Midnight Frost (11 page)

Oliver and Alexei realized what was happening the same time I did. Oliver cursed, while Alexei finally pulled his twin swords out of his backpack. Oliver grabbed my shoulder and shoved me behind him, so that I was standing in between him and Alexei.

“We need to get out of here,” Alexei said.

The Bogatyr turned toward the back of the car. He hadn’t taken two steps in that direction before the door hissed open, and more people entered from that side, also wearing long, black coats and carrying swords. The fiery red glow from the Reapers’ eyes seemed to darken the inside of the train, despite the sunlight streaming in through the windows.

Alexei stopped short, and I almost rammed into him from behind.

“Trapped,” he said in a voice loud enough for Oliver to hear. “Exit’s blocked.”

“Same on my side,” Oliver said, reaching down and grabbing a magazine from the slot on the back of one of the benches.

“Well, then,” Alexei said, twirling his swords. “Let’s clear a path.”

“My pleasure,” Oliver replied, rolling the magazine into a long, thin, tight tube.

The two guys rushed forward to meet our enemies.

Alexei’s twin swords smashed against the blade of the Reaper in front of him. Even though he could only maneuver from one side of the aisle to the other, Alexei never stopped moving, never stopped fighting, never stopped attacking. Bogatyrs had incredible endurance that way.

On his side of the car, Oliver ducked under a Reaper’s wide swing. The Spartan might not have had a traditional weapon, but he didn’t need one. He whipped the rolled-up magazine this way and that, slamming it into his opponent’s chest, throat, and face.

The Reaper choked and sputtered, trying to suck air back down into his lungs. While he was distracted, Oliver plucked the Reaper’s sword out of the other guy’s hand, flipped it around, and then stabbed the Reaper in the chest with his own weapon. I couldn’t see Oliver’s face, but he was probably grinning.

Logan would have been.

But as soon as that Reaper toppled to the floor, another stepped up to take his place—and all I could do was stand in the middle and watch my friends fight another battle for me.

I turned first one way, then the other, but the aisle wasn’t quite wide enough for me to get to the Reapers from where I was standing. At least, not without me pushing past Oliver or Alexei, and I couldn’t risk doing that for fear of spoiling their concentration. But I was determined to help my friends, so I hopped up onto the bench on my left and started crawling over it toward the back of the car, where the majority of the Reapers seemed to be coming from.

“Gwen!” Alexei said, spotting me out of the corner of his eye and realizing what I was up to. “Stay put! Stay behind me!”

I didn’t bother answering him. I couldn’t stay put, and I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing. Not while he and Oliver were fighting so many Reapers. I might not be the best or most skilled warrior, but I was no coward, especially when it came to helping my friends.

As I heaved myself across the benches, I noticed the girl who’d been sitting in the back of the train. She was standing up on her bench just like I was. The girl kept looking back and forth between the Reapers and Alexei, as though she was watching an intense sporting match. She didn’t move to attack my friend, but she didn’t try to help him either. Since the girl seemed to be staying where she was and out of the fight, I put her out of my mind and kept climbing over the benches as fast as I could.

A Reaper girl who looked about my age moved to attack me, but I swung Vic and sliced the sword across her chest. Blood spurted out of her wound and spattered onto my hand, sliding across my skin like warm drops of rain. I gritted my teeth and ignored the awful sensation.

“Get her, Gwen!” Vic crowed, not having any problems with the blood that covered his blade. “Get her!”

I lashed out with the sword again, this time stabbing the blade deep into her stomach. The Reaper girl screamed and lurched back into the boy behind her, but he put his arms on her shoulders and shoved her forward. I put one hand down on a brass rail, bracing myself, and kicked her in the chest, sending her flying right back into the boy. They both fell to the floor. I could hear the boy yelling as he tried to shove the dead girl off him, but since he wasn’t an immediate threat, I continued climbing over the benches.

Behind me, I could hear Oliver and Alexei shouting to each other as they counted off the Reapers they killed.

“One down!” Alexei said.

“Two down!” Oliver chimed in.

“Three!”

“Four!”

I finally managed to crawl to the back of the car and an open space that was reserved for storing luggage. I’d just put my feet down on the floor when the Reaper boy finally managed to push the dead girl off him. He scrambled to his feet and charged at me.

I didn’t have time to raise my sword, so I stepped forward and punched him in the face. The blow didn’t have much of an effect on the Reaper, but it made him hesitate long enough for me to shove Vic into his stomach. The boy screamed and fell to the floor.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the Reapers who’d been attacking Alexei turn in my direction, reach underneath his coat, and pull out a small crossbow. He leveled the weapon at my head.

Even as I started to move, I knew I couldn’t duck out of the way in time to keep the arrow from hitting me—

Something moved off to my right, a shadow flitted in front of my eyes, and I heard the distinct sound of wood hitting flesh. I blinked.

