Jennifer Estep Bundle

by Jennifer Estep

  “Um ... should I bow or something?” I asked, feeling like I was standing outside of myself, like this was all happening to another person. “Because I didn’t pay attention in myth-history class, so I really don’t know the proper etiquette for the whole talking-to-a-goddess thing. Sorry.”

  Nike’s smile widened. “No, Gwendolyn, you don’t have to bow to me. But we do need to talk about some things.”

  “Like what?”

  She nodded at the sword in my hand. “Like that.”

  I realized that I was still holding the sword. I held it up. The single gray-purple eye regarded me with a skeptical gaze.

  “I don’t know about this, goddess,” the sword said. “She doesn’t look like much to me.”

  I felt the cold, metal mouth move underneath my palm, tickling my skin. I shrieked and dropped the sword. The weapon clanged to the ground.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” the sword grumbled, its face on the marble floor. “She can’t even hang on to me.”

  “This is Vic,” the goddess said, bending down to pick up the weapon. She rubbed at a spot on the blade just above the hilt. “He’s going to help you face what’s ahead, the danger that’s coming.”

  Danger? I didn’t like the sound of that. A minute ago, I’d been in plenty of danger already, what with Jasmine trying to kill me and everything.

  Vic almost seemed to preen under the goddess’s gentle touch, like he was her favorite pet that she was giving all of her love and attention to.

  “You know about the Chaos, don’t you, Gwendolyn?” Nike asked in a soft voice. “About Loki and his Reapers?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, Loki is closer to returning to your world, to the mortal realm, than anyone thinks. His prison is weakening, and his followers are gathering strength every day. Which is where you come in, Gwendolyn. You’re going to help me fight the Reapers and keep Loki from plunging the world into a second Chaos War.”

  “Me?” I squeaked.

  Nike nodded. “You, Gwendolyn Frost. For thousands of years, the women of your family have served me, acting as my Champions, helping me keep the order of things, helping me keep the world balanced between good and evil, between victory and defeat.”

  I remembered what Daphne had said about Champions, how they were people chosen by the gods. To help other people.

  To be heroes.

  I thought of the images that I’d just seen of all the women and all the battles over the years. I was a part of that? It didn’t seem possible. It just didn’t seem right, much less real. Sure, my Grandma Frost was the strongest person I knew, and my mom had been the same way before she’d died. But me? Not so much. I couldn’t even make any friends at Mythos, and I wasn’t some great warrior like the other kids were.

  “Why me?” I asked. “I’m not like the other kids here. I’m nobody.”

  I winced as I repeated what Jasmine had said to me moments ago in the library, the real library. Or wait, maybe this was the real library now? My head definitely hurt.

  “You’re not nobody,” Nike said in a sharp tone. “You are Gwendolyn Frost, and you are my Champion.”

  Eyes wide, I stared at her, wondering what I’d done to make her angry. After a moment, the goddess’s face softened once more.

  “When everyone else ignored Jasmine’s death, you were the only one who cared, Gwendolyn,” she said in a serious tone, as if that was something of great importance.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” I protested. “Not really. Nothing important anyway. I just kind of fumbled around and followed people and used my Gypsy gift to pick up vibes. It wasn’t anything that anyone else couldn’t have done.”

  “No,” Nike agreed. “But you at least cared enough to try. That was something. Just like when you told your mother how that other girl was being abused.”

  “You saw that, too?” I whispered.

  She nodded. “I see many things, but most of all, I see the strength and the goodness in your heart. But I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to, Gwendolyn. This has to be your choice.”

  I stood there, thinking about things. I didn’t believe I was Champion material at all. But who was I to argue with a goddess? Especially the goddess of victory? But I wasn’t just going to go into this blindly either.

  “What happens if I say no?” I asked. “In the library right now?”

  “You mean to the Spartan boy?” Nike asked.

  “Why, he’ll die, of course,” Vic, the sword snapped, staring at me with his one eye. “If the prowler doesn’t kill him, the Valkyrie surely will. What do you think will happen?”

