The Tyrant's Tomb

coerced her into entering the prophecy business. Lupa had warned me: You
will face more sacrifices. Death. Blood.
I forced that idea aside. “Anyway, Tarquin was monstrous enough when
he was alive. The Romans despised him so much they did away with the
monarchy forever. Even centuries later, the emperors never dared to call
themselves kings. Tarquin died in exile. His tomb was never located.”
“And now it’s here,” Reyna said.
It wasn’t a question. She accepted that an ancient Roman tomb could pop
up in Northern California, where it had no business being. The gods moved.
The demigod camps moved. It was just our luck that an evil undead lair
would move in next door. We really needed stricter mythological zoning
laws.
In the first row, next to Hazel, a senator rose to speak. He had dark curly
hair, off-center blue eyes, and a cherry-red mustache stain on his upper lip.
“So, to sum up: in three days, we’re facing an invasion from two evil
emperors, their armies, and fifty ships with weapons we don’t understand,
along with another wave of undead like the one that nearly destroyed us last
time, when we were a lot stronger. If that’s the bad news, what’s the bad
news?”
“I assume we’re getting to that, Dakota.” Reyna turned to me. “Right,
Lester?”
“The other bad news,” I said, “is that I have a plan, but it’s going to be
hard, maybe impossible, and parts of the plan aren’t exactly…plan-worthy,
yet.”
Dakota rubbed his hands. “Well, I’m excited. Let’s hear it!”
He sat back down, pulled a flask from his toga, and took a swig. I
guessed that he was a child of Bacchus, and, judging from the smell that
wafted across the senate floor, his chosen beverage was fruit punch Kool-
Aid.
I took a deep breath. “So. The Sibylline Books are basically like
emergency recipes, right? Sacrifices. Ritual prayers. Some are designed to
appease angry gods. Some are designed to call for divine aid against your
enemies. I believe…I’m pretty sure…if we’re able to find the correct recipe
for our predicament, and do what it says, I may be able to summon help from
Mount Olympus.”
No one laughed or called me crazy. Gods didn’t intervene in demigod
affairs often, but it did happen on rare occasions. The idea wasn’t completely