The arrow had stopped a foot from my face.

Eyes wide, my head snapped to the side, and I realized that the angry girl from the train station was there—and that she was holding the arrow in her hand like it was a football she’d just plucked out of midair.

“You’re welcome,” she said in a snide voice.

Then, she tossed the arrow up in the air, grabbed it by the end, and threw it at the Reaper with the crossbow. The arrow sank into his throat. The man clawed at the projectile, trying to rip it free, even as his legs went out from under him, and he dropped to the floor.

“A Spartan,” I whispered. “You’re a Spartan.”

“Yeah, and you and your friends seem to be in a lot of trouble,” the girl sniped.

She stepped in front of me and picked up the dead Reaper’s crossbow. A second later, she slammed the heavy wood into the side of another Reaper’s face. I shook my head, stepped up, and got back into the fight.

Together, the girl and I advanced on the Reapers who were clustered in front of Alexei and climbing up onto the benches so they could swarm around and attack him all at once. She’d step up and hit one with the crossbow, then slide to the side, leaving me enough room to move forward and kill the Reaper with Vic. When the crossbow finally splintered, then shattered, she used one of the broken pieces as a dagger, stabbing it into everyone she could reach.

Logan would have
definitely
approved.

Seeing that we had a handle on the Reapers on this side of the car, Alexei whirled around to help Oliver deal with the ones who were attacking him. Working together, the four of us cut through the rest of them. Three minutes later, it was over, and all the Reapers were dead.

We stood there, weapons clutched tight in our hands, blood everywhere, bodies stacked up two and three deep at our feet, with even more Reapers sprawled over the benches and tables. For a moment, the only sounds were our harsh, raspy breaths and the grind of the gears as the train kept chugging up the mountain.

“Well,” Vic said in a cheery voice. “That’s the way to start the day off right. Blood before breakfast. Always a treat, if you ask me.”

The Spartan girl gave me a strange look, like she thought I was the one who was talking. Please. As if I would ever say such gruesome things—or could manage an English accent right now.

“Shut up, Vic,” I muttered.

I looked at Oliver and Alexei. “You guys all right?”

They both nodded, and we all stared at the Spartan girl.

“I’m fine,” she sniped again. “Thanks for asking.”

Alexei stepped forward, probably to start searching the bodies, when the door at the front of the car hissed open. We all tensed and whirled around toward the opening.

Daphne stepped inside, with Carson and Coach Ajax right behind her.

“I can’t believe they were out of blueberry bagels already—”

Her voice cut off, and she stopped in the middle of the aisle. Carson ran into her back and bounced off. Daphne’s black eyes fixed on the dead Reapers, then her gaze flicked to Alexei, Oliver, and finally me.

“So,” I asked. “How was breakfast?”

Daphne arched an eyebrow. “Obviously not as exciting as yours.”

I grimaced at her words.

Ajax shouldered past Carson and Daphne. The coach went from one Reaper to another, looking at them all in turn. Finally, he shook his head.

“I thought they’d at least wait until we got to the ruins before they attacked,” he rumbled. “I’ll have to call ahead and report this. Everybody stays in here where I can see you until we get to Snowline Ridge. Understand?”

We all nodded.

Ajax pulled out his cell phone and moved to the front of the car. He punched in some numbers and started talking in a low voice, probably alerting the members of the Protectorate about the battle—and the fact that they needed to come and deal with the blood and bodies.

We took turns using the bathrooms, cleaning the Reapers’ blood off our hands, clothes, and weapons as best we could. Once that was done, Alexei and Oliver moved from body to body, pulling out the Reapers’ wallets and looking at their driver’s licenses, credit cards, and more. But they were just names that went with dead faces. None of the information told us anything important about the Reapers, like why they’d decided to attack us now—or what they might have planned next. I even leaned down and touched a few of the dead Reapers’ hands, but the only flashes I got off them were of the battle—nothing useful. Ajax also went through the other cars on the train, in case Vivian or Agrona might be on board, hiding in the midst of the other passengers, but they were nowhere to be found.

“What do you think they wanted?” Carson asked, leaning down to peer at a guy who wore the same sort of black glasses he did.

“Other than killing us?” Daphne said. “I think that’s enough for them. Don’t you?”

Carson’s words made me think back to the way the first Reaper girl’s eyes had fixed on Vic. Sure, maybe she hadn’t expected me to have the sword propped up in the seat beside me, but it seemed like there had been something more to her sharp gaze than just curiosity. I couldn’t imagine what it could be, though, or what her interest in Vic could have to do with the attack.

Daphne turned to the mystery girl, who was leaning against the back wall of the car, her arms crossed over her chest once again. “And then there’s you. Gwen says you’re a Spartan. Female Spartans are rare. I’ve never met one before.”

