The Tyrant’s Tomb

“Worse than me?”

“They don’t like daffodils much,” Meg observed, as another flower-festooned bird went into a tailspin.

“We need something to drive them all away,” Reyna said, swinging her sword again. “Something they’ll hate worse than Apollo.” Her eyes lit up. “Apollo, sing for them!”

She might as well have kicked me in the face again. “My voice isn’t that bad!”

“But you’re the—You used to be the god of music, right? If you can charm a crowd, you should be able to repulse one. Pick a song these birds will hate!”

Great. Not only had Reyna laughed in my face and busted my nose, now I was her go-to guy for repulsiveness.

Still…I was struck by the way she said I used to be a god. She didn’t seem to mean it as an insult. She said it almost like a concession—like she knew what a horrible deity I had been, but held out hope that I might be capable of being someone better, more helpful, maybe even worthy of forgiveness.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay, let me think.”

The ravens had no intention of letting me do that. They cawed and swarmed in a flurry of black feathers and pointy talons. Reyna and Meg tried their best to drive them back, but they couldn’t cover me completely. A beak stabbed me in the neck, narrowly missing my carotid artery. Claws raked the side of my face, no doubt giving me some bloody new racing stripes.

I couldn’t think about the pain.

I wanted to sing for Reyna, to prove that I had indeed changed. I was no longer the god who’d had Koronis killed and created ravens, or cursed the Cumaean Sibyl, or done any of the other selfish things that had once given me no more pause than choosing what dessert toppings I wanted on my ambrosia.

It was time to be helpful. I needed to be repulsive for my friends!

I rifled through millennia of performance memories, trying to recall any of my musical numbers that had totally bombed. Nope. I couldn’t think of any. And the birds kept attacking….

Birds attacking.

An idea sparked at the base of my skull.

I remembered a story my children Austin and Kayla had told me, back when I was at Camp Half-Blood. We were sitting at the campfire, and they’d been joking about Chiron’s bad taste in music. They said that several years earlier, Percy Jackson had managed to drive off a flock of killer Stymphalian birds simply by playing what Chiron had on his boom box.

What had he played? What was Chiron’s favorite—?

“‘VOLARE’!” I screamed.

Meg looked up at me, a random geranium stuck in her hair. “Who?”

“It’s a song Dean Martin covered,” I said. “It—it might be unacceptable to birds. I’m not sure.”

“Well, be sure!” Reyna yelled. Ravens furiously scratched and pecked at her cloak, unable to tear the magical fabric, but her front side was unprotected. Every time she swung her sword, a bird swooped in, stabbing at her exposed chest and arms. Her long-sleeve tee was quickly turning into a short-sleeve tee.

I channeled my worst King of Cool. I imagined I was on a Las Vegas stage, a line of empty martini glasses on the piano behind me. I was wearing a velvet tuxedo. I had just smoked a pack of cigarettes. In front of me sat a crowd full of adoring, tone-deaf fans.

“VOOO-LAR-RAAAAY!” I cried, modulating my voice to add about twenty syllables to the word. “WHOA! OH!”

The response from the ravens was immediate. They recoiled as if we’d suddenly become vegetarian entrées. Some threw themselves bodily against the metal girders, making the whole tower shudder.

“Keep going!” Meg yelled.

Phrased as an order, her words forced me to comply. With apologies to Domenico Modugno, who wrote the song, I gave “Volare” the full Dean Martin treatment.

It had once been such a lovely, obscure little tune. Originally, Modugno called it “Nel blu, dipinto di blu,” which, granted, was a bad title. I don’t know why artists insist on doing that. Like the Wallflowers’ “One Headlight” obviously should have been titled “Me and Cinderella.” And Ed Sheerhan’s “The A-Team” should clearly have been called “Too Cold for Angels to Fly.” I mean, come on, guys, you’re burying the lede.

At any rate, “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” might have faded into obscurity had Dean Martin not gotten ahold of it, repackaged it as “Volare,” added seven thousand violins and backup singers, and turned it into a sleazy lounge-singer classic.

I didn’t have backup singers. All I had was my voice, but I did my best to be terrible. Even when I was a god and could speak any language I wanted, I’d never sung well in Italian. I kept mixing it up with Latin, so I came off sounding like Julius Caesar with a head cold. My newly busted nose just added to the awfulness.

I bellowed and warbled, screwing my eyes shut and clinging to the ladder as ravens flapped around me, croaking in horror at my travesty of a song. Far below, Reyna’s greyhounds bayed as if they’d lost their mothers.

I became so engrossed in murdering “Volare,” I didn’t notice that the ravens had gone silent until Meg shouted, “APOLLO, ENOUGH!”

I faltered halfway through a chorus. When I opened my eyes, the ravens were nowhere in sight. From somewhere in the fog, their indignant caws grew fainter and fainter as the flock moved off in search of quieter, less revolting prey.

“My ears,” Reyna complained. “Oh, gods, my ears will never heal.”

“The ravens will be back,” I warned. My throat felt like the chute of a cement mixer. “As soon as they manage to purchase enough raven-size noise-canceling headphones, they’ll be back. Now climb! I don’t have another Dean Martin song in me.”

Let’s play guess the god.

Starts with H. Wants to kill me.

(Besides my stepmom.)

AS SOON AS I reached the catwalk, I gripped the rail. I wasn’t sure if my legs were wobbly or if the entire tower was swaying. I felt like I was back on Poseidon’s pleasure trireme—the one pulled by blue whales. Oh, it’s a smooth ride, he’d promised. You’ll love it.

Below, San Francisco stretched out in a rumpled quilt of green and gray, the edges frayed with fog. I felt a twinge of nostalgia for my days on the sun chariot. Oh, San Francisco! Whenever I saw that beautiful city below, I knew my day’s journey was almost done. I could finally park my chariot at the Palace of the Sun, relax for the night, and let whatever other forces that controlled night and day take over for me. (Sorry, Hawaii. I love you, but I wasn’t about to work overtime to give you a sunrise.)

The ravens were nowhere in sight. That didn’t mean anything. A blanket of fog still obscured the top of the tower. The killers might swoop out of it at any minute. It wasn’t fair that birds with twenty-foot wingspans could sneak up on us so easily.

At the far end of the catwalk sat the shipping container. The scent of roses was so strong now even I could smell it, and it seemed to be coming from the box. I took a step toward it and immediately stumbled.

“Careful.” Reyna grabbed my arm.

A jolt of energy went through me, steadying my legs. Perhaps I imagined it. Or maybe I was just shocked that she had made physical contact with me and it did not involve placing her boot in my face.