Jennifer Estep Bundle

by Jennifer Estep

  “So what? You want me to dig around in his brain and see what I can come up with?” I asked. “What if there isn’t anything to find? What if he doesn’t know anything about what the Reapers are planning? Yeah, Preston’s one of them, but he mainly wanted to kill me because he was Jasmine’s brother, and he thinks I murdered his sister.”

  Metis’s face hardened until her features looked as cold and remote as those of the sphinxes on the door in front of us. “Then at least we’ll know that, and we can put him in a real prison where he belongs. But if the Reapers are planning something, like we think they are, then we’re all at risk. And this is a chance to strike back against them—the first good chance we’ve had in a long time. Please, Gwen, I know I’m asking a lot, but we’ve run out of options here.”

  I knew Metis wouldn’t ask me to do this if there was any way to avoid it. She’d promised my mom she’d look out for me. More than that, she was just too good a person to ask me to do something like this unless it really was a last resort. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t say no. Not if there was a chance of stopping the Reapers and saving other people, no matter how slim it was. My mom would have done the same thing if she was here, if she’d had the kind of magic that I did.

  I blew out a breath. “All right. I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you, Gwen. This means more to the Pantheon than you know.”

  Metis drew an old-fashioned skeleton key out of her pocket and slid it into the lock on the door. It turned with an ear-splitting screech. For a moment it seemed like the sphinxes looked in her direction, narrowing their eyes and judging whether or not the professor had the right to be down here. Apparently, they were satisfied she did, because the professor yanked open the heavy door and stepped through to the other side. I hesitated a second, then followed her.

  The prison was larger than I’d thought it would be, given the fact that we were so far underground. It was shaped like a dome, just like the Library of Antiquities was, although with a much lower ceiling. I glanced up, but no gold or jewels adorned the top of the dome. Instead, an enormous hand holding a set of balanced scales had been carved into the rock. I shivered. Somehow, that was creepier than if the faces of all the gods and goddesses in the Pantheon had been up there, glaring down at me.

  The glassed-in cells were arranged in a circle, rising up three stories, and forming the walls of the prison. They were all empty, but a stone table stood in the center of the open space, directly below the carving of the hand and the scales.

  That’s where Preston sat, his hands shackled to the table and his legs anchored to the floor beneath it. Coach Ajax stood on one side of him, while Nickamedes hovered on the other. Preston’s head hung down, and he stared at the floor.

  And there was one more person in the prison: Mrs. Raven, the lady who manned the coffee cart in the library. She sat at a desk just inside the door, thumbing through a celebrity gossip magazine. I’d never paid much attention to her while I was working in the library, but now that I did, I realized that she was an old woman, even older than Grandma Frost. Everything about her was extreme and opposite. Her hair was completely white, although her eyes were as black as coal. Her skin was even paler than mine, yet wrinkles painted thick black streaks all over her face. Her fingers were long and slender, but old, faded scars marred her hands and arms. She wore a long, flowing, white gown made of a fine silk, and black combats boots adorned her feet. I noticed those in particular since she had them propped up on the desk and was leaning back in her chair. Weird. Even for Mythos.

  “Why is Mrs. Raven here?” I whispered to Metis. “Shouldn’t she be in the library handing out snacks or something?”

  “She helps guard the prison whenever we have someone who needs to be watched,” Metis whispered back. “She’s part of the academy’s security council, along with Nickamedes, Ajax, and myself. And it’s just Raven—no Mrs.”

  I eyed Mrs., er, Raven and her bizarre figure. I supposed there was more to her than met the eye, just like the sphinxes on the door. Although I had no idea what that something more could possibly be.

  Both Ajax and Nickamedes looked as grim as Metis did. Raven stared at me a few seconds, her eyes dark and curious, before going back to her magazine. Metis gestured for me to follow her. I swallowed and headed toward the center of the room.

  Preston looked up at the whisper of our footsteps on the stone floor. His blue eyes narrowed at the sight of me.

  “Why, Gypsy, so nice of you to come visit me. I would stand but ...” He lifted his hands and rattled the chains at me.