The girl shrugged. “Not so rare to me, since my mom and dad were both Spartans. Lucky for you, you get to meet me first, Valkyrie.”

Pink sparks of magic crackled around Daphne’s fingers, and she narrowed her eyes at the other girl. I stepped in between them, trying to diffuse the situation before things got any crazier.

“Well, thank you,” I said. “For saving me. For fighting with us against the Reapers. You didn’t have to do that.”

The girl laughed, although it was a harsh, bitter sound. “Oh, you know us Spartans. We can’t resist a good fight.”

“What’s your name?”

The girl glared at me, as though I’d asked her to reveal her deepest, darkest secret. Finally, when she realized that I was serious and expected her to, you know, actually
answer
me, she let out a long, deep sigh, as if giving me the information was some sort of cruel torture I’d devised specifically for her.

“Rory Forseti.”

My mouth dropped open in surprise. I didn’t know what name I’d expected her to give, but it hadn’t been that one—because Forseti had been my dad, Tyr’s, last name. Tyr Forseti. My parents had been married, but I had my mom’s last name of Frost since that was the tradition for the women in our family.

It took me a moment to close my gaping jaw and gather my thoughts. “Forseti?” I asked, wondering if I’d heard her right. “F-o-r-s-e-t-i?”

The girl’s eyes narrowed, and her hands balled into fists like she was thinking about stepping forward and attacking me the same way she had the Reapers. “Well, give you a gold star, for being able to spell. You got a problem with that name?”

Alexei stepped forward, shielding me from her. “You’re the one who’s going to have a problem if you take another step toward Gwen.”

She let out another angry, bitter laugh. “In case you didn’t notice, dude, I’m the one who saved your precious little princess from getting an arrow through her skull.”

“Princess?” I asked.

Rory gave a loud, derisive snort. “Yeah. You. Princess. You and your little entourage. I saw them hovering around you at the station. You’d think that you were some sort of princess or something the way they were hanging all over you.”

My eyes widened, my lips twitched, and my shoulders started to shake. I tried to contain it—really, I did—but I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. I knew it was crazy, that my laughter was crazy, that I should try to bottle it up the way I had all of my other emotions lately, but I just couldn’t do it.

My friends looked at me, then each other. Daphne shrugged. She didn’t know why I was laughing, and neither did any of the guys.

“What’s so funny?” Rory muttered.

“Princess!” I managed to get out the word between fits of laughter. “You think I’m a bloody princess!”

The laughter kept coming and coming until tears streamed out of the corners of my eyes, and my stomach ached from the force of it.

Rory glared at me again. “If I’d known you were crazy, I would have let the Reapers put you out of your misery—and mine too.”

I wiped the tears away and finally managed to get my giggles under control. “You don’t understand. If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s definitely a princess. That’s more Daphne’s thing than mine.”

“Hey!” Daphne snapped.

I looked at her. “C’mon. You know it’s true. How many bags did you bring for this trip?”

She sniffed. “Just because you want to spend the rest of your life wearing hoodies, sneakers, and ratty T-shirts doesn’t mean the rest of us should suffer.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh no.”

Rory looked at the Valkyrie. “Your name’s Daphne?”

She straightened up. “Daphne Cruz. From the North Carolina academy.”

One by one, Daphne introduced everyone, including Coach Ajax, who’d finished his phone call.

Rory glanced at my friends before her green eyes fixed on me once more. “And what’s the princess’s name?”

“Gwen,” I said. “Gwen Frost.”

Rory froze, just as I had a moment ago. A shadow passed over her pretty face, and for a moment, her whole body tensed up, like she was debating whether or not to throw herself forward and attack me. Something that looked a lot like hate blazed in her eyes, and I felt a wave of anger surge off her, as hot as a furnace blasting heat in my face.

“Maybe you’ve heard of her,” Carson said in a helpful voice.

“Yeah,” Rory muttered. “I’ve heard of her all right.”

And from the sound of her voice, it hadn’t been anything good. It was bad enough that all the kids back home watched my every move now, but I’d never considered that word of who I was would make its way through the rest of the mythological world. I should have known it would, though. Sometimes, I thought Mythos kids gossiped even better than they wielded weapons. I wondered what this meant for our welcome at the academy. Ajax had wanted to pass our group off as some kids taking a field trip, but that wasn’t going to happen now—if it had ever even been possible to start with.

