"Oh, fantastic," Vic muttered. "Just bloody fantastic. The goddess has given me to a bleeding pacifist-"
I would have pointed out that I wasn't a pacifist, just totally uncoordinated, but Jasmine came at me again, her sword moving in a silver blur. Block, block, block. That was all that I could do to keep her frenzied attacks from cutting into me. Still, the Valkyrie was a lot stronger than I was, and every one of her blows felt like somebody was hitting me with a sledgehammer. The sheer force of them jarred my whole body, making it hard for me to just keep standing upright.
I desperately tried to remember all the things that I was supposed to have learned in those mock fights in gym class. Tried to swing my sword and move my feet the way that I remembered Coach Ajax showing us how to do.
But try as I might, I couldn't touch Jasmine. I couldn't even nick her with my sword. I was doing pretty good just to keep her from killing me. I'd seen enough fights in gym to realize that unless I did something drastic, Jasmine was going to ram her blade through my heart very, very soon.
I stared into her face, watching her eyes, trying to guess what she was going to do next, how she was going to come at me next. Her once-blue eyes were still completely red, just like the prowler's were. If anything, the color had darkened since she'd started attacking me, and it looked like blood had filled the sockets where her eyes were supposed to be. Jasmine's pink lips were drawn back into a snarl, but there was a vague blankness in her face, the same sort of blankness that was in Morgan's features. It was like part of Jasmine wasn't even here anymore, like someone or something outside her body had taken control of her and was fueling her, feeding her power just so she could kill me.
I was willing to bet that something was the Bowl of Tears.
Jasmine swung at me again, and I stepped back out of reach. She slipped on a book that had fallen off the shelves while we'd been fighting, and I used the chance to leap over her and run back to the center of the library.
"What are you doing?" Vic said. "Why are you retreating? The fight's back that way!"
"Shut up, Vic!" I said over the noise of the blood roaring in my ears and my bare feet slapping against the cold marble floor. "Unless you want to go back into that case for another decade or two."
Vic shut up.
I skidded to a halt in front of Morgan, who was still lying on the table staring up at nothing. By this point, the blood in the Bowl of Tears had bubbled up to the surface, looking like a crimson volcano about to erupt. Whatever was going to happen next, it wasn't going to be good. I couldn't beat Jasmine, but I could destroy that ... that ... that evil thing.
"Here goes nothing," I muttered, and raised Vic up over my head with both hands.
Jasmine skidded around the corner of the bookcase, her sword still clutched in her hand. She froze when she saw what I was about to do.
"No!" Jasmine screamed. "Don't!"
Too late. I slammed the sword down as hard as I could onto the Bowl of Tears. The second the sword touched the Bowl, a scream filled the library, sounding so loud and high and full of pain that it seemed to tear the very air itself into pieces. Crimson light erupted from the Bowl, burning so bright that I had to look away from it.
After that, I wasn't really sure what happened. The light kept burning, the voice kept screaming, and a blast of heat hit me, so hot that it felt like it would sear all the skin from my body. But for some reason, the sword in my hands stayed as cold as ice. I tightened my grip on Vic and brought the blade up, as if it would protect me from the intense light and heat.
Somehow, it did.
As soon as I brought up the sword, the light and heat lessened, as though the weapon had turned into some kind of shield or something. I backed up a few steps and forced myself to open my eyes, to look at what was happening.
A swirling crimson cloud of ... of ... of magic hung in the library in front of me, centered over the Bowl of Tears. The cloud arced up, as if it was trying to escape, but I could see that the end of it was like a tornado, swirling around faster and faster and eating everything above it. Like a cartoon genie being forced back into its bottle, whether it wanted to go or not.
Just before the last of the magic cloud got sucked down into the Bowl of Tears, an enormous pair of red eyes popped open and swirled around in the middle of it. The eyes fixed on me, narrowing to angry slits, and a blast of emotion hit me-one of absolute rage and hate and evil. I cried out and staggered back from the force of it. The eyes stared at me another second before they and the rest of the magic cloud disappeared into the Bowl.
I shivered, because I knew, I just knew, that those eyes had been real. That they'd belonged to someone who'd seen me. Who hated me. Who wanted me dead more than anything else.
Loki, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. The evil god might be trapped in a prison realm, but somehow, Loki had been able to peer into the library tonight-and I'd felt just how much he wanted to destroy me. I shivered again.
The magic cloud vanished. So did the crimson light. The screams, the noise, the magic, everything. It was all gone, and the library was still and quiet once more.
Then, the Bowl of Tears slipped off of Morgan's chest, fell to the marble floor, and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Chapter 23
The remains of the Bowl of Tears turned black, shriveled up, and started evaporating, just the way that the Nemean prowler outside the library had when Logan had killed it-
Logan.
I turned around, but I didn't see the Spartan anywhere in the library. What I did see was Jasmine coming at me once more, her sword still clutched in her hands.
"You've ruined everything!" she screamed. "My revenge, my sacrifice to Loki, everything!"
The Valkyrie kept coming at me, and I backed up. Only this time, my foot was the one that slipped on a fallen book. I hit the floor hard, and Vic, the sword, fell from my hand and skittered across the cold marble.
"Can't believe she bloody dropped me again ... ," I heard him mutter.
On my hands and knees, I scrambled after the weapon, but it just kept sliding farther and farther away from me. Finally, it stopped, and I saw Vic glaring at me in disapproval.
I'd just reached for the sword when two black stiletto boots planted themselves in front of me. Uh-oh. I looked up to find Jasmine standing over me.
"Time to die, Gypsy," she muttered, and raised her sword high, ready to bring it down on my head and kill me for good this time-
A spear flew through the air and punched all the way through the middle of Jasmine's chest. The Valkyrie's mouth opened in a perfect O, and surprise flashed in her eyes. Her sword slipped from her fingers, and she stumbled back against the table where Morgan was lying. Jasmine stared at me, her beautiful face full of pain and disbelief, and she crumpled to the library floor. Dead. This time, I knew that the slick crimson blood rapidly pooling under her body was real.