"Daphne! Carson!"
I yelled, screamed, and pounded on the glass, but they didn't hear me. They were too caught up in each other for that. I'd have to make them hear me. Frantic now, I looked around. A study table was tucked in next to the window, along with a wooden chair. I picked up the chair and slammed it into the window.
The glass erupted with a roar.
Whatever magic Jasmine had, she hadn't thought to use it to completely secure the windows, only the doors. So the chair shattered several panes of glass, leaving behind a jagged hole just above my head. I would have hoisted myself up and crawled out it, if there hadn't been a couple of iron bars in the way. So I stood on my tiptoes and got as close to the glinting shards as I dared.
"Daphne!" I screamed as loud as I could. "In here!"
My voice echoed through the quad. Daphne and Carson froze, and their heads snapped in this direction.
I waved at them, but I couldn't tell if they saw me or not. Something whistled behind me, and I ducked. Jasmine's sword slammed into the iron bars, throwing red sparks everywhere. I turned to stare at her. Jasmine had a wild look to her now. Her blond hair streamed down her face, and her once-blue eyes glowed that same eerie red that the prowler's did. Creepy.
"Stand still so I can chop off your head," she muttered.
Jasmine swung the sword at me again, and I ducked back out of the way. Again and again, she came at me, swinging the blade, but every time I managed to avoid it. Maybe some of the gym class training had sunk in after all, because I couldn't believe that I was still alive.
On her next pass, Jasmine's sword slammed into one of the bookcases and got stuck in the thick wood. Cursing, she wrapped her hands around the hilt and tried to pull it out. Since she wasn't focused on me, I ran around behind the bookshelf and rammed my shoulder into it as hard as I could.
"C'mon," I muttered, and pushed again and again, finally managing to rock it back and forth. "C'mon! C'mon!"
I gave it a final, vicious shove. With a loud, unhappy creak, the bookshelf tipped over. A second later, it landed on top of the Valkyrie, burying her under hundreds of books.
For a moment, all I could hear was the sound of my own raspy, panicked breathing and the thumping rush of blood in my ears. Then, Jasmine let out another evil laugh.
"You forgot that I'm a Valkyrie, Gypsy," she said. "I'm strong, much stronger than you are. This will only slow me down. It won't stop me from killing you. Nothing can do that now."
The heavy case began to shift back and forth, as Jasmine wiggled her way out from under it and the mountain of books I'd buried her in. I backed up, wondering what I could do now to stop her. There was nowhere to run, not really, not since I couldn't get out of the library, and it was only a matter of time before Jasmine wormed free.
I didn't know what was going on with Logan and the prowler, but I could still hear the creature yowling, which meant it wasn't dead yet. Even if Logan could kill it without dying himself, I wondered if he could defeat Jasmine, too, because she'd had the same warrior training that he'd had and if the prowler injured him, he'd be at a serious disadvantage.
I bit my lip and looked around, trying to stay calm, trying to think what my mom would do in this situation. Okay, so maybe my mom had never gone up against a crazed Valkyrie who wanted to sacrifice her slutty best friend to an evil god, but she had faced plenty of bad guys while she'd been a detective. I remembered watching her come home sometimes, take her gun off her belt, and-
My eyes narrowed. Of course. I needed a weapon.
Not that I knew how to really use a weapon of any sort, but it was better than running away from Jasmine or, worse, letting her hack me into little pieces with her sword.
My bare feet seemed to move of their own accord, and I raced back into the stacks. I didn't even really think about where I was going until I skidded to a halt in front of the glass case.
The Case-the one with the strange sword in it.
I fumbled with the clasp, hoping that it wouldn't be locked or magically sealed. To my surprise, it opened immediately and I didn't get any unwanted vibes off it. I threw back the top of The Case, reached for the sword-and stopped. I didn't know exactly what would happen if I picked it up. What kind of flashes or vibes that I might get off it. But I knew that it would be something-something big. Something that would change my life forever.
