Untitled Part 31
WE ALL MAKE OUR CHOICES.
Mine was to turn and run.
Not that I was terrified of a dozen Germani trying to kill me. Okay, yes, I was terrified of a dozen Germani trying to kill me. But also I had no arrows and no strength left. I badly wanted to hide behind – I mean, stand next to – Rachel, Screech-Bling and my old friend the low-budget Celtic Wolverine.
And ... and . Nero's words rang in my ears. Destroying the fasces would be deadly. I could not allow anyone else to take that risk. Perhaps the leontocephaline had been amused for reasons Lu hadn't understood. Perhaps my sacrifice couldn't be avoided as easily as she believed.
I stumbled into Luguselwa, who managed to catch me without stabbing me to death. Will, still glowing like an overachieving night light, had propped Nico against the wall and was now tending to his wounds. Screech-Bling let out a high-pitched whistle, and more troglodytes poured into the room, charging the emperor's forces in a flurry of shrieks, mining picks and stylish headwear.
I gasped for breath, making a grabby-hand gesture at Rachel. 'Give me the fasces.'
'Please?' she prompted. 'And, Gee, sorry, I underestimated you, Rachel, you're actually kind of a warrior queen ?'
'Yes, please, and thank you, and all of that!'
Lu scowled. 'Apollo, are you sure you can destroy it? I mean, without killing yourself?'
'No and no,' I said.
Rachel stared into the air, as if reading a prophecy written in the dancing lights of the disco ball. 'I can't see the outcome,' she said. 'But he has to try.'
I took the fasces, struggling not to collapse under its weight. The ceremonial weapon hummed and shuddered like an overheating race-car engine. Its aura made my pores pop and my ears ring. My side started to bleed again, if it had ever really stopped. I wasn't thrilled about the blood trickling down my chest and into my underwear while I had an important job to do. Sorry again, underwear.
'Cover me,' I told the ladies.
Lu leaped into battle, stabbing, slashing and kicking any Germani who got past the troglodytes. Rachel pulled out a blue plastic hairbrush and threw it at the nearest barbarian, beaning him in the eye and making him howl.
Sorry I underestimated you, Rachel, I thought distantly. You're actually kind of a hairbrush ninja.
I cast a worried glance across the room. Meg was all right. More than all right. She had convinced all her remaining foster siblings to throw down their weapons. Now she stood in front of them like a general trying to shore up her demoralized troops. Or – a less flattering comparison – she reminded me of one of Hades's dog trainers working with a pack of new hellhounds. At the moment, the demigods were obeying her commands and staying put, but any sign of weakness from her, any change in the temperature of the battle, and they might break ranks and slaughter everyone in sight.
It didn't help that Nero was stomping up and down on his couch, screeching, 'Kill Apollo! Kill Apollo!' as if I were a cockroach he'd just spotted scurrying across the floor.
For Meg's sake, I had to hurry.
I gripped the fasces with both hands and tried to prise it apart. The golden bundle of rods glowed brighter and warmer, illuminating the bones and red flesh of my fingers, but it didn't budge.
'Come on,' I muttered, trying again, hoping for a burst of godly strength. 'If you need another immortal life as a sacrifice, I'm right here!'
Maybe I should have felt foolish negotiating with a Roman ceremonial axe, but after my conversations with the Arrow of Dodona it seemed like a reasonable thing to try.
The troglodytes made the Germani look like the bumbling team the Harlem Globetrotters always played. (Sorry, Washington Generals.) Lu sliced and poked and parried with her knife hands. Rachel stood protectively in front of me and occasionally muttered, 'Apollo, now would be good,' which I did not find helpful.
Meg still had her foster siblings under control for the time being, but that could change. She was talking to them encouragingly, gesturing to me with a look that said Apollo has this. He'll destroy Dad any minute. Just watch.
I wished I shared her certainty.
I took a shaky breath. 'I can do this. I just need to concentrate. How hard can it be to destroy myself?'
I tried to break the fasces over my knee, which nearly broke my knee.
At last Nero lost his cool. I supposed there was only so much satisfaction he could get from stomping on his sofa and screaming at his minions.
'Do I have to do everything myself?' he yelled. 'Do I have to kill you all ? You forget I AM A GOD!'
He jumped off his couch and marched straight towards me, his whole body starting to glow, because Will Solace couldn't have his own thing. Oh, no, Nero had to glow, too.
Trogs swarmed the emperor. He tossed them aside. Germani who didn't get out of his way fast enough were also thrown into the next time zone. Meg looked like she wanted to challenge Nero herself, but any move away from her foster siblings would have shattered their delicate standoff. Nico was still only half-conscious. Will was busy trying to revive him.
That left Lu and Rachel as my last line of defence. I couldn't have that. They'd been in harm's way for my sake enough already.
Nero might've been the most minor of minor gods, but he still had divine strength. His glow was getting brighter as he approached the fasces – like Will, like me in my own godly moments of rage...
A thought came to me – or maybe something deeper than a thought, a sort of instinctive recognition. Like Caligula, Nero had always wanted to be the new sun god. He'd designed his giant golden Colossus to look like my body with his head on it. This fasces wasn't just his symbol of power and immortality – it was his claim to godhood.
What had he asked me earlier ...? Are you worthy of being a god?
That was the central question. He believed he made a better deity than I did. Perhaps he was right, or perhaps neither of us was worthy. There was one way to find out. If I couldn't destroy the fasces myself, maybe with a little godly help...
