Jennifer Estep Bundle Page 9

  My throat closed in on itself. “Is she—”

  “Dead,” Coach Ajax rumbled in his deep voice. “Bled out.”

  Nobody said anything.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing else you remember?” Professor Metis asked. “Even the smallest detail might be helpful, might help us catch the person who did this.”

  I thought back, trying to remember, but nothing came to mind. My head still hurt too much for that. I reached up and touched my left temple. A lump the size of a robin’s egg thumped under my fingers, and I winced at the sharp pain that stabbed through my skull.

  I dropped my hand into my lap, looked down, and realized that I was covered in blood—Jasmine’s blood. It was on my sneakers, on my jeans, and all over the front of my T-shirt and hoodie. And worst of all, dull brown bloodstains covered my hands like a coat of dried paint.

  I sucked in a breath, waiting for my pyschometry to kick in and show me Jasmine’s murder, to let me feel all the horrible pain that she must have experienced. Any second now, it would start. It always did.

  But the seconds slid by and turned into a minute, then another one. And still, nothing happened. I didn’t get any flashes or vibes from Jasmine’s blood. Not a single one. Just like I hadn’t gotten any from touching her body. Strange. Even for me. Maybe my psychometry was on the fritz or something because of the massive migraine that I had. For once, I was happy that I didn’t see anything. Even though I wasn’t getting any vibes from it, the sight of Jasmine’s blood on my skin and clothes still made me want to vomit. I curled my stained hands into fists and looked away from them.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything else,” I said in a low voice.

  “Well, I think it’s rather obvious what happened,” Nickamedes said. “A Reaper slipped into the library and stole the Bowl of Tears. Jasmine, unfortunately, got in the way and was killed as a result.”

  Despite everything that had happened and the fact that my head was still pounding, I frowned. That didn’t seem right to me—not right at all. Mainly because Jasmine had already been in the library earlier. Why would she come back so late? And especially without her friends? Jasmine never went anywhere without her doting entourage of Valkyrie princesses. They were always stacked on top of her like LEGOs.

  But the one thought that kept beating through my brain right along with the pain was: Why? Why her and not me? Why had she died and I hadn’t? Why had I been spared again? Why was I always the one left behind to pick up the bloody, broken pieces?

  “I told you that you were taking a risk putting it on display,” Coach Ajax said. “The Bowl of Tears is exactly the kind of thing that the Reapers would love to get their hands on. It’s one of the Thirteen Artifacts, after all.”

  Nickamedes shrugged. “There are dozens of things here that the Reapers would love to get their hands on, and there are security spells on all of them to keep them from being taken out of the library. I just don’t understand how the Reaper could have gotten the Bowl out of the library without sounding the alarm—much less slipped onto campus to start with. None of the alarms were tripped on the outer wall, at the main gate, or here in the library. I thought that the perimeter security spells were strong enough, and I double-checked the ones on the Bowl myself this morning.”

  “Obviously not,” Ajax muttered.

  The two men glared at each other, and Professor Metis stepped in between them.

  “Enough,” she said. “I’ll call the cleanup crew and alert the others. I’m sure the academy board will want to increase campus security, magical and otherwise, at least for a few days, until we’re sure that whoever did this isn’t coming back for more artifacts.”

  Coach Ajax and Nickamedes glared at each other a few more seconds before they both nodded. Then, the two of them, along with Metis, moved off a few feet and started talking about what to do and who to notify.

  They weren’t as upset by this as I’d thought they’d be. It almost seemed ... normal to them. Like something that had happened before. At my old school, the teachers would have freaked out if a girl had been murdered in the library. But here, it didn’t seem that shocking. More like ... an inconvenience. With paperwork to do, calls to make, and blood to clean up. Or something like that.

  Well, it wasn’t normal to me, not at all, and all I could do was stare down at Jasmine. So pretty, so popular, so rich, and what had it gotten her? Nothing but an early death. I thought about Paige Forrest and how she’d been the same way. Pretty and popular, but with this horrible secret, with this horrible thing that had been happening to her that nobody knew about.

  I wondered if Jasmine was the same way. If she’d had some secret reason for coming back to the library tonight. If there was something more to this than just some mysterious anonymous bad guy stealing a magical, mythological bowl—

  “Gwen?” Professor Metis’s voice made me jump. “I’ll take you back to your dorm room now, if you like.”

  I stared down a final time at Jasmine’s lifeless body and the sticky crimson puddles all around her. It almost looked like the Valkyrie was resting on a giant red pillow, instead of being cold, bloody, and dead. I shuddered and looked away.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that a lot right now.”

  Metis said something else to Coach Ajax and Nickamedes; then the two of us left the library. It was after ten now, and the quad was deserted. Moonlight frosted everything a bright, glittering silver, even the two gryphons that sat at the base of the library steps. My breath steamed in the cool night air, and I put my bloody hands into my pockets, trying to protect them from the chill. But no matter what I did, I just couldn’t get warm.

  We didn’t speak until we were halfway across the quad.

  “I know this must be difficult for you, Gwen. Finding Jasmine the way that you did,” Professor Metis said. “But this isn’t the first time something like this has happened at Mythos.”

