Spartan Promise: A Mythos Academy Novel (Mythos Academy spinoff series Book 2)

by Jennifer Estep

  Still, all I could do was return to my studying and hope that I hadn’t made a huge mistake confiding in the professor.

  * * *

  The other kids slowly filed into the classroom. The bell rang, and Dalaja came out of her office and gave us that quiz. Despite all of yesterday’s distractions, I thought I did well on it.

  The morning passed by quickly. Whenever I was on the quad, I kept an eye out for Gretchen. I didn’t see her, but that wasn’t unusual, since we didn’t have any classes together. I met my friends for lunch in the dining hall, and Mateo texted me updates throughout the afternoon, but Gretchen seemed to be keeping a low profile and going about her routine as usual, so we did the same.

  I finished my classes for the day, along with my homework, and had dinner with Aunt Rachel at the cottage. Then, when it was time, I headed over to the Library of Antiquities and went down to the Bunker to do a final bit of mission prep.

  Takeda and my friends were already in the briefing room, and we reviewed the plan again. No one had seen Gretchen with Serket’s Pen, but she had to be keeping it close by, and she would definitely have it at the club. According to the Protectorate guards, Gretchen had already left her dorm to head over to Club D.

  Takeda led us to the back of the Bunker, where he used his thumbprint to open the bookcase and reveal the secret entrance to the tunnels. We stepped inside, and the lights clicked on in the ceiling.

  We walked through the tunnels, passing by the spot where those loose bricks had been when Zoe and I were exploring a few days ago. I glanced down, but the bricks were stacked up in the wall, just like I’d left them, so I moved on.

  We reached the end of this tunnel, which opened up into Takeda’s office in the gym. From there, we headed out to the parking lot, where the van was. Takeda got into the driver’s seat and turned on his classical music while the rest of us piled into the back, and away we went.

  Fifteen minutes later, Takeda turned off the road and parked the van in the paved lot that fronted Club Dionysus. I peered out through the windshield.

  Club D was housed in a large, two-story, gray brick building. A neon-purple sign shaped like the club’s logo—a grinning skull and crossbones with grapevines wrapping around the bottom of it—flashed over the front door, inviting people to step inside and dance the night away. In the distance, at the far end of the parking lot, a twelve-foot black wrought-iron fence cordoned off the club from the sprawling cemetery next door.

  It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, but the place was already packed. Older teens and twenty-somethings milled around outside, talking, texting, and laughing. A few were smoking, while others were clutching glasses, having brought their drinks and their party out to the parking lot. The windows on the front of the club were blacked out, so I couldn’t tell how many more people were inside, but I could hear the steady thump-thump-thump of music all the way out here.

  Takeda turned around in the driver’s seat. “All right, Zoe. Time for comms.”

  Zoe pulled a clear plastic case out of her purse, opened it, and handed everyone an earbud. We did our usual checks to make sure that we could hear one another. Then Ian opened the back door of the van, and Zoe and I got out with him. Takeda left his seat and walked around the vehicle to us.

  Mateo stayed behind, sitting at the desk full of monitors and other computer equipment that was bolted to one wall of the van. He cracked his knuckles, then leaned forward and started typing on one of the keyboards. A few seconds later, images of both the outside and the inside of the club popped up on the screens.

  “Okay, guys,” Mateo said. “I’ve hacked into the club’s security system, so I have eyes on everyone inside. I’ll start running my facial-recognition program to see if I can spot any known Reapers, mythological criminals, or collectors. Anyone who might be interested in buying the artifact.”

  “The Protectorate guards are already in place and waiting in cars on the surrounding streets,” Takeda added. “According to them, Gretchen went into the club ten minutes ago to start her shift. Keep an eye on Gretchen, and see if you can identify the buyer. As soon as they make the exchange and leave the club, the guards will move in, arrest them both, and recover the artifact.”

  We all nodded. Takeda climbed into the back of the van with Mateo, and Ian shut the door behind him.

