Drag Hunt

by Pat Kelleher

  Coyote’s glower flicked over to a beaming grin. Maybe he had a point.

  He took a pouch from around his neck, opened it and took from it a pinch of Bonafide Penis Return powder. He cast it into the damp air and began chanting in a deep sonorous language that Richard felt resonate through his very core.

  Coyote threw his arms into the air and began to dance.

  At Richard’s feet, crushed lager cans and discarded cider bottles began to vibrate and skitter across the threadbare turf as the ground began to shake.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Coyote and the Devil’s Fingers

  THE AIR RESOUNDED with a deep rumble as the earth heaved and bucked. Several stones of the circle slewed and tilted.

  “What’s happening?” Richard yelped, trying to maintain his balance.

  Coyote fancied he felt a stirring in his loins. “It’s younger brother,” he said, a grin stretched wide across his face. He caught Nataero’s hand and gave it a manly shake.

  Nataero returned a weak, unctuous smile. “Then my job here is done. What is lost is found.”

  “Thanks to you,” said Coyote, taking a deep breath and readying himself to receive his errant member. “I shan’t forget this service.”

  Then Nataero disappeared.

  “Here we go,” cried Coyote. “Come, younger brother, I’m waiting for you. I’m here!”

  “And your penis is doing all this? Are you sure?” Richard shouted.

  Coyote winked at him. “I have often been told that I can make the earth move. And Lo!”

  “It just seems a lot of upheaval for a little todger, that’s all.”

  “Not so little, Richard Green,” said Coyote with a lecherous wink. “It can be so large I’ve had to carry it slung over my shoulder before now. If it has been bound and confined then it will fight to get free. It sounds like a mighty battle!” he said, nodding with approval at his member’s efforts. “Do you hear? It comes at my call. Come, my brother. Come.”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that if I were you.”

  The central stone seemed taller now, like a tooth in receding gums, its newly exposed surface wet with moisture and clean of graffiti.

  Coyote shucked his war bundle and took a large empty sack from the deerskin wrapping, pulled the drawstrings open and held the neck wide open in expectation. “I’ve caught and bound great spirits with this sack before now, and contained in it things of great power, but now my younger brother is coming home and he will have need of the sack’s chastisement.”

  “Then I get my life back, right?”

  “Yes, Richard, once I am whole again.”

  There was a creak of soft, damp wood. The park bench came loose as the ground rose about it, toppling the splintered bench and its cracked concrete bed down the hill.

  “And does it usually cause such destruction?”

  Something priapic headed their way, ploughing through the earth, a red and glistening eyeless head thrusting its way through the soil.

  “Jesus, you weren’t kidding. When you said big, I just thought you meant, you know King Dong, Dirk Diggler big. This is huge!”

  In one fluid movement, the enormous glistening glans burst out of the ground and rose up before him—and kept on rising, rearing over him.

  “That’s one hell of an erection!”

  Coyote’s face crumpled.

  “That’s not my—”

  A maw opened in the thing’s head as it plunged down on Coyote, swallowing him whole as it dived back into the earth.

  “Coyote!” cried Richard in horror.

  “That was a close thing,” said a quiet voice.

  Coyote stood beside him.

  Richard stared. “How did you—”

  Coyote winked and shoved him on the shoulder.

  “Run, Richard Green. This is a trap meant for me. This is no recalcitrant rod, no penitent penis. This is a wyrm. You’re mortal. If you stay, it will mean your death.”

  Richard hesitated. “But what about you?”

  “I’m Coyote!” he yelled ecstatically.

  The ground shook and the wyrm broke the surface once more, showering Richard with dirt.

  “Run, Richard Green, run!”

  Richard turned and made for the path. Within seconds of starting along it he had lost sight of the hilltop, but saw the head of the wyrm rear up over the crest and plunge down again, showering him with a spume of earth.

  He carried on down the path. Whatever was going on was nothing to do with him, was nothing he knew how to cope with. In a battle between gods and monsters, there was little he could do.

  Loose stones skittered away under his feet, his arms flailing as he ran. His heart slammed against his chest, as if it were trying to burst free.