  I flinched at the harsh, ringing sound of the metal clanking together.

  “There’s no way he can break those chains,” Ajax said in his deep, gruff voice. “They’re magically reinforced. There’s no way he can hurt you, Gwen. We’ve made sure of that.”

  I wanted to tell him that Preston had already hurt me, that his threat against my Grandma Frost haunted my dreams, but I kept my mouth shut. Now was definitely not the time to confess how wimpy I really was.

  I crept closer, staring at Preston. White blond hair, blue eyes, great body. He looked just as handsome as he had the ski resort, despite the orange jumpsuit and paper shoes he wore. But the faintest flicker of red burned deep in his gaze. I wondered if the professors could see it, too. I didn’t know how I’d missed it before.

  An empty chair stood on the other side of the table from Preston, and Metis pulled it out for me. I undid the strap of my gray messenger bag from around my shoulder and set it on the floor. Then I sank down into the chair, trying to keep my hands from visibly shaking. The stone chair felt as cold as ice against my back.

  “Take your time, Gwen,” Metis said in a kind voice. “There’s no rush. Whenever you’re ready.”

  Preston’s lips thinned out into an amused smile. “Ah, so they’ve brought you in to try to break me. Oh, Gypsy, trust me when I tell you that you won’t like what you’ll see if you use your psychometry on me.”

  I blinked. How did Preston know about my magic? I’d never told him about my Gypsy gift, but he was talking as if he knew all about it. Oh, we know all about you, Gwen Frost, and what you’re supposed to do. Preston had said those words to me in the gloom of the construction site. I hadn’t thought much about them then, but now they filled me with worry. What did the Reapers know about my magic that I didn’t? What could I possibly do with it that would interest them?

  Preston kept staring at me, expecting me to say something.

  “I don’t like breathing the same air as you,” I finally snapped back. “But I make do.”

  I stared at his hands resting on top of the table. They were just hands, I told myself. Hands that belonged to an evil, psycho-killer Reaper, but just hands nonetheless. Five fingers on either one. I could do this. I could handle this.

  I drew in a breath and let it out. Then I reached over and grabbed his hand, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible. Wanting to get Metis the information she needed so I could leave this awful place and never see Preston again.

  The feelings and images flooded my mind the second my skin touched the Reaper’s. Even though I didn’t want to, I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes, and let the memories carry me away.

  Maybe it was all my years of tracking down lost objects, of touching desks, purses, and wallets and trying to get specific vibes off them, so I could locate the phones, jewelry, and laptops that people had misplaced or others had stolen. But going into Preston’s mind was easier than I’d thought it would be. I could feel him trying to block me, trying to think of nothing at all, just a blank wall of white, but I went deeper, slipping past the emptiness he tried to fill his mind with.

  I saw so many things—so many horrible, horrible things. Preston fighting, Preston killing other people, other kids, even whipping the Fenrir wolf until its back was red with blood. And Preston wasn’t alone while he did these things. Jasmine was right there with him most of the time. Laughing, smiling, and killing alongside her brother.
I could feel how much Preston had loved her, how happy he had been that she was just as vicious as he was, just as devoted to Loki. They were like two sides of the same evil coin, mirroring each other in almost every way. And I felt his burning pain, his deep anguish, when he learned that his little sister was dead. It would have made me feel sorry for him if I hadn’t seen all the other evil things that he’d done, all the people he’d tortured and killed.

  Each and every thing I saw turned my stomach, but I kept looking, searching for something I could tell Metis, something that would help her and the others stop whatever the Reapers of Chaos were planning.

  Through it all, I was aware of a pair of burning red eyes following me. The eyes jumped from memory to memory just like I did, watching me all the while. I knew who they belonged to now: Loki. His Reapers were the evil god’s window to the mortal realm, a way he could see out of his magical prison, and I could almost feel him glaring at me from inside Preston’s brain. I told myself over and over again that the eyes couldn’t hurt me, that Loki was locked away where he couldn’t touch me, but the thought didn’t comfort me as much as it should have.

