Midnight Frost (6 page)

I don’t know how long I stood over Jason’s body, staring into his sightless eyes as if they would tell me something important.

As if they would actually let me understand why someone would willingly choose to serve a god who wanted to hurt, kill, and enslave other people. As if looking into his eyes would tell me why he’d sacrificed himself for such a horrible creature as Loki. Was it the power the evil god promised his followers? A desire to be as cruel as Loki himself was? Or something else entirely? I didn’t know, and I didn’t understand. I didn’t know if I would
ever
understand—or maybe I just didn’t want to.

“Gwen?” Oliver said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I let out a breath. “Yeah. We’re alive, and he’s not. I guess that’s all that matters, right?”

“Of course that’s all that matters,” Vic said. “Don’t you think so, fuzzball?”

Nyx let out a yippy growl, agreeing with him.

Oliver slung his arm around my shoulders, and I moved closer to him, glad he was here with me. After a moment, I stepped away from him and stared down at Jason’s body again.

“Do you think—do you think I should touch him?” I asked. “Before his memories completely fade away?”

Oliver shook his head and pointed at the red paper pouch in Jason’s hand. “No. We don’t know how that poison works or what other kind he might have on him. It could be on his skin, on his clothes. It’s not worth the risk. The Protectorate guards will look through his backpack and check out his phone and laptop. Hopefully, that will tell them exactly what he was up to and who he was working with. Maybe it will even give the Protectorate some leads on where Vivian and Agrona might be.”

“And what if that’s not enough?”

Oliver shrugged. “It’ll have to be—”

A phone started ringing. Oliver and I looked at each other, then at the dead boy. It was his phone. I hesitated, then dropped to my knees beside him.

“Gwen? What are you doing?” Oliver asked.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

I pulled down the edge of my hoodie sleeve and used it to fish Jason’s phone out of his jacket pocket, careful not to touch the phone with my bare fingers, before getting back up onto my feet. Still using my sleeve, I tapped the screen to accept the call and held the phone up close to my ear.

“Finally!” Vivian Holler’s voice filled my ear. “I was starting to think you were never going to pick up. Is it done yet?”

I didn’t know who I’d expected to be on the other end of the line, but hearing the Reaper girl’s voice startled me so much that I almost lost my grip on the phone. For one crazy moment, I wondered if this was some twisted new version of my nightmare. But it couldn’t be that—otherwise Logan would have been here, stabbing me to death again.

“Jason?” Vivian asked again. “Are you there? Did Gwen drink the poison?”

I finally found my voice. “So sorry to disappoint, Viv. But I’m not dead yet.”

Oliver’s eyebrows shot up in his face at the realization of who I was talking to.

But Vivian must have been just as surprised to hear my voice as I’d been to hear hers because she didn’t say anything. Instead, I heard a faint
rasp-rasp-rasping
sound. I frowned. It almost sounded like she was jogging across a lawn or something.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Vivian finally sniped. “Do me a favor, though. Put Jason on the phone. I want to tell him exactly what I plan to do to him for his failure to poison you.”

I stared down at his body. “That’s going to be a bit difficult, since he’s already dead.”

“Good,” she snarled. “You’ve saved me the trouble of killing him.”

I didn’t respond.

“Oh, come on, now, Gwen,” Vivian said. “Why are you looking so glum? You’ve managed to make it through another day. Even if Oliver is the one standing next to you, instead of your precious Logan.”

I whirled around, my gaze zooming from one side of the quad to the other. The streetlights along the cobblestone paths cast out golden glows, but shadows cloaked the rest of the area. Still, I knew Vivian was here somewhere—watching me. That was the only way she could have known Oliver was outside with me.

Oliver tapped me on the shoulder.
What’s wrong?
he mouthed. I shook my head. I didn’t want him darting off and trying to find Vivian. It would be all too easy for her to ambush him—and me too.

“Logan’s fine,” I said, trying to make my voice strong and confident. “He’s waiting inside the library for me right now.”

“Liar,” Vivian countered. “I know he’s not at Mythos anymore. In fact, I know
exactly
where he is—with Agrona and the rest of the Reapers. She captured him yesterday morning.”

