in a panic, some leaping straight over the guardrails and into the void just to get away from me faster. Only the poor tortured pegasi stayed put, since they had no choice. They were still fastened in their harnesses, the chariot wheels staked to the asphalt to keep the animals from bolting. In any case, I doubted they would have wanted to follow their tormentors.
I fell to my knees. My gut wound throbbed. My charred back had gone numb. My heart seemed to be pumping cold, liquid lead. I would be dead soon. Or undead. It hardly mattered. The two emperors were gone. Their fleet was destroyed. Frank was no more.
On the bay, the burning oil pools belched columns of smoke that turned orange in the light of the blood moon. It was without a doubt the loveliest trash fire I’d ever beheld.
After a moment of shocked silence, the Bay Area emergency services seem to register the new problem. The East Bay had already been deemed a disaster area. With the tunnel closure and the mysterious string of wildfires and explosions in the hills, sirens had been wailing across the flatlands. Emergency lights flickered everywhere on the jammed streets.
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 zombie-infected 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 College Avenue exit, then stopped halfway and looked back at his friend.
One Eye grunted and tossed his mane. I imagined his silent exchange with Short Ears went something like this.
One Eye: I’m gonna give this pathetic loser a ride. You go ahead. I’ll catch up.
Short Ears: You’re crazy, man. If he gives you any trouble, kick him in the head.
One Eye: You know I will.
Short Ears trotted off into the night. I couldn’t blame him for leaving. I hoped he would find a safe place to rest and heal.
One Eye nickered at me. Well?
I took one last look at the Caldecott Tunnel, the interior still a maelstrom of green flames. Even without fuel, Greek fire would just keep burning and burning, and that conflagration had been started with Frank’s life force—a final, thermal burst of heroism that had vaporized Caligula. I didn’t pretend to understand