A sick, sick feeling flooded my stomach. Drake was holding a needle instead of a weapon, which meant that the Reapers didn’t want to kill me. They wanted to drug me instead. But why would they do that? Unless…
They wanted to take me with them.
If Covington kidnapped me, he could try to turn me into a Reaper again. Given how many artifacts he had stolen, he probably had something that would eventually do the trick. I wouldn’t be able to fight him forever, not even with Babs in my hand and Freya’s Bracelet on my wrist. That sick feeling in my stomach intensified, and I wanted to vomit.
But I pushed my nauseating worry aside and listened, hoping that I would hear footsteps in the tunnel behind us. Silence blanketed the crypt the way the darkness had blanketed the tunnel, and I didn’t hear anything to indicate that Ian and Zoe had found the secret passageway and were coming to help me.
I was on my own.
More worry and fear rose up in my chest, as sharp as my pain and rage had been a moment ago, but I forced all my emotions down, down, down, into the bottom of my heart, and locked them up tight. My friends might not be here, but I was a warrior, and I wasn’t giving up. I needed to be strong now—Spartan strong—so I tightened my grip on Babs and made sure that my back was to one of the crypt walls. Then I focused on Covington again.
“What are you doing here?” I growled.
He smiled at me again. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
“We are not friends.”
“Ah, but we will be soon enough.”
His confident tone made a chill slither down my spine, but I kept my sword raised and my emotions under control. I didn’t know what Covington was plotting, but I wasn’t going to fall for his tricks. If he wanted to drug me, then he was going to have to come over here and do it himself.
Gretchen rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Enough chitchat already. You can talk to her later. I brought the Spartan here like you asked. Now, where’s my money?”
Surprise jolted through me. So that was why she had forced me down here. Not to use me as a hostage but to hand me over to the Reapers.
“Where’s my artifact?” Covington countered. “After all, Rory was only part of our deal.”
Artifact? That sick, sick feeling in my stomach intensified for a third time. I looked at Gretchen. “You’re selling Serket’s Pen to Covington?”
“Of course I am. Who else would pay top dollar for it?”
She had a point. Covington hadn’t been at the Idun Estate, so the Midgard had assumed that Gretchen was selling the pen to someone else, but we should have known better. No one loved and coveted artifacts as much as Covington did. He already had Typhon’s Scepter to summon chimeras. Of course, he would want Serket’s Pen so that he could control basilisks too. So he was the buyer she had been talking to last night. Something else Gretchen had said then popped into my mind.
“Last night, when you were on the phone with Covington outside your dorm, you told him you had something else he wanted, something besides Serket’s Pen. What did you mean?” I asked, although I had a sinking feeling that I already knew the answer.
Gretchen didn’t seem surprised that I had overhead her call. “Oh, yeah. I spotted you and your Valkyrie friend lurking around my dorm. That’s when I knew you had figured out that I’d stolen the artifact. So I decided to kill two basilisks with one stone, so to speak. Since I knew you were listening, I clued you in on my plan to sell the artifact at the club tonight. And the other thing that Covington wanted? That would be you, Rory.”
I sucked in a breath. Takeda and the others had been right. Covington was still targeting me, and now he had me alone and isolated.
“If it’s any consolation, he agreed to pay almost as much for you as he did for the artifact,” Gretchen said.
I bit back a curse. Team Midgard had thought we were one step ahead of Gretchen, but she had been playing us—playing me—this whole time. She really should have been a Reaper. She was just as sneaky and manipulative as they were.
“But how do you even know Covington?” I asked.
Gretchen shrugged. “Through Lance Fuller.”
“Lance? What does Lance have to do with this?”
She shrugged again. “Kylie might not have noticed it, but Lance wasn’t exactly subtle about being a Reaper. He was always talking to our group of friends, trying to figure out if he could recruit anyone. He started chatting me up one day, and I decided to pump him for information. He eventually gave me a contact number for Drake.”
