The Shadow Summoner | Book Three - PJO Universe

eight

APOLLO ISNT A ZOMBIE

"GAH!" Apollo's eyes flew open. His limbs flailed.

"Oh, good," said a voice. "You're awake."

Apollo was lying on the ground inside some sort of wooden structure, like... ah, a stable.

A burlap blanket prickled against his back. Peering down at him were two unfamiliar faces.
One belonged to a handsome young man with silky black hair cresting over his wide sepia forehead.

The other face belonged to a unicorn. Its muzzle glistened with mucus. Its startled blue eyes, wide and unblinking, fixed on him as if Apollo might be a tasty bag of oats.

Stuck on the tip of its horn was a crank-handled rotary cheese grater.

"GAH!" Apollo said again, reaching out for Ariana causing the girl to laugh at him.

"Hey, Sunshine." She said, stroking his hair down as it had gone in all directions due to him lying down.

"Calm down, dummy," Meg said, somewhere to his left. "You're with friends."

Apollo pointed weakly at the unicorn. "Cheese grater."gl

"Yes," said the lovely young man. "It's the easiest way to get a dose of horn shavings directly into the wound. Buster doesn't mind. Do you, Buster?"

Buster the unicorn continued to stare at Apollo. Ariana wondered if he was even alive, or just a prop unicorn they had wheeled in.

"My name's Pranjal," said the young man. "Head healer for the legion. I worked on you when you first got here, but we didn't really meet then, since, well, you were unconscious. I'm a son of Asclepius. I guess that makes you my grandpa."

Apollo moaned. "Please don't call me Grandpa. I feel terrible enough already. Are are the others all right? Lavinia? Hazel?"

Meg hovered into view. Her glasses were clean, her hair was washed, and her clothes were changed. Apollo had been out for quite a while.

Even Ariana got the chance to shower and change her clothes, and of course catch up with some old friends around the Camp.

"We're all fine. Lavinia got back right after we did. But you almost died." She sounded annoyed, as if his death would have inconvenienced her greatly. "You should've told me how bad that cut was."

"I thought...I assumed it would heal."

"You're not a god at the minute, Sunshine." Ariana scolded her boyfriend. "That was more idiotic than me sacrificing myself."

"That was your life!"

"And this is yours!"

Pranjal knit his eyebrows. "Yes, well, it should have. You got excellent care, if I do say so myself. We know about ghoul infections. They're usually curable, if we catch them within twenty-four hours."

"But you," Meg said, scowling at Apollo. "You aren't responding to treatment."

"That's not my fault!"

"It could be your godly side," Pranjal mused. "I've never had a patient who was a former immortal. That might make you resistant to demigod healing, or more susceptible to undead scratches. I just don't know."

Apollo sat up on his elbows. He was bare-chested. His wound had been re-bandaged, so Ariana couldn't tell how bad it looked underneath, but the pain had subsided to a dull ache.

Tendrils of purple infection still snaked from his belly, up his chest, and down his arms, but their color had faded to a faint lavender.

"Whatever you did obviously helped," Apollo said.