“Sure! That would be great!”
At this point, I didn’t care if Lance was a Reaper and might be luring me into a trap. I just wanted to get away from the crowds and the thumping music that was rapidly giving me a migraine.
Lance and I went up the stairs to the third and top floor of the mansion. It was much quieter up here, and I could finally hear myself think again, as well as the others murmuring updates in my ear.
“That’s it, Rory,” Takeda said. “Keep Lance busy. Ian and Zoe have found a wall safe in a library on the second floor. We think that’s where the chimera scepter is. Zoe is working on opening the safe right now.”
Takeda stopped talking, but Zoe’s voice sounded. She was muttering to Ian, telling him what tools to pull out of her purse. I blocked her out and focused on Lance again.
He led me to a pair of open double doors at the end of the hallway, and we stepped into an enormous office. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases took up one wall, filled with the same sorts of old, thick, leather-bound books that were in the Library of Antiquities. Gold-framed paintings of famous mythological battles hung on another wall, along with more than two dozen swords, daggers, and other weapons. A wet bar stood in the corner, while an antique desk sat in the back of the room. Behind the desk, a couple of glass doors led out to another stone patio that overlooked the pool.
“This is my dad’s office, but he won’t mind us borrowing it,” Lance said. “He’s on a trip, of sorts.”
His calm, matter-of-fact tone made a cold finger of unease slide down my spine, especially since I knew that his dad had been killed by the Protectorate. What kind of game was Lance playing? I didn’t know, but I was getting a sinking feeling that the others were right about him being a Reaper.
Lance shut the office doors, then walked over to the bar, grabbed a bottle of Scotch, and held it out to me. “You want some?”
“I told you already—I don’t drink.”
“Afraid it might interfere with your Spartan killer instincts?” A faint sneering note crept into his voice.
“Something like that.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Lance put the bottle down and leaned back against the bar. I wandered around the room, looking at the weapons on the walls. No identification cards hung next to the swords, but they were all finely made, with fancy jeweled hilts and sharp, polished blades. I wondered if any of them were the weapons Lance’s dad had stolen from the Protectorate warehouse, but there was no way to tell.
“Rory,” Takeda murmured through my earbud again. “There aren’t any cameras in that office, so we can’t see you. Say something and let me know that you’re okay.”
I stopped in front of a bronze sword and pretended to admire it. “Your dad has a really cool weapons collection.”
“I guess. I’m not into weapons myself,” Lance said. “I like artifacts much better. What about you, Rory? Do you like artifacts?”
My back was to him, so he didn’t see my eyes widen. I blinked away my surprise, schooled my face into a neutral expression, and turned to face him.
“Artifacts?” I shrugged. “They’re okay, I guess. I’ve never really had much to do with them.”
Lance’s gaze sharpened, as though he’d caught me in a lie. “Really? I find that hard to believe, since your parents were such bigtime Reaper assassins. Surely they must have stolen some artifacts too.”
Shock rippled through me. Why was he talking about my parents? Especially about them stealing artifacts? Once again, I got the feeling that Lance was fishing for information. That sinking feeling in my stomach intensified. The only reason he would be doing that, the only reason he would be asking me these kinds of questions, was if he was a Reaper himself.
I wasn’t surprised. Not really. Not after everything Takeda and the others had told me about Lance wanting revenge for his dad’s death. But disappointment filled me all the same. I had liked him so much last year, but now he was a bad guy. Or maybe he had always been a bad guy, and I had been crushing on him too hard to see the truth until now. Either way, I was sick and tired of Reapers and all their stupid mind games.
“Well, Rory?” Lance asked again. “Do you think your parents ever stole any artifacts?”
His snide tone burned away my disappointment and made anger sizzle through me instead. I crossed my arms over my chest. “I didn’t know anything about my parents being Reapers. Not that that’s any of your business.”
Lance held up his hands in apology. “You’re taking this the wrong way. I didn’t mean it as an insult. Just the opposite. I think it’s really interesting that your parents were Reapers.”
“And why is that?”
“Haven’t you ever thought about what it would be like? To be a Reaper?”
I frowned. “Of course not. Why would I think about something like that?”
“Why wouldn’t you think about something like that?” His blue eyes glittered with a strange, bright light. “I mean, surely there were hints that your parents were Reapers. Didn’t you ever suspect them?”
I shifted on my feet. “No. I never suspected them. I never had a clue.”
And I really hadn’t. Rebecca and Tyson Forseti had been my mom and dad, the parents I loved, the warriors I had strived so hard to be like. I had never suspected they were anything else, and I had never dreamed in my darkest nightmares that they were Reapers. But apparently, being Reapers had been more important to my parents than anything else, including me, since they’d never told me anything about it. Not one single word.
And what had being Reapers gotten them in the end? Nothing but dead, dead, dead, and me with a broken heart, desperately trying to understand why they’d done so many terrible things. That made me angrier than anything else—that I would never get the chance to ask them why.
