Killer Frost (Mythos Academy #6)(77)
“Do not fail me this time,” he said in his silky, but deadly voice. “Or you will not like the consequences.”
Vivian trembled the faintest bit. “Of course not, my lord.”
She bowed to him, then turned and strode toward me, stopping in the middle of the library floor. I stepped up so that I was standing about five feet away from her. We’d cleared all of the chairs and study tables out of the way, so there was only open space around me and Vivian.
“No interference from anyone,” Linus called out in a grim voice. “Those were the terms we agreed upon.”
“Don’t worry.” Vivian smirked. “I won’t need any help with her. Not this time.”
“Well, well, well, aren’t we feeling confident today, Viv?” I mocked her. “But you’re going to lose, just like you always have before.”
“We’ll see about that,” she hissed.
She held her weapon up by the blade, and I did the same with Vic so that the two swords could see each other. Lucretia’s red eye snapped.
“So, we meet again, Vic,” the other sword purred. “For the last time.”
“Of course, it will be for the last time,” Vic snapped back. “Because I’m finally going to cleave you in two, you simpering sword!”
“The only one who simpers around here is you, you overconfident hunk of metal!” Lucretia cried back.
I would have stood there and let the two swords trade insults all day long, as it gave Metis, Nickamedes, and the others more time to heal and evacuate the wounded, but Vivian lowered her sword and tightened her hand around the hilt once more.
I did the same, and the fight was on.
Vivian raised her sword high overhead and charged at me, trying to use her Valkyrie strength to end me with that first, hard, sharp, powerful blow. Her sword crashed against mine, sending red and purple sparks everywhere. It took all of my strength to hold on to Vic and not crumple under her attack, but I managed it.
“Die, Gypsy!” Vivian hissed. “You first!” I hissed back at her.
We broke apart and continued our battle. Back and forth, we fought in the middle of the library, hacking and slashing our weapons at each other over and over again, each one of us trying to kill the other.
I whirled around after parrying Vivian’s latest attack and glanced at the clock mounted on the wall of the glass office complex. Only three minutes had passed since we’d started fighting. Funny, but it felt like forever. Or maybe that was because I’d been battling Vivian ever since she’d tricked me into finding the Helheim Dagger for her. Either way, I needed to keep going, even though I was already utterly exhausted from the battle out on the quad.
So the next time Vivian gave me the slightest opening, I pretended to trip over my own feet instead of slashing my sword across her arm like I should have, like I really wanted to.
The Reaper girl blinked in surprise before her eyes abruptly narrowed. She frowned. “What are you doing? Why aren’t you attacking me with everything you have?” “Because I don’t need to,” I mocked, not wanting her
to realize that I was trying to draw the fight out for as long as possible. “Face it, Viv. You’re not half the warrior that I am. I can kill you anytime I want to. I just want to humiliate you first in front of all your Reaper friends—and especially Loki.”
I raised my sword and charged at her.
Clash-clash-clang! Clash-clash-clang! Clash-clash-clang!
Once more, we fought, and once more, we broke apart and started circling each other. My eyes flicked to the clock on the office complex wall again, but only two more minutes had passed—
“You . . . you . . . you’re stalling!” Vivian snarled. “Why? What are you up to, Gwen?”
A golden light blazed in her eyes, and a sharp, sudden pain exploded in my head, as though she had stabbed a knife deep into my brain. I screamed, but the pain intensified. Vivian stepped forward and slammed her fist into my face, adding to the agony. I rocked back, but I didn’t go down, so she punched me again. This time, the pain was so intense that I felt my legs sliding out from under me and my ass hitting the marble floor.
“Get up, Gwen!” Vic screamed. “Get up! Now!”
But I couldn’t. All I was aware of were those damn invisible fingers digging through my brain again and again, prying into every part of my mind, peering into every single corner, and rifling through all of my secrets. Still, I tried to push back. Tried to imagine my own hands forming fists and pounding at the disgusting, crawling fingers like they were worms that I was squishing, but nothing seemed to work, and the pain continued, seeming to get stronger and stronger with every breath I took.
Above me, I heard Vivian laugh. “Give it up, Gwen. You’re no match for my telepathy magic. Why, if I’d known that it was this easy to take you down with it, I would have used it right off the bat. But let’s have a little fun before I kill you. Humiliate you the same way that you wanted to humiliate me. What do you say? I’ve been wanting to do this for a long, long time. Let me show you exactly what the Reapers have planned for your precious friends and the rest of your pathetic Protectorate.”
Still reeling from the agony in my head, I huddled on the floor as Vivian showed me image after gruesome image. The first thing that popped into my mind was her driving Lucretia through my chest, the sight so vivid that I thought she’d really done it for a moment. Then, she did the same thing to each one of my friends in turn. Oliver. Alexei. Daphne. Carson. And finally, Logan.