Preston and the Reaper girl. They'd come here just like I'd thought they would.
"I'll admit I'm not as young as I used to be, but I was holding my own," Grandma said. "But then, the Reaper girl tried to use her mind tricks on me."
I frowned. "What mind tricks?"
"She tried to confuse me, make me see things that weren't really there," Grandma Frost said. "She even tried to force her way into my mind and make me freeze up so that I'd stop fighting back. She had a lot of tricks, and she was strong in her magic. As strong as anyone I've ever seen with that kind of mental power."
I frowned. Mental power? The Reaper girl had some kind of mental magic?
"I was weakening, but then your friend there"-Grandma gestured at Nott-"came running into the kitchen. Well, the boy in the orange jumpsuit and the Reaper girl left lickety-split after that. Not even Reapers want to take on a Fenrir wolf."
"Good girl," I murmured, rubbing Nott's ears.
The wolf sighed with pleasure. Sometimes I thought she would have let me pet her forever. No wonder. Preston had never done anything but beat and whip Nott while she'd been in his control. I knew. I'd seen his memories of the wolf and all the horrible things he'd done to her.
"So now what?" Oliver asked. "Because I assume you don't want a dead body sitting in your kitchen for the rest of the day."
Grandma looked over at the Reaper's body. The man's boots just peeked out from under the edge of the white sheet. "Now, we call Aurora," she said. "And tell her what happened."
Grandma called the academy, and Metis, Nickamedes, and Coach Ajax arrived about thirty minutes later, along with several men and woman wearing black coveralls. I half expected Raven to show up as well, but she didn't appear. Maybe if she'd been in the prison like usual, then Preston wouldn't have escaped and come after my grandma. Maybe if Metis had stayed there with me, we would have been able to capture the Reaper girl, too. I didn't know who I was angrier at right now-Preston and the Reaper girl for escaping, or Raven and Metis for not being around when I needed them.
Right before they arrived, I took Nott outside and put her in the garage behind the house. I didn't know how Metis and the others would react to seeing the Fenrir wolf, and I didn't want them to hurt her or try to take her away. Grandma agreed with me since Nott had helped save her life, too. She gave me some blankets and a bucket of water, all of which Oliver carried to the garage for me. The Spartan went back inside the house while I put the soft fleece down on the concrete floor, trying to make Nott as comfortable as possible.
When I finished, the wolf plopped down on the blankets and let out a long sigh. Her ears drooped, and her rust-colored eyes were dimmer than usual. She seemed tired. I ran my fingers over her body and reached out with my psychometry, wondering if she had an injury we'd overlooked, but the wolf was fine. I could feel that running down the mountain had worn her out, but for the first time, I got the sense that something else was wrong with her-something more than just being exhausted. It almost seemed like something was eating away at the wolf from the inside, sapping all her strength. I reached out with my Gypsy gift again, but I just couldn't figure out what it was.
So I spent a few minutes petting Nott, then slipped back inside.
While the people in the coveralls cleaned up the mess in the front of the house, the rest of us gathered in the kitchen. Metis used her magic to heal the injuries Grandma Frost and I had gotten fighting the Reapers. When the professor finished with us, Ajax drew back the sheet, revealing the dead guy's face. I didn't recognize him, and to my surprise, he hadn't been wearing a Reaper mask. Probably because Preston and the Reaper girl had thought my grandma wouldn't be around to tell anyone what the guy looked like. The thought made my heart clench with fear.
I stared down at the dead guy. After a moment, I frowned. Something was nagging at me. Something about the Reaper girl and her mask, something she'd said or done in the memory I'd seen of her looking at the map of the Library of Antiquities. I used my psychometry to reach for the memory. The Reaper girl staring at the map, talking to the man beside her about the Helheim Dagger, all the creepy paintings and carvings of Black rocs in the room with them. I played the images over and over again in my head, but I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong with them.
"Gwen?" Metis asked. "Do you think you could see what you can get from the dead man? It might be useful. He might know where Preston was heading or who the Reaper girl really is."
Surprised, I looked at her. "You want me to touch the dead guy? Why? You didn't ask me to touch any of the dead Reapers at the coliseum."
Metis glanced at Ajax and Nickamedes. "We thought about asking you to do it then too, but we didn't want to put you through that when you'd just seen your classmates die. But now ..."
"Now we don't have a choice. Not if we want to find Preston and the Reaper girl before they hurt anyone else," I said in a bitter tone.
Metis nodded. "When I left the prison to return the call I got, nobody picked up. I think the Reaper girl was the one who phoned to lure me away from the prison so she could free Preston. We need to know what they're planning and where they may be going next, and you're our best hope of getting that information at this moment."
I knew her request was perfectly reasonable, but that still didn't make it any easier. If there was even the smallest chance of catching Preston and the Reaper girl, then I had to use my magic to try and find out what I could, even if it meant touching a dead man. I wanted the two of them captured and locked away-for good this time. So I drew in a breath, leaned down, and took the dead man's hand in mine.
The images and feelings flooded my mind, the way they always did.
I'd never touched a dead person before, but I got the sense that all the memories and feelings associated with this man were quickly fading away, right along with the warmth of his body. Try as I might, I could only see and feel what the Reaper had experienced during his last few minutes. The rest of him was already gone. So I focused on the last memory I could see-the three Reapers sitting in a car.
"Are you sure about this?" the dead man asked, staring across the street at my grandma's house. "I mean, this broad might be old, but she used to be a Champion. Nike's Champion. You know how much trouble they've given us over the years."
"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.
Then, finally, I saw the gryphons, the ones guarding the entrance to the library. They stared straight at me like usual, but instead of being stone, their eyes were red-Reaper red. I watched, horrified, as the statues began to move. One of them, the right one, hopped down from its perch and began to slowly stalk toward me-
I woke up in a cold sweat, thrashing at the covers that had twisted around my body like a snake curling around its victim. After a few seconds, I realized I was awake and that the gryphons, the rocs, and all the rest of it had just been a dream. Just a bloody dream, as Vic would say. I looked over at the nightstand where I'd propped up the sword. Vic's eye was closed, and his mouth was loose and slack. A series of soft mumbles sounded, telling me he was asleep.