by Rick Riordan
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?”
I said a silent prayer of thanks for stubborn harpies. Ella and Tyson must’ve still been waiting at Temple Hill for divine help that wasn’t coming.
Meg snorted. “You’re stupid for a king. The Books aren’t here. They’re not even books.”
Tarquin regarded my small master, then turned to his zombies. “What language is she speaking? Did that make sense to anyone?”
The zombies stared at him unhelpfully. The ghouls were too busy reading about vultures and eating Great Expectations.
Tarquin faced me again. “What does the girl mean? Where are the Books, and how are they not books?”
Again, my chest constricted. The words burst out of me: “Tyson. Cyclops. Prophecies tattooed on his skin. He’s on Temple Hill with—”
“Quiet!” Meg ordered. My mouth clamped shut, but it was too late. The words were out of the barn. Was that the right expression?
Tarquin tilted his skull. “The chair in the back room…Yes. Yes, I see now. Ingenious! I will have to keep this harpy alive and watch her practice her art. Prophecies on flesh? Oh, I can work with that!”
“You’ll never leave this place,” Hazel growled. “My troops are cleaning up the last of your invaders. It’s just us now. And you’re about to rest in pieces.”
Tarquin hissed a laugh. “Oh, my dear. Did you think that was the invasion? Those troops were just my skirmishers, tasked with keeping you all divided and confused while I came here to secure the Books. Now I know where they are, which means the city can be properly pillaged! The rest of my army should be coming through your sewers right about”—he snapped his bone fingers—“now.”
Captain Underpants
Does not appear in this book
Copyright issues
I WAITED FOR THE sounds of renewed combat outside. The bookstore was so quiet I could almost hear the zombies breathing.
The city remained silent.
“Right about now,” Tarquin repeated, snapping his finger bones again.
“Having communications issues?” Hazel asked.
Tarquin hissed. “What have you done?”
“Me? Nothing yet.” Hazel drew her spatha. “That’s about to change.”
Aristophanes struck first. Of course the cat would make the fight all about him. With an outraged mewl and no apparent provocation, the giant orange tub of fur launched himself at Tarquin’s face, fastening his foreclaws on the skull’s eye sockets and kicking his back feet against Tarquin’s rotten teeth. The king staggered under this surprise assault, screaming in Latin, his words garbled because of the cat paws in his mouth. And so the Battle of the Bookstore began.
Hazel launched herself at Tarquin. Meg seemed to accept that Hazel had first dibs on the big baddie, considering what had happened to Frank, so she concentrated on the zombies instead, using her double blades to stab and hack and push them toward the nonfiction section.
I drew an arrow, intending to shoot the ghoul on the balcony, but my hands trembled too badly. I couldn’t get to my feet. My eyesight was dim and red. On top of all that, I realized I’d drawn the only arrow remaining in my original quiver: the Arrow of Dodona.
HOLDEST THOU ON, APOLLO! the arrow said in my mind. YIELDETH THYSELF NOT TO THE UNDEAD KING!
Through my fog of pain, I wondered if I was going crazy.
“Are you giving me a pep talk?” The idea made me giggle. “Whew, I’m tired.”
I collapsed on my butt.
Meg stepped over me and slashed a zombie who had been about to eat my face.
“Thank you,” I muttered, but she’d already moved on. The ghouls had reluctantly put down their books and were now closing in on her.
Hazel stabbed at Tarquin, who had just flung Aristophanes off his face. The cat yowled as he flew across the room. He managed to catch the edge of a bookshelf and scramble to the top. He glared down at me with his green eyes, his expression implying I meant to do that.
The Arrow of Dodona kept talking in my head: THOU HAST DONE WELL, APOLLO! THOU HAST ONLY ONE JOB NOW: LIVE!
“That’s a really hard job,” I muttered. “I hate my job.”
THOU HAST ONLY TO WAIT! HOLD ON!
“Wait for what?” I murmured. “Hold on to what? Oh…I guess I’m holding on to you.”
YES! the arrow said. YES, DOEST THOU THAT! STAYEST THOU WITH ME, APOLLO. DAREST THOU NOT DIE UPON ME, MAN!
“Isn’t tha
t from a movie?” I asked. “Like…every movie? Wait, you actually care if I die?”
“Apollo!” yelled Meg, slashing at Great Expectations. “If you’re not going to help, could you at least crawl someplace safer?”
I wanted to oblige. I really did. But my legs wouldn’t work.
“Oh, look,” I muttered to no one in particular. “My ankles are turning gray. Oh, wow. My hands are, too.”
NO! said the arrow. HOLD ON!
“For what?”
