The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5)(66)

I nocked three more arrows at once and did my best to look threatening. “Get out of here! Go!”

The technicians looked tempted—it was, after all, a very fair offer—but their fear of me was apparently not as great as their fear of the Germani.

Still growling in pain from the arrow in his leg, Leader Guy yelled, “Do your job!”

The technicians lunged toward their naughty buttons. The four Germani charged me.

“Sorry, guys.” I split my arrows, shooting each technician in the foot, which I hoped would keep them distracted long enough for me to deal with the Germani.

I blasted the closest barbarian into dust with an arrow to the chest, but the other three kept coming. I leaped into their midst: bow-punching, elbow-jabbing, arrow-poking like a maniac. With another lucky shot, I took down a second Chinese-food eater, then wrestled free long enough to throw a chair at Door Guy #2, who had just located his gun. One of the metal legs knocked him out cold.

Two lemon-chicken-splattered Germani remained. As they charged, I ran between them with my bow horizontal, at face level, smacking them each in the nose. They staggered back as I fired two more shots, point-blank. It wasn’t very sporting, but it was effective. The Germani collapsed into piles of dust and sticky rice.

I was feeling pretty smug…until someone hit me in the back of the head. The room went red and purple. I crumpled to my hands and knees, rolled over to defend myself, and found Leader Guy standing over me, the tip of his sword in my face.

“Enough,” he snarled. His leg was soaked in blood, my arrow still stuck through his shin like a Halloween gag. He barked at the technicians, “START THOSE PUMPS!”

In a last desperate attempt to intervene, I sang, “DON’T DO ME LIKE THAT!” in a voice that would have made Tom Petty cringe.

Leader Guy dug his sword point into my Adam’s apple. “Sing one more word and I will cut out your vocal cords.”

I frantically tried to think of more tricks I could pull. I’d been doing so well. I couldn’t give up now. But lying on the floor, exhausted and battered and buzzing from adrenaline burnout, my head started to spin. My vision doubled. Two Leader Guys floated above me. Six blurry technicians with arrows in their shoes limped back to their control panels.

“What’s the holdup?” yelled Leader Guy.

“W-we’re trying, sir,” said one of the techs. “The controls aren’t…I can’t get any readings.”

Both of Leader Guy’s blurry faces glared down at me. “I’m glad you’re not dead yet. Because I’m going to kill you slowly.”

Strangely, I felt elated. I may even have grinned. Had I somehow short-circuited the control panels when I stomped across them? Cool! I might die, but I had saved New York!

“Try unplugging it,” said the second tech. “Then plug it back in.”

Clearly, he was the senior troubleshooter for 1-555-ASK-EVIL.

Tech #3 crawled under the table and rummaged with cords.

“It won’t work!” I croaked. “Your diabolical plan has been foiled!”

“No, we’re good now,” announced Tech #1. “Readings are nominal.” He turned to Leader Guy. “Shall I—?”

“WHY ARE YOU EVEN ASKING?” Leader Guy bellowed. “DO IT!”

“No!” I wailed.

Leader Guy dug his sword point a little deeper into my throat, but not enough to kill. Apparently, he was serious about wanting a slow death for me.

The technicians punched their naughty buttons. They stared at the video monitors expectantly. I said a silent prayer, hoping the New York metropolitan area would forgive me my latest, most horrible failure.

The techs fiddled with buttons some more.

“Everything looks normal,” said Tech #1, in a puzzled tone that indicated everything did not look normal.

“I don’t see anything happening,” said Leader Guy, scanning the monitors. “Why aren’t there flames? Explosions?”

“I—I don’t understand.” Tech #2 banged his monitor. “The fuel isn’t…It’s not going anywhere.”

I couldn’t help it. I began to giggle.

Leader Guy kicked me in the face. It hurt so much I had to giggle even harder.

“What did you do to my fire vats?” he demanded. “What did you do?”

“Me?” I cackled. My nose felt broken. I was bubbling mucus and blood in a way that must have been extremely attractive. “Nothing!”

I laughed at him. It was just so perfect. The thought of dying here, surrounded by Chinese food and barbarians, seemed absolutely perfect. Either Nero’s doomsday machines had malfunctioned all by themselves, I had done more damage to the controls than I’d realized, or somewhere deep beneath the building, something had gone right for a change, and I owed every troglodyte a new hat.

The idea made me laugh hysterically, which hurt a great deal.

Leader Guy spat. “Now, I kill you.”

He raised his sword…and froze. His face turned pale. His skin began to shrivel. His beard fell out whisker by whisker like dead pine needles. Finally, his skin crumbled away, along with his clothes and flesh, until Leader Guy was nothing but a bleached-white skeleton, holding a sword in his bony hands.

Standing behind him, his hand on the skeleton’s shoulder, was Nico di Angelo.