  Ian, Zoe, and I headed toward the nightclub. We slowly moved up the line of kids waiting to get inside, paid the cover charge, and entered the building. The music assaulted my ears the second we stepped through the doors. I grimaced at how insanely loud it was. Ian did the same, but Zoe shimmied along to the rocking beat.

  We walked through a short hallway and past a coat-check room. At least, it would have been a coat-check room at a normal club. But since Club D was mostly for Mythos kids, the girl was taking people’s swords and daggers along with their coats. Zoe had her electrodagger in her purse, and Babs’s scabbard was hooked to my belt. Ian’s battle ax was too big for him to carry into the club without attracting attention, so he’d settled for tucking a couple of daggers into the sides of his boots.

  My friends and I quickly moved past the room before the girl spotted us. We weren’t leaving our weapons behind. Not when Gretchen still had Serket’s Pen.

  The hallway opened up into an enormous room that was dominated by a wooden dance floor. Dozens of kids waved their arms and shook their bodies to the pounding beat, while a deejay spun tunes on an elaborate turntable and a sound system that was perched on a raised dais. Still more kids were sitting on purple couches that ringed the dance floor, talking, texting, making out, and chowing down on food and drinks.

  Besides the dance floor, the club’s other main feature was its sleek glass-and-chrome bar, which ran from the front of the room all the way to the back wall and the double doors that led into the kitchen. A sign shaped like the club’s grinning skull, crossbones, and grapevines logo hung on the wall above the bar. The sign burned a bright neon purple and bathed the dancers in an eerie electric glow. A giant silver disco ball spun around in the center of the ceiling, throwing out sprays of light and adding to the party atmosphere.

  “Okay, guys,” Mateo said. “I’ve started scanning the crowd, but I haven’t spotted Gretchen yet.”

  Despite the pounding music, I could hear his voice loud and clear through my earbud.

  Zoe noticed my surprise and pointed at her own earbud. “After we went to that party at Lance Fuller’s house a few weeks ago, I fiddled with the acoustics. Now the earbuds automatically filter out things like music. So no matter how loud it gets in here, we’ll still be able to hear Mateo, and vice versa.”

  I flashed her a thumbs-up, and she grinned back at me.

  Ian touched my arm, then pointed to a set of stairs leading up to a metal balcony that wrapped around the second floor. More kids were up there, checking their phones, leaning against the railing, and watching the action on the dance floor below.

  “I’m going to climb up there and see if I can spot Gretchen,” he said.

  I nodded. “Zoe and I will roam around down here and do the same.”

  “I’ve got dibs on the dance floor!” Zoe called out.

  She grinned and shimmied her hips again as she headed in that direction. Ian climbed up the stairs, while I worked my way around the dance floor.

  I kept to the edges of the crowd, studying everyone, but I didn’t spot Gretchen or anyone else who seemed like they were up to no good. Everyone was dancing, laughing, talking, and drinking as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Club D was named after Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and, well, partying, and the Mythos kids had embraced both of those things. The smell of beer hung in the air like a thick, sour cloud, mixing with the perfumes, colognes, and sweat of everyone grooving on the dance floor.

  I did a lap of the first floor, but I didn’t see anything suspicious, and I ended up standing at the bar in the back. A few feet away, waiters dressed in purple shirts with the Club D logo stitched on them in white t
hread pushed through the double doors that led into the kitchen, carrying trays of deep-fried mozzarella sticks, spicy buffalo wings, and more. I eyed the waiters, but none of them was Gretchen, and they all hurried past me to deliver their orders. I glanced through the glass windows in the double doors, but I didn’t see her in the kitchen either.

  Since I was standing at the bar, it would look suspicious if I didn’t have a drink, so I ordered a ginger ale, then looked out over the crowd again.

  “I don’t see Gretchen,” I said. “What about you guys?”

  “Nope,” Ian replied. “No sign of her yet.”

  I looked up. He was leaning against the railing on the opposite side of the club and pretending to check his phone, but his head kept moving from side to side as he scanned the crowd below.

  “No sign of her on the dance floor either,” Zoe chimed in.

