The Trickster's Drum (Godsongs Book 1)

by Jax Garren

  “Yeah.”

  She stood. “You’re about to change back.” She bit her lip like she was making a tough decision. “Might want to leave before that mask disappears.”

  He let her turn him about but didn’t move when she gave him a forward shove. “I have a lot of questions.” And the creative, tenacious woman who didn’t give a shit about his place on the Billboard charts would have a lot of answers. “When can we see each other again?”

  She blanched. “Me? Don’t learn from me. I’m a terrible teacher. I don’t have any idea what I’m doing.” Her face screwed up again, then she gave him a steely look he couldn’t interpret. “The Liberty Condos on the Brazos River, apartment thirty-four. You can find help there.” She pointed off farther into the woods—“I’m going to go this way”—then pointed the opposite direction. “You go that way.” Then she headed off, like it was the end of their acquaintance.

  “Wait!”

  “Go see Andromeda. She’ll answer your questions. I’m nobody.”

  She was really disappearing into the woods, and he was... going to be sick again. He clutched his stomach, trying not to dry heave as another shudder ran over him. Maybe he could learn her whereabouts from this Andromeda. “Liberty Condos, apartment thirty-four?” he called after her.

  She didn’t respond, and he hoped he’d gotten it right, because the goddess was already gone.

  Chapter 6

  EXHAUSTED AND CONFLICTED, Giselle—herself once again—dropped down onto a bench near the student union and watched people pass by. Had she done the wrong thing?

  The godstone wanted... whoever that guy was. It was the best explanation she could think of. Andromeda had once let it slip that stones would sometimes choose their conduit, making a powerful bond, unlike her stone, which was stuck with her via inheritance.

  Not that it seemed unhappy or anything. But while Coyote had talked about destiny, she just didn’t feel it. Never had. Life was a dogfight with no design or kismet, as far as she could tell. Destiny sounded good and all—and she’d let herself believe in it once or twice when she’d really needed to. But reality was scrambling around doing the best you could to create meaning out of chaos until your time was up. Ants in the dirt, building a structure just for it to get washed away in the rain. It was brave to know that and build anyway; she had a lot of respect for ants.

  Rawan shot out of the union and grabbed Giselle’s shoulders, scrutinizing her carefully. “Are you okay? Do you even know what just happened? Were you here the whole time?”

  “I, uh, I left but I got back early. I heard there were conduits here. Are you okay?”

  But Rawan didn’t look scared, she looked dazzled. “It was amazing! Did I tell you I’m sorta into—don’t wig out, but you’ll figure it out eventually—I’m into the conduit scene.”

  “The conduit scene?” Giselle asked as she felt the blood draining from her face. “You’re a conduit?”

  “No! I’m an acolyte.” The slang term for somebody who was an avid follower of conduits, like a storm chaser for tornadoes. And like storm chasers, most people thought they were crazy. Something of the horror Giselle felt must’ve shown on her face because Rawan narrowed her eyes and pointed an accusing finger. “Hey, I cheerfully support your fangirl obsession. You have to put up with mine.”

  “I’m crushing on a rock star.” Giselle squirmed. “Conduits are dangerous!”

  Rawan rolled her eyes. “Well, obvs, they can be. Pope Maui.” Pope Maui had been the online handle of the social media icon in Hawaii who had found Maui and introduced the world to godstones. Chaos had ensued as people started searching for them—even fake stones sold for millions in black market auctions—and governments all over the world fought over what to do about citizens possessing a power potentially more dangerous than many military grade weapons.

  Then, a little less than a year into Pope Maui’s vlog, a woman channeling Ishtar had murdered him during a livestream as a sacrifice to herself. Not just murder, she’d driven a spike through his head like the victims found in ancient Mesopotamian burial chambers of the wealthy. It hadn’t been pretty. Lawmakers immediately used people’s fear to justify harsh punishments for anyone using or even owning a godstone as the government began collecting them for “safekeeping.”

