Page 37 of Chaos
T
his was utterly fascinating. I always had people around me the last time I occupied this vessel, but I never worked with them as a team like this. I always just considered my gifts superior. I could have touched Balthazar and healed his affliction without breaking a sweat, but my witch needed to do this.
I had been pretending not to notice, but I knew exactly what the vampire wanted once he had a functioning cock again. Ripley was ignoring it too but if I looked at all the possibilities between the three of us, Ripley and I would eventually enjoy sharing the vampire.
It was always so hard to remind myself that I was the only one that could see all, and the gods had changed. Ripley, Felix, and Gabriel worshipped Lilith. She was a nice witch, but I was so much older than she was. They’d be hanging on to every little tidbit I dropped about the future if my name was Lilith. It was a bit mortifying, really.
Everyone was doing their thing. Ripley, Gabriel, and Felix were mixing potions. Balthazar was glued to his laptop and talking to himself. I needed to do my own thing. They had their powers, and I had all of mine.
What to do first? Dorian Gray was a threat. Of that, there was no doubt. Still, my witch explained things to me. His deal wasn’t for horrible powers.
He wanted to be young and pretty forever. Pretty stupid agreement, if you asked me.
I could check with him later. Ripley mentioned a Hellhound had also been given all access. Which meant he could possibly be one of us. He hadn’t shown up when I sent magic out for anyone involved to come to the library, but he had been reading the same books Dorian had been reading. Silvaria and Dorian hadn’t been back either, which meant they were out of the state. Eventually.
I needed to find this Bram. I’d only ever met a few Hellhounds. Vicious beasts, but they were treated like slaves. They were tied to a demon who was their master. Sometimes, the demon was too lazy to collect their payment themselves, so they would send their Hellhounds.
Don’t ask me what they put them through in Hell, but they were all hardened and seemed like they felt no pain. My family didn’t like it, but we couldn’t exactly control people making deals with demons. People had free will. We didn’t step in when payment was due either. They had free will, but they also had to suffer the consequences of their actions.
I didn’t want to witness it in my presence, though. I’d gotten into some scuffles with Hellhounds to get them to take that nonsense away from me. I always won, but they put up a hell of a fight.
I needed to find out if this Hellhound was friend or foe, and I wouldn’t be able to see that until I laid eyes on him. Ripley said his name was Bram. I could do a lot with a name. Witches could too. It was why I wanted to make sure no one had my mine this time.
I went and sat on the windowsill and crossed my legs. I closed my eyes and tuned out everything and everyone in the room. I needed to focus on the cosmos. I felt myself floating out of my body and saw a swirl of stars and galaxies.
“Show yourself, Bram.”
Something was wrong. I should have instantly astral projected to his location. I could have looked him in the face or seen through his eyes. The only way I wouldn’t have locked onto his location immediately was if he was back in Hell. My family had never been there before. Most of us never wanted to visit, but I tried once and found I couldn’t.
This didn’t bode well. This all tied back to demons and Hell. With all my powers even I couldn’t go there. My family didn’t create Hell like we did the universe Earth existed in. If one of us did, no one would fess up to it. As far as I knew a new god hadn’t been born in ages, but there was a time my family grew quite often. Some of them I hadn’t even met, even now.
It wouldn’t shock me if one of them created demons and Hell. Just like I helped create Earth and humans with my closest siblings.
It didn’t help me figure this out. I needed to lay eyes on Bram to find out if he was friend or foe. If he was a friend, then he had answers and I needed to get him to the library. Ripley was right. The spirits gave us hints about the team her tarot cards foretold by giving them all access to the library.
They gave the Hellhound all-access, and he had answers. I could wait. He would eventually leave Hell. He was in the thick of this and he would be back.
I’d be waiting.
Chapter 31
Ripley
Y
ou weren’t technically supposed to mix two potions together. Every single one of my potions professors drilled into us that if one potion would not do the job on its own, you had to spend time in your lab figuring out a brand-new potion to get the job done.
Yet Minerva Krauss was a revolutionary when it came to breaking curses. She figured out a way to combine two potions, even if most of the witching community was still old school and refused to use it. They considered it cheating to throw mugwort in your cauldron to get two potions to cooperate with each other. Frankly, I loved it and used it all the time.
Minerva Krauss tested that theory and proved it worked. Testing potions to create a brand new one when there were two known ones that would do the job was a lot of work. The only way to know if your creation worked or not was to test it; which could sometimes be a disaster. People were willing to get pustules or grow an arm out of their forehead because that was just how shit had always been done instead of trying something new. Idiots.
Gabriel was engrossed and even he wasn’t some ass-backward warlock who was sitting there questioning me and trying to tell me what to do.
“You’re seriously telling me mugwort of all things will get these two potions to cooperate? Fuck. I seriously wish I had gotten an invitation to the Academy. I’m dying to meet the witch who figured this out.”
“You can if you stick around. She’s a real hardass when she’s your professor. She’s the only professor ever togive me a C on anything. She’s sweet to me now that I’m not her student. We bond over the werewolf porn. She should bring her book back soon. We usually sit in the atrium and have a mini book club about it when she returns her books. She was almost too radical for the Academy of the Profane. Since she published so many books and was famous, they made an exception.”
“I’ve read some of her books. I’d probably make an ass of myself if I met her.”
