Jennifer Estep Bundle

by Jennifer Estep

  Sometimes, though, I didn’t have to touch an object to get a vibe off it, since some items had so many memories and feelings attached to them that they just radiated emotions. Or maybe my imagination was just working overtime today, since I was surrounded by so many artifacts that had been used by so many heroes and villains over the years.

  I’d seen so many freaky things already at Mythos Academy, even though I’d just started going to the school last fall. Most of the time, I felt like I was just waiting for the next Bad, Bad Thing to happen. Like someone trying to kill me—again.

  “Hmph. Well, I don’t think that bow is so bloody special,” a voice with a snooty English accent muttered. “I think it’s rather boring. Ordinary, even.”

  I looked down at the source of the voice—Vic, the sword sheathed in the black leather scabbard hanging off my waist. Vic wasn’t your typical sword. For starters, instead of having a plain hilt, the sword actually had half a face inlaid into the metal there. A single ear, a hooked nose, a mouth. All that joined together to form the sword’s hilt, along with the round bulge of an eye. It always seemed to me like there was a man trapped there inside the silver metal, trying to get out. I didn’t know exactly who or what Vic was, other than rude, bossy, and bloodthirsty. The sword was always going on and on and on about how we should go find some Reapers to kill.

  Actually, there was just one Reaper that I wanted to kill—the girl who’d murdered my mom.

  A crumpled car. A sword slicing through the rain. And blood—so much blood ...

  The memories of my mom’s murder bubbled to the surface of my mind, threatening to overwhelm me, but I pushed them away and forced myself to focus on my friends, who were still staring at the onyx bow and ivory horn.

  I’d brought Vic along today, because I thought he might enjoy seeing the items on display at the museum. Besides, I’d needed someone to talk to while Daphne and Carson were giggling and tongue-wrestling with each other. The two of them were so into each other that it was rather disgusting at times, especially given the sad state of my own love life.

  “It’s just a bow, after all,” Vic continued. “Not anything important. Not a real weapon.”

  I rolled my eyes. Oh, yeah. Vic talked, too—mostly about how awesome he was.

  “Well, some of us happen to like bows,” Daphne sniffed, looking down at the sword.

  “And that’s what’s wrong with you, Valkyrie,” Vic said.

  The sword glared at her. Vic only had one eye, and it was a curious color—not quite purple but not quite gray either. Really, Vic’s eye reminded me of the color of twilight, that soft shade that streaked the sky just before the world went dark for the night.

  “And you, Celt,” Vic said, turning his attention to Carson. “Gwen told me that you prefer to use a staff. A staff! It doesn’t even have a bloody point on the end of it. Disgraceful, the things they’re teaching you warrior kids at Mythos these days.”

  Every kid who went to Mythos Academy was some sort of warrior, including the three of us. Daphne was a Valkyrie, Carson was a Celt, and I was a Gypsy, all of us the descendants of the Pantheon warriors who’d first taken on Loki and his Reapers. Now, we carried on that tradition in modern times by going to the academy and learning how to use whatever skills and magic we had to learn how to fight Reapers. And we weren’t the only ones. Vikings, Romans, Ninjas, Samurais, Spartans, Persians. All those warriors and more could be found at the academy.

  “Disgraceful, I say,” Vic crowed again.

  Carson looked at me. I just shrugged. I’d only had Vic a few months, but I’d quickly learned there was no controlling the mouthy sword. Vic said whatever he liked, whenever he liked, as loudly as he liked. And if you dared to disagree with him, he was more than happy to discuss the matter further—while his blade was pressed up against your throat.

  Vic and Daphne glared at each other before the Valkyrie turned to Carson and started talking to the band geek about how cool the bow was. I wandered through the rest of the room, peering at the other artifacts. Vic kept up his running monologue about how swords were the only real weapons, with him, of course, being the best sword ever. I made agreeing noises when appropriate. It was easier than trying to argue with Vic.

