The Tyrant's Tomb

“Yep, yep,” said Ella. “No results for Bellona or the soundless god.
Hmm.” She tapped the sides of her head. “Need more words for those. But
Tarquin’s tomb. Yep. Found a line.”
She scuttled to the tattoo chair, Aristophanes trotting close behind,
swatting at her wings. Ella tapped Tyson’s shoulder blade. “Here.”
Tyson giggled.
“A wildcat near the spinning lights,” Ella read aloud. “The tomb of
Tarquin with horses bright. To open his door, two-fifty-four.”
Mrow, said Aristophanes.
“No, Aristophanes,” Ella said, her tone softening, “you are not a
wildcat.”
The beast purred like a chainsaw.
I waited for more prophecy. Most of the Sibylline Books read like The
Joy of Cooking, with sacrificial recipes to placate the gods in the event of
certain catastrophes. Plague of locusts ruining your crops? Try the Ceres
soufflé with loaves of honey bread roasted over her altar for three days.
Earthquake destroying the city? When Neptune comes home tonight,
surprise him with three black bulls basted in holy oil and burned in a fire pit
with sprigs of rosemary!
But Ella seemed to be done reading.
“Frank,” I said, “did that make any sense to you?”
He frowned. “I thought you would understand it.”
When would people realize that just because I was the god of prophecy
didn’t mean I understood prophecies? I was also the god of poetry. Did I
understand the metaphors in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land? No.
“Ella,” I said, “could those lines describe a location?”
“Yep, yep. Close by, probably. But only to go in. Look around. Find out
the right things and leave. Not to kill Tarquinius Superbus. Nope. He’s much
too dead to kill. For that, hmm…Need more words.”
Frank Zhang picked at the mural-crown badge on his chest. “Tarquinius
Superbus. The last king of Rome. He was considered a myth even back in
Imperial Roman times. His tomb was never discovered. Why would he
be…?” He gestured around us.
“In our neck of the woods?” I finished. “Probably the same reason
Mount Olympus is hovering above New York, or Camp Jupiter is in the Bay
Area.”