The Tyrant's Tomb

Now Coast Guard vessels joined the party, cutting across the water to
reach the burning oil spills. Police and news helicopters veered toward the
scene from a dozen different directions as if being pulled by a magnet. The
Mist would be working overtime tonight.
I was tempted to just lie down on the road and go to sleep. I knew if I did
that, I would die, but at least there would be no more pain. Oh, Frank.
And why hadn’t Artemis come to help me? I wasn’t mad at her. I
understood all too well how gods could be, all the different reasons they
might not show up when you called. Still, it hurt, being ignored by my own
sister.
An indignant huff jarred me from my thoughts. The pegasi were glaring
at me. The one on the left had a blind eye, poor thing, but he shook his bridle
and made a raspberry kind of sound as if to say, GET OVER YOURSELF,
DUDE.
The pegasus was correct. Other people were hurting. Some of them
needed my help. Tarquin was still alive—I could feel it in my zombieinfected
blood. Hazel and Meg might well be fighting undead in the streets
of New Rome.
I wouldn’t be much good to them, but I had to try. Either I could die with
my friends, or they could cut off my head after I turned into a brain-eater,
which was what friends were for.
I rose and staggered toward the pegasi.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” I told them. “You are beautiful
animals and you deserve better.”
One Eye grunted as if to say, YA THINK?
“I’ll free you now, if you’ll let me.”
I fumbled with their tack and harness. I found an abandoned dagger on
the asphalt and cut away the barbed wire and spiked cuffs that had been
digging into the animals’ flesh. I carefully avoided their hooves in case they
decided I was worth a kick in the head.
Then I started humming Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,”
because that’s just the kind of awful week I was having.
“There,” I said when the pegasi were free. “I have no right to ask
anything of you, but if you could see your way to giving me a ride over the
hills, my friends are in danger.”
The pegasus on the right, who still had both eyes but whose ears had
been cruelly snipped, whinnied an emphatic NO! He trotted toward the