The Trickster's Strings: A Superhero Adventure-Romance (Godsongs Book 2)

by Jax Garren

  “Fucking hell!”

  The gun dropped to the ground, discharging with a bang, as Freyja took a knee, hand over her mouth like she’d just scared herself silly. “Is everyone okay?” she asked.

  “You shot me!” EJ yelled.

  “I’m fine,” Sekhmet announced.

  “Me too,” Rafael assured her.

  Freyja, looking strong as hell, even on one knee, glared up at EJ. “A slave ship?”

  His breathing became shallow as his face crunched in agony. “Slave ship? What is this, the 1500s?”

  “Human trafficking,” Sekhmet said quietly. “I came with them in the hold. You—” she called him something in, he assumed, Farsi that did not sound flattering.

  “EJ? Really?” Freyja looked genuinely surprised that the abusive dipshit who’d threatened to shoot her would do such a thing.

  “It’s not... it’s not what you’re thinking,” he whined, voice suddenly begging.

  “Ten women,” Sekhmet continued, her voice quiet in its fury. “Mostly immigrants but a few teens who ran from foster homes—including your friend.”

  Freyja looked so distressed Rafael offered a hand to help her up. She let him support her. “How could you?” she whispered to EJ before yelling, “How could you?”

  “She was a horrible bitch to you! She deserves it. I look out for my girl—even when you fuck around with this asshole and shoot me.”

  “Everything all right up there?” someone called from below. “The other boat’s here. We’re starting the transfer.”

  “I—” EJ started. Sekhmet bared her claws as Freyja pointed her bow and arrow somewhat lower than his heart. The man licked his lips. “Yeah,” he managed, “everything’s fine. Just dropped the gun.”

  “Fucking moron,” the voice muttered loud enough for the room to hear.

  EJ closed his eyes, defeated misery written in his sagging posture and the thick tears that he was clearly trying to stop.

  Freyja pulled out of Rafael’s grip and approached the man. “Is this your first run for your brother?”

  EJ nodded, cringing away from her as he used his free hand to wipe snot and moisture from his face.

  “Then you’re not a trafficker—yet. And you don’t have to be one.” She yanked the arrow out of his arm, and he stifled a cry as he sank down the wall, leaving a bloody smear behind. Freyja followed him down, kneeling in front of her abuser, and Rafael didn’t think he’d ever seen a stronger human in his life. “We’re going to stop this. How many people are on your brother’s crew?”

  “Four,” he whispered through the tears. “Plus me and Bri.”

  “And how many people are you meeting?”

  His head shook in a tiny pattern. “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me.”

  She put a hand on his chin, forcing him to look at her. “Whose side are you on? Ours? Or are you with the people selling women? You gonna rescue people, or are you joining the bad guys? Nobody good will ever claim you again if you do this, EJ.”

  His eyes couldn’t track anymore, his gaze traveling the room and lighting on one thing then another in quick succession. “I don’t—I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “We’ll worry about that together after we’ve stopped this.” She grabbed his good arm and pulled him back up, then turned his face to the window, forcing him to look outside. “Right now, who are you with? Are you with them, making dirty money, or are you with me, rescuing those women? EJ, you’ve still got a choice.”

  His arms wound around Freyja, and Rafael almost ran to pull the disgusting leach off her, but Freyja put a hand on the dude’s head, letting him rest against her shoulder. Rafael clenched his fists, trying to let her handle this, even if watching her kindness to the jerk made him ill.

  “You don’t want to be here, do you?” she said softly.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to be here.”

  “Then let’s get those ten women safely off this boat and find somewhere else to be.”

  The man nodded and turned away from her, his whole body shaking as he slowly made his way across the room to a cabinet, clutching his damaged shoulder.

  “Sekhmet, can you get down there and see what’s going on? Stay with the women. I want someone with them at all times,” Freyja said. “I’m so sorry to drag you guys into this mess.”

