Hurricane #19: The Jam Session (Patreon)

Serrano squinted at the building, double-checking the address in the text message. “G Street Lofts.” Yeah, this was the number Chiltepin had given her, but it looked more like an old brick warehouse or office building. Kind of a rundown part of town, too, about halfway between the up-and-coming Village Heights neighborhood and Marvinsound, the studio her cousin said the band was in town to record at.

She walked around the corner until she found the door, just as plain-looking as the rest of the structure. She entered the code Chiltepin had given her on the callbox. A buzzer went off somewhere inside, and the door unlocked with a heavy chunk.

Inside, the stone walls and concrete floor kept up the utilitarian look up, but now she could see the signs of gentrification: everything was freshly painted and spotless, the floor was polished to the point the concrete almost looked like marble, and the light fixtures had a brass-and-tungsten vibe going that would have made Professor Irsaw right at home.

She got into the elevator and double-checked again. Chiltepin had only texted with “floor 5,” she realized. Not too helpful. Sighing, she punched “5,” the top floor of the building.

When the door opened on the fifth floor, Serrano took two steps onto the floor and stopped dead. It hadn’t opened into a hallway. It had opened into a living room.

Well, no, not a living room—one giant space, with the same polished concrete floor and steampunk light fixtures, but with a ceiling of exposed ductwork nearly twenty feet up. If there’d been a bar along one wall with a few dudes in flannel shirts behind it, she’d have mistaken it for a hipster microbrewery. Part of the space had comfortable-looking furniture facing a movie screen fastened to the wall—it took her a moment to spot the projection TV hung from the ceiling—and another part of it had instruments set up: a massive drum kit, a few electric guitars on racks, a keyboard, a mixing console. The far wall was virtually all windows, with a series of blackout shades drawn down to various levels.

“Hi!” Chiltepin strode toward her from a doorway, carrying a wine glass in each hand. Her dress wasn’t as fashionably goth today, but it was still black denim jeans and a dark grey T-shirt. “It’s nice to see you. Surprising, but nice.” She reached her cousin and offered one of the drinks.

“If this is alcohol, it’s early, and if it’s not alcohol, it should be.” She took the drink. Yep, white wine. “Did you rent the entire goddamn floor?”

“Yes.” She grinned. “Marvinsound owns it and rents it to bands that work with them.” Chiltepin led her over to the sitting area.

“Which you’re doing even though you say you don’t have a full band yet.”

“It’s not that we don’t have a full band, it’s that we don’t have the sound we want yet. And the keyboardist and drummer sitting in are local session guys. Ideally, we’d find someone who’s a great keyboard player, drummer, and vocalist, but what are the chances of that, huh.”

“If I find someone I’ll let you know.”

Chiltepin gave her a reproachful smile, but thankfully didn’t push. “So what is it about family history you wanted to talk about? You were being awfully mysterious.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” She scratched the back of her ear. “So, uh. Did your mom put you through a dedication ceremony to an old god?”

Her cousin looked at her blankly. “Did she what the what?”

“I don’t know if your mom was quite as into the old pagan god thing as my mom was, but it’s apparently a family thing. We kept our last names matrilineally, though, and that’s…” She waved a hand.

“An old pagan thing, yes. I remember being told by my parents that I must be one of Huyocotl’s chosen. But I don’t remember any ceremony.”

“Huyocotl?”

“God of music. Also apparently god of sex, but they didn’t tell me that when I was five.” She smirked, sipping her drink.

“Well, I forgot my ceremony, but I guess I had one. I’m dedicated to Ulohne the storm goddess.”

“Okay, cool.” Chiltepin’s tone remained cautiously reserved. “What’s the sudden interest in all this?”

“It’s…pretty hard to explain without sounding like I’ve gone insane. But have you ever felt, you know, connected to Huyocotl? Like he’s working through you, with you, maybe even against you?”

“Of course. I’m excellent at both music and sex.”

Serrano snorted.

Chiltepin grinned, then tilted her head curiously. “So how do you mean it?”

“I’ve been…having dreams. Of storms. And the storms are affecting the real world. Like, rain and wind being pulled out of me, through me, by someone in another world. And it might be fucking up the world’s actual weather system.”

The other coyote blinked slowly. “In your dream,” she said after a moment.

“Here, for real, if the mad scientist hyena is right.”

“Mad scientist hyena.”

“Yeah, the one who works with the giant librarian who told me to summon a faerie. Which I did, and Ulohne kept her from killing me by summoning a tornado. After I stepped on a car in a dream and crushed it in the real world.”

