Page 54 of The Goddess is Fierce
I was furious when I realized Hale had been Hedylogus the entire time. My dad had vetted him and the Paranormal Investigation Bureau checked out his alibi and cleared him. Hedylogus had been doing this longer than my dad had been alive. He learned about the caretaker job, figured out shapeshifting, and then applied for the job with a story about the Unseelie that would explain his aura.
He probably killed as he pleased and no one ever suspected him. I already knew how he beat his alibi. He drove to the movie theatre, bought his ticket, made sure he got picked up on all the CCTV cameras and then probably went into the bathroom and portalled back to the Academy of the Profane to commit his murder. Hedylogus could clean up and portal himself back to the theatre before the movie was over, and let himself be seen on camera leaving.
Fuck.How had none of us realized that when we were in Shrieking Woods talking to him? The ghosts literally told us find the forge. We did. The killer had been staying near it the entire time.
And he was a total fuckhead that seemed obsessed with Freya. He ordered us to come toward him and then stop. We all had no choice but to obey him. I was fighting with everything I had. I could mimic his magic, but I didn’t have the skill to wield it like he did. And he basically told us all to shut the fuck up because that idiot warlock who tried to get me kicked off thedodgeball team was bitching about money, so even if I wanted to use his magic against him, I couldn’t talk.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you, Freya? You disrespected me once, but you’ve been hiding in mortals for a very long time. I kept trying to figure out which one was you so I could have the satisfaction of cutting your heart out. I always thought I had the timing right when I got here and a powerless god without his memories would show up. I always figured you two knew each other, and he was looking for you. I killed every potential witch I thought you were hiding in. Tell me, did I ever get it right?”
What the fuck?No oneknew about that. The only people that knew were Azren and Freya for the longest time. My Uncle Loki and Sleipnir kind of outed her as Minerva Krauss because she’d make the same perfume she made back then and they knew it. The perfume was literally the only reason my uncles even guessed. Hedylogus couldn’t have known that.
And Freya was used to men throwing themselves at her. All the drama in Asgard where my Uncle Loki had to swoop in and save the day happened because Freya wasn’t allowed to speak for herself. Even Odin acknowledged that recently. When Freya was Minerva, she sat Matilda and Ibothdown and said sometimes, men were big babies who didn’t handle rejection well. Even if we were stronger than they were, to always let them down so that webothcame out looking good so he didn’t hold a grudge. Someone didn’t need to be able to overpower you to hurt you.
Freya could have hated this man and everything he stood for. He never would have known it. Hedylogus would have gone on his merry way neither upset, nor angry that Freya didn’t want to be with him. He would accept that was just how it was. Matilda and I didn’t exactly take her lessons to heart. We were both insanely bad at it if someone got gross when they propositioned us.
None of us could talk because he told us to shut up. Freya didn’t even remember this dude and no one us could ask what went down that he started butchering witches hoping one of them was her. I think a lot of us would like to know how he even knew Freya was going to be walking this earth in a mortal body he could easily kill.
And then Azren sent my sweet baby Oscar right behind Hedylogus. Oscar was immune to his magic because he was deaf, but there were countless other ways he could be killed. Oscar was my rock. He was the guy who had a new page of a manga he was writing—where I was this badass superhero—for me every morning at breakfast. Oscar was probably theonlyguy I was in love with who might try to talk me out of it if I had this super crazy idea. Church would probably think it was insane, but he was the kind of guy who wasn’t going to tell me what to do because I knew my mind best. Ren was a Kitsune, so if I wanted to fuck shit up, he at least wanted to watch. West was my ride or die. If I wanted to burn the world down, he was going to hold my hair back while I did it. Baldur had the whole God of Light thing going on, so maybe he might be a good influence. Azren was friends with my dad. They would just tell me to have fun and try not to get caught.
Azren had better have averygood reason to send my very breakable Brujo behind the god that had us all rooted to the spot and unable to speak with just his words. Because I didn’t know what I’d do if Oscar got hurt. I might very well raze this realm to the ground.
Oscar stepped on a stick. I could hear it and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it when Hedylogus whirled around. He was obsessed with Freya. He wasn’t interested in me before because he knew who my dad was and I wasn’t her. I guess he had been trying to kill me to hurt her since he still didn’t know her weakness but he thought he had mine. He’dbeen watching the dodgeball practices as Hale, but I guess he hadn’t figured out it was Oscar we were all signing for. He probably just didn’t care to find out.