  “Freyja, darling,” Sekhmet said, “just take us on all your future missions, okay? Things don’t go smoothly enough for you to go it alone.” She dropped down to the gray-and-orange mottled house cat of before and slunk out of the room.

  Freyja gave Rafael the weariest look he’d ever seen on her, and all he wanted to do was take her in his arms. But she gave him a sharp shake of the head, as if she could tell what he was about to do. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest, frustrated at his own inability to help. But then she mouthed, “Later, please,” and glanced at EJ.

  That man didn’t deserve any accommodations. It was so hard to watch the woman he adored be in pain and just stand there doing nothing. But whatever Freyja battled in her head was infinitely harder, and he had to respect her wishes. If Freyja was choosing not to toss the dickweed overboard, he’d follow her lead... at least until EJ got dangerous again.

  Then he’d toss him overboard, turn into a shark, and bite his arms off so he drowned in bloody pain.

  A crash brought their attention to the cabinet EJ had walked to. Instead of bothering to open it—maybe it was locked, or maybe EJ was extra-special nuts—he’d punched through the door with his off hand.

  Beware the dude’s punch.

  Out of the hole, EJ pulled out a godstone.

  Rafael rapidly shook his head at Freyja—peace or no peace, he didn’t need one of those.

  Freyja looked freaked and turned to EJ with her mouth open to speak. Before anything came out, EJ slapped the godstone against his bloody shoulder. A wave of power rushed through the room.

  Chapter 32

  FEAR AT HER EX’S NEW power made Freyja back up, straight into Coyote. She didn’t want to feel this way, but it was nice to be stronger than EJ. It was unsafe to be equal. Coyote’s arm went around her, then he moved her behind him as if somehow it was smart to put the bard in front of the fighter.

  EJ’s skin tinted a sheen of teal blue, a sleek beard grew down his chin, and his hair darkened and lengthened as a golden crown appeared on his head. His clothing mostly disappeared, shifting into a shortish skirt, not unlike his brother’s Zeus costume. When a six-foot trident appeared in his hand, it solidified who he’d become.

  “Poseidon,” Coyote said warily. “So you’re collecting the Greek brothers.”

  “Brian’s still looking for Hades. He wants all three.” EJ gave a weak smile. “We’re on a boat. I figured Poseidon could be helpful.” His arm, still sporting a pretty serious wound, seemed to have improved with the transformation too. He frowned at Coyote, who stood between them, with a jealous look Giselle knew all too well.

  Coyote scowled right back. “Make one more aggressive move, and I’ll disappear with her.” At his promise to protect her, she wanted to lean on him but stopped herself. Later, when EJ’s baby steps toward sanity weren’t at risk.

  EJ struggled for a moment, his posture stiffening. “You can’t control her.”

  “I’m not the one who tied her up and put a bag over her head.”

  “I was keeping her safe!”

  “So am I.”

  The testosterone was getting out of control. “Let’s just get ourselves and the women off this boat,” Giselle said quickly. “We’re all on the same page for that, right?”

  “Yeah,” EJ readily answered. “Let’s do this.”

  Before Coyote could argue about a future they’d never get to if they didn’t work together now, Giselle started issuing orders. “Coyote, figure out how many hostiles there are on the other boat and what kind of weapons they’re packing.”

  “On it,” he said, but hesitated as he glared at EJ.

  “I’m
okay,” she reassured him.

  He gave her a reluctant squeeze. “Fine, I’ll check the catamaran.”

  What the fuck was a catamaran? “The... the other boat?” His lips quirked like he hid a smile. She poked him. “Forgive me for not knowing my yachts.”

  He gave up and just grinned at her affectionately. “Well, the other smuggling yacht—if that’s what you want to call it—is bigger than this one. They may have more human... cargo on board.” His face darkened in disgust as he said the last words, and he shot EJ a scathing glare. But without another word, he transformed into a dragonfly again and took off.

  She turned to the window to study the other, larger boat stopped less than a hundred yards away. “Dammit. If they have more people, we need that boat.”

