Page 15 of Battle of Witches
“As a certified geek of all things history and the curator of this museum, it would be against the law for me not to ask you to go into detail about that,” I said.
“Same here,” Killian said.
“What the hell,” Loki said. “We’re still waiting for Kaine to call and tell us when that party is. Then, I can tell you about all the fuckups my people have made. So, the primordials made humans and lived among them for a little while. The disappointment was mutual. The humans did terrible things to each other and blamed the primordials for literally everything. We are capable of a great many things, but some things are beyond even us.
“The primordials mostly left and were forgotten about. The Aether created new gods. Some of them decided to create, while others were happy to swoop in and pretend like they made the universe and humans to be worshipped. By then, humans were everywhere. The new gods quickly learned that the only way to protect their creations was to make them resemble humans but give them extra magic.
“The massacre here wasn’t the first time humans feared the supernatural; just for different reasons. Back then, they were okay with someone having magic or turning into a wolf as long as theylookedlike everyone else.
“Mostof us learned from that, but a few pompous assholes were flexing their god dicks that thought it would be different with them. So, they created these monstrous things and then just left them alone to fend for themselves. Like, I’m talking, they left them when they were just five minutes old and knew literally nothing.
“All your legendary monsters in history that aren’t your neighbors now pretty much came from that. The Greeks were particularly bad about it but weren’t all that great with their actual offspring, either. They got pretty rapey with the humans and expected their mortal offspring to fight their monsters because the humans thought they had magical powers. It was all kind of gross. It was pretty poetic when the humans changed their names but kept their stories. They were all offended by it but tried to stay relevant. As humans do, they eventually lost interest and found another god to worship.”
“So, the minotaur and Kraken were real? Minerva brought a kinky book to book club calledMonster Whisperer,where they were the love interest.”
“Sounds like her. They were both real but not really capable of being anyone’s love interest. Theycouldhave been, but they weren’t created in a way that gave them that option. It was sad, really.”
“I’d love to hear more about that, but I think we need to be looking harder at the grimoire. We know Asfrid was trying to figure out power sharing. We also know that Ravyn and I can do it even though I’m a hybrid. She can feel my bat side. Kaine promised to give us a head’s up, but it wouldn’t shock me if he called when he’s got his hands on Valentine. We aren’t exactly proving to be super helpful when he lets us go on his busts. I think we need to figure out what Asfrid’s end game is and how far she’s gotten on it so far.”
Yes, we did. Ireallywanted to see Valentine get busted by a banshee, but I kind of got why Kaine wouldn’t call us if he didn’t.
Chapter12
Bjorn
Ispent the entire time in that pocket dimension agonizing about stopping Thorunn. It was always her, and I put all this pressure on myself that I would get a vision that would solve everything and single handedly bring her down. It was personal for me. She was awful to Sleipnir, betrayed Loki, and was the entire reason I was in that pocket dimension.
I’d finally removed that stick from my ass. So many people hated Thorunn. Even the people in this century whodidn’tknow her name hated her. It wasn’t my job to take her down alone. We had a team here with different skills. Asfrid had been the mastermind this entire time, but I wasn’t quite ready to write Thorunn off as one of her victims.
It took me forever, but I was at peace with my magic. I definitely wanted to go to Hell and study with the seers there, but Loki took special care when he created me so that the magic he gave me didn’t destroy me. Yeah, Iwantedto see what Asfrid’s endgame was and how to stop her, but there were people here capable of figuring that out for the grimoire. I couldseemuch better when I was touching someone, so I would come in if Kaine caught Valentine. We had to win at leastoneof these battles, right?
The witches and warlocks were hunched over our translations of the grimoire while Loki had the scanned page pulled up. Sleipnir and I were just here for moral support. Ravyn was quite impressive with her potions and magic. I wasn’t good at that, but I loved watching her do it.
“So, this is supposed to be a potion that allows you to power share with someone not like you,” Killian said. “They tried to do that back in my day, but no one managed it. Still, most people don’t write spells in their grimoire until it works, and they couldn’t exactly go to the store and buy a notebook to write things down as you perfect them.”
“If this works, she also hadn’t tried to come back and take it,” Ravyn said.
We all shared a look. You know, I used toadmireAsfrid. She was kind, gentle, and she was absolutely brilliant.
“She doesn’t need to,” I said. “Asfrid has what you would call a photographic memory. She probably sent Valentine after the grimoire becauseheneeded the instructions to raise her and because time might have faded some of her memories.”
“I think she figuredsomethingout,” Loki said. “Look at this. She didn’t name this one, it’s just one rune, but it’s close. This looks like a recipe for a tonic that would just get you extremely high, but maybe that’s part of the problem. All of you are a different mix of god magic that only plays nice together because you have free will and little personalities that know how to behave in public.
“Some of the gods who created you were mortal enemies to the god who created someone else.Youmight not feel it or know that, but your magic does. It would react during power sharing unless even your magic was drunk.”
That didn’t mean it worked. Asfrid was superb at making things that messed people up. I’d seen that much in person.
“This could just get you messed up enough tothinkyou’re power sharing. I don’t think all the hybrids were terrible. Thorunn was a cunt, but the rest of them weren’t bad until they started getting high. I don’t think it was thattheyhated you or wanted to betray you. They just liked getting high more.
“This could be that. If Asfrid claims to do what no one else has done before, and this gives the illusion of that, she’d be famous.So, whatevershe was trying to accomplish by having Thorunn claim to be Angrboda and kill all those people might actually be possible if she uses this approach instead of the crazy pants one,” I said.
“You could be right,” Loki said. “I don’t even think the Angrboda shit was about followers. That only made sense when we thought Thorunn was running things. She was always given to fits of grandeur and thought she was better than everyone else because she was a hybrid.”
“Asfrid was always the quiet, meek one in the background that you went to when you were trying to figure out a problem,” Sleipnir said. “It didn’t matter what it was. She always solved it. I wish we knew what the fuck she was up to.”
Even if Ididn’tget the answer in some big vision, we still had a brilliant team here. None of us were stupid. Sleipnir spent his time in captivity with Odin wisely. Odin sacrificed an eye for wisdom, and his kids just weren’t even interested in learning from him, so he’d go out and talk to his pets. Sleipnir was soaking it all in.
Most of the other gods were afraid of how Loki’s brain worked. Asfrid might have tricked him a few times, but that would catch up with her once he finally got over it. Ravyn and Killian were brilliant, and I wasn’t an idiot, either.
