"Stupid wheel," I muttered.
I walked around the cart and was trying to shove it back from the other side when a wink of silver caught my eye. Curious, I looked down into the case that I was standing next to.
A sword lay inside it, one of hundreds in the library. My eyes skimmed over the glass, looking for the plaque that would tell me whose sword it was and what she'd done with it that was so freaking special. But there wasn't a plaque on the case. No silver plate on the outside, no little white card on the inside, nothing. Weird. Every other case that I'd seen had had some sort of ID on or in it. Maybe Nickamedes had forgotten about this one, since it was way back here in the stacks in no-man's-land.
I should have shoved the cart into the aisle, gone back to the checkout counter, and packed up my messenger bag so I could leave the very second that Nickamedes came back. But for some reason, I found myself stopping and looking down at the sword once more.
It was a simple enough sword-a long blade made out of a dull silver metal with a hilt that was just a little bit bigger than my hand. A small weapon, compared to some of the enormous crowbars that I'd seen in the library.
Still, something about the shape of the sword seemed ... familiar to me. Like I'd seen it before. Maybe there had been an illustration of it in my myth-history book. Maybe some bad guy had used it in the Chaos War, if it had ever even really taken place. I snorted. Probably not.
I cocked my head to the side, trying to figure out why the sword was so interesting. And I realized that the hilt almost looked like ... a face. Like half of a man's face had somehow been inlaid into the metal. There was a slash of a mouth, a groove of a nose, the curve of an ear, even a round bulge that looked like an eye. Weird. But it wasn't ugly. It looked almost ... alive.
There were some words on it, too. I could just see them glinting on the blade right above the hilt, like they'd been carved into the metal there. I squinted, but I couldn't quite make out what they were. V-i-c-Vic something, I thought, leaning close enough to leave a nose print on the smooth glass-
CRASH!
Startled by the sudden noise, I jumped back and pressed myself against the bookshelf. Eyes wide, heart in my throat, blood pounding in my ears. What the hell was that?
I didn't consider myself to be a scaredy-cat, and I certainly wasn't some wimpy girly-girl who was afraid of her own shadow. But my mom had been a police detective. She'd told me lots of horror stories about people getting mugged and worse. And the Library of Antiquities wasn't exactly as warm and friendly as a park on a summer day. Nothing was at Mythos.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn't heard anything while I'd been shelving books. No sounds, no rustles of clothes, nothing to indicate there was anyone left but me in the entire library-
Something cold and hard dug into my palm. I looked down and found that I'd wrapped my hand around the glass case, my fingers curled around the metal clasp, a second away from opening it and grabbing the weapon inside.
But the really strange thing was that the sword was staring at me.
The cover on the bulge on the hilt had slid up, revealing a pale eye that regarded me with a cold, steady stare. It was an odd color, too, not quite purple and not quite gray either-
Then, my brain kicked in and reminded me that this was all super, super creepy. I shrieked and stumbled away from the glass. My shoulder hit the edge of one of the bookcases, and I hissed as the sting of it flooded my body.
But the small pain lessened some of my panic. Deep down, I knew that my imagination was totally playing tricks on me. Swords didn't have eyes, not even in a place as crazy as Mythos Academy. And they certainly didn't stare at people. Especially not someone like me, that unimportant, nerdy Gypsy girl who saw things.
And the noise? That was probably just books that some kid had stacked up crooked on a shelf, finally toppling over. Probably done on purpose just to scare whoever was in the library this late. It had happened before, usually to me.
I stood there a second more to calm my racing heart, then pushed away from the bookcase. I thought about just grabbing the cart and forcing it back to the main library desk, loose wheel and all. But I had to look at the sword first. I had to convince myself that I wasn't going crazy. That I wasn't actually starting to believe all the stuff that Professor Metis kept spouting at us in myth-history class about evil gods and ancient warriors and Chaos and the end of the world and blah, blah, blah.
So I risked a quick glance over my shoulder. The bulge that I'd thought had been an eye before was nothing more than a bump on the hilt. Completely covered, completely silver, completely normal. Nothing more. It certainly wasn't staring at me.
I let out a sigh of relief. Okay. Gwen wasn't losing her mind just yet. Good to know.
I grabbed the cart and pushed it back toward the counter. Screw Nickamedes and his pissy attitude. Creepy swords and weird noises were enough for me. I was leaving. Now.
I broke free of the stacks and rounded the end of the aisle. I was halfway back toward the counter when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over to my left.
And that's when I saw her.
Jasmine Ashton.
The blond Valkyrie lay on her back in front of the case that Nickamedes had shown me earlier tonight, the one with Loki's supposed Bowl of Tears in it.
Except all the glass on the case had been shattered and there was no Bowl inside of it anymore.
And someone or something had slit Jasmine's throat from ear to ear.
I froze, not sure what was going on. I blinked a few times, but the scene didn't change. Broken case. Stolen Bowl. A girl with a big, bloody slash across her pale throat.
I stood there another moment, shocked and dumbstruck, before my brain kicked in and started working once more. I pushed the cart out of the way and ran over to Jasmine. My foot slipped out from under me, and I put my hand down to brace myself. Something wet and cold and sticky covered my fingers, making me flinch. I raised up my hand to find it coated with blood-Jasmine's blood.
It was everywhere. Under the smashed case. Beside it. Splashed up onto the wooden tables. Puddles of the Valkyrie's blood covered the floor like crimson water that hadn't been mopped up.
"Oh, shit!"
I was almost hyperventilating, so I made myself take deep breaths the way that my mom had always told me to whenever I got panicked. Whenever I was in a bad, bad situation. After several seconds, I felt better. At least, good enough to pick my way through the pools of blood over to where Jasmine lay.
Strawberry-blond hair. Blue eyes. Beautiful face. Designer clothes. The Valkyrie looked the same as she always did-except for the slash in her throat and the knife on the floor next to her. A long curved gold dagger with an enormous ruby set into the hilt. The lights made the gem glint and gleam, like a giant red eye watching me. For some reason, the dagger was the only thing here that wasn't covered with blood. Bizarre.