Jennifer Estep Bundle (74 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Estep

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I stepped behind the checkout counter and put my messenger bag in a slot underneath the long counter. I'd barely had time to sit down on the stool next to one of the computers when a door in the office complex squeaked open.
“You're late, Gwendolyn,” a low voice said. “Yet again.”
I rolled my eyes and swiveled around on the stool. Sure enough, Nickamedes stood behind me. The librarian had his arms crossed over his chest, and he was tapping his right fingers against his left elbow, a clear sign he was upset with me—again. But really, when wasn't he upset with me? I couldn't do anything right as far as Nickamedes was concerned, and I had no idea why.
I looked at the sundial-shaped clock that hung on the outermost glass wall. “No, I'm not. I'm right on time.”
Nickamedes pushed back the sleeve of his black sweater and looked at his own watch. “No, you're not. It's one minute past the top of the hour, which means that you are late.”
I rolled my eyes again. “One minute? Seriously? You're going to yell at me for being one minute late?”
The librarian's blue eyes narrowed. “It doesn't matter if it's one minute or one hour. Late is late, Gwendolyn. I suppose you were busy sneaking off campus so you could go see your grandmother, even though you know students aren't supposed to leave the academy grounds during the week.”
His snide tone grated on my nerves. Yeah, maybe that's what I usually did, but today I'd stayed at the academy, just like Grandma Frost had wanted me to. Even when I did what I was supposed to, I just couldn't catch a break where the librarian was concerned.
“Actually, I was walking around campus like a good little girl,” I snapped at him. “I didn't set one foot outside the walls today.”
A hand, yes. A foot, no. Although I wasn't about to mention that or Nott to the librarian.
Nickamedes arched his black eyebrows and gave me a sour look. He obviously didn't believe me.
I wanted to growl just like Nott. First, Daphne had gone off during lunch in her weird mood, then Professor Metis had bolted before I could talk to her, and now, Nickamedes was giving me grief over being one lousy minute late. I was so tired of people and their attitudes today, especially Nickamedes, who'd openly despised me from the first moment I'd stepped into the library.
All of my anger and frustration bubbled up, burning like acid in my chest, and I opened my mouth without really thinking about what I was doing.
“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked. “What did I ever do to you that was so terrible? I'd really like to know.”
For a moment, Nickamedes seemed shocked, like I wasn't supposed to notice how much he disliked me or how he went out of his way to needle me about every little thing. Please. Even if I didn't have my Gypsy gift, I still would have felt the cold anger that blasted off him whenever he set eyes on me, and it seemed like the librarian's hatred of me had only gotten worse since he'd seen me with Logan at the coliseum. It was like Logan's and my being friends—or whatever we were—made Nickamedes even more upset with me, for whatever reason. Like I'd gone out of my way to personally offend him or something.
Nickamedes stood there, staring at me, his lips pressed into a tight, thin line.
“Well?” I snapped. “Are you going to answer me? Or are you going to yell at me some more? Because I've got work to do, and I really don't have time for your mind games today.”
An angry flush blossomed in Nickamedes's pasty cheeks, but I saw something flicker in his cold eyes—something that looked a lot like sorrow. Like he'd lost something once upon a time and could never get it back, so he took his anger out on everyone else as a result. The librarian opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but at the last second, he clamped his lips shut. Nickamedes pivoted on his heel, stalked into the office complex, and slammed the door behind him so hard the glass rattled.
I sat there and watched him go into his office, sit down at his desk, and start shuffling papers around, pointedly ignoring me. It seemed like I'd actually gotten the best of the uptight librarian. For some reason, though, it didn't make me as happy as I'd thought it would.
Chapter 11
I put Nickamedes out of my mind and spent the next hour working. Checking out books, looking up info for other kids, helping them find the reference materials they needed to do their homework.
After about an hour, things slowed down enough for me to do what I really wanted to do tonight—start searching for the Helheim Dagger. I pulled the Reaper girl's map of the library out of my bag and spread it out on a shelf below the checkout counter, out of sight of any students walking by. I didn't want anyone to get too interested in what I was doing, especially since the other kids kept staring at me. That made me feel uncomfortable enough already. Besides, I was already something of a freak at Mythos. I didn't want to be known as Gwen Frost, that weird Gypsy girl who studied maps in her spare time.
I hadn't had much of a chance to look at the map since yesterday, so I spent about fifteen minutes just studying it, memorizing every single line, every little squiggle, every single smear of ink and odd, random crinkle. Thanks to my Gypsy gift, I never forgot anything I saw. Now, the map was in my head, and I'd be able to pull up the image of it whenever I wanted to, which would be way better than dragging the paper through the stacks as I searched for the dagger. Carrying a map around was a sure sign you were up to something, and I wanted to keep what I was doing under the radar.
