Jennifer Estep - Killer Frost

“Anything?” Sergei asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. All of the artifacts have magic, but I’m not sensing anything powerful or unique enough to justify the kind of fullscale Reaper attack that Linus described. They’re just weapons and armor and jewelry. They have their uses, sure, but nothing that you couldn’t get from other weapons, armor, and jewelry—ones that aren’t being guarded by the Protectorate and would be much easier to steal.”

I eyed the diamond rings again, wondering if perhaps there was more to them than I’d realized. That’s what had happened with the Apate jewels that Agrona had stolen from the Library of Antiquities and had used to control Logan and turn him against me. Back then, I’d thought that the Apate jewels were simply pretty gems and hadn’t realized they could be used in a far more sinister way, until it was too late.

So I sighed and reached for the rings again—

Linus stepped up beside me, holding his right arm out to stop me from picking up the rings. “I’m sorry, Miss Frost. But you’ll have to look at the rest of the artifacts back at the academy.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

His face was pinched tight with worry, and he was clutching a phone in his left hand. “I’ve had a report that some of the guards stationed around the perimeter have seen someone wearing a black Reaper robe and a rubber Loki mask scaling the fence at the opposite end of the airport.”

I gestured at the table. I’d only gone about halfway down the two rows, and a dozen more artifacts stretched out before me. “But I’m not finished.”

Linus shook his head. “There’s no time. If the Reapers are headed this way, then I want you, your friends, and the artifacts out of here and on your way back to the academy, where I know you’ll all be safe.”

I wanted to point out that the academy wasn’t safe, not these days, but I didn’t have time to protest before Grandma Frost grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the table. Several Protectorate guards stepped forward and started packing up the artifacts.

“Come on, pumpkin,” she said. “Linus is right. You can look at the artifacts again when we get back to the academy. Let the Protectorate do its job.”

“Don’t worry, Gwen,” Alexei said, coming to stand beside us. “I won’t let anything happen to you or your grandma.”

“It’s not us that I’m worried about right now,” I replied. “But Linus is right. We can’t let the Reapers get their hands on whatever artifact they’re after.”

We stood off to one side of the hangar and watched while the members of the Protectorate stowed the artifacts in the back of a large white van.

Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a black SUV, with Logan next to me. Sergei was driving, while Grandma Frost perched in the front passenger seat. Linus and Inari were ahead of us in the van with the artifacts, while Oliver and Alexei actually rode in the back of the vehicle with the crates. Two more black SUVs full of Protectorate guards, including Aiko, idled behind us. Everyone had their weapons out and ready.

“This is bloody ridiculous, if you ask me,” Vic muttered, breaking the silence in our SUV. “We should be waiting at the airport for the Reapers. Not running away. It’s demeaning, I tell you. Demeaning!”

I had the sword laid out flat across my lap, and I leaned forward so that I could look into his one eye. “Well, it’s not up to you, O great slayer of Reapers.”

Vic narrowed his eye in an angry glare, but he didn’t say anything else.

“All right,” Sergei said, pulling his phone away from his ear and laying it down on the console in the center of the SUV. “Linus says we’re ready to move out. Here we go.”

He cranked the engine and steered away from the hangar entrance, following the van full of artifacts. I looked out the windows, scanning the acres of flat, open land around us, but I didn’t see anything but snow, asphalt, and a few trees in the distance. There was no place for the Reapers to hide, and we’d literally see them coming a mile away.

Still, as we drove toward the gate, I couldn’t help but think that we were playing right into the Reapers’ hands.

Our convoy rolled toward the edge of the airport. I tensed up as the chain-link fence at the perimeter slid back, expecting Reapers to appear out of thin air on the other side to attack us.

But nothing happened, and Sergei steered the SUV

through the opening with no problems.

“Relax, Gypsy girl,” Logan said, noticing the worried look on my face. “The Reapers would have to be really crazy or really desperate to attack us with so many members of the Protectorate around.”

I gave him a look. “Crazy and desperate is kind of what Vivian and Agrona do, remember?”

He grimaced. He couldn’t argue with that.

We rode in silence. For the first few miles, everyone stared intently out the windows, expecting the Reapers to strike at any second. But as the miles and minutes passed, Logan relaxed back against his seat, and Sergei started whistling softly. Grandma Frost remained silent.

I leaned forward, trying to see her face, but Grandma was staring straight ahead through the windshield, and I couldn’t get a sense of what she was thinking. Still, I could feel that old, watchful, knowing force stirring in the air around her, the way it always did whenever she was getting a glimpse of the future, but the sensation seemed to vanish as quickly as it had appeared. Or perhaps it had never been there to start with. This wouldn’t be the first time that my own worry, coupled with my psychometry magic, had made me see and feel things that weren’t real.

Trying to get rid of my nervous energy, I leaned back and started drumming my fingers on Vic’s hilt, careful not to poke him in the eye. I kept staring out the windows, but we’d left the open space of the airport behind and were now driving through a patch of woods. Thick stands of trees crowded right up to the edge of the narrow, two-lane road, their bare, brown branches looking as gnarled and knotted as bones swaying back and forth in the steady breeze.

The farther we went, and the closer to the academy we got, the more the others relaxed, and the more I tensed up. Nothing was ever this easy , not when it came to the Reapers.

“Don’t worry, Gypsy girl,” Logan repeated. “A few more miles, and we’ll be at the academy.”

I nodded, even though my fingers were now curled around Vic’s hilt. The sword’s eye was still open, although all he could really see was the car ceiling. Still, I knew he’d be ready if the Reapers did attack.

We drove on. The van in front of us slowed and stopped. I tensed again, until I realized that Linus was at a stop sign and getting ready to make a left since this part of the road became a dead end up ahead. A large black truck rolled up at the other stop sign, at a right angle to the van, on the road that we were going to turn onto. Through the windshield, I could see the truck driver waving for Linus to go ahead and make his turn.

Everything seemed normal, but my unease ratcheted up another notch. Something about this whole situation felt slightly off. Worse than that, it reminded me of . . . something . . . something I’d seen before . . . something I couldn’t quite put my finger on . . .

My eyes locked on to the stop sign next to the van, and a memory erupted out of the dark of my mind. I flashed back to another intersection and another time— when Vivian had told Preston Ashton to ram their SUV into my mom’s car so they could ambush and kill her.

And suddenly, I knew that the Reaper sighting at the airport had been a false alarm—one designed to make us drive to this exact spot.