  Sofia Messner—Ishtar—had been convicted of murder by conduit and, thirteen years after the murder, executed. The Ishtar godstone had never been found. What most people didn’t know—including Giselle, until recently—was that Sofia had been pregnant at the time she was incarcerated. After the birth, Sofia’s partner, Bryn, had gotten custody of the baby, and they’d been placed into witness protection as the Ryder family.

  Giselle had learned the truth of her parentage from a lawyer on her eighteenth birthday. She’d also been given a jewelry box of Bryn’s. In it, underneath a false bottom, she’d found Freyja’s godstone along with a simple note: “I’m so sorry. It’s your turn now.”

  Both her mothers had been conduits. Like everyone else, Giselle had no idea where Sofia’s godstone, Ishtar, was. But Bryn’s godstone, Freyja, she carried with her everywhere.

  She took a deep breath and turned back to her roommate. “And you don’t think Ishtar might’ve influenced the conduit to do the things she did?” She’d never felt pressure from Freyja to do anything—at least, she didn’t think so. Sure, she usually felt bolder, but having magic and two axes did that for a person.

  No, the likelihood was her birth mother was the monster everyone thought she was. But Giselle couldn’t help hoping...

  Rawan shook her head. “Sofia Messner was evil.” Giselle had heard it enough times before and didn’t flinch. “Godstones give people the power and anonymity to be who they really are without the normal fear of reprisal. It’s like the ultimate test to find out a person’s character. What would you do if you could get away with anything? That’s one of the things I find so fascinating about them.” Rawan grinned. “Of course, everyone wants to think they’d be a saint, but let’s be real. I’d spend most of my time flying around or bringing justice to guys from my high school who deserve it.” She turned to the quadrangle and suddenly got loud. “That’s right, you fools better hope I never get a godstone because I’m coming for every last racist, handsy, above-the-law jerk out there! Sekhmet, baby. I’d go Sekhmet on all of you!”

  Giselle couldn’t help laughing at her antics. “Sure you want to court legal action yelling like that?”

  “Eh, everyone knows I don’t have one.” She dropped onto the bench. “Besides, the Sekhmet godstone’s been missing for fifteen years. Nobody’s running around as the lion goddess.” She pulled out her phone, calm now as she opened up her gallery. “I got a video of today if you want to see it. The forum is going to light up with jealousy. I was this close to an actual god battle!”

  Giselle blinked at her, suddenly realizing how much harder this was going to be to hide with a roommate who was into the conduit scene. “The forum?”

  “Yup! Acolyte forums. You should join! I promise we’re not as weird as everyone thinks.”

  Holy shit, Giselle was going to end up in Gitmo after her roommate exposed her. “Sounds like fun.” She studied the still image on Rawan’s phone screen. “But yeah, I’d like to watch the video.” And strategize ways to beat Macha next time.

  THAT EVENING, RAFAEL parked outside the elegant Liberty Condominiums and debated how to approach apartment thirty-four. First question, did he go as himself? Or as Huehuecoyotl? And who would be there? What did he say to them? He couldn’t remember the last time life had been so chaotic without a handler between him and the mess.

  He loved it.

  First thing, he had to make sure tomorrow’s headlines were not “Lead Singer of Rage Riot Unmasked.” Nobody could know, for his safety, but also for the sake of the band.

  Not even Freyja. Although maybe he could figure out who she was, find her in “real” life, see what she was like. Maybe ask her out.

  Stay on task.


  He pulled out the godstone and debated where best to cut himself and not look like... he was cutting himself. The band would flip their shit more than they already were about his decision to leave New York for Zavala College. They were flying in this weekend for rehearsal, and someone—probably his stepsister Lyssa—would notice if he’d poked himself full of holes.

  But he’d poke as many as he needed to have that much exhilaration again without a high. Last time had only taken a few drops of blood. This time he scraped the stone’s sharp point across the back of his arm, just above the elbow—a place nowhere near his inner forearm—and smeared the godstone in it.

  Nothing happened.

  He looked at the little jagged piece, only about two inches by one inch, and a half-inch thick at its widest point. It had been carved from shiny black rock—he assumed obsidian, not that he was a geologist or anything—and a geometrically stylized coyote decorated the front face. A light coating of blood slicked the bottom of it. Hadn’t his blood been absorbed last time?