Especially since I didn't know if there were any Reapers watching me tonight.
It wasn't out of the realm of possibility. In fact, I'd say the odds were pretty good that at least one Reaper was in the library, among all the Amazons, Romans, Vikings, and Valkyries. Given their failure to find the dagger at the coliseum, I was pretty sure the Reapers—whoever they really were—were out in full force this evening, especially since I'd seen way more students than usual slip into the stacks.
Of course, some of those kids were just going back there to find a quiet corner to do the nasty. At Mythos, doing the deed in the library was regarded as some kind of thrill. Whenever I dusted the books and artifact cases back in the stacks, I always found several used condoms. Yucko.
I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and concentrated on the map, especially the Xs that marked various spots in the library. Some of the places I recognized, like the cart that sold coffee, energy drinks, and sugary snacks to students so they didn't have to leave the library to get something to eat while they studied.
Raven, the old woman who'd overseen the collection of the students' bodies at the coliseum yesterday, also manned the coffee cart. I'd never really paid much attention to Raven before, but it seemed like she was everywhere I turned these days. White hair, white dress, wrinkles. Raven perched on a tall stool behind the cart, reading a celebrity tabloid and seeming to be completely engrossed in the gossip-filled pages. She didn't notice me staring at her, my narrowed gaze going from the bottles of syrup to the cups to the silver espresso machine squatting next to her elbow.
Still, no matter how strange Raven was, I didn't think the dagger was hidden in her cart with the blueberry muffins and granola bars, so I turned my attention back to the map.
Another X marked a spot on the main floor where a glass case had once stood holding the Bowl of Tears. I'd managed to use Vic to destroy the artifact, and the case was long gone, smashed to pieces by Jasmine when she'd first stolen the bowl.
The dagger wasn't hidden there either, so I moved on to the next X. One by one, I examined all the marks on the map, getting a little more disappointed and disheartened with each location. Either the Reaper girl wasn't as clever as I thought she was or there was something wrong with the map, because every single X was in a place where the dagger just
couldn't be
. Like the coffee cart or part of the floor that I knew was completely empty. Weird. Very weird. Why mark up a map with hiding spots that weren't really hiding spots to begin with?
I was just about to put the map aside as a lost cause when I realized there was a final X that I'd overlooked—one that marked a location on the second floor balcony. I looked up, trying to match the X on the map to the actual spot in the library. It took me several seconds to realize the X actually pointed to one of the statues, Sigyn, the Norse goddess of devotion—and Loki's wife.
Centuries ago, when Loki had first started making trouble and caused the death of Balder, the Norse god of light, the other gods had chained Loki up beneath a giant snake that continuously dripped venom onto his handsome face. The Bowl of Tears was what Sigyn had used to keep the venom off him as much as possible, even though it had spattered onto her too. But Sigyn had kept right on standing there, holding and emptying that bowl for years—until Loki had somehow tricked the goddess into helping him escape and then had left her behind.
At first, I'd thought Sigyn was kind of dumb for trying to help Loki for all those years, but now, I just felt sorry for her. All she'd done was love the guy. She wasn't responsible for his being such a monster. Still, Sigyn always seemed to get a bad rap in all the myth-history books. It was like people blamed her for Loki's getting loose and starting the Chaos War. I figured it wasn't her fault her husband turned out to be a psychotic criminal mastermind. Besides, Grandma Frost always told me that people made their own choices. I figured it was the same when it came to the gods.
I peered closer at the map. Sigyn's statue was in a part of the library on the second floor that I didn't go to all that often. It was bad enough the gryphons and other outside statues always seemed to stare at me—I didn't want to think that the figures of the gods were watching me, too.
Still, as I looked at the X, my heart started to pick up speed. Sigyn's statue was in a remote spot in the circular Pantheon, away from the stairs that led up to the second floor. It would be the perfect place to hide something like the Helheim Dagger. I doubted even Nickamedes went to that part of the library more than once or twice a year. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe the dagger was in the library after all. I'd love nothing more than to go up there, find the dagger's hiding spot, and show the librarian just how wrong he'd been—
“Are you Gwen?” a soft voice asked.
I looked up to find Vivian Holler standing in front of the checkout counter. Frizzy, auburn hair, pretty face, golden eyes. Vivian stood on her tiptoes, trying to peer over the counter and see what I was doing.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
I quickly folded half of the map on top of the other, hiding the squiggles from sight. “Nothing. Just some homework for myth-history. You know Professor Metis. She's always giving us something to do.”
“But you're Gwen, right? Gwen Frost?” Vivian asked. “The Gypsy girl?”
“Yeah, that's me. Gypsy girl extraordinaire. Can I help you? Do you need help finding a book or something?”
She shook her head. “Not a book, but I heard that you can find other items. Stuff that's been lost ... or maybe even stolen.”
