“Do you think the Reapers are gone?” I asked Logan in a low voice.
“I don’t know, but we need to go see what’s happening in the rest of the museum with the other kids.” He drew in a breath. “And Nickamedes, too.”
Nickamedes and Logan were so different it was easy for me to forget that the librarian was Logan’s uncle and that the Spartan cared about him just as much as I did my Grandma Frost.
“That’s all well and good,” Vic piped up from his spot against the stuffed horse. “But first, don’t you think you need to check the Reapers in here? Never turn your back on an enemy unless he or she is no longer a threat. You should know that, Spartan.”
“He’s right,” Logan said, picking up his sword again. “We need to make sure this room is secure before we go see about the others.”
The Spartan went one way, and I went the other, both of us moving through the room, swords in hand, checking on the Reapers lying on the floor.
They were all dead. I could tell by the weird angles of their arms and legs, the absolute stillness of their bodies, and the way their sightless eyes dully glinted through the slits in their rubber masks.
I looked around the room a final time to make sure I hadn’t overlooked any of the bodies, and my gaze caught on something small and white lying in the middle of the glass and blood. I walked over and crouched down to get a better look at it.
A piece of paper folded into a thick square rested on the floor. So that was what had fallen out of the Reaper girl’s robe while we’d been fighting. Weird. I would have expected her to have a dagger or two tucked into her pockets instead.
Since I wasn’t sure what vibes were attached to the paper and what I might see if I touched it with my bare hand, I pulled my hoodie sleeve down and used the edge of the fabric to pick up the square. I couldn’t open it, not without touching it with my fingers, so I settled for sliding the paper into my jeans pocket.
“What’s that?” Vic asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I’m guessing it’s important since I almost took the Reaper girl’s head off while she was reaching for it.”
Vic sniffed. “And more’s the pity you didn’t.”
Once the bodies were checked, I met Logan in the middle of the room. Daphne and Carson were still lying on the dais, but since there wasn’t another door that led in here, they’d be safe enough while we figured out what was going on in the rest of the museum.
“You ready for this, Gypsy girl?” Logan asked in a soft voice. “Because it’s not going to be pretty out there.”
It wasn’t pretty in here, but I didn’t have to tell him that. He could see the blood and bodies as well as I could.
“I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready, but if there are people out there we can help, we have to try.”
Logan stared at me, his eyes locking with mine. He put his arm around me and held me close. I closed my eyes and listened to the steady
thump-thump-thump
of his heart under my fingers. I could have stood there and listened to that sound forever.
“We’re fine,” he whispered. “We survived.”
A sob rose in my throat at the thought of the horrible things that had happened, the horrible things that we’d all done, but I swallowed it down.
“I know,” I whispered back. “I know.”
Logan held me for another second. Then, he let me go, raised his sword, and eased over to the doorway. I tightened my grip on Vic and followed him. Together, we peered out into the main part of the coliseum.
Bodies sprawled across the floor, looking like larger pieces of debris next to the smashed artifacts. Glass, pottery, metal, and wood covered the marble like a ragged carpet. Everything that could have been broken was, and even the paintings had been torn off the walls and trampled. It looked like a tornado had ripped through the museum—it was just utter, bloody chaos.
But there were some survivors. A few students had pushed themselves up into sitting positions, holding their hands over their wounds to try and slow the blood loss. Others slumped against the tall pillars, dazed, vacant looks in their eyes. Still more lay where they had fallen and quietly cried, their shoulders shaking and the tears slipping down their faces and mixing with the bloody debris on the floor.
“You check on the kids in here,” Logan said in a low voice. “I’m going to the other rooms to see if there are any other survivors—and hopefully to find Nickamedes.”
I nodded. The Spartan headed down one of the corridors while I stepped back into the main museum space. A few feet away, I spotted Morgan McDougall crouching over a body. Since she was the closest student to me, I headed in her direction, holding Vic and keeping an eye out for any Reapers who might still be lurking in the coliseum.
“Morgan?” I asked in a low voice. “Are you okay?”
The Valkyrie looked up at the sound of my voice, and I realized who she was crouching over—Samson Sorensen. The Viking was one of the cutest guys at the academy, but now he was dead, his handsome face pinched with pain, his empty eyes staring up at the ceiling and reflecting back the sheen of the metal discs there.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m here to help. Are the Reapers gone?”
“Yes,” Morgan said in a shaky voice. “One of them ran out of the room you were in. A girl, I think. She shouted something at the others, and they all ran down one of the hallways. They left. They just left. Like they’d finally gotten whatever it was they’d come for.”