  He tried rubbing the coyote’s body into his lightly bleeding arm—maybe the side he activated, or whatever it was called, mattered.

  No dice.

  Hadn’t Pope Maui in his infamous video series said it took more blood the second time around? Gritting his teeth, Rafael checked outside the window—nobody seemed to be paying him any mind—and cut a little deeper, hissing from the sharp pain. How did anyone find this relieving? But he had a steadier stream running down the crook of his elbow. His head felt light for a moment and his stomach queasy at the sight of so much blood sliding down his arm. Was he going to need stitches?

  He shook his head to try and clear his thoughts, which didn’t help with the lightheadedness that hadn’t gone away since getting clubbed with an ax handle. Surely this little rivulet wasn’t enough to cause dizziness. He was just freaking out because he was a giant, privileged wuss—something he was here to change. He took a deep breath, then another. What a superhero he made, afraid of a little blood. Maybe he should’ve gotten more sleep last night. And maybe drank less. Drink less, sleep more, do more good. He could be someone who made a difference, not a useless party boy.

  He’d already maimed himself. Might as well use it. He took a good look at the red slipping down his arm and rubbed the godstone in it, coating the little item in hot blood and hoping.

  The heat built immediately inside of him, thrumming anticipation through his muscles. And he was in his car about to transform into... something. He glanced outside, ready to face an army of paparazzi, but then he couldn’t see anything as the world went headache-inducing blurry through his contacts, just like it had last time. Maybe he needed to pull a Clark Kent and start wearing glasses so he could take them off when his eyesight was miraculously perfect again.

  He grabbed a contact case out of his glove box and quickly removed the lenses, allowing the world to go into beautiful, unassisted focus, and was pleasantly shocked to find his Porsche—which he thought of as his “discreet” car, since it was black—had no one outside paying the least attention. Which was awesome because his shirt had just vanished. Seriously, where did it go? And his jeans were replaced with that ridiculous skirt. Leather boots covered his calves and feet, and on the top end of him, he could feel the feathers of his headdress crush against the ceiling of his car.

  He’d been in some ridiculous costumes onstage, but Aztec god in a black Porsche took the cake. Now to get into the condo...

  There. A dog walker was coming back from an early evening outing with a pack of exhausted animals. He’d transformed into a coyote earlier—his namesake—but he had a feeling he could become whatever he wanted, which was pretty cool.

  He slipped out of the car and dropped to all fours, disguising himself as a pedigreed animal worthy of a fancy condominium.

  “AND YOU DON’T EVEN know who this guy is?” Andromeda demanded, frustrated anger shooting proverbial fireballs at Giselle. Her mentor had not taken the godstone’s loss well. The woman bent an arrow over her shoulders with electric energy as she paced her lavish apartment, bare feet disappearing into the gray shag rug with every step.

  “Of course not! I would never let him tell me. It’s the rule.”

  Andromeda spun, her athletic shoulders sinking as her nostrils flared even wider. “That’s if the person is going to keep it! You dropped Huehucoyotl where it could be picked up by any idiot. We had candidates—qualified, talented men—lined up already!”

  “Who’s we?”

  A sharp sigh. “I’ll tell you when you’re mature enough to pick up the things—important things—that you drop.”

  Giselle got up from the couch and tried to get her mentor to pay attention. “It rolled to him. He said it felt like destiny. What if the god picked him?”

  Andromeda snorted like the notion was hilarious and swiped her glass of wine off the bar to practically chug it. “That’s a nice thought, but we can’t risk it. Get it back.”

  “How? You want me to fight him?”

  “You seemed impressed with his abdominals. If you don’t want to fight him, be nice—if you can manage that—and after he falls asleep, the power will eventually wear off and you can dig through his pockets.”

  “I’m not down with the primary use of my powers being to seduce men so I can riffle through their pockets.”

  “Giselle, sweetie, he may be any idiot off the street, but Old Coyote is a shape-shifter. Fighting him would not be a walk in the park, and you don’t have the experience for this—or the ruthlessness. Take the easy route.”

