his scarred eyes. He only wore pink swimming trunks and pink Crocs. Apollo took no notice of the way the tanning oil glistened on his muscular bronzed body.
Caligula stood nearby in his captain's uniform- white coat, dark slacks and striped shirt, all crisply pressed. His cruel face looked almost angelic as he marvelled at the contraption that now took up the entire aft deck. The artillery mortar was the size of an above-ground swimming pool, with a two-foot-thick rim of dark iron and a diameter wide enough to drive a car through. Nestled in the barrel, a massive green sphere glowed like a giant radioactive hamster ball.
Pandai rushed around the deck, blanket ears flopping, their furry hands moving at preternatural speeds as they plugged in cables and oiled gears at the base of the weapon. Some of the pandai were young enough to have pure white fur, which made Apollo's heart hurt. He missed Crest. The young pandos had travelled with Piper and Coach Hedge- drawn in by the teachings of Bon Jovi. If Apollo survived all this, he was going to find his big-eared friend and teach him all manner of music and instruments.
"It's wonderful!" Caligula beamed, circling the mortar. "Is it ready for test-firing?"
"Yes, lord!" Boost the pandos said. "Of course, every sphere of Greek fire is very, very expensive, so-"
"DO IT!" Caligula bellowed. Boost yelped and scrambled to the control panel.
Greek fire. Apollo bristled at the sound of it. He hated the stuff and he was a sun god who rode a fiery chariot. Vicious, green and impossible to extinguish; Greek fire was just plain nasty. A cupful could burn down an entire building, and that single glowing sphere held more than he had ever seen in one place. "Oh, Commodus?" Caligula called. "You might want to pay attention to this."
"I am fully attentive." Commodus said, turning his face to better catch the sun. Caligula sighed.
"Boost, you may proceed." He waved. Boost called out instructions in his own language. His fellow pandai turned cranks and spun dials, slowly swivelling the mortar until it pointed out to sea. Boost double-checked his readings on the control panel and then shouted a countdown.
With a mighty boom, the mortar fired. The entire boat shuddered from the recoil. The hamster ball rocketed upward until it was a green marble in the sky, then plummeted towards the western horizon. The sky blazed emerald. A moment later, hot winds buffeted the ship with the smell of burning salt and cooked fish. In the distance, a geyser of green fire churned on the boiling sea. "Ooh, pretty." Caligula grinned at Boost. "And you have one missile for each ship?"
"Yes, lord. As instructed."
"And the range?"
"Once we clear Treasure Island, we'll be able to bring all weapons to bear on Camp Jupiter, my lord. No magical defences can stop such a massive volley. Total annihilation!"
"Good." Caligula smiled. "That's my favourite kind."
"But remember," Commodus called from his deckchair, having not even turned to watch the explosion, "first we try a ground assault. Maybe they'll be wise and surrender! We want New Rome intact. Not to mention we need the harpy and Cyclops taken alive if possible."
"Yes, yes." Caligula rolled his eyes. "If possible." He seemed to savour those words like a beautiful lie. His eyes glittered in the green artificial sunset. "Either way, this will be fun."
Apollo woke up alone, the sun baking his face. For a second, he thought he might be in a deckchair next to Commodus, a tanning bib around his neck. But no. Those days where he and the emperor hung out were long gone.
He sat up, groggy, disorientated and dehydrated. Why was it still light outside?
Then he realised the angle of the sun- it was about noon. Once again, he had slept through the night and half a day. He still felt exhausted.
He pressed gently on his bandaged gut, horrified to find the wound tender again. The purple lines of infection had darkened, creeping back up to his chest again, inching towards his shoulders. He was going to have to start wearing long-sleeved shirts. No matter what happened over the next twenty-four hours, he would not add to Meg's worries. He would tough it out until he keeled over.
Whoa, that was a new thought. Who even was he?
By the time he had dressed and hobbled out of Bombilo's coffee shop, most of the legion had gathered at the mess hall for lunch. As usual, the dining room bustled with activity. Demigods, grouped by cohort, reclined on couches around low tables, while aurae whisked overhead with platters of food and pitchers of drink. Hanging from the cedar rafters, war-game pennants and cohort standards rippled in the constant breeze. When they had finished eating, diners rose cautiously and walked away hunched over, lest they get decapitated by a flying plate of cold cuts.