“I thought you weren’t a Reaper,” I accused.
“Oh, I’m not,” she replied. “But their money spends just as good as everyone else’s does.”
She smiled, but her blue eyes remained completely, utterly cold. She didn’t care how dangerous Serket’s Pen was, how many basilisks Covington could summon with it, or how many innocent people could get hurt. No, Gretchen Gondul didn’t care about anything other than money.
She looked at the Reapers again. “Back to business. You want your artifact? Well, here it is.”
She was still leaning against the crypt wall, and she reached into one of the hollow spaces and pulled out a clear plastic bag. She held the bag up to the light, showing off the black feather inside, then strode forward and tossed it down onto the floor.
Covington’s gaze locked onto the bag, and his lips twisted into a smug, satisfied sneer. I tensed. I knew that look. I wasn’t the only one in trouble. So was Gretchen. She just didn’t realize it yet.
I could have warned her, but I didn’t. She had to realize that Covington would do something horrible to me, but she had brought me to him anyway. As far as I was concerned, she was on her own.
Gretchen had moved over to the center of the crypt, so she was no longer blocking the tunnel exit, and Covington and Drake were focused on the artifact on the floor. This was it. This was my chance to escape. All I had to do was sprint into the tunnel and find my way back to the club. I could make it. I knew I could.
But I decided not to.
I was a member of the Midgard, and it was my job to stop the Reapers from getting any more artifacts. I couldn’t let Covington leave the crypt with Serket’s Pen, not even to save myself, and I was going to fight to the end. That was what being Spartan strong meant to me.
But part of being a Spartan was knowing when to attack and when to wait—and now was the time to wait. Covington had some trick planned, and I was going to let it play out and use it to my advantage.
“I want to see my money,” Gretchen demanded. “Now.”
Covington nodded at Drake. The Viking slid that syringe he’d been holding into his jeans pocket, then went over, reached into another hollow space in the crypt wall, and pulled out a briefcase. Drake walked over and set the briefcase on the floor a few feet away from the artifact.
“On three,” he said, looking at Gretchen. “One, two, three.”
He leaned forward and scooped up the plastic bag, while she grabbed the briefcase. They both quickly backed away from each other. Drake handed the bag to Covington.
Gretchen set the briefcase back down on the floor, opened the clasps, and lifted the lid. She sucked in a breath, then surged to her feet and kicked the briefcase away.
“It’s empty!” she snarled.
The case tumbled end over end along the floor and spun to a stop at my feet. It was completely empty.
“Of course it’s empty.” Covington sneered. “Did you really think I was going to pay you millions of dollars when I could simply take the artifact away from you? Stupid girl.”
Gretchen’s hands balled into fists, throwing gray sparks of magic everywhere. She took a menacing step forward, but Covington snapped up his hand, stopping her.
At first, I thought he was holding a weapon, but it was much, much worse. He was clutching Typhon’s Scepter, a thick gold stick that was about as long as my forearm. A small figure, also made of gold, topped the scepter—a chimera with the pantherlike body of a Nemean prowle
r, ram horns sprouting from its forehead, and a scorpion’s stinger on the end of its tail.
Just looking at the tiny gold figure made me shiver. Typhon chimeras were as monstrous as Serket basilisks, a mishmash of creatures straight out of a mythological warrior’s worst nightmare. All Covington had to do was wave the scepter in a sharp figure-eight motion, and he could summon as many chimeras as he wanted.
Gretchen had studied that artifact book, so she knew exactly what the scepter was and the monsters it could summon. But instead of being worried, she grinned at Covington.
“You know, I thought you might double-cross me,” she said. “After all, that’s what Reapers do. Right, Rory?”
I didn’t respond. She didn’t want me to anyway.
Gretchen kept grinning. She held her hands up, then slowly reached around and pulled something out of the back pocket of her jeans: a black feather with crimson edges and a silver nib attached to the bottom.
