The Lamb and the Gray Battle

July 1, 2022

Brantley drove into Columbus to the OSU demon history library. The suburbs around Columbus, Westerville, Worthington, all had nice, manicured lawns. Many had crosses or doves in the front yard. The deeper into Columbus he got, the more he saw pitchforks and red devils painted on the side of houses.

He wasn't sure what to write his entry thesis about. He got through the first page of his thesis paper regarding banned music and it was all a rant. He couldn't write fifty pages on the lineage of Phil Collins and Elton John. So back to the library. The OSU library wasn't as good as the library at Harvard or Yale, but he didn't have time to get the books sent to him. Nor could he afford the charge for demon spell delivery on books. Everyone wrote papers about the atrocities of the Civil War between PC and USW and the persecution of the native tribes. The Salem Witch Trials were pure horror. King Ao Guang had protested the killings, citing several treaties, that declared no demon blood under his sovereign remained in the virgin colonies.

King Ao Guang was quoted, "Your witch tests would never hurt a real demon."

Whenever Brantley's teachers in school discussed King Ao Guang, they would have the class pause so they could pray that no demons or filthy demon bloods were in their Pure and Clean country. King Ao Guang was a lying monster. Every school room had a picture of the fiend, his arms raised, a tidal wave behind him, his eyes glowing red, his claws bared.

We forget the power of real demons, Brantley thought.

The restricted section seemed the perfect place to find a controversial topic for his entry thesis. He browsed titles, pulled a few down and examined the jacket. He reached for the tome, the Lineage of Quinn an Mhor, strictly because a lineage book had no business being in the restricted section. The cover was brown leather, aged, the pages thick and heavy.

The first witch listed was a young woman Quinn who had been raped by an unknown demon. The paragon was the first woman in Ireland to embrace her demon half-breed child and raise her. In turn, the child, a girl, was a ghastly fierce creature, Cliodhna, and protected her mother with the voracity of a rabid dog. What was more impressive about this book were the paintings of the women. Page after page featured women with fire red hair. A quick summary told the accomplishments of each one.

As Brantley skimmed through witch after witch, he was further convinced that this book was shelved here in error. No men were listed among the witches. Sons weren't recognized on the family tree.

He skipped a few witches.

Bronagh an Mhor. The painting of Bronagh showed a threatening woman in her prime, fire red hair pulled back into a bun, dark eyes. A demon slayer who fought in dozens of demon wars. Staunch Catholic.

Brantley had to pause when he read that.

Took custody of her granddaughter in an attempt to cleanse her soul. It listed her birth date as January 12, 975, but there was no death date listed after the hyphen.

Brantley rubbed his arm and flipped to the next page.

Siofra an Mhor, wild fire red hair and blue eyes that somehow looked warm like the sunshine itself was trapped in her soul. Brantley took the book to the copy machine, but the black and white copy lost the entrancing effect. But he couldn't stop looking at her. She seemed familiar. Daughter of Apollo, she inherited his gifts of music and dance. She glowed and radiated. A champion of ratifying Hell and opponent of Satan, supporter of Ao Guang. Murdered by demon slayers while protecting her daughter. April 1, 1149-circa 1379.

Wait, her mother was a demon slayer. Did her own mother kill her?

He went back to the earlier entries. The women typically lived to be around seven-hundred and fifty years old.

The last page was just a name. Aoibh an Mhor, March 11, 1354-.

When Brantley was little, he would peek into his father's notebook. Pages and pages of Abe, Abe, Abe. Brantley squinted his eyes, tried to remember, but all his father's rants were long gone. Aoibh was close to Abe. Maybe...

Brantley couldn't get distracted. He switched back to the heavy tome. None of these women were sinister. Their only crime was blood thick with demon DNA. They were considered royalty in Ireland.

He decided to review King Ao Guang himself. Maybe the Demon King would yield better subject matter for an entry thesis. He sorted through dozens of biographies on King Ao Guang. The one titled, Ao Guang, a Complete History, seemed the most boring, so it was probably the most accurate.

He took the biography and lineage book to the checkout desk, but the girl there said, "I'm sorry. That's a restricted text. You can't check it out."

Brantley turned the lineage tome over a few times. Definitely mystified that this book was restricted.

"Why?"

The girl was about the same age as him and she stared at him with blank eyes.

He said, "Do you know anything about the witches of Quinn an Mhor?"

"I just work here."

Brantley detoured to the copy machine again. The old woman at the information desk glared at him. After a dozen copies, she marched over.

"That's copyrighted material, young man. Not only that, it's restricted for a reason. Do you know how many forms we had to fill out to get that book here?"

The woman snatched the tome from his hand and put it behind her desk.

Dylan would have clapped over Brantley's tantrum. But Brantley had a paper to write. He took the biography and left.

Brantley kept getting distracted while reading. He was right. Ao Guang, a Complete History was dry reading.

He checked Amazon for the an Mhor lineage book, but they didn't have a copy. He switched to Ebay. There was a copy of the biography for $150.00, but the lineage book wasn't listed. When he did a Google search, he found a copy listed for 12,500.00€.

Wow, that book didn't look like it was gold.

Brantley went back to the biography of King Ao Guang.