  I was about to give up, let go of Preston’s hand, open my eyes, and tell Metis that I wasn’t getting anything useful from him, when an image of Preston pulling on a pair of gloves popped into my head. It was the same memory I’d gotten when I’d touched his gloved hand outside the Solstice coffee shop that night in the alpine village. It seemed strange, given all the other more violent and disturbing things that I’d witnessed so far. Curious, I concentrated on that memory, digging it out of the depths of his brain like a miner prospecting for gold, shining it up, and pulling it into sharper focus. Suddenly I was completely in the memory, seeing everything from Preston’s point of view.

  He sat in the driver’s seat of an SUV, pulling on the gloves. Once that was done, he looked in the rearview mirror at the person sitting in the back of the vehicle. Shadows cloaked the inside of the car, so I couldn’t tell who was there, although I got the impression it was a girl about my age. Whoever she was, Preston knew her—and was afraid of her. A tingle of fear tickled his spine just from looking at her. Weird. What kind of person would frighten a Reaper like Preston?

  “Are you sure she’s still in the police station?” the girl asked in a low, soft voice.

  “I called and asked for her five minutes ago,” Preston said. “She’s still in there. See? There she is, coming out right now.”

  Preston turned his head, and I saw who he was talking about. Brown hair, violet eyes, beautiful smile. My mom stepped out of the back door of the police station.

  Oh no, I thought, somehow knowing what was coming next. No, no, no.

  My mom strode across the parking lot and got into her car, just like she had in the dream I’d had of her at the ski resort. I’d wondered where the awful memory had come from, and now I knew. It had been an image, a feeling, associated with Preston’s glove, one that my psychometry and my subconscious had picked up on, even if I hadn’t immediately seen it when I’d touched his glove.

  “I thought you said the daughter would be with her,” Preston asked. “We could kill them both tonight and be done with this whole thing.”

  The girl shrugged. “So the daughter’s not here. So what? We have our orders. We disable the mom and question her about the dagger and where she hid it. That’s what’s important tonight. Now let’s go.”

  Dagger? What dagger? What were they talking about? Why would my mom have a dagger, much less hide it?

  I lost my focus, and the memory blurred and shifted before I was able to latch onto it again. Now the SUV idled at a dark intersection, its lights off. Preston’s head was turned, looking out the window.

  “Here she comes. Get ready,” the girl ordered from the backseat. “Now ... go!”

  Preston smashed his foot down on the gas, and the SUV hurtled out of the dark toward my mom’s car. She never even saw it coming. The sound of metal screeching and glass breaking roared in my ears, as though I’d really been there when Preston had rammed his vehicle into hers.

  I drew in a ragged breath, and the memory blurred again. Now my mom was out of the car and lying on her back on the blacktop. A light rain had started to fall, but it couldn’t hide the fact that blood covered her whole body—her legs, her chest, her face. The ends of her broken bones poked against the skin of her arms, and her breath came in shallow rasps. Dying—my mom was dying.

  The girl stood in front of Preston, a sword glinting in her hand as she towered over my mom. She was wearing a hoodie, just like I did all the time. Except the girl’s hood was up to protect her from the rain, so I couldn’t even see the back of her head, much less her face.

  “Where’s the dagger?” the girl snarled. “Where did you hide it?”

  My mom smiled at the Reaper girl. “Someplace you’ll never think to look.”

  “Fool. There’s no place you can hide it that we won’t find it. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “I’m not a fool,” my mom said, raising her head. Despite her injuries, pride blazed in her violet eyes. “I was a Champion in my time, and I’ve served my goddess well. There is comfort in that, even now, at the end.”

  Nike. My mom was talking about Nike. She must have hidden the mystery dagger—or whatever it was—on the goddess’s orders. But why? And why did the Reapers want to get their hands on it so badly?

  “So am I,” the girl snapped. “I’m Loki’s Champion, and he’s decided it’s time for you to die. Tell me where the dagger is, and I’ll make it quick. Otherwise ...”

