by Jax Garren
What kind of person could do this to another?
She was so thin—he didn’t know a human could get that thin and live. Her outfit was a trashed T-shirt so faded he had no idea what it’d once said and jeans worn thin on one side and completely cut off on the other. They hung off her so badly he was shocked they didn’t fall right off her bony excuse for hips.
The song ended, and he debated if he should start it again or sing something else. “I have sweatpants in my bag. They have a drawstring, so you might be able to keep them on.”
“Bíum, bíum, bambaló og dillidillidó.”
She was singing, and he was finally calm enough himself to find the hint of melody interesting. “What song is that?”
“Bíum, bíum, bambaló og dillidillidó. I rock my girl slow, but outside a face watches at the window.”
“That’s creepy as shit. Is it a lullaby? Because those are frequently creepy as shit.” He tried copying what she’d sung, but her notes were practically nonexistent. He did the best he could.
She made a noise that almost sounded like a laugh, and then her face transformed into a smile. His breath caught.
This was Freyja’s mother all right. The resemblance was uncanny.
Except... hadn’t Bryn been her non-bio mother? Freyja had been born in prison to Sofia Messner, the infamous Ishtar conduit who’d murdered the vlogger who introduced the world to godstones.
Bryn started singing again, her words barely intelligible, but she grabbed the washcloth from his hand and began scrubbing her own legs.
“Good job,” he said, glad she was having a lucid moment. Since she was saner now, he leaned back against the wall, feeling lightheaded. He’d eaten an hour ago, but he needed more. She needed food too. “I’ll, uh, get you some dinner.” He wanted to feed her as much as she wanted of whatever she wanted, but that’d probably end up in a lot of vomiting. Broth and rice for her and juice for both of them. Those would be a good bet until she was on the road to recovery. Using a task app, he put in requests for the odd meal for her and a hamburger for him, extra money for fast delivery.
That done, he gave himself a minute to rest and just breathe, then looked up to check on his charge. Good lords, she was stripping. The sopping T-shirt slapped onto the floor, and she wobblingly stood up and shoved her pants down.
“Oh, uh...” His eyes jerked to the ceiling. Freyja’s naked mom. So embarrassing. “Can I, uh, trust you to shower without dying?” She’d been in a hole covered by a grate, which meant she’d survived rainfall. That meant she could handle showering by herself, right?
Who did this to another human? What went wrong in a person’s brain that let them stick another person in a hole and leave them there?
But Bryn seemed okay for the moment, so he’d give her privacy. He tried to push himself up to standing, yelped as his leg couldn’t handle even that, and then slid back to the ground. No, he had to get up. He was responsible for Bryn. And he had to make sure Freyja was all right. He couldn’t quit. He definitely couldn’t pass out.
Just breathe. Breathe. Okay... Pressing back against the wall, he used his good leg to shove himself upward.
“Wall, wall,” Bryn said.
“Yeah, wall. They can be helpful sometimes. Not yours. Yours pretty much just sucked, but this one’s helping.”
She made a bizarre huffing noise, and he risked a glance at her, keeping his gaze high. She was staring at his leg. Finally, she said, “Hut.”
He blinked, trying to suss that out. “Hurt! Yes, I got shot.”
She looked around the room, and her gaze stopped, riveted to Freyja’s bag, the one his partner had given him because it contained all the godstones.
“Wa-lu-I-am-hep.” Bryn launched her soaking, naked self at it.
“No!” He tried to grab her, but while her brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, she was surprisingly mobile for a human who’d been stuck in a hole. He fell back down, landing hard on his thigh. Tears swam in his vision as pain shot through his entire body.
He was really going to pass out.
No. Don’t pass out. Don’t—
Bryn reached into the bag and somehow came out with—shit—a godstone and... a container of applesauce?
“No! No!” How could she get stuff out of Freyja’s bag when he couldn’t? Whenever he opened it, it was empty. Bryn had been Freyja before his Freyja, though, right? Did the bag still recognize her?
