Dark Frost (Mythos Academy #3)(43)
Author: Jennifer Estep

"Relax, Stuart," Preston sneered in a confident voice. "There’s no way one old lady will be able to take out three Reapers, especially since we’ve got the element of surprise on our side."

Preston turned around to look at the Reaper girl sitting in the backseat. I couldn’t see her face because of the mask she wore, but a spark of red flashed in her eyes through the slits in the rubber.

"You’ve been awfully quiet back there," Preston said. "What are you? Scared?"

The Reaper girl tapped her finger on her lips. Well, okay, they weren’t really her lips, but Loki’s melted ones. The motion caused something gold to glint around her finger, something that had a familiar shape-

"No, I’m not scared," she said in a low, throaty voice. "But perhaps it would do you good to be a little more careful, Preston. After all, you’re the one who’s spent the last few weeks locked up because of Nike’s Champion."

"That Gypsy bitch," Preston snarled. "You should have let me kill her in the prison."

The Reaper girl shook her head. "We stick to the plan, remember? We’re only here because you’re so determined to kill the grandmother, and it doesn’t interfere with anything else. If you knew what was smart, you’d go straight to the safe house like I told you to."

The girl’s tone was casual, but there was no mistaking the authority and power in her voice or the fact that she was the one in charge. Preston shrank back a little in his seat.

"No," he said. "Not until I keep my promise to Gwen. That Gypsy has spent the last few weeks digging through my brain. I’m going to hurt her where she’ll feel it the most. So let’s go."

Preston opened the car door and headed toward the house. The others followed him. After that, the dead man’s memories grew more and more disjointed. There was a blur of movement, the shatter of breaking glass, and then finally, a bright, agonizing flash of pain as Grandma Frost stabbed the Reaper with her sword. After that, the world slowly faded to black until there was nothing else to see or feel-and no more secrets left to discover.

I let out a breath and opened my eyes. The others stared at me, their faces tight with concern and questions. I let Grandma Frost help me up and then I fell into a chair and slumped over the kitchen table.

"Did you get anything?" Ajax asked in his deep, rumbly voice.

I shook my head. "Not much. I only got a few snatches of conversation, mostly Preston and the Reaper girl sniping at each other, although she did mention something about a safe house. Do you think they’re still in the area?"

Nickamedes nodded his head. "It’s likely. It’s only been a few hours, so the Reapers probably haven’t had a chance to smuggle Preston out of the country yet so he can be reunited with his parents, wherever they’re hiding."

Metis, Nickamedes, and Ajax started talking, with Oliver and Grandma Frost chiming in, about where the Reapers might be hiding Preston and what their next move would be to get him to safety.

Maybe it was wrong, but I felt like everything that had happened so far had gone exactly the way the Reapers had wanted it to. Sure, the Reaper girl had dropped the map at the museum, so we knew the Helheim Dagger was hidden in the library, but other than that, we had nothing. Several kids had been killed at the coliseum, I hadn’t found the dagger, and now Preston had escaped and was free to terrorize people once more. I’d say it was Reapers 100, Gwen 0.

And it didn’t look like the score was going to change anytime soon.

Chapter 18

By the time we straightened up Grandma Frost’s house and put everything back in some semblance of order, it was after dark. Metis tried to get me to go back to the academy, but I refused, wanting to stay with my grandma for the night. Grandma said that she didn’t see Preston and the Reaper girl coming back, according to her psychic visions, but I couldn’t shake the feeling they might try to hurt her again, so I stayed, along with Nott, who was still hidden in the garage. Metis also said that she’d post a few guards-the men and women in the coveralls-outside on the street to keep an eye on things.

Several hours later, Grandma came up to my room to tuck me in for the night. I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling and brooding.

"Uh-oh," Grandma said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I know that look. What’s wrong, pumpkin?"

I sighed. "There was something else, something else I saw when I touched the dead man earlier today, something I didn’t tell the others."

Grandma nodded. "I thought as much, given how quiet you were after that. What did you see, Gwen? You can tell me. You can tell me anything."

I rolled over onto my side to look at her. "When I was fighting the Reaper girl in the academy prison, she had a chance to kill me-but she didn’t. In the memory I saw of her, she told Preston that she didn’t kill me because the Reapers have some sort of plan. What do you think it could be? Do you-do you think it involves me somehow? Because I would never help them. Never. But what she said scares me just the same."

Grandma Frost reached down and threaded her fingers through mine, but for once, the warmth of her touch didn’t soothe me. "I know you would never willingly help the Reapers, pumpkin," she said. "There’s no telling what that girl meant. She could have just been showing off for Preston."

"But I feel like it’s important," I insisted. "Like I’m missing something obvious about everything that’s going on. It’s like I have all the pieces of the puzzle, but they just won’t fit together, no matter how hard I try to make them."

"I know, pumpkin. Sometimes I feel that way about my visions, especially when I only see a part of someone’s future. You’ll figure it out," Grandma said. "The answer will come to you in time. I have faith in you, and your mom and Nike do, too. Never forget that."

She kissed my cheek, and the familiar softness of her love washed over me again. "Now, try to get some sleep," Grandma said and left the room.

Even though I didn’t really think I could sleep, I did as she asked and snuggled deeper under the covers. I supposed I was just as exhausted as Nott because I was asleep in minutes.

A jumble of images filled my mind, everything and everyone I’d seen over the last few days. Sometimes my mind went all wonky like that, as my brain struggled to process all the information my Gypsy gift downloaded on a daily basis.

The attack at the coliseum. The Reaper girl and the flash of red in her eyes. The feel of Vic in my hands and the sound of the sword snarling as I used him to battle the Reapers. The cruel whispers in the library and the horrible, aching sensation of fingers digging into my mind. All the images of Black rocs I’d seen in the Reaper girl’s living room suddenly transforming into the real creatures, taking flight, and throwing themselves at me, pecking at me with their sharp beaks, suffocating me with their thick, black wings.