Chapter Ten
My morning classes dragged by, especially since all I could think about was my conversation with Lance. I replayed it over and over again in my mind, trying to figure out if he was a regular guy asking about a juicy rumor or a Reaper wanting to cover his tracks. The black-cloaked figure I’d seen in the library last night could have been Lance…or any other guy at the academy.
I didn’t know—I just didn’t know anything anymore.
Every minute of my morning classes seemed slower than the one before, but the bell finally rang, signaling that it was time for lunch, and I headed over to the dining hall. Aunt Rachel was once again working the dessert station at the end of the lunch line, and I stopped and talked to her.
“How are things going today?” she asked.
“Better, I think.” I glanced around the dining hall. “I’m supposed to meet up with my new friends so we can talk about…things.”
“Ah, sounds like fun. Don’t forget your dessert.” Aunt Rachel winked at me and placed a couple of items on my tray.
I stared down at the two jumbo chocolate-frosted chocolate cupcakes. Cupcakes were my absolute favorite dessert. Cake, filling, frosting. It all came together in one perfect package, whether it was some gourmet flavor or the classic chocolate ones on my tray now. Still, I grimaced.
“Is something wrong?” Aunt Rachel asked. “You love cupcakes.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “And I know who’s going to remind me of that.”
She frowned, but I forced myself to smile at her.
“I’ll see you later.”
She nodded, winked at me again, and served the next person in line.
I paid for my food, grabbed my tray, and glanced around the dining hall, searching for my temporary teammates…or whatever they were. I spotted them sitting at the same table in the corner where Ian had been with Amanda yesterday. Sadness filled my heart, but I walked over to them anyway. They had actually saved me a seat, so I plopped my tray down on the table and joined them. Ian, Zoe, and Mateo all gave me blank looks, as if they were surprised that I’d shown up after all.
“Cheer up, guys,” I drawled. “You all look like you’re about to face down a bunch of Reapers or something.”
Zoe snorted out a laugh, while Ian huffed at my sarcasm. Mateo grinned, but he focused on his phone again, his fingers flying over the screen. I looked around the dining hall, searching for Takeda, but I didn’t see him sitting with any of the other coaches or professors.
“Where’s the team leader?” I asked. “Why isn’t he around to keep an eye on you guys?”
“Takeda has his own cover to maintain,” Ian said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Oh, I think you made it my business with that little scene on the quad this morning,” I said. “What were you thinking, coming up and acting like you were my new best friends? All the other kids hate me. You guys should too.”
“Who says we don’t?” Ian muttered.
I sighed. “You know what I mean. It looks suspicious.”
Zoe waved her hand, making blue sparks of magic flicker in the air all over the table. “You worry too much. Trust me, everyone else is busy thinking about their own problems. If their hair looks okay, if anyone realizes that their purse is a designer knockoff instead of the real thing, if they have a shot at hooking up with that cute guy or girl at the party tonight. Nobody cares about you, Spartan. Not really. So chill.”
I eyed her, but her tone was more matter-of-fact than snarky. Zoe shrugged, telling me that it was just the way things were.
“Well, I’m guessing that Lance cares,” I said. “Especially since he asked me about some girl getting attacked by a monster in the library last night.”
Ian’s hand tightened around his fork, and he glared at Lance, who was sitting in the middle of the dining hall, surrounded by his adoring friends and fans like usual. Lance threw his hands out wide, telling some story, and everyone around him howled with laughter, particularly the girls, who giggled like he’d just said the funniest thing ever.
“I should break his face,” Ian muttered. “He’s the one who summoned those chimeras. He’s the one who killed Amanda.”
“Relax, Viking,” I said. “You’ll have your chance to avenge Amanda. But Takeda wants to get Sisyphus and all the other Reapers at the same time. So you’ll have to wait until tonight and see if any of them show up at Lance’s party.”
“Are you finally ready to admit that your boyfriend is a Reaper?” Ian asked.
I stared at Lance, who was grinning at the girl sitting next to him the same way he’d grinned at me on the quad this morning. A tiny blade of jealousy stabbed my heart. “My judgment isn’t the best when it comes to Reapers. I don’t know what he is, but I want to find out.”
I looked at Ian. Grudging respect filled his eyes, and he nodded at me. Then his gaze dropped to my tray and the two desserts sitting there.
Ian arched an eyebrow. “Cupcakes, huh? I never would have guessed that you liked those…cupcake.”
For once, his tone was more teasing than taunting, and I decided to play along. I grabbed one of the cupcakes, stripped off the paper wrapper, and sank my teeth into all the delicious layers of cake, filling, and frosting.
