فصل 23

So amaze! Such name!

Sssssarah with five s’s is

Still two syllablessssss

AT FIRST, the Valdez method worked fine.

We found nothing to blow up, but we also didn’t have to overthink anything. This was because we embraced the McCaffrey method as well, which involved chia seeds.

Faced with a choice of which corridor to take from the throne room, Meg pulled a soggy package of seeds from her red high-top. (I did not ask why she kept seeds in her shoes.) She caused the chia to sprout in her cupped palm, and the tiny forest of green stalks pointed toward the left-hand corridor.

“That way,” Meg announced.

“Awesome superpower,” Leo said. “When we get out of here, I’ma hook you up with a mask and a cape. We’ll call you Chia Girl.”

I hoped he was kidding. Meg, however, looked delighted.

The chia sprouts led us down one corridor then another. For an underground lair in the Indianapolis sewer system, the palace was quite opulent. The floors were rough-hewn slate, the gray stone walls decorated with alternating tapestries and television monitors showing—you guessed it—videos of Commodus. Most of the mahogany doors were labeled with engraved bronze plates: COMMODUS SAUNA, COMMODUS GUEST ROOMS 1–6, COMMODUS EMPLOYEE CAFETERIA, and, yes, COMMODUS COMMODES.

We saw no guards, no employees, no guests. The only person we encountered was a maid coming out of the COMMODUS IMPERIAL GUARD BARRACKS with a basket of dirty laundry.

When she saw us, her eyes widened in terror. (Probably because we looked dirtier and damper than anything she’d pulled from the Germani’s hamper.) Before she could scream, I knelt before her and sang “You Don’t See Me” by Josie and the Pussycats. The maid’s eyes became misty and unfocused. She sniffled nostalgically, walked back into the barracks, and closed the door behind her.

Leo nodded. “Nice one, Apollo.”

“It wasn’t hard. That tune is wonderful for inducing short-term amnesia.”

Meg sniffed. “Would’ve been kinder to hit her over the head.”

“Oh, come now,” I protested. “You like my singing.”

Her ears reddened. I remembered how young McCaffrey had cried when I poured out my heart and soul in the giant ants’ lair at Camp Half-Blood. I’d been rather proud of my performance, but I guess Meg did not feel like reliving it.

She punched me in the gut. “Come on.”

“Ow.”

The chia seeds led us deeper into the emperor’s compound. Silence began to weigh on me. Imaginary insects crawled across my shoulder blades. Surely Commodus’s men had dealt with the front-door incursion by now. They would be returning to their normal posts, perhaps checking security monitors for other intruders.

At last, we turned a corner and spotted a blemmyae keeping watch outside a metal vault door. The guard wore black dress pants and shiny black shoes, but he made no attempt to hide his chest-face. The hair across his shoulders/scalp was clipped in a military flattop. The wire of a security earpiece ran from beneath his armpit to his pants pocket. He did not appear to be armed, but that gave me no comfort. His meaty fists looked quite capable of crushing a pedal boat or a Lester Papadopoulos.

Leo grumbled under his breath, “Not these guys again.” Then he forced a smile and strode toward the guard. “Hello! Lovely day! How are you?”

The guard turned in surprise. I imagined that proper procedure would have been to alert his superiors to the intrusion, but he’d been asked a question. It would’ve been rude to ignore it.

“I’m fine.” The guard couldn’t seem to decide between a friendly smile or an intimidating glower. His mouth spasmed, which made him look like he was doing an ab exercise. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”

“Really?” Leo kept marching forward. “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome. Now if you’ll please raise your hands.”

“Like this?” Leo ignited his hands and torched the blemmyae’s chest-face.

The guard stumbled, choking on flames, batting his huge eyelashes like burning palm fronds. He groped for the button on the microphone attached to his earpiece. “Post twelve,” he croaked. “I’ve got—”

Meg’s twin golden swords scissored across his midsection, reducing him to a pile of yellow dust with a partially melted earpiece.

A voice warbled from the tiny speaker. “Post twelve, please repeat.”

I grabbed the device. I had no desire to wear something that had been in a blemmyae’s armpit, but I held the speaker next to my ear and spoke into the mic. “False alarm. Everything is hunky-dorky. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said the voice in the speaker. “Daily passcode, please.”

“Why, certainly! It’s—”

I threw the microphone down and crushed it under my heel.

Meg stared at me. “Hunky-dorky?”

“It sounded like something a blemmyae would say.”

“That’s not even the right expression. It’s hunky-dory.”

“A girl who says goddy is correcting my language.”

“Guys,” Leo said. “Keep a lookout while I take care of this door. There’s gotta be something important in here.”

