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they’d heard the Valkyrie’s low murmur because several of the black-robed figures turned and headed in our direction.

Chapter 2
     
    For the second time, I froze. My mind just went blank, and all I could do was watch the Reapers head toward us, blood dripping off the ends of their curved swords. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like I could hear every single scarlet drop as it hit the marble floor. Plop-plop-plop . I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming at the awful noise echoing in my head.
    “Back, back, back!” Daphne hissed, once again using her Valkyrie strength to pull first Carson, then me, and finally Logan away from the doorway. “We have to get out of here!”
    We turned around to run—and realized there was nowhere to go. There were no exits from this room to any other part of the museum.
    “Trapped,” Carson said in a bitter voice. “We’re trapped.”
    Thump-thump-thump . Outside, the heavy footsteps continued, getting louder and louder as the Reapers marched toward us.
    Desperate, I looked around, hoping there was a door, a window, or even a skylight that I’d missed before—or that maybe one would just magically appear and let us escape. That didn’t happen, but my eyes landed on the wax figures of the Viking and the Spartan and the items they were holding—the Viking’s axe and the Spartan’s shield.
    Weapons . My gaze flicked around the room. Swords, spears, daggers, staffs. We stood in a room full of weapons. The deadly points and sharp edges glittered underneath the lights, and one by one, the bits and pieces of metal winked at me, as if they knew exactly what I was thinking—and what we had to do if we wanted to make it through this.
    “If we can’t run, there’s only one thing we can do—stand and fight,” I said in a grim voice. “That’s what we’ve been training for, right?”
    Daphne and Carson stared at me, their mouths hanging open, but Logan had a different reaction. He actually smiled, and a fierce light began to burn in his eyes. Spartans were a little freaky in that they actually loved to fight, especially since they were the best warriors at Mythos—or anywhere else.
    Not for the first time, I wished that I had Logan’s confidence when it came to battling Reapers. With a shaking hand, I drew Vic from the scabbard strapped to my waist and held him up high. Vic’s purplish eye met mine.
    “Are you ready for this, Gwen?” the sword asked in a low voice.
    “I guess I have to be, don’t I?” I whispered back.
    If he could have, I thought Vic would have nodded his half of a head in approval. “I’ll be here with you, every step of the way. You’re a Champion, Gwen. You’ll be fine. You all will. Nike has faith in you, and so do I.”
    I nodded back, his words making me feel just a little bit better. I stood there a second, and I forced myself to breathe—in and out, in and out, in and out—just like my mom had taught me. Just like she’d always told me to do whenever I was scared, panicked, or upset. Yeah, I was all those things right now—and then some.
    But there was no time to think about what I was doing, and no time to be cautious or quiet. I raced over to the case—the one with the goddess Sigyn’s onyx bow and quiver in it—raised up Vic, turned my head away, then brought the sword down on top of the glass.
    CRASH!
    The case shattered with a roar, and shards of glass zipped through the air, stinging my hands and drawing blood. I thought that an alarm sounded, blaring together with all the others going off, but I was already moving over to the next case, one that contained a long wooden staff.
    “Daphne! Carson! Logan!” I yelled. “Get the weapons!”
    My friends scrambled forward, their shoes crunching on the shattered glass. I smashed another case, this one containing a sword with a dull bronze hilt. I used Vic to shatter the artifact cases, one by one, while Daphne, Carson, and Logan grabbed the items inside, as well