CONCENTRATE UPON MY VOICE. LET US SING A SONG! THOU LIKEST SONGS, DOST THOU NOT?
“Sweet Caroline!” I warbled.
PERHAPS A DIFFERENT SONG?
“BAHM! BAHM! BAHM!” I continued.
The arrow relented and began singing along with me, though he lagged behind, since he had to translate all the lyrics into Shakespearean language.
This was how I would die: sitting on the floor of a bookstore, turning into a zombie while holding a talking arrow and singing Neil Diamond’s greatest hit. Even the Fates cannot foresee all the wonders the universe has in store for us.
At last my voice dried up. My vision tunneled. The sounds of combat seemed to reach my ears from the ends of long metal tubes.
Meg slashed through the last of Tarquin’s minions. That was a good thing, I thought distantly. I didn’t want her to die, too. Hazel stabbed Tarquin in the chest. The Roman king fell, howling in pain, ripping the sword hilt from Hazel’s grip. He collapsed against the information desk, clutching the blade with his skeletal hands.
Hazel stepped back, waiting for the zombie king to dissolve. Instead, Tarquin struggled to his feet, purple gas flickering weakly in his eye sockets.
“I have lived for millennia,” he snarled. “You could not kill me with a thousand tons of stone, Hazel Levesque. You will not kill me with a sword.”
I thought Hazel might fly at him and rip his skull off with her bare hands. Her rage was so palpable I could smell it like an approaching storm. Wait…I did smell an approaching storm, along with other forest scents: pine needles, morning dew on wildflowers, the breath of hunting dogs.
A large silver wolf licked my face. Lupa? A hallucination? No…a whole pack of the beasts had trotted into the store and were now sniffing the bookshelves and the piles of zombie dust.
Behind them, in the doorway, stood a girl who looked about twelve, her eyes silver-yellow, her auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was dressed for the hunt in a shimmering gray frock and leggings, a white bow in her hand. Her face was beautiful, serene, and as cold as the winter moon.
She nocked a silver arrow and met Hazel’s eyes, asking permission to finish her kill. Hazel nodded and stepped aside. The young girl aimed at Tarquin.
“Foul undead thing,” she said, her voice hard and bright with power. “When a good woman puts you down, you had best stay down.”
Her arrow lodged in the center of Tarquin’s forehead, splitting his frontal bone. The king stiffened. The tendrils of purple gas sputtered and dissipated. From the arrow’s point of entry, a ripple of fire the color of Christmas tinsel spread across Tarquin’s skull and down his body, disintegrating him utterly. His gold crown, the silver arrow, and Hazel’s sword all dropped to the floor.
I grinned at the newcomer. “Hey, Sis.”
Then I keeled over sideways.
The world turned fluffy, bleached of all color. Nothing hurt anymore.
I was dimly aware of Diana’s face hovering over me, Meg and Hazel peering over the goddess’s shoulders.
“He’s almost gone,” Diana said.
Then I was gone. My mind slipped into a pool of cold, slimy darkness.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” My sister’s voice woke me rudely.
I’d been so comfortable, so nonexistent.
Life surged back into me—cold, sharp, and unfairly painful. Diana’s face came into focus. She looked annoyed, which seemed on-brand for her.
As for me, I felt surprisingly good. The pain in my gut was gone. My muscles didn’t burn. I could breathe without difficulty. I must have slept for decades.
“H-how long was I out?” I croaked.
“Roughly three seconds,” she said. “Now, get up, drama queen.”
She helped me to my feet. I felt a bit unsteady, but I was delighted to find that my legs had any strength at all. My skin was no longer gray. The lines of infection were gone. The Arrow of Dodona was still in my hand, though he had gone silent, perhaps in awe of the goddess’s presence. Or perhaps he was still trying to get the taste of “Sweet Caroline” out of his imaginary mouth.
Meg and Hazel stood nearby, bedraggled but unharmed. Friendly gray wolves milled around them, bumping against their legs and sniffing their shoes, which had obviously been to many interesting places over the course of the day. Aristophanes regarded us all from his perch atop the bookshelf, decided he didn’t care, then went back to cleaning himself.
I beamed at my sister. It was so good to see her disapproving I-can’t-believe-you’re-my-brother frown again. “I love you,” I said, my voice hoarse with emotion.
She blinked, clearly unsure what to do with this information. “You really have changed.”
“I missed you!”
“Y-yes, well. I’m here now. Even Dad couldn’t argue with a Sibylline invocation from Temple Hill.”
“It worked, then!” I grinned at Hazel and Meg. “It worked!”
“Yeah,” Meg said wearily. “Hi, Artemis.”