Behind me, there was an enormous roar, and Jasmine's laughter filled the library once more. She'd gotten free of the bookcase. If I didn't pick up the sword, the rest of my life was going to be short. Very, very short.
"Gypsy," Jasmine hissed, her voice echoing over to me. "I'm going to enjoy killing you."
Quick footsteps sounded, running in my direction. Time was up, so I reached down into The Case and grabbed the sword.
Chapter 22
As soon as my fingers brushed the hilt, the eye snapped open and regarded me with its gray-purple gaze once more.
"Gypsy," an old, crusty voice seemed to murmur in my head. "At last. "
Okay, so apparently it talked, too. Supercreepy, but I was too far gone now to care. My fingers closed all the way around the hilt, and I yanked the sword out of The Case. The way the hilt was designed, my hand covered the lower half of the man's face-from the mouth down. His nose hooked over my hand, a wrist guard, I think it was called, with the open eye clearly visible above that-the eye that was still staring at me. For a moment, nothing happened.
And then, the emotions hit me.
The sword was old-ancient even-in the way the Bowl of Tears was. So many things flashed through my mind. So many images. Battles, mostly. Hundreds, thousands of them, all happening in a single second. Big, small, quiet, loud. I smelled smoke and blood. Heard screams of rage and pain. Felt other swords, other blades, slicing into my own skin in a way that made me cry out in pain and completely furious at the same time.
I couldn't do anything but stand there and see the images and ride the waves of emotions pouring through me. I couldn't have let go of the sword even if I'd wanted to. After a second, the images slowed down enough for me to make some sense of them. I realized that I was watching battles from throughout history. Different times, different places, different enemies. Clothes, weapons, armor, people. They all changed, becoming more and more modern with every passing fight.
But one thing was the same in every image-in every battle, a woman wielded the sword. One after another, their faces flashed through my mind, almost too fast for me to follow. But I felt them, felt their emotions, felt all the things they had felt when they'd been wielding the sword. Pride. Power. Fear. Anger. And most of all, a sense of duty and honor.
There were gaps, too, times when the sword wasn't in the images, when it was just the women, one after another, being born, growing up, having daughters of their own, growing old, and finally dying. The images skipped on from one to the next, and I got the sense that this was a long, unbroken chain of women stretching back to the time when the gods themselves walked the earth.
Among the images, I saw a familiar face-Grandma Frost. Her features flickered before me for an instant, before they were replaced by another face-my mom's face.
"Mom?" I whispered.
Grace Frost smiled at me, and her mouth opened, almost as if she was trying to say something to me.
"Mom!" I stretched out my hand to her, as if I could somehow reach into the vision and touch her.
And I felt myself falling, falling, falling....
With a gasp, my eyes snapped open, and I found myself standing in the middle of the Library of Antiquities, in the spot where the glass case that had once held the Bowl of Tears had been. I still had the sword in my hand, and I whirled around, looking for the others.
They weren't here.
There was no Jasmine coming to kill me. No Morgan lying on the table looking at nothing. No Logan fighting off a Nemean prowler. It was just me in the library-alone.
"Hello?" I called out. "Is-is anyone here?"
My voice echoed through the library, a frightened lonely little sound that seemed to stretch on forever-
"Hello, Gwendolyn," a soft voice murmured.
I bit back a scream and turned around. A woman stood behind me, right in front of the closed double doors. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about her. Average height, slender, but with some muscle on her. Her hair fell to her shoulders in soft brown ringlets that seemed to shimmer with a metallic bronze sheen. She wore a gown that reminded me of a toga-long flowing fabric in a sweet lilac color. A silver belt looped around her waist, and some kind of silver flowers ringed her head like a crown. Laurels, I thought, wondering how I even knew that to start with.
But the more I stared at her, the more I realized that she was simply the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Not because her features were beautiful, but because there was an aura about her, a presence, a sense of peace and serenity and eternity. For some reason, it comforted me, even now, when I probably should have been screaming my head off at all the weirdness that had happened in the last hour. In the last freaking minute.
