It was beautiful—so beautiful that I couldn’t help myself. I reached out with my own magic, wanting to somehow touch that lovely spark, wanting to grab hold of Daphne’s power and feel it for myself.
And I did.
The warm, pure healing power of Daphne’s magic flowed into me, melting away all the aches and pains I’d gotten during my fight with the Reaper girl, healing the cuts on my hands and arms and the bruises on the rest of my body. The longer I held on to that spark, the better I felt—stronger and more alive than ever before. In a few seconds, I was completely well, and all of my injuries were gone, like I’d never fought the Reaper girl at all.
Daphne jerked, as if she’d just suddenly realized that I was there holding her hand. Her fingers slid out of mine, breaking our connection, and the soothing feel of her magic vanished.
A second later, the rosy glow around her body winked out as well, and Daphne let out a long, tired sigh. Her amber skin looked almost as pale as mine, and her hand shook as she ran it through her blond hair.
“Daphne?” I asked in a low voice. “What did you do?”
“I have no idea,” she mumbled.
Then, the Valkyrie passed out, her body pitching forward and sprawling on top of Carson’s.
For a second, I didn’t know what to do. Then, I lurched forward and grabbed my friend’s shoulder.
“Daphne! Daphne!” I said, shaking the Valkyrie.
She didn’t respond. Neither did Carson, although the wound in his chest was now completely healed.
Logan leaned forward and put his hands on my arms. “Relax, Gypsy girl, relax. They’re both fine. Just unconscious. Carson because he was hurt so badly, and Daphne because her magic finally quickened. It’s okay.”
The Spartan’s words penetrated my panic, and I looked at my friends. Their faces were pale, but their chests moved up and down with a steady rhythm. I watched them for a few seconds to make sure, but Logan was right. They were both okay. Yeah, what had just happened was totally freaky, but my friends were alive. That was what was important.
For the first time, I noticed the coliseum was utterly, eerily quiet. The alarms had quit blaring, people had quit screaming, and I didn’t hear the thump-thump-thump of the Reapers’ footsteps anymore.
Had the Reapers left? Had they found the Helheim Dagger and disappeared with it? Was anyone still breathing in the museum besides us? Logan and I were fine, but Daphne and Carson needed help. With a jolt, I realized that so would the wounded kids outside—if any of them were even still alive. I’d forgotten about the other students and everything else while I’d been fighting the Reaper girl.
“Do you think the Reapers are gone?” I asked Logan in a low voice.
“I don’t know, but we need to go see what’s happening in the rest of the museum with the other kids.” He drew in a breath. “And Nickamedes, too.”
Nickamedes and Logan were so different it was easy for me to forget that the librarian was Logan’s uncle and that the Spartan cared about him just as much as I did my Grandma Frost.
“That’s all well and good,” Vic piped up from his spot against the stuffed horse. “But first, don’t you think you need to check the Reapers in here? Never turn your back on an enemy unless he or she is no longer a threat. You should know that, Spartan.”
“He’s right,” Logan said, picking up his sword again. “We need to make sure this room is secure before we go see about the others.”
The Spartan went one way, and I went the other, both of us moving through the room, swords in hand, checking on the Reapers lying on the floor.
They were all dead. I could tell by the weird angles of their arms and legs, the absolute stillness of their bodies, and the way their sightless eyes dully glinted through the slits in their rubber masks.
I looked around the room a final time to make sure I hadn’t overlooked any of the bodies, and my gaze caught on something small and white lying in the middle of the glass and blood. I walked over and crouched down to get a better look at it.
A piece of paper folded into a thick square rested on the floor. So that was what had fallen out of the Reaper girl’s robe while we’d been fighting. Weird. I would have expected her to have a dagger or two tucked into her pockets instead.
Since I wasn’t sure what vibes were attached to the paper and what I might see if I touched it with my bare hand, I pulled my hoodie sleeve down and used the edge of the fabric to pick up the square. I couldn’t open it, not without touching it with my fingers, so I settled for sliding the paper into my jeans pocket.