'Get out of the way!' I told Lu and Rachel.
They glanced back at me like I was crazy.
'RUN!' I told them.
They broke to either side just before Nero would have ploughed through them.
The emperor stopped in front of me, his eyes flickering with power.
'You lose,' he said. 'Give it to me.'
'Take it if you can.' I began to glow myself. Radiance intensified around me, as it had months ago in Indianapolis, but slower this time, building to a crescendo. The fasces pulsed in sympathy, beginning to superheat. Nero snarled and grabbed the handle of the axe.
To our mutual surprise, the strength of my grip was equal to his. We played tug-of-war, swinging the blade back and forth, trying to kill each other, but neither of us could win. The glow around us increased like a feedback loop – bleaching the carpet under our feet, whitening the black marble columns. Germani had to stop fighting just to shield their eyes. Trogs screamed and retreated, their dark goggles insufficient protection.
'You – cannot – take – it, Lester!' Nero said through clenched teeth, pulling with all his might.
'I am Apollo,' I said, tugging the other direction. 'God of the sun. And I – revoke – your – divinity!'
The fasces cracked in two – the shaft shattering, the rods and golden blade exploding like a firebomb. A tsunami of flames washed over me, along with thousands of years of Nero's pent-up rage, fear and insatiable hunger – the twisted sources of his power. I stood my ground, but Nero hurtled backwards and landed on the carpet, his clothes smouldering, his skin mottled with burns.
My glow started to fade. I was unharmed ... or at least no more harmed than I'd been before.
The fasces was broken, but Nero remained alive and intact. Had all this been for nothing, then?
At least he wasn't gloating any more. Instead, the emperor sobbed in despair. 'What have you done? Don't you see?'
Only then did he begin to crumble. His fingers disintegrated. His toga frayed into smoke. A glittery cloud plumed from his mouth and nose, as if he were exhaling his life force along with his final breaths. Worst of all – this glitter didn't simply vanish. It poured downward, seeping into the Persian rug, worming into cracks between the floor tiles, almost as if Nero were being pulled – clawed and dragged – into the depths, piece by piece.
'You've given him victory,' he whimpered. 'You've –'
The last of his mortal form dissolved and soaked through the floor.
Everyone in the room stared at me. The Germani dropped their weapons.
Nero was finally gone.
I wanted to feel joy and relief, but all I felt was exhaustion.
'Is it over?' Lu asked.
Rachel stood next to me, but her voice seemed to come from very far away: 'Not yet. Not even close.'
My consciousness was dimming, but I knew she was right. I understood the real threat now. I had to get going. There was no time to waste.
Instead, I toppled into Rachel's arms and passed out.
I found myself hovering over a different throne room – the Council of the Gods on Mount Olympus. Thrones curved around Hestia's great hearth, forming a U. My family, such as they were, sat watching a holographic image that floated above the flames. It was me, lying passed out in Rachel's arms in Nero's tower.
So ... I was watching them watch me watch them ... Nope. Too meta.
'This is the most critical time,' Athena said. She was dressed in her usual armour and oversize helmet, which I'm pretty sure she stole from Marvin the Martian in Looney Tunes. 'He is perilously close to failure.'
'Hmph.' Ares sat back and crossed his arms. 'I wish he'd get on with it, then. I have twenty golden drachma riding on this.'
'That is so callous,' Hermes chided. 'Besides, it's thirty drachmas, and I gave you very good odds.' He pulled out a leather-bound notepad and a pencil. 'Any final bets, people?'
'Stop,' Zeus rumbled. He was dressed in a sombre black three-piece suit, as if on his way to my funeral. His shaggy black beard was freshly combed and oiled. His eyes flickered with subdued lightning. He almost looked concerned for my situation.
Then again, he was as good an actor as Nero.
'We must wait for the final battle,' he announced. 'The worst is yet to come.'
'Hasn't he proved himself already?' Artemis demanded. My heart ached, seeing my sister again. 'He's suffered more in these last few months than even you could have expected! Whatever lesson you were trying to teach him, dear Father, he's learned it!'
Zeus glowered. 'You do not understand all the forces at work here, Daughter. Apollo must face the final challenge, for all our sakes.'
Hephaestus sat forward in his mechanical recliner, adjusting his leg braces. 'And, if he fails, what then? Eleven Olympian gods? That's a terribly unbalanced number.'
'It could work,' Aphrodite said.
'Don't you start!' Artemis snapped.
Aphrodite batted her eyelashes, feigning innocence. 'What? I'm just saying some pantheons have way less than twelve. Or we could elect a new twelfth.'
'A god of climate disasters!' Ares suggested. 'That would be awesome. He and I could work well together!'
'Stop it, all of you.' Queen Hera had been sitting back with a dark veil over her face. Now she lifted it. To my surprise, her eyes were red and swollen. She had been crying. 'This has gone on long enough. Too much loss. Too much pain. But, if my husband insists on seeing it through, the least you all can do is not talk about Apollo as if he's already dead!'
Wow , I thought. Who is this woman and what has she done with my stepmother?
'Nonexistent,' Athena amended. 'If he fails, his fate will be much worse than death. But, whatever happens, it begins now.'
They all leaned forward, staring at the vision in the flames as my body began to stir.
Then I was back in my mortal form, looking up not at the Olympians, but at the faces of my friends.
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