  Daphne and Carson continued to look at the bow, and Vic finished his rant and fell silent once more. I was reading about a ball of silver thread that had belonged to Ariadne, a Greek maiden who helped Theseus find his way through the labyrinth where the Minotaur was kept, when shoes tapped on the floor and someone walked up beside me.

  “Gwendolyn Frost,” a snide voice murmured. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  I turned and found myself face-to-face with a fortysomething guy with black hair, cold blue eyes, and skin that was as white as the marble floor. He wore a dark blue suit and a pair of wingtips that had a higher polish than most of the glass cases in the room. I would have thought him handsome if I hadn’t known exactly how uptight and prissy he was—and how very much he hated me.

  I sighed. “Nickamedes. What are you doing here?”

  “Overseeing the exhibit, of course. Most of the artifacts on display are on loan from the Library of Antiquities.”

  Nickamedes was the head honcho at the Library of Antiquities, which was located on the Mythos Academy campus a few miles away in Cypress Mountain, North Carolina. In addition to books, the massive library was famous for its priceless collection of artifacts. Hundreds and hundreds of glass cases filled the library’s seven floors, containing items that had once belonged to everyone from various gods and goddesses to their Champions to the Reapers they had battled.

  I supposed it made sense that the Crius Coliseum had borrowed some artifacts from the library—that was probably the reason the Mythos students had been assigned to come here in the first place. So they’d be forced to look at and study the items they walked past and ignored on a daily basis at the library.

  Nickamedes stared at me, not looking a bit happier to see me than I was to have run into him. The librarian and I didn’t get along, and I generally thought of him as a giant pain in the ass. I worked several hours a week at the Library of Antiquities as sort of an after-school job, which meant that I reported directly to the librarian. Mostly, I shelved books, dusted the artifact cases, and helped other kids find reference materials, so they could do their homework assignments. Nothing too hard or strenuous.

  But back in the fall, an evil Valkyrie named Jasmine Ashton had tried to sacrifice her best friend to Loki and kill me one night in the library. Since I’d been fighting for my life, I hadn’t been too concerned about all the stuff I’d damaged along the way—but Nickamedes had. I’d thought Nickamedes was going to strangle me right there on the spot when he’d seen just how badly Jasmine and I had trashed the first floor of the library during our fight. Needless to say, I wasn’t one of the librarian’s favorite people. The feeling was definitely mutual.

  His mouth twisted. “I see that you and your friends waited until the last possible second to come and complete your myth-history assignment, along with a great many of your classmates.”

  Morgan McDougall, Samson Sorensen, Savannah Warren, Talia Pizarro. I’d spotted several kids I knew roaming through the coliseum. All seventeen, like me, Daphne, and Carson, and all second-year students at Mythos, trying to cram in a visit to the museum before winter classes started in the morning.

  “I’ve been busy,” I muttered.

  Nickamedes let out a disbelieving huff. “Right.”

  Anger filled me. I had been busy. Very busy, as a matter of fact. Not too long ago, I’d learned that the Reapers were searching for the Helheim Dagger, one of the Thirteen Artifacts that had been used during the final battle of the Chaos War. The Thirteen Artifacts had a lot of power, since they’d all seen action during the climactic fight. But what made the dagger so important—what truly scared me—was the fact that it could be used to free Loki from the prison realm he was trapped in.

  I was determined to find the dagger befor
e the Reapers did, so during the holidays I’d read everything I could get my hands on about the weapon. Who might have made it, how it might have been used during the Chaos War, even what powers it might have. But all the books and articles I’d read didn’t tell me what I really wanted to know: where my mom, Grace Frost, had hidden the dagger before she’d been murdered—or how I was supposed to find it before the Reapers did.

  Of course, I couldn’t tell Nickamedes all that. He wouldn’t believe that I’d been doing something useful, something important, during the holiday break. No doubt Nickamedes thought I’d just been sitting on my ass reading comic books and eating cookies like I did so many nights when I was working in the Library of Antiquities. Yeah, yeah, so maybe I wasn’t all that dedicated when it came to my job. Sue me for wanting to goof off and have a little fun before I had to face down another crazy Reaper who thought I was more powerful and important than I really was.