Covington’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Disgust twisted his face, and he threw down the plastic bag. It skidded across the floor and came to a stop beside the empty briefcase at my feet.
“You gave me a fake!” he snarled.
“Did you really think I was going to give you the artifact when I could simply keep it and the money for myself?” Gretchen sneered. “Stupid Reaper.”
The two of them stared each other down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Drake slowly reach under his black cloak and pull out his sword. This could only end one way now. I tightened my grip on Babs and got ready to move—
“Stop!” another voice called out. “All of you! Stop right there!”
Footsteps slapped against the stone, and my friends ran into the crypt. Ian was in the lead, with a dagger clutched in either hand. Zoe raced into the crypt behind him, with her electrodagger throwing out showers of blue-white sparks.
Ian strode forward, snapped up his daggers, and pointed them at Gretchen and the Reapers. “By order of the Protectorate, you’re all under arrest!” His voice boomed like thunder through the crypt.
For a moment, we all looked at one another. Me, Gretchen, the Reapers, my friends.
Then Ian realized that Gretchen was holding Serket’s Pen and that Covington was clutching Typhon’s Scepter. His eyes widened. “Get back!” he yelled. “Back into the tunnel!”
But it was too late.
Gretchen sliced the black feather pen back and forth, as though she were writing a giant B in the air. At the same time, Covington raised his hand and made a quick figure-eight motion with the gold scepter.
Tiny black feathers spewed like ink out of the silver nib on the bottom of the pen, while black, ashy smoke erupted out of the end of the gold scepter. The feathers and smoke quickly solidified into the two monstrous creatures they represented.
A basilisk stood next to Gretchen, the spikes on its head almost touching the top of the crypt. A chimera crouched next to Covington, its massive paws scorching the stone floor.
Gretchen and Covington stared at each other for a long, tense moment. Then she slashed her pen through the air again, while he snapped up his scepter.
And that’s when the basilisk and the chimera attacked.
Chapter Nineteen
The two monsters crashed together in the center of the crypt.
The basilisk cawed, while the chimera screamed, and the loud, inhuman sounds echoed off the walls as the creatures tried to claw each other to death. Black feathers and fur flew through the air, along with drops of blood that zipped into the hollow spaces in the walls and spattered onto the bones inside. So much for resting in peace.
Gretchen lunged to her right and spun around, avoiding the creatures. Covington and Drake chased after her, but Gretchen saw them coming and started running. I frowned, wondering where she was going, since she was sprinting straight at a wall—
Gretchen vanished.
Seriously, she just vanished. One second, she was about to smack face-first into the wall. The next, she was gone, like she had walked right through the stone.
My eyes narrowed. Not even Valkyries could walk through solid stone. There must be another secret passageway back there.
Covington and Drake also ran straight at the wall, and they too vanished an instant later. Definitely a secret passageway back there. That must have been how the Reapers got into the crypt, since they hadn’t come through the club tunnel like Gretchen and I had.
“Rory!” Ian yelled. “Rory!”
I looked at him. I was still standing up against the crypt wall, trying to stay out of the way of the monsters’ duel, but Ian and Zoe had been forced to retreat back into the tunnel or risk getting crushed by the creatures.
I waved at my friends. “I’m okay!”
Relief filled Ian’s face, and he stepped forward like he was going to rush over to me.
Caw!
The basilisk spread its wings and launched itself at the chimera again, and the two monsters rolled around on the floor, still trying to tear each other to pieces. Ian pulled up short, and Zoe reached out, grabbed his shirt, and yanked him back out of the way before the monsters knocked him down and trampled him.
But Ian didn’t give up. He tried to skirt around the monsters a second time, but once again, they moved in that direction, blocking his path.
But they weren’t blocking mine.
The monsters kept going from the center of the crypt over to the tunnel entrance and back again. I looked at the spot in the wall where Gretchen, Covington, and Drake had disappeared, then back at the monsters. My Spartan instincts kicked in, and I could see every move the creatures were going to make.