  EJ joined her at the window, and she had to fight her body from stiffening in fright at his nearness. She didn’t hate him, but she hated the way his presence made her feel weak. “This boat’s fast,” he said. “If we try to outrun it in that boat, they’ll catch us.”

  Taking a moment, she studied him. He had the earnest eagerness he got when he was on a project. He did this sometimes—flipped back and forth between scary and eager to please with startling swiftness. But it meant she could probably trust him for the next... five minutes or so. He didn’t want to be here. But he didn’t have the imagination to see another option. “Can you breathe underwater? That seems like a thing Poseidon should be able to do.”

  “Yeah, I feel pretty confident I can.”

  She nodded. “Get in the water. Disable this boat if you can. We need to get all the trafficking victims to the other boat and the traffickers to this one, and you can help make that happen from the water.” She looked over at the mess of monitors and equipment. “Is there a way to tell where we’re at so we can alert the coast guard where to pick them up?”

  “Are you kidding? My brother would kill me.” He didn’t say it like he meant that figuratively. He rubbed his forehead. “He’s already gonna.” He looked outside. “I’ll get in the water.”

  “Let them transport the women over—but if you want to pull a few traffickers into the ocean, I won’t complain.”

  He nodded, heading for the door, and she relaxed as he walked away peacefully.

  In a burst of old camaraderie—this was the EJ she liked—she called, “Hey, EJ.”

  He stopped, then slowly turned around, his expression a mess of confusion and longing.

  “I’m glad you’re with us.”

  He shrugged like that wasn’t a big deal. “I punch hard. Everyone wants me on their side.”

  “No, I mean, I’m glad you’re not with them. You’re a better person than that.”

  The look he shot her said she’d lost her mind. “With everything I’ve put you through, I don’t know where you get your faith in me, Gi.” He kissed his fingers but didn’t blow it at her, just tipped his hand her way. “You seem to be the only one. Love you.” He didn’t wait for a response, but his shoulders sagged a little less as he exited to the railing and then simply pitched himself off the side. She didn’t hear a splash.

  What was she supposed to do about him? He wasn’t wrong—she was the only reasonably good person he had in his life. It was a responsibility she didn’t want; one that threatened to drag her back into a life she’d worked hard to leave behind.

  Worry, anger, fear, and confusion made a vortex so strong she couldn’t contain it, and she closed her eyes to force back tears she didn’t have time for. The tension in her body coalesced into a stiffening force inside her, and her leg muscles clamped with instability. Just like that, she was falling.

  Before her ass hit the ground, hands caught her arms from the front. In an old reflex, she balled her fists, ready to punch the danger.

  Her eyes popped open. Coyote.

  The soothing smell of rain and earth calmed her as Coyote pulled her back to standing and his arms wrapped her up, holding her steady against him. “You okay?” he whispered, clutching her to his chest. He couldn’t fight worth a damn, but he sure was strong where and when it mattered.

  She tried to say yes, to assure him everything was fine, but her head shook no as her face turned positively liquid with crying. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

  The scratch of his stubble caught in her hair as his cheek rubbed over her head, and she relaxed into his hold, some insane mental transition telling her she could carry the weight of her thoughts as long as he carried her.

  She needed to ask him how many traffickers were on the other boat. She needed to know how many people they were saving. And to figure out how they’d pilot the boat. And if they should call the coast guard or 911. And...

  His hands smoothed down her back, and it was hard to think of anything outside the urge to cocoon herself away from EJ and her perilous reality for a while. Why did she get college and friends and power, while most of the people she’d grown up with got homelessness or jail or death? It wasn’t fair.

  “You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met,” Coyote said, his voice a low rumble that echoed in her bones, soothing her.

  “I’m having a mental breakdown on a smuggling boat in the middle of a prisoner exchange.” She needed to be better than this.

  “Sounds like an incredibly reasonable place to have one.”

  She pushed back from him. “I don’t have time for this. But all I can think about is that I want queso and french fries.” And maybe a michelada. Or two or five.