  “I don’t have the experience... or most of my things,” she added slowly, remembering something Macha had said. “My weapons, my shield, my cloak...”

  Andromeda shot her a wide-eyed look of surprise. “Where—”

  A knock at the door interrupted the conversation. Andromeda frowned at it. “Who in the seven hells knows my address?”

  Giselle bit her lip, then glanced from the door to her old bedroom, where she could hide. “I gave it to him and said you could help him out, you know, the way you did me.”

  Andromeda stared at the ceiling as if asking the real gods for help. “Oh, you naïve darling, I forgive you everything. Go to your room.” She straightened her clothes and pulled on a pair of fuck-me heels, reminding Giselle that though she was old—like really, really, shoulda-been-dead-a-long-time-ago old—Andromeda was a gorgeous woman who looked about twenty-eight.

  The memory of the handsome figure Coyote had cut in the forest ran through her mind, making the thought of Andromeda kissing him gross. She shook off the notion. Crushing on the lead singer of a band was a normal sort of ridiculous. Letting herself be attracted to another conduit, someone in a mask she could never share anything real with, was next level moronic. Still, she pursed her lips and shot her mentor and foster mother a narrowed glare. “Need me to pour you two some wine?”

  “I don’t need alcohol to seduce a man or to kick the crap out of him—neither of which I’d have to do if you’d done your job right.”

  Andromeda was right. They should give the stone to somebody who’d been properly vetted that they knew would use the power wisely. Reluctantly, Giselle retreated.

  Chapter 7

  RAFAEL-AS-HUEHUECOYOTL knocked on the door in a small—read, exclusive—condo building whose top-notch amenities, from the plush carpet to the crystal chandeliers, spoke of quality over quantity. Old money lived here. So, no Spartan training grounds for his goddess.

  He raised his hand to knock again, the itch on the back of his neck reminding him to stand up straight like his ever-fashionable grandparents had taught him. He could play snottier-than-thou if needed, although he’d never done it in a ridiculous skirt and feathered headdress before.

  The door opened suddenly, and he was faced with a twenty-something woman who screamed understated vamp, with red-gold hair brushing her shoulders and perfectly applied lipstick in nude—because she didn’t need red to kick your ass. Her green eyes
scanned him up and down once. “You’re better looking than the last Old, Old Coyote.”

  He smiled. “You’re not what I expected, either.”

  She opened the door, revealing an athletic body in a stretchy, green jumpsuit with a deep V-neck and strappy four-inch heels that probably cost more than the average person’s entire wardrobe. Her smile was as calculated as her outfit as she said, “Come in. I’m Andromeda.”

  She didn’t move very much, forcing their bodies into close proximity as he passed. “So you knew the last Old Coyote, I take it.” He headed toward the glass sliding door leading out to a balcony overlooking the river. “Nice view.”

  “Old, Old Coyote.”

  He turned back to her. “Excuse me?”

  “Hue means old in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. Huehuecoyotl therefore means Old-old-coyote.”

  He nodded, pursing his lips in a wry smile. “Got it. I’m learning from you already.” He dropped onto her couch, arms spread across the back and knees wide. Usually he didn’t take up much room, but the headdress made him feel like manspreading. “Which is why I’m here.”

  That smile never wavered as she shook her head. “Sorry, kiddo, but that godstone was meant for someone else. Hand it over like a good boy, though, and I’ll give you a treat.” She leaned over, a hand on the coffee table halfway between his thighs and that deep V-neck plunging in invitation.

  He glanced her up and down appreciatively, as she so obviously wanted, and didn’t drop his own smile. “You’re gorgeous, darlin’, but that’s not why I showed up. Freyja sent me to learn about the godstones.”

  With her other hand, she slid a box across the table and opened it up, revealing an impressive selection of weed. “Why don’t you pick one, and we can relax and talk terms of surrender.”

  He faked a yawn and crossed one leg over his knee, not giving her the satisfaction of an answer.

  Her lips pursed in humor as she leaned forward conspiratorially. “Lesson number two. Your costume didn’t come with underwear.”