The Tyrant's Tomb

Reyna shouted, “Apollo, take the wheel! Meg, gas pedal!”
For a heartbeat, I thought she meant that as some kind of prayer. In
moments of personal crisis, my followers often used to implore me: Apollo,
take the wheel, hoping I would guide them through their problems. Most of
the time, though, they didn’t mean it literally, nor was I physically sitting in
the passenger’s seat, nor did they add anything about Meg and gas pedals.
Reyna didn’t wait for me to figure it out. She released her grip and
reached behind her seat, groping for a weapon. I lunged across and grabbed
the wheel. Meg put her foot on the accelerator.
Quarters were much too close for Reyna to use her sword, but that didn’t
bother her. Reyna had daggers. She unsheathed one, glared at the roof
bending and breaking above us, and muttered, “Nobody messes with my
truck.”
A lot happened in the next two seconds.
The roof ripped open, revealing the familiar, disgusting sight of a flycolored
eurynomos, its white eyes bulging, its fangs dripping with saliva, its
vulture-feather loincloth fluttering in the wind.
The smell of rancid meat wafted into the cab, making my stomach turn.
All the zombie poison in my system seemed to ignite at once.
The eurynomos screamed, “FOOOOOOO—”
Its battle cry was cut short, however, when Reyna launched herself
upward and impaled her dagger straight up its vulture diaper.
She had apparently been studying the weak spots of the ghouls. She had
found one. The eurynomos toppled off the truck, which would have been
wonderful, except that I, too, felt like I had been stabbed in the diaper.
I said, “Glurg.”
My hand slipped off the wheel. Meg hit the accelerator in alarm. With
Reyna still half out of the cab, her greyhounds howling furiously, our Chevy
veered across the ramp and crashed straight through the guardrail. Lucky me.
Once again, I went flying off an East Bay highway in a car that couldn’t fly.