  Grief filled me, and my knees trembled. Logan. I lurched over to one of the library tables and leaned on it for support.

  “That won’t be your fault, Gwendolyn,” Nike said. “The Spartan boy made his own choice to come into the library. It was what was always going to happen to him.”

  What was always going to happen to him? What did that mean? That it had all been fated or something from the very beginning? I wondered if the goddess knew that this was what was always going to happen to me, too, but I didn’t ask.

  Now that I knew Logan would die, my choice had been made for me. Yeah, I was still totally pissed at him for—for everything. But he’d come after me tonight, had followed me to the library for whatever reason. I couldn’t ignore that or the feelings I had for him. I just ... couldn’t.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll be your Champion, Nike.”

  A smile spread across the goddess’s beautiful face, and her wings twitched behind her back. “Then hold out your hands, Gwendolyn Frost, and accept all the gifts that I can give to you.”

  I did as she asked. Nike placed Vic, the sword, into my hands. The weapon stared up at me with his one eye.

  “All right then,” he said in a slightly more satisfied tone. “Can we get on with killing things then?”

  “Um, I don’t actually know how to kill things,” I said.

  “She doesn’t even know how to kill things properlike? What kind of girl have you given me to, goddess?” Vic protested, fixing his eye on Nike once more.

  Nike let out a laugh. “Vic is a little bloodthirsty. You’ll get used to it.”

  I kind of doubted that.

  Nike stared at me another moment, then did a most curious thing. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

  Immediately I felt a cold power flow through me, as though my blood had turned to ice. I braced myself, waiting for the flashes to kick in, although I had no idea what I would see by touching a freaking goddess. But the icy sensation vanished, and I didn’t get any vibes off her. Still, I felt different, like something inside me had shifted into a new place, like a switch had been turned on. I exhaled, and my breath frosted in the air in front of me, even though I didn’t feel cold anymore.

  Nike reached out and put her hands over mine. I stared up into her eyes—eyes that were neither purple nor gray but instead the soft color of twilight. And I felt that power in her gaze envelop me again. A cold, hard power, but one that was not unpleasant.

  “Now, go,” Nike said. “Save the Spartan boy.”

  I looked up at her. “But how am I supposed to do that? I don’t even know how to fight—”

  The goddess smiled at me and stepped back, her body suddenly shimmering and melting the way that twilight always did as it gave way to true night—or the approaching dawn.

  “Wait!” I said. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do—”

  But Nike had already vanished, taking her wisdom along with her.

  With a gasp, I snapped back to reality. I stood in the same spot I had before, right in front of the glass case that had held the sword—the sword that I was still holding in my hand.

  “Can we get on with killing things then?” Vic repeated in a slightly petulant tone, and I noticed that he had a really cool British accent. “It’s been so long since I’ve tasted blood. I’m famished.”

  I blanched and not just because it was totally fr
eaky how the sword’s mouth moved underneath my palm. “You actually like the taste of blood—”

  A sharp whistling sound behind me made me throw myself to the side. A sword slammed down onto The Case, cleaving it in two and sending glass and bits of wood everywhere. I scrambled to my feet to find Jasmine already turning toward me, her sword held high once more.

  Jasmine smirked at the weapon in my hand. “That little toothpick won’t save you, Gypsy.”

  “Toothpick?” Vic muttered in an indignant voice. “Did she just call me a bleeding toothpick? Kill her! Kill her now!”

  “If you’ve got any tips on how to do that, I would be more than happy to listen to them,” I snapped, raising Vic up in response. “Because I totally suck at this sort of stuff in gym class.”

  “Oh, fantastic,” Vic muttered. “Just bloody fantastic. The goddess has given me to a bleeding pacifist—”

  I would have pointed out that I wasn’t a pacifist, just totally uncoordinated, but Jasmine came at me again, her sword moving in a silver blur. Block, block, block. That was all that I could do to keep her frenzied attacks from cutting into me. Still, the Valkyrie was a lot stronger than I was, and every one of her blows felt like somebody was hitting me with a sledgehammer. The sheer force of them jarred my whole body, making it hard for me to just keep standing upright.

