Jennifer Estep Bundle

by Jennifer Estep

  After my almost-kiss with Logan, I’d hurried back to the hotel as fast as I could, with Daphne and Carson right on my heels. They’d been worried about me, but I’d forced myself to put on a calm face, even though my emotions ate away at my heart like acid rain dripping everywhere. I’d already ruined their buzz from the party, so I told my friends that I was fine and was going to the room to take a shower. Then I’d gotten in the elevator and left them in the lobby so they could enjoy some time alone together.

  Daphne had come up to our room an hour later, lips red, cheeks flushed, her magic crackling like crazy. She looked like a girl who’d just had a hot, intense, totally enjoyable make-out session with her boyfriend. I envied her. Oh, how I envied her.

  I’d had some time to think while Daphne had been with Carson, and I’d gone from heartbroken and melancholy to seriously pissed at the fact that Logan had the power to make me heartbroken and melancholy in the first place. Now, I was in a “bloody fit,” as Vic would say.

  I glanced over at the sword. Vic was safe and snug in his black leather scabbard, and I’d leaned him against the dresser within easy reach. The sword’s eye was closed, and his mouth was relaxed in a way that meant he was sleeping. No surprise. Vic usually snoozed whenever Daphne came over to my dorm room. The sword claimed that all the “bloody girl talk” bored him.

  “I can’t believe the nerve of Logan,” I muttered again and resumed my pacing. Since the room was so big, it took me several seconds to stalk from one side to the other.

  Daphne pushed down the screen of her laptop and crossed her arms over her chest. Her pink Hello Kitty pajamas matched the stickers that decorated her computer case.

  “So what are you going to do about it?” the Valkyrie asked. “Are you going to make a play for Logan and take him away from Savannah? The way he was staring at you outside the coffee shop, I think you could totally do that. He really does like you, you know. You should have seen the look on his face when he was holding you. It was intense. Even for a Spartan. I’ve seen some of them in full battle-rage mode who didn’t look that focused.”

  “Well, he’s got a funny way of showing it.” I flopped down onto the bed. “And I’m not going to take him away from Savannah. I’m not Morgan McDougall. I don’t go around stealing other girls’ boyfriends.”

  “Morgan doesn’t exactly steal them,” Daphne pointed out. “She just sleeps with them on the sly.”

  I thought about how sad Morgan had looked, first in the library earlier this week and then again tonight outside the coffee shop. I felt bad talking about the Valkyrie like she was just the school slut and nothing more. She had feelings, too, just like the rest of us did. “Whatever. The point is that I’m not like her, and I don’t want to be. Not even for Logan freaking Quinn.”

  “So what are you going to do?” the Valkyrie asked again, opening her laptop once more.

  I stared up at the ceiling. What was I going to do? Despite everything that had happened tonight, I still had a crazy, crazy crush on Logan. But nothing was ever going to come of it. For starters, he was dating another girl. Sure, Logan said that he cared about me, but he still had this big, bad secret he wanted to hide from me, something that just wasn’t possible given my Gypsy gift. As soon as I touched him, my psychometry would kick in and show me his secret whether I wanted to see it or not. I didn’t even have to kiss him—just holding his hand long enough would do the trick. Kind of hard to date a guy when you couldn’t risk even touching him, especially when that guy was Logan, who I so badly wanted to touch—in all sorts of ways.

  And then there was Preston. Before Logan had interrupted us, we’d been having fun getting to know each other. I liked Preston, and I thought he liked me, too— at least enough to want to hang out with me this weekend. He had asked me to meet him for lunch tomorrow.

  Maybe—maybe Preston could be my rebound guy. Someone to help me get over this stupid, hopeless crush I had on Logan. In fact, Preston would be a perfect rebound guy, since I wouldn’t see him after the weekend and the Winter Carnival were over. He’d go back to the New York academy, and I’d go back to Mythos. So why not have a little fun while we were both here together?

  I raised myself up on my elbows. “What am I going to do? I’m going to have lunch with Preston tomorrow like he asked me to and forget Logan even exists.”

  Daphne grinned. “Now you’re talking. You’ll have to introduce me to Preston. I really want to see for myself how gorgeous he is.”

