by Renée Jaggér
“Man,” the first guy said, “this place is crowded for being tiny as fuck. It’s gonna take forever to get food here.”
“Yeah,” a second agreed, “out in the boonies, they’re not used to people’s time being valuable, and they always work really slow.”
Bailey frowned, picked up her sandwich, and took one bite.
The quartet approached the counter and began heckling the redhead with a mixture of bizarre menu questions, half-assed flirtation, and condescending aside-remarks delivered as though the entire shop couldn’t hear them.
An older couple seated at one of the tables was watching them. The man called, “Hey, now, be polite and wait like everyone else has to. No reason to pressure the girl like that.”
The group turned on him and snapped something about stupid rednecks. The hair on Bailey’s arms bristled, and she started to stand up.
“Hold,” said Coyote, placing a hand over hers. “Sit and enjoy your meal. I’ll take care of this.”
A shoulder-twitch from one of the oafs, who were facing away from them, told Bailey that he’d heard the Native man’s words.
She squinted at Coyote. “I thought you weren’t supposed to, uh, intervene, with, you know, stuff that’ll draw attention.” Meaning divine magic.
“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “There are simpler ways.”
He came up behind the four vacationers and asked them to please either behave themselves or leave, and one reflexively shoved him. He fell back a step and was suddenly poised in a sidelong position on springy feet, his hands rising toward his face and forming into fists.
“That was a foolish error,” he informed them.
The girl watched, dumbfounded, as the god in human form became a blur of motion, the blue of his pants, red of his shirt, and black of his hair streaking through the air of the confined space. Two of the guys lashed out clumsily with their fists but hit nothing.
The Native man’s fist slammed into the leader’s ear, sending him reeling and clutching the side of his head. By the time the blow had landed, Coyote was spinning around to elbow one of the other guys in the back of the head, and he lurched against the wall.
Bailey took a couple more bites of her sandwich and sipped her orange soda. Thus far, she was impressed.
The third vacationer tried to bring his knee up into Coyote’s gut, but the lithe man twisted aside and punched the knee, making the kid gasp in stunned pain and stop to check for injury. At that point, Coyote kicked him in the groin—not hard enough to ruin the rest of his day, but enough to send him to the floor doubled up.
The fourth guy sputtered, “Shit!” and ran, pushing out through the door. The bells attached to it rang cheerfully as he departed.
The first two guys were close behind him, telling him to wait up. The third, who’d taken the knee and ball shots, tried to get to his feet but was having trouble. Coyote helped him up and told him, “Please remember today’s lesson in the importance of courtesy.” Then he shoved him out the door after his friends. He hopped along down the sidewalk until he was out of sight.
The counter girl sighed with relief. “Thanks, man, whoever you are. I guess if you’re one of Bailey’s friends, we can rely on you for stuff like this. I finished making the first two of their sandwiches, though.”
Coyote smiled. “I will buy them and save them for later. Or one, if you’re allowed to have the other yourself. I’m not sure what this place’s policies are on employee meals.”
When he sat back down, Bailey let out the laugh she’d been holding in since it became clear who would win the fight. “Beautifully done. Nice restraint, too. I’d have probably sent at least one to the hospital, but you got the job done by ruining their weekend instead of their whole month. Unless the guy who took the elbow to the jaw lost a tooth or something.”
“I don’t think he did,” Coyote mused. “But thank you. I’ll try to teach you how it’s done since you can always use more instruction in such matters.”
She raised her soda cup and tapped it against his. She wished it was glass, but they’d have to make do. “Here’s to that.”
A little later, they departed the shop, taking the extra sandwich with them and stashing it in Bailey’s fridge. Her brothers were out meeting with other Weres, hopefully recruiting them as a reserve force in case the shit hit the fan. She wasn’t used to seeing them not be home or at the Elk.