I frowned. I hadn’t seen Loki’s Champion pick up any weapons or artifacts, and the other Reapers who’d come into the room were dead, so they wouldn’t be taking anything out with them. Had the Helheim Dagger been in another part of the coliseum? Was that why the Reaper girl and her friends had gone in such a hurry? My head started to ache from all the questions that I just didn’t know the answers to.
Morgan turned back to Samson, smoothing the Viking’s sandy hair back from his bloody face. “I really did love him, you know? Even though he was Jasmine’s boyfriend and we were sneaking around behind her back, I loved him the whole time.”
Back in the fall, Morgan had been hooking up with Samson even though he’d been dating Morgan’s best friend, Jasmine Ashton. What no one had known was that Jasmine was really a Reaper. Jasmine had been so upset when she found out Morgan was sneaking around with her boyfriend that Jasmine had tried to sacrifice Morgan to Loki. She would have, too—if I hadn’t stopped her that night in the Library of Antiquities.
I started to answer Morgan, to tell her it was okay, that I understood how she felt about Samson, when I noticed a shadow on the floor beside us—one that was creeping closer and closer. Maybe the Reapers hadn’t left after all. Fear flooded my body at the thought.
I waited a second, letting the shadow get in range, then I tightened my grip on Vic, whirled around, and raised the sword over my head, ready to bring the blade down on whoever was lurking behind me.
“Gwendolyn! Stop!” Nickamedes barked, taking a step back and holding up his hand. “It’s just me.”
It took me a second to focus on the librarian—and another one to notice all the blood on his clothes and the sword in his hand. Nickamedes’s suit jacket was ripped and torn, his shirt was untucked, and his tie had been sliced in two, leaving only the knot hanging around his throat. Cuts and scrapes crisscrossed his hands like Xs and Os, and the right side of his face had puffed up with the beginning of a black eye.
I looked around the room again and noticed that several black-robed bodies littered the floor, along with those of the Mythos students. Nickamedes must have heard the commotion when the Reapers stormed into the coliseum and came out fighting. He would have too, since he was a Spartan just like Logan, with the same fighting skills and killer warrior instinct. Nickamedes had probably chased after the Reapers when they’d left.
The librarian looked just as wild and haggard as I felt, but concern filled his face as he stared at the blood on my clothes and on Vic. For the first time, I realized that maybe Nickamedes did care about the academy students after all—even me.
“Gwendolyn?” Nickamedes asked again. “Where’s Logan?”
“He’s fine. He went looking for you.”
I slowly lowered my sword to my side, cold exhaustion filling my body like ice water being poured into a glass. I stared out at the dead students and all the other ones who were still bleeding and crying.
“Are you okay?” Nickamedes asked in a soft voice.
“I’m not hurt, if that’s what you mean.” I shook my head. “But I don’t know that I’ll ever be okay again.”
Chapter 4
I don’t remember much of what happened after that. Well, that’s not exactly true. I remembered—I would
always
remember—even if all I wanted to do was forget.
Nickamedes called the Powers That Were at Mythos Academy, and thirty minutes later, other people started arriving. Most of them were professors at the academy, like Mr. Llew, my calculus teacher, Mrs. Banba, the economics prof, and Coach Lir, who oversaw the academy swim teams. Nobody called the cops. The regular mortal police wouldn’t understand what had happened, and they just weren’t equipped to fight Reapers—or to deal with the deadly destruction they’d caused.
Several other adults appeared as well, men and women dressed in heavy black coveralls. They opened the coliseum doors and pushed metal carts covered with black bags inside. I knew what they were here for—to load up the bodies and take them to the academy morgue. I shuddered and kept my gaze away from them.
Professor Metis and Coach Ajax showed up, too, since they were part of the academy’s security council. Metis and Ajax, along with Nickamedes, were responsible for keeping the students safe while they were at Mythos. But we weren’t at the academy right now—and no one had been safe today.
What surprised me most was the fact that Raven came to the museum. Raven was the woman who manned the coffee cart in the Library of Antiquities, one of the many duties she seemed to have at the academy. She was an old woman with white hair, black eyes, and a face that was streaked with wrinkles. Raven sported a flowing white gown just like the ones the coliseum staff had worn, although a pair of black combat boots peeked out from underneath her long skirt.
Raven stood off to one side of the museum, gazing out at the destruction. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and I could see old, faded scars on her skin there, along with dark brown liver spots. She noticed me staring at her, and our eyes met. For a moment, her image wavered, like there was another, younger, prettier face beneath her wrinkles. But the really weird thing was that I felt something when I looked into her eyes—an aching wave of pain and sadness so intense that it made tears start to trickle down my own cheeks. Like somehow the attack today was all her fault... .
