The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5)(40)

About fifty feet to my left, Meg was playing death-tag with Cow the First. She looked unharmed, but I could tell she was tiring, her reaction times slowing.

More cows began to fall into the pit like large, uncoordinated Acapulco cliff-divers. I recalled something Dionysus had once told me about his twin sons, Castor and Pollux—back when he was living with his mortal wife during a short phase of “domestic bliss.” He’d claimed that two was the best number for children, because after two, your children outnumbered you.

The same was true for killer cows. Meg and I could not hope to fend off more than a pair of them. Our only hope was…My eyes fixed on the mast of the crane.

“Meg!” I yelled. “Back to the ladder!”

She tried to comply, but Cow the First stood between her and the crane. I whipped out my ukulele and ran in their direction.

“Cowie, cowie, cow!” I strummed desperately. “Hey, cow! Bad, cow! Run away, cowie, cowie, cow!”

I doubted the tune would win any Grammys, but I was hoping it might at least distract Cow the First long enough for Meg to get around it. The cow stayed stubbornly put. So did Meg.

I reached her side. I glanced back in time to see Potty Cow throw off the tarp and charge toward us. The newly fallen cows were also getting to their hooves.

I estimated we had about ten seconds to live.

“Go,” I told Meg. “J-jump the cow and climb the ladder. I’ll—”

I didn’t know how to finish that statement. I’ll stay here and die? I’ll compose another verse of “Cowie, Cowie, Cow”?

Just as Cow the First lowered its horns and charged, a hand grabbed my shoulder.

Nico di Angelo’s voice said, “Gotcha.”

And the world turned cold and dark.





“JUMP THE COW?” MEG DEMANDED. “THAT was your plan?”

The five of us sat in a sewer, which was something I’d grown accustomed to. Meg seemed to be bouncing back quickly from her shadow-travel sickness, thanks to Will’s timely administration of nectar and Kit Kat bars. I, however, still felt like I was coming down with the flu: chills, body aches, disorientation. I was not ready to be assaulted for my choices in combat.

“I was improvising,” I said. “I didn’t want to see you die.”

Meg threw her hands up. “And I didn’t want to see you die, dummy. Did you think of that?”

“Guys,” Rachel interrupted, a cold pack pressed against her head. “How about none of us lets any of us die? Okay?”

Will checked her bruised temple. “Feeling any better?”

“I’ll be fine,” Rachel said, then explained for my benefit: “I managed to stumble into the wall when we teleported here.”

Nico looked sheepish. “Sorry about that.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” Rachel said. “Better than being trampled.”

“Guess so,” he said. “Once we…”

Nico’s eyelids fluttered. His pupils rolled up in his head and he slumped against Will’s shoulder. It might have been a clever ploy to fall into his boyfriend’s arms—I had used the catch me, handsome fainting trick a few times myself—but since Nico immediately began to snore, I decided he was not faking.

“That’s night-night for Nico.” Will pulled a travel pillow from his supply bag, which I suspected he carried just for these occasions. He eased the son of Hades into a comfortable sleeping position, then gave us a weary smile. “He’ll need about half an hour to recover. Until then, we might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

On the bright side, I’d had plenty of experience getting comfortable in sewers, and Nico had shadow-traveled us to the New York drainage system’s equivalent of the presidential suite.

The vaulted ceiling was adorned with a redbrick herringbone pattern. Along either wall, terra-cotta pipes dripped only the finest goo into a canal running down the middle of the floor. The concrete ledge upon which we sat was comfortably upholstered with lichen and scum. In the dim golden glow of Meg’s swords—our only illumination—the tunnel looked almost romantic.

Given New York rental prices, I imagined a place like this could go for quite a bit. Running water. Privacy. Lots of space. Great bones—mouse bones, chicken bones, and some others I couldn’t identify. And did I mention the stench? The stench was included at no extra cost.

Will tended to our various cuts and scrapes, which were surprisingly light given our morning’s adventures. He insisted we partake liberally of his medicinal stockpile of Kit Kat bars.

“The best thing for recovering from shadow-travel,” he assured us.

Who was I to argue with the healing powers of chocolate and wafers?

We ate in silence for a while. Rachel held the cold pack against her head and stared glumly at the sewer water as if waiting for pieces of her family home to float by. Meg sprinkled seeds into the scum patches next to her, causing luminous mushrooms to pop into existence like tiny umbrellas. When life gives you scum, make mushrooms, I suppose.

“Those forest bulls were amazing,” Meg said after a while. “If you could train them to carry…”

I groaned. “It was bad enough when you weaponized unicorns.”

“Yeah. That was great.” She looked down the tunnel in both directions. “Does anyone know how we can get out of here?”