More and more anger surged through my body, like matches flaring to life, but they burned out just as quickly, replaced by that familiar combination of guilt, shame, and embarrassment. Once again, that icy frost coated my heart, numbing me from the inside out. This time, I welcomed the chill. I didn’t want to feel the sharp sting of my parents’ betrayal. Not again. And especially not now, when I was facing a dangerous enemy.
Lance pushed away from the bar, walked over, and stopped right in front of me. “Ever since I found out about your parents, I’ve been thinking a lot about you, Rory.”
As far as pickup lines went, that was the worst one ever. What kind of sick game was Lance playing? Was he trying to upset me so that he could attack me by surprise? He didn’t seem to be carrying any weapons, but I still dropped my hand to Babs’s hilt.
“Really? Why? Have you been planning how you can mock me like all the other academy kids?” I snarked. “Well, don’t bother. They all did a bang-up job of it last school year, and they’re doing the exact same thing again this year. They’ve made an art form out of it.”
He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. In fact, I admire your parents for being Reapers.”
Of course he did, since he was a Reaper himself. As much as I would have liked to punch Lance in the face for talking about my parents, I forced myself to focus on the others murmuring updates through our earbuds. Zoe and Ian were still trying to open that safe to get the chimera scepter, which meant that I needed to keep Lance busy for at least a few more minutes.
So I decided to play dumb. “Why would you admire my parents? Reapers are evil. They hurt and kill other people. Reapers used to do those things in service to Loki, but now I suppose they do them just because they can, just because they want to, just because they like hurting other people.”
Excitement sparked in Lance’s gaze, and he snapped his fingers. “Exactly! That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I always thought it was stupid that the Reapers worked so long and hard to serve an exiled god. I was actually glad when Gwen Frost and her friends defeated Loki and locked him away for good. Who is Loki to tell us what to do? Why should he rule us? Why shouldn’t we be the ones to rule
this world and everyone in it, including the regular mortals?”
“What are you talking about?” I wasn’t playing dumb anymore. Now I was genuinely confused by all the riddles and nonsense that he kept spouting.
“I’m talking about the Reapers doing what they should have done all along, taking control of things, not for Loki or some other god but for themselves.”
Lance grinned at me and stepped forward. I wrapped my fingers around Babs’s hilt and moved to the side, thinking that he was going to attack me, but he walked past me, went to the desk in the back of the office, and opened one of the drawers. Lance started digging through the junk inside, tossing pens, pencils, paper clips, and more onto the top of the desk.
I listened to the others, but Zoe and Ian were still trying to get inside that safe. I opened my mouth to ask Takeda and Mateo if they were seeing Lance’s sudden freak-out, but then I remembered that the office didn’t have any security cameras. So I focused on Lance again, ready to yank Babs free from her scabbard if he pulled a dagger or some other weapon out of that drawer. But he only yanked out a wad of papers, tossed them on top of the desk with the rest of the mess, and kept digging.
Several long, slender pieces of paper slipped off the side of the desk and landed on the floor. I frowned. Those looked like…tickets.
I sidled a little closer and squinted at the black type. They were tickets—more than half a dozen tickets to the Fall Costume Ball this weekend. The annual ball always kicked off the academy’s school year and social events. But why would Lance have so many tickets to it? Weird.
He didn’t notice that the tickets had fallen to the floor, and he kept right on digging through that desk drawer.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “What are looking for?”
“There’s something I want to show you,” Lance said. “Something that will explain everything. Ah, there it is.”
He grabbed a final item from the drawer and straightened up. He smiled at me, came around the desk, and raised his hand. A gold stick topped by a familiar creature glimmered in his fingers.
Lance was holding the chimera scepter—and he was pointing it straight at me.
Chapter Thirteen
I froze, my hand still curled around Babs’s hilt, but I didn’t dare draw my sword. I hadn’t seen Lance unleash the chimeras in the library last night, so I didn’t know exactly how the scepter worked. But I was betting that he could summon the monsters before I could wrest that scepter out of his hand.
“Lance?” I asked, still playing dumb. “What are you doing? What’s that weird golden stick?”
I said that last part for the others’ benefit. For a moment, I didn’t hear anything through my earbud. Then Takeda let out a low curse.
“Lance has the scepter,” he muttered. “Ian, Zoe, forget about the safe. Go help Rory. Right now.”
“On it,” Ian replied. “We’re leaving the library.”
He and Zoe started talking to each other, and several loud clank-clank-clanks sounded, as though Zoe was stuffing her tools back into her purse. Since they were on their way, I tuned them out and focused on Lance again.
He started flipping the chimera scepter end over end in his hand, like it was a golden baton instead of a powerful artifact. “Oh, Rory. I expected more from you. A better performance, at the very least.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He flipped the scepter up into the air one more time, then caught it and stabbed it at me. “You know exactly what I mean. I saw you in the library last night, fighting my chimeras. I had forgotten what a fantastic warrior you are. So strong, so graceful, so deadly.”
Lance smiled, but his lips slowly twisted into more of a sneer. His condescending expression and compliments made me sick to my stomach.
“Let’s be honest. You know that I’m a Reaper, that I’m the one who stole Typhon’s Scepter from the library.” He shrugged. “I’m sure your new Protectorate friends told you all about it. After all, you’re Gwen Frost’s cousin. They have an interest in you. In making sure that you’re on their side for the upcoming war.”
