I lunged forward and poked him in the gut with my instrument. “Ha-ha!”

There were two problems with this: 1) his gut was covered in armor, and 2) the ukulele had a rounded bottom. I made a mental note that if I survived this battle, I would design a version with spikes at the base, and perhaps a flamethrower—the Gene Simmons ukulele.

Commodus’s counterstrike would’ve killed me if he hadn’t been laughing so hard. I leaped aside as his sword hurtled down, sinking into the spot where I’d been standing. One good thing about battling on a highway—all those explosions and lightning strikes had made the asphalt soft. While Commodus tried to tug his sword free, I charged and slammed into him.

To my surprise, I actually managed to shove him off-balance. He stumbled and landed on his armor-plated rear, leaving his sword quivering in the pavement.

Nobody in the emperors’ army cheered for me. Tough crowd.

I took a step back, trying to catch my breath. Someone pressed against my back. I yelped, terrified that Caligula was about to spear me, but it was only Frank. Caligula stood about twenty feet away from him, cursing as he wiped bits of gravel from his eyes.

“Remember what I said,” Frank told me.

“Why are you doing this?” I wheezed.

“It’s the only way. If we’re lucky, we’re buying time.”

“Buying time?”

“For godly help to arrive. That’s still happening, right?”

I gulped. “Maybe?”

“Apollo, please tell me you did the summoning ritual.”

“I did!”

“Then we’re buying time,” Frank insisted.

“And if help doesn’t arrive?”

“Then you’ll have to trust me. Do what I told you. On my cue, get out of the tunnel.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant. We weren’t in the tunnel, but our chat time had ended. Commodus and Caligula closed in on us simultaneously.

“Gravel in the eyes, Zhang?” Caligula snarled. “Really?”

Their blades crossed as Caligula pushed Frank toward the mouth of the Caldecott Tunnel…or was Frank letting himself be pushed? The clang of metal against metal echoed through the empty passageway.

Commodus tugged his own sword free of the asphalt. “All right, Apollo. This has been fun. But you need to die now.”

He howled and charged, his voice booming back at him from the depths of the tunnel.

Echoes, I thought.

I ran for the Caldecott.

Echoes can be confusing for people who depend on their hearing. Inside the shaft, I might have more luck avoiding Commodus. Yes…that was my strategy. I wasn’t simply panicking and running for my life. Entering the tunnel was a perfectly levelheaded, well-reasoned plan that just happened to involve me screaming and fleeing.

I turned before Commodus overtook me. I swung my ukulele, intending to imprint its soundboard on his face, but Commodus anticipated my move. He yanked the instrument out of my hands.

I stumbled away from him, and Commodus committed the most heinous of crimes: with one huge fist, he crumpled my ukulele like an aluminum can and tossed it aside.

“Heresy!” I roared.

A reckless, terrible anger possessed me. I challenge you to feel differently when you’ve just watched someone destroy your ukulele. It would render any person insensible with rage.

My first punch left a fist-size crater in the emperor’s gold breastplate. Oh, I thought in some distant corner of my mind. Hello, godly strength!

Off-balance, Commodus slashed wildly. I blocked his arm and punched him in the nose, causing a brittle squish that I found delightfully disgusting.

He yowled, blood streaming through his mustache. “U duhh stike bee? I kilb u!”

“You won’t kilb me!” I shouted back. “I have my strength back!”

“HA!” Commodus cried. “I nebbeh lost mine! An I’m stih bigguh!”

I hate it when megalomaniac villains make valid points.

He barreled toward me. I ducked underneath his arm and kicked him in the back, propelling him into a guardrail on the side of the tunnel. His forehead hit the metal with a dainty sound like a triangle: DING!

That should have made me feel quite satisfied, except my ruined-ukulele-inspired rage was ebbing, and with it my burst of divine strength. I could feel the zombie poison creeping through my capillaries, wriggling and burning its way into every part of my body. My gut wound seemed to be unraveling, about to spill my stuffing everywhere like a raggedy Olympian Pooh Bear.

Also, I was suddenly aware of the many large, unmarked crates stacked along one side of the tunnel, taking up the entire length of the raised pedestrian walkway. Along the other side of the tunnel, the shoulder of the road was torn up and lined with orange traffic barrels…. Not unusual in themselves, but it struck me that they were just about the right size to contain the urns I’d seen Frank’s workers carrying during our holographic scroll call.

In addition, every five feet or so, a thin groove had been cut across the width of the asphalt. Again, not unusual in itself—the highway department could’ve just been doing some repaving work. But each groove glistened with some kind of liquid…. Oil?

Taken together, these things made me deeply uncomfortable, and Frank kept retreating farther into the tunnel, luring Caligula to follow.

Apparently, Caligula’s lieutenant, Gregorix, was also getting worried. The Germanus shouted from the front lines, “My emperor! You’re getting too far—”

“Shut up, GREG!” Caligula yelled. “If you want to keep your tongue, don’t tell me how to fight!”

Commodus was still struggling to get up.

Caligula stabbed at Frank’s chest, but the praetor wasn’t there. Instead, a small bird—a common swift, judging from its boomerang-shaped tail—shot straight toward the emperor’s face.

Frank knew his birds. Swifts aren’t large or impressive. They aren’t obvious threats like falcons or eagles, but they are incredibly fast and maneuverable.

He drove his beak into Caligula’s left eye and zoomed away, leaving the emperor shrieking and swatting at the air.

Frank materialized in human form right next me. His eyes looked sunken and glazed. His bad arm hung limp at his side.

“If you really want to help,” he said in a low voice, “hobble Commodus. I don’t think I can hold them both.”

“What—?”

He transformed back into a swift and was gone—darting at Caligula, who cursed and slashed at the tiny bird.

Commodus charged me once more. This time he was smart enough not to announce himself by howling. By the time I noticed him bearing down on me—blood bubbling from his nostrils, a deep guardrail-shaped groove in his forehead—it was too late.

He slammed his fist into my gut, the exact spot I didn’t want to be hit. I collapsed in a moaning, boneless heap.

Outside, the enemy troops erupted in a fresh round of cheering. Commodus again turned to accept their adulation. I’m ashamed to admit that instead of feeling relieved to have a few extra seconds of life, I was annoyed that he wasn’t executing me faster.

Every cell in my miserable mortal body screamed, Just finish it! Getting killed could not hurt any worse than the way I already felt. If I died, maybe I’d at least come back as a zombie and get to bite off Commodus’s nose.