I kept watch while he went to work on the vault lock. Meg, not being good at following directions, strolled back the way we’d come. She crouched and began picking up the chia sprouts she’d dropped when summoning her swords.

“Meg,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“Chia.”

“I can see that, but…” I almost said, They’re only sprouts.

Then I remembered one time I’d said something similar to Demeter. The goddess had cursed me so that every piece of clothing I put on immediately sprouted and bloomed. Nothing is quite as uncomfortable as having your cotton underwear burst into actual bolls of cotton, complete with stems, spurs, and seeds right where your…Well, I think you get the idea.

Meg gathered the last of her sprouts. With one of her swords, she cracked the slate floor. She carefully planted the chia in the fissure, then wrung out her still-wet skirt to water them.

I watched, fascinated, as the small patch of green thickened and flourished, forcing new cracks in the slate. Who knew chia could be so robust?

“They wouldn’t last any longer in my hand.” Meg stood, her expression defiant. “Everything alive deserves a chance to grow.”

The mortal Lester part of me found this sentiment admirable. The Apollo part of me wasn’t so sure. Over the centuries, I’d met many living beings that hadn’t seemed worthy or even capable of growth. A few of those beings I’d killed myself….

Still, I suspected Meg was saying something about herself. She had endured a horrid childhood—the death of her father, then the abuse of Nero, who’d twisted her mind into seeing him both as her kindly stepfather and the terrible Beast. Despite that, Meg had survived. I imagined she could empathize with small green things that had surprisingly strong roots.

“Yes!” Leo said. The vault lock clicked. The door swung inward. Leo turned and grinned. “Who’s the best?”

“Me?” I asked, but my spirits quickly fell. “You didn’t mean me, did you?”

Leo ignored me and stepped into the room.

I followed. Immediately, an intense, unpleasant moment of déjà vu struck me. Inside, a circular chamber was lined with glass partitions like the emperor’s training facility at the zoo. But here, instead of animals, the cages held people.

I was so appalled I could hardly breathe.

In the nearest cell on my left, huddled in a corner, two painfully emaciated teenage boys glared at me. Their clothes were rags. Shadows filled the cavernous recesses of their clavicles and ribs.

In the next cell, a girl in gray camouflage paced like a jaguar. Her shoulder-length hair was stark white, though she looked no more than fifteen. Given her level of energy and outrage, I guessed she was a recent captive. She had no bow, but I pegged her as a Hunter of Artemis. When she saw me, she marched to the glass. She banged on it with her fists and shouted angrily, but her voice was too muffled for me to make out the words.

I counted six other cells, each one occupied. In the center of the room was a metal post with iron hooks and chains—the sort of place where one could fasten slaves for inspection before sale.

“Madre de los dioses,” Leo muttered.

I thought the Arrow of Dodona was trembling in my quiver. Then I realized it was just me, shaking with anger.

I have always despised slavery. Partly, this is because twice before Zeus made me mortal and forced me to work as a slave for human kings. The most poetic description I can offer about that experience? It sucked.

Even before that, my temple at Delphi had created a special way for slaves to gain their freedom. With the help of my priests, thousands bought their emancipation through a ritual called the trust sale, by which I, the god Apollo, became their new master and then set them free.

Much later, one of my biggest grudges against the Romans was that they turned my holy island of Delos into the region’s biggest slave market. Can you believe the nerve? I sent an angry army led by Mithradates to correct that situation, slaughtering twenty thousand Romans in the process. But I mean, come on. They had it coming.

Suffice to say: Commodus’s prison reminded me of everything I hated about the Good Old Days.

Meg strode to the cell that held the two emaciated boys. With the point of her sword, she cut a circle in the glass and kicked it in. The dislodged section wobbled on the floor like a giant transparent coin.

The boys tried to stand without success. Meg jumped into the cell to help them.

“Yeah,” Leo muttered with approval. He pulled a hammer from his tool belt and marched to the cell of the captive Hunter. He gestured get back, then whacked the glass. The hammer bounced off, narrowly missing Leo’s nose on the rebound.

The Hunter rolled her eyes.

“Okay, Mr. Sheet of Glass.” Leo tossed aside the hammer. “You’re gonna be like that? It’s on!”

His hands blazed white-hot. He pressed his fingers against the glass, which began to warp and bubble. Within seconds, he melted a ragged hole at face level.

The silver-haired girl said, “Good. Step aside.”

“Hold on, I’ll make you a bigger exit,” Leo promised.

“No need.” The silver-haired girl backed up, launched herself through the hole, and gracefully somersaulted next to us, grabbing Leo’s discarded hammer as she stood.