Bailey decided that the old family farm, about two miles away into the countryside, would be the best place for her and Coyote to begin their training. The god offered no objections. The drive was slow and bumpy since the property was only accessible via a crappy dirt road that wound through dense woods.
They talked as she drove. Coyote seemed curious about the town and what it had been like for her growing up, and he cracked silly but amusing jokes after every second or third thing she said. Chortling, she went on to regale him with the capsule version of her life story, pausing to insert little asides about specific things she remembered and was nostalgic about.
She also mentioned the hardships and uncertainties, however—in particular, the anxiety she had lived with for so long about being forced into marriage by the age of twenty-five, as per ancient lycanthrope custom.
Until she’d become an official shaman.
“So yeah,” she concluded, “I was spared that fate, thanks to...well, to Fenris.”
She was silent for a moment after that.
“It’s okay,” Coyote told her.
Chapter Nine
“Good,” said Coyote. “I’m going to try to elbow you in the face. See if you can break my arm at this range.”
He and Bailey had been drilling in clinch fighting and grappling skills. They were inches apart, their arms intertwined and within range to knee one another in the groin or stomach. The girl had only the vaguest of idea of how the hell she could break anyone’s arm like this unless she released him and opened herself up to a punch, kick, or throw.
She tried three times and failed, then Coyote showed her a subtle technique for readjusting her balance and position so that she could seize his arm and apply pressure to it by using his own movements against him.
The girl gave an appreciative nod. “Nasty, but might be helpful.”
“Sadly,” the deity commented, “the most efficient sorts of combat are often brutally efficient, and it would be better if we didn’t need to use them ever. But sometimes we do, and it’s better to know how if you must.”
Bailey wiped the sweat from her brow. The day was getting hot. “Agreed.”
They drilled several more techniques for what felt like hours, if not a day or more, though the sun did not move as much in the sky as she would have expected, and night did not fall.
Most of the fighting style Coyote demonstrated to her was oriented toward speedily disabling one’s opponent before they could fight back, or neutralizing their attacks by exploiting the openings they created. Elbows, knees, breaks, chokeholds, and the like were emphasized. It reminded her of what little she’d seen of advanced military close combat.
They separated after Bailey seemed to have the hang of an oblique knee-strike to the kidney that led directly into throwing her adversary over the same knee.
Coyote smiled in a grim way. “All right. You have done well so far, and I think your abilities have seen a slight improvement in this short time. Let’s take a break and drink some water.”
She had no complaints. They chugged from a gallon bottle and sat on the grass, admiring the thick clouds that wafted through the bright blue sky.
Bailey had been under the impression that hand-to-hand combat took many hours to gain basic competence, let alone mastery, and she mentioned as much to her trainer. “Although I’m a fast learner, most of the time,” she added.
“Generally true,” Coyote acceded, “but in this case, I have been sneakily aiding you this whole time in a way you don’t seem to have been aware of.”
She looked at him sidelong. “Is that s
o? May I ask what the hell you mean?” She was baffled; either he was referring to a minor thing he’d been doing for a long time, or he meant a trick he’d deployed during their sparring session that was too subtle for her to have grasped.
The man chuckled, looking pleased with himself. “Certainly. You will recall that I am a trickster, and part of being a trickster-god is knowing how to weave illusions. Not only things like astral doubles of oneself, but the ability to create minor perceptual hallucinations.”
“So,” she mused, “does that mean you’ve been tinkering with my senses? If so, I kinda wish you would’ve told me.”
He spread his hands, looking innocent. “I’m telling you now, aren’t I? But yes. I have been altering your perception of time. You may not have noticed, but we’ve only been practicing for a few hours. Your brain has interpreted it as being much longer. As such, the impact and efficacy of the practice we’ve gone through are enhanced. You’ve learned more, and more quickly.”
She blinked. “Weird, but it makes sense. Next time, warn me, okay?”
He pouted. “Knowing about it decreases the effect, but fine. Fair enough.”
He leaned back on his