I stared at the Viking and the Spartan, and, for a moment, their features flickered and seemed to move. Their wax lips drew up into angry snarls; their fingers tightened around the hilts of their weapons; their whole bodies tensed up in anticipation of the battle that was to come. I shivered and looked away. My Gypsy gift, my psychometry magic, had been acting up ever since we'd entered the museum.
"Hmph. Well, I don't think that bow is so bloody special," a voice with a snooty English accent muttered. "I think it's rather boring. Ordinary, even."
I looked down at the source of the voice: Vic, the sword sheathed in the black leather scabbard hanging off my waist. Vic wasn't your typical sword. For starters, instead of having a plain hilt, the sword actually had half a face inlaid into the silver metal there. A single ear, a hooked nose, a slash of a mouth. All that joined together to form the sword's hilt, along with a round bulge of an eye. It always seemed to me like there was a man trapped inside the metal, trying to get out. I didn't know exactly who or what Vic was, other than rude, bossy, and bloodthirsty. The sword was always going on and on and on about how we should go find some Reapers to kill.
Actually, there was just one Reaper I wanted to kill-the girl who'd murdered my mom.
A crumpled car. A sword slicing through the rain. And blood-so much blood ...
The memories of my mom's murder bubbled to the surface of my mind, threatening to overwhelm me, but I pushed them away and forced myself to focus on my friends, who were still staring at the onyx bow and ivory horn.
I'd brought Vic along today because I thought he might enjoy seeing the items on display. Besides, I'd needed someone to talk to while Daphne and Carson had been giggling and tongue-wrestling with each other. The two of them were so into each other that it was rather disgusting at times, especially given the sad state of my own love life.
"It's just a bow, after all," Vic continued. "Not anything important. Not a real weapon."
I rolled my eyes. Oh, yeah. Vic talked, too-mostly about how awesome he was.
"Well, some of us happen to like bows," Daphne sniffed, looking down at the sword.
"And that's what's wrong with you, Valkyrie," Vic said.
The sword stared at her. Vic only had one eye, and it was a curious color-not quite purple but not quite gray either. Really, Vic's eye reminded me of the color of twilight, that soft shade that streaked the sky just before the world went dark for the night.
"And you, Celt," Vic said, turning his attention to Carson. "Gwen told me that you prefer to use a staff. A staff! It doesn't even have a bloody point on the end of it. Disgraceful, the things they're teaching you warrior kids at Mythos these days."
Every kid who went to Mythos Academy was some sort of warrior, including the three of us. Daphne was a Valkyrie, Carson was a Celt, and I was a Gypsy, all of us the descendants of the Pantheon warriors who'd first taken on Loki and his Reapers. Now, we carried on that tradition in modern times by going to the academy and learning how to use whatever skills and magic we had to fight against the Reapers of Chaos. And we weren't the only ones. Vikings, Romans, Amazons, Ninjas, Samurais, Spartans. All those warriors and more could be found at the academy.
"Disgraceful, I say," Vic crowed again.
Carson looked at me. I just shrugged. I'd only had Vic a few months, but I'd quickly learned there was no controlling the mouthy sword. Vic said whatever he liked, whenever he liked, as loudly as he liked. And if you dared to disagree with him, he was more than happy to discuss the matter further-while I pressed his blade up against your throat.
Vic and Daphne glared at each other before the Valkyrie turned to Carson and started talking to the band geek about how cool the bow was. I wandered through the rest of the room, peering at the other artifacts. Vic kept up his running monologue about how swords were the only real weapons, with him, of course, being the best sword ever. I made agreeing noises when appropriate. It was easier than trying to argue with him.
Daphne and Carson continued to look at the bow, and Vic finished his rant and fell silent once more. I was reading about a ball of silver thread that had belonged to Ariadne, who gave it to Theseus to help him find his way through the labyrinth where the Minotaur was kept, when shoes tapped on the floor and someone walked up beside me.
"Gwendolyn Frost," a snide voice murmured. "Fancy seeing you here."
I turned and found myself face-to-face with a forty-something-year-old guy with black hair, cold blue eyes, and skin that was as white as the marble floor. He wore a dark blue suit and a pair of wingtips that had a higher polish than most of the glass cases in the room. I would have thought him handsome if I hadn't known exactly how uptight and prissy he was-and how very much he hated me.
I sighed. "Nickamedes. What are you doing here?"
"Overseeing the exhibit, of course. Most of the artifacts on display are on loan from the Library of Antiquities."
Nickamedes was the head honcho at the Library of Antiquities, which was located on the Mythos Academy campus not too far away in Cypress Mountain, North Carolina. In addition to books, the massive library was famous for its priceless collection of artifacts. Hundreds and hundreds of glass cases filled the library's seven floors, containing items that had once belonged to everyone from gods and goddesses to their Champions to the Reapers they had battled.
I supposed it made sense that the Crius Coliseum had borrowed some artifacts from the library-that was probably the reason the Mythos students had been assigned to come here in the first place. So they'd be forced to look at and study the items they walked past and ignored on a daily basis at the library.
Nickamedes stared at me, not looking a bit happier to see me than I was to have run into him. His mouth twisted. "I see that you and your friends waited until the last possible second to come and complete your myth-history assignment, along with a great many of your classmates."
Morgan McDougall, Samson Sorensen, Savannah Warren. I'd spotted several kids I knew roaming through the coliseum. All seventeen or so, like me, Daphne, and Carson, and all second-year students at Mythos, trying to cram in a visit to the museum before winter classes.
"I've been busy," I muttered.
Nickamedes let out a disbelieving huff. "Right."
Anger filled me. I had been busy. Very busy, as a matter of fact. Not too long ago, I'd learned that the Reapers were searching for the Helheim Dagger, which was rumored to be one of the Thirteen Artifacts that had been used during the final battle of the Chaos War. All of the Thirteen Artifacts had a lot of power, since they'd seen action during the climactic fight. But what made the weapon so important-what truly scared me-was the fact that the dagger could be used to free Loki from the prison realm he was trapped in.