Jennifer Estep Bundle

by Jennifer Estep

  I hurried out the front entrance of the dining hall. More kids clustered outside around the doors now, passing cups of beer and silver flasks of who-knew-what from one hand to another, along with cigarettes and even a few joints.

  For a moment, I thought about stopping and asking for a drink from one of them. Maybe a couple. I’d never been drunk before, so I didn’t know exactly how many it would take. But they probably wouldn’t share with me anyway. Besides, I doubted that getting drunk would drown out these feelings that I’d suddenly developed for Logan Quinn. I didn’t think anything would help me with that, except maybe a total lobotomy.

  I couldn’t go back in to the dance, but I didn’t want to go back to my room either. I already knew that I was a stupid, stupid loser. I didn’t want to sit around and think about it the rest of the night. Besides, I’d put on my damn prom dress. I was at least going to wear it for more than an hour, even if it killed me.

  Not really thinking about where I was going, I turned left and stepped onto the circular cobblestone path that wound past all five of the buildings that ringed the quad. I just started walking the huge circle, trying to find a quiet spot where I could sit by myself and ... and do something. Maybe scream. Maybe cry. I didn’t know.

  I wasn’t the only one who’d left the dance early. Couples sat on every one of the iron benches close to the dining hall. They all stared dreamily into each other’s eyes, giggling and kissing. One guy even had his hand down his date’s dress, and the two of them were practically lying on top of each other.

  It all made me sick.

  Because even out here, I couldn’t get away from everyone’s perfect little dance—

  Something winked in the shadows up ahead, distracting me from my dark thoughts. The bright flash came again, bobbing up and down, and I spotted another lone figure moving across the quad. Was she ... wearing something on her head? I squinted, but I couldn’t quite make out who it was. Then, she stepped into the glow from one of the streetlights that lined the walkway, and I was able to get a good look at her.

  Morgan McDougall.

  The homecoming queen plodded across the quad, heading toward the Library of Antiquities. Probably so she and Samson could hook up on the outside patio again. I rolled my eyes. Slut. The flashes that I’d seen had come from the homecoming queen tiara that Morgan wore on top of her head. The expensive crystals winked at me with every step the Valkyrie took.

  I frowned. For some reason, something about Morgan seemed ... off. I kept trailing after her, wondering what it was. Finally, I realized that it was the way she was walking, so slow and steady with careful, measured steps. It wasn’t the way a normal person would walk, especially a girl who was eager to hook up with the hot guy she’d been sleeping with on the sly. Morgan stepped through the glow of another streetlight, and I realized that she had a weird look on her face, too. One that was totally ... blank. She reminded me of a zombie or something, like she wasn’t really herself. Like she was possessed or being controlled by someone else—

  Little warning bells went off inside my head, and they only got louder the longer that I stared at the Valkyrie.

  I glanced around, but by this point the dining hall and all the couples were several hundred feet away. Nobody else had noticed Morgan. They were all too absorbed in their own little dramas, in their own little bad romances, to notice her—or me.

  So I started following her.

  I didn’t know why. Maybe because I was pissed at myself for being such an idiot in front of Logan. Maybe because I didn’t have anything better to do. Or maybe it was because of this ... this feeling that I had. That something about this was very, very wrong. I almost felt like I needed to follow Morgan for some reason. That something really, really bad would happen if I didn’t.

  It was the exact same feeling that I’d had right before I’d picked up Paige Forrest’s hairbrush.

  Morgan walked across the quad, still heading toward the library. I frowned. Weird. The library was closed tonight because of the dance, and only a few lights burned inside the building. So why would Morgan be going there? Especially tonight of all nights? Yeah, maybe she and Samson were going to hook up again ... except the two of them didn’t have to hide the fact that they were a couple anymore. Everyone had already seen them together at the dance. So why would they meet at the library again? Why wouldn’t they go to one of their dorm rooms? What was the Valkyrie doing? And why did she have that blank, empty look on her face?

