The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,78

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.

“That’s better,” Nico said. “Now stand down.”

The skeleton obeyed, lowering its sword and stepping away from me.

The technicians whimpered in terror. They were mortals, so I wasn’t sure what they thought they’d just seen, but it was nothing good.

Nico looked at them. “Run away.”

They fell all over each other to comply. They couldn’t run very well with arrows in their feet, but they were out the door faster than you could say, Holy Hades, that dude just turned Leader Guy into a skeleton.

Nico frowned down at me. “You look awful.”

I laughed weakly, bubbling snot. “I know, right?”

My sense of humor didn’t seem to reassure him.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Nico said. “This whole building is a combat zone, and our job isn’t done.”

AS NICO HELPED ME TO MY FEET, LEADER Guy collapsed into a pile of bones.

I guess controlling an animated skeleton while hauling my sorry butt off the floor was too much effort even for Nico.

He was surprisingly strong. I had to lean against him with most of my weight since the room was still spinning, my face was throbbing, and I was still suffering from a bout of near-death giggles.

“Where—where’s Will?” I asked.

“Not sure.” Nico pulled my arm tighter around his shoulders. “He suddenly said, ‘I am needed,’ and darted off in another direction. We’ll find him.” Nico sounded worried nonetheless. “What about you? How exactly did you…uh, do all this?”

I suppose he was talking about the piles of ash and rice, the broken chairs and control panels, and the blood of my enemies decorating the walls and the carpet. I tried not to laugh like a lunatic. “Just lucky?”

“Nobody’s that lucky. I think your godly powers are starting to come back more. Like, a lot more.”

“Yay!” My knees buckled. “Where’s Rachel?”

Nico grunted, trying to keep me on my feet. “She was fine last I saw her. She’s the one who sent me here to get you—she’s been having visions like crazy for the last day now. She’s with the trogs.”

“We have trogs! Whee!” I leaned my head against Nico’s and sighed contentedly. His hair smelled like rain against stone…a pleasant scent.

“Are you smelling my head?” he asked.

“Um—”

“Could you not? You’re getting nose blood all over me.”

“Sorry.” Then I laughed again.

Wow, I thought distantly. That kick to the face must have rattled my brain loose.

Nico half dragged me down the corridor as he briefed me on their adventures since the trog encampment. I couldn’t concentrate, and I kept giggling at inappropriate moments, but I gleaned that, yes, the trogs had helped them disable the Greek-fire vats; Rachel had managed to summon help from Camp Half-Blood; and Nero’s tower was now the world’s largest urban-warfare play structure.

In return, I told him that Lu now had silverware for hands.…

“Huh?”

She had gone to get Nero’s fasces from a leontocephaline.…

“A what-now?”

And I had to get to the southeast corner of the residence wing to find Meg.

That, at least, Nico understood. “You’re three floors too low.”

“I knew something was wrong!”

“It’ll be tough getting you through all the fighting. Every level is, well…”

We’d reached the end of the hallway. He kicked open a door and we stepped into the Conference Room of Calamity.

A half dozen troglodytes bounced around the room fighting an equal number of mortal security guards. Along with their fine clothing and hats, the trogs all wore thick dark goggles to protect their eyes from the light, so they looked like miniature aviators at a costume party. Some guards were trying to shoot them, but the trogs were small and fast. Even when a bullet hit one of them, it simply glanced off