“I’ve been busy,” I muttered.
Nickamedes let out a disbelieving huff. “Right.”
Anger filled me. I had been busy.
Very
busy, as a matter of fact. Not too long ago, I’d learned that the Reapers were searching for the Helheim Dagger, which was rumored to be one of the Thirteen Artifacts that had been used during the final battle of the Chaos War. All of the Thirteen Artifacts had a lot of power, since they’d seen action during the climactic fight. But what made the weapon so important—what truly scared me—was the fact that the dagger could be used to free Loki from the prison realm he was trapped in.
I was determined to find the dagger before the Reapers did, so during the holidays I’d read everything I could get my hands on about the weapon. Who might have made it, how it might have been used during the Chaos War, even what powers it might have. But all the books and articles I’d read didn’t tell me what I really wanted to know: where my mom, Grace, had hidden the dagger before she’d been murdered—or how I was supposed to find it before the Reapers did.
Of course, I couldn’t tell Nickamedes all that. He wouldn’t believe I’d been doing something useful, something important, during the holiday break. No doubt Nickamedes thought I’d just been sitting around reading comic books and eating cookies like I did so many nights when I was working for him in the Library of Antiquities. Yeah, yeah, so maybe I wasn’t all that dedicated when it came to my after-school job. Sue me for wanting to goof off and have a little fun before I had to face down another crazy Reaper who thought I was more powerful and important than I really was.
Still, despite the librarian’s frosty attitude, I couldn’t help glancing around the room, hoping I’d see a guy my age with him—a guy with the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen and a sly, teasing grin to match.
“Is Logan here with you?” I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice.
Nickamedes had opened his mouth when a voice interrupted him.
“Right here, Gypsy girl.” A low voice sent chills down my spine.
My heart pounding, I slowly turned around. Logan Quinn stood behind me.
Thick, wavy, ink black hair, intense ice blue eyes, a confident smile. My breath caught in my throat as I looked at Logan, and my heart sped up, beating with such force that I was sure he could hear it.
Logan wore jeans and a dark blue sweater topped by a black leather jacket. The clothes were designer, of course, since the Spartan was just as rich as all the other academy kids. But even if he’d been dressed in rags, I still would have noticed the lean strength of his body and his broad, muscled shoulders. Yeah, Logan totally rocked the bad-boy look, and he had the man-whore reputation to match. One of the rumors that kept going around the academy was that Logan signed the mattresses of every girl he slept with, just so he could keep track of them all.
I’d never quite figured out if the rumors were true or not, or how Logan would even manage to do that in the first place. Sure, I’d touched the Spartan and flashed on him with my psychometry, but I’d mostly seen his fighting skills, since that’s what Logan had been thinking about and what I had needed to tap into at the time. I didn’t know how many girls Logan had dated, but the rumors didn’t matter that much to me because the Spartan was just a really, really great guy. Smart, strong, funny, charming, caring. Then, of course, there was the whole
saving-my-life-multiple-times
thing. Kind of hard not to like a guy when he kept you from getting killed by Reapers and eaten by Nemean prowlers.
Logan’s eyes dropped to my throat and the necklace I wore there—the one he’d given me before school had let out for Christmas. Six silver strands wrapped around my throat, creating the necklace, while the diamond-tipped points joined together to form a simple, yet elegant snowflake in the center of the strands. The beautiful necklace looked like something a goddess would wear. I thought it was far too pretty and delicate for me, but I loved it just the same.
“You’re wearing the necklace,” the Spartan said in a low voice.
“Every day since you gave it to me,” I said. “I hardly ever take it off.”
Logan smiled at me, and it was like the sun had erupted from a sky full of storm clouds. For a moment everything was just—
perfect
.
Then Nickamedes cleared his throat, popping the bubble of happiness I’d been about to float away on. A sour expression twisted the librarian’s face as he looked back and forth between his nephew and me.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, the museum’s closing soon, and I need to make sure the staff is ready to start packing up the items for transport back to the academy in the morning.”