“I don’t just like cupcakes—I love cupcakes,” I mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate.
Ian snorted, but his lips twitched, like he was holding back a smile. I’d definitely won that round. I grinned and took another bite.
“Whether Lance is a Reaper or not, he’s invited pretty much the whole academy to his party,” Mateo chimed in, still staring at his phone. “Right before lunch, he sent out an email to everyone who’s on the official academy roll.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Mateo looked up, a satisfied smile creasing his face. “I hacked his phone while you were talking to him on the quad earlier. Now I have access to all his calls, texts, emails, everything.”
Zoe leaned over and punched him in the shoulder, making blue sparks of magic fly out of her fingertips. “You mean while I was flirting with him and distracting him from what you were really doing.”
Mateo grinned at her. “That too.”
“All those kids packed into one place…” Ian’s voice trailed off. “That would make for great cover for Lance to meet with Sisyphus and the other Reapers. That might even be why he’s throwing the party. So the Reapers can blend into the crowd and the Protectorate has a harder time tracking who comes and goes.”
I polished off my first cupcake and started unwrapping the second one. “Then we’ll have to keep an eye on Lance and see who he talks to. If he is a Reaper, he’ll have to meet with the others sooner or later.”
“We?” Ian shook his head. “There is no we. This doesn’t concern you.”
I waggled my cupcake at him. “Ah, ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve decided to take Takeda up on his offer to join your merry little band of misfit toys. Temporarily, of course.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Like I’ve said all along, we don’t need you, and we certainly don’t want you.”
“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m in this thing now, and nothing you do or say is going to change my mind. So you might as well lose the attitude and start being civil to me. Before something bad happens.”
“Like what?”
I gave him a razor-thin smile and gestured at the items on my lunch tray. “Like me accidentally-on-purpose stabbing you with my fork. Or braining you with my plate. Or breaking your nose with my water glass. You know. All the usual Spartan tricks.”
Anger flashed like lightning in his gaze, which darkened to that storm-cloud gray. As much as I hated to admit it, the intense, moody glare worked for Ian, and he looked totally hot right now. Not that I cared how gorgeous he was. Not at all. Not when he was so determined to hate me for some mysterious reason.
Ian’s eyes narrowed to slits, but I smiled in the face of his anger. If I didn’t get anything else out of being on Team Midgard, at least I would get to annoy the Viking. It was quickly becoming my favorite new hobby.
“Great,” Zoe drawled. “Just what we need. Another alpha on the team. Can’t we all just get along?”
“No,” Ian and I both snapped in unison.
We glared at each other for a few more seconds before Ian crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Come to the Bunker this evening, and we’ll talk about how we’re going to handle Lance’s party. If you think you’re up for it, cupcake.”
“Oh, I’m up for it.”
I was still holding my second cupcake, and I saluted him with it before sinking my teeth into the chocolate dessert. Ian’s eyes glittered with fresh anger, but I smirked at him and took another bite of my cupcake.
This was going to be fun.
* * *
To my surprise, my afternoon classes went by much quicker than the morning ones had.
Zoe was right. The other kids might have been shocked that I’d come back to the academy this year, but they were rapidly going back to their own lives and getting caught up in their own little dramas. For the most part, the other students ignored me, and I did the same to them. I didn’t necessarily like being ignored, but it was certainly better than everyone gossiping about me.
And Ian was right too. Takeda was once again acting as the gym coach, although now I knew better than to mouth off to him, and I avoided having to run any laps. After gym, I went to the cottage, did my homework, took a shower, and put on a fresh pair of jeans, along with a clean T-shirt and my green leather jacket. Then I headed over to the library.
I walked down the main aisle, my steps slow, staring at the space in front of the checkout counter where the chimera had been. The study tables and chairs were in their usual positions, and so were all the couches around the fireplace. Not a trace of last night’s attack remained, not so much as a scorch mark from the chimera’s smoking paws on the floor. My gaze moved over to the spot where Amanda had taken her last breath. Even her blood was gone, scrubbed away like she hadn’t died here last night, with only the faint lemony scent of cleaner left behind to mark her passing.
It made me sad.
Sad that a girl’s life could be cut so tragically short. Sad that no one even noticed that Amanda was gone. Sad that no one would ever notice that she was gone. But Linus Quinn had made it this way so that the other students wouldn’t panic. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to spare everyone this fresh new fear about the Reapers. I just wondered if anyone would notice if I vanished one day and never came back. Probably not.
And that made me even sadder than before.