  I could just make out her blue sparks of magic flickering in the crowd of gyrating bodies.

  “I don’t see her on the security feeds either,” Mateo’s voice sounded in my ear. “But the Protectorate guards saw her enter the building, so she has to be here somewhere. I’ll keep looking. You guys do the same.”

  I held my position at the bar and sipped my ginger ale, even as I scanned the crowd again, still searching for Gretchen. Everyone was dancing, drinking, and partying, the same as before.

  My mind started to wander, and I found myself thinking about everything that had happened over the past two days. Realizing that Gretchen was the one who had stolen Serket’s Pen. Searching her room. Finding the book with the artifact prices listed in it. Overhearing her conversation with her mysterious buyer. Realizing that she was going to meet the buyer at the club.

  It all seemed a little…easy.

  Okay, so nothing about killing that basilisk at the Idun Estate had been easy. But everything since then had been surprisingly simple. Usually, we didn’t figure out what the bad guys were up to so quickly. Gretchen wasn’t a Reaper, so maybe she wasn’t as careful as they were. Still, the more I thought about it, the more something about this just didn’t seem right—

  “Did you have the cheese fries?”

  A voice cut into my thoughts, and I realized that a waiter was standing in front of me. I tensed and stared at the plate in his hands, wondering if this was some sort of trick.

  But it wasn’t.

  Steam curled up off the fries, which were covered with a thick layer of melted cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses and topped off with bits of bacon. My stomach rumbled. The fries looked and smelled amazing.

  But I was still suspicious, so I looked at the guy, then the fries, then the guy again. But he was just a waiter holding a plate of food and no threat to me.

  I shook my head. “Sorry. I didn’t order those.”

  The guy looked confused, but he shrugged and walked over to the bar, probably to figure out who had ordered the food. My stomach rumbled again. Cheese fries were one of my favorites. Maybe I should have said they were mine after all—

  A hand grabbed my shoulder, and something hard and sharp pressed into my back. I froze. Someone was holding a dagger up against my spine.

  “Hello, Rory,” Gretchen Gondul murmured in my ear. “I was hoping you would show up.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I slowly turned my head to the right so I could get a better look at Gretchen.

  She was wearing a purple shirt and black jeans like the other waiters, but a short black wig covered her blond hair, and she’d ditched her glasses, so her face was bare. No wonder my friends and I hadn’t spotted her. She had been hiding in plain sight with the rest of the waiters this whole time.

  “Hey, Gretchen,” I drawled. “What’s up?”

  I didn’t know if my friends had seen her, so I decided to let them know she was here.

  “Gretchen’s here!” Ian’s voice crackled in my ear. “She’s over at the bar with Rory!”

  “I see them!” Zoe said. “Hold on, Rory! I’m on my way!”

  Gretchen’s blue eyes narrowed. “Take out that earbud. Right now. And put your phone on the bar.”

  “Sure.”

  Instead of obeying, my gaze flicked left and right, and I searched for something I could use against her. I spotted my ginger ale, which I had set on the bar earlier. All I had to do was reach out with my free hand, grab the glass, and smash it into Gretchen’s face. Then I could yank that dagger out of her hand and go on the offensive—

  She dug the point of her dagger into my spine again. “Don’t even think about trying to use your Spartan skills against me. You so much as breathe wrong, and I will shove this dagger in your back and leave you to bleed out.”

  Her cold, clipped tone told me she meant business. So I did as she commanded and pulled out my earbud. I also took my phone out of my pocket and set it on the bar.

  Gretchen left my phone where it was, but she grabbed the earbud and dropped it into my ginger ale. A faint bit of static sounded, but it quickly fizzled out. I winced. Zoe was going to kill me for ruining her gadget.

  If Gretchen didn’t beat her to it.

  “Move,” she snapped. “Through the kitchen doors.”

  I didn’t have a choice, so I pushed through the double doors and stepped into the kitchen. Ovens bristling with pots and pans, plates of finished food sitting on the counters, dirty dishes swimming in the sinks. Everyone was busy cooking, cleaning, and carrying food from one station to another, and no one batted an eye as Gretchen quickly marched me through the kitchen.

