The Tower of Nero

“Just a minute,” I protested. “Even if we trust you, why would Nero? You say you’ll go back to him with your tail between your legs and report that we got away. Why would he believe that? Why won’t he suspect you’ve turned on him?”

“I have a plan for that, too,” Lu said. “It involves you pushing me off a building.”

I’D HEARD WORSE PLANS.

But while the idea of pushing Lu off a building had a certain appeal, I was skeptical that she really meant it, especially since she wouldn’t explain further or offer us details.

“Tomorrow,” she insisted. “Once we’re on our way.”

The next morning, Sally made us breakfast. Estelle giggled at us hysterically. Paul apologized for not having a car to lend us, since the family Prius, which we usually crashed, was on its way to California with Percy, Grover, and Annabeth. The best Paul could offer us was a subway pass, but I wasn’t ready to ride any more trains.

Sally gave us all hugs and wished us well. Then she said she had to get back to baking cookies, which she did to relieve stress while she was working on the revisions for her second novel.

This raised many questions for me. Second novel? We hadn’t discussed her writing at all the night before. Cookies? Could we wait until they were done?

But I suspected that good food was a never-ending temptation here at the Jackson/Blofis home. There would always be a next sweet or savory snack that was more appealing than facing the harsh world.

Also, I respected the fact that Sally needed to work. As the god of poetry, I understood revisions. Facing monsters and imperial mercenaries was much easier.

At least the rain had stopped, leaving us a steamy June morning. Lu, Meg, and I headed toward the East River on foot, ducking from alley to alley until Lu found a location that seemed to satisfy her.

Just off First Avenue, a ten-story apartment building was in the process of a gut renovation. Its brick facade was a hollow shell, its windows empty frames. We sneaked through the alley behind the lot, climbed over a chain-link construction fence, and found the back entrance blocked only by a sheet of plywood. Lu broke through it with one sturdy kick.

“After you,” she said.

I eyed the dark doorway. “We really have to go through with this?”

“I’m the one who has to fall off the roof,” she muttered. “Stop complaining.”

The building’s interior was reinforced with metal scaffolding—rung ladders leading from one level to the next. Oh, good. After climbing Sutro Tower, I just loved the idea of more ladders. Rays of sunlight sliced through the structure’s hollow interior, swirling up dust clouds and miniature rainbows. Above us, the roof was still intact. From the topmost tier of scaffolding, a final ladder led up to a landing with a metal door.

Lu began to climb. She had changed back into her Amtrak disguise so she wouldn’t have to explain the Electronics Mega-Mart shirt to Nero. I followed in my Percy Jackson hand-me-downs. My funny valentine, Meg, brought up the rear. Just like old times at Sutro Tower, except with 100 percent less Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano and 100 percent more tattooed Gaul.

On each level, Meg stopped to sneeze and wipe her nose. Lu did her best to stay away from the windows, as if worried that Nero might burst through one and yell, Boare!

(I’m pretty sure that was Latin for boo! It’s been a while since I attended one of Cicero’s famous haunted-house parties. That man did love to put a toga over his head and scare his guests.)

Finally, we reached the metal door, which had been spray-painted with a red-stenciled warning, ROOF ACCESS RESTRICTED. I was sweaty and out of breath. Lu seemed unperturbed by the climb. Meg kicked absently at the nearest brick as if wondering whether she could collapse the building.

“Here’s the plan,” Lu said. “I know for a fact Nero has cameras in the office building across the street. It’s one of his properties. When we burst out this door, his surveillance team should get some good footage of us on the roof.”

“Remind us why that’s a good thing?” I asked.

Lu muttered something under her breath, perhaps a prayer for her Celtic gods to smack me upside the head. “Because we’re going to let Nero see what we want him to see. We’re going to put on a show.”

Meg nodded. “Like on the train.”

“Exactly,” Lu said. “You two run out first. I’ll follow a few steps behind, like I’ve finally cornered you and am ready to kill you.”

“In a strictly playacting way,” I hoped.

“It has to look real,” Lu said.

“We can do it.” Meg turned to me with a look of pride. “You saw us on the train, Lester, and that was with no planning. When I lived at the tower? Lu would help me fake these incredible battles so Father—Nero, I mean—would think I killed my opponents.”

I stared at her. “Kill. Your opponents.”

“Like servants, or prisoners, or just people he didn’t like. Lu and I would work it out beforehand. I’d pretend to kill them. Fake blood and everything. Then after, Lu would drag them out of the arena and let them go. The deaths looked so real, Nero never caught on.”

I couldn’t decide what I found most horrifying: Meg’s uncomfortable slip calling Nero Father, or the fact that Nero had expected his young stepdaughter to execute prisoners for his amusement, or the fact that Lu had conspired to make the show nonlethal to spare Meg’s feelings rather than—oh, I don’t know—refusing to do Nero’s dirty work in the first place and getting Meg out of that house of horrors.

And are you any better? taunted a small voice in my brain. How many times have you stood up to Zeus?

Okay, small voice. Fair point. Tyrants are not easy to oppose or walk away from, especially when you depend on them for everything.

I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth. “What’s my role?”

“Meg and I will do most of the fighting.” Lu hefted her crossbow. “Apollo, you stumble around and cower in fear.”

“I can do that.”

“Then, when it looks like I’m about to kill Meg, you scream and charge me. You have bursts of godly strength from time to time, I’ve heard.”

“I can’t summon one on command!”

“You don’t have to. Pretend. Push me as hard as you can—right off the roof. I’ll let you do it.”

I looked over the scaffold railing. “We’re ten stories up. I know this because…we’re ten stories up.”

“Yes,” Lu agreed. “Should be about right. I don’t die easily, little Lester. I’ll break some bones, no doubt, but with luck, I’ll survive.”

“With luck?” Meg suddenly didn’t sound so confident.

Lu summoned a scimitar into her free hand. “We have to risk it, Sapling. Nero has to believe I did my very best to catch you. If he suspects something…Well, we can’t have that.” She faced me. “Ready?”

“No!” I said. “You still haven’t explained how Nero intends to burn down the city, or what we’re supposed to do once we get captured.”

Lu’s fiery look was quite convincing. I actually believed she wanted to kill me. “He has Greek fire. More than Caligula did. More than anyone else has ever dared to stockpile. He has some delivery system in place. I don’t know the details. But as soon as he suspects something is wrong, one push of a button and it’s all over. That’s why we have to go through this elaborate charade. We have to get you inside without him realizing it’s a trick.”