He swiped at her, trying to stop the crazy person from activating a godstone, but she hopped up onto the toilet and, using her own nails, drew blood on her forearm.
“No!” Panic gave him power, and he launched forward. No way he could contain an out-of-control conduit, not in his condition. He needed her to stay human if he was going to have any hope of dealing with her.
But his leg gave out from under him, and he landed again. Blackness floated into his vision from the right and left. He breathed in and out, trying to stay awake, as power ignited beside him.
Bryn had activated the godstone. Fuck it all, he was now in charge of an insane goddess.
Somebody knocked on the motel door as his phone buzzed, signaling the completion of an ordered task. Bryn, godpowered, turned toward the sound. Loose blonde and green dreadlocks flew behind her as she spun, looking suddenly very young. She snarled at the door.
“No,” Coyote tried to tell her. He had to... Blackness kept invading his vision. He was going to lose connection to his godstone. To his consciousness. “Nice people. Food...” He wasn’t sure if he managed to say it before passing out.
Chapter 3
IN A COLDLY SPARSE boardroom, Andromeda relaxed, looking fashionably out of place amid the men in uniform and three women wearing goddess masks and the insane costumes that came with them.
A man with gold maple-leaf pins on his shoulders glared at Ande, and Freyja couldn’t help feeling that for all the differences they’d had lately, she was part of Team Ande.
“So, you’re not going to tell me who this girl is?”
“No. She’s been approved by the magistrates, and that’s all you need to know.”
The man leaned over the desk, getting in Ande’s face. The woman didn’t flinch. “That’s not good enough.”
Ande lifted her smooth brow. “Go blow smoke up someone else’s ass. I’m not interested.”
“You’re not leaving here without—”
“Goodness, Major, do you actually think you can stop me? Freyja, Nemain, and Badb Catha—if she knows what’s good for her—will blast out of here with the full wrath of the goddesses. And then who will save your precious weapon from Ereshkigal’s hospitality? No one. Macha will be stuck in Kur for eternity. Believe me when I say the magistrates couldn’t give a rat’s ass about securing your border, so you were lucky with that one.”
The major sneered. “Globalists.”
“Yes, oddly enough, a society that maintains rosters of Pagan deities from around the globe thinks globally.” She sat up a little straighter. “For now, you help us, we help you. But if you think you are in charge in this relationship, you have another thing coming.”
The officer looked like he’d about boil over, but then a man came in and handed him a note. After skimming it, the major smiled. “No matter. You acquired her through the state foster system. Did you think her identity would be hard to figure out?”
He turned to Giselle. “Miss Traxie Mackotsey—or however you pronounce that—you’ve been a bad girl.”
Giselle turned to her mentor, her own brow raised.
Ande shrugged. “Ţ’rak’ze mak’otse. It’s hilarious if you speak Georgian.”
“What?” the officer said, turning back to Ande, a trace of doubt in his expression.
“It means kiss my ass. You think I can’t forge a document in the ineptest system in your government? I never had children—squirrelly little menaces that ruin your life—but even I know to treat them better than the disaster I pulled her out of. You should be ashamed.” She stood up, her cal
m demeanor shifting to something far more intimidating. “Now. Freyja will go to the underworld to retrieve Macha, and afterward you will release her into my custody, maintaining the alliance between us. Or the goddesses and I will leave now, and heaven help your base if anyone impedes our exit.”
“This is bullshit!” the man yelled at her.
Ande didn’t flinch. “My daughter will sleep at my home tonight to rejuvenate her powers. She’ll leave for Kur in the morning.”
Feeling significantly less intimidated, Giselle decided to take a play from Ande’s book and go ballsy. “I have somewhere to be in the morning. It’ll have to wait.” Not that she had any desire to—oh gods—travel to the afterlife. Last week Ande had barely trusted her to swipe a godstone from a near empty room in the university library—a task she’d failed at pretty spectacularly. Now her old mentor thought Giselle could storm the underworld?
Ande actually grinned. “It won’t matter, young thing, time—”
“Shut up! You are not part of this,” the man spit at Giselle.