  She made me walk down a short hallway and push through another door. In front of us, a flight of steps led downward.

  With one hand, Gretchen shut and locked the door behind us, careful to keep her dagger pressed up against my spine the whole time. “Down the steps,” she hissed. “Move it.”

  I did as she commanded. Down, down, down we went, until we reached the basement, which was full of tables and chairs with missing legs and sagging couches with metal springs poking up out of the worn, dirty cushions. A thick layer of dust coated everything, and I wrinkled my nose to hold back a sneeze.

  “Why did you bring me down here? Hoping I’ll have an allergic reaction and sneeze to death?” I snarked.

  “Shut up and move,” Gretchen snapped.

  She clamped her hand down on my shoulder again and forced me to walk over to the far side of the basement. Unlike the other walls, which were made of concrete blocks, small cobblestones joined together to form this one.

  “Press in on the third stone from the left,” Gretchen said. “The one at eye level with the skull, crossbones, and vines on it.”

  I squinted. Sure enough, a small skull, crossbones, and vines emblem was carved into that stone. It matched the club logo on Gretchen’s shirt. “Why?”

  “Just do it,” she snapped again.

  I reached out and pressed in on the stone. To my surprise, it easily pushed back into the wall. A faint click sounded, and part of the wall slid back, revealing a dark passageway. My heart sank.

  Seemed I wasn’t the only one who loved secret tunnels.

  “Go on,” Gretchen said. “Step through to the other side.”

  Instead of obeying her order, I glanced back over my shoulder. From this angle, I couldn’t see the door at the top of the steps, so I tilted my head to the side, listening. Down here in the basement, the pounding music had faded to a dull roar. I concentrated, but I didn’t hear the door opening, footsteps, shouts, or anything else that would tell me that my friends were coming to help me.

  Ian and Zoe were probably still fighting their way through the crowd, and without my earbud, I had no idea if they’d seen Gretchen push me through the kitchen doors. I just had to hope that Mateo had seen her do it on the security cameras. But even if my friends figured out that she had brought me to the basement, it would still take them precious minutes to realize that there was a secret door and puzzle out how to open it.

  Unless I left them a clue.

  “What are you waitin
g for?” Gretchen demanded.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I snarked again. “Call me crazy for not wanting to step into a dark tunnel with the girl who has a knife to my back.”

  She tightened her grip on my shoulder and dug the point of her dagger a little deeper into my spine. “You’re going to get the knife in your back if you don’t do what I say.”

  While she was busy threatening me, I reached over with my left hand and took hold of the charm bracelet on my right wrist.

  “Move,” Gretchen said. “Now. Or start bleeding.”

  “All right. Take it easy.”

  I shifted on my feet as though I were trying to get away from her dagger. I was trying to do that, but the motion also let me slip Pan’s Whistle off my bracelet. I curled my fingers around the whistle, hiding it from sight, and dropped my left hand to my side.

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” she warned.

  “Okay, okay. Here I go, stepping into the creepy tunnel.”

  As I moved forward, I opened my fingers and flicked the whistle off to the left. Tink. It landed on the floor in front of the wall where the carved cobblestone was. Hopefully, my friends would spot the whistle and realize that I was telling them to take a closer look at the wall.

  “Enough stalling. Walk. Now.”

  Gretchen dug her dagger into my spine, and this time, the blade sliced through my T-shirt and stabbed into my back. I hissed at the sharp sting of pain, and I could feel my own warm blood sliding down my skin.

  “The next time, it goes all the way through your spine,” she growled.

  Her cold, hard tone once again told me she was deadly serious, and with her Valkyrie strength, she could easily shove the dagger up to its hilt in my body and give me a mortal wound.

  I was out of time and options, so I drew in a breath and stepped into the darkness.

  * * *

  The wall whispered shut behind us, cutting us off from the club. Unlike in the tunnels underneath the academy, no lights clicked on in the ceiling, leaving us in total, unrelenting blackness.