  I desperately tried to remember all the things that I was supposed to have learned in those mock fights in gym class. Tried to swing my sword and move my feet the way that I remembered Coach Ajax showing us how to do.

  But try as I might, I couldn’t touch Jasmine. I couldn’t even nick her with my sword. I was doing pretty good just to keep her from killing me. I’d seen enough fights in gym to realize that unless I did something drastic, Jasmine was going to ram her blade through my heart very, very soon.

  I stared into her face, watching her eyes, trying to guess what she was going to do next, how she was going to come at me next. Her once-blue eyes were still completely red, just like the prowler’s were. If anything, the color had darkened since she’d started attacking me, and it looked like blood had filled the sockets where her eyes were supposed to be. Jasmine’s pink lips were drawn back into a snarl, but there was a vague blankness in her face, the same sort of blankness that was in Morgan’s features. It was like part of Jasmine wasn’t even here anymore, like someone or something outside her body had taken control of her and was fueling her, feeding her power just so she could kill me.

  I was willing to bet that something was the Bowl of Tears.

  Jasmine swung at me again, and I stepped back out of reach. She slipped on a book that had fallen off the shelves while we’d been fighting, and I used the chance to leap over her and run back to the center of the library.

  “What are you doing?” Vic said. “Why are you retreating? The fight’s back that way!”

  “Shut up, Vic!” I said over the noise of the blood roaring in my ears and my bare feet slapping against the cold marble floor. “Unless you want to go back into that case for another decade or two.”

  Vic shut up.

  I skidded to a halt in front of Morgan, who was still lying on the table staring up at nothing. By this point, the blood in the Bowl of Tears had bubbled up to the surface, looking like a crimson volcano about to erupt. Whatever was going to happen next, it wasn’t going to be good. I couldn’t beat Jasmine, but I could destroy that ... that ... that evil thing.

  “Here goes nothing,” I muttered, and raised Vic up over my head with both hands.

  Jasmine skidded around the corner of the bookcase, her sword still clutched in her hand. She froze when she saw what I was about to do.

  “No!” Jasmine screamed. “Don’t!”

  Too late. I slammed the sword down as hard as I could onto the Bowl of Tears. The second the sword touched the Bowl, a scream filled the library, sounding so loud and high and full of pain that it seemed to tear the very air itself into pieces. Crimson light erupted from the Bowl, burning so bright that I had to look away from it.

  After that, I wasn’t really sure what happened. The light kept burning, the voice kept screaming, and a blast of heat hit me, so hot that it felt like it would sear all the skin from my body. But for some reason, the sword in my hands stayed as cold as ice. I tightened my grip on Vic and brought the blade up, as if it would protect me from the intense light and heat.

  Somehow, it did.

  As soon as I brought up the sword, the light and heat lessened, as though the weapon had turned into some kind of shield or something. I backed up a few steps and forced myself to open my eyes, to look at what was happening.

  A swirling crimson cloud of ... of ... of magic hung in the library in front of me, centered over the Bowl of Tears. The cloud arced up, as if it was trying to escape, but I could see that the end of it was like a tornado, swirling around faster and faster and eating everything above it. Like a cartoon genie being forced back into its bottle, whether it wanted to go or not.

  Just before the last of the magic cloud got sucked down into the Bowl of Tears, an enormous pair of red eyes popped open and swirled around in the middle of it. The eyes fixed on me, narrowing to angry slits, and a blast of emotion hit me—one of absolute rage and hate and evil. I cried out and staggered back from the force of it. The eyes stared at me another second before they and the rest of the magic cloud disappeared into the Bowl.

  I shivered, because I knew, I just knew, that those eyes had been real. That they’d belonged to someone who’d seen me. Who hated me. Who wanted me dead more than anything else.

