“B-but you’re a corpse-eater!” I protested. “You’re supposed to be in the Underworld, working for Hades!”
The ghoul tilted its head as if trying to remember the words Underworld and Hades. It didn’t seem to like them as much as kill and eat.
“HADES GAVE ME OLD DEAD!” it shouted. “THE MASTER GIVES ME FRESH!”
“The master?”
“THE MASTER!”
I really wished Vulture Diaper wouldn’t scream. It didn’t have any visible ears, so perhaps it had poor volume control. Or maybe it just wanted to spray that gross saliva over as large a radius as possible.
“If you mean Caligula,” I ventured, “I’m sure he’s made you all sorts of promises, but I can tell you, Caligula is not—”
“HA! STUPID FOOD! CALIGULA IS NOT THE MASTER!”
“Not the master?”
“NOT THE MASTER!”
“MEG!” I shouted. Ugh. Now I was doing it.
“Yeah?” Meg wheezed. She looked fierce and warlike as she granny-walked toward me with her sword-crutches. “Gimme. Minute.”
It was clear she would not be taking the lead in this particular fight. If I let Vulture Diaper anywhere near her, it would kill her, and I found that idea 95 percent unacceptable.
“Well, eurynomos,” I said, “whoever your master is, you’re not killing and eating anyone today!”
I whipped an arrow from my quiver. I nocked it in my bow and took aim, as I had done literally millions of times before—but it wasn’t quite as impressive with my hands shaking and my knees wobbling.
Why do mortals tremble when they’re scared, anyway? It seems so counterproductive. If I had created humans, I would have given them steely determination and superhuman strength during moments of terror.
The ghoul hissed, spraying more spit.
“SOON THE MASTER’S ARMIES WILL RISE AGAIN!” it bellowed. “WE WILL FINISH THE JOB! I WILL SHRED FOOD TO THE BONE, AND FOOD WILL JOIN US!”
Food will join us? My stomach experienced a sudden loss of cabin pressure. I remembered why Hades loved these eurynomoi so much. The slightest cut from their claws caused a wasting disease in mortals. And when those mortals died, they rose again as what the Greeks called vrykolakai—or, in TV parlance, zombies.
That wasn’t the worst of it. If a eurynomos managed to devour the flesh from a corpse, right down to the bones, that skeleton would reanimate as the fiercest, toughest kind of undead warrior. Many of them served as Hades’s elite palace guards, which was a job I did not want to apply for.
“Meg?” I kept my arrow trained on the ghoul’s chest. “Back away. Do not let this thing scratch you.”
“But—”
“Please,” I begged. “For once, trust me.”
Vulture Diaper growled. “FOOD TALKS TOO MUCH! HUNGRY!”
It charged me.
I shot.
The arrow found its mark—the middle of the ghoul’s chest—but it bounced off like a rubber mallet against metal. The Celestial bronze point must have hurt, at least. The ghoul yelped and stopped in its tracks, a steaming, puckered wound on its sternum. But the monster was still very much alive. Perhaps if I managed twenty or thirty shots at that exact same spot, I could do some real damage.
With trembling hands, I nocked another arrow. “Th-that was just a warning!” I bluffed. “The next one will kill!”
Vulture Diaper made a gurgling noise deep in its throat. I hoped it was a delayed death rattle. Then I realized it was only laughing. “WANT ME TO EAT DIFFERENT FOOD FIRST? SAVE YOU FOR DESSERT?”
It uncurled its claws, gesturing toward the hearse.
I didn’t understand. I refused to understand. Did it want to eat the air bags? The upholstery?
Meg got it before I did. She screamed in rage.
The creature was an eater of the dead. We were driving a hearse.
“NO!” Meg shouted. “Leave him alone!”
She lumbered forward, raising her swords, but she was in no shape to face the ghoul. I shouldered her aside, putting myself between her and the eurynomos, and fired my arrows again and again.
They sparked off the monster’s blue-black hide, leaving steaming, annoyingly nonlethal wounds. Vulture Diaper staggered toward me, snarling in pain, its body twitching from the impact of each hit.
It was five feet away.
Two feet away, its claws splayed to shred my face.
Somewhere behind me, a female voice shouted, “HEY!”
The sound distracted Vulture Diaper just long enough for me to fall courageously on my butt. I scrambled away from the ghoul’s claws.
Vulture Diaper blinked, confused by its new audience. About ten feet away, a ragtag assortment of fauns and dryads, perhaps a dozen total, were all attempting to hide behind one gangly pink-haired young woman in Roman legionnaire armor.