Spartan Promise

by Jennifer Estep

  “Well?” Babs asked when she finally stopped long enough to take a breath. “Am I doing it? Am I glowing yet? Because I am really trying superhard to glow for you right now.”

  “You’re doing great,” I said, hiding a grin. “Just keep talking. Softly, though. We don’t want the Reapers to realize we’re sneaking up on them. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll keep talking. Now, you start walking so that we can catch up to the Reapers…”

  The combined glows from Freya’s Bracelet and Babs’s blade drove back the worst of the blackness, and I moved forward. I’d only gone about fifty feet into the tunnel before I realized that I couldn’t hear the caws and screams of the basilisk and the chimera fighting anymore. The thick walls soaked up all the sounds, except for Babs’s whispered chatter, my raspy breaths, and the faint crunch of my boots on the loose stones that littered the floor. At least, I hoped those were loose stones and not, you know, bones. Best not to look down.

  I moved quickly and quietly, stopping every so often to look and listen. Along with Babs’s soft babbling, I thought I could hear the faint slap-slap-slap-slap of footsteps in the distance. I concentrated, but I couldn’t tell if I was catching up to Gretchen, Covington, and Drake or if I was hearing my own footsteps bouncing off the walls and echoing back to me.

  I hurried on. Twenty feet later, the tunnel curved, and suddenly, I was in a small room with plastic lanterns hanging on the walls and a set of stairs leading up to an open door. I blinked, wondering if I was only imagining the lights and stairs, but everything stayed the same.

  “Babs?” I interrupted the sword’s chatter.

  “Yeah?”

  “You can stop talking now.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Disappointment filled her voice. “No more glowing, then?”

  “Nope, no more glowing. Time for fighting.”

  The sword fell silent, and I flipped her around so that I was gripping her by the hilt. Once again, I looked and listened, but I was all alone, so I crept up the stairs.

  My footsteps rang out far louder than I would have liked, but I winced and kept climbing. The stone door at the top of the steps was standing wide open, and I eased up to the frame and peered out into the area beyond.

  It was a cemetery.

  A gray cobblestone walkway started at the door and ran for about fifty feet before branching off in multiple directions. Old-fashioned streetlamps lined the walkways. During the day, the tendrils of black wrought iron would have been quite lovely. But tonight, the way the iron curled around the golden globes reminded me of thin, skeletal fingers about to snap together and extinguish all the lights.

  The walkways curved past manicured lawns dotted with worn, weathered tombstones, along with small spires and other grave markers. Stone figures of Nemean prowlers, Fenrir wolves, Eir gryphons, and other mythological creatures topped many of the stones and spires, and the shifting shadows made the creatures look like they were about to leap off their perches and attack me. I shivered. I had always loved seeing the statues at the academy, but the ones here seemed more foe than friend.

  I must be in the cemetery next door to Club Dionysus, the one I had seen from the van when we first pulled into the club’s parking lot. In the distance, I could hear the faint thump-thump-thump of music still blasting inside the club.

  I stood in the doorway for a few more seconds, listening for footsteps behind me, and hoping that Ian and Zoe might come running up the stairs. But everything remained quiet, which meant it was up to me to stop Gretchen, Covington, and Drake. I gripped Babs even tighter, left the doorway behind, and stepped out into the cemetery.

  I had no idea which way my enemies had gone, so I headed down the far right path, since it ran along the fence that wrapped around the edge of the cemetery. Maybe if I was lucky, I would spot Gretchen or the Reapers somewhere in the center.

  My footsteps echoed on the cobblestones, seeming much louder than they had in the tunnel, so I stepped into the grass, although that wasn’t much better. The temperature had already plummeted for the night, and my boots crunched through the cold, hard frost that coated the ground, making almost as much noise as they had on the cobblestones. My footsteps were also clearly visible to anyone who might be creeping along behind me. But there was nothing I could do about any of that, so I walked on.

  I paused every so often, still looking and listening, but the club’s music had faded away altogether, and the only sound was the eerie whistle of the wind gusting over the tombstones.

