I tapped my finger on Babs’s hilt, since the sword was still belted to my waist. “I’m good too.”
Takeda nodded. He slid out of the driver’s seat, came around, and opened the back door, and Ian, Zoe, and I got out of the van.
“Be careful,” Takeda said, looking at each of us in turn. “A couple of Protectorate guards who have been following Lance around campus are stationed outside the mansion, and a full team of guards will be here soon in case we need backup, but we don’t know how many Reapers might show up tonight or might already be inside the mansion. Remember, they could be regular kids, just like you guys. So get in, find the chimera scepter, and get out. Good luck.”
We all nodded back to him. Takeda climbed inside the van with Mateo and shut the door behind them. That left me standing in the street with Ian and Zoe. We all looked at each other.
“Let’s get this over with,” Ian said.
For once, I didn’t argue with him. Together, the three of us stepped onto the sidewalk and headed toward the Fuller mansion.
*
Lance’s party was definitely the place to be tonight. Luxury cars and SUVs lined both sides of the street in front of the mansion, and every single light in the house seemed to be on. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, the party’s official start time, but the Mythos kids had kicked things off early, given the loud, thumping music that reverberated up and down the street.
We left the sidewalk and hiked up the cobblestone driveway to the mansion. The front door was standing wide open, so we stepped inside.
People were already packed inside the large living room that took up the front of the mansion, talking, laughing, and dancing. Kids stood two and three deep in front of a glass table along the wall, passing soda and beer bottles back and forth and pouring the fizzing and foaming liquids into their plastic cups. Still more kids trailed along behind a couple of guys who were rolling an enormous beer keg along the floor, heading toward the kitchen so they could tap it. Some folks had even started smoking, and the harsh stench of cigarettes made me want to sneeze.
“Come on,” Ian said over the din. “Let’s find Lance.”
Zoe and I nodded, and together the three of us moved deeper into the mansion.
It was a massive house, three stories tall, with room after spacious room. At least, the rooms would have been spacious if so many people weren’t crammed inside. Mateo had been right. It looked like Lance had invited every single kid at Mythos to his party, and they were all determined to kick off the school year with a loud, drunken bang.
Zoe grinned and started shimmying to the music, but Ian winced, looking as pained, uncomfortable, and out of place as I felt. Something else we had in common. He caught me staring at him and shrugged. I shrugged back. I had never understood why people thought that the louder you turned up your music, the better time you would have. I actually liked to listen to music, not have it burst my eardrums.
“Where do we start?” I asked, almost having to yell at Ian to get him to hear me, even though I was standing right beside him.
“In the kitchen!” he yelled back. “That’s where Mateo says Lance is.”
I hadn’t heard Mateo say anything through my earbud, but that wasn’t surprising, given how insanely loud it was in here. I gave Ian a thumbs-up, telling him I understood, and pointed toward the kitchen. The three of us fell into step behind the kids following the beer keg. It was slow going, but we finally made it into the kitchen. It was actually a little less crowded in here, since the room had a set of double doors that opened onto a stone patio. Outside, kids shrieked and splashed in one of the heated swimming pools.
Ian, Zoe, and I moved over to the corner of the room, out of the way of the crowd gathering around the beer keg.
“Now what?” Zoe said.
Ian glanced around. “Now we find Lance—”
“Rory! Hey, Rory! Over here!” Someone shouted my name over the music.
I turned around. From the opposite side of the kitchen, Lance waved at me.
Ian leaned down. “You keep him distracted. Zoe and I will start searching for the chimera scepter. As soon as we find it, we’ll let you know, and then the three of us will get out of here.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Ian nodded at me, for once completely serious and without a trace of his usual hostility. I nodded back. He and Zoe disappeared into the crowd, and I plastered a smile on my face and started threading my way over to Lance.
“Hey! Great party!” I called out when I reached him.
Lance grinned. “Thanks!” He pointed at the guys tapping the beer keg in the kitchen sink. “You want some?”
I shook my head. “Nah. I don’t drink.”
I never drank. Alcohol dulled the senses, something that could be fatal for warriors. Especially in a place like this, where I didn’t know who was a friend—and who might secretly be a Reaper.
Lance put down his plastic cup and pointed to a set of stairs at the far end of the kitchen. “You want to go somewhere a little quieter and talk?”
“Sure! That would be great!”
At this point, I didn’t care if Lance was a Reaper and might be luring me into a trap. I just wanted to get away from the crowds and the thumping music that was rapidly giving me a migraine.
Lance and I went up the stairs to the third and top floor of the mansion. It was much quieter up here, and I could finally hear myself think again, as well as the others murmuring updates in my ear.
“That’s it, Rory,” Takeda said. “Keep Lance busy. Ian and Zoe have found a wall safe in a library on the second floor. We think that’s where the chimera scepter is. Zoe is working on opening the safe right now.”
Takeda stopped talking, but Zoe’s voice sounded. She was muttering to Ian, telling him what tools to pull out of her purse. I blocked her out and focused on Lance again.
He led me to a pair of open double doors at the end of the hallway, and we stepped into an enormous office. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases took up one wall, filled with the same sorts of old, thick, leather-bound books that were in the Library of Antiquities. Gold-framed paintings of famous mythological battles hung on another wall, along with more than two dozen swords, daggers, and other weapons. A wet bar stood in the corner, while an antique desk sat in the back of the room. Behind the desk, a couple of glass doors led out to another stone patio that overlooked the pool.
“This is my dad’s office, but he won’t mind us borrowing it,” Lance said. “He’s on a trip, of sorts.”
His calm, matter-of-fact tone made a cold finger of unease slide down my spine, especially since I knew that his dad had been killed by the Protectorate. What kind of game was Lance playing? I didn’t know, but I was getting a sinking feeling that the others were right about him being a Reaper.
Lance shut the office doors, then walked over to the bar, grabbed a bottle of Scotch, and held it out to me. “You want some?”
“I told you already—I don’t drink.”