“More weapons,” the girl demanded. “I need more weapons.”

Yes, I thought, definitely a Hunter of Artemis.

Leo pulled out a selection of tools for the girl’s consideration. “Um, I got a screwdriver, a hacksaw, and…I think this is a cheese cutter.”

The girl wrinkled her nose. “What are you, a tinkerer?”

“That’s Lord Tinkerer to you.”

The girl swiped the tools. “I’ll take them all.” She scowled at me. “What about your bow?”

“You can’t have my bow,” I said. “I’m Apollo.”

Her expression changed from shock to understanding to forced calm. I guessed the plight of Lester Papadopoulos was known among the Hunters.

“Right,” the girl said. “The rest of the Hunters should be on their way. I was the nearest to Indianapolis. I decided to play advance scout. Obviously, that didn’t work out so well for me.”

“In fact,” I said, “there was an incursion at the front gates a few minutes ago. I suspect your comrades have arrived.”

Her eyes darkened. “We need to leave, then. Quickly.”

Meg helped the emaciated boys from their cell. Up close, they looked even more pathetic and fragile, which made me angrier.

“Prisoners should never be treated this way,” I growled.

“Oh, they weren’t denied food,” the silver-haired girl said, admiration creeping into her voice. “They’ve been on a hunger strike. Courageous…for a couple of boys. I’m Hunter Kowalski, by the way.”

I frowned. “A Hunter named Hunter?”

“Yeah, I have heard that a million times. Let’s free the others.”

I found no convenient switch box to lower the glass doors, but with Meg and Leo’s help, we began slowly liberating the captives. Most seemed to be human or demigod (it was difficult to tell which) but one was a dracaena. She looked human enough from the waist up, but where her legs should have been, twin snake tails undulated.

“She’s friendly,” Hunter assured us. “We shared a cell last night until the guards separated us. Her name’s Sssssarah, with five s’s.”

That was good enough for me. We let her out.

The next cell held a lone young man who looked like a professional wrestler. He wore only a red-and-white loincloth with matching beads around his neck, but he did not seem underdressed. Just as gods are often depicted nude because they are perfect beings, this prisoner had no reason to hide his body. With his dark, glossy skin, his shaved head, and his muscular arms and chest, he looked like a teak warrior brought to life through the craft of Hephaestus. (I made a mental note to ask Hephaestus about such a project later.) His eyes, also teak brown, were piercing and angry—beautiful in the way only dangerous things can be. Tattooed on his right shoulder was a symbol I did not recognize, some sort of a double-bladed ax.

Leo fired up his hands to melt the glass, but the dracaena Sssssarah hissed.

“Not that one,” she warned. “Too dangerousssss.”

Leo frowned. “Lady, we need dangerous friends.”

“Yessss, but that one fought for money. He wassss employed by the emperor. He’sssss only here now because he did ssssomething to anger Commodussss.”

I studied Tall, Dark & Handsome. (I know that’s a cliché, but he really was all three.) I didn’t intend to leave anyone behind, especially someone who wore a loincloth so well.

“We’re going to free you,” I shouted through the glass, not sure how much he could hear. “Please don’t kill us. We are enemies of Commodus, the man who put you here.”

TD&H’s expression did not change: part anger, part disdain, part indifference—the same way Zeus looked every morning before his coffee-infused nectar.

“Leo,” I said. “Do it.”

Valdez melted the glass. TD&H stepped out slowly and gracefully, as if he had all the time in the world.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m the immortal god Apollo. Who might you be?”

His voice rolled like thunder. “I am Jimmy.”

“A noble name,” I decided, “worthy of kings.”

“Apollo,” Meg called. “Get over here.”

She was staring into the last cell. Of course it would be the last cell.

Hunched in the corner, sitting on a familiar bronze suitcase, was a young girl in a lavender wool sweater and green jeans. On her lap sat a plate of prison slop, which she was using to finger-paint on the wall. Her tufts of brown hair looked like she’d cut them herself with gardening shears. She was large for her age—about Leo’s size—but her babyish face told me she couldn’t have been more than seven.

“Georgina,” I said.

Leo scowled. “Why is she sitting on Festus? Why would they put him in there with her?”

I didn’t have an answer, but I motioned for Meg to cut through the glass wall.

“Let me go first,” I said.

I stepped through. “Georgie?”

The girl’s eyes were like fractured prisms, swirling with unanchored thoughts and waking nightmares. I knew that look too well. Over the centuries I’d seen many mortal minds broken under the weight of prophecy.

“Apollo.” She let out a burst of giggles as if her brain had developed a leak. “You and the dark. Some death, some death, some death.”