“And what’s your interest in me?” I asked. “Because I don’t think that you asked me up here just because you think I’m cute.”
He let out a low laugh. The sound made my skin crawl. “I wasn’t lying when I said that you were cute earlier today. Then again, I’ve always been attracted to strong women.”
My hand clenched a little tighter around Babs’s hilt. I would show him exactly how strong I was when I took that scepter away from him. Lance smirked at me, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. I hoped he did, and I hoped he realized how badly this was going to end for him.
“But cute or not, you’re right. That’s not why I asked you up here. I wanted you out of the way so that my friends could capture your friends.” He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and brought the device up to his mouth. “Take them. Now.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, through my earbud, I heard Ian let out a vicious curse. He shouted at Zoe to get behind him, and then a series of crashes and bangs sounded, so loud that they made me wince. Mateo started yelling too, telling Ian that the security cameras were down and that he couldn’t see anything on his monitors. I could also hear Takeda barking out orders to someone, demanding to know where the Protectorate reinforcements were and how long it would take them to get to the mansion.
I stepped back, ready to run out the office to go help Ian and Zoe, but Lance slashed the chimera scepter through the air in a warning motion. I froze again.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he said. “You’re going to stay right here where I can keep an eye on you, Rory.”
“What do you want, Lance?” I snapped. “What’s the point of all this?”
A smug, satisfied grin filled his face. It made me want to punch him even more than before.
“The point is that my friends and I have finally found a way for the Reapers to take control, not only of all the Mythos Academies and the Protectorate but of everything, of the entire world.” He waggled the chimera scepter at me. “And guess how we’re going to do that?”
My stomach twisted at the obvious answer. “Artifacts. You’re going to use artifacts.”
“Ding, ding, we have a winner.” He waved the scepter around again, pointing it at the swords on the wall. “As you can see, my dad loved to collect weapons. He never saw a rusty old sword or dagger that he didn’t want, and he spent all the Fuller family fortune buying every single weapon he could get his hands on.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, still playing dumb. “What happened to your dad?”
“He was desperate for money, so he started stealing weapons and armor from the Protectorate warehouse where he worked in New York and selling them to the Reapers.” Lance’s face darkened. “And the Protectorate killed him for it. Slaughtered him in a raid.”
That matched what Linus Quinn had said—and it also sounded like the story Zoe had told me about Ian and his brother, Drake. Could Lance’s father have worked with Ian’s brother? I didn’t know, and it wasn’t important right now. All that mattered was getting that scepter away from Lance before he conjured up any chimeras. Then I could go help Ian and Zoe.
I moved forward a couple of steps, trying to get into position to lunge at Lance and grab the scepter. “Is that why you stole the scepter? Is that why you’re planning to give it to Sisyphus? Because the Protectorate killed your dad and you want revenge on them?”
Lance barked out a harsh laugh. “Well, it’s certainly a bonus, but no, I didn’t join the Reapers only for revenge.”
I crept forward another step. “Then why?”
“Because Sisyphus is right. For centuries, Reapers hid in the shadows, sneaking around and waiting for Loki to return. Well, Loki is gone for good now, but we’re still here. And you know what? I’m tired of playing by the Protectorate’s rules. I’m tired of being a good little warrior and pretending to blend in with the regular humans when
I’m so much better than they are.” That bright, fanatical light burned in his eyes again. “We’re warriors. We’re the ones with magic and artifacts and fighting skills. We’re the ones with the real power, and we should act like it. We should be in charge, not these weak, inferior mortals who wouldn’t know the sharp end of a sword if you stabbed them in the gut with it.”
I shook my head. “Wow, this Sisyphus guy really did a number on you. He’s totally brainwashed you.”
Lance barked out another laugh. “Sisyphus didn’t do anything but show me the truth about how the world should work. How the world will work, once we’re through with it.”
I took another step forward, adjusting my grip on Babs’s hilt and getting ready to pull the sword free of her scabbard. I would only have one shot to get that scepter away from Lance, and I had to make it count.
“Well, here’s a news flash for you. I don’t care what your evil master plan is, because it’s never going to happen,” I snapped. “The Protectorate will stop you and Sisyphus and all the other Reapers.”
“No, they won’t. The Protectorate won’t be able to stand against us—not with you on our side, Rory.”
“Me? Join the Reapers?” I let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Now I know you’re crazy.”
Lance tilted his head to the side and gave me a knowing look. “We’ll see about that.”
My heart squeezed with worry. What was he talking about? Why did he think that I would join the Reapers? I would never do that—never. But Lance was talking about it like it was a foregone conclusion. What did he know that I didn’t?
I stepped forward to demand some answers, but the office doors burst open, and Ian and Zoe staggered into the room. My heart lifted, thinking that they were here to help me, but they weren’t the only ones who came into the office.
Half a dozen Reapers stormed in behind them.
* * *
I drew my sword and whirled around, ready to battle the Reapers, but Lance pointed the gold scepter at me again.
“Stop,” he commanded. “Unless you want to fight some more chimeras.”