  My eyes widened. “You mean students have been murdered before? Here at the academy?”

  She nodded. “A few.”

  “How? Why?”

  “By Reapers mostly. The students had something that they wanted or got in their way, just like Jasmine did tonight. Or the students were working for the Reapers and did something wrong, something that got them killed. In a few cases, students have actually been Reapers themselves.”

  Kids my age? Working for the bad guys? Being Reapers themselves? I didn’t know what to make of that.

  Metis stared at me. “I know that the academy, this world, is new to you, that you don’t really believe in any of this. In the gods, the warriors, the myths, the Chaos War, any of it. I can tell by the way you’re always staring out the window during my class. You recite the facts to me, but your mind’s not really there.”

  Her voice was gentle, but I still winced. I thought that I’d hid my disbelief a little better than that. Since my mom had died, I’d gotten pretty good at faking things. Like telling Grandma Frost that everything was fine at my new school. Or convincing myself that I didn’t really care that I didn’t have any friends. That it didn’t bother me that no one would talk to me. That I was as tough and strong and brave as my mom had been, when all I really wanted to do was curl up on my bed and cry myself to sleep every night. I might be able to see other people’s secrets, but I had some of my own, too—ones that I desperately wanted to keep hidden.

  “But it’s real, Gwen. All of it. Whether you believe it or not,” Metis continued. “Reapers of Chaos are everywhere, even here at Mythos. They can be anyone—parents, teachers, your fellow students. And they will do whatever it takes to get what they want.”

  “What is it that they want, exactly?” I asked. “Why are they the bad guys?”

  Metis sighed. “You really haven’t been paying attention in class, have you?”

  I winced again.

  “The Reapers want one thing—to free Loki from the prison realm that the other gods have placed him in. And we, the students and teachers here, the mem
bers of the Pantheon, are at war with them, trying to prevent that from happening. That’s what all the students here are being trained for. To learn how to fight with whatever skills and magic that they have to keep Loki from escaping from his prison. That’s why losing the Bowl of Tears is such a big blow. It’s an old artifact with a lot of magic, with a lot of power, and it can help the Reapers get closer to freeing Loki.”

  I frowned. “So what happens if Loki gets free? What would be so bad about that?”

  “Because the last time Loki was free, he raised an army to try to kill the other gods, to enslave mortals, and to bend everyone to his will. Hundreds of thousands of people died, Gwen. And hundreds of thousands more will die if Loki is freed once more. The world as we know it will be utterly destroyed.”

  So the Chaos was death, destruction, and blah, blah, blah, just like I’d thought. Another war, just like the one that had been fought before. Except when Professor Metis talked about it this time, a shiver swept up my spine. Like it was actually real. Like it could actually happen.

  We left the main quad behind and stepped onto one of the walkways that led out to the dorms. The student dorms were smaller versions of the main academy buildings—lots of gray stone, lots of thick, green ivy, lots of creepy statues everywhere.

  Somehow, Metis knew that I roomed in Styx Hall, without me even telling her. She walked me all the way up to the front door. Since the student curfew was ten o’clock on weeknights and the dorms automatically locked down after that, Metis had to swipe her professor ID badge through the scanner to get the door to open for me.

  I could have told her not to bother. That there was a sturdy persimmon tree that reached up to a second-floor window on the back of the building. The window had a busted lock, and whatever magic was on it to keep students in or bad guys out had dissolved or disappeared a long time ago. Now, all the girls used it and the tree to slip out at night and see their boyfriends. Everyone except me, of course. I didn’t have a boyfriend, much less just another girlfriend to hang out with after curfew.

  “Now, don’t worry,” Metis said. “Ajax and Nickamedes have already started increasing the security at the library and over the whole campus. Nickamedes is out casting more spells right now. The dorms themselves are already quite secure. They all have wards on them to ensure the students’ protection, but Nickamedes is going to increase the power and complexity of those as well.”

  Her voice was so calm and matter-of-fact that it reminded me of the teachers at my old school and how they’d all tell us to patiently file outside when we were having the yearly fire drill. They’d been so calm because they’d all known that there was no real fire and they didn’t even think there was a problem to start with.

  I thought of how easily I’d been able to walk down to the main gate, slip past the sphinxes, and leave campus earlier today. Apparently, just as easily someone had been able to come into the library and kill Jasmine tonight. Nickamedes’s spells and the rest of the academy’s magical security hadn’t stopped either one of those things from happening. Just like all the academy’s rules and threats of punishment didn’t stop kids from drinking, smoking, or having sex in their dorm rooms. But I didn’t say anything.

  “Now,” Metis said, taking my silence for some kind of agreement. “Would you like me to take a look at that bump on your head? I can heal you, if you wish. You’ll never even know you were hit.”

  I blinked. “You can heal me? How?”

  Metis held out her hands, palms up. They looked as smooth as polished bronze underneath the streetlight burning over the dorm. “I have a magical talent for healing injuries. All I have to do is place my hands on someone, picture them getting well, and they do.”