Nickamedes pivoted on his wingtips and strode out of the weapons room without another word. I sighed. Yeah, I might not be the most dedicated worker, but I always felt like there was another reason that Nickamedes hated me. He’d pretty much disliked me on sight, and I had no idea why.
I put the librarian and his bad attitude out of mind and focused on Logan. He’d texted me a few times over the holiday break, but I’d still missed him like crazy—especially since I had no idea what was going on between us. Not too long ago, we’d shared what I thought was the kiss to end all kisses, but he hadn’t exactly declared his love for me in the meantime—or even asked me out on a real date. Instead, we’d been in this weird holding pattern for weeks—one that I was determined to end.
I drew in a breath, ready to ask Logan how his winter break had been and what was going to happen between us now. “Logan, I—”
Shouts and screams ripped through the air, drowning out my words.
I froze, wondering if I’d only imagined the harsh, jarring sounds. Why would someone be shouting in the museum? A second later, more screams sounded, followed by several loud crashes and the heavy
thump-thump-thump
of footsteps.
Logan and I looked at each other, then bolted for the door. Daphne and Carson had also heard the screams, and they raced along right behind us.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Daphne hissed.
She managed to grab my arm and the back of Logan’s leather jacket just before the Spartan sprinted out of the room. With her great Valkyrie strength, she was easily able to yank both of us back.
“You don’t know what’s going on—or who might be out there,” Daphne warned.
Logan glared at her, but after a moment, he reluctantly nodded. I did the same, and Daphne loosened her grip on us. Together in a tight knot, the four of us crept up to the doorway and peeked through to the other side.
The Crius Coliseum was shaped like a giant wheel, with one main space in the middle and the hallways and rooms branching off like spokes. The doorway we stood in opened up into the center section of the museum. When Daphne, Carson, and I had walked through it a few minutes ago, folks had been milling around the exhibits, looking at the artifacts and browsing through the expensive replica jewelry, armor, and weapons in the gift shop. Besides the staff, most of the other people here had been second-year Mythos students, trying to get their homework assignment done, just like the three of us.
Not anymore.
Now, figures wearing long, black, hooded robes stormed through the coliseum—and they all carried sharp, curved swords. The figures swarmed over everyone in their path, their blades slashing into the students who’d been staring at the artifacts just a few seconds before. More screams and shouts tore through the air, echoing as loud as gunshots, as people realized what was happening.
But it was already too late.
“Reapers,” Daphne whispered, voicing my own horrific thought.
The Reapers of Chaos ran their swords through everyone they could get their hands on, then shoved the dead and dying to the floor. The museum staff, adults, kids. It didn’t matter to the Reapers who they killed. Wax figures, statues, and display cases crashed to the floor, splintering into thousands of pieces. Blood spattered everywhere, a cascade of scarlet teardrops sliding down the white marble walls.
A sick, sick feeling filled my stomach at the bloody chaos in front of me. I’d heard about Reapers, about how vicious they were, about how they lived to kill warriors—about how they lived to kill
us
. I’d faced down two Reapers myself, but I’d never seen anything like this. I was so shocked by the scene in front of me that I felt stuck in place, just like my friends. I knew we should be doing something, anything, to try to help the other students, but I didn’t know what it could be.
Some of the Mythos students tried to fight back, using their fists or whatever they could get their hands on. But it didn’t work, and one by one, the Reapers swarmed over the kids. Samson Sorensen fell to the floor, screaming and clutching his stomach, blood spurting out from between his fingers. A few Mythos students tried to run, but the Reapers just grabbed them from behind, rammed their swords into the kids’ backs, and then tossed them aside like trash.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Morgan McDougall duck down and squeeze in between a tall, wide pedestal and the wall, putting her parallel to the doorway that my friends and I were next to. Green sparks of magic shot out of Morgan’s fingertips like lightning, a clear sign of her surprise and panic, and she curled her hands into tight fists and tucked them under her armpits to try to smother the colorful flashes. Morgan knew as well as I did that if the Reapers saw the sparks, they’d find her and finish her off. The pretty Valkyrie spotted me watching her and stared back at me, her hazel eyes full of fear.
