The Tyrant’s Tomb
My heart turned to Smucker’s jelly. “We’ll win today, I promise.” Somehow I made it sound like I actually believed that statement. “Where’s Hazel?”
“Over there!” Terminus pointed with his nonexistent arms. Based on his glance (I couldn’t go by his nose anymore), I assumed he meant to the left. We ran in that direction until we found another cluster of legionnaires.
“Where’s Hazel?” Meg yelled.
“That way!” shouted Leila. “Two blocks maybe!”
“Thanks!” Meg sprinted on with her unicorn honor guard, their nail file and corkscrew attachments at the ready.
We found Hazel just where Leila had predicted—two blocks down, where the street widened into a neighborhood piazza. She and Arion were surrounded by zombies in the middle of the square, outnumbered about twenty to one. Arion didn’t look particularly alarmed, but he grunted and whinnied in frustration, unable to use his speed in such close quarters. Hazel slashed away with her spatha while Arion kicked at the mob to keep them back.
No doubt Hazel could’ve handled the situation without help, but our unicorns couldn’t resist the opportunity for more zombie-posterior-kicking. They crashed into the fray, slicing and bottle-opening and tweezing the undead in an awesome display of multifunction carnage.
Meg leaped into battle, her twin blades spinning. I scanned the street for abandoned projectile weapons. Sadly, they were easy to find. I scooped up a bow and quiver and went to work, giving the zombies some very fashionable skull-piercings.
When Hazel realized it was us, she laughed with relief, then scanned the area behind me, probably looking for Frank. I met her eyes. I’m afraid my expression told her everything she didn’t want to hear.
Emotions rippled across her face: utter disbelief, desolation, then anger. She yelled in rage, spurring Arion, and plowed through the last of the zombie mob. They never had a chance.
Once the piazza was secure, Hazel cantered up to me. “What happened?”
“I…Frank…The emperors…”
That’s all I could manage. It wasn’t much of a narrative, but she seemed to get the gist.
She doubled over until her forehead touched Arion’s mane. She rocked and murmured, clutching her wrist like a ballplayer who had just broken her hand and was trying to fight down the pain. At last she straightened. She took a shaky breath. She dismounted, wrapped her arms around Arion’s neck, and whispered something in his ear.
The horse nodded. Hazel stepped back and he raced away—a streak of white heading west toward the Caldecott Tunnel. I wanted to warn Hazel there was nothing to find there, but I didn’t. I understood heartache a little better now. Each person’s grief has its own life span; it needs to follow its own path.
“Where can we find Tarquin?” she demanded. What she meant was: Who can I kill to make myself feel better?
I knew the answer was No one. But again, I didn’t argue with her. Like a fool, I led the way to the bookstore to confront the undead king.
Two eurynomoi stood guard at the entrance, which I assumed meant Tarquin was already inside. I prayed Tyson and Ella were still on Temple Hill.
With a flick of her hand, Hazel summoned two precious stones from the ground: Rubies? Fire opals? They shot past me so fast, I couldn’t be sure. They hit the ghouls right between the eyes, reducing each guard to a pile of dust. The unicorns looked disappointed—both because they couldn’t use their combat utensils, and because they realized we were going through a doorway too small for them to follow.
“Go find other enemies,” Meg told them. “Enjoy!”
The Five Unicorns of the Apocalypse happily bucked, then galloped off to do Meg’s bidding.
I barged into the bookstore, Hazel and Meg at my heels, and waded straight into a crowd of undead. Vrykolakai shuffled through the new-release aisle, perhaps looking for the latest in zombie fiction. Others bonked against the shelves of the history section, as if they knew they belonged in the past. One ghoul squatted on a comfy reading chair, drooling as he perused The Illustrated Book of Vultures. Another crouched on the balcony above, happily chewing a leather-bound edition of Great Expectations.
Tarquin himself was too busy to notice our entrance. He stood with his back to us, at the information desk, yelling at the bookstore cat.
“Answer me, beast!” the king screamed. “Where are the Books?”
Aristophanes sat on the desk, one leg straight up in the air, calmly licking his nether regions—which, last I checked, was considered impolite in the presence of royalty.
“I will destroy you!” Tarquin said.
The cat looked up briefly, hissed, then returned to his personal grooming.
“Tarquin, leave him alone!” I shouted, though the cat seemed to need no help from me.
The king turned, and I immediately remembered why I shouldn’t be near him. A tidal wave of nausea crashed over me, pushing me to my knees. My veins burned with poison. My flesh seemed to be turning inside out. None of the zombies attacked. They just stared at me with their flat dead eyes as if waiting for me to put on my HELLO, MY NAME USED TO BE name tag and start mingling.
Tarquin had accessorized for his big night out. He wore a moldy red cloak over his corroded armor. Gold rings adorned his skeletal fingers. His golden circlet crown looked newly polished, making it clash nicely with his rotted cranium. Tendrils of oily purple neon slithered around his limbs, writhing in and out of his rib cage and circling his neck bones. Since his face was a skull, I couldn’t tell if he was smiling, but when he spoke, he sounded pleased to see me.
“Well, good! Killed the emperors, did you, my faithful servant? Speak!”
I had no desire to tell him anything, but a giant invisible hand squeezed my diaphragm, forcing out the words. “Dead. They’re dead.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from adding lord.
“Excellent!” Tarquin said. “So many lovely deaths tonight. And the praetor, Frank—?”
“Don’t.” Hazel shouldered past me. “Tarquin, don’t you dare say his name.”
“Ha! Dead, then. Excellent.” Tarquin sniffed the air, purple gas scrolling through his skeletal nose slits. “The city is ripe with fear. Agony. Loss. Wonderful! Apollo, you’re mine now, of course. I can feel your heart pumping its last few beats. And Hazel Levesque…I’m afraid you’ll have to die for collapsing my throne room on top of me. Very naughty trick. But this McCaffrey child…I’m in such a good mood, I might let her flee for her life and spread word of my great victory! That is, of course, if you cooperate and explain”—he pointed at the cat—“the meaning of this.”
“It’s a cat,” I said.
So much for Tarquin’s good mood. He snarled, and another wave of pain turned my spine to putty. Meg grabbed my arm before my face could hit the carpet.
“Leave him alone!” she yelled at the king. “There’s no way I’m fleeing anywhere.”
“Where are the Sibylline Books?” Tarquin demanded. “They are none of these!” He gestured dismissively at the shelves, then glared at Aristophanes. “And this creature will not speak! The harpy and the Cyclops who were rewriting the prophecies—I can smell that they were here, but they are gone. Where are they?”