  Now that was a pretty cool power, and I’d heard of a few other kids on campus having that kind of ability. All the students at Mythos had something going for them, the magic that classified them as a particular type of warrior. Valkyries and Vikings were incredibly strong; Amazons and Romans were superfast; Spartans could kill you with whatever happened to be handy. As if that wasn’t enough, the students had other magic as well, bonus powers as it were, everything from enhanced senses to the ability to shoot lightning out of their fingertips or create fire with their bare hands.

  I wondered what the healing power made Metis, if she was a Valkyrie or an Amazon or something else, instead of just my myth-history professor. I might have even taken a chance and let Metis heal me, if it hadn’t been for the whole touching-my-head part. I didn’t want to touch anyone or anything else strange tonight. I’d seen enough horrible things in the last two hours. I didn’t want to see any more.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “I’ll just go ... sleep it off or something.”

  Understanding flashed in Metis’s eyes, and she nodded. “Very well. I examined you at the library before you woke up. The wound isn’t that severe. You should be fine with a good night’s sleep. But if you have any problems, blurred vision or anything like that, come see me immediately.”

  I doubted that I’d get a good night’s sleep after finding a murdered girl, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I just nodded.

  Professor Metis started to go, but she hesitated and turned to look at me once more. “I don’t know if I said this before, but that was very brave of you, Gwen, trying to help Jasmine like you did. Most people would have just screamed and run away.”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t thought it was brave. It had just been instinct more than anything else. A foolish one, since I’d gotten knocked out and Jasmine had died anyway.

  “It was just like something your mother would have done,” Metis said in a low voice.

  I stared at her, wondering at the familiar tone in her voice. It almost sounded like she knew my mom. But how could she? As far as I knew, Grace Frost had never even set foot in the academy—

  “She was a police detective, right?” Metis added.

  “Yeah,” I said, wondering how the professor knew that. I’d never told anyone at Mythos anything about my mom. “She was a cop. A good one.”

  But now she’s gone, and it’s all my fault. Tears filled my eyes, my throat closed up, and I couldn’t finish my thought. The usual stab of loss and guilt pierced my heart, overpowering everything else.

  Deep down, I knew that I didn’t have anything to do with the drunk driver who’d T-boned my mom’s car and then driven off, leaving her to die in the wreck. It had been an accident, a stupid, stupid accident, and nothing more.

  Still, I wondered what my life would have been like right now, right this very second, if I hadn’t seen the awful things that Paige’s stepdad had been doing to her.

  I couldn’t help but think that my mom, Grace, would still be alive. That I’d be across town in our old house, in my old bed. That tomorrow I would have gotten up and gone to my old school with all of my old friends. Instead of being stuck here at Mythos Academy, where a girl had just been murdered and danger and bad guys lurked around every corner, according to Metis.

  I couldn’t help but think that my life would be so much better. So much simpler. So much closer to normal than this freak-show world that I was trapped in.

  Metis opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, but I turned around so she wouldn’t see the hot tears that burned my eyes.

  “Well, go in and try to get some rest now,” she said in a soft voice. “And feel free to call me, if you need to talk about anything, anything at all.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sure. Thanks, Professor.”

  Instead of looking back at her, I opened the door and stepped inside the dorm, shutting Metis and everything else out for the night.

  Chapter 6

  Jasmine Ashton’s murder was the talk of Mythos Academy the next day.

  But not in the way that I expected.

  All the professors announced the news in their first-period classes. My finding Jasmine’s body wasn’t mentioned. The official story was that Nickamedes had been the one to discover her in the library, al
ong with the smashed case and the fact that someone had stolen the Bowl of Tears. The professors assured all the students that Jasmine had apparently been in the wrong place at the wrong time and that since the Bowl was gone, whoever had killed her was probably long gone along with it. But, just to be on the safe side, students should stick together in groups and find a professor immediately if they saw anything suspicious.

  After that, there was a campuswide moment of silence for Jasmine, so we could all pray for her soul or whatever they did at Mythos.

  Two of the Valkyries Jasmine had been friends with were in my first-period English lit class, and I thought that they might ask to be excused, to go back to their dorm rooms for the rest of the day and just process what had happened to their friend—to just feel sad and grieve and cry for her. But the two girls opened up their textbooks, got out their laptops, and started working on the latest critical thinking essay like the rest of us. Like everything was normal. Like nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. If it hadn’t been for the faint headache that I still had, I would have thought that I’d imagined everything that had happened last night.

  My eyes went from face to face, but everyone was just as calm and collected as the two Valkyries were. Nobody cried. Nobody looked upset. Nobody seemed scared at all that one of their classmates had been murdered last night.

  Last year at my old school, David Jordan, a popular football player, had been working his after-school job at a convenience store when he’d been shot to death during an armed robbery. The next day at school, people had been hysterical. Crying, weeping, screaming, wondering why David had been shot, why he’d had to die, what he’d ever done to deserve something like that, something so violent and awful and random. The school had brought in grief counselors to talk to all of David’s friends and everyone else who’d been shaken up by his death.

  Jasmine Ashton had been the most popular girl in my second-year class. Yeah, she wasn’t the first student at Mythos to die, according to Professor Metis, but Jasmine’s death had to be one of the most unexpected, the most shocking. But everyone was so calm about it.