  Loki, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. The evil god might be trapped in a prison realm, but somehow, Loki had been able to peer into the library tonight—and I’d felt just how much he wanted to destroy me. I shivered again.

  The magic cloud vanished. So did the crimson light. The screams, the noise, the magic, everything. It was all gone, and the library was still and quiet once more.

  Then, the Bowl of Tears slipped off of Morgan’s chest, fell to the marble floor, and shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Chapter 23

  The remains of the Bowl of Tears turned black, shriveled up, and started evaporating, just the way that the Nemean prowler outside the library had when Logan had killed it—

  Logan.

  I turned around, but I didn’t see the Spartan anywhere in the library. What I did see was Jasmine coming at me once more, her sword still clutched in her hands.

  “You’ve ruined everything!” she screamed. “My revenge, my sacrifice to Loki, everything!”

  The Valkyrie kept coming at me, and I backed up. Only this time, my foot was the one that slipped on a fallen book. I hit the floor hard, and Vic, the sword, fell from my hand and skittered across the cold marble.

  “Can’t believe she bloody dropped me again ... ,” I heard him mutter.

  On my hands and knees, I scrambled after the weapon, but it just kept sliding farther and farther away from me. Finally, it stopped, and I saw Vic glaring at me in disapproval.

  I’d just reached for the sword when two black stiletto boots planted themselves in front of me. Uh-oh. I looked up to find Jasmine standing over me.

  “Time to die, Gypsy,” she muttered, and raised her sword high, ready to bring it down on my head and kill me for good this time—

  A spear flew through the air and punched all the way through the middle of Jasmine’s chest. The Valkyrie’s mouth opened in a perfect O, and surprise flashed in her eyes. Her sword slipped from her fingers, and she stumbled back against the table where Morgan was lying. Jasmine stared at me, her beautiful face full of pain and disbelief, and she crumpled to the library floor. Dead. This time, I knew that the slick crimson blood rapidly pooling under her body was real.

  It was awful.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Vic crowed in a chipper voice.

  “Shut up, Vic,” I whispered.

  I picked up the sword, got to my feet, and turned around.

&nb
sp; Logan Quinn stood behind me.

  Deep ugly red lines slashed down his cheek from where the Nemean prowler had clawed him, and his black tuxedo jacket and white shirt hung in tatters on his body. More claw marks covered his chest, and I could see blood dripping out of the wounds. The Spartan’s metal shield was still strapped to his arm, although it had been torn into two separate pieces by the prowler. Still, despite his injuries, pride filled Logan’s ice blue eyes, warming them.

  In that moment, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  I ran over to him and held out my arms. I wanted to hug him, kiss him, touch him—and then I remembered that I couldn’t. That my Gypsy gift, my psychometry, wouldn’t let me. Not without flashing on him. Not without seeing what had just happened between him and the prowler. Not without me learning all of Logan’s secrets. And I didn’t want to do that. Not now, not like this.

  I stood there a moment, my arms outstretched. Then, I slowly dropped them to my sides.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered. “Where’s the prowler?”

  “Dead. Its body is back in the stacks. It didn’t evaporate since it was the real deal this time and not just an illusion.” Logan put his fingers up to the bloody wounds on his face and winced. “Well, since I’m alive and Jasmine and the prowler aren’t, I’d say that qualifies as okay. You?”

  I shrugged. There was no way to tell him all the crazy things that had happened in the library tonight and all the things that I was feeling, especially when I stared into his eyes.

  “Thank you,” I said in a quiet voice. “I don’t know how you found me or why, but thank you. Jasmine and her prowler would have killed me, if it hadn’t been for you.”

  He gave me a crooked smile that made my heart speed up. “I couldn’t let you just walk out of the dance all pissed off, now could I?”

  “But ... but why come after me at all?” I asked, my eyes never leaving his.

  Logan stared at me. After a moment, he drew in a breath. “Because I—”