  Babs’s lips moved under my palm, and I loosened my grip so I could hear her soft words. “Could this place be any creepier?”

  “Nope,” I whispered back. “I don’t think so.”

  I moved on. The path led over to a gate in the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the cemetery, but it was secured with a heavy padlock, and I didn’t see any footsteps in the grass or smudges in the frost on the bars indicating that anyone had climbed over the twelve-foot fence. So I turned around, stepped onto a different path, and plunged back into the cemetery.

  The cemetery was like a labyrinth, with paths spiraling out every which way. Some paths led to dead ends, while others circled back on themselves, creating giant loops. After a while, all the grassy lawns and tombstones blended together and started to look the same. I moved slowly, trying to orient myself and making a mental map in my head so that I wouldn’t become hopelessly lost—

  Swish-swish. Swish-swish.

  The faint sound was coming from up ahead, as if someone were dragging their feet through the grass. I ducked behind the closest tombstone, which had a stone basilisk perched on top of it. The creature’s beak was open, and the shadows made it seem like it was going to lean forward and peck at me. I shuddered and looked away from it.

  I stayed absolutely still, trying to listen above the roar of my heart in my chest, but I didn’t hear anything else. I had started to creep out from behind the tombstone when I spotted a shadow oozing across the grass, slowly coming closer and closer. I tightened my grip on Babs and let out a soft breath, readying myself. Then, when the shadow was in range, I surged to my feet, rounded the corner of the marker, and lifted my sword, ready to attack whoever—or whatever—was on the other side.

  Gretchen was about five feet away, shuffling toward the nearest path. She must have seen me move out of the corner of her eye, because she turned and headed in my direction. I braced myself, thinking she was going to attack me, but her movements were much too slow and awkward for that.

  “Help…me…” she rasped.

  She stretched her hand out, and that was when I saw the blood.

  It covered the front of her shirt like a giant bull’s-eye. Covington and Drake must have attacked her somewhere in the cemetery. My gaze snapped left and right, but I didn’t see the Reapers.

  “Help…me…” Gretchen rasped again.

  Her legs buckled, and she stumbled into me, knocking Babs out of my hand. The sword landed point-first in the grass a few feet away. I tried to catch Gretchen, but I didn’t have her Valkyrie strength, so she slipped through my hands and landed on her back on the ground.

  I crouched down beside her. “Gretchen? Gretchen!”

  She coughed, and blood bubbled up out of her lips. I cursed and pushed her shirt up so I could see her wound.

  It was bad.

  Someone, probably Drake, had stabbed Gretchen with a sword. The injury was so wide, deep, and jagged that I felt my own healing magic stir in response, even though I wasn’t the one who was hurt. I cursed again and clamped my hands down on her stomach, trying to stop the blood loss, even though it was already too late.

  Gretchen stared up at me, her blue gaze bright with pain, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. “Your hands…are cold…”

  I winced and started to pull back, not wanting to cause her any more pain, but she reached down and put her bloody hands on top of mine, holding them in place.

  “No,” she mumbled. “Feels good…feels better�
�”

  I didn’t know how long we stayed like that, with her lying on the ground and me pressing my hands against her wound. It probably wasn’t much more than a minute, although it seemed like an hour.

  Gretchen’s lips split into a humorless grin. “I really…should have gone with…the necklace…instead…”

  “What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  She opened her mouth to answer me, but all that came out was a soft sigh. Her head lolled to the side, and her blue eyes became still and frozen, even as the rest of her body relaxed.

  Dead—Gretchen was dead.

  Chapter Twenty

  I let out a long, tense breath and sat back on my heels.

  Gretchen stared up at the night sky, as though she were admiring the stars, but she would never see them—or anything else—ever again.

  I grimaced and clutched my own stomach, which was suddenly hurting, but after a few seconds, the pain passed, although I still felt sick. Watching someone die would do that to you.

  I let out another breath, then reached out and gently closed Gretchen’s eyes. My fingers left red smears of blood—her blood—on her face. I grimaced at the gruesome sight.

