Drag Hunt

by Pat Kelleher

  Lugh nodded. “Your discretion and hunting skills are appreciated, Pwyll.”

  “And what of the other aspect?” asked a woman with startling emerald eyes and long flaming hair, the colour of villages put to the torch.

  “Safe, Morrigan, safe,” said Lugh, lifting something onto the table.

  Coyote-raven blinked. There, in the middle of the table, bound and contained by a fiendish ornate casket with crystal panes in the sides, like a reliquary, was his pecker, limp and shrivelled.

  Morrigan peered at the thing from the far end of the table and curled her lip in disgust.

  “Are you sure this... thing is powerful enough. It looks like it wouldn’t satisfy a shrew.”

  Lugh patted the reliquary. “Be assured, Morrigan, when the time comes, this thing will have power enough to help grant all our desires.”

  Morrigan sat back, staring at it warily, not entirely convinced. “Forgive my scepticism. I have been disappointed by male members before.”

  Osiris laughed. “Worry not, Morrigan. It is not pleasure we’re concerned with here, but procreation. It will serve its purpose.”

  “And what of the trickster? Now the Roman has failed to bind him, is Coyote going to be a problem?” asked Gobannon.

  Lugh turned to him. “As I told Osiris,” he said, “it is all in hand. Leave Coyote to us.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Coyote Takes Flight

  OUTSIDE, ON THE balustrade, Coyote-raven sighed. It grieved him to be so close, yet so far, from his penis. “What have they done to you? Do not worry, younger brother, you will soon be free.”

  After all, Coyote had stolen daylight, filched fire and ventured into the land of the dead. He would surely be able to rescue his younger brother.

  He thought about smashing through the glass and stealing his pecker away there and then, but with so many gods around, and so many wards and sigils protecting the building, even he didn’t think that was a wise move.

  No, he needed a plan, a good one, and what a plan it would be once he thought of it. Perhaps he would fly down one of the chimneys into the kitchens. There, he would bake a bread that resembled the size and shape of his confined member. Once it had risen (heh) all he had to do was find out where they were keeping the reliquary, sneak in, open the casket, make the exchange, yadda, yadda, yadda. Couldn’t fail.

  As he fidgeted in thought, from above Coyote-raven heard a challenging call. Two ravens perched on the lip of the roof above, watching him with all the glee of bored mall cops who had found some amusement.

  “Good day, brothers,” he called.

  They did not answer, but flew down in silence, and landed on the balustrade either side of him. They were bigger than he was, with sharper beaks and longer talons. Heavyweights.

  He looked from one to the other.

  “Did my raven brother Bran send you, has he become aware of the vipers within his lodge?” asked Coyote-raven.

  One raven cocked his head with an insolent stare, but said nothing.

  “Then perhaps are you Odin’s. Huggins and Muggins, no?”

  The other mocked him with a raucous caw of laugher.

  “No,” said Coyote-raven. “I can see by the vacant look in your eyes, that thought and memory would be too much to hope for.”

  One of the ravens, its beak wide, cawed in his face and flapped its wings in threat. Its breath was rank with foul meat, its muscles grown strong on the carrion of the battlefield. Its feathers were black with blood.

  Coyote-raven sighed. Just his luck, battle ravens. His plan was going to have to be a little more complicated than he first thought. Still, two battle ravens shouldn’t be a problem.

  There was a thrashing of wings. Coyote-raven glanced up. Along the edge of the roof, eight—no, nine—ten ravens settled. Make that twelve.

  Okay.

  RICHARD ROOTED ROUND in the little office for a kettle. An old transistor radio he’d found played in the background. He’d discovered a packet of digestive biscuits and eaten half of them already. He was starving. As he moved about, waves of static swept over the music, but the songs grounded him, reminded him of his life, of when he had one. All he needed was money. Enough so he could build his life again. Buy a better house. Get a better job. Meet a better girl. Coyote could have done that for him, pulled a couple of grand out of a cash machine, bought him a winning lottery ticket, dropped him off somewhere and let him get on with his life.