  Morgan plodded up the front steps of the library, still moving in that slow, steady zombie way. I picked up my skirt and hurried after her. Did the Valkyrie actually think that she was going to get inside? The doors were shut, and I’d watched Nickamedes lock them after my shift this afternoon—

  Morgan pulled open one of the double doors and stepped inside the library, disappearing from sight. I slowed and stopped at the bottom of the steps. I bit my lip and stared at the structure before me. All the stone statues, towers, and balconies seemed especially sinister tonight, as though the whole building was a living thing just waiting to swallow me. I blinked, and, for a moment, it seemed like the entire library just ... rippled. Like there was something crawling around underneath the stone. Something old. Ancient. Powerful. Evil.

  I shivered, wrapped my arms around myself, and looked back over my shoulder. In the distance across the quad, the lights of the dining hall seemed warm, bright, inviting. I should go back there. Go grab a plastic cup of beer from someone, smoke some pot, get completely wasted, and pretend like tonight had never happened.

  But I couldn’t do that, any more than I’d been able to stop myself from reaching for that damn hairbrush. In the end, I always wanted to know people’s secrets, no matter how dark and twisted they were. Maybe it was my Gypsy gift or maybe just my own paranoid imagination, but I felt like there was one lurking in the library tonight—maybe the biggest secret of all. Somehow, I knew it to the very depths of my soul. Who killed Jasmine, who stole the Bowl of Tears, even the reason that I was here at Mythos Academy in the first place. It was all inside the library, just waiting for me to walk in and discover it for myself.

  Come inside, and all will finally be revealed, a voice seemed to whisper in the back of my mind. Or maybe it was just my own wishful thinking.

  Whatever it was, I picked up my skirt, walked up the stairs, and slipped inside.

  I’d been wrong before, when I’d thought that there had only been a few lights on in the Library of Antiquities. The double doors that led into the main floor stood wide open, and the golden glow from inside spilled out into the hallway, showing the way. But there was something strange about the light tonight. It seemed to cast out more shadows than it actually banished and gave a black, sinister air to everything it touched, from the suits of armor that lined the hallway to the mythological creatures carved into the marble walls.

  Once again, the stone eyes of the gryphons and Gorgons watched me, tracking my movements as I crept forward. The weird light splashed across the carvings, making the creatures look even fiercer and more lifelike than ever before—like they could spring out from the stone at any second and tear me into pieces. I shivered and dropped my gaze from the walls.

  Morgan had already disappeared from sight, but the clack of her stilettos on the floor inside the main space echoed through the entire library. I stopped a moment to slip off my own heels, then followed her. The floor was as cold as ice on my bare feet, but at least now I wouldn’t make as much noise as the Valkyrie had.

  From the hollow echo of her footsteps, it sounded like Morgan had gone down the main library aisle, walking right toward whoever or whatever was waiting inside. I wasn’t so naïve or stupid to think that there wasn’t someone or something else here. Somebody had had to turn on the lights and open the doors for Morgan, and I doubted it was Nickamedes, since I’d just seen him over at the dining hall, chaperoning the homecoming dance.

  Since I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to run into whoever else was waiting
inside, I headed over to one of the side doors that led into the main floor, opened it up, and slipped in that way. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I wasn’t going to bumble right into the middle of it. Not if I could help it, anyway.

  I was going to do the right thing this time. The smart thing. Get a quick look at whatever was happening, at whoever had made Morgan come here, then slip out and go get help from Professor Metis, Coach Ajax, or even Nickamedes back at the dining hall.

  I moved through the stacks, trying to get a look at Morgan through the rows of musty books that separated us. The sound of her footsteps was louder in here, echoing all the way up to the ceiling and back down again, and she was still walking at that slow, steady pace.

  Through the bookshelves, I caught a glimpse of the Valkyrie. Morgan still had that blank, empty look on her face, like she wasn’t even aware of what she was doing, like she wasn’t even in control of herself anymore. Like she was ... possessed.

  Like somebody had dripped her blood into the Bowl of Tears.