“Stay there! Hide! Don’t try to run!” I shouted, although I didn’t think Morgan could hear me above the screams and the alarms that had started blaring.
In less than a minute, it was over. The Reapers regrouped in the middle of the coliseum, talking to each other, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the moans, groans, and whimpers of the dying kids on the bloody floor.
“Reapers,” Daphne whispered again, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing any more than I could.
It was almost like they’d heard the Valkyrie’s low murmur because several of the black-robed figures turned and headed in our direction.
Chapter 2
For the second time, I froze. My mind just went blank, and all I could do was watch the Reapers head toward us, blood dripping off the ends of their curved swords. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like I could hear every single scarlet drop as it hit the marble floor.
Plop-plop-plop
. I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming at the awful noise echoing in my head.
“Back, back, back!” Daphne hissed, once again using her Valkyrie strength to pull first Carson, then me, and finally Logan away from the doorway. “We have to get out of here!”
We turned around to run—and realized there was nowhere to go. There were no exits from this room to any other part of the museum.
“Trapped,” Carson said in a bitter voice. “We’re trapped.”
Thump-thump-thump
. Outside, the heavy footsteps continued, getting louder and louder as the Reapers marched toward us.
Desperate, I looked around, hoping there was a door, a window, or even a skylight that I’d missed before—or that maybe one would just magically appear and let us escape. That didn’t happen, but my eyes landed on the wax figures of the Viking and the Spartan and the items they were holding—the Viking’s axe and the Spartan’s shield.
Weapons
. My gaze flicked around the room. Swords, spears, daggers, staffs. We stood in a room full of weapons. The deadly points and sharp edges glittered underneath the lights, and one by one, the bits and pieces of metal winked at me, as if they knew exactly what I was thinking—and what we had to do if we wanted to make it through this.
“If we can’t run, there’s only one thing we can do—stand and fight,” I said in a grim voice. “That’s what we’ve been training for, right?”
Daphne and Carson stared at me, their mouths hanging open, but Logan had a different reaction. He actually
smiled,
and a fierce light began to burn in his eyes. Spartans were a little freaky in that they actually loved to fight, especially since they were the best warriors at Mythos—or anywhere else.
Not for the first time, I wished that I had Logan’s confidence when it came to battling Reapers. With a shaking hand, I drew Vic from the scabbard strapped to my waist and held him up high. Vic’s purplish eye met mine.
“Are you ready for this, Gwen?” the sword asked in a low voice.
“I guess I have to be, don’t I?” I whispered back.
If he could have, I thought Vic would have nodded his half of a head in approval. “I’ll be here with you, every step of the way. You’re a Champion, Gwen. You’ll be fine. You all will. Nike has faith in you, and so do I.”
I nodded back, his words making me feel just a little bit better. I stood there a second, and I forced myself to breathe—in and out, in and out, in and out—just like my mom had taught me. Just like she’d always told me to do whenever I was scared, panicked, or upset. Yeah, I was all those things right now—and then some.
But there was no time to think about what I was doing, and no time to be cautious or quiet. I raced over to the case—the one with the goddess Sigyn’s onyx bow and quiver in it—raised up Vic, turned my head away, then brought the sword down on top of the glass.
CRASH!
The case shattered with a roar, and shards of glass zipped through the air, stinging my hands and drawing blood. I thought that an alarm sounded, blaring together with all the others going off, but I was already moving over to the next case, one that contained a long wooden staff.
“Daphne! Carson! Logan!” I yelled. “Get the weapons!”
My friends scrambled forward, their shoes crunching on the shattered glass. I smashed another case, this one containing a sword with a dull bronze hilt. I used Vic to shatter the artifact cases, one by one, while Daphne, Carson, and Logan grabbed the items inside, as well as all the weapons they could reach on the walls and a few the wax figures were holding. We met in the middle of the room and quickly sorted through the weapons.