  Babs was still stuck in the grass, and she looked down at Gretchen. “Poor girl,” she said in a sympathetic voice. “She got more than she bargained for, didn’t she? She thought she was being so clever, but that wasn’t the case. Not really.”

  “No,” I said in a harsh voice. “That’s never the case when Covington is involved. He’s always smarter than everyone else.”

  Despite the blood on my fingers, I ran my hand through my hair, as if the motion could somehow scrub all the horrible memories out of my mind. I didn’t care what a mess I was. Not when I’d just watched Gretchen die.

  Yeah, she had stolen an artifact, put Ian, Kylie, and me in danger, and turned me over to Covington, but I still felt sorry for her. All Gretchen had wanted was a better life. She had just gone about getting it the wrong way, and she had paid the ultimate price for her mistake.

  “Do you think…” Babs trailed off.

  “What?”

  She cleared her throat. “Do you think Gretchen still has the artifact?”

  I grimaced again. As much as I disliked the idea, I had to look. So I leaned forward and checked the front pockets of Gretchen’s jeans. A crumpled tissue, a tube of lip balm, her phone. I put the tissue back where I’d found it, but I slid the other items into my own jeans pocket. Maybe Mateo could find some information about the Reapers on her phone.

  Then I gently rolled Gretchen onto her side so I could check her back pockets. The first one was empty, so I rolled her to the other side. Back in the crypt, she had pulled the artifact out of this pocket, so I dug my fingers down to the bottom of it. Something soft and thin was tucked inside. I grabbed hold and pulled it out into the light, but it wasn’t Serket’s Pen.

  It was a piece of paper.

  The paper was folded into a neat little square, and I quickly unfolded it and held it up in the glow from the nearest streetlamp. All sorts of symbols covered the sheet. Feathers and birdlike creatures that I assumed were basilisks took up the center of the paper, with circles, chains, flowers, vines, and hearts crawling up the sides of the page, almost like a frame.

  At first, I thought it was just a random doodle sheet that Gretchen had stuck into her pocket. But some of the lines were heavily inked, especially the hearts, as though she had traced over them again and again or maybe even copied them from a book. Everything on the page had been done with regular black ink, except for the hearts, which had been colored in with bright red ink. Weird.

  I held the paper out so Babs could see it. “What do you make of this?”

  She studied the symbols. “Looks like a bunch of nonsense to me. What do you see in it?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem.”

  I folded the paper back up and slid it into my jeans pocket next to Gretchen’s phone. The sheet had been important enough for the Valkyrie to carry around tonight, even when she thought she was going to sell Serket’s Pen and leave the academy forever. It had to mean something, even if I couldn’t figure out exactly what right now.

  Once that was done, I grabbed Gretchen’s hands and carefully folded them together on top of her stomach. With her eyes closed, she almost looked like she was sleeping, but of course, I knew better. Despite everything she had done, my heart still ached for her. So young, and now she was gone forever.

  What a sad, sad waste.

  But that was exactly what the Reapers did. They took and took and took and left nothing behind but blood, betrayal, misery, and death—

  Babs sucked in a startled breath, and her eye widened. “Rory! Look out!”

  I snapped my head up just in time to see Drake draw back his hand, like he was going to attack me. But instead of a weapon, he was clutching that syringe he’d had in the crypt. I didn’t know what was in that syringe—a poison, a sedative, or something else—but I couldn’t let him stab me with it.

  I was still on my knees, so I threw myself forward and rolled across the grass, trying to put some distance between the Viking and myself. I came up into a low crouch right beside Babs. In one smooth motion, I plucked the sword out of the ground, surged to my feet, and snapped the weapon up into an attack position.

  Drake stopped short, still clutching that syringe.

  “Drop it!” I hissed. “Now!”

  He hesitated, so I brandished my sword at him. With my Spartan fighting skills, I could easily stab him before he had a chance to reach for his own sword, which was belted to his waist. Drake threw the syringe onto the ground, but instead of looking worried, a smug grin spread across his face.

