Page 57 of The Goddess is Awakened
My hands went to the clasp of my necklace, but before I could unhook it, it sounded like literally every single banshee on campus was shrieking. If someone wasn’t already dead, they would be dyingverysoon. I dropped my hands. If that wasn’t amassivesign from the universe that it wasn’t time for the big reveal, I didn’t know what was.
We all knew what a banshee shriek meant. They also knew the real reason Azren was here. The guys all jumped to their feet and Azren appeared in my dorm room in a cloud of black smoke. West shrieked and jumped straight into Church’s arms and they both crashed into Matilda’s bed because West was massive and Church wasn’t expecting to catch a lion.
“Gods can appear like that?” West hollered.
“It’s a thing. Live it, love it,” Azren said. “There’s a dead body on the dodgeball field and it wasn’t peaceful. It was a violent death and the spirit will be traumatized. I know how to deal with that.
“I wouldn’t usually bring college students to a reaping where someone died horrifically, but new ghosts aren’t like the ones who have been around for a while. A lot of them don’t know they are dead and it’smucheasier for them to adjust if a friend or family is there. We also have a decent mix here to do the rites. They should really be done by someone of the same race. It’s not just something that’s done just so someone can move on. There’s a beauty and reverence in it. It’s about honoring your dead.”
My twin burst in with Mags and Mina. Mina didn’t question why the God of Death was standing in my dorm room. Banshee magic was kind of traumatic. They were walking death omens and they couldn’t do anything to change it. It was kind of a cruel thing to do to a creation. Azren didn’t make banshees, but now that I’d chatted with them, I was pretty sure the god that made them was hoping for a way to cheat death.
“I can’t stop it, but you’re the God of Death. Can you?” Mina pleaded.
“If it’s their time, no. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but I’m too late. If you’d like to help, grab onto me. Mina, you probably don’t want to see this. Stay with Mags and Matilda.”
My twin and my familiar were into Mina. They told me as much. They both wrapped an arm around Mina and squeezed her to let her know they were there and wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. Mina just squared her shoulders and looked Azren directly in the eye.
“We could all feel it was violent. I’m not some delicate princess. If you can stop this from happening again, I’m coming.”
Yeah, I got why my twin and my familiar were into her. It was going to take a certain kind of woman to handle the both of them. A young banshee that just dealt with a death omen and was ready to go kick some ass with the God of Death and our squad wasexactlythe kind of girlfriend my sister needed.
Everyone that knew my secret gave me a look. I shook my head. Icouldhave portalled myself to the dodgeball field, but it had to mean something that someone got murdered right when I was about to take my necklace off. IknewI could trust these guys, but something deeper was going on.
So, I grabbed Azren and let them take me there.
west
My girl had every right to be spooked. I had a feeling it was going to be a while before she told everyone else her secret, but I had it figured out. I wasn’t a rocket scientist unless it came to girls. And I was aluckyfucking lion she even gave me the time of day. I mean, I was awesome and anyoneelsewould be lucky to have me, but George was next level.
The clues were all there. Our girl was here all sneaky and undercover. I didn’t knowhowbut George wasn’t a witch. It made sense. Her dad was a primordial. His sperm and genes were probably pretty fucking potent. His kid was totally going to end up a fine-ass deity with banging legs, an amazing personality, a brain full of dodgeball facts, and the ability to kick my ass.
It also totally explained the private lessons with the God of Death and why they were doing secret missions. These were top-secretgodmissions, and they were letting us tag along. I alsototallysmelled Azren all over her when Church and I waited in the common room for her to get back from her private lessons. We were all pretty much boyfriends by extension to the God of Death.
But I was keepingthatsecret, too, until my girlfriend gave me permission to talk about it. I already researched ifIcould get fired for being with George. Like, I would have done it anyway, but I would have been sneaky about it like my feline ancestors. Azren woulddefinitelyget fired, and I was practically their boyfriend, too, at this point. My mane was going to get big because it was full of secrets.
I’d seen a dead body before. It was by accident. One time, I got really into Banksy and decided I was going to be famous like him. Except I was terrible at art and even worse with a can of spray paint. Apparently, that’s considered vandalism if you aren’t good at it and didn’t get permission first. People got like,reallymad about it.
I was practicing on what I thought was an empty building and it ended up being some human’s butcher shop. It was filthy, and I questioned any meat sold there because it looked and smelled like a serial killer’s lair.
He came running out and chased my ass down a nasty alley with a big shotgun. I didn’t fuck with guns and I couldn’t shift in front of a human. I tore my perky little ass out of there and got lost. I ended up tripping over a dead vampire.
That vampire didn’t go gently. Supernatural drugs were nasty business. That didn’t even remotely prepare me for what was on the dodgeball field. And that was after I got over traveling by god. You’d ask for a refund if your ride share was leaking black smoke everywhere, but Azren’s black smoke smelled amazing and they weremuchfaster than a janky sedan.
We all wanted five seconds to lose our shit that we were literally in George’s dorm room two seconds ago, but Azren, George, and Mina were pretty focused. George had done this before. She could do this herself. Mina didn’t even react, and I decided I was pretty muchneverfucking with that girl because her revenge would be epic.
When I saw the body, I nearly vomited. This wasn’t an accident. Somepsychopathhad gotten ahold of this witch. I didn’t know her because she wasn’t in any of Oscar’s classes, but no one deserved this. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of supernatural could have done this because it didn’t line up with any standard kill.
Her neck was mangled, but I didn’t think it was a vampire. Human movies liked to show vampires draining people of blood, but it didn’t work like that. Vampires couldn’t drink the contents of a human body. It was like, way too much blood. Vampires didn’t drink to kill and the wound on her neck wouldn’t have been fatal if they attacked and it was an accident.
No, someone had cracked this witch’s chest open and removed her fucking heart. Sometimes, a supernatural would go totally deranged and do something like this, but it was rare. We were all deadly. We all were created with one or several ways to kill. No oneneededto be sadistic about it like this.
“Do the shifters smell anything familiar?” Azren asked.
Excuse me? We were kind of dating now and I really wanted to help catch the bastard who did this, but was he seriously asking me to smell a dead body? It was going to be difficult to pick up anything but all that blood. Was I being a bitch-ass about this? Oh, hell. Matilda was over there sniffing. I guess this was part of top-secret god missions.
I picked up blood and terror. I was pretty sure this poor witch had been alive when this psycho started cutting. It was faint. It was like whoever did this was counting on all the other scents overwhelming someone like me, but they didn’t avoid touching her. There was another scent buried under everything else and it belonged to the killer.
“Did you pick it up?” I asked Matilda.
