We all fell silent once more, and the only sounds were the crinkle of Raven's magazine as she turned another page and the faint beep-beep-beep of a heart monitor somewhere deeper in the infirmary. I wondered if that was Nickamedes's heart beating - and how long it would be until that sound stopped altogether.
Not for the first time tonight, I wished that Logan was here. He wouldn't have been able to do anything - not any more than Metis was already doing for Nickamedes - but his being here would have comforted me, would have made me feel like the odds weren't stacked quite so high against us and that we had a chance to save Nickamedes after all.
Logan wasn't here - but I was. And I knew what I had to do - as Nike's Champion, and more important, as Nickamedes's friend.
"How long?" I asked. "How long does he have?"
"I won't know until we run some more tests to see exactly how much of the poison he ingested and how strong it is," Metis said. "But I would say a week. Maybe less."
Silence. Complete, utter, absolute, frightening silence descended over the waiting room once more.
I looked at Metis. The professor was putting on a brave face, but anguish tightened her features. How could I not have realized how much she cared about him before? Once again, I wondered how long she'd been in love with the librarian - and why she didn't tell him how she felt. They'd make a terrific couple. But the love Metis had for Nickamedes made me even more determined to save him - for her.
"Well," I finally said. "If it's a fight the Reapers want, then that's what we're going to give them."
"Gwen?" Metis asked.
I straightened up. "How soon can we get to Denver?"
Chapter 10
The answer to my question was several hours.
To my surprise, Carson had made all the arrangements. Apparently, his dad did a lot of business with wineries in North Carolina and the surrounding states, and Mr. Callahan was always traveling back and forth from one side of the country to the other. Lucky for us, Carson's dad had flown in a few days before and was currently over in Ashland, visiting some winery there. He'd told Carson to take the jet to wherever he needed.
After a mad dash back to our dorm rooms to pack, we'd gone over to the small airport in Cypress Mountain and had flown out in the wee hours of the morning. Daphne, Carson, Oliver, and Alexei had all pulled out pillows and blankets from the overhead bins, curled up in their seats, and gone to sleep, but I'd stayed awake. Partly because I'd never flown before and was a little freaked out by the whole experience, but mostly because I didn't want to have another nightmare and wake everyone else up with my screaming.
But the exhaustion finally caught up with me. One moment, I was staring out the window, worrying about Nickamedes and wondering whether the Reapers had really captured Logan or not. The next, I woke up with Daphne standing over me, poking her finger into my shoulder.
"Wakey, wakey," she said. "We're here."
I sat up. I'd been using my coat as a blanket, and it slipped off my chest and landed on the floor. "We're in Denver already?"
"Not Denver, a suburb," Daphne said. "Ajax had us land here because he thought it would be a less obvious place for us to start from than the Denver airport. He's trying to throw the Reapers off our trail for as long as possible."
Coach Ajax was the only adult who'd come with us. Metis had to stay at the academy so she could keep using her magic on Nickamedes to fight off the poison until we returned with the antidote. Grandma Frost also remained behind to help Metis and keep an eye on Nyx. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that the Reapers might attack again while we were away, and I was glad Grandma was going to watch Metis's back. Still, I missed her already. It was a dangerous mission I was on, but I wasn't a little girl anymore, and I couldn't go crying to my grandma every time something terrible happened. I was a Champion now - Nike's Champion - and it was up to me to stop Bad, Bad Things from happening - even if I wasn't sure I was the right person for the job.
But I had to try, for Nickamedes - especially when he was suffering because of me.
Ajax, Oliver, Alexei, and Carson were already grabbing their things, so I got up and did the same. At least, I tried to. I had to wait for Daphne to clear all five of her suitcases out of the way first.
Somehow, she had managed to pack a month's worth of clothes in the time we'd had to go back to our rooms and grab our gear before leaving the academy. All of her luggage was pink, of course. It matched the long, heavy coat, gloves, earmuffs, and boots she was wearing, not to mention the oversized patent leather purse hanging off her arm.
"I know I forgot something," Daphne muttered, opening and closing another one of her bags.
"The only things in your closet that you didn't pack were the hangers that everything was on," I sniped. "We're not going to be gone that long, you know."
"And I know that you should always pack for every possible situation," Daphne sniffed.
I rolled my eyes.
Finally, Daphne hoisted her bags out of the way with one hand, and I managed to grab my stuff, which had been buried under hers. I pulled Vic out of my messenger bag. The sword gave a loud, jaw-cracking yawn and opened his eye. Then, he started blinking rapidly and moving his mouth up and down and wiggling his jaw from side to side.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"What do you think I'm doing? I'm trying to pop my bloody ear," Vic said. "The change in altitude is killing me, I tell you. Killing me!"
I wanted to point out that the sword was the one who killed things, not the other way around, but I kept quiet. Finally, a minute later, something squeaked deep inside the metal, and Vic's face relaxed.
"There," he said. "All better. Now, time to take care of the jet lag. Wake me when there are Reapers to kill."
His purplish eye snapped shut. I thought about shaking him awake, so he'd be as cranky and sleep-deprived as I was, but I decided against it. I didn't want to listen to him complain all the way to . . . wherever it was we were going next.
I slid Vic back into my messenger bag, looped it across my chest, grabbed my duffel bag full of clothes, and plodded down the plane's stairs with the others.
The sun was just creeping up over the tops of the mountains, banishing the gray and lavender twilight that streaked across the sky. A bluish haze colored the Rockies themselves, softening the sharp edges of the tall, rugged peaks, before giving way to the snow that crowned the very tops of the mountains. My breath frosted in the air like a cloud of diamonds, and I suddenly realized how frigid it was, but the landscape was so beautiful that I didn't mind the cold.