I pushed my depressing thoughts away and headed deeper into the library. The Protectorate might think that Lance was a Reaper, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others here at the academy. And if any of the Reapers knew I’d been in the library last night, they might try to keep tabs on me to see if I did anything interesting.
So I wandered around the library for thirty minutes to make sure no one was following me. I also used the time to check out the reference books I’d dropped during my fight with the chimeras last night. Midgard or not, I still had a myth-history paper to do.
No one paid any attention to me, so I headed up to the second floor to the bookcase that doubled as the secret entrance to the Bunker. Just like Linus had said, a small silver button was embedded in the side of the wood. I stared at the button, then slowly pressed in on it. A green light flashed under my thumb, scanning it, and a second later, a soft click sounded as the bookcase detached itself from the stone wall and swung outward, revealing the elevator. I stepped inside the car.
A few minutes later, I was in the briefing room down in the Bunker. No one was sitting at the table, and the surrounding desks were empty as well. Since I was the first and only person here, I decided to give myself the grand tour.
I roamed up and down the hallways, making sure that I knew where everything was, from the armory to the computer room to the kitchen. I even opened the refrigerators and all the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen to see what kind of food was in here. Mostly canned and prepackaged stuff that wouldn’t spoil. Even worse, it was all health food, like granola, brown rice, and energy bars that looked like they were made of cardboard. Blech. No cookies, no cupcakes, no sugary desserts of any sort. No fun, in other words. My stomach grumbled in disappointment.
I did find a door marked Stairs, which was another exit that led back up to the main part of the library, as well as some air vents that looked like they were attached to the rest of the building’s temperature-control system. I made a special note of the door and the vents. The Midgard’s supersecret spy headquarters was cool, but I didn’t want to be trapped down here if the power to the elevator ever went out. Or if Reapers somehow discovered the location and decided to attack.
My grand tour didn’t take long, and I wound up back in the briefing room a few minutes later. Part of me wanted to search through the desks to discover what secrets Ian, Zoe, and Mateo might be hiding. I especially wanted to go through Mateo’s desk to see if he might have some more candy bars stashed in one of the drawers. But that would have been totally rude, so instead, I headed toward the back half of the room and started wandering through the shelves full of books and artifacts.
I did a slow, methodical circuit, going up and down each aisle twice, looking at all the objects lined up on the shelves. I recognized many of the items, especially the books, since they were the original first editions of various research tomes I’d read through or used information out of for myth-history papers and other class projects. But I had never heard of many of the artifacts, not so much as a whisper, and with good reason.
They were all extremely dangerous.
Linus had said the Bunker would have been the last holdout against Loki and the Reapers, and the Protectorate had packed the area with powerful, deadly artifacts that they couldn’t afford to let anyone get their hands on—ever—especially not the Reapers.
Things like the Hammer of Hephaestus, named for the Greek god of fire, which burned with red-hot flames whenever it was wielded. Or the Gauntlets of Serket, an Egyptian goddess associated with poisons, which were coated with a magical acid that would eat right through your enemy’s skin and bones if he so much as brushed up against the gold gauntlets.
And on and on the artifacts went, each one more terrible and deadly than the last. Daggers and spears and staffs that would let you inflict cuts that wouldn’t stop bleeding or shoot lightning at your enemies or even let you break their bones without ever even touching them. Every single shelf held those sorts of horrors and dozens more.
And those were just the weapons. Far more insidious artifacts lined the shelves, things that would mess with your mind and heart without your even realizing it. Like the Tears of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Venus had once cried over a lost love, and her tears had hardened to opals, which had later been fashioned into a beautiful necklace. As long as you were wearing Venus’s Necklace, you had the power to make anyone fall in love with you and do whatever you wanted.
I shivered, thinking about Logan Quinn and how he had almost killed Gwen when he was under the influence of the Apate jewels. I had always thought that losing control, losing your own free will, losing yourself, would be the worst thing in the entire world. Like being a mindless doll acting out someone else’s whims and desires.
I reached the end of the last shelf and had started to head back to the center of the room when a glimmer of silver caught my eye. A small glass box was sitting behind Venus’s Necklace, and I pulled it out to the edge of the shelf where I could see it. A silver bracelet lay inside, along with an identification card:
The Bracelet of Freya, the Norse goddess of love. When her husband, Odin, sacrificed one of his eyes for knowledge, he almost died from the grievous wound he inflicted upon himself. In order to save him, Freya cut her hand and used her own blood to help heal Odin. Blood from that cut also dripped down Freya’s wrist, solidifying into this bracelet. Legend has it that whoever wears this bracelet will be protected by Freya’s love, just as Odin was, along with the love of the person(s) who bestows the bracelet upon the wearer. However, what real power the bracelet has, if any, has never been conclusively proven…
I looked at the bracelet. Venus’s Necklace and most of the other jewelry were large, ornate pieces made of dazzling jewels and gleaming gold, but Freya’s Bracelet was a plain silver chain. I liked its simplicity. It looked a lot like the charm bracelet my parents had given me, the one I was still wearing—
“You might as well put me on one of these shelves,” a sad, mournful voice muttered.