“What’s that?” Vic asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I’m guessing it’s important since I almost took the Reaper girl’s head off while she was reaching for it.”
Vic sniffed. “And more’s the pity you didn’t.”
Once the bodies were checked, I met Logan in the middle of the room. Daphne and Carson were still lying on the dais, but since there wasn’t another door that led in here, they’d be safe enough while we figured out what was going on in the rest of the museum.
“You ready for this, Gypsy girl?” Logan asked in a soft voice. “Because it’s not going to be pretty out there.”
It wasn’t pretty in here, but I didn’t have to tell him that. He could see the blood and bodies as well as I could.
“I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready, but if there are people out there we can help, we have to try.”
Logan stared at me, his eyes locking with mine. He put his arm around me and held me close. I closed my eyes and listened to the steady thump-thump-thump of his heart under my fingers. I could have stood there and listened to that sound forever.
“We’re fine,” he whispered. “We survived.”
A sob rose in my throat at the thought of the horrible things that had happened, the horrible things that we’d all done, but I swallowed it down.
“I know,” I whispered back. “I know.”
Logan held me for another second. Then, he let me go, raised his sword, and eased over to the doorway. I tightened my grip on Vic and followed him. Together, we peered out into the main part of the coliseum.
Bodies sprawled across the floor, looking like larger pieces of debris next to the smashed artifacts. Glass, pottery, metal, and wood covered the marble like a ragged carpet. Everything that could have been broken was, and even the paintings had been torn off the walls and trampled. It looked like a tornado had ripped through the museum—it was just utter, bloody chaos.
But there were some survivors. A few students had pushed themselves up into sitting positions, holding their hands over their wounds to try and slow the blood loss. Others slumped against the tall pillars, dazed, vacant looks in their eyes. Still more lay where they had fallen and quietly cried, their shoulders shaking and the tears slipping down their faces and mixing with the bloody debris on the floor.
“You check on the kids in here,” Logan said in a low voice. “I’m going to the other rooms to see if there are any other survivors—and hopefully to find Nickamedes.”
I nodded. The Spartan headed down one of the corridors while I stepped back into the main museum space. A few feet away, I spotted Morgan McDougall crouching over a body. Since she was the closest student to me, I headed in her direction, holding Vic and keeping an eye out for any Reapers who might still be lurking in the coliseum.
“Morgan?” I asked in a low voice. “Are you okay?”
The Valkyrie looked up at the sound of my voice, and I realized who she was crouching over—Samson Sorensen. The Viking was one of the cutest guys at the academy, but now he was dead, his handsome face pinched with pain, his empty eyes staring up at the ceiling and reflecting back the sheen of the metal discs there.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m here to help. Are the Reapers gone?”
“Yes,” Morgan said in a shaky voice. “One of them ran out of the room you were in. A girl, I think. She shouted something at the others, and they all ran down one of the hallwa
ys. They left. They just left. Like they’d finally gotten whatever it was they’d come for.”
I frowned. I hadn’t seen Loki’s Champion pick up any weapons or artifacts, and the other Reapers who’d come into the room were dead, so they wouldn’t be taking anything out with them. Had the Helheim Dagger been in another part of the coliseum? Was that why the Reaper girl and her friends had gone in such a hurry? My head started to ache from all the questions that I just didn’t know the answers to.
Morgan turned back to Samson, smoothing the Viking’s sandy hair back from his bloody face. “I really did love him, you know? Even though he was Jasmine’s boyfriend and we were sneaking around behind her back, I loved him the whole time.”
Back in the fall, Morgan had been hooking up with Samson even though he’d been dating Morgan’s best friend, Jasmine Ashton. What no one had known was that Jasmine was really a Reaper. Jasmine had been so upset when she found out Morgan was sneaking around with her boyfriend that Jasmine had tried to sacrifice Morgan to Loki. She would have, too—if I hadn’t stopped her that night in the Library of Antiquities.
