Lance grinned at me and stepped forward. I wrapped my fingers around Babs’s hilt and moved to the side, thinking that he was going to attack me, but he walked past me, went to the desk in the back of the office, and opened one of the drawers. Lance started digging through the junk inside, tossing pens, pencils, paper clips, and more onto the top of the desk.
I listened to the others, but Zoe and Ian were still trying to get inside that safe. I opened my mouth to ask Takeda and Mateo if they were seeing Lance’s sudden freak-out, but then I remembered that the office didn’t have any security cameras. So I focused on Lance again, ready to yank Babs free from her scabbard if he pulled a dagger or some other weapon out of that drawer. But he only yanked out a wad of papers, tossed them on top of the desk with the rest of the mess, and kept digging.
Several long, slender pieces of paper slipped off the side of the desk and landed on the floor. I frowned. Those looked like…tickets.
I sidled a little closer and squinted at the black type. They were tickets—more than half a dozen tickets to the Fall Costume Ball this weekend. The annual ball always kicked off the academy’s school year and social events. But why would Lance have so many tickets to it? Weird.
He didn’t notice that the tickets had fallen to the floor, and he kept right on digging through that desk drawer.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “What are looking for?”
“There’s something I want to show you,” Lance said. “Something that will explain everything. Ah, there it is.”
He grabbed a final item from the drawer and straightened up. He smiled at me, came around the desk, and raised his hand. A gold stick topped by a familiar creature glimmered in his fingers.
Lance was holding the chimera scepter—and he was pointing it straight at me.
Chapter Thirteen
I froze, my hand still curled around Babs’s hilt, but I didn’t dare draw my sword. I hadn’t seen Lance unleash the chimeras in the library last night, so I didn’t know exactly how the scepter worked. But I was betting that he could summon the monsters before I could wrest that scepter out of his hand.
“Lance?” I asked, still playing dumb. “What are you doing? What’s that weird golden stick?”
I said that last part for the others’ benefit. For a moment, I didn’t hear anything through my earbud. Then Takeda let out a low curse.
“Lance has the scepter,” he muttered. “Ian, Zoe, forget about the safe. Go help Rory. Right now.”
“On it,” Ian replied. “We’re leaving the library.”
He and Zoe started talking to each other, and several loud clank-clank-clanks sounded, as though Zoe was stuffing her tools back into her purse. Since they were on their way, I tuned them out and focused on Lance again.
He started flipping the chimera scepter end over end in his hand, like it was a golden baton instead of a powerful artifact. “Oh, Rory. I expected more from you. A better performance, at the very least.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He flipped the scepter up into the air one more time, then caught it and stabbed it at me. “You know exactly what I mean. I saw you in the library last night, fighting my chimeras. I had forgotten what a fantastic warrior you are. So strong, so graceful, so deadly.”
Lance smiled, but his lips slowly twisted into more of a sneer. His condescending expression and compliments made me sick to my stomach.
“Let’s be honest. You know that I’m a Reaper, that I’m the one who stole Typhon’s Scepter from the library.” He shrugged. “I’m sure your new Protectorate friends told you all about it. After all, you’re Gwen Frost’s cousin. They have an interest in you. In making sure that you’re on their side for the upcoming war.”
“And what’s your interest in me?” I asked. “Because I don’t think that you asked me up here just because you think I’m cute.”
He let out a low laugh. The sound made my skin crawl. “I wasn’t lying when I said that you were cute earlier today. Then again, I’ve always been attracted to strong women.”
My hand clenched a little tighter around Babs’s hilt. I would show him exactly how strong I was when I took that scepter away from him. Lance smirked at me, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. I hoped he did, and I hoped he realized how badly this was going to end for him.
“But cute or not, you’re right. That’s not why I asked you up here. I wanted you out of the way so that my friends could capture your friends.” He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and brought the device up to his mouth. “Take them. Now.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, through my earbud, I heard Ian let out a vicious curse. He shouted at Zoe to get behind him, and then a series of crashes and bangs sounded, so loud that they made me wince. Mateo started yelling too, telling Ian that the security cameras were down and that he couldn’t see anything on his monitors. I could also hear Takeda barking out orders to someone, demanding to know where the Protectorate reinforcements were and how long it would take them to get to the mansion.
I stepped back, ready to run out the office to go help Ian and Zoe, but Lance slashed the chimera scepter through the air in a warning motion. I froze again.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he said. “You’re going to stay right here where I can keep an eye on you, Rory.”
“What do you want, Lance?” I snapped. “What’s the point of all this?”
A smug, satisfied grin filled his face. It made me want to punch him even more than before.
“The point is that my friends and I have finally found a way for the Reapers to take control, not only of all the Mythos Academies and the Protectorate but of everything, of the entire world.” He waggled the chimera scepter at me. “And guess how we’re going to do that?”
My stomach twisted at the obvious answer. “Artifacts. You’re going to use artifacts.”
“Ding, ding, we have a winner.” He waved the scepter around again, pointing it at the swords on the wall. “As you can see, my dad loved to collect weapons. He never saw a rusty old sword or dagger that he didn’t want, and he spent all the Fuller family fortune buying every single weapon he could get his hands on.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, still playing dumb. “What happened to your dad?”
“He was desperate for money, so he started stealing weapons and armor from the Protectorate warehouse where he worked in New York and selling them to the Reapers.” Lance’s face darkened. “And the Protectorate killed him for it. Slaughtered him in a raid.”
That matched what Linus Quinn had said—and it also sounded like the story Zoe had told me about Ian and his brother, Drake. Could Lance’s father have worked with Ian’s brother? I didn’t know, and it wasn’t important right now. All that mattered was getting that scepter away from Lance before he conjured up any chimeras. Then I could go help Ian and Zoe.
I moved forward a couple of steps, trying to get into position to lunge at Lance and grab the scepter. “Is that why you stole the scepter? Is that why you’re planning to give it to Sisyphus? Because the Protectorate killed your dad and you want revenge on them?”
Lance barked out a harsh laugh. “Well, it’s certainly a bonus, but no, I didn’t join the Reapers only for revenge.”