The basilisk would flex its wings again, and the chimera would duck the attack and try to ram its horns into the other creature’s side. The basilisk would avoid that blow and lash out with its spiked tail, forcing the chimera to retreat. And on and on the fight would rage, until one of the creatures got lucky and finally managed to kill the other.
If I timed it just right, I could avoid the monsters’ wings and paws, sprint across the crypt, and find the secret passageway. It was dangerous to go after Gretchen, Covington, and Drake on my own, especially since they could summon up more monsters, but this was the only chance we had of catching them. By the time the basilisk and the chimera wore each other out, Gretchen and the Reapers would be long gone, and the artifacts along with them.
Ian realized it too. Concern flashed in his eyes, but he nodded. He knew how important this was to me.
“I’m going after them!” I yelled. “Follow me when you can!”
“Be careful!” Zoe called out.
“We’ll be right behind you!” Ian added.
I flashed them a thumbs-up, then turned my attention back to the monsters. The basilisk lashed out with its wings, starting the next round of the fight, which meant that I needed to move right…
Now!
I pushed away from the wall and sprinted straight at the monsters in the center of the crypt. The chimera screamed at the basilisk, reared back, and then lunged forward, trying to drive its ram horns into the other creature’s side. For a moment, I was in between the two monsters, so close that I could see the crimson streaks in the chimera’s fur and feel the basilisk’s wings beating the air around me. Then I dove to the ground and rolled past the chimera’s paws and the basilisk’s talons.
I kept rolling, rolling, rolling, until I was clear of the monsters. Then I surged back up onto my feet and hurried over to the crypt wall.
“Where is it? Where is it?” I muttered, running my hand over the dusty stones, searching for the secret passageway.
“Rory!” Babs’s muffled voice sounded. “Over there! To your right!”
I hurried in that direction and noticed a cobweb that was fluttering up against the stones. Given the dim light, the wall looked seamless from a distance, but now that I was standing next to it, I could see how this section jutted out from the rest of the crypt. I peered around the edge and discovered another pitch-black
tunnel.
I glanced back over my shoulder, but the monsters were still fighting, which meant that my friends were still trapped in the tunnel entrance on the far side of the crypt.
“Go!” Ian yelled. “Go, Rory, go!”
I nodded at him, then drew in a breath and plunged into the darkness.
* * *
As much as I wanted to run, run, run, and catch up to my enemies, I forced myself to walk a few feet, then stop. This tunnel was as dark as the other one, and I could easily trip on a loose stone and break my ankle. Then I would have no chance of catching up to anyone.
I cursed. I should have grabbed one of the lanterns off the crypt wall, and now I was going to have to waste precious time doubling back. I whirled around in that direction. The motion made my charm bracelet slide down my wrist, and an idea popped into my mind. Maybe I didn’t need a lantern. Maybe I already had enough light to see by. I reached down and pulled my sleeve up, revealing my bracelet.
Sure enough, the silver links were glowing, along with the heart locket and the winterbloom charm, just like they had when Zoe and I explored the academy tunnels. The bracelet had probably been glowing when Gretchen forced me through the other passageway earlier, although my shirt had covered it up then.
With that little bit of light, I grabbed Babs by her blade and lifted the sword up so that we were eyes to eye. “Hey, Babs. Think you can do that cool glowing thing you did in the tunnels the other day?”
Her green eye narrowed. “What do you think I am? A bloody flashlight? I can’t just turn on and off whenever you want me to.”
“Babs…”
She sighed. “I know, I know. The Reapers are getting away, and we’re stuck in this dark, nasty tunnel. I suppose I can try to glow. Although I’m still not exactly sure how I did that to start with…”
The sword kept babbling, the way she always did. Slowly, the runes carved into her blade started glowing, just like my bracelet was. The more Babs talked, the brighter and steadier the glow became, until I could easily read the runes. Devotion is strength. Seemed Babs’s motormouth was a bit of strength too.
Spartan Promise Page 18