  “You didn’t see him tonight? We were sitting right outside the coffee shop.”

  Daphne shook her head. “Nope, I was too busy dancing with Carson and then keeping this trashy Amazon from getting her hands on him. She was totally making do-me eyes at Carson from across the room, and she tried to horn in on us while we were dancing. Slut. She’s going to be sorry she did that, especially since she kept on even after I told her that Carson was taken.”

  The Valkyrie hit some more keys on her laptop, her black eyes glittering with anger. Pink sparks of magic shot out of her fingertips, like mini streaks of lightning.

  I frowned. “Is that what you’re doing? Looking up that other girl online?”

  Daphne nodded. “The New York academy has a Web site, just like we do, where students can blog and post photos and stuff. Which is why you need to introduce me to your mystery guy. I looked, but there are no Pres-tons listed on the site. Apparently, your guy decided not to post his photo and set up his online student profile. Ah, there’s the Amazon. Calinda Lopez.”

  Daphne’s fingers picked up speed, and she started muttering under her breath. “Come on, baby. We can crack that pesky firewall... .”

  In addition to being a Valkyrie, Daphne also had some major computer skills. She was in the Tech Club at Mythos, which was really just an after-school group for all the budding hackers at the academy. In fact, Daphne had used her skills to help me break the password on Jasmine Ashton’s laptop, back when I’d been investigating Jasmine’s fake murder. That was how we’d become friends. Of course, I’d blackmailed Daphne into helping me to start with, but I thought it had all worked out okay in the end.

  “Uh, what are you doing?”

  Daphne shrugged. “Nothing much. Just erasing all of Calinda’s good grades and replacing them with incom-pletes. Eventually, the administrators will figure out what happened, but I’m making it look like a computer error. Still, I imagine she’ll get some nasty lectures from her profs and parents in the meantime.”

  I shook my head. “Remind me not to piss you off, because you’re a total vindictive bitch when you’re angry. There are supervillains in my comic books who could learn a thing or two from you.”

  The Valkyrie stuck out her tongue, then gave me a maniacal grin. “You’d better believe it, Gypsy.”

  Daphne focused on her laptop and went back to her Internet stalking, hacking, and general mayhem. I crawled under the covers and tucked my pillow underneath my head.

  Preston, I thought. Tomorrow, I’d have lunch with Preston, and we’d have a great time together. We’d hang out and laugh and talk and just have fun. I thought about him then, about his blue eyes, his white blond hair, his cute dimples.

  But no matter how much I tried to hold on to the image, no matter how hard I concentrated, Preston’s face melted into Logan’s the second I closed my eyes.

  Chapter 12

  The next day, Saturday, was the part of the weekend when there was actually a carnival set up as part of the Winter Carnival. Go figure.

  Daphne yanked off the covers and pulled me out of bed way, way too early. Literally, she grabbed my ankle and used her Valkyrie strength to throw me over her shoulder and haul me into the shower. Sometimes, it really sucked having a best friend who could give the Hulk a run for his money in the weight-lifting department. Especially at seven in the morning.

  I’d barely stepped out of the shower when Daphne threw some clothes at me and barked at me to get dressed—or else. Apparently, the carnival was her favorite p
art of the whole weekend, and she didn’t want to miss a second of it, not even to get a few more hours of sleep. And she thought I was a freak.

  Grumbling, I threw on some clothes, topped with a clean pair of ski pants and a matching jacket, both in a bright silver that Daphne had picked out for me at the shop yesterday. Boots, gloves, and a cute gray toboggan covered with tiny snowflakes completed my outfit. For once, Daphne actually decided to wear another color besides pink. Her ski suit was a powder blue that made her look like a real ice princess.

  We met Carson downstairs in the one of the hotel restaurants. Apparently, the hotel didn’t take breakfast quite as seriously as it did the other meals because there was actually some normal food set out as part of a massive buffet: tall stacks of buttermilk pancakes drizzled with apricot syrup, thick slabs of Canadian bacon, enormous omelets stuffed with cheese and colorful veggies. Yum. We washed everything down with spiced apple cider that was the perfect blend of sweet and tart. Then, just after nine, one of the chair lifts whisked us up the mountain and let us off at the carnival.