  She swung her sword in a menacing arc, and raindrops hissed against the blade.

  “I’m dying anyway,” my mom said, coughing up a mouthful of blood. “So do your worst, Reaper. Because in a few minutes, I’ll be beyond your reach.”

  “But your precious daughter won’t be, and you won’t be able to protect her from me,” the girl said. “What’s her name again?”

  “Gwen,” my mom whispered. “My lovely, lovely Gwen. There was so much I wanted to tell you, so much I wanted to teach you... .”

  Her voice trailed off, and tears streamed down her face, mixing with the cold, cold rain. My mom started mumbling then, about all the things she’d wished she’d said to me. I was so shocked by what I was seeing that I couldn’t quite focus on what she was saying. Her voice grew raspier, and her words more incoherent, until the only thing she muttered was “Gwen, Gwen, I love you, Gwen... .”

  “She’s not going to talk,” Preston said. “Finish her, and let’s go before another car comes along.”

  “Oh, very well,” the girl huffed.

  She gripped her sword and raised it over her head. She turned toward Preston, and I saw a smile curve her lips despite the shadows that cloaked her face. Then she brought the weapon down with a vicious slash. I shoved the memory away the second before the sword plunged into my mom’s heart.

  My mom hadn’t been killed by some anonymous drunk driver like I’d thought. No, she’d been murdered—murdered by Preston and the Reaper girl.

  I opened my eyes, wrenched my hand away from his, and sprang up out of my chair, stumbling away until my back was pressed up against one of the glass walls of the cells. I was only about a foot away from Raven and her desk.

  “I told you that you wouldn’t like what you saw, Gypsy,” Preston sneered. “Tell me, how did it feel to see your own mother murdered right before your very eyes?”

  Everyone froze for a second, then they all turned to look at me. Metis shocked, Coach Ajax angry and disgusted, Nickamedes with a pitying expression on his face. Even Raven looked up from her gossip magazine, a haunted look in her eyes.

  “Just wait,” Preston sneered. “Because I’ll be doing the same thing to you real soon, Gypsy.”

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t even breathe. Everything just hurt. Every cell, every nerve, every broken, bloody bit of my shattered heart.

&nbs
p; Desperate, I turned to Metis, searching for some kind of comfort, some kind of reassurance. Instead, what I saw was guilt. Sometimes if a memory was vivid enough, if an emotion was strong enough, I didn’t have to touch an object or person to get a vibe off them. Guilt filled the professor’s green eyes, and her whole body radiated with it, like heat boiling off the sun, burning me to the bone.

  “You knew my mom was murdered,” I whispered. “This whole time, you knew.”

  “Gwen—” Metis started, stepping toward me.

  I turned and ran from the prison, but I didn’t even make it to the door before Preston’s mocking laughter started ringing in my ears.

  Chapter 26

  I sprinted out of the prison and back up the many flights of stairs. Somehow all the doors opened at my touch, despite the fact that I didn’t know the codes or the magic mumbo jumbo. Or maybe Metis just hadn’t locked them behind her. Either way, I stumbled out of the math-science building and into the cold. And then I just ran, desperate to get as far away from Preston and the awful thing I’d seen, the awful thing he’d helped the Reaper girl to do my mom.

  They’d followed her home from work that night. They’d caused the car accident. They’d murdered her. They’d taken her away from me. Not a drunk driver. The casket at her funeral had been closed because the Reaper girl had murdered her, and Grandma Frost hadn’t wanted me to see my mom like that.

  Grandma. She had to have known about my mom’s murder, just like Metis. When I’d first come to the academy, I’d asked Grandma over and over again why I had to go to school at Mythos. I’d thought it had been because I’d had a freak-out with my magic. Now I knew the real reason why: Reapers had murdered my mom, and Metis and Grandma Frost had been afraid they’d do the same thing to me. So they’d shipped me off to Mythos, so Metis could keep an eye on me, thinking I’d be safe on campus, that the magic protecting the grounds would protect me as well. They just hadn’t realized how dangerous the academy would turn out to be for me.