“Stay still and shut up!” Hedylogus roared at Oscar.
I still hadn’t figured out how his magic worked or how to use it, but he figured out it wasn’t working on Oscar. I tried to scream when he went to grab Oscar and I couldn’t even do that. Icouldn’twatch him die. Oscar was a powerful Brujo, but he wasn’t a god. And this was the kind of god who went on a killing spree because Freya didn’t want to fuck him. He was probably going to go fucking insane that he spent all this time perfecting his magic to defy the Fates and it didn’t work on one deaf Brujo.
But then I figured out what Azren did. I was still mad about it because I was sure this was another one of their theories like when they handed me their scythe and hoped I didn’t explode. Oscar whipped Hedylogus’s lost arrow from behind his back and stabbed him in the chest with it.
Fuck me. Drake got therealanswer why Hedylogus murdered his parents over that arrow. Aphrodite wasn’t completely honest with Freya, but I got why. Freya wasn’t honest with her either and those were her kids. God weaknesses seemed to be pretty fucked-up. Baldur’s was a harmless plant that actually had a lot of medicinal properties. It could be used to heal a lot of shifter ailments, but it was fatal to Baldur.
Eros taught the Erotes to spread their magic like he did, but if they did it wrong, it also created their weakness. Hedylogus was kind of a dumbass. He was creating his own weakness because he thought he was hurting Freya more. Hedylogus could have done it with his words because he was doing it to us now. He created a physical arrow and shot them in the neck to get them to lie there while he cut out their hearts because it would hurt more.
I was guessing the arrow Drake’s mom found happened by accident. Someone saw him and distracted him. I’m sure he thought if he butchered Drake’s parents, the location of the arrow would die with them and even if anyone found it, they wouldn’t connect it with him.
Big mistake. I kind of loved the look on his face when he grabbed the arrow and sank to his knees as his aura flickered while he died. It was the look of some guy who thought he was more powerful than death, but just got his ass beat by a mortal, deaf Brujo. I actually loved that for him.
Oscar was losing his shit and Hedylogus’s hold on us was gone.
“Holy fuck, did I just kill a god?” Oscar shrieked. “Is his god family going to get mad about it and come seek vengeance?”
Ren and I ran as fast as we could and sandwiched Oscar between us. Ineverwanted to see my boyfriend in that kind of danger again. West found us and wrapped all three of us in a bear hug before stepping away. He grinned at Oscar.
“Itoldyou the first day we met being deaf wasn’t a weakness. You literally just kicked the God of Gaslighting’s ass because he couldn’t use his mojo on you.”
Azren fell out laughing.
“He’s not the God of Gaslighting, but that fits. And you aren’t wrong. Oscar was the only one of us who could have beaten him. Bethany? If the ghosts want their revenge, now is the time to do it because I have questions.”
Oh, fuck. Azren had been teaching me their power, but I’d never seen them go full God of Death before. I’d seen their scythe before. It was pretty massive and ornate and for some reason, I didn’t look nearly as sexy and badass as they did when they held it. One thing about Azren is that they literally knew how to dress for every occasion.
They could have conjured a hooded cloak for this and we all would have got it, but that was a little boring for Azren. Azren looked like they were about to walk a runway in Milan just to teach history. Azren wasnotgoing to reap Hedylogus in just a cloak. No, Azren conjured this black leather ensemble and topped it off with a long, black-leather trench coat.
I had a feeling Hedylogus was about to spend a lot of time in one of Azren’s jars in their safe back on their realm, but not until he answered some questions. And Azren brought out all the academy ghosts to hold him down. The ghosts werepissed.They weren’t just supposed to help run the academy and the speakeasy. They threw tantrums and did things like repeatedly punch my boyfriend in the dick, but they were also here to protect us and make sure we graduated as functioning adults.
Magic didn’t work when you were dead and that applied to ghosts, too. Ghosts didn’t learn to do the fun stuff like work in the speakeasy and punch harmless vampires in the nuts until they’d been dead a while and could practice. So, yeah, Hedylogus might have been one of the most dangerous creatures when he was alive because of how he abused his powers, but he wasn’t shit as a ghost.
The ghosts had him pinned down while they beat the ever-living fuck out of him. Yeah, Bethany had a weird kink about punching people in the dick, but I wasn’t mad about it if it wasn’t a dick I planned on using. Hedylogus had it coming.
