She looked at the others. ‘We must get the carriage and go. I will come back to free these horses later.’
Emily looked at the other sad horses in their tiny stalls anxiously waiting for Diana to open their doors. Her heart went out to them. When this was over, she promised she would join Diana in freeing them all.
On the way down the ramp, Emily saw one of the unconscious men starting to stir. It wouldn’t be long before he woke up.
When they made it back down to the main floor, Joel led the way towards the back of the building.
‘We found this in their storage area,’ Joel explained as he pointed at a broken-down white carriage. It was resting on its side. The top canopy was torn, but its wheels and frame looked sturdy enough. ‘They won’t notice it missing as quickly as they would one of the better ones.’
‘I also found us these.’ Steve held up two sets of overalls. ‘I can’t exactly go out dressed like this.’ He indicated his police uniform. ‘And Diana? You certainly can’t go out in those rags.’
Diana nodded. Without a word, she took the overalls and went to another area to change.
18
Emily stood wearily by Pegasus’s head as her father, Diana and Joel did their best to hook the stallion up to the carriage. As they fought and argued how best to get the harnesses on him, Emily realized just how different the stallion was to horses. His entire frame was much bigger and none of the harnesses came close to fitting. The huge set of wings didn’t help.
In the end, they had to piece together several parts of multiple harnesses to get the stallion roughly hooked up to the carriage. Pegasus refused to allow the leather straps to go over the top of his wings, which would bind them down to his body. He insisted that they remain unrestricted. In order to achieve this, they had to try to attach everything under his massive wings, and hoped that the blanket would cover them enough not to look too suspicious in daylight.
‘Forgive me for doing this to you, my old friend,’ Diana said softly. ‘You deserve better.’
Emily looked at Pegasus, dyed a poor mottled dark brown and black, as he stood tethered to the tatty old white carriage. He was covered in harnesses that didn’t fit and wearing a full heavy bridle that rested uncomfortably on his face. He looked nothing like the majestic winged stallion that had crashed on her roof a few nights ago. Emily felt terrible for having to do this to him.
‘I’m sorry too, Pegs,’ she mumbled, leaning heavily against him. ‘We just have to get out of the city and then we can take it all off you again.’
Pegasus let out a soft nicker and licked Emily’s face. His tongue lingered on her cheek for a moment. He neighed to Diana.
‘Fever?’ Diana looked at Emily. She raised her hand to Emily’s forehead and frowned. ‘You do have a fever.’
‘What?’ Steve also felt Emily’s forehead and face. ‘Em, you’re burning up!’
Emily knew Pegasus had done it for her. But his timing couldn’t have been worse. ‘I don’t feel very well,’ she finally admitted. ‘I think it’s my leg.’
‘Let me see it,’ her father insisted.
Emily was helped up into the carriage. Her father started to undo the bandages covering her wounded leg. ‘My God,’ he cried when he saw the raging infection caused by the Nirad’s claws. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘I couldn’t. We’ve got to worry about keeping Pegasus safe from the CRU and the Nirads. He’s got to find the Daughter of Vesta and get her back to Olympus to relight the Flame.’
‘Emily is correct,’ Diana said. ‘Relighting the Flame of Olympus is the only hope for both our worlds.’
‘We have to get her to a hospital!’ Steve insisted. ‘Look at her. She isn’t well!’
Pegasus started to whinny and pound the floor.
‘Pegasus does not agree with you,’ Diana said. ‘He knows very well she is ill. But the Nirads have tasted her blood also. They can track her. If you were to take her somewhere for care, I assure you, the Nirads will follow. She must stay with us so we can protect her.’
Joel held up the picnic hamper. ‘We’ve got more medicated cream and fresh bandages in here,’ he assured Steve. ‘We can clean up her leg and get it wrapped again. Then when we find the Daughter of Vesta and Pegasus takes her back to Olympus, we’ll get Emily to the hospital.’
‘Dad, it’s the only way,’ Emily added weakly. ‘Keeping Pegasus safe is much more important than me. If he fails his quest, the Nirads will destroy our world. Then whether I’m sick or not won’t matter.’
Steve sighed. He reluctantly lifted Emily out of the carriage and carried her over to a slop sink to thoroughly clean her wounds. He applied the last of the medicated cream and bandaged her leg again.
‘That won’t last long,’ he said as he finished.
‘It won’t have to,’ Emily said. ‘Just long enough for us to get Pegs out of the city—’
Suddenly Pegasus started to shriek.
‘Nirads!’ Diana cried as she sniffed the air. ‘They are coming.’