  The thought erupted from the bottom of my brain, bursting through to the surface. I flashed back to last night in my room when I’d been reading Jasmine’s book, the one that had all the information about the Bowl of Tears in it. I focused on the memory, and the words on the page popped into my head.

  It was rumored that Loki used the Bowl to bend people to his will. That once a person’s blood was dripped into the bowl the god—or whoever had the Bowl at that time—had complete control over him or her... .

  The words triggered other memories of all the things that I’d seen and done over the past few days. Nickamedes talking about the Bowl and the fact that whoever had stolen it shouldn’t have even been able to take it out of the library in the first place. The ripped-up photo of Morgan and Samson that I’d found in Jasmine’s room. The rage that I’d felt when I’d touched the picture. All those books about magic and illusions that had been on Jasmine’s bookshelves. The stone statue almost braining Morgan and Samson when they were getting busy outside the library. The prowler showing up, then evaporating after Logan had killed it.

  But the one thing that I kept coming back to over and over again, the biggie, was the fact that I hadn’t felt anything, that I hadn’t gotten any kind of flash or vibe at all off Jasmine’s body that night that I’d found her in the library. The night that I’d thought she’d been murdered. I’d thought that there had been something wrong with my Gypsy gift, my psychometry magic, but maybe ... just maybe there hadn’t been anything there for me to feel in the first place. Not really.

  The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. My Gypsy gift always let me see something, whether I wanted to or not. But not with Jasmine, which was the first time I hadn’t seen anything at all. Ever. All the images, all the memories and feelings, suddenly came together in my head, clicking into place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I thought I had a pretty good idea who had killed Jasmine, stolen the Bowl of Tears, and why.

  Oh no. If Morgan was walking toward who I thought she was, then the Valkyrie was in big trouble, and so was I—

  I was so busy figuring things out that I wasn’t really looking where I was going and I bumped into one of the glass artifact cases. But not just any case—The Case, the one with the strange sword in it. The one with the hilt that looked like half of a man’s face. I hit The Case so hard I jiggled the sword inside—causing the eye in the hilt to snap open.

  I froze and blinked several times, thinking, no, hoping that it was just a figment of my imagination. That the eye would disappear the way that it had before and I could tell myself that I was just seeing things because I was in a bad, bad situation and feeling a little stressed. Okay, a lot stressed.

  I blinked and blinked, and nothing happened. The eye was still there, and it was still staring at me.

  The eye was a peculiar color, somewhere between purple and gray, the kind of color that made me think of a softly falling twilight, that sliver of time after sunset just before the world went dark for the night.

  I was in an awkward position, half-sprawled over The Case, my fingers leaving streaks all over the glass, but I couldn’t move. I just couldn’t look away from the eye in the sword. I felt this peculiar sensation in my chest, a sort of euphoria. For some reason, looking at the weapon made me happy. The same way that fighting seemed to make Logan happy. I shivered. Why would a sword make me happy? I didn’t even know how to use one—

  The eye suddenly narrowed, as if sizing me up, as if it knew every single one of my secrets just by looking at me. I felt like I was somehow falling into it, drowning in its twilight gaze, that I could never look away from that single, piercing stare and that, strangely enough, I didn’t really want to.

  I don’t know how long I would have stood there, just staring at the unblinking eye, if I hadn’t heard something hiss behind me.

  A low particular evil hiss that I’d heard only once before. The kind that made my blood run cold and my heart turn to ice. The noise cut through my dazed reverie and snapped me back to reality. I thought about what had happened the last time that I’d heard that awful sound.

  Oh no.

  I slowly turned around and looked over my shoulder.

  A Nemean prowler stood behind me.

  It looked just the same as the one had outside the library last night. A black, pantherlike creature with big claws and even bigger teeth that could kill me as easily as it could breathe. If it actually breathed at all and didn’t just exist on pure evil alone. I still wasn’t sure about that part.

