The Shadow Summoner | Book Three - PJO Universe

ten

SUPERMAN'S BOARDING SCHOOL

Their council of war was more like a council of wincing.

Thanks to Grover's magic and Aloe Vera's constant sliming (sorry - attention), Piper and Meg regained consciousness.

By dinnertime, the four of them could wash, get dressed, and even walk around without screaming too much, but they still hurt a great deal.

Every time Ariana stood up too fast, tiny golden Caligulas danced before her eyes.

Piper's blowgun and quiver-both heirlooms from her grandfather -were ruined. Her hair was singed.

Her burned arms, glistening with aloe, looked like newly glazed brick. She called her father to warn him she would be spending the night with her study group, then settled into one of the Cistern's brickwork alcoves with Mellie and Hedge, who kept urging her to drink more water.

Baby Chuck sat in Ariana's lap, staring enraptured at her face as if it were the most amazing thing in the world.

As for Meg, she sat glumly by the pool, her feet in the water, a plate of cheese enchiladas in her lap. She wore a baby blue T-shirt from Macro's Military Madness featuring a smiling cartoon AK-47 with the caption:
SHOOTIE'S JUNIOR MARKSMAN CLUB!

Next to her sat Agave, looking dejected, though a new green spike had started to grow where her withered arm had fallen off.

Her dryad friends kept coming by, offering her fertilizer and water and enchiladas, but Agave shook her head glumly, staring at the collection of fallen money maker petals in her hand.

Money Maker, Ariana was told, had been planted on the hillside with full dryad honors. Hopefully, she would be reincarnated as a beautiful new succulent, or perhaps a white-tailed antelope squirrel.

Money Maker had always loved those.

Grover looked exhausted.

Playing all the healing music had taken its toll, not to mention the stress of driving back to Palm Springs at unsafe speeds in the borrowed/slightly stolen Bedrossian-mobile with five critical burn victims.

Once they had all gathered -condolences exchanged, enchiladas eaten, aloe slimed-Apollo began the meeting.

"All of this," he announced, "is my fault."

You can imagine how difficult this was for him to say - possibly even harder than asking Ariana to be his girlfriend (which for now they were going to keep a secret).

The words simply had not been in the vocabulary of Apollo.

Apollo forged on. "Caligula's goal has always been the same: to make himself a god. He saw his ancestors immortalized after their deaths: Julius, Augustus, even disgusting old Tiberius. But Caligula didn't want to wait for death. He was the first Roman emperor who wanted to be a living god."

Ariana looked up from playing with the baby satyr. "Caligula kind of is a minor god now, right? You said he and the two other emperors have been around for thousands of years. So he got what he wanted."

"Partly," Apollo agreed. "But being a minor anything isn't enough for Caligula. He always dreamed of replacing one of the Olympians. He toyed with the idea of becoming the new Jupiter or Mars. In the end, he set his sights on being"-Apollo swallowed-"the new me."

Coach Hedge scratched his goatee. (Hmm. If a goat wears a goatee, is it a man-tee?) "So, what? Caligula kills you, puts on a Hi, I'm Apollo! name tag, and walks into Olympus hoping nobody notices?"

"It would be worse than killing me," Apollo said. "He would consume my essence, along with the essence of Helios, to make himself the new sun god."

Prickly Pear bristled. "The other Olympians would just allow this?"