I started to answer Morgan, to tell her it was okay, that I understood how she felt about Samson, when I noticed a shadow on the floor beside us—one that was creeping closer and closer. Maybe the Reapers hadn’t left after all. Fear flooded my body at the thought.
I waited a second, letting the shadow get in range, then I tightened my grip on Vic, whirled around, and raised the sword over my head, ready to bring the blade down on whoever was lurking behind me.
“Gwendolyn! Stop!” Nickamedes barked, taking a step back and holding up his hand. “It’s just me.”
It took me a second to focus on the librarian—and another one to notice all the blood on his clothes and the sword in his hand. Nickamedes’s suit jacket was ripped and torn, his shirt was untucked, and his tie had been sliced in two, leaving only the knot hanging around his throat. Cuts and scrapes crisscrossed his hands like Xs and Os, and the right side of his face had puffed up with the beginning of a black eye.
I looked around the room again and noticed that several black-robed bodies littered the floor, along with those of the Mythos students. Nickamedes must have heard the commotion when the Reapers stormed into the coliseum and came out fighting. He would have too, since he was a Spartan just like Logan, with the same fighting skills and killer warrior instinct. Nickamedes had probably chased after the Reapers when they’d left.
The librarian looked just as wild and haggard as I felt, but concern filled his face as he stared at the blood on my clothes and on Vic. For the first time, I realized that maybe Nickamedes did care about the academy students after all—even me.
“Gwendolyn?” Nickamedes asked again. “Where’s Logan?”
“He’s fine. He went looking for you.”
I slowly lowered my sword to my side, cold exhaustion filling my body like ice water being poured into a glass. I stared out at the dead students and all the other ones who were still bleeding and crying.
“Are you okay?” Nickamedes asked in a soft voice.
“I’m not hurt, if that’s what you mean.” I shook my head. “But I don’t know that I’ll ever be okay again.”
Chapter 4
I don’t remember much of what happened after that. Well, that’s not exactly true. I remembered—I would always remember—even if all I wanted to do was forget.
Nickamedes called the Powers That Were at Mythos Academy, and thirty minutes later, other people started arriving. Most of them were professors at the academy, like Mr. Llew, my calculus teacher, Mrs. Banba, the economics prof, and Coach Lir, who oversaw the academy swim teams. Nobody called the cops. The regular mortal police wouldn’t understand what had happened, and they just weren’t equipped to fight Reapers—or to deal with the deadly destruction they’d caused.
Several other adults appeared as well, men and women dressed in heavy black coveralls. They opened the coliseum doors and pushed metal carts covered with black bags inside. I knew what they were here for—to load up the bodies and take them to the academy morgue. I shuddered and kept my gaze away from them.
Professor Metis and Coach Ajax showed up, too, since they were part of the academy’s security council. Metis and Ajax, along with Nickamedes, were responsible for keeping the students safe while they were at Mythos. But we weren’t at the academy right now—and no one had been safe today.
What surprised me most was the fact that Raven came to the museum. Raven was the woman who manned the coffee cart in the Library of Antiquities, one of the many duties she seemed to have at the academy. She was an old woman with white hair, black eyes, and a face that was streaked with wrinkles. Raven sported a flowing white gown just like the ones the coliseum staff had worn, although a pair of black combat boots peeked out from underneath her long skirt.
Raven stood off to one side of the museum, gazing out at the destruction. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and I could see old, faded scars on her skin there, along with dark brown liver spots. She noticed me staring at her, and our eyes met. For a moment, her image wavered, like there was another, younger, prettier face beneath her wrinkles. But the really weird thing was that I felt something when I looked into her eyes—an aching wave of pain and sadness so intense that it made tears start to trickle down my own cheeks. Like somehow the attack today was all her fault... .