I blinked, and she was just Raven once more, the old woman who sold snacks in the library. The pain and sadness were gone and so were the tears I’d thought had been sliding down my face. I reached up, but my skin was completely dry. Weird. Really weird.
I looked at Raven, but she ignored me, walked over, and started speaking to the woman who was loading Samson’s body onto a metal cart. Raven moved through the crowd, talking to the adults who were here to clear away the blood and debris. Overseeing them must be another one of her academy odd jobs. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, since she was on the security council with Metis and the others.
After another minute, I pushed Raven out of my mind. Her flickering face wasn’t the most awful thing I’d seen today. My eyes lingered on a smear of blood on the white marble floor.
Not even close.
An hour after the attack, I stood in an office in the back of the coliseum, watching Metis examine Carson. The professor had made the band geek sit on a desk and take off his shirt. She’d spent several minutes peering at his chest, even though not a mark remained where the Reaper had stabbed him. After that, Metis had run her hands through Carson’s dusky brown hair, looking for any head injuries. Now, she was shining a small flashlight into his brown eyes, watching them react to the glare.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.
I leaned against the wall next to Logan. Nickamedes was on the other side of the Spartan, while Coach Ajax stood in the doorway, filling the open space with his massive frame.
Metis clicked off the flashlight. “He’s going to be fine. They both are.”
The professor’s green eyes drifted over to Daphne, who was slumped in a chair. The Valkyrie had woken up by the time I’d taken Nickamedes to the weapons room, but she still looked exhausted. Every once in a while, a pink spark would weakly flicker on one of her fingertips, like she’d used up her energy for the day and that was all the magic she could summon up. I supposed that she had, healing Carson the way she did.
Metis nodded at Daphne. She’d finished examining the Valkyrie a few minutes ago. “You saved Carson’s life today with your magic.”
“I suppose this means I’ll have to get you something extra special for Valentine’s Day,” Carson joked.
Daphne tried to smile, but pain filled her black eyes. She’d come so close to losing Carson—she couldn’t just forget that, even if the band geek was alive and sitting right in front of her. I knew the feeling because I’d gone through it with Logan a few weeks back. Logan stared at me, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing—about how close Preston Ashton had come to killing us both, along with our Spartan friend, Oliver Hector.
Once Metis finished with Carson, the band geek put his shirt back on, even though it was as ripped and bloody as the rest of our clothes were.
“What do you suppose they were after? What did the Reapers want?” Coach Ajax asked, crossing his arms over his broad, muscled chest. The overhead lights made his onyx skin gleam like polished jet.
Nickamedes’s mouth twisted. “You mean other than killing six students, five of the museum staff members, and injuring a dozen more? You don’t think that was enough for them?”
Ajax shrugged his broad shoulders. For the first time, I noticed a weary look on his face. Normally, big, burly Coach Ajax reminded me of a granite statue more than anything else, something solid and unbreakable, but today he seemed small and deflated, despite his tall frame.
“The Helheim Dagger,” I said in a quiet voice. “That’s what they were after, that’s what the Reaper girl told the others to search for. It was her, Loki’s Champion. She came into the weapons room looking for the dagger. She’s the one I fought.”
Metis stared at me. “Are you sure it was her? And that she was after the dagger?”
I nodded. Metis knew all about the dagger and the fact that my mom had hidden it from the Reapers. She and my mom had been best friends years ago when they’d gone to Mythos Academy.
“Well, that would certainly explain the full-frontal assault,” Nickamedes said in a dark tone. “The Reapers will do anything to get their hands on that dagger.”
Nobody said anything. We all knew the dagger was the last remaining seal on Loki’s mythological prison. If the Reapers ever found the dagger, they could use it to free the god and set him loose in the mortal realm once more. I was kind of fuzzy on exactly
how
they were supposed to use the dagger to do that, but I knew people would die if Loki ever got free—so many people.
So many people had died already today.
“I wonder why they thought the dagger was here?” Metis asked. “The Crius Coliseum isn’t known for its artifacts collection. Its pottery and art, certainly, but not high-end, magically powerful artifacts and especially not weapons.”
“Maybe this will help.” I used the edge of my hoodie sleeve to pull the white square of paper out of my jeans pocket. “The Reaper girl dropped this while we were fighting. I haven’t touched it yet so I don’t know what kind of vibes might be attached to it. After—after what happened today, I don’t know that I want to touch it.”
Metis, Ajax, and Nickamedes looked at each other, then Metis stepped forward and took the paper from me. Carson got to his feet, and she spread it out on the desk where he’d been sitting. We all gathered around and stared at the paper.