“Yeah, I do that from time to time.”
Actually, more like twice a week, given the fact that the Mythos students went through cell phones like most people did tissues. Not to mention all the other things they lost, misplaced, or swiped from other students.
“What have you lost?”
“Or had stolen.” Vivian winced, as if she didn't like saying the words out loud or as if she might somehow make them true just by speaking them. The ugly thought was definitely at odds with her soft, sweet, melodic voice.
I raised my eyebrows. “Okay, what have you had stolen?”
She bit her lip. “Well, I don't know that it was
stolen
exactly. It's just that I'm usually really careful with my stuff, you know? I like to know where everything's at all the time.”
Okay, it sounded like Vivian had some neat-freak issues going on, but that was okay. So did I, from time to time.
“So what's gone missing?” I asked. “Cell phone, keys, your credit cards?”
She shook her head. “Nothing like that. You're going to think that it's silly, really, but I lost a ring. A very special ring.”
“What does this ring look like?” I asked. “Do you have a photo of it? And what's so special about it?”
These were the standard questions I asked every time someone wanted me to find a lost item. It helped if, you know, I actually knew exactly what I was looking for, instead of just some vague description like
a ring
or
my cell phone
or
my favorite black bra
. Most of the time, though, I ended up working blind, so to speak, since few people ever thought to take photos of the things they cherished, like jewelry. So I was pleasantly surprised when Vivian pulled her cell phone out of her purse and started scrolling through the pictures on it.
“Here,” she said. “Here it is.”
She turned the phone around so I could see the picture, and I leaned forward to get a better look. In the photo, Vivian had her arm around Savannah, and the two of them were smiling. Vivian was hugging the Amazon, and I could see a band on her right ring finger. It was a simple enough ring, made out of solid gold, although the band formed two small faces, one turned left and crying, the other turned right and laughing.
“The way you were talking about the ring, I figured it would have diamonds or something all over it, but that's a cool design. What is it?”
Centuries ago, the gods and goddesses on both sides of the Chaos War had rewarded their Champions and warriors with gold, silver, and jewels for their loyal service. Over the years, the warriors had kept the gravy train of wealthy going, investing and whatnot, which is why the Mythos students had parents who were so loaded and could afford to give their kids the very best of everything. Most of the kids at the academy, especially the girls, had more bling than Hollywood movie stars.
“Thanks,” Vivian said. “The design is theater masks from ancient times. Sometimes they're called Janus masks, after the Roman god. I have the ring because I'm in the drama club, just like my mom was when she went to Mythos.”
She blushed and dropped her head, almost like she thought I was going to make fun of her for telling me so much about herself. Daphne was right. Vivian was even more of a shy, insecure geek than I was. I wondered how someone so quiet could survive at a place like Mythos, where finding new ways to be mean and vicious was considered an art form.
“Well, I think it's cool you're in the drama club,” I said. “I like comic books, myself. You know, superheroes, villains, that sort of thing. I like how the good guys always win at the end of the story.”
“Cool.”
Vivian gave me a small smile, which I returned.
“So what happens now?” she asked. “Do I pay you before you find the ring? Or after?”
“I charge a retainer of a hundred bucks,” I said. “You can give that to me tomorrow afternoon, when I come over to your dorm room and start looking for the ring. If I find it, you owe me another hundred bucks. But if I can't find it, I give you the hundred bucks back. Does that sound fair?”
She nodded, then frowned. “But I already looked in my dorm room. I looked everywhere for the ring. Trust me. I pretty much tore my room apart searching for it.”
“I'm sure you did,” I said. “But I have my own special way of tracking down stuff. So I need to look in your room first, okay?”
I didn't tell her about my psychometry or about how I planned to walk around her room tomorrow, touch stuff, and see what kind of vibes I got off her things. I'd learned it was better to keep information like that on a need-to-know basis, especially now that I was Nike's Champion. Grandma Frost had told me that being a Champion was like having a target painted on your back, and I was already feeling shaky enough, thanks to the Reaper attack.
Vivian frowned. “Well, okay, I guess it couldn't hurt to look in my room again.”
“Great,” I said. “When do you want me to come over?”
We made plans to meet in her dorm, Valhalla Hall, after sixth period tomorrow. Then, Vivian gave me another shy smile and headed back to the table she'd been sitting at with Savannah and Talia. The three friends packed up their books and left the library, although Savannah stopped long enough to give me a nasty look on her way out the door. I sighed. I wished the Amazon would just chill about the whole Logan situation already.
But there was nothing I could do that would get Savannah to give me a break, and I had more important matters to think about anyway—namely, where the Helheim Dagger might be hidden. So I unfolded the Reaper girl's map and started studying it again, wondering if I'd overlooked anything that might lead me to the dagger.

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