Apollo saw Frank at the officers' table, deep in conversation with Hazel and the rest of the centurions. Reyna was nowhere in sight- perhaps she was taking a nap or preparing for the afternoon's war drills. Or looking after Louisa still. Apollo pushed the thought down, forcing himself to focus on Frank. Despite what they were facing tomorrow, Frank looked remarkably relaxed. He chatted with his officers, cracked a smile, putting the others at ease. It would have been so simple to destroy their fragile confidence, just by describing his dream of the flotilla of artillery yachts.
Not yet, he decided, no sense in spoiling their meal.
"Hey, Lester!" Lavinia yelled from across the room, waving him over as if he were her waiter. He joined her and Meg at the Fifth Cohort table. An aura deposited a goblet of water in his hand and then left a whole pitcher on the table. Apparently, his dehydration was that obvious.
Lavinia leaned forward, her eyebrows arched like pink-and-chestnut rainbows. "So, is it true?" Apollo frowned at Meg, not following this conversation and hoping his little master would enlighten him. She was too busy ploughing through a row of hotdogs to respond.
"Is what true?"
"The shoes."
"Shoes?" He repeated blankly. Lavinia threw her hands in the air.
"The dancing shoes of Terpsichore! Meg was telling us what happened on Caligula's yachts. She said you and that Piper girl saw a pair of my mom's shoes!"
"Oh." He had completely forgotten about those, and that he told Meg about them. It seemed strange in a way, something so simple, but there had been other events taking priority- Jason very nearly being killed before their eyes, how they had barely escaped with their lives just because Louisa had turned up and exploded everything (after dragging Caligula and laughing in his face). "Meg." He said. "Of all the things you could have chosen to tell them, you told them about that?"
"Wasn't my idea." Meg somehow said with half a hotdog in her mouth. "Lavinia likes shoes."
"Well, what did you think I was going to ask about?" Lavinia demanded. "You tell me the emperor has an entire boatload of shoes, of course I'm going to wonder if you saw any dancing ones! So, it's true then, Lester?"
"I mean… yes, we saw a pair of-"
"Wow." Lavinia sat back, crossing her arms and glaring at him. "Just wow. You wait until now to tell me this? Do you know how rare those shoes are? How important…" She seemed to choke on her own indignation. "Wow." Around the table, Lavinia's comrades showed a mixture of reactions. Some rolled their eyes, some smirked, some kept eating as if nothing Lavinia did could surprise them anymore.
An older boy with shaggy brown hair dared to stick up for him.
"Lavinia," he said with a slight frown, "Apollo has had a few other things going on."
"Oh my gods, Thomas!" Lavinia shot back. "Naturally, you wouldn't understand! You never take off those boots!" Thomas looked down at his standard-issue combat stompers.
"What?" He puzzled. "They've got good arch support."
"Yeesh." Lavinia turned to Meg. "We have to figure out a way to get aboard that ship and rescue those shoes."
"Nah." Meg sucked a glob of relish off her thumb. "Way too dangerous."
"But-"
"Lavinia." Apollo cut in. "You can't." She must have registered the fear and urgency in his voice. Over the past few days, he had developed a strange fondness for Lavinia; he didn't want to see her charge into slaughter for a pair of shoes, especially after his dream about the Greek fire mortars.
She ran her Star of David pendant back and forth on its chain.
"You've got new information? Dish." Before he could reply, a plate of food flew into his hands. The aurae had decided he needed chicken nuggets and fries. Lots of them.
"New info?" A quiet voice tugged at his ear and he looked up. Louisa stared down at him. She did not duck like the others, the aurae bustling around her and whipping through her hair, ponytail swishing and curling. Dark circles ringed her bloodshot eyes. Her purple camp shirt was a bit big for her and she had her hands tucked into the sleeves of her hoodie, as if she could not bear the sight of them. "What new info?" Apollo shifted over, gesturing for her to sit. She hesitated, rubbing at her ear, hand still concealed.
"Lou?" Hazel had joined them, with the Fifth Cohort's other centurion- a dark-haired young man with strange red stains around his mouth. Dakota, child of Bacchus. Apollo remembered him from the senate meeting.
"What's going on?" He asked.
"Lester has news." Lavinia stared at him expectantly, as if he was withholding the location of Terpsichore's magical tutu. For the record, he had not seen that in centuries.
