The Tower of Nero

Meg studied them warily. “Nico, how soon can you shadow us out?”

“Catch…my…breath…first,” he said between gulps of air.

“Please,” Will agreed. “If he’s too tired, he might teleport us into a vat of Cheez Whiz in Venezuela.”

“Okay…” said Nico. “We didn’t end up in the vat.”

“Pretty close,” Will said. “Definitely in the middle of Venezuela’s biggest Cheez Whiz processing plant.”

“That was one time,” Nico grumbled.

“Uh, guys?” Rachel pointed to the rim of the pit, where the cows were becoming agitated. They jostled and pushed each other forward until one—either by choice or with pressure from the herd—toppled off the edge.

Watching it fall, kicking its legs and torquing its body, I remembered the time Ares dropped a cat from Mount Olympus to prove it would land on its feet in Manhattan. Athena had teleported the cat to safety, then beat Ares with the butt of her spear for putting the animal in danger, but the fall had been terrifying to witness, nonetheless.

The bull was not as lucky as the cat. It landed sideways in the dirt with a throaty grunt. The impact would have killed most creatures, but the bull just flailed its legs, righted itself, and shook its horns. It glared at us as if to say, Oh, you’re gonna get it now.

“Um…” Will edged backward. “It’s in the pit. So why isn’t it choking on its rage?”

“I—I think it’s because we’re here?” My voice sounded like I’d been sucking helium. “It wants to kill us more than it wants to choke to death?”

“Great,” Meg said. “Nico, shadow-travel. Now.”

Nico winced. “I can’t take all of you at once! Two plus me is pushing it. Last summer, with the Athena Parthenos…That almost killed me, and I had Reyna’s help.”

The bull charged.

“Take Will and Rachel,” I said, hardly believing the words were coming out of my mouth. “Return for Meg and me when you can.”

Nico started to protest.

“Apollo’s right!” Meg said. “Go!”

We didn’t wait for a response. I drew my bow. Meg summoned her scimitars, and together we raced into battle.

There’s an old saying: The definition of insanity is shooting an invulnerable cow in the face over and over and expecting a different result.

I went insane. I shot arrow after arrow at the bull—aiming at its mouth, its eyes, its nostrils, hoping to find a soft spot. Meanwhile, Meg slashed and stabbed with gusto, weaving like a boxer to keep away from the creature’s horns. Her blades were useless. The bull’s shaggy red hide swirled and rippled, deflecting each hit.

We only stayed alive because the bull couldn’t decide which of us to kill first. It kept changing its mind and reversing course as we took turns annoying it.

Perhaps if we kept up the pressure, we could tire out the bull. Sadly, we were also tiring out ourselves, and dozens more bulls waited above, curious to see how their friend fared before they risked the fall themselves.

“Pretty cow!” Meg yelled, stabbing it in the face and then dancing out of horn range. “Please go away!”

“It’s having too much fun!” I said.

My next shot was the dreaded Triple P—the perfect posterior perforator. It didn’t seem to hurt the bull, but I definitely got its attention. The animal bellowed and whirled to face me, its blue eyes blazing with fury.

While it studied me, probably deciding which of my limbs it wanted to pull off and beat me over the head with, Meg glanced at the rim of the pit.

“Um, hey, Apollo?”

I risked a look. A second bull tumbled into the pit. It landed on top of a portable toilet, crushing the box into a fiberglass pancake, then extracted itself from the wreckage and cried, “Moooo!” (Which I suspected was Tauri for I totally meant to do that!)

“I’ll take Potty Cow,” I told Meg. “You distract our friend here.”

A completely random division of duties—in no way related to the fact that I did not want to face the bull I’d just poked in the nether region.

Meg began dancing with Cow the First as I charged toward Potty Cow. I was feeling good, feeling heroic, until I reached for my quivers and found myself out of arrows…except for Ye Olde Standby, the Arrow of Dodona, which would not appreciate being used against an invulnerable bovine butt.

I was already committed, though, so I ran at Potty Cow with great bravado and zero clue how to fight it.

“Hey!” I yelled, waving my arms in the dubious hope that I might look scary. “Blah, blah, blah! Go away!”

The cow attacked.

This would have been an excellent time for my godly strength to kick in, so of course that didn’t happen. Just before the bull could run me down, I screamed and leaped aside.

At that point, the bull should have executed a slow course correction, running around the entire perimeter of the pit to give me time to recover. I’d dated a matador in Madrid once who assured me bulls did this because they were courteous animals and also terrible at sharp turns.

Either my matador was a liar, or he’d never fought tauri. The bull pivoted in a perfect about-face and charged me again. I rolled to one side, desperately grabbing for anything that might help me. I came up holding the edge of a blue polyurethane tarp. Worst shield ever.

The bull promptly jabbed its horn through the material. I jumped back as it stepped on the tarp and got pulled down by its own weight like a person stumbling over their own toga. (Not that I had ever done this, but I’d heard stories.)

The bull roared, shaking its head to dislodge the tarp, which only got it more tangled up in the fabric. I retreated, trying to catch my breath.

About fifty feet to my left, Meg was playing death-tag with Cow the First. She looked unharmed, but I could tell she was tiring, her reaction times slowing.

More cows began to fall into the pit like large, uncoordinated Acapulco cliff-divers. I recalled something Dionysus had once told me about his twin sons, Castor and Pollux—back when he was living with his mortal wife during a short phase of “domestic bliss.” He’d claimed that two was the best number for children, because after two, your children outnumbered you.

The same was true for killer cows. Meg and I could not hope to fend off more than a pair of them. Our only hope was…My eyes fixed on the mast of the crane.

“Meg!” I yelled. “Back to the ladder!”

She tried to comply, but Cow the First stood between her and the crane. I whipped out my ukulele and ran in their direction.

“Cowie, cowie, cow!” I strummed desperately. “Hey, cow! Bad, cow! Run away, cowie, cowie, cow!”

I doubted the tune would win any Grammys, but I was hoping it might at least distract Cow the First long enough for Meg to get around it. The cow stayed stubbornly put. So did Meg.

I reached her side. I glanced back in time to see Potty Cow throw off the tarp and charge toward us. The newly fallen cows were also getting to their hooves.

I estimated we had about ten seconds to live.

“Go,” I told Meg. “J-jump the cow and climb the ladder. I’ll—”

I didn’t know how to finish that statement. I’ll stay here and die? I’ll compose another verse of “Cowie, Cowie, Cow”?