Logan captured by the Reapers? It was my nightmare come true all over again. Still, I tried not to let her hear my panic.

“You’re lying.”

Vivian laughed. “Sure, go ahead and believe that. Whatever helps you sleep at night, Gwen. Anyway, I gotta go. Catch you later. Or maybe I should just say
kill you later
.”

She laughed again and hung up on me.

Once again, I searched the quad, looking for any movement in the shadows, but I still couldn’t spot her.

“Gwen?” Oliver asked. “Are you okay?”

I whirled around to face him. “Where’s Logan? Where is he
right now
?”

Oliver shrugged. “He’s with his dad. That’s all I really know. Why?”

I told him everything Vivian had said. Oliver listened, then shook his head.

“Relax, Gwen. Of course, she was lying. She was just trying to rattle you. I was texting with Logan earlier. There’s no way the Reapers have him.”

“But how can you be sure it’s really him?” I persisted.

“Because I can tell by his tone and the things we’re talking about. Stuff only Logan would know. So relax, okay? Vivian is just messing with your head. Logan is safe. Trust me.”

Oliver put his hands on my shoulders. Sincerity and surety blazed in his green eyes. After a moment, I forced myself to nod. He was right. Vivian was jerking my chain—nothing else.

Oliver bent down, picked up Nyx, and cradled her in the crook of his arm. She let out a happy yip and licked him on the cheek. He rubbed her head a moment before looking at me again.

“Now, come on,” he said. “There’s nothing else we can do here. We both know Vivian is long gone. So let’s go back inside, find Nickamedes, and tell him what happened.”

Oliver was right, but that didn’t keep me from searching the quad a final time for the Reaper girl before sighing and following him up the steps and back inside.

 

Oliver and I made it back to the main part of the library. Coach Ajax, Aiko, and a few other Protectorate guards had converged in the center of the room and were examining the part of the aisle where I’d fought the Reaper. Nickamedes stood behind the counter, talking on his phone. Ajax nodded his head at me and Oliver. We waved back at the big, burly coach.

Most of the students had cleared out, and the few who remained were gathering up their things. Helena Paxton shot me a pointed, nasty look as she picked up her book—the one I’d hit the Reaper with—from where I’d dropped it on the floor. I ignored her. I had other things to worry about right now—like why Jason had tried to poison me.

Okay, okay, so I knew
why
. Well, sort of. The Reapers wanted me dead because they had this strange idea that I was going to kill Loki—something that Nike believed, as well. If I was dead, then obviously I wouldn’t even get the chance to try to kill Loki—as if I even knew how I was supposed to do that in the first place.

No, what I really wondered was
why now
? Why here, tonight, in the library? Why had it suddenly become so important to murder me? But in the end, I supposed it didn’t really matter. Jason wasn’t the first Reaper who’d tried to kill me, and he wouldn’t be the last.

Still, I eyed my poisoned water bottle. It was sitting on the counter where Jason had left it. If I hadn’t been upset, if I hadn’t gone up to the second-floor balcony, if I hadn’t seen what he was doing, I might have picked up the bottle and chugged down the rest of the water before my psychometry kicked in. Then, I would have been as dead as Jason was. This wasn’t the first time I’d escaped death, but the knowledge that it could have just as easily been me lying outside on the quad made me shiver all the same.

Vic’s eye snapped open at the shuddering motion that swept through my body. I was still clutching the sword, and he looked at me, then at the water bottle.

“You fought well tonight, Gwen,” he said, picking up on my dark thoughts. “You did what you had to in order to survive—that’s all. And there was nothing you could have done to change that boy’s mind.”

“Vic’s right,” Oliver chimed in. “The Reaper made his choice—not you.”

Nyx let out a low, serious yip, agreeing with them. The wolf pup was still secure in the Spartan’s arms.

I shrugged. Maybe that was true, but it didn’t feel that way. Yes, I’d wanted to kill Jason, but now that he was gone, I just felt hollow and empty inside. A boy was dead because of me—but not in the way I’d expected.

