‘Fly away, Pegs!’ Emily cried. ‘Get out of here!’
Instead of leaving, Pegasus shrieked in rage and crashed back down to all fours. He lowered his head and charged through the group of monsters, straight at Emily. Before she could react, he caught her by the shirt and hoisted her off the ground effortlessly. Lifting her easily over his head and wings, in one fluid motion he deposited her squarely on his back.
Next, he ran at Joel. As with Emily, he caught hold of Joel’s shirt. But instead of tossing him on to his back, Pegasus held Joel firmly in his teeth and ran full speed for the edge of the building. Emily saw what Pegasus was planning and reached forward to catch hold of the stallion’s thick white mane. An instant later, Pegasus launched himself into the air and was spreading his huge white wings.
Terrified but unable to stop herself, Emily looked down. They were over the edge and soaring twenty storeys above 29th Street.
‘Emily, behind you!’ Joel shrieked dangling in Pegasus’s mouth.
Emily turned. She screamed. A creature had leaped off the building to follow them. But it had misjudged the distance and was barely holding on to the stallion’s back legs. Pegasus kicked out, trying to dislodge it. But it was holding fast. Its sharp claws dug into the stallion’s hind end and slowly started to climb up on to Pegasus’s back. Emily could see the fury and blood lust raging in its bead black eyes. It wanted to kill. More than that – it wanted to kill her.
She let go of Pegasus’s mane with one hand and slid further down the stallion’s back. Emily started to kick at the creature.
‘Be careful!’ Joel warned struggling to turn back to her.
She knew her only chance was to go for its eyes. But every time she kicked at it, it moved out of her reach.
Emily repositioned herself to kick again as a grotesque hand sprang forward and caught hold of her left leg. She had never known such pain as the vice-like grip tightened on her calf. The sharp claws cut through her jeans and tore right through her skin to the muscle and bone. Crying in agony, she felt the creature draw her back towards it.
‘NO!’ she howled.
Suddenly Pegasus veered in the sky. They were heading straight for the side of a building. In the instant before they struck, Pegasus maneuvered his wings and turned so the creature and his entire back end smashed into a large window.
The window exploded with the impact. Shards of jagged glass cut into the back end of the winged stallion. Soon Pegasus’s blood flowed, making his back too slippery for the creature to cling to. As it recovered from the brutal impact with the window, it started to lose its grip. The monster released Emily’s leg and struggled to remain on the stallion.
Seizing the moment, Emily reached back and started to pry the creature’s fingers away from the stallion’s flank. Raking its claws down the Pegasus’s legs, it came away from the stallion and fell down to the ground twenty storeys below.
‘Emily, are you all right?’ Joel called.
Emily didn’t want to tell her friend about her leg. ‘I’m fine. But Pegasus is bleeding!’ She shouted over the wind at Joel. ‘We have to land.’
‘Not here,’ Joel cried. ‘Look!’
In all the fear and excitement, Emily hadn’t had time to think, let alone notice that Pegasus had lost a lot of height and changed direction. They were now flying up 5th Avenue, only eight or nine storeys high. Despite the blackout, there were thousands of tourists out on the famous street, most of them pointing up at the winged stallion soaring in the sky above them.
‘Higher, Pegs, you’ve got to fly higher!’ Emily cried.
Clinging to his mane, Emily could feel Pegasus trying to force more height out of his wings. But it wasn’t working. They were steadily losing height.
‘The park,’ Joel cried. ‘We can hide in Central Park!’
Emily was in too much pain, and far too frightened for Pegasus to have truly felt the terror of actually flying on the stallion’s back. Let alone on a broken wing that had barely had the chance to heal. Now she clung to his mane, praying that they would make it to the safety of Central Park.
‘Come on,’ Emily coaxed. She could see the rise of trees in the distance. ‘Just a little bit further and we can stop!’
As Pegasus struggled to stay in the air, Emily could see they were now only a few storeys off the ground. She looked over to his broken wing and could see a spread of red growing on the white feathers where the break had been. The bones were coming apart.
Glancing forward again, they reached 59th Street. Central Park was on her left.
‘Go into the park, Pegasus. We can hide in the trees!’
Pegasus veered over the park. But the strain was too much for his broken wing. As they soared over the open sheep meadow, his wing finally gave out. The bones snapped completely. They started to fall out of the sky.
13