Startled, I looked around, wondering where the voice had come from. Then I realized it was Babs, who was belted to my waist. I slid the sword out of her scabbard and propped her up on one of the shelves so that I could talk to her face to face. The sword had been surprisingly quiet today, just like she had been last night after the fight with the chimeras. But now her green eye was open, although her metal features were twisted into a miserable expression.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why would you want to stay down here?”
Babs sighed. “I don’t want to stay down here. But it would be better for everyone if I was locked away in a glass case, collecting dust on one of these shelves, never to see the light of day ever again.”
“Why would you say that? You’re a perfectly nice sword, as far as talking swords go. Not that I’ve had much experience with talking swords, mind you. I only know Vic, but you’re much nicer than he is. He’s all the time crowing about how many Reapers he wants to kill.”
I didn’t mention Babs’s own tendency to babble on and on whenever she got riled up. Sure, the sword’s chatter could be a bit annoying, but it was also part of her unique charm.
Instead of cheering her up like I’d hoped, my words only made Babs look more miserable. “As well he should. Vic might be a blowhard, but he can at least be helpful, useful, to his warrior. Me? I’m nothing but an albatross, dragging you down, down, down.” She let out a long, loud sigh, but for some reason, I didn’t think she was being overly dramatic.
“What do you mean? You’re a sword too. Of course you’re useful.” Another thought occurred to me. “Wait a second. Does this have something to do with the chimera attack? You didn’t even want me to pick you up last night, much less actually wield you in battle. Did I do something wrong?”
“Oh, no! You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me—it’s always me.”
“What do you mean?”
Babs sighed again, but she rolled her eye around to look at me. “I mean that I’m cursed.”
I frowned. “Cursed? What curse?”
She sighed for a third time. “My curse. The one that Macha, an Irish war goddess, placed on me long ago.”
Shock zinged through me. My muscles tensed, and I wanted to lurch away from the sword. But I knew that would hurt Babs’s feelings, so I forced myself to stand still.
For a moment, I thought she was going to stay silent, but Babs looked at me again.
“I used to be Macha’s sword, and for centuries, she proudly wielded me in battle. Even among the gods, Macha is a very strong, fierce warrior, and she never lost a fight with me in her hand.”
“So what happened?”
An embarrassed blush colored her metal cheek. “I got a little…arrogant. I started bragging about how I was the best sword in all the realms, how no one could ever defeat me, and I started challenging other beings to fights. Gods, goddesses, warriors, even creatures.” Babs winced. “If there’s one thing that you don’t do around the gods, it’s talk about how awesome you think you are.”
I nodded. Myth-history was full of people who claimed they could do things better than the gods, and most of them got punished as a result of their boasting. Like Arachne, the mortal woman who was turned into a spider after she’d claimed she could weave better than Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Macha got tired of my constant bragging and all the fights that went along with it. We were in the middle of a sparring contest with some of the other Irish gods one day, and my boasting distracted her. Another goddess managed to slice her arm, making her lose the contest. Macha was furious.” Babs’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Absolutely furious. Trust me. You do not want to see a war goddess when she’s angry.”
I nodded again. I had seen Loki’s rage during the academy battle, so I could well imagine Macha’s wrath.
“Anyway, since I’d made her lose the contest and embarrass herself, Macha decided to curse me,” Babs continued. “And any warrior who dares to wield me.”
“Curse you how?”
“Everything’s fine for the first two battles that any warrior fights with me. But during the third battle…” Her voice trailed off, and she dropped her gaze from mine, as if she couldn’t stand to look at me right now.
“What happens?” I asked. “What’s so important about the third battle that someone fights with you?”
The sword focused on me again. A tear shimmered in her eye, but she still didn’t answer me.
Dread curled up in the pit of my stomach. “Babs, what happens during the third battle? You need to tell me. Please.”
She cleared her throat several times, as if she was having trouble getting the words out, but she finally spoke. “My warrior dies.”
Her voice came out as a low, raspy whisper, and that tear welled up in her green eye, streaked down her cheek, and fell off her chin. The tear spattered onto my hand, which was resting on the shelf next to her. The drop felt as cold as a snowflake stinging my skin. More dread filled me.