I blinked, and she was just Raven once more, the old woman who sold snacks in the library. The pain and sadness were gone and so were the tears I’d thought had been sliding down my face. I reached up, but my skin was completely dry. Weird. Really weird.
I looked at Raven, but she ignored me, walked over, and started speaking to the woman who was loading Samson’s body onto a metal cart. Raven moved through the crowd, talking to the adults who were here to clear away the blood and debris. Overseeing them must be another one of her academy odd jobs. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, since she was on the security council with Metis and the others.
After another minute, I pushed Raven out of my mind. Her flickering face wasn’t the most awful thing I’d seen today. My eyes lingered on a smear of blood on the white marble floor.
Not even close.
An hour after the attack, I stood in an office in the back of the coliseum, watching Metis examine Carson. The professor had made the band geek sit on a desk and take off his shirt. She’d spent several minutes peering at his chest, even though not a mark remained where the Reaper had stabbed him. After that, Metis had run her hands through Carson’s dusky brown hair, looking for any head injuries. Now, she was shining a small flashlight into his brown eyes, watching them react to the glare.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.
I leaned against the wall next to Logan. Nickamedes was on the other side of the Spartan, while Coach Ajax stood in the doorway, filling the open space with his massive frame.
Metis clicked off the flashlight. “He’s going to be fine. They both are.”
The professor’s green eyes drifted over to Daphne, who was slumped in a chair. The Valkyrie had woken up by the time I’d taken Nickamedes to the weapons room, but she still looked exhausted. Every once in a while, a pink spark would weakly flicker on one of her fingertips, like she’d used up her energy for the day and that was all the magic she could summon up. I supposed that she had, healing Carson the way she did.
Metis nodded at Daphne. She’d finished examining the Valkyrie a few minutes ago. “You saved Carson’s life today with your magic.”
“I suppose this means I’ll have to get you something extra special for Valentine’s Day,” Carson joked.
Daphne tried to smile, but pain filled her black eyes. She’d come so close to losing Carson—she couldn’t just forget that, even if the band geek was alive and sitting right in front of her. I knew the feeling because I’d gone through it with Logan a few weeks back. Logan stared at me, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing—about how close Preston Ashton had come to
killing us both, along with our Spartan friend, Oliver Hector.
Once Metis finished with Carson, the band geek put his shirt back on, even though it was as ripped and bloody as the rest of our clothes were.
“What do you suppose they were after? What did the Reapers want?” Coach Ajax asked, crossing his arms over his broad, muscled chest. The overhead lights made his onyx skin gleam like polished jet.
Nickamedes’s mouth twisted. “You mean other than killing six students, five of the museum staff members, and injuring a dozen more? You don’t think that was enough for them?”
Ajax shrugged his broad shoulders. For the first time, I noticed a weary look on his face. Normally, big, burly Coach Ajax reminded me of a granite statue more than anything else, something solid and unbreakable, but today he seemed small and deflated, despite his tall frame.
“The Helheim Dagger,” I said in a quiet voice. “That’s what they were after, that’s what the Reaper girl told the others to search for. It was her, Loki’s Champion. She came into the weapons room looking for the dagger. She’s the one I fought.”
Metis stared at me. “Are you sure it was her? And that she was after the dagger?”
I nodded. Metis knew all about the dagger and the fact that my mom had hidden it from the Reapers. She and my mom had been best friends years ago when they’d gone to Mythos Academy.
“Well, that would certainly explain the full-frontal assault,” Nickamedes said in a dark tone. “The Reapers will do anything to get their hands on that dagger.”
Nobody said anything. We all knew the dagger was the last remaining seal on Loki’s mythological prison. If the Reapers ever found the dagger, they could use it to free the god and set him loose in the mortal realm once more. I was kind of fuzzy on exactly how they were supposed to use the dagger to do that, but I knew people would die if Loki ever got free—so many people.
So many people had died already today.
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