Rory gave me another dark look, then plopped down on her bench, crossed her arms over her chest, and turned her head toward the windows, pointedly ignoring me and my friends. The others and I sat down, as well, making sure we were as far away from the blood and Reapers’ bodies as we could get. I tried to catch Rory’s gaze, but she stared out the windows with the same sort of intense, single-minded determination she’d shown during the fight. She might have saved my life, but it was obvious she wasn’t happy about it. I wondered why. I’d never seen or met her before today, so I had no idea why she’d have such an obvious grudge against me. Usually, I had to be around people for at least a few minutes before I pissed them off.

Maybe it was her dislike of me or maybe it was the fact that the train was now filled with dead Reapers, but I couldn’t help feeling there was a giant ax swinging back and forth over my head. All that was left to do now was to see when it would finally fall.

 

About fifteen minutes later, the train pulled into the station at Snowline Ridge. My friends and I grabbed our things and stepped off the car. Waiting on the platform was a group of men and women, all wearing black coveralls with the hand-and-scales symbol of the Protectorate stitched into the collars in white thread. The Protectorate members waited for us to get clear of the train before they boarded, pushing metal carts into the car where the Reapers’ bodies were.

The other folks on the train had finally realized something had happened, and more than a few kids held their phones out and up, taking photos of me and my friends before they started texting furiously. Someone must have known someone who knew something about me, because within two minutes, everyone’s phones started chirping, and the whispers drifted over to me.

“Her name is Gwen Frost . . .”

“She’s supposed to be a Champion . . .”

“Apparently, she’s always in some sort of trouble with the Reapers . . .”

Well, there went Ajax’s hopes of our staying incognito for as long as possible. I grimaced. Maybe things weren’t going to be all that different here at the Colorado academy after all. Reapers trying to kill me? Check. Everyone staring at me? Check. Kids whispering about me behind my back? Double-check. So far, it was like I hadn’t even left home.

The only person who seemed as miserable as I did was Rory. The Spartan girl stood off to one side of the platform by herself. Once again, I noticed how the other kids took pains to avoid her—when they weren’t openly sneering and snickering at her.

“Of course
she
was on the train with the Reapers . . .”

“Keeping it in the family, I suppose . . .”

“I don’t know why they even let her come to school with us . . .”

From the sound of things, the other kids thought Rory had something to do with the Reapers. But why would they think that? She’d helped us fight them. If she’d really been one of them, she would have joined in the attack—and let that arrow punch right through my skull. I frowned and looked at Rory, but once again, she wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“Come on,” Ajax said, interrupting my thoughts. “It’s just a short walk to the academy from here. We need to get there, get settled in, and start making plans for tomorrow.”

We shouldered our bags and followed the stream of students through the station and out into town. Ajax walked in front, with Carson and Daphne behind him, then me, then Oliver and Alexei bringing up the rear.

In many ways, Snowline Ridge was pretty much a carbon copy of Cypress Mountain. Designer shops, coffeehouses, and expensive cafés lined the wide streets, each storefront window showcasing luxury clothes, jewelry, electronics, and more. I even spotted a couple of parking lots full of Aston Martins and BMWs, along with sturdy SUVs and expensive pickup trucks with four-wheel drives to help navigate the icy roads in these parts. I guess the students here couldn’t have cars on campus either.

But there were plenty of differences that let me know this wasn’t home. For one thing, walking down the streets was like stepping back in time to the Old West. Many of the old-fashioned, wooden storefronts looked like they’d come straight out of some cowboy movie, right down to life-sized carvings of grizzly bears that stood guard on either side of the swinging saloon doors you pushed through to get inside. Then, there were the items the shops sold—custom-made cowboy boots, turquoise lariat ties, ten-gallon hats, diamond-crusted belt buckles the size of dinner plates. Everything had a Western feel to it, and I half-expected some tumbleweeds to come rolling down the street, despite the snow underfoot.

Finally, we left the shops behind and reached the edge of the academy grounds. Just like at home, a stone wall ringed the entire academy, although the main iron gate stood open to let the returning students back onto campus. My friends stepped through the gate without even glancing around, but I stopped and peered up.

Sure enough, two statues perched on top of the stone wall on either side of the gate. But they weren’t the sphinxes I expected—these statues were gryphons.

Eagle heads, lion bodies, wings, curved beaks, sharp talons. These statues looked as fierce, majestic, and lifelike as the ones back home.

It was almost as if the statues could hear my thoughts, because as I watched them, they began to move. Their wings twitched, the feathers ruffled back and forth in the cold winter wind, their talons dug a little more into the stone at their feet, and their eyes narrowed as they glared down at me—

“C’mon on, Gwen!” Daphne said. “It’s freezing out here!”

I blinked, and the gryphons were simply stone once more. Well, the figures might be different, but it seemed as though these statues would be watching me as closely as the ones back home did. In a strange way, that comforted me.

“Gwen!” Daphne yelled again.

I gave the gryphons a little salute with my hand, then hoisted my bags higher onto my shoulder and followed my friends onto the grounds.