She cleared her throat several times, as if she was having trouble getting the words out, but she finally spoke. “My warrior dies.”
Her voice came out as a low, raspy whisper, and that tear welled up in her green eye, streaked down her cheek, and fell off her chin. The tear spattered onto my hand, which was resting on the shelf next to her. The drop felt as cold as a snowflake stinging my skin. More dread filled me.
“You’re kidding, right?” I said. “How is that even possible? Surely some warrior can win a third battle with you.”
Babs’s entire hilt quivered, as though she were trying to shake her half of a head. “No, no, they can’t. No matter how weak their opponent is or how good a fighter my warrior is, they can never, ever win the third battle. They might be able to kill their opponent, but something always happens to my warrior, and they die as well. Like their opponent cutting my warrior with a poisoned blade or getting in one final lucky strike. Trust me. I’ve seen it all, and the curse never fails.”
Another tear slipped down her face and hit my hand, adding to the cold sensation there.
“You have no idea how horrible it is,” she rasped. “Knowing that as soon as someone picks me up, they’ve been cursed to die, all because I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut. It’s the worst thing that Macha could have possibly done to me.”
“But surely there must be some way around the curse.” I thought about it for a moment, then snapped my fingers. “I know. I’ll just use a different sword. No big deal.”
Babs’s hilt quivered, as though she were trying to shake her half of a head again. “That doesn’t work. As soon as you touched me, you bound yourself to me. You can’t get rid of me, Rory. Even if you locked me away down here, as soon as you started fighting, I would magically appear in your hand, even if you were miles away and holding another sword or weapon at the time.”
A chill slithered down my spine. I’d heard of such things before, of weapons that you couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard you tried. Daphne Cruz, Gwen’s friend, had a bow like that, one that had kept reappearing in her dorm room, no matter how many times she tried to give it back to the museum it had come from.
Babs stared at me with a sad, weary, resigned expression, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. No doubt she did, since she’d probably had this same conversation with dozens of other warriors over the years.
“The only thing I can tell you to do is not to get into any fights,” Babs said. “Sometimes that works. For a while, anyway. A nice Amazon once kept me for almost a year before her third and final battle.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that. Not now, when I just joined the Midgard to track down these new Reapers. Besides, I’m a Spartan. Fighting is what we do, and being warriors is what we are.”
She gave me another miserable look. “I know. And Spartans always die the fastest because of that. I’m sorry, Rory. So very, very sorry. I was so happy when that nice old lady took me out of storage. I thought that being up on the second floor meant I could be out in the world a little bit and everyone would still be safe from me. But that’s not the case. That’s never the case.” Her mouth quivered, as though she were fighting back a sob.
Part of me wanted to leave her on the shelf, walk away, and never look back, just like she’d suggested. I had enough problems already without adding a cursed sword to the mix. And I couldn’t help but wonder why Sigyn had done this to me. She had told me that she had put Babs out in the library for me to use in the battles to come. So why would she give me a cursed sword?
Perhaps Sigyn hadn’t known about the curse, since Babs had belonged to another goddess. Or perhaps she thought I could help give Babs that fresh start she said the sword needed. Either way, it seemed as though I was stuck with the sword now, whether I liked it or not.
Babs looked so utterly miserable that I found myself stepping closer to her. I knew what it was like to have something forced on you, something that was completely out of your control, something that ruined your life no matter how hard you tried to fight it.
I leaned forward so that I was at eye level with the sword. “Listen, don’t worry about this whole curse thing. There has to be some book in the Library of Antiquities that can tell us how to break it. Or maybe even one of the artifacts down here in the Bunker can help. Besides, if anyone can survive having a cursed sword, it’s a Spartan, especially this Spartan. Trust me. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered, although I could tell she didn’t really believe me.
I didn’t believe me either. Despite all my comforting words, we were still talking about a curse enacted by a vengeful goddess. How could I possibly beat that without getting killed myself? But then again, this was why I’d agreed to be on the Midgard—to protect everyone else. Maybe that included Babs too. Maybe the sword just needed someone to help her fight her curse, instead of trying to get rid of her.
A third tear welled up in Babs’s eye, this time sliding all the way down her chin and onto her blade below. I reached out and gently wiped it off, even though it made my own hand even colder than before. As my finger slid down the blade, I felt some faint markings in the metal. I leaned forward again and squinted. At first, I thought they were just scratches, but then I realized that the marks almost looked like…letters.
I squinted at the blade again, tilting my head this way and that, trying to find the right angle so I could make out the letters, but I couldn’t quite bring them into focus. I almost thought they spelled out the word devotion, but I wasn’t sure.
“What’s wrong?” Babs said. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Nothing.” I straightened up and forced myself to smile at her. “Nothing at all. Now, come on. Let’s get you cleaned up before the others get here.”
Chapter Eleven
I grabbed Babs, left the shelves behind, and sat down at the main table in the center of the briefing room. I’d just finished wiping away the sword’s tears and polishing up her face when the others trooped into the Bunker.
Zoe and Mateo both nodded at me, and Zoe even came around the table to sit next to me, but Ian scowled as he dropped into the chair across from mine. I ignored him. I was here, whether he liked it or not, and I didn’t have anything to prove to him. Not one thing. That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway.
A moment later, Takeda strolled into the Bunker wearing the same dark gray tracksuit that he’d had on in gym class earlier. He looked at the four of us gathered around the table. If he was surprised that I was here, he didn’t show it or comment. Then again, I imagined it took quite a lot to crack the Samurai’s ever-calm attitude.
“Okay, team,” he said. “Where are we at? Report.”