  But how could he, knowing what he knew now, that humans were just ants to be stepped on or played with or burnt with magnifying glasses? How could he go back to that? He wished he could.

  “Hello?” A woman in a business suit peered round the lock-up door into the gloom. “Excuse me?”

  Richard looked up. Great. He didn’t need this.

  “I’m sorry. We’re shut,” he called. Okay, it wasn’t his business, he shouldn’t have been there and, besides, it was shut. At least it had been until they arrived. He just wanted to deflect any attempt at conversation. He wasn’t feeling very sociable right now.

  “I just heard that you did MOTs, and I was wondering—”

  She was old enough to be his mother, well, aunt, but nevertheless her full figure won a blush of appreciation from him.

  Wary of her footing, she stepped inside, trying not to touch the door and soil her hands or suit. Her heels clacked on the concrete, her footsteps unsteady on the uneven floor.

  Her ankle gave on the uneven ground. She staggered. Richard was there before she could fall and caught her elbow. The scent of vanilla filled his nostrils, dousing the acrid male aroma that filled the dank enclosed workshop. The perfume seemed oddly out of place. A young girl’s scent, but it suited her.

  “Are you all right, Missus—?” he asked.

  “Cerridwen. Oh, I’m fine,” she said, looking up into his face and smiling. “You, on the other hand—”

  It was as if his brain was filling up with warm water. Richard didn’t have time to panic. Like a deep scented bath, Richard soaked in the feeling. It was calming.

  “The time is coming when we will put things to rights,” she said. “We will rise once more and take our appointed places. Change is coming.” She studied him, as if picking up micro tells he wasn’t aware of giving out. Something sifted through his mind, turning it this way and that, like a mother inspecting a wayward child’s face for dirt or injury. A half smile. “And I see you’ve already started. A pity, then, that you will never complete it.”

  “You’re one of them aren’t you? A god,” he said in languid tones, fighting the comforting warmth that enveloped his mind, the warmth of a mother’s love. He felt himself yielding to it, unconditionally.

  “Very astute,” she said sharply. She idly surveyed the workshop-come-forge. “Coyote isn’t interested in you, you know. You’re an idle curiosity at best. You’re like a bauble to a cat. He could have set you up with money any time he wanted. But the trickster isn’t like that. He can be cruel and deceitful.”

  He tried to escape the warm feeling, but he was like a child trying to escape its mother’s grip. His mind struggled and squirmed, a little act of rebellion, but he couldn’t work loose.

  His face was puce with effort as he forced the words out. “Why don’t you just leave us alone?”

  An arched pencilled eyebrow. A flash of temper. The warm, cosseting feeling in his mind withdrew and he was lost somewhere alone, somewhere cold and dark and deep. He felt panic rise. He wanted to cry out for her, beg her for succour, and say he was sorry, but he bit down on his cheeks until he drew blood.

  “For the most part we did, for millennia in fact, and we were content for the most part, but now we’re trapped down here in the gutter with you, suffocating in the stench of decay and mortality. It’s like living in a midden heap. But no more. We have had enough. The Great Usurper can keep us cowed no longer.”

  He looked at her. Somewhere he felt pity. They had lost everything, like him. Only they hadn’t learnt the lesson. Perhaps t
hat’s what mortals had over gods. Humans could adapt. They could evolve. For all their vaunted power and immortality, could they do that? Even now, they still clung to their sense of divine entitlement. Were they just theological dinosaurs? Is that what this was all about, survival of the fitter? Maybe this Great Usurper was a Darwinist. Wouldn’t that be a laugh?

  “Come with me.”

  He felt a not too gentle tug at his mind and, unable to resist, followed her as she left.

  FROM A WINDOW of the Club, Morrigan turned, alerted by her battle ravens’ caws of alarm as they mobbed the intruder outside. She watched, fascinated, in expectation of blood. She was disappointed.

  COYOTE-RAVEN BROKE FREE of the murderous mob and flew up across the rooftops, startling a flock of dull-witted pigeons into the air. The battle ravens raced after him in single-minded pursuit, tearing through the hapless birds as they flapped frantically.

