The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1)(17)

“It’s a grain spirit,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “I’ve never seen a peach karpos before, but if it’s as vicious as other types…”

I was about to say, we’re doomed, but that seemed both obvious and depressing.

The peach baby turned toward the nosoi. For a moment, I feared he would make some hellish alliance—an axis of evil between illnesses and fruits.

The middle corpse, the one with the peach in his forehead, inched backward. “Do not interfere,” he warned the karpos. “We will not allooow—”

The peach baby launched himself at the nosos and bit his head off.

That is not a figure of speech. The karpos’s fanged mouth unhinged, expanding to an unbelievable circumference, then closed around the cadaver’s head, and chomped it off in one bite.

Oh, dear…I hope you weren’t eating dinner as you read that.

In a matter of seconds, the nosos had been torn to shreds and devoured.

Understandably, the other two nosoi retreated, but the karpos crouched and sprang. He landed on the second corpse and proceeded to rip it into plague-flavored Cream of Wheat.

The last spirit dissolved into glittering smoke and tried to fly away, but the peach baby spread his leafy wings and launched himself in pursuit. He opened his mouth and inhaled the sickness, snapping and swallowing until every wisp of smoke was gone.

He landed in front of Meg and belched. His green eyes gleamed. He did not appear even slightly sick, which I suppose wasn’t surprising, since human diseases don’t infect fruit trees. Instead, even after eating three whole nosoi, the little fellow looked hungry.

He howled and beat his small chest. “Peaches!”

Slowly, Percy raised his sword. His nose was still red and runny, and his face was puffy. “Meg, don move,” he snuffled. “I’m gonna—”

“No!” she said. “Don’t hurt him.”

She put her hand tentatively on the creature’s curly head. “You saved us,” she told the karpos. “Thank you.”

I started mentally preparing a list of herbal remedies for regenerating severed limbs, but to my surprise, the peach baby did not bite off Meg’s hand. Instead he hugged Meg’s leg and glared at us as if daring us to approach.

“Peaches,” he growled.

“He likes you,” Percy noted. “Um…why?”

“I don’t know,” Meg said. “Honestly, I didn’t summon him!”

I was certain Meg had summoned him, intentionally or unintentionally. I also had some ideas now about her godly parentage, and some questions about this “guardian” that the spirits had mentioned, but I decided it would be better to interrogate her when she did not have a snarling carnivorous toddler wrapped around her leg.

“Well, whatever the case,” I said, “we owe the karpos our lives. This brings to mind an expression I coined ages ago: A peach a day keeps the plague spirits away!”

Percy sneezed. “I thought it was apples and doctors.”

The karpos hissed.

“Or peaches,” Percy said. “Peaches work too.”

“Peaches,” agreed the karpos.

Percy wiped his nose. “Not criticizing, but why is he grooting?”

Meg frowned. “Grooting?”

“Yeah, like thah character in the movie…only saying one thing over and over.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen that movie,” I said. “But this karpos does seem to have a very…targeted vocabulary.”

“Maybe Peaches is his name.” Meg stroked the karpos’s curly brown hair, which elicited a demonic purring from the creature’s throat. “That’s what I’ll call him.”

“Whoa, you are not adopting thah—” Percy sneezed with such force, another irrigation pipe exploded behind him, sending up a row of tiny geysers. “Ugh. Sick.”

“You’re lucky,” I said. “Your trick with the water diluted the spirit’s power. Instead of getting a deadly illness, you got a head cold.”

“I hate head colds.” His green irises looked like they were sinking in a sea of bloodshot. “Neither of you got sick?”

Meg shook her head.

“I have an excellent constitution,” I said. “No doubt that’s what saved me.”

“And the fact thah I hosed the smoke off of you,” Percy said.

“Well, yes.”

Percy stared at me as if waiting for something. After an awkward moment, it occurred to me that if he was a god and I was a worshipper, he might expect gratitude.

“Ah…thank you,” I said.

He nodded. “No problem.”

I relaxed a little. If he had demanded a sacrifice, like a white bull or a fatted calf, I’m not sure what I would’ve done.

“Can we go now?” Meg asked.

“An excellent idea,” I said. “Though I’m afraid Percy is in no condition—”

“I can drive you the rest of the way,” he said. “If we can get my car out from between those trees…” He glanced in that direction and his expression turned even more miserable. “Aw, Hades no….”

A police cruiser was pulling over on the side of the road. I imagined the officers’ eyes tracing the tire ruts in the mud, which led to the plowed-down fence and continued to the blue Toyota Prius wedged between two peach trees. The cruiser’s roof lights flashed on.