"Are you seeing anything?" Daphne asked.
Carson looked back and forth between us.
"Not yet," I growled, tightening my grip on her hand and closing my eyes. "Now quit talking and start concentrating."
"But you should be able to see something by now," Daphne said, total y not listening to me. "If you can use my memories to help you with archery, why can't you use them to help with something else? I know I'm right about this. I'm always right."
The reason we were standing on the bunny slope and holding hands in the first place was because of Daphne's theory about my psychometry-her idea that I could use my magic to pick up other memories and other skil s from people, just like she'd talked about in my dorm room two nights ago. Basical y, the Valkyrie figured if I could use my psychometry to tap into her archery prowess, then maybe I could pick up some of her skiing skil s, too. That way, she, Carson, and I could go skiing together, instead of them leaving me behind on the bunny slope al by myself.
Daphne's theory made sense, I supposed. Thanks to my Gypsy gift, I remembered every single thing I'd ever seen from touching an object or another person-al the images, al the vibes, al the lights, sounds, and flashes of feeling. I'd just never real y thought about using them in this specific way before, about trying to specifical y cal them up like this
-
Suddenly an image popped into my head of Daphne standing on top of a tal slope. She let out a loud whoop, pushed off with her poles, and raced down the mountain.
And I felt al the things that she had: her knees moving from side to side, the spray of snow against her legs, the cold air burning her lungs, even the blur of the ice-crusted pine trees as she zipped past them.
And then, as quickly as it had come, the image vanished, leaving nothing behind but the empty echo of the wind in my head.
I opened my eyes to find Daphne and Carson staring at me.
"Wel ?" Daphne asked. "Did it work?"
"We're about to find out," I said.
I let go of her hand, put my glove back on, and plodded over to the edge of the hil .
"Come on, Gwen. You can do it," Carson cal ed out in an encouraging voice.
I didn't know about that, but I was going to at least try.
And if I broke something on the way down, wel , Daphne said the resort had awesome hot chocolate.
"Here goes nothing," I muttered, dug my poles into the snow, and pushed off.
And immediately wished that I hadn't. Everything happened so freaking fast. The snow was so packed and slick that it seemed like I was going a hundred miles an hour down the slope the second I took off. Plus, the sun glinted on the snow just so, throwing out dazzling sprays of light in every direction.
For a moment, hot, sweaty panic fil ed me, but I pushed it away and forced myself to focus, to cal up Daphne's image, just like I had during archery practice with Kenzie and Oliver. I could do this. I would do this.
Daphne, Daphne, Daphne-I chanted the Valkyrie's name in my head and once again pictured her in her ski suit, sliding down that steep hil and loving every second of it.
In an instant everything changed.
My legs grew stronger and steadier underneath me. My arms dropped down to where they were supposed to go instead of wildly flailing around. My knees started moving from side to side to help control my speed, and I started leaning into the turns, such as they were on the bunny slope.
I drew in a breath and realized that skiing was kind of ...
fun.
Before I knew it, I was at the bottom of the hil . I moved the skis first right, then left, sending up a shower of snow and sliding to a stop, like I'd been on the slopes al my life instead of just a few minutes.
At the top of the hil , Daphne and Carson jumped up and down and screamed and waved at me. I lifted a shaky hand and waved back, a crazy grin on my face. I hadn't thought it would real y work, but somehow, it had. It looked like there was a little more to my Gypsy gift than I'd thought. I'd have to tel Grandma Frost about it the next time I saw her, if she didn't already know.
These days, Grandma always seemed to know more than she told me-about everything.
Daphne made a motion with her hand, pointing at the ski lift.
She wanted me to ride back up there, probably so we go up to the next hil and see if I could do the same thing al over again. I waved back, tel ing her that I understood, and trudged off in that direction.
Several lifts snaked up the mountain at Powder, hauling students, profs, and everyone else up to the various ski, snowboard, and tubing runs, but there was only one lift at the base of the bunny slope. Since it didn't have nearly as many chairs on it as the others, I had to stand there and wait for it to come back around.
And that's when a low, ominous growl whispered behind me.
I froze, my blood suddenly as cold and icy as the surrounding snow. I knew that sort of growl. I'd heard it twice before in my life now, and both times, I'd almost died.
Riding over to the resort, meeting Preston, flashing on Daphne, trying to ski. I'd had a busy morning. So busy I'd forgotten about the fact that there was a Reaper who was trying to kil me-and that he just might send a monster to do the job.
I slowly turned around. At first I didn't see it, but then a movement in the thicket of pine trees at the far edge of the slope caught my eye. I strained to spot it in the shadows and then wished that I hadn't.
It looked like an overgrown wolf. Even though the creature was hunkered down in the snow, I could stil see how very massive it was. It seemed to be roughly the same size as a Nemean prowler, with a body that would come up past my waist and was longer than I was tal . Something flicked in the trees behind it, and it took me a second to realize it was the creature's tail, slowly lashing from side to side and slapping snow everywhere.
Its fur was the color of crumbled ash-not quite black but not real y gray either-and strands of red glinted in its thick, shaggy coat. The bloody tinge matched the color of the monster's eyes-a deep, dark, blistering red that seemed like it could burn right through anything, including me.
My breath caught in my throat. I'd only seen a drawing of it in my myth-history book, that weird, weird drawing that had moved and oozed ink al over the page, but I knew exactly what the monster was: a Fenrir wolf.
The wolf's lips drew back in a silent snarl, showing me its razor-sharp teeth. I knew that hidden somewhere in the shadows would be the creature's long, curved, black claws
-ones that could tear through almost anything. Wood, skin, muscle, bone.
Al put together, the Fenrir wolf was a nightmare come to life.
And now it was here to kill me.
Chapter 9
The Fenrir wolf let out a low, angry growl, and I slowly brought up my ski poles, holding them out in front of me.