  Bloody-feathered pigeon corpses dropped out of the sky to the screams of pedestrians below.

  The battle ravens pursued Coyote-raven so relentlessly, they reminded him of a rock he once knew. He shuddered at the thought and flew on.

  The beat of their wings was like a martial drum, their harsh calls, bloodthirsty war cries urging each other on.

  If he had his penis, this would have been so easy...

  Coyote-raven swooped down through the buildings, along the street and over the traffic, the battle ravens on his tail, their strident battle caws cutting through the city’s cacophony.

  Coyote-raven flew lower, as low as he dared, over the top of cars and taxis to the sounds of blaring horns.

  Scared by the sudden aerial activity, docile junk-food-grazing pigeons took to the air in a flurry of wings and coos of alarm, causing pedestrians to flinch, squeal and flail their arms, adding to the chaos.

  A double-decker bus loomed. Coyote-raven caught sight of his reflection in the windscreen—and those of the battle ravens closing in behind him. He saw the bus driver throw up an arm as he flew over the cars at the bus, only to swoop under it at the last minute. Two battle ravens on his tail tried to follow, smashing into the engine grille and vanishing in puffs of black vapour that soon dissipated, mingling with the exhaust fumes.

  Wheeling left, over the heads of screaming pedestrians who ducked, yelped and squealed, some taking swings with attaché cases, newspapers or umbrellas, Coyote-raven beat his wings, climbing up past the shiny glass walls of an office block. This close it was almost invisible, its mirrored surfaces reflecting the skyscape around it. He banked sharply round the corner, smirking to himself as he heard the deep reverberating thung of a bird strike on toughened glass. Another one down. He banked round the building, doubled back round the other side, put his beak down, and dived, picking up speed as he headed towards the fast approaching mouth of a corner Tube station.

  Coyote-raven heard a caw as a battle raven, claws forward, slammed into him. Dazed, Coyote-raven lost control and fell from the air, a tumbling bundle of flailing wings and ruffled feathers. As he sought to come out of the spin, the pain hit. A sharp flash along his left side that melted into a sense of heat and burned as ichor oozed from the wound.

  Now the others began to mob him as he fell, swooping in for opportune slashes and pecks.

  Coyote-raven made for the opening of the Tube station, dispersing the gathering commuters, some of whom had taken out smartphones to film the unusual avian behaviour. Coyote-raven landed in an untidy ball by the ticket machines. He had no time to catch his breath before the mob of battle ravens descended. Commuters fled the station foyer in a panic. As the triumphant cawing of iridescent black battle ravens fell upon their victim, Coyote-raven cried with pain at each slice and rip. His caw lengthened and deepened into a howl as he transformed. The battle ravens’ cries of triumph turned to ones of pain as the coyote, its fangs bared, shook his body, throwing them off. It snapped at the nearest raven, seized it by its wing and shook it violently until it dissolved into a greasy black vapour in his mouth. He pounced and seized another, clamping his teeth down hard on its body, feeling the bones crunch in his mouth before the red light in its eyes died like embers, and the body turned into a foul tasting mist.

  By now, people were screaming at the wild dog in the Tube station as it charged the diminished flock of battle ravens.

  They took to the air, over the heads of shocked onlookers, leaving the coyote bloodied and panting in the foyer.

  Coyote howled in humiliation and the crowd of gathered commuters yelled and parted as he loped out of the station, across the road and down an alley.

  SOME OF THE shallower cuts were beginning to heal by the time Coyote walked upright and human into Weyland’s lock-up under the arches. He was tired and sore, but this was a power spot and a good place to replenish his personal power.

  “Richard Green!” he called out.

  There was no answer. He couldn’t say he was surprised. He wasn’t even disappointed. Trust the human to make the boring choice. Well, the choice had been his. Coyote was Dickless again. The truth was he’d just wanted sympathetic noises while he licked his wounds, while he remade the story of his defeat into one of heroic triumph. However, for that transformation he needed an audience. Anyone would have done. It didn’t have to be Richard Green.