It had been folded several times and almost covered the entire desk by the time Metis finished spreading it out and smoothing down the edges. The paper featured a detailed map of—of something. I couldn’t tell what, exactly. Something with a dome, judging by the round shape in the top left corner of the map. Small Xs had been drawn all over the paper in what looked like random positions. There was no pattern to the marks that I could see. All put together, it looked like squiggly gibberish. What was so important about this that the Reaper girl had almost let me take her head off rather than leave it behind?
Ajax let out a curse and turned away from the paper. Metis sighed and rubbed her head, as though it was suddenly aching. Nickamedes stayed where he was, though, still staring down at the paper, a thoughtful look on his face.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s a map,” Nickamedes said.
I rolled my eyes. Well, yeah, I could
see
that. But a map of what? Where? And why was it so important?
As if hearing my snide thoughts, the librarian looked up at me. “It’s a map of the Library of Antiquities.”
I frowned. “The library? Why would the Reaper girl have a map of the library?”
Nickamedes kept staring at me, and the answer popped into my head.
“The library,” I whispered. “The Reapers think the Helheim Dagger is hidden somewhere in the Library of Antiquities.”
“Apparently so.”
I looked at Nickamedes. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well,
is
it hidden somewhere in there?” I demanded. “Have you known where it was this whole time?”
My voice got louder and sharper with every word. Logan walked over and put his hand on my shoulder, telling me to take it easy, but too many awful things had happened today for me to do that.
Nickamedes stiffened, then straightened up to his full height and peered down his nose at me. “I assure you that the dagger is
not
in the library. I know every inch of the place, and I would have discovered it long ago.”
“Really? Like you knew that Jasmine Ashton was hiding in a storage room on the fourth floor with the Bowl of Tears last semester?” I sniped. “If I remember right, you thought some anonymous Reaper bad guy had stolen the bowl and smuggled it out of the library. But things didn’t turn out that way, did they?”
Nickamedes’s cheeks flushed an angry red, and he opened his mouth, ready to argue with me some more. Metis stepped in front of him, putting her hand on his chest.
“Enough,” she said. “That’s enough, both of you. Bickering among ourselves isn’t going to solve anything. I’m sure Nickamedes is right and that the dagger isn’t hidden in the library. Otherwise, someone would have stumbled across it years ago.”
“But that’s why the Reapers were here today, isn’t it?” Coach Ajax rumbled in his deep voice. “Because most of the weapons and artifacts on display were on loan from the library. For whatever reason, the Reapers think the dagger is hidden in the library. They must have thought that Nickamedes didn’t recognize it, that maybe it was labeled as something else and he packed it up and brought it to the coliseum to be displayed. At the very least, the Reapers knew they’d have an easier time breaking in here than they would the library.”
“Well, who knows what the great mind of Grace Frost came up with,” Nickamedes muttered in a snide tone. “Or where she hid the dagger to start with. I never understood some of the choices she made. Grace was a fool, if you ask me, about a great many things.”
Anger exploded like fireworks in my chest at his harsh words. “And what would you know about my mom?” I snapped, my hands curling into fists. “She’s dead, remember? Murdered by the Reapers because she was trying to keep the dagger safe from them. So don’t you dare say another word about her!”
Nickamedes eyed me, his blue gaze dark. Logan tightened his grip on my shoulder, his fingers pressing into my skin through the fabric of my clothes. The librarian looked at me another second before his gaze skipped over to his nephew. Nickamedes’s lips pulled down into another frown.
“The dagger isn’t in the library,” he insisted once more. “I don’t even know why we’re bothering to discuss this. I’m going to see if the parents of the injured students have arrived yet.”
The librarian grabbed the office door and slammed it behind him as he stalked out of the room and down the hallway.
“What is with him and his bad attitude?” I muttered.
Metis shook her head. “It’s a long story.”
The professor stared at the map again, looking at all the Xs marked on it. Now that I knew it was a map of the library, I recognized some of the spots covered by the Xs. The checkout counter where I worked, the spot where the Bowl of Tears had once stood, the coffee cart set up to provide snacks to the students. Strange. Hundreds of kids tromped by those places every single day. I would have thought the Reapers would have marked more out-of-the-way spots, places more likely for my mom to have hidden the dagger and for it to have stayed safe all these years.
We looked at the map for a few more minutes before Metis took it over to the copier in the corner and made several duplicates of it, probably to give to the Powers That Were at the academy. Once that was done, the professor held out the original piece of paper to me, a clear question in her eyes.
I sighed. I didn’t feel like using my Gypsy gift. Not now, not after everything that had happened, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed to find the dagger before the Reapers did, and my psychometry magic was the best chance I had of doing that.