“We have to stick together and make a stand right from the start,” Carson said, holding a staff in one hand and stuffing the ivory horn and a couple of daggers into the pockets on his khaki cargo pants. “We need to strike at them first. Otherwise, they’ll overrun us.”
Daphne strapped the quiver with its single arrow to her back, then tested the golden strings in the onyx bow. Satisfied, she bit her lip and looked around, the air around her cracking and hissing with pink sparks of magic. “Over there, behind the knight and the centurion. The Reapers won’t immediately see us when they come in. Hopefully, I can pick a couple of them off before they realize what’s going on.”
“You three do that,” Logan said, strapping the shield he’d swiped from the wax Spartan to his forearm. “I’ll hide over there behind the Viking. When the Reapers move to attack you, I’ll come up behind them. Divide and kill, right?”
I nodded. It was a good plan, even though my stomach twisted at the thought of Logan’s being separated from the rest of us. But the Spartan was the best fighter at Mythos. This sort of situation was what he’d been training for his whole life—what we’d all been training for.
We scrambled up onto the dais and around to the far side. Daphne took up a position between the knight and the centurion, looking like another proud figure standing there, the golden arrow nocked and ready in the onyx bow. Carson moved to her left, while I stood on her right, the two of us flanking and protecting our archer, just like Coach Ajax had taught us to during all the mock fights we’d had in gym class. Across the room, Logan slid behind the wax Viking.
“We’ll be okay, right?” Carson said, fear making his eyes seem more black than brown behind his glasses.
“Of course, we will,” I said, trying to make my voice light. “Just think how jealous all the other kids will be when they hear that we took on a group of Reapers—and won.”
Carson tried to smile at my lame pep talk, but his lips twisted into a grimace instead. I knew how he felt. After what I’d just seen, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to smile again. There would be no winning. Not today. Not with the other kids outside injured.
Not with so many dead.
Beside us, Daphne remained silent, although pink sparks snapped all around her now, cracking like fireworks, letting Carson and me know she was just as scared as we were. The Valkyrie stared at me a moment, then at the band geek, before turning her attention to the open doorway. Carson gripped his staff and pushed his glasses up his nose, while I tightened my hold on Vic.
I looked at Logan. Even from across the room, I could see the anticipation in his face. The emotion made his eyes glitter like ice. The Spartan was ready for the Reapers, ready to put his fighting skills to the test. Logan gave me a thumbs-up. His certainty in himself, in us, and in what we were about to do, made my stomach unclench the tiniest bit.
We hunkered down and waited for the Reapers to come.
Less than a minute later, the first Reaper stepped into the weapons room. The figure wore a black robe over his clothes and heavy black boots, but I thought it was a man, given how tall, thick, and strong his body looked.
But the most frightening thing about him was the mask.
A rubber mask covered the Reaper’s face from his forehead all the way down to his neck, completely hiding his features. That was scary enough, but it took me a second to realize that the mask actually formed a specific, terrifying shape—the face of the evil god Loki.
Once upon a time, when the other gods had first imprisoned Loki for his many crimes, they’d chained him up beneath a giant snake that had continually dripped venom onto his face, causing him unimaginable pain. The venom had eaten away at the handsome god’s features, melting them into something twisted, ugly, and utterly grotesque. That was the face the Reaper proudly sported over his own, and the sight chilled me to the bone—even more so than the bloody sword dangling from his hand.
One by one, the Reapers stepped into the room, until seven of them clustered near the doorway. Seven of them, four of us. Not the best odds, but not terrible either, considering it had looked like there had been close to twenty armed Reapers in the main part of the coliseum. Besides, we had Logan. With his fighting skills, the Spartan was worth a dozen Reapers.