  The Winter Carnival had been set up on a wide, level plateau situated between two of the ski slopes, about three-quarters of the way up the mountain. Ring tosses, duck shooting, milk bottle throws, even a couple of polar bear dunk tanks filled with ice water. Every kind of carnival game you could imagine was featured in the dozens of wooden booths that had been erected on the plateau for the day’s event.

  The small shacks looked like gingerbread houses with their bright, bold colors and crazy, candy-cane stripes. Glittery signs and streamers announcing the various prizes swooped from the corner of one booth to the next, while neon-colored stuffed animals fought for space on the shelves inside. Loud, cheery calliope music trilled through a portable sound system someone had dragged up the mountain, and heaters blasted away here and there in the snow, to help keep the chill at bay. The merchants from the shops in the alpine village had also made the trek up the mountain, setting up separate shacks and bringing their own high-end goods with them—jewelry, watches, designer clothes.

  I thought the professors or the resort staff might perform some kind of ritual before the carnival opened. Light a fire, chant some magic mumbo jumbo, and thank the gods for watching over everyone on the mountain. That’s what the profs had done a few weeks ago before the homecoming bonfire and dance back at the academy. Truth be told, I’d found it a little weird and creepy. But the kids had already started playing games, and the sounds of bells, whistles, and more trilled through the air. No ritual today then. Good.

  But once again, I couldn’t escape the statues. A large stone sculpture of Skadi, the Norse goddess of winter, stood in the middle of the carnival area, looking like a twin to the one inside the hotel lobby. Somehow, the goddess looked even fiercer up here on the mountain, in the midst of the snow, and it seemed like the statue radiated cold, despite the heaters tucked next to her feet. Statues of other gods and goddesses had also been planted in the snow here and there, their stone lips curled up into crazy smiles that matched the excitement of the day. I sighed and looked away from them.

  It didn’t take long for something else to catch my attention, though—the food. Cotton candy, kettle corn, caramel apples, corn dogs, deep-fried Twinkies. I spotted signs for all those treats, and each one made a grin spread a little wider across my face. For once, the food was actually normal, and I was totally getting my sugar rush on today. A warm, sweet, delicious aroma filled the air, and I breathed in. Were those funnel cakes I smelled? With powdered sugar and hot cherry sauce oozing off the top? My stomach rumbled in anticipation, even though we’d just eaten breakfast.

  “Isn’t it fabulous?” Daphne asked, her eyes glittering like black diamonds in her face. “Where do you think we should go first, Carson?”

  The band geek put his arm around the Valkyrie and hugged her to his chest. “I think we should go over to the ring toss, so I can win you a stuffed animal. Or a dagger, whichever you prefer.”

  Daphne arched her eyebrows and gave him an amused smile. “Even though I can totally beat you whenever we play any kind of game in gym class?”

  Carson blushed a little. “Yeah, well, I can try. Look how many tickets I bought. Surely, I can win something with them.”

  He pulled a wad of red tickets out of the pocket of his black ski pants. You had to buy tickets to play the various carnival games, and the proceeds went to help fund the whole weekend trip. Daphne and Carson had both whipped out their credit cards to get tickets for all the games as soon as we’d stepped off the chair lift. They’d dropped close to five hundred bucks each without batting an eye.

  I hadn’t bothered buying any tickets, though. I wasn’t coordinated enough to play one of the games and actually win anything. Well, I might be able to win if there was some kind of archery game, and I channeled my memories of Daphne at her tournaments, just like I did during weapons training. But the Powers That Were at the academy would probably consider that to be cheating.

  “Come on,” Daphne said, grabbing my hand. “Enough standing around. Let’s play some games!”

  We wandered around the Winter Carnival for the next two hours, moving from one booth to another. It looked like everyone in the entire Powder complex had turned out for the event, and the whole mountain was crawling with kids, professors, and the resort staff.