Giselle’s temper flared at his imperiousness. “I am if I’m the one going.”
Andromeda straightened to her full height, hands on her hips and feet spread like a man. “Freyja will attend to her business in the morning and then help you out by rescuing a woman she defeated after she’s done whatever needs doing in her morning.”
It took less than five minutes after that for Giselle to find herself in the passenger seat of Andromeda’s Tesla with an angry but pensive Andromeda. She had dozens of questions. Who were the magistrates? What exactly did Ande do for the government? Who was the new Nemain? But only one question really mattered.
“So you really think I can do this, infiltrate Kur and retrieve Macha?” Ande had seemed so consummately confident in her discussions with the officer.
Ande wouldn’t look at her as she put the car in gear. “I think you’re going to die. But it’s the best I could do.”
Chapter 4
ONE MOMENT RAFAEL WAS on the questionably cleaned bathroom tile. The next—or at least it seemed so to him—he was on a bed with something cold and mushy pressed against his mouth. Pain throbbed through him like nobody’s business, but he forced his eyes open. Bryn, in a green goddess mask, pushed a spoonful of something at him, her blue eyes wide and wild but concerned.
“Eat,” she said carefully, like words were hard.
The spoon landed against his lips again, and he smelled applesauce. “You need to eat,” he said—or tried to say. The moment his mouth opened, the spoon full of sweet mush was shoved in.
“I ate,” she said—still so cautious with language. “Soup was good.”
To make her happy he swallowed the spoonful of applesauce, wondering what the hell was going on in her frenzied brain. It tasted surprisingly good for something that had been stuck in a bag of holding for an unknown number of years—the right amount of sweet and tart. Immediately, Bryn stuck another spoonful at him. “You must eat it all for the magic to work.”
The second spoonful turned sour in his mouth. “Magic,” he said around the food. “You’re casting a spell on me?” He managed to sit up, and his head pounded. He looked down and realized he was himself—Rafael Marquez, famous person—and that did not help his growing concerns about how to handle Bryn. If she told anyone who he was... the scandal would be enormous.
She gave him a creaky smile. She was still too thin and her eyes too sad, but as a goddess, she looked youthful—she could be Freyja’s sister, they looked so much alike—and had a healthy glow. “Idunn’s apples are her magic.”
He couldn’t tell if she’d said Idunn—ee-dune—or Ithun—ee-thune—or maybe something in the middle. Probably a language thing. She also didn’t seem to have any spark of recognition when she looked at him.
Then again, she’d disappeared over a decade ago, long before Rage Riot came onto the scene. She might have never seen him before, and that would be damn lucky. For him. Not her. Nothing that had happened to her was lucky.
“Eat, eat. For your leg.”
He swallowed the applesauce. “My leg? Are you a healing goddess?”
She nodded. “Healing apples make you better.”
Sitting up a little more, he awkwardly reached for the container. “Can I feed myself? Will it still work?”
She gave it to him, then ran her hand over his brow in a motherly way. “You work with... my daughter?”
He shoved the “healing apples” into his face and tried to keep any romantic yearning from his expression and voice while he talked to Freyja’s mom. “Yeah. We’re partners.”
She continued to study him as he ate, as if trying to divine more of what was happening. He didn’t know how to explain it in a way that didn’t sound crazy. I met your daughter last week and now I’d walk through hell for her seemed a wee bit dramatic, even if it was true.
“Does she know your face?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know hers either. Or names. We’re just Freyja and Coyote. Huehuecoyotl, actually, but she calls me Coyote.” He scraped the last of the applesauce into his mouth, and the respite came quickly—no painful knitting together, just a warm rush of relief from his head to his leg that made the tense muscles in his jaw relax back into their regularly scheduled moderate clench. “Don’t tell her about me, okay? Please.”
That made Bryn chuckle, and she sat back on the edge of the bed from whence she’d been ministering to him. “Tell her what? That you’re pretty, for a man? I don’t know anything else about you.”
“You can tell her that if you want.” Feeling worried but otherwise infinitely better, he tossed the container into a nearby trash bin, then gave her an unabashed grin. “In fact, please tell her that.” So much for not betraying his affection.