"Lou." Hazel touched her cousin's arm, taking her still-covered hand gently when she started. She offered a smile. "Why don't you sit and have some food with us?"
"Loud." Louisa replied, squinting as if the noise was also blinding. The group around the table didn't seem to understand- yes, the blustering of the aurae and the chatter of demigods was rather loud, but no more than a lunch hall. Apollo stayed quiet.
The Fifth Cohort shuffled until there was room for the newcomers. Louisa sat between the two centurions. The aurae deposited a plate with a cheeseburger and fries in her lap. She stared at it, biting her lower lip. Hazel drummed her fingers on Louisa's arm and she began picking at her fries.
"Did you have news?" Hazel asked Apollo. He nodded, hesitantly. He wasn't sure if this was the right forum for sharing his dream. He had thought it would be best to report it to the praetors first.
But Hazel was nodding at him. He decided that was good enough.
He described what he had seen- a top-of-the-range heavy mortar, fully assembled, shooting a giant hamster ball of green flaming death that blew up the Pacific Ocean. He explained that the emperors had fifty such weapons, one on each ship, which would be ready to obliterate Camp Jupiter as soon as they took up positions in the bay.
Louisa lowered her half-eaten cheeseburger. The fries seemed to have made her realise she was quite hungry, although she still looked rather confused about it. Dakota's face turned as red as his mouth.
"I need more fruit punch." The aurae seemed to disagree, as no goblets flew into his hands.
"Fifty?" Louisa echoed, voice hoarse. Apollo nodded solemnly.
Lavinia looked like she had been smacked with one of her mother's ballet slippers. Meg kept eating hotdogs as if they might be the last ones she would ever get. Hazel picked at her bottom lip as she thought, battling to find even a shred of good news in Apollo's story.
Louisa bit into her burger again, confusion smouldering into annoyance. Hazel touched her arm again, less encouraging, more restrictive.
"OK," Hazel said, "look. We knew the emperors were assembling secret weapons. At least now we know what those weapons are. I'll convey this information to the praetors, but it doesn't change anything. You all did a great job in the morning drills-" She hesitated and then generously decided not to add except for Apollo, who slept through it all. "And this afternoon," she continued, "one of our war games will be about boarding enemy ships. Lou's going to be leading that one, right, Lou? We can get prepared."
"Huh?" Louisa said belatedly.
"You're… running one of the war games, aren't you? Boarding ships and stuff."
"'N' stuff." She repeated, unimpressed. "Told ya'll ta get a navy. No-one listens to me."
"We don't need a navy." Dakota rolled his eyes. "We've got you."
"Aww, that's so sweet!" Pierre chimed in. Everyone stared at him. "What? I'm always listening."
"Stop it." Dakota ordered.
"No." Pierre defied, grinning. Louisa swallowed her mouthful, shaking her head. Hazel squeezed her arm.
"Don't even think about it." She warned.
"What?" Louisa asked innocently. Hazel glared at her. A fierce staring match ensued.
Apollo left them to it, trying to piece his thoughts together. Despite the light teasing, the Fifth Cohort was not reassured. The Romans had never been known for their naval prowess. Last he had checked, Camp Jupiter's 'navy' consisted of some old triremes they only used for mock battles in the Colosseum, and one rowing boat they kept docked in Alameda. Drilling to board enemy ships would be less about practising a workable battle plan and more about keeping the legionnaires occupied so they wouldn't dwell on their impending doom.
Thomas rubbed at his forehead, sighing irritably.
"I hate my life."
"Keep it together, legionnaire." Hazel advised, still staring at Louisa. "This is what we signed up for. Defending the legacy of Rome."
"From its own emperors." Thomas said miserably.
"I'm sorry to tell you," Apollo put in, "but the biggest threat to the empire was often its own emperors."
"Well, it's gonna be me soon." Louisa defied, flicking Hazel in the forehead. "Pissed off."
"You are not going after the ships on your own." Hazel glowered, rubbing at the oncoming bruise.
"I'll be better in the sea." Louisa began picking apart her burger.
"We need you here." Hazel stressed. Louisa hmmph'd in response.
At the officers' table, Frank stood. All around the room, flying pitchers and platters froze in mid-air, waiting respectfully.
"Legionnaires!" He announced, managing a confident smile. "Relay activities will recommence on the Field of Mars in twenty minutes! Drill like your lives depend on it, because they do!"