  There was a loud retort as several short high-pitched farts filled the silence.

  “Oh, there you go,” said Coyote. “Where were you when I was being chased down by battle ravens? You could have guffed them to death.”

  A single loud wet one followed.

  “No, I wouldn’t call you a James Bond gadget.”

  Still, now he could concentrate on getting his pecker back without the mortal whining all the time. And once he did, those raven mofos better watch out. Oh, yes. Wakdjunkaga had a long memory.

  He took his deerskin wrapped war bundle from under the workbench where he’d stashed it, and laid it reverently on the top.

  He rolled a shoulder and winced, kneading his neck muscles.

  He was healing nicely but the humiliation of defeat still smarted and it would take longer to fade.

  Something large shifted in the shadows. There was a glint of metal.

  “Someone has been in my shop.”

  A figure stepped from the shadows, holding a gleaming sword. It looked odd in the hand of a jump-suited biker mechanic. Odd, but no less fearsome.

  “Weyland,” greeted Coyote, as he gingerly felt the left side of his ribcage. “Yes, sorry about that. You weren’t here. We didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “I didn’t mean you, trickster.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Coyote fanned a hand round his backside and pulled a face. “He does that sometimes.”

  Weyland stepped over to the bench and put the broadsword down next to the war bundle. “Where is Richard Green? My radio’s been retuned, the digestives have all gone and someone’s been at my teabags.”

  Coyote looked up at him. “It’s not my fault. I wasn’t here.”

  “And Richard isn’t here now,” said Weyland.

  Coyote shrugged, as if that cleared it all up. “Well, there you go. I knew he’d run out on me. Still, it’s one less thing to worry about.”

  Weyland sniffed the air. He wandered round the lockup, still sniffing. He turned back to Coyote with a frown.

  “Personally? I’d say it was one more thing to worry about.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Coyote Loses his Dick

  RICHARD WANTED TO please Cerridwen, as a child wants to please its mother. To be honest, after the last few weeks, it felt like blessed relief to give up all his worries. He wanted to bury himself in her bosom and be comforted, but he knew the cruel sting of her hand could be waiting. Nevertheless, his love for her was unconditional. He wanted the approval, not the rebuke, so he followed Cerridwen into the Club.

  Although he would do anything for her, there was a small part of him, locked away in his head, banging behind plate glass. He could feel her hold on his mind exertin
g just enough pressure to let him know she was in there.

  The front door opened of its own accord. He walked through, bracing himself for the psychic pressure wave of nearby gods. Coyote had helped alleviate that by giving him a push, jolting his awareness by lending him a small amount of power. What he felt on leaving before was psychic decompression. However, this time it didn’t feel as overwhelming. No doubt, Cerridwen’s constant hold on his mind acted as protection.

  Richard followed her through the lobby and up the stone stairs to the landing, and along a wood panelled hall. There, double doors swung open silently at their approach. They passed through a large room full of leather armchairs and walnut tables. The members’ lounge, the Inner Sanctum. There, sat in the chairs, reading or chatting in low voices as mortal servants moved quietly between them, were gods.

  Their passage warranted barely a glance from the few members that were about as Cerridwen led them to another door.

  Beyond was a drawing room.

  Richard felt a churn of nausea as the door opened and the minds of the occupying deities turned their attention towards him.

  “Bow before my Lord Lugh, the Shining One, a god of great skill and art,” said Cerridwen sternly. Richard could not resist.

  “So this is the trickster’s stray?” said Lugh. He laughed as Richard bowed for his mother-mistress.

  Richard felt like a child in the company of adults—insignificant, powerless, and uncomprehending. They seemed larger than their size, as if their physical bodies could barely contain them, and looking at them gave him a kind of vertigo. Despite that, he tried to speak. Richard’s face screwed up with the effort of trying to move, a child wriggling and fidgeting against a mother’s firm grip.

  Lugh leaned forward, eyebrow arched, and glanced at Cerridwen.