  Still, despite the librarian’s frosty attitude, I couldn’t help glancing around the room, hoping that I’d see a guy my age with him—a guy with the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen and a sexy, teasing grin to match.

  “Is Logan here with you?” I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice.

  Logan Quinn was Nickamedes’s nephew and the Spartan guy who I had a major, major crush on. Okay, okay, so maybe “crush” wasn’t a strong enough word to describe my feelings for Logan, but it was what I was going with at the moment.

  Nickamedes had just opened his mouth when a voice interrupted him.

  “Right here, Gypsy girl.” A low, rumbling voice sent chills down my spine.

  My heart pounding, I slowly turned around. Logan Quinn stood behind me.

  Thick, wavy, ink black hair; intense ice blue eyes; a confident smile. My breath caught in my throat as I looked at Logan, and my heart sped up, beating with such force that I was sure he could hear it.

  Logan wore jeans and a dark blue sweater topped by a black leather jacket. The clothes were designer of course, since the Spartan was just as rich as all the other academy kids were. But even if he’d been dressed in rags, I still would have noticed the lean strength of his body and his broad, muscled shoulders. Yeah, Logan totally rocked the bad boy look, and he had the man-whore reputation to match. One of the rumors that kept going around the academy was that Logan signed the mattress of every girl he slept with, just so he could keep track of them all.

  I’d never quite figured out if the rumors were true or not, but they didn’t matter to me, because Logan was just a really, really great guy. Strong, smart, funny, caring. Then, of course, there was the whole saving-my-life-multiple-times thing. Kind of hard not to like a guy when he kept you from getting killed by Reapers and eaten by Nemean prowlers.

  Logan’s eyes dropped to my throat and the necklace I wore there—the one he’d given me before school had let out for Christmas. Six silver strands wrapped around my throat, creating the necklace, while the diamond-tipped points joined together to form a simple yet elegant snowflake in the center of the strands. The beautiful necklace looked like something a goddess would wear. I thought it was far too pretty and delicate for me, but I loved it just the same.

  “You’re wearing the necklace,” the Spartan said in a low voice.

  “Every day since you gave it to me,” I said. “I hardly ever take it off.”

  Logan smiled at me, and it was like the sun had come out from behind a sky full of storm clouds. For a moment everything was just—perfect.

  Then Nickamedes cleared his throat, popping the bubble of happiness that I’d been about to float away on. A sour expression twisted the librarian’s face as he looked back and forth between Logan and me.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me, the museum’s closing in a few minutes, and I need to make sure that the staff is ready to start packing up the items for transport back to the academy in the morning.”

  Nickamedes pivoted on his wingtips and strode out of the weapons room without another word. I sighed. Yeah, I’d destroyed thousands of books during my struggle with Jasmine in the Library of Antiquities, but I always felt there was another reason Nickamedes hated me. He’d pretty much disliked me on sight, and I had no idea why.

  I put the librarian and his bad attitude out of mind and focused on Logan. He’d texted me a few times over the holiday break, but I’d still missed him like crazy—especially since I had no idea what was going on between us. Logan had recently broken up with his girlfriend, Savannah Warren, but he hadn’t exactly declared his love for me in the meantime—or even asked me out on a real date. Instead, we’d been in this weird holding pattern for weeks now—one that I was determined to end.

  I drew in a breath, ready to ask Logan how his winter break had been and what was going to happen between us now. “Logan, I—”

  Shouts and screams ripped through the air, drowning out my words.

  I froze, wondering if I’d only imagined the harsh, jarring sounds. Why would someone be shouting in the museum? A second later, more screams sliced through the air, followed by several loud crashes and the heavy thump-thump-thump of footsteps.

  Logan and I looked at each other, then bolted for the door. Daphne and Carson had also heard the screams, and they raced along right behind us.

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Daphne hissed.