“You’re kidding, right?” I said. “How is that even possible? Surely some warrior can win a third battle with you.”
Babs’s entire hilt quivered, as though she were trying to shake her half of a head. “No, no, they can’t. No matter how weak their opponent is or how good a fighter my warrior is, they can never, ever win the third battle. They might be able to kill their opponent, but something always happens to my warrior, and they die as well. Like their opponent cutting my warrior with a poisoned blade or getting in one final lucky strike. Trust me. I’ve seen it all, and the curse never fails.”
Another tear slipped down her face and hit my hand, adding to the cold sensation there.
“You have no idea how horrible it is,” she rasped. “Knowing that as soon as someone picks me up, they’ve been cursed to die, all because I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut. It’s the worst thing that Macha could have possibly done to me.”
“But surely there must be some way around the curse.” I thought about it for a moment, then snapped my fingers. “I know. I’ll just use a different sword. No big deal.”
Babs’s hilt quivered, as though she were trying to shake her half of a head again. “That doesn’t work. As soon as you touched me, you bound yourself to me. You can’t get rid of me, Rory. Even if you locked me away down here, as soon as you started fighting, I would magically appear in your hand, even if you were miles away and holding another sword or weapon at the time.”
A chill slithered down my spine. I’d heard of such things before, of weapons that you couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard you tried. Daphne Cruz, Gwen’s friend, had a bow like that, one that had kept reappearing in her dorm room, no matter how many times she tried to give it back to the museum it had come from.
Babs stared at me with a sad, weary, resigned expression, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. No doubt she did, since she’d probably had this same conversation with dozens of other warriors over the years.
“The only thing I can tell you to do is not to get into any fights,” Babs said. “Sometimes that works. For a while, anyway. A nice Amazon once kept me for almost a year before her third and final battle.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that. Not now, when I just joined the Midgard to track down these new Reapers. Besides, I’m a Spartan. Fighting is what we do, and being warriors is what we are.”
She gave me another miserable look. “I know. And Spartans always die the fastest because of that. I’m sorry, Rory. So very, very sorry. I was so happy when that nice old lady took me out of storage. I thought that being up on the second floor meant I could be out in the world a little bit and everyone would still be safe from me. But that’s not the case. That’s never the case.” Her mouth quivered, as though she were fighting back a sob.
Part of me wanted to leave her on the shelf, walk away, and never look back, just like she’d suggested. I had enough problems already without adding a cursed sword to the mix. And I couldn’t help but wonder why Sigyn had done this to me. She had told me that she had put Babs out in the library for me to use in the battles to come. So why would she give me a cursed sword?
Perhaps Sigyn hadn’t known about the curse, since Babs had belonged to another goddess. Or perhaps she thought I could help give Babs that fresh start she said the sword needed. Either way, it seemed as though I was stuck with the sword now, whether I liked it or not.
Babs looked so utterly miserable that I found myself stepping closer to her. I knew what it was like to have something forced on you, something that was completely out of your control, something that ruined your life no matter how hard you tried to fight it.
I leaned forward so that I was at eye level with the sword. “Listen, don’t worry about this whole curse thing. There has to be some book in the Library of Antiquities that can tell us how to break it. Or maybe even one of the artifacts down here in the Bunker can help. Besides, if anyone can survive having a cursed sword, it’s a Spartan, especially this Spartan. Trust me. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered, although I could tell she didn’t really believe me.
I didn’t believe me either. Despite all my comforting words, we were still talking about a curse enacted by a vengeful goddess. How could I possibly beat that without getting killed myself? But then again, this was why I’d agreed to be on the Midgard—to protect everyone else. Maybe that included Babs too. Maybe the sword just needed someone to help her fight her curse, instead of trying to get rid of her.
A third tear welled up in Babs’s eye, this time sliding all the way down her chin and onto her blade below. I reached out and gently wiped it off, even though it made my own hand even colder than before. As my finger slid down the blade, I felt some faint markings in the metal. I leaned forward again and squinted. At first, I thought they were just scratches, but then I realized that the marks almost looked like…letters.
I squinted at the blade again, tilting my head this way and that, trying to find the right angle so I could make out the letters, but I couldn’t quite bring them into focus. I almost thought they spelled out the word devotion, but I wasn’t sure.
“What’s wrong?” Babs said. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Nothing.” I straightened up and forced myself to smile at her. “Nothing at all. Now, come on. Let’s get you cleaned up before the others get here.”