The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)(81)

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 fly-colored 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.





We have a special

Today on slightly used trucks

Thanks, Target shoppers

MY SON ASCLEPIUS ONCE explained the purpose of physical shock to me.

He said it’s a safety mechanism for coping with trauma. When the human brain experiences something too violent and frightening to process, it just stops recording. Minutes, hours, even days can be a complete blank in the victim’s memory.

Perhaps this explained why I had no recollection of the Chevy crashing. After hurtling through the guardrail, the next thing I remembered was stumbling around the parking lot of a Target store, pushing a three-wheeled shopping cart filled with Meg. I was muttering the lyrics to “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.” Meg, semiconscious, was listlessly waving one hand, trying to conduct.

My cart bumped into a steaming crumpled heap of metal—a red Chevy Silverado with its tires popped, its windshield broken, and its air bags deployed. Some inconsiderate driver had plummeted from the heavens and landed right on top of the cart return, smashing a dozen shopping carts beneath the weight of the pickup.

Who would do such a thing?

Wait…

I heard growling. A few car-lengths away, two metal greyhounds stood protectively over their wounded master, keeping a small crowd of spectators at bay. A young woman in maroon and gold (Right, I remembered her! She liked to laugh at me!) was propped on her elbows, grimacing mightily, her left leg bent at an unnatural angle. Her face was the same color as the asphalt.

“Reyna!” I wedged Meg’s shopping cart against the truck and ran to help the praetor. Aurum and Argentum let me through.

“Oh. Oh. Oh.” I couldn’t seem to say anything else. I should’ve known what to do. I was a healer. But that break in the leg—yikes.

“I’m alive,” Reyna said through gritted teeth. “Meg?”

“She’s conducting,” I said.

One of the Target shoppers inched forward, braving the fury of the dogs. “I called nine-one-one. Is there anything else I can do?”

“She’ll be fine!” I yelped. “Thank you! I—I’m a doctor?”

The mortal woman blinked. “Are you asking me?”

“No. I’m a doctor!”

“Hey,” said a second shopper. “Your other friend is rolling away.”

“ACK!” I ran after Meg, who was muttering “Whee” as she picked up steam in her red plastic cart. I grabbed the handles and navigated her back to Reyna’s side.

The praetor tried to move but choked on the pain. “I might…black out.”

“No, no, no.” Think, Apollo, think. Should I wait for the mortal paramedics, who knew nothing of ambrosia and nectar? Should I check for more first-aid supplies in Meg’s gardening belt?

A familiar voice from across the parking lot yelled, “Thank you, everybody! We’ll take it from here!”

Lavinia Asimov jogged toward us, a dozen naiads and fauns in her wake, many of whom I recognized from People’s Park. Most were dressed in camouflage, covered with vines and branches like they had just arrived via beanstalk. Lavinia wore pink camo pants and a green tank top, her manubalista clanking against her shoulder. With her spiky pink hair and pink eyebrows, her jaw working furiously on a wad of bubblegum, she just radiated authority figure.

“This is now an active investigation scene!” she announced to the mortals. “Thank you, Target shoppers. Please move along!”

Either the tone of her voice or the barking of the greyhounds finally convinced the onlookers to disperse. Nevertheless, sirens were blaring in the distance. Soon we’d be surrounded by paramedics, or the highway patrol, or both. Mortals weren’t nearly as used to vehicles hurtling off highway overpasses as I was.

I stared at our pink-haired friend. “Lavinia, what are you doing here?”

“Secret mission,” she announced.

“That’s cacaseca,” Reyna grumbled. “You left your post. You’re in so much trouble.”

Lavinia’s nature-spirit friends looked jumpy, like they were on the verge of scattering, but their pink-frosted leader calmed them with a glance. Reyna’s greyhounds didn’t snarl or attack, which I guessed meant they’d detected no lies from Lavinia.