  As Richard ran round into the lee of the hill, he heard a raucous caw. A lone raven with burning red eyes swooped down out of the leaden grey clouds that kettled the bleak landscape.

  Other caws now answered the first, as shreds of shadow detached themselves from the clouds, taking on form and solidity as they whirled and swooped. A flock of ravens. No, not a flock, an unkindness.

  Their harsh calls rent the air as the birds harried him. As he fled down the slope, Richard stumbled away from the path, tripping over tussocks and sods on the steep descent, arms windmilling.

  A blood-eyed raven plummeted towards him. Talons sliced. He felt the back of his head open up and put his hand to his scalp. It came away slick and red. He had to keep going. The bottom of the hill wasn’t far now. He rounded the corner and saw the silver Nissan in the car park.

  Please let it not be locked.

  He heard the screeching caws above and chanced a look. Another flight of ravens was sweeping down on him.

  He might still make the car.

  He turned back to see ravens settling on the Nissan’s roof and patrolling the ground. The bastards had herded him down here. They were waiting for him. Cunning little shits.

  Richard had run himself ragged, there was nowhere else to run to, and no energy left with which to run there. He spun round in panic and looked up at the hill. From deep within, muffled by rock and earth, came reverberating thuds and impacts, like a pile driver. No help would come from Coyote.

  Richard was alone—insignificant and scared. He turned to face the maleficent flock. Fuck English teachers, unkindness was understating it. This was a murder of ravens if he ever saw one. They congregated on the car park walls, watching him with their burning eyes. It was unnerving the way they strengthened and dimmed in time with his breathing, like lit cigarettes. Would they fade to an ashen grey with his death?

  He charged towards the car.

  They took to the air in a blizzard of wings, wheeling and swooping tighter and tighter until they swirled down around him in a tornado of feathers, claws and beaks, picking and pecking a hundred cuts and scratches. He covered his face with his arms; he squealed as a beak found an exposed rim of ear and bit down. It was like running through a hail of razor blades. He lost sight of the car as the world disappeared in a press of darkness, lit only by cruel constellations of baleful stares.

  Richard began to suffocate under the feathers. He reached and felt the car door under his hand, even as the ravens pecked and tore at it. He groped for the handle.

  He roared in a primal scream of fury and frustration.

  First, his entire world had been stripped away and now to have his very flesh stripped from his bones, a feast for carrion? Fuck.

  THE WYRM REARED up into the air and bore down into the hill, right where the man had been standing. It swallowed earth and stone and turf, but the man known as Coyote had gone. Stood before the wild wyrm was Coyote the animal, ears flat against its head, tail down, teeth bared.

  OLD MAN WYRM bored down into the hill with the ease of a leaping salmon, moving through the earth as easily as Coyote did through the desert.

  Old Man Wyrm laughed at him now, mocking him for his lack of manhood. No one laughed at Coyote. And if they did, th
ey wouldn’t get away with it.

  “Old Man Wyrm, Old Man Wyrm,” he cried. “If you want to eat me I am over here!”

  Coyote leapt aside as Old Man Wyrm thrust his head up through the spray of loam into the air.

  “I may not be able to see you, older brother, but I can smell you and soon I will taste you,” he bellowed, plunging down where Coyote stood.

  “Oh, I have no doubt of that,” said Coyote, pouncing aside. “But I am much better cooked than raw.”

  Coyote leapt down one of Old Man Wyrm’s holes and raced along the dank dark tunnels.

  “I can hear the patter of your paws,” said Old Man Wyrm burrowing down the tunnel after him.

  Coyote came to a large chamber at the heart of the hill, studded with boulders and with tunnels running off it at various angles. “Well this is all very cosy, but I see no cooking pot. How am I going to taste my best if there is no cooking pot?”

  Old Man Wyrm’s voice echoed down the labyrinthine tunnels. “You can’t fool me, trickster. I’m going to eat you raw, swallow you whole. I can’t wait, I am hungry now!”

  Old Man Wyrm’s blind, toothless head protruded into the chamber, glistening and red.