The woman walked closer to me, her gown flowing around her body like water. For the first time, I noticed that she had a set of soft, feathery wings attached to her back, kind of what I'd always thought an angel's would look like. Was I dead? Was this some sort of heaven?
The winged woman stopped in front of me and regarded me with eyes that were neither gray nor purple but the soft shade of twilight in between.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
She tilted her head to the side and smiled. "I think you know."
And suddenly I did. The knowledge filled my mind. I'd seen her picture before in my myth-history books and had heard Professor Metis talk about her. I'd even seen her statue in this very library. I looked up at the spot on the second floor where the marble statue always stood, but it was gone. Maybe because she was standing in front of me.
"You're Nike, the Greek goddess of victory," I said in a small voice.
She nodded. "That's right. And you are Gwendolyn Frost, daughter of Grace Frost, granddaughter of Geraldine Frost, and so on and so forth."
"You know my mom? And my grandma?"
A mysterious smile curved Nike's lips. "I know all of your ancestors, Gwendolyn. The women in your family have served me since time itself began."
Okay, I felt like my head was going to explode. I mean, here I was, talking to a goddess. A real goddess. And not just any goddess, but Nike, the kick-ass chick who'd defeated Loki and pretty much saved the world from destruction. And she knew me and all about my family. Yeah, my brain was definitely exploding inside my skull.
"Um ... should I bow or something?" I asked, feeling like I was standing outside of myself, like this was all happening to another person. "Because I didn't pay attention in myth-history class, so I really don't know the proper etiquette for the whole talking-to-a-goddess thing. Sorry."
Nike's smile widened. "No, Gwendolyn, you don't have to bow to me. But we do need to talk about some things."
"Like what?"
She nodded at the sword in my hand. "Like that."
I realized that I was still holding the sword. I held it up. The single gray-purple eye regarded me with a skeptical gaze.
"I don't know about this, goddess," the sword said. "She doesn't look like much to me."
I felt the cold, metal mouth move underneath my palm, tickling my skin. I shrieked and dropped the sword. The weapon clanged to the ground.
"Oh, bloody hell," the sword grumbled, its face on the marble floor. "She can't even hang on to me."
"This is Vic," the goddess said, bending down to pick up the weapon. She rubbed at a spot on the blade just above the hilt. "He's going to help you face what's ahead, the danger that's coming."
Danger? I didn't like the sound of that. A minute ago, I'd been in plenty of danger already, what with Jasmine trying to kill me and everything.
Vic almost seemed to preen under the goddess's gentle touch, like he was her favorite pet that she was giving all of her love and attention to.
"You know about the Chaos, don't you, Gwendolyn?" Nike asked in a soft voice. "About Loki and his Reapers?"
I nodded.
"Well, Loki is closer to returning to your world, to the moral realm, than anyone thinks. His prison is weakening, and his followers are gathering strength every day. Which is where you come in, Gwendolyn. You're going to help me fight the Reapers and keep Loki from plunging the world into a second Chaos War."
"Me?" I squeaked.
Nike nodded. "You, Gwendolyn Frost. For thousands of years, the women of your family have served me, acting as my Champions, helping me keep the order of things, helping me keep the world balanced between good and evil, between victory and defeat."
I remembered what Daphne had said about Champions, how they were people chosen by the gods. To help other people.
To be heroes.
I thought of the images that I'd just seen of all the women and all the battles over the years. I was a part of that? It didn't seem possible. It just didn't seem right, much less real. Sure, my Grandma Frost was the strongest person I knew, and my mom had been the same way before she'd died. But me? Not so much. I couldn't even make any friends at Mythos, and I wasn't some great warrior like the other kids were.
"Why me?" I asked. "I'm not like the other kids here. I'm nobody."
I winced as I repeated what Jasmine had said to me moments ago in the library, the real library. Or wait, maybe this was the real library now? My head definitely hurt.
"You're not nobody," Nike said in a sharp tone. "You are Gwendolyn Frost, and you are my Champion."