Page 30 of Coven Relics
Oaths and promises were sacred to Freya. She found a way to get out of making them if she knew she wasn’t going to keep them. She wouldn’t have sworn with Odin not to tell me that my children were alive without a loophole. Death gave her one when he told her to wait. The only reason she kept repeatedly dealing with puberty, hot flashes, and then death was because of a promise she made to Lilith.
I promised her I’d try not to destroy that garden. But, even if I hadn’t, it was important to her. She’d been protecting it through multiple incarnations of witches. Thor once forced me to steal a necklace she adored because he hated she paid for it with sex. I hated every minute of it, and I swore if something were precious to her, I’d make damned sure no one took it again.
So, modern day customs and the fact that I never broke a promise were complicating my ending this. All the phone calls had been made, and we were about to move this to Ravyn’s cottage. There was a lot more room in this warehouse, but nasty vibes were coming from a good bit of the objects in here, and none of us wanted to deal with Phillip and his dildo fetish. If he knew where that dildo had been, he wouldn’t have been in the same country as it.
We were about to leave when there was a knock on the door. It ended up being Troy. My problems with authority extended to things such as boards similar to the one he sat on, but Troy seemed cool. It’s not like he was a board member of a Homeowners Association. A person’s domicile was sacred. No one should be able to tell you what color you can paint the front door or how many flowers you can have. That was some next-level abusive relationship shit, and you had to pay them money every month for that honor.
Maybe I should topple the HOAs when I was done with this.
I much preferred Troy over Gertrude Von Stein, but if he was about to tell us she was still board president and they fired Ravyn, I might turn him into a really ugly mole and set him loose at a golf course. That was a good idea. Maybe I should save that for Valentine.
“Ravyn, dear, I had to bring you news. I finally got that board meeting called. Gertrude has been trying to save face by claiming she can fix this by helping catch Valentine when he calls to get the rest of the grimoire.”
“Horse shit!” I yelled. “Valentine isn’t home, man. Thorunn is running this show, and she is the one who knocks. She isn’t going to have Valentine call the stupid dragon and have him ask nicely for the grimoire back. If Thorunn comes back, she’s going to manipulate a group of people to try to take it by force.”
I’d give it to Troy. He only slightly paled, but he didn’t flinch or back down. Unfortunately, my patience was pretty much gone with Gertrude Von Stein. I would have found a way to have her spectacularly ousted from the board when I found out she had been harassing my girlfriend because her husband was a turd, but this? She helped Valentine in his mission to bring back someone who betrayed me, separated me from one son, got my other two sons murdered in front of me, and I ended up in a cave being tortured with snake venom.
To say the least, I wasn’t interested in anything being said in defense of Gertrude Von Stein.
“None of us have firsthand knowledge of the Cult of the Aether Sisters like you do. We’ve known Gertrude a long time and tolerated her nonsense. This idea that she’s single handedly going to fix this because she’s just so damned important Valentine will look to her for help is ridiculous.”
“There used to be a time you just killed someone over their nonsense instead of tolerating it long enough for them to fuck everyone over,” I growled.
Ravyn wrapped her arm around my waist and squeezed me. I was trying to focus on my breathing. Ishouldhave been focusing all my rage on Valentine and Thorunn, but they wouldn’t have been able to pull this off without Gertrude’s petty ass.
“You’d better explain, Troy. I’m not the first woman her husband sexually harassed at a museum gala. She wasn’t just terrible to me either. She was awful to every employee here when she was trying to get rid of me. She was a liabilitylongbefore she helped Valentine steal from the museum. I need to know why all of you tolerated her and what you are doing about it now.”
“If we can’t kill her, I can always shift and run her to a really nasty realm where they don’t like dragons.”
I liked that idea, too, but I needed Troy to tell me how it got to this point.
“I should start from the beginning. Gertrude’s husband comes from a long line of famous dragons. They got famous because they stole and hoarded a ton of priceless treasure. Unfortunately, some of the items they hoarded are highly volatile and dangerous. Now, that’s not usually a problem for a dragon when they are shifted, but they aren’t really sleeping in caves in dragon form anymore.
“Most of the dragons have happily donated their dangerous items to museums because they are limited in when and where they can shift now. They hate it, but they understand the exposure risk. Gertrude and her husband have an entire wing in their house that could kill them. It came to the museum’s attention when it did kill. It destroyed their maid.
“All of this, allowing Gertrude on the board and then letting her think we wanted her to be president, was to placate her husband into giving us those items. The two of them can’t stand each other and should really just get a divorce. He wanted her out of the way because he hates her, and she wanted something to do because she’s bored.
“There were plenty of us on the board, including me, who thought we shouldn’t be entertaining the notions of two spoiled dragons to get these objects when the Paranormal Investigation Bureau could go in and seize them since someone was already dead. We were outnumbered by people who thought the museum would lose support and donors if we went after their friends like that.”
In addition to revenge killing, people in this century were just so sensitive about taking shit from people. Imagine thinking entertaining two narcissists was the better solution than taking their dangerous toys away, so their hired help didn’t die again.” Ravyn squeezed me again because I think she knew I was about to blow my gasket, and this wasn’t even Troy’s fault. He didn’t like her either.
“Please tell me those objects still aren’t more important than every employee at this museum. Sasha was assaulted. This isn’t just not getting our vacations approved. Sasha’s head wound could have been a lot worse, but she’s a vampire with speed healing.”
“Trust me. I know. I’ve warned them that this would end badly since they let her on the board. We have officially voted Gertrude Von Steinoffthe board of directors of the Museum of the Profane. You’ve always been one of my favorite directors since I’ve been on the board and what she and her husband did to you was awful.
“If I tried to blackmail her husband with what he did to you to get those objects, he’d laugh in my face. In some circles, his friends would congratulate him on it and blame you for whatever reason they felt like.Butif I told him I’d make it public knowledge to all his rich friends that his wife helped a criminal rob the Museum of the Profane to help raise the Cult of the Aether Sister from the dead unless he turned those objects over to us, he wouldn’t hesitate.Thatwould utterly ruin both of them in their society. So, Gertrude is gone, and the museum is getting a bunch of new dangerous objects for you to play with once Valentine is out of the equation.”
I started laughing. Troy looked like this elderly, buttoned up warlock, but I adored it when I found out someone had a devious streak. Troy sat there and bided his time until Gertrude did something she couldn’t come back from and then handled it like a total boss.
“If those little bitches on the board know what’s best for them, they’ll have you running things,” I said.
Troy flushed red. I needed to adopt this little warlock and corrupt him because he had so much potential.
“I’m the board president now. Ravyn, I’m taking a hands-off approach. If you want to go on vacation or your employees do, you don’t need me to approve it. Any policies Gertrude put into effect that isn’t beneficial to the museum, you have my permission to get rid of them.”
“Can we start calling the dildos what they are again?” Ravyn asked.
I snorted. What an utterly ridiculous abuse of power. Most everyone had sex. Even my ACE friends didn’t go about shaming people for having it. They just wanted to be left alone. People back in the day were doing just as much fucking as we were now. Probably more. Dildos had been around forever, just not out of body-safe material like they made them out of now.