  Or maybe brain-frying sex with her partner. She’d almost bet he could give her this miraculous-orgasm-with-another-human thing she’d heard so much about. That’d work, too.

  Shit, no. She didn’t want that complication, more like a poster and thirty minutes—far more her speed than actual human contact.

  Gods, she was fucked up.

  Her oblivious sex object’s expression turned amused as he rubbed a thumb across her cheek with a sweetness that amped her guilt but helped calm her anyway. “How about this? We rescue a bunch of people, then we get back to the apartment and watch a movie with a giant basket of fries and a bucket of queso. Maybe with bacon. My trainer can kill me later.”

  Without consciously intending to, she flattened her hand against his well-trained abs, and like the vain creature he was, Coyote flexed. She huffed a laugh and pulled her hand back. A movie... it sounded downright amazing to snuggle with Coyote and watch a movie and eat cheesy, fatty goodness. But the snuggling part was bad encouragement—for both of them.

  She pushed away. “EJ’s not all bad.”

  His hand didn’t drop from her shoulder as he stiffened. “Maybe, but he’s pretty bad. I mean, you shoplifted, I snorted cocaine, he...” He hesitated for just a moment, then said in a flat voice, “...abuses women and is entering into an exciting new career in human trafficking. I know I said Sekhmet being perfect is the worst, but I’ve changed my mind.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to wring all her feelings out, leaving only the business at hand in her too-crowded brain. But images kept coming of EJ’s smile as he welcomed her home on a really bad day. The way he’d glowered at bullies in the lunchroom and they’d left her alone. The way he’d always remembered her birthday and her adoption day and their anniversary with flowers and a giant-sized Snickers—her favorite candy. She’d needed someone on her side at the home, and in his imperfect way, he’d been there.

  She’d never loved him, not like he wanted her to. EJ had said a lot of unfair bullshit over the years, but accusing her of dating him for protection wasn’t one of them. She’d felt affection for him, though—still did, despite how much he’d hurt her. And other people couldn’t understand that.

  The best she could say was, “He needs to be stopped, but he also needs help.”

  “But you don’t need to be the one to help him,” Coyote said softly.

  His words cracked into her so hard she flinched. It was exactly what she wanted to hear, even if she automatically rejected the idea. “If not me, then wh
o else? He pushes everyone else away. Besides, I used him. I have a responsibility to make up for that.”

  “No, you don’t.” Coyote rubbed his hand down her back again. “We’ll figure it out. But fixing him isn’t your job. You can leave him behind. And I’m not saying that to be self-serving. I’m saying that because you deserve a good life, and that doesn’t include playing social worker to people who hurt you.” He cupped her jaw, bringing her face up to his again. “You have to let him take responsibility for his life, or you’ll be wearing that albatross forever, okay?”

  She frowned up at him, his weird-ass metaphor jarring her from her mental decay. “Albatross? Like a bird? Why would I wear a bird?”

  He blinked at her. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner? ‘Water, water, every where, and all the boards did shrink.’”

  She shook her head, completely at a loss... but in stark contrast to ten seconds ago, at least she was amused.

  “‘Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink.’ You’ve heard that phrase, yeah?”

  “Are you reciting poetry?”

  “It usually gets misquoted as ‘but not a drop to drink.’” He shook his own head in return, his fancy prep school background once again giving him a totally alien frame of reference, this time with seabirds in it. “Everyone reads this in high school. The captain shoots an albatross and their boat gets stranded, so he has to wear the dead bird around his neck.”

  That WTF story made her face crack in a grin. “I did not read about sailors wearing dead-bird necklaces, no. That doesn’t even make sense. What kind of psycho nightmare poem is that?”

  He opened his mouth, expression anticipatory, like he might just teach an impromptu poetry lesson. Then he shook his head and grinned back at her. “You know what, poetry later. Now let’s go save some human trafficking victims. We’ve got ten bad guys in the other ship, none channeling—at least at the moment. Over a dozen people in the hold, mostly women, but a few men. Unfortunately, they’re all at varying levels of drugged or terrified to incapacitation.”