  She managed to grab my arm and the back of Logan’s leather jacket just as the Spartan was about to sprint out of the room. With her great Valkyrie strength, she was easily able to yank both of us back and give me whiplash.

  “You don’t know what’s going on—or who might be out there,” Daphne warned.

  Logan glared at her, but after a moment, he reluctantly nodded. I did the same, and Daphne loosened her grip on us. Together in a tight knot, the four of us crept up to the doorway and peeked through to the other side.

  The Crius Coliseum was shaped like a giant wheel, with one main space in the middle and the various hallways and rooms branching off that area like spokes. The doorway we stood in opened up into the center section of the museum. When Daphne, Carson, and I had walked through a few minutes ago, folks had been milling around the exhibits, looking at the artifacts and browsing through the expensive replica weapons, armor, and jewelry in the museum’s gift shop. Besides the staff, most of the other people in the museum had been second-year Mythos students, trying to get their homework assignment done before classes started tomorrow, just like the three of us.

  Not anymore.

  Now, figures wearing long, black, hooded robes stormed through the coliseum—and they all carried sharp, curved swords. The figures swarmed over everyone in their path, their blades slashing through the air and then into the students who’d been staring at the exhibits just a few seconds before. More screams and shouts tore through the air, echoing as loud as gunshots inside the museum, as people realized what was happening.

  But it was already too late.

  “Reapers,” Daphne whispered, voicing my own horrific thought.

  The Reapers of Chaos ran their swords through everyone they could get their hands on, then shoved the dead and dying to the floor. The museum staff, adults, kids. It didn’t matter to the Reapers who they killed. Wax figures, statues, display cases, and more crashed to the floor, splintering into thousands of pieces. Blood spattered everywhere, a cascade of scarlet teardrops sliding down the white marble walls.

  A sick, sick feeling filled my stomach at the bloody chaos in front of me. I’d heard about Reapers, about how vicious they were, about how they lived to kill warriors—about how they lived to kill us. I’d faced down two Reapers myself, but I’d never seen anything like this.

  Some of the Mythos students tried to fight back, using their fists or whatever they could get their hands on. But it didn’t work, and one by one, the Reapers swarmed over the kids. Samson Sorensen, a guy I knew, fell to the floor, screaming and clutching his stomach, blood spurting out from between his fingers. A few Mythos students tried to run, but the Reapers just grabbed them from behi
nd, rammed their swords into the kids’ backs, and then tossed them aside like trash.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another student, Morgan McDougall, duck down and squeeze in between a tall, wide pedestal and the wall. Green sparks of magic shot out of Morgan’s fingertips like lightning, a clear sign of her surprise and panic, and she curled her hands into tight fists and tucked them under her armpits to try to smother the colorful flashes. Morgan knew as well as I did that if the Reapers saw the sparks, they’d find and finish her off. The pretty Valkyrie spotted me watching her and stared back at me, her hazel eyes full of fear.

  “Stay there! Hide! Don’t try to run!” I shouted, although I didn’t think Morgan could hear me above the screams and alarms that had started blaring.

  In less than a minute, it was over. The Reapers regrouped in the middle of the museum, talking to each other, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the moans, groans, and whimpers of the dying kids on the bloody floor.

  “Reapers,” Daphne whispered again, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing any more than I could.

  It was almost like they’d heard the Valkyrie’s low murmur because several of the black-robed figures turned and headed in our direction.

  DARK FROST

  A Mythos Academy Novel

  Jennifer Estep

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  “Well, well, well,” the Reaper girl hissed. “If it isn’t Nike’s Champion, slinging a sword like she actually knows how to use it. I was hoping I might run into you here.”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Gwen Frost,” I snapped. “Nike’s Champion in the flesh. I know what you did to my mom.”

  The girl threw back her head and laughed. She just—laughed. Low, long, and loud. Like it was funny that she’d killed my mom in cold blood. Like it was the most hysterical thing ever that she and her Reaper friends had just done the same thing to a museum full of innocent people.