  “These are my tunnels and there is nowhere you can hide that I cannot find you.”

  “How about here?” asked Coyote, dashing off down a tunnel, his paws skittering as he banked up the walls.

  Old Man Wyrm’s huge bulk slithered after him.

  Coyote skittered to a halt and changed direction. Old Man Wyrm was faster than he thought. His mucus-slicked bulk thundered after him, a wake of hot fetid air rushing ahead of it. Coyote switched down another passage barely ahead of the great bulk. He found himself back in the main chamber. Wyrm’s length was so long, Coyote saw his great anus disappearing along the passage down which he had just fled.

  Then he saw the sigils marked on the walls of the chamber, meant to confuse prey—make it easier for Old Man Wyrm to feed. If he was ever a hunter, he had lost the edge.

  Old Man Wyrm’s voice echoed round the chamber. “See, little morsel? You can’t find your way out and you can’t escape your fate.”

  “You don’t mind if I try, do you?” asked Coyote, quick as a flash picking another exit as Old Man Wyrm’s head thrust back into the chamber.

  “Run all you want. All ways lead back to me!”

  The passage led down. Coyote was running so fast he almost missed a turning. He tumbled to a halt and Old Man Wyrm’s head was so close behind him he could feel his breath on his tail. He darted down a side passage.

  It rose up in a steep incline and he struggled up the slope, the dirt dribbling away beneath his feet as he sought purchase with his claws.

  He scrambled his way to the lip of the tunnel and found himself back in the chamber again as Wyrm’s middle section rumbled through in continued pursuit of him, just as Wyrm’s head barrelled up from below, gaining on him. He pelted across the chamber and over the back of the Wyrm’s body and down another tunnel. Wyrm followed him blindly, plunging on like a freight train, into the tunnel after him.

  The dark echoed with Old Man Wyrm’s voice, its deep vibrato sending down showers of dirt from the tunnel roof.

  “Run all you want, older brother. Your sweat will be a fine seasoning!”

  Coyote found himself, as he expected, back in the central chamber, along with the bulk of Wyrm’s body; twisted under and over and round itself in pursuit of him, tied up and stuck in the chamber.

  “You couldn’t eat me now if you tried, Old Man Wyrm!” crowed Coyote. “You’ve a knot in your stomach.”

  And Coyote laughed all the way along the tunnel to the fresh air.

  However, the last laugh was on Coyote. As Old Man Wyrm thrashed about in blind fury, unable to extricate himself, the tunnel collapsed about the trickster. Dirt clogged his nose, stung his eyes and filled his ears.

  “Oh what a stupid fellow I have been. I may now be a meal for worms after all,” Coyote said.

  Then, through the dirt, he saw the faint sickly glow of the town lights beyond. Coyote burst from the hill.

  “Ho, but not this day!” he said. The earth was settling now, the sounds of struggle ceased, and the standing stones still stood proud, if a little crooked, atop the hill. Above, the ravens circled, cawing contemptuously.

  It was only then that Coyote remembered Richard. Sometimes mortals were such a drag. Did he have to do everything himself?

  He bounded down the hill, growling as he leapt over the car park wall toward the scratched and scored car, and the flock of murderous midnight birds that swarmed around it.

  He didn’t see the heavy chain swing through the air towards him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Coyote Finds the Thread

  THE IMPACT OF the heavy industrial chain flung Coyote through the car park wall, its dry stone exploding under the impact.

  No animal could have wielded that weapon. Nor was it forged by any mortal. The debris clinked and shifted as Coyote rose up from beneath the rubble, fur bristling, teeth bared, a growl of anger building in the back of his throat, ready to face his new opponent.

  He was a mountain of a man, by any stretch of the imagination, a broad chest and massive arms barely contained by the oil-smeared mechanic’s overall he wore, his long dark hair scraped back in a pony tail, scruffy beard bordering on hobo. He was stood by the car, keeping the ravens at bay. Coyote could smell the fear and piss that was Richard inside the vehicle.

