Page 9 of The Goddess is Angry
They were angry I told Fleur’s coven she was murdered, but what else was I supposed to do? They wanted me to let them think she just up and left and let every student on this campus think that no one died.
How was that supposed to work, anyway? Banshees were a type of Fae. Áine was a prolific goddess. She made the Seelie, Unseelie, Pixies, and Banshees under the Fae umbrella. Banshees didn’t just keen when someone was going to die. They could sing to someone and help them through a difficult passing. A lot of them were healers.
But if they screamed? Someone was going to die.
I got that most college students could be idiots, but how did they expect to pull this off? The only person who wasn’t talking down to me was former Headmaster Church.
“I’m sorry. I’m just one man and I can’t control them.”
“Freya is an amazing teacher. Reyson and Loki are good friends, but you don’t really want them around college students. I didn’t need to deal with that shit at six in the morning when I should have been handling a murdered student. Do you know how hard it is to get the God of Chaos out of bed? His wife holds a grudge.”
“Ripley Bell? She was a hell of a student back in the day. So was her twin sister. How are her kids doing?”
“George is strong and smart and Matilda is going to run this entire planet one day. George is dating your grandson, by the way.”
“Seriously?”
“We don’t need to be talking about that. I’m pretty sure this has happened before. A student murder. I’m pretty sure it went down exactly like this and the university covered it up. Do you know anything?”
“It never happened under my watch, but there’s a protocol for it. I never askedwhywe had it. It’s different from any other student death,” he said.
“Tell me.”
“Well, revenants used to be a problem a long time ago. Not so much now. It’s a lot harder to steal a body than it was in the past. Too many cameras and more security at the cemeteries. We get donated bodies for necromancy, but we don’t get them that often. They get taught a lot of theory before they move on to practical work and they don’t actually get a body until the last month of class. Each student gets one day and the Paranormal Investigation Bureau is there just in case.
“It does happen, just not as much as people think. If someone dies because of a revenant, the whole student body knows about it and we release a statement. Same if there’s an accident in potions. If someone gets murdered on campus, we are supposed to pretend like they left and we don’t know where they are, both to the students and their family. It’s terrible, but it never happened the entire time I was headmaster. I honestly thought the policy was so bad because it never did and never would happen here.”
“Mm. It did happen. I felt it but by the time I got here, it had stopped. Time moves differently in my realm. It’s going to happen again. I have a feeling it’s just getting started. Can you think of anything that happened nineteen years ago with a Basilisk named Artemis? Her son Drake is a student here now.”
“Nineteen years ago, we had two attacks on campus. One involved an ancient cult and a few students died. I guess it did happen under my watch, but I knew who did it and they paid for it. You were here for that one because it was the first time I met you. Later that year, a student got shot in the fucking neck with a golden arrow. Several students saw and were able to save her. They never caught who did it. We haven’t even taught archery on campus in ages.
“I remember Artemis. She was a promising student. I never found out why she left. She left for winter break and just didn’t come back. Artemis dropped out online without ever speaking to anyone. I asked her roommate, and she said Artemis was acting strange before winter break, but she didn’t know what was going on with her. Students do that sometimes. They get burnt out and drop out.”
“Mm. She was murdered the next year. I’m trying to find out what happened for Drake.”
“You aren’t going to find that out in her school records. She was an exemplary student, but not even her roommate knew why she dropped out. The records were switched to electronic a few decades ago, but if you had that feeling before that, you’ll need to go to the basement under Grimsbane Auditorium.
“When I was headmaster, I tried to get a project going where some of the scholarship students could do work-study and get paid taking all those records and digitizing them, but the board wouldn’t approve it because they wouldn’t be using magic to do it. Most of the board has never been poor or left their rich families and had to build themselves from nothing, so they don’t realize money is money and some people are willing to take nonmagical jobs in a pinch to pay bills.”
“Have I told you that you’re the only board member keeping me sane lately?”
“An hour ago,” he smirked.
“It’s still true. And your grandson is going to be an amazing vampire one day.”
“If not, George Bell will kick his ass. I know her mom and aunt.”
I laughed because George would kickmyass, too. Literally. She already tried to assault me once. And since she wasn’t a witch, it fucking hurt when she punched me in the face. There were only a few gods in existence that would dare punch Death in the face and she was one of them.
I was completely crazy about her.
There was a knock on my office door, so Church got up to leave. Oscar stuck his head in and I signed for him to come in. This was the first time I ever had him alone, and I had an idea. Gods could heal nearly any injuryifit was able to be healed.
Vision and hearing were tricky. We could conjure things from nothing and we were capable of great magic. Reyson could only give familiars their bodies back because their essence was out of the Aether and he transfigured their animal into their old bodies. At least, I think. I still hadn’t figured that out yet.
We couldn’t regrow body parts. When we created life, it was either the traditional way of reproduction or building a creature from mud and feeding it our blood and breath. Giving someone sight or hearing back was possible if the raw materials were there to heal. Gods learned that the hard way when they were trying to perform miracles and ended up looking bad.
It might not work, but I could give Oscar his options. Before I could even say anything, he told me what he wanted.