  I spotted Professor Metis running one of the ring toss games and cheerfully talking to all the students. Nickamedes stood next to her in the booth, handing out prizes to the winners, a pinched, sour expression on his face. No doubt the librarian was allergic to fresh air and sunshine. Sometimes I wondered if Nickamedes was actually a vampire, as pale and pasty as he was. I’d have to ask Daphne about the librarian, and if, you know, vampires actually existed in the first place. Despite all the things I’d learned in myth-history class, I was still a little unclear on all the different types of monsters out there. Okay, okay, on a lot of things, really.

  Metis and Nickamedes weren’t the only professors I saw. Mr. Llew, my calculus teacher; Mrs. Banba, the economics prof; Coach Lir, the lean, lanky swimming instructor—they were all helping out with the booths and games. Even Mrs. Raven, the library coffee cart lady was here, manning one of the cotton candy machines.

  I had fun watching Daphne and Carson play all the carnival games, but it wasn’t long before I noticed there was something a little ... off about the contests. Like at the ring toss, where the kids threw spiked metal chains over the heads of Nemean prowlers instead of using simple rings and metal poles. Or over at the milk bottle toss, where the glass bottles all had grinning black masks painted on them to represent Reaper faces. And especially at the dunk tank, where the bulls’-eye reminded me of a drawing of Loki that I’d seen in my myth-history book, the one where the evil god’s face was all twisted and melted from the snake venom that had dripped onto his handsome features for centuries. The venom continually spattering onto Loki had been part of his punishment the first time the other gods had locked him away, before he escaped and plunged the world into the Chaos War.

  Then, there were the prizes. Carson hadn’t been kidding when he said he could win Daphne a dagger. Most of the booths were crammed with stuffed animals and other oversize toys, but weapons gleamed on the shelves right alongside them—swords, staffs, crossbows, throwing stars, even a shield or two. And lots of kids chose the sharp, shiny weapons over the toys. But even when the students opted for the toys, they were still all wrong. Instead of fluffy pink bunnies and plush black bears, the stuffed animals were shaped like grinning gryphons or stoic sphinxes.

  Once I started noticing all the stuff like that, I couldn’t quit looking at it—and it seriously creeped me out. Who wanted to go to a carnival where the prizes could be used to murder you? Especially since I knew there was a real Reaper of Chaos lurking somewhere out here in the winter sunshine—one who wanted to kill me.

  “Uh, what’s with all the games?” I asked Carson at one point, while Daphne was busy shooting arrow
s through a metal ring that was barely bigger around than my wrist.

  “What do you mean?” he mumbled, stuffing a wad of lime cotton candy into his mouth.

  “I mean, why is everything decorated with Nemean prowlers and scary, twisted Reaper masks?”

  Carson frowned. “What are you talking about, Gwen? The booths and games are decorated the same way they always are. I think they look great.”

  I opened my mouth to ask him another question, but I realized it was kind of pointless. To Carson, Nemean prowlers, Reaper masks, and bull’s-eyes of Loki were completely normal. He’d never been to any other kind of carnival, out there in the regular mortal world, where kids had no idea that mythological monsters even existed or that there was an ancient struggle still being fought today in modern times. Then again, mortal carnivals usually had a clown or two. I supposed images of an evil god who wanted to break free of his mythological prison and enslave the whole world weren’t any scarier than a guy wearing big red shoes, yellow plaid pants, and white face paint. Clowns had always creeped me out. They were so not funny.

  Daphne put all her arrows through the ring and won a stuffed gryphon for Carson before we headed off to the next game.

  I looked for Preston in the crowd, hoping that maybe we could hook up before lunch and I could introduce him to my friends, but I didn’t see him anywhere. No surprise. So many people were crammed into the carnival space that it was hard enough to keep track of Daphne and Carson right beside me. I had my cell phone in my pocket though, waiting for him to text me. Or maybe I’d be brave and text him first. I hadn’t decided yet.

  One person I had no trouble spotting was Logan. The Spartan stood over at the strong man test, swinging a sledgehammer down onto a platform and making a weight shoot up a tall scale and ring a bell at the top. Big, burly Coach Ajax manned that game, his onyx skin glistening in the sunlight. With his arms crossed over his chest, the coach looked like a granite slab someone had planted on the mountainside, along with all the other statues.