Chiltepin blinked again, this time rapidly, and looked at her cousin with wide eyes that mixed fear, confusion, and pity in equal measure. After a moment, she leaned forward and took the wine out of Serrano’s hand.

“I told you it’d all sound insane, Chiltepin, but I swear I could take you to meet everyone I just mentioned right now. Except the storm goddess, who might or might not be real.”

“The storm goddess might not be real, but you’re sure about the giant librarian.”

She gave Chiltepin an exasperated look. “You know Mensura College is on the outskirts of town here, right? All those news stories about giants and magic coming back over the Chasm? That’s all here.”

“That was years ago, and you just don’t hear anything about it. We just don’t…” She trailed off.

“Yeah, I know, the world’s kind of forgotten about it all, as if by magic. Funny that, huh. I forgot to mention the giant wizard.”

Her cousin furrowed her brow, looking away with an uncertain expression, then back at Serrano. “Real giants.”

“Yes.”

“Real magic.”

“Yeppers.”

“Real…storm goddess.”

“That’s the million-dollar question.”

“And you just thought you’d casually ask if I knew anything about this.” She sighed, knocking back the rest of her drink in a gulp. “Serrano, my mother didn’t follow the old religion the way yours has. She respected it, but in a family history way, not a living tradition way. Truthfully, I haven’t thought about Huyocotl in decades. I’m lucky I even remembered the name. The idea that your mom dedicated you to Ulohne and that turned you into some kind of…divine storm maiden without you knowing it? And now you’re under attack from another world? That sounds like absolute madness.”

“But in the most awesome way,” a drowsy but cheerful voice came from Serrano’s left. She jumped and whirled around in her seat.

The possum ambling up in shorts and a dirty T-shirt had the quintessential look of an aging rocker, from the ragged chopped hair to the sunken eyes with the manically intense stare. That stare was focused on Serrano.

“I, uh,” she said. How much had he heard? Also, did he look kind of familiar?

“Serrano, this is Frank. Frank, this is my cousin Serrano.”

“Ah, shoulda guessed.” The possum nodded, scratching his backside. “Just woke up. Gonna make some coffee. You want any, Chilty?”

“No, I’m good.”

He nodded, and looked at Serrano. “Stormy?”

Wincing inwardly, she nodded. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”

He ambled toward the kitchen area.

Serrano watched him, then murmured to Chiltepin, “Do I, like, know him from somewhere?”

“Yes.”

She squinted at her cousin, then back at the possum, eyes slowly widening. “Frank as in Franklin Woods, from the Alphas.”

Chiltepin nodded, with a barely suppressed smirk.

She felt the blood drain out of her face. “I just asked Franklin Woods to get me coffee?” she hissed. The Alphas were from her mom’s generation, not hers, but the dude was still a bona fide rock god.

“He offered,” Chiltepin said, tone maddeningly reasonable.

“And he’s in your band?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“How—how do you fucking—”

“My last group opened for the Alphas on their last tour. We didn’t know it would be their last tour. Or ours.” She shrugged. “Really, he and I are the new band, since our keyboard player quit before we started and we haven’t found the drummer we want yet. Tony, our session guy, is fine, but.” She shrugged. “He’s not as good as you. Or the drummer in your group.”

“Jake’s the most talented one in that bunch, yeah. Don’t let Carl or Gene hear you call it ‘my group,’ though.” She shook her head.

Franklin ambled up again. “Here you go, Stormy.” He held out a mug of coffee.

“Uh, thanks.” She took the cup, hoping her ears weren’t burning.

He nodded, and slurped from his own mug. “You sang on ‘Heal It Up.’”

Her ears skewed. “Uh, yeah.”

“You’re good.”

She swallowed, eyes widening again.

“Chilty says you play drums, too.”

She nodded mutely.

“And keyboard.” He looked at her appraisingly.

“Yeah.”

“All-rounder, huh. Stick around a few. Tony’s coming over for a jam session. Why don’t you join in.” He ambled off without waiting for a response.

Serrano stared after him, then glared at Chiltepin. “I told you I didn’t come here to audition.”

Her cousin shrugged. “You’re not auditioning, you’re just playing.”

“But with—with—” She waved both hands in Franklin’s direction.

“Serrano, I’m hoping you’re in the middle of a serious mental breakdown with delusional episodes, because if you’re not, then you’re standing between the world and the apocalypse. Either way, this will be a relative breeze.”

After a moment, Serrano groaned and stared at the ceiling. “Shit, I wish I could argue with that.”