  Caw! Caw-caw! Caw!

  The horrible noises made my blood run cold, but I forced myself to slowly turn to the side, even though I knew exactly what I would find.

  Covington was standing a few feet away—with a basilisk by his side.

  Maybe it was the fact that we were outside, but this monster looked even bigger than the ones in the library and the crypt. The basilisk quirked its head from side to side, its crimson eyes fixed on me, as though I were a worm that it was thinking about eating for dinner.

  Covington held up his hand, showing me the black feather pen. He had the real artifact this time. Gretchen must have dropped it when the Reapers attacked her.

  “Hello again, Rory,” he purred. “I was hoping you would play the hero and follow us into the cemetery. You and I have some unfinished business.”

  “You’re right,” I snarled. “I haven’t killed you yet.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Still trying to avenge your parents’ deaths? It’s never going to happen.”

  Oh, it was going to happen. Even now, I was studying everything about him, trying to figure out how I could bury my sword in his chest before he sicced the basilisk on me.

  Covington jerked his head at Drake, who stepped forward and picked up that syringe from the ground.

  “You have two choices, Rory,” Covington said. “You can come along quietly with us…”

  Drake held the syringe up and pushed the plunger down just enough to make a bit of clear liquid squirt out of the end.

  “Or you can stay here and let my basilisk tear you to pieces,” Covington finished.

  The basilisk shifted on its feet, its black talons tearing deep gouges in the grass and dirt. The monster could easily do the same thing to me.

  I held back a shudder and focused on the librarian again. “Why do you want me to come with you? So you can try to turn me into your Reaper puppet again?” I snarled. “I already beat you once at that game, remember?”

  His gaze dropped to Babs in my hand, and anger sparked in his hazel eyes. “Yes, unfortunately, your talking toothpick had a bit more magic than I expected.”

  “Talking toothpick? Talking toothpick?” Babs yelled. “Come over here, and I’ll show you who’s a talking toothpick, you Reaper scum!”

/>   Even though I had my hand over her mouth, her challenge still rang out loud and clear. I grinned. Babs never backed down from a fight, which was one of the reasons I loved her.

  “Quit stalling, Rory,” Covington said. “We both know that you don’t want to end up as basilisk food. So lay down your sword, and come with us. Now. I won’t ask you again.”

  A cold, hard light filled his eyes. If I didn’t let Drake drug me so that the Reapers could carry me off, Covington would order the basilisk to attack me. He might want me to be his Reaper minion, but he was okay with my dying here tonight too.

  My gaze moved from Drake, who was holding the syringe, to the basilisk, which was still digging its talons into the dirt.

  Easiest choice I ever made.

  I let out a loud yell, raised my sword, and charged at Covington.

  * * *

  At my attack, Covington’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. He really had thought that I would give in to him without a fight.

  Never.

  I would rather fight a hundred basilisks than become his pawn. Tonight, tomorrow, always.

  But Covington was a Roman, and his speed let him recover quicker than I could close the distance between us, and he sidestepped my charge. Covington snapped the pen up in the air and then down in a vicious slash. The motion reminded me of a matador waving a red flag in front of a bull to get it to charge.

  It was also the signal the basilisk had been waiting for.

  The monster screeched and flexed its wing, trying to knock me into next week. I lurched to the side, trying to get out of the way, but my boots slipped on the grass, and I hit one of the tombstones, bounced off, and landed on my ass.

  Before I could get to my feet, much less lift my sword to defend myself, the basilisk hopped forward, lifted its long, snakelike tail up over its head, and drove the red-tipped spike on the end deep into my left side.

  I screamed as the spike plunged into my body, slicing through my skin, muscles, and tendons, and I screamed again as the basilisk yanked the spike free.

  As a Spartan, I had been in my share of fights. I had been whacked with staffs, shot with arrows, sliced with daggers, and stabbed with swords. Not to mention how badly the chimeras had clawed me up at the Cormac Museum a few weeks ago.