She laughed harder and reached for a bag of food, holding it like it would bite her. “Here. I believe this is for you. I can’t stomach it. The smell...” She stood and went to the kitchen, where she poured herself more water.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he dug into the burger, starving.
“Better,” she said, her voice sad. “Channeling a healer helps. I’m afraid I’ll be less coherent again after Idunn’s gone.”
He checked his phone, hoping Freyja had contacted them. Nothing. “How long was I out?”
“Only a few minutes.” She frowned. “How long was I out? I’m not even sure what year it is. How old is—my daughter?” She hesitated, as if remembering not to say her name.
Coyote tried to shut down the hope that she’d forget and use it. He liked Freyja not knowing he was famous, but he desperately wanted to know who she was. They’d agreed not to figure it out, though, and he was trying to be good. “I’m not sure, but I’d guess twenty.”
She shook her head, pain crinkling up her face. “Oh, gods, I missed... everything.”
“And we should probably go get her,” he added, sliding out of bed and testing his leg. It wasn’t a hundred percent, but it didn’t feel like he’d just gotten shot either.
“Trust her. I know waiting is a terrible thing—I know more than most, at this point. But Freyja is a powerful goddess to channel. You told me this was her idea. Give her a chance to enact her plan. If she’s at the base, we’re more likely to cause complications through our return than help.” She grabbed Freyja’s bag off the table and reached in. “Have you done a good job protecting this? I see my daughter was smart enough to give it to you before being taken.”
Every time she said my daughter it sounded like a prayer, and with all the shit Freyja had been through growing up, it made him happy. “She just found it a couple days ago at her grandparents.”
Concern ran over Bryn’s face. “Which...?”
“The... Messners, I guess? Sofia’s parents. She wasn’t real happy about going there.”
With a glower, she dug into the bag like she was checking the contents, then stopped with a rough exhalation. “The Jacksons. Sofia’s mother married an asshole. Never met
her bio father. Sofia didn’t, I mean. Obviously, then, I didn’t. Did our daughter live with them?” The word them came out like a curse.
“No. Foster care.”
Bryn’s fist went to her mouth as her eyes closed in sorrow. “My girl...”
Rafael finished his burger and went to where she’d sat at the table, crouching next to her. “She’s so strong, ma’am. You wouldn’t believe how strong. She’s kind and has an amazing sense of humor. She helps people. And I help her.” And he was babbling in what had started as comforting Bryn and ended as a love letter. He needed to shut up.
Bryn nodded, fist still jammed against her mouth as tears squeezed out of her eyes and down her face. “I can’t... I can’t think about that now.” Probably because she was barely hanging on to sanity as it was.
Change the subject. Give her something to do. “She’s missing a lot of Freyja’s things; I don’t know if that’s something you can help with. We plan to look for them.”
She shook her head. “Sofia was quite unhappy with me when I wouldn’t let her see our girl. You can hide from men, but you can’t hide from the gods.” The stockpiled godstones spilled across the table when she tipped the pouch over, and once again he marveled that it opened for her. If somebody else had his godstone, would he still be able to use the drum?
He grimaced at the thought of losing Huehue.
She stirred through the stones. “These are the ones who came after us.”
Speaking of losing one’s godstone... He stood and leaned over the table, looking down at the stones in a new light. “You beat every one of these conduits, protecting your daughter?” His mouth went dry at the thought of all that danger to Freyja—his Freyja.
She nodded, and her voice got soft. “When I turned Sofia in, I was seen as a betrayer to our cause. Everyone wanted me dead and J—ah, my daughter—as a prize, the child of the martyr.” She blew out a slow breath. “Eventually I lost.”
Jessica? Jennifer? Jacyln? J names spun through his head before he could stop himself. Was that what Bryn had been about to say? Freyja’s name? He rubbed his face and took a seat, trying to keep his promise to not figure it out. There must be twenty godstones on the table; he focused on that. “You beat a lot of conduits.” Bryn was good.