I crouched behind the stuffed horse, my heart pounding, a tight grip on Vic, waiting for more of them to file into the room, but none did. I wondered what the other Reapers were doing, but I wasn’t going to complain. I was just happy they hadn’t all decided to come in here at once. We would have been killed for sure. Now, at least we had a fighting chance.
One of the Reapers stepped forward. “Spread out.”
I blinked. That—that was a girl’s voice. I shouldn’t have been surprised, since Reapers could be anyone, from parents to teachers to students and everyone in between. The two Reapers that I’d battled before had been kids my own age. Still, something about the low, throaty voice bothered me. It almost sounded ... familiar. Like I’d heard it somewhere before—
“Take anything that looks interesting or that has magic attached to it,” she said.
I frowned. I’d thought the Reapers might have seen us standing in the doorway, that maybe that was the reason they’d headed in this direction, but it sounded like they’d just come in here looking for artifacts.
“And start searching for the Helheim Dagger,” the girl continued. “They could have moved it here, according to our calculations.”
My breath caught in my throat. The Helheim Dagger? How did she know about that? And why did she think it was here in the museum? My mind started churning. The girl barked out a few more orders, but I wasn’t really listening to her words anymore. Instead, I concentrated on her voice, comparing it to another one—the voice I’d heard the night my mom had died.
The voice of my mom’s murderer.
Where’s the dagger? Where did you hide it?
...
Fool. There’s no place you can hide it that we won’t find it
.
It’s only a matter of time.
... The sneering voice rang in my head, the words playing over and over again.
Thanks to my psychometry magic, I never forgot anything I saw, heard, or felt when I touched an object. Not only that, but I could call up those memories whenever I wanted to and examine them the way someone might look at scenes on her favorite DVD. I suppose it was my own version of a photographic memory, only with perfect playback every single time.
A few weeks ago, my mentor, Professor Aurora Metis, had asked me to use my Gypsy gift on a Reaper boy named Preston Ashton. I got vivid enough vibes from objects, but I could get major whammies, major, major flashes of feeling from touching another person. I could see everything a person had ever done, from childhood to old age, all the feelings he kept locked away in the deepest, darkest part of his heart, and all the secrets he so desperately wanted to hide from everyone—even himself.
Professor Metis had wanted to know what Preston and his Reaper friends might be planning, what their next move might be against the Pantheon. So I’d taken Preston’s hand in mine and used my Gypsy gift to delve into his mind.
I’d just never expected to see my own mom’s murder.
For months I’d thought that my mom had been killed by a drunk driver coming home from work one night, but looking into Preston’s mind had shown me what had really happened. How Preston had been there. How he’d caused the accident by ramming his SUV into my mom’s car. How he’d done so on the orders of a mysterious Reaper girl—a girl who was Loki’s Champion and was searching for the Helheim Dagger that my mom had hidden years ago. And then, finally, how the Reaper girl had plunged her sword into my mom’s heart, killing her.
The same Reaper girl who was standing in front of me right now.
The awful pain of that moment, of reliving my mom’s murder, knifed through my heart, splintering it into a thousand broken, bloody shards. I let out a noise that was somewhere between a whimper and a growl. But along with the pain came anger—more anger than I’d ever felt before. The rage quickly swallowed the pain, burning away everything else except my need for revenge.
“Gwen?” Daphne whispered, sensing the change in me. “What’s wrong?”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak; I couldn’t move; I couldn’t even think. There was nothing but the rage that filled every cell of my body. Finally, I forced the words out through clenched teeth.
“It’s her,” I muttered. “The Reaper girl. Loki’s Champion. That’s her right there.”
The girl who killed my mom
.
“Hey,” one of the other Reapers said, staring down at the glass that littered the floor. “Why are all the cases in here smashed already—”
“Now, Daphne!” I screamed. “Now!”
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Daphne rose up from her spot behind the stuffed horse, already drawing back her golden arrow and lining up her shot, aiming for the other girl. But the Reaper saw what she was doing, grabbed the man next to her, and shoved him in front of her, using him as a human shield. Daphne let go of her bowstrings.