But it was already too late.
"Reapers," Daphne whispered, voicing my own horrific thought.
The Reapers of Chaos ran their swords through everyone they could get their hands on, then shoved the dead and dying to the floor. The museum staff, adults, kids. It didn't matter to the Reapers who they killed. Wax figures, statues, and display cases crashed to the floor, splintering into thousands of pieces. Blood spattered everywhere, a cascade of scarlet teardrops sliding down the white marble walls.
A sick, sick feeling filled my stomach at the bloody chaos in front of me. I'd heard about Reapers, about how vicious they were, about how they lived to kill warriors-about how they lived to kill us. I'd faced down two Reapers myself, but I'd never seen anything like this. I was so shocked by the scene in front of me that I felt stuck in place, just like my friends. I knew we should be doing something, anything, to try to help the other students, but I didn't know what it could be.
Some of the Mythos students tried to fight back, using their fists or whatever they could get their hands on. But it didn't work, and one by one, the Reapers swarmed over the kids. Samson Sorensen fell to the floor, screaming and clutching his stomach, blood spurting out from between his fingers. A few Mythos students tried to run, but the Reapers just grabbed them from behind, rammed their swords into the kids' backs, and then tossed them aside like trash.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Morgan McDougall duck down and squeeze in between a tall, wide pedestal and the wall, putting her parallel to the doorway that my friends and I were next to. Green sparks of magic shot out of Morgan's fingertips like lightning, a clear sign of her surprise and panic, and she curled her hands into tight fists and tucked them under her armpits to try to smother the colorful flashes. Morgan knew as well as I did that if the Reapers saw the sparks, they'd find her and finish her off. The pretty Valkyrie spotted me watching her and stared back at me, her hazel eyes full of fear.
"Stay there! Hide! Don't try to run!" I shouted, although I didn't think Morgan could hear me above the screams and the alarms that had started blaring.
In less than a minute, it was over. The Reapers regrouped in the middle of the coliseum, talking to each other, but I couldn't hear what they were saying over the moans, groans, and whimpers of the dying kids on the bloody floor.
"Reapers," Daphne whispered again, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing any more than I could.
It was almost like they'd heard the Valkyrie's low murmur because several of the black-robed figures turned and headed in our direction.
Chapter 2
For the second time, I froze. My mind just went blank, and all I could do was watch the Reapers head toward us, blood dripping off the ends of their curved swords. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like I could hear every single scarlet drop as it hit the marble floor. Plop-plop-plop. I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming at the awful noise echoing in my head.
"Back, back, back!" Daphne hissed, once again using her Valkyrie strength to pull first Carson, then me, and finally Logan away from the doorway. "We have to get out of here!"
We turned around to run-and realized there was nowhere to go. There were no exits from this room to any other part of the museum.
"Trapped," Carson said in a bitter voice. "We're trapped."
Thump-thump-thump. Outside, the heavy footsteps continued, getting louder and louder as the Reapers marched toward us.
Desperate, I looked around, hoping there was a door, a window, or even a skylight that I'd missed before-or that maybe one would just magically appear and let us escape. That didn't happen, but my eyes landed on the wax figures of the Viking and the Spartan and the items they were holding-the Viking's axe and the Spartan's shield.
Weapons. My gaze flicked around the room. Swords, spears, daggers, staffs. We stood in a room full of weapons. The deadly points and sharp edges glittered underneath the lights, and one by one, the bits and pieces of metal winked at me, as if they knew exactly what I was thinking-and what we had to do if we wanted to make it through this.
"If we can't run, there's only one thing we can do-stand and fight," I said in a grim voice. "That's what we've been training for, right?"
Daphne and Carson stared at me, their mouths hanging open, but Logan had a different reaction. He actually smiled, and a fierce light began to burn in his eyes. Spartans were a little freaky in that they actually loved to fight, especially since they were the best warriors at Mythos-or anywhere else.
Not for the first time, I wished that I had Logan's confidence when it came to battling Reapers. With a shaking hand, I drew Vic from the scabbard strapped to my waist and held him up high. Vic's purplish eye met mine.
"Are you ready for this, Gwen?" the sword asked in a low voice.
"I guess I have to be, don't I?" I whispered back.
If he could have, I thought Vic would have nodded his half of a head in approval. "I'll be here with you, every step of the way. You're a Champion, Gwen. You'll be fine. You all will. Nike has faith in you, and so do I."
I nodded back, his words making me feel just a little bit better. I stood there a second, and I forced myself to breathe-in and out, in and out, in and out-just like my mom had taught me. Just like she'd always told me to do whenever I was scared, panicked, or upset. Yeah, I was all those things right now-and then some.
But there was no time to think about what I was doing, and no time to be cautious or quiet. I raced over to the case-the one with the goddess Sigyn's onyx bow and quiver in it-raised up Vic, turned my head away, then brought the sword down on top of the glass.
CRASH!
The case shattered with a roar, and shards of glass zipped through the air, stinging my hands and drawing blood. I thought that an alarm sounded, blaring together with all the others going off, but I was already moving over to the next case, one that contained a long wooden staff.
"Daphne! Carson! Logan!" I yelled. "Get the weapons!"
My friends scrambled forward, their shoes crunching on the shattered glass. I smashed another case, this one containing a sword with a dull bronze hilt. I used Vic to shatter the artifact cases, one by one, while Daphne, Carson, and Logan grabbed the items inside, as well as all the weapons they could reach on the walls and a few the wax figures were holding. We met in the middle of the room and quickly sorted through the weapons.
"We have to stick together and make a stand right from the start," Carson said, holding a staff in one hand and stuffing the ivory horn and a couple of daggers into the pockets on his khaki cargo pants. "We need to strike at them first. Otherwise, they'll overrun us."