“Diana,” my sister corrected. “But hello, Meg.” For her, my sister had a smile. “You’ve done well, young warrior.”
Meg blushed. She kicked at the scattered zombie dust on the floor and shrugged. “Eh.”
I checked my stomach, which was easy, since my shirt was in tatters. The bandages had vanished, along with the festering wound. Only a thin white scar remained. “So…I’m healed?” My flab told me she hadn’t restored me to my godly self. Nah, that would have been too much to expect.
Diana raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not the goddess of healing, but I’m still a goddess. I think I can take care of my little brother’s boo-boos.”
“Little brother?”
She smirked, then turned to Hazel. “And you, Centurion. How have you been?”
Hazel was no doubt sore and stiff, but she knelt and bowed her head like a good Roman. “I’m…” She hesitated. Her world had just been shattered. She’d lost Frank. She apparently decided not to lie to the goddess. “I’m heartbroken and exhausted, my lady. But thank you for coming to our aid.”
Diana’s expression softened. “Yes. I know it has been a difficult night. Come, let’s go outside. It’s rather stuffy in here, and it smells like burnt Cyclops.”
The survivors were slowly gathering on the street. Perhaps some instinct had drawn them there, to the place of Tarquin’s defeat. Or perhaps they’d simply come to gawk at the glowing silver chariot with its team of four golden reindeer now parallel-parked in front of the bookshop.
Giant eagles and hunting falcons shared the rooftops. Wolves hobnobbed with Hannibal the elephant and the weaponized unicorns. Legionnaires and citizens of New Rome milled about in shock.
At the end of the street, huddled with a group of survivors, was Thalia Grace, her hand on the shoulder of the legion’s new standard-bearer, comforting the young woman as she cried. Thalia was dressed in her usual black denim, various punk-band buttons gleaming on the lapel of her leather jacket. A silver circlet, the symbol of Artemis’s lieutenant, glinted in her spiky dark hair. Her sunken eyes and slumped shoulders made me suspect that she already knew about Jason’s death—perhaps had known for a while and had gone through a first hard wave of grieving.
I winced with guilt. I should have been the one to deliver the news about Jason. The cowardly part of me felt relieved that I didn’t have to bear the initial brunt of Thalia’s anger. The rest of me felt horrible that I felt relieved.
I needed to go talk to her. Then something caught my eye in the crowd checking out Diana
’s chariot. People were packed into its carriage tighter than New Year’s Eve revelers in a stretch limo’s sunroof. Among them was a lanky young woman with pink hair.
From my mouth escaped another completely inappropriate, delighted laugh. “Lavinia?”
She looked over and grinned. “This ride is so cool! I never want to get out.”
Diana smiled. “Well, Lavinia Asimov, if you want to stay on board, you’d have to become a Hunter.”
“Nope!” Lavinia hopped off as if the chariot’s floorboards had become lava. “No offense, my lady, but I like girls too much to take that vow. Like…like them. Not just like them. Like—”
“I understand.” Diana sighed. “Romantic love. It’s a plague.”
“Lavinia, h-how did you…” I stammered. “Where did you—?”
“This young woman,” said Diana, “was responsible for the destruction of the Triumvirate’s fleet.”
“Well, I had a lot of help,” Lavinia said.
“PEACHES!” said a muffled voice from somewhere in the chariot.
He was so short, I hadn’t noticed him before, hidden as he was behind the carriage’s sideboard and the crowd of big folk, but now Peaches squirmed and climbed his way to the top of the railing. He grinned his wicked grin. His diaper sagged. His leafy wings rustled. He beat his chest with his minuscule fists and looked very pleased with himself.
“Peaches!” Meg cried.
“PEACHES!” Peaches agreed, and he flew into Meg’s arms. Never had there been such a bittersweet reunion between a girl and her deciduous fruit spirit. There were tears and laughter, hugs and scratches, and cries of “Peaches!” in every tone from scolding to apologetic to jubilant.
“I don’t understand,” I said, turning to Lavinia. “You made all those mortars malfunction?”
Lavinia looked offended. “Well, yeah. Somebody had to stop the fleet. I did pay attention during siege-weapon class and ship-boarding class. It wasn’t that hard. All it took was a little fancy footwork.”
Hazel finally managed to pick her jaw off the pavement. “Wasn’t that hard?”
“We were motivated! The fauns and dryads did great.” She paused, her expression momentarily clouding, as if she remembered something unpleasant. “Um…besides, the Nereids helped a lot. There was only a skeleton crew aboard each yacht. Not, like, actual skeletons, but—you know what I mean. Also, look!”