The Tyrant’s Tomb
Hazel led us up the left-hand staircase. Then, for reasons known only to herself, she crossed the balcony and took the doorway on the right. We followed her through.
At the end of a short corridor, about twenty feet ahead, firelight illuminated another balcony with a skeletal railing, the mirror image of the one we’d just left. I couldn’t see much of the chamber beyond it, but the space was clearly occupied. A deep voice echoed from within—a voice I recognized.
Meg flicked her wrists, retracting her swords into rings—not because we were out of danger, but because she understood that even a little extra glow might give away our position. Lavinia tugged an oil cloth from her back pocket and draped it over her manubalista. Hazel gave me a look of warning that was completely unnecessary.
I knew what lay just ahead. Tarquin the Proud was holding court.
I crouched behind the balcony’s skeletal latticework and peered into the throne room below, desperately hoping none of the undead would look up and see us. Or smell us. Oh, human body odor, why did you have to be so pungent after several hours of hiking?
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. Lounging across the sarcophagus lid was the thing that had once been Tarquinius Superbus. His robes had not been laundered in several thousand years. They hung off him in moldering shreds. His body had withered to a blackened skeleton. Patches of moss clung to his jawbone and cranium, giving him a grotesque beard and hairdo. Tendrils of glowing purple gas slithered through his rib cage and circled his joints, coiling up his neck and into his skull, lighting his eye sockets fiery violet.
Whatever that purple light was, it seemed to be holding Tarquin together. It probably wasn’t his soul. I doubted Tarquin ever had one of those. More likely it was his sheer ambition and hatred, a stubborn refusal to give up no matter how long he’d been dead.
The king seemed to be in the midst of scolding the two skeleton guards Hazel had manipulated.
“Did I call you?” demanded the king. “No, I did not. So why are you here?”
The skeletons looked at each other as if wondering the same thing.
“Get back to your posts!” Tarquin shouted.
The guards marched back the way they had come.
This left three eurynomoi and half a dozen zombies milling around in the room, though I got the feeling there might be more directly beneath our balcony. Even worse, the zombies—vrykolakai, whatever you wanted to call them—were former Roman legionnaires. Most were still dressed for battle in dented armor and torn clothing, their skin puffy, their lips blue, gaping wounds in their chests and limbs.
The pain in my gut became almost intolerable. The words from the Burning Maze prophecy were stuck on replay in my mind: Apollo faces death. Apollo faces death.
Next to me, Lavinia trembled, her eyes tearing up. Her gaze was fixed on one of the dead legionnaires: a young man with long brown hair, the left side of his face badly burned. A former friend, I guessed. Hazel gripped Lavinia’s shoulder—perhaps to comfort her, perhaps to remind her to be silent. Meg knelt at my other side, her eyeglasses glinting. I desperately wished I had a permanent marker to black out her rhinestones.
She seemed to be counting enemies, calculating how fast she could take them all down. I had great faith in Meg’s sword skills, at least when she wasn’t exhausted from bending eucalyptus trees, but I also knew these enemies were too many, too powerful.
I touched her knee for attention. I shook my head and tapped my ear, reminding her that we were here to spy, not to fight.
She stuck out her tongue.
We were simpatico like that.
Below, Tarquin grumbled something about not being able to find good help. “Anyone seen Caelius? Where is he? CAELIUS!”
A moment later, a eurynomos shuffled in from a side tunnel. He knelt before the king and screamed, “EAT FLESH! SOOOON!”
Tarquin hissed. “Caelius, we’ve discussed this. Keep your wits!”
Caelius slapped himself in the face. “Yes, my king.” His voice now had a measured British accent. “Terribly sorry. The fleet is on schedule. It should arrive in three days, just in time for the blood moon’s rising.”
“Very well. And our own troops?”
“EAT FLESH!” Caelius slapped himself again. “Apologies, sire. Yes, everything is ready. The Romans suspect nothing. As they turn outward to face the emperors, we will strike!”
“Good. It is imperative we take the city first. When the emperors arrive, I want to be already in control! They can burn the rest of the Bay Area if they wish, but the city is mine.”
Meg clenched her fists until they turned the color of the bone latticework. After our experiences with the heat-distressed dryads of Southern California, she had gotten a little touchy whenever evil megalomaniacs threatened to torch the environment.
I gave her my most serious Stay cool glare, but she wouldn’t look at me.
Down below, Tarquin was saying, “And the silent one?”
“He is well-guarded, sire,” Caelius promised.
“Hmm,” Tarquin mused. “Double the flock, nevertheless. We must be sure.”
“But, my king, surely the Romans cannot know about Sutro—”
“Silence!” Tarquin ordered.
Caelius whimpered. “Yes, my king. FLESH! Sorry, my king. EAT FLESH!”
Tarquin raised his glowing purple skull toward our balcony. I prayed that he hadn’t noticed us. Lavinia stopped chewing her gum. Hazel looked deep in concentration, perhaps willing the undead king to look away.
After a count of ten, Tarquin chuckled. “Well, Caelius, it looks like you’ll get to eat flesh sooner than I thought.”
“Master?”
“We have interlopers.” Tarquin raised his voice: “Come down, you four! And meet your new king!”
Meg, don’t you dare—MEG!
Or you could just get us killed
Yeah, sure, that works, too
I HOPED THERE WERE four other interlopers hidden somewhere on this balcony. Surely, Tarquin was talking to them and not us.
Hazel jabbed her thumb toward the exit, the universal sign for LET’S VAMOOSE! Lavinia began crawling that way on her hands and knees. I was about to follow when Meg ruined everything.
She stood up tall (well, as tall as Meg can be), summoned her swords, and leaped over the railing.
“MEEEEEEEEEGAH!” I shouted, half war cry, half What in Hades are you doing?
Without any conscious decision, I was on my feet, my bow in hand, an arrow nocked and loosed, then another and another. 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. Lavinia rose, struggling to uncover her manubalista, but the oil cloth seemed to be stuck on the crossbeam.
More undead swarmed Meg from under the balcony. Her twin swords whirled and flashed, cutting off limbs and heads, reducing zombies to dust. Hazel decapitated Caelius, then turned to face another two eurynomoi.
The deceased former legionnaire with the burned face would have stabbed Hazel in the back, but Lavinia loosed her crossbow just in time. The Imperial gold bolt hit the zombie between the shoulder blades, causing him to implode in a pile of armor and clothes.