Oh, I’d killed Reapers before in battle, and I’d even used my psychometry to pull all of the magic, all of the life, out of Preston Ashton so I could heal the mortal wound he’d given me. I’d done those things in the heat of the moment, because it had been them or me, and I’d just wanted to survive, like Vic had said. But this—this was different. Jason had free will, the same free will we all had, the same free will that Nike and Metis were always going on and on and
on
about. But I’d forced him to make a choice between surrendering or death—and he’d chosen death. I didn’t know if that made things better or worse, but right now, it felt like worse.

“Gwendolyn,” Nickamedes said, waving his hand at me. “Come here, please.”

I sighed and looked at Vic, then Oliver, then Nyx. “Great. Not only is that boy dead, but now I’m probably going to get another lecture from Nickamedes about ruining the peace and quiet of his precious library.”

Oliver grinned at me. “That does sort of seem to be your thing, Gypsy.”

I punched him in the shoulder as I passed. “Shut up, Spartan.”

I walked over to Nickamedes. He murmured something into his phone, then snapped it shut and put it down on the counter. He reached up and wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead, as though he were hot.

“I just got off the phone with Aurora,” he said, referring to Professor Metis. His voice took on a harsh, raspy note. “She’s on her way over here. What happened? What tipped you off that boy was a Reaper? And did you really have to chase him through the middle of the library?”

I sighed. There it was. The beginning of the lecture I knew was coming. There was nothing to do now but listen to him, so I went around the counter, slid Vic back into his scabbard, and propped the sword up next to Nyx’s basket.

Nickamedes drew in a breath. “Because I have to say that not only did you upset your fellow students, but you also . . .”

And it went on from there. How I’d disturbed the peaceful, studious atmosphere of the library. How I’d frightened the other students. How I’d put my classmates in jeopardy by chasing after the Reaper instead of quietly alerting someone that I suspected there was a bad guy in the library.

“And most important, you didn’t wait for me,” Nickamedes said. “I would have come and helped you if only you’d waited—”

The librarian stopped in mid-sentence. I kept staring down at the checkout counter, rubbing my thumb over a rough spot in the wood. I’d learned it was better to keep my mouth shut until Nickamedes got done lecturing me. To let him get it all out of his system at once. Like Daphne, his bark was almost always worse than his bite.

But instead of picking up his train of thought and telling me how reckless I’d been once again, Nickamedes stood there, still and silent. I tapped my finger on the counter, wanting him to get on with things. Because in addition to his lecture, I’d probably have to listen to several more, including one from Alexei. The Bogatyr would be upset that he hadn’t been around to protect me from Jason and his poisonous plot—

Nickamedes sucked in another breath. I thought he was finally going to start up his rant again, but once more, he didn’t say anything.

“Gwendolyn . . .” he finally said, his voice even harsher and raspier than before. “You’ll have to excuse me. I don’t feel . . . very well . . .”

My gaze flicked up to his face. I noticed more beads of sweat on his forehead, the ruddy flush in his cheeks, and the faint, upset gurgle of his stomach. His blue eyes seemed dull and unfocused, and he was swaying from side to side, as though he was having a hard time keeping his balance.

“Nickamedes?” I asked.

The librarian collapsed without another word.

 

“Nickamedes? Nickamedes!”

I rushed forward, and dropped to my knees beside the sick librarian.

“Nickamedes? What’s wrong? Are you okay—”

My gaze caught on a piece of plastic that had rolled underneath the counter—the bottle of water I’d slapped out of the librarian’s hand when I’d been chasing after Jason. The bottle was empty now, the water having pooled underneath the counter. A sick feeling filled my stomach, and I turned back to Nickamedes.

“The water,” I asked, leaning forward and shaking his shoulders to try to get him to talk to me. “Did you drink any of your water in the last few minutes?”

“I just . . . had a sip . . .” he mumbled, his head lolling to one side.

Poisoned—Nickamedes had been poisoned.

He must have taken a drink from his own spiked water bottle while I was running down to the first floor and through the stacks. I’d been so focused on trying to stop Jason that I’d never considered someone else—Nickamedes—might drink the poisoned water meant for me.