Dark Frost Read Free Page A

great Valkyrie strength, she was easily able to yank both of us back.
    “You don’t know what’s going on—or who might be out there,” Daphne warned.
    Logan glared at her, but after a moment, he reluctantly nodded. I did the same, and Daphne loosened her grip on us. Together in a tight knot, the four of us crept up to the doorway and peeked through to the other side.
    The Crius Coliseum was shaped like a giant wheel, with one main space in the middle and the hallways and rooms branching off like spokes. The doorway we stood in opened up into the center section of the museum. When Daphne, Carson, and I had walked through it a few minutes ago, folks had been milling around the exhibits, looking at the artifacts and browsing through the expensive replica jewelry, armor, and weapons in the gift shop. Besides the staff, most of the other people here had been second-year Mythos students, trying to get their homework assignment done, just like the three of us.
    Not anymore.
    Now, figures wearing long, black, hooded robes stormed through the coliseum—and they all carried sharp, curved swords. The figures swarmed over everyone in their path, their blades slashing into the students who’d been staring at the artifacts just a few seconds before. More screams and shouts tore through the air, echoing as loud as gunshots, as people realized what was happening.
    But it was already too late.
    “Reapers,” Daphne whispered, voicing my own horrific thought.
    The Reapers of Chaos ran their swords through everyone they could get their hands on, then shoved the dead and dying to the floor. The museum staff, adults, kids. It didn’t matter to the Reapers who they killed. Wax figures, statues, and display cases crashed to the floor, splintering into thousands of pieces. Blood spattered everywhere, a cascade of scarlet teardrops sliding down the white marble walls.
    A sick, sick feeling filled my stomach at the bloody chaos in front of me. I’d heard about Reapers, about how vicious they were, about how they lived to kill warriors—about how they lived to kill us . I’d faced down two Reapers myself, but I’d never seen anything like this. I was so shocked by the scene in front of me that I felt stuck in place, just like my friends. I knew we should be doing something, anything, to try to help the other students, but I didn’t know what it could be.
    Some of the Mythos students tried to fight back, using their fists or whatever they could get their hands on. But it didn’t work, and one by one, the Reapers swarmed over the kids. Samson Sorensen fell to the floor, screaming and clutching his stomach, blood spurting out from between his fingers. A few Mythos students tried to run, but the Reapers just grabbed them from behind, rammed their swords into the kids’ backs, and then tossed them aside like trash.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Morgan McDougall duck down and squeeze in between a tall, wide pedestal and the wall, putting her parallel to the doorway that my friends and I were next to. Green sparks of magic shot out of Morgan’s fingertips like lightning, a clear sign of her surprise and panic, and she curled her hands into tight fists and tucked them under her armpits to try to smother the colorful flashes. Morgan knew as well as I did that if the Reapers saw the sparks, they’d find her and finish her off. The pretty Valkyrie spotted me watching her and stared back at me, her hazel eyes full of fear.
    “Stay there! Hide! Don’t try to run!” I shouted, although I didn’t think Morgan could hear me above the screams and the alarms that had started blaring.
    In less than a minute, it was over. The Reapers regrouped in the middle of the coliseum, talking to each other, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the moans, groans, and whimpers of the dying kids on the bloody floor.
    “Reapers,” Daphne whispered again, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing any more than I could.
    It was almost like