  The prowler hissed at me, its lips curling back to show off its fangs. Which, of course, glinted magnificently in the strange twisting golden glow that filled the library. I swallowed, but it didn’t dislodge the hard lump of fear stuck in my throat. This time, though, I didn’t bother to say, Nice kitty. There was nothing nice about it, especially not the way it was looking at me.

  For a moment, I thought the prowler was going to pounce on me right there and tear out my throat with all its many, many teeth. But instead, a low whistle sounded and the creature moved off to one side so its master could come closer toward me.

  A figure wearing a long scarlet cloak crusted with jewels strode down the aisle. The crimson cloth billowed out as the person drew nearer. The rippling fabric made me think of a river of blood. I shivered again. The sight of it shouldn’t have surprised me, though. After all, I’d seen an image of her buying it online when I’d touched her laptop. I just hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Veronica Mars I was not. The person wearing the cloak was definitely smarter than me. Smarter than us all. Because she’d pulled this whole twisted scam off beautifully so far.

  The cloak had a hood on it, so I couldn’t get a good look at her face. All I saw was a hint of a smile on her pink lips and the flash of white teeth. For some reason, hers scared me even more than the prowler’s did.

  “Hello, Gypsy,” a low voice murmured from the depths of the hooded cloak. “I was wondering when you were going to show up.”

  If I’d had any doubt before, now there was none, because I knew that voice. Knew exactly who it belonged to. The last time I’d heard it she’d been laughing out on the academy quad, the day this whole thing had started.

  The figure reached up and pushed back the hood of her cloak. Strawberry-blond hair, blue eyes, perfect skin, gorgeous face.

  I once again found myself staring at Jasmine Ashton—only this time, she was as alive as I was.

  Chapter 20

  Nobody ever really dies in a comic book, not even the bad guy. At least not for long.

  The words that I’d spoken to Logan last night whispered in my mind, mocking me as I stared at Jasmine. Because the girl standing in front of me was definitely not dead. My eyes fell to her throat, which was just as smooth as mine. Nope, definitely not dead. I had a feeling the same wouldn’t be said about me, though, before the night was through.

  “You’re—you’re alive,” I finally said.

  The
Valkyrie let out a soft giggle that bounced off the library walls. “So I am, Gypsy. So I am. Be a good girl, go stand next to Morgan, and I’ll explain it all to you. The only problem with plans like this is that there’s never anyone around to gloat to.”

  My eyes slid past Jasmine to the open door at the far end of the stacks, as I wondered if I could run past her and sprint out it before she, oh, I don’t know, killed me until I was dead, dead, dead. But the prowler saw what I was looking at and let out another evil hiss.

  I wet my lips. “Is that thing an illusion? Like the one last night was?”

  Jasmine walked over and put her hand on the creature’s back, stroking its black fur. The prowler’s bloodred eyes brightened, and it let out a little purr of pleasure that made me wince.

  “Oh no, Gypsy. This prowler is very real. But it wouldn’t really matter, either way. Illusions can tear you to shreds just as much as real teeth and claws can.”

  Daphne had said something similar to me outside the library last night, but I hadn’t quite believed her. How could something that wasn’t even real hurt you? But I was beginning to realize there was a lot about myths and magic that I just didn’t understand.

  I didn’t have any choice but to do what Jasmine told me. Otherwise, the prowler—real or illusion—would rip me to shreds, something that I desperately did not want to happen. So I walked down an aisle and rounded the corner, stepping into the main, open part of the library.

  Morgan stood to my left in the same spot where the glass case had been that had once housed the Bowl of Tears. The Artifact that had supposedly been stolen the night Jasmine had supposedly died.

  The Bowl that Morgan was now holding.

  It looked the same as I remembered it. Small, round, brown, plain. A simple bowl with no paint, carvings, or extras of any kind on it. No gold, no jewels, nothing. Still, just looking at it tonight made me sick to my stomach. I didn’t always have to touch an item to get a vibe off it. If an object had enough emotion tied to it, had enough memories embedded in it, then it could radiate those feelings, sort of like an aura. Like Daphne and her sparking pink fingers.