  Coyote could also smell the man. No, not a man, this was a god. Under the acrid tang of oil, grease and hot metal was the unmistakable odour of sanctity, the scent of the gods. Coyote wasn’t impressed with his physique; after all, gods could change appearances to suit their whim.

  The man had his attention focused on the flock about him. He whirled the long chain around his head. Where it whipped into the ravens, it flayed their corporeality from them and they burst into vaporous shadows, dispersing on the wind, the defiant caws dissipating.

  Sizing up the battle, Coyote joined the fray, taking out his fury at being duped on the belligerent birds. He leapt up, tearing at necks, legs and wings. He ripped them from the air with teeth and claws until their glowing eyes were snuffed out, and their forms shaken violently into a black mist between his jaws.

  He let out a low growl and hunched down on his forepaws ready to pounce again, but there were no ravens left. By the car, the large man, panting heavily with his exertions, turned in a circle, the long chain trailing on the ground, chinking across the surface.

  Coyote circled him warily, ears flat, tail down. Meeting new gods could turn into such a pissing contest. My pantheon’s bigger than yours. Well, bring it on. He’d had a bladder full.

  “I meant you no harm,” said the man. With a flick of his wrist, he allowed the links coiled round his forearm to drop to the floor. “An accident in the heat of battle.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say,” said Coyote, human once more, a smile on his face as he walked toward him, hand extended.

  Hands gripped hard as their eyes met, each taking the measure of the other.

  Coyote could tell that the man’s physique was no illusory glamour, no narcissistic reflection. He had earned those muscles, worked hard for them. That, at least, was deserving of some respect. He also didn’t seem to care too much about his appearance. The unkempt beard spoke to that. No huge ego to flatter.

  “Coyote. Call me Kai. That’s quite a grip you’ve got there.”

  “My forge keeps me strong,” said the man. White teeth gleamed through his beard.

  Coyote raised an eyebrow. A god of the forge, then. But which one? Not Hephaestus.

  “Weyland Smith,” said the man.

  Ah. The Anglo-Saxon.

  There was a rattling and a muffled voice from inside the car.

  Weyland glanced towards it.

  “Yours?” he asked.

  Coyote sighed and gave a what-can-you-do shrug. “Yes.”

  Weyland nodded. �
�I had one once.”

  “A car?”

  “A mortal.”

  They walked towards the silver Nissan. It was rocking on its suspension. Inside, Richard sat in the driver’s seat shouting and shoving the door.

  “What happened?” asked Coyote.

  “Flibbertigibbet? He got turned to stone.”

  Coyote glanced towards the hilltop.

  “Oh, not that one.”

  The car’s bodywork was scratched and scored by claws and ectoplasmic bird crap smeared its windows. “You can come out now, Richard.”

  The car continued to rock. Richard tugged fruitlessly on the door handle.

  Weyland took hold of the door handle and wrenched the door open. Richard tumbled out on the ground, his hand crudely bandaged with a handkerchief, his face covered with small cuts, his hair matted with blood.

  “They tried to kill me!” He scrambled to his feet. “They tried to kill me. Where the hell were you?”

  “You’re alive,” said Coyote, unconcerned.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Weyland coughed.

  “That you are, is thanks to Weyland,” said Coyote, his voice calm, but insistent. Coyote could tell Richard didn’t see the import of it. He leant into Richard’s ear and whispered. “Seriously, Richard. Thank Weyland. He saved your life. He has enough power to unmake you at a whim.”

  “Thank you for saving my life,” said Richard.

  Weyland grinned with wry amusement. “I hope you’re worth the saving, Richard Green.” He slapped him heartily between his shoulder blades, making Richard stagger forward unsteadily before he braced his hands on his knees and vomited onto the muddy ground.

  Weyland peered over Richard’s shoulder.

  “Interesting,” he said, addressing Coyote. “Is he your emetomancer?”

  Coyote shook his head. “Sometimes puke is just puke.”

  “Too bad. We might have learned something.”

  “We did. Don’t trust Nataero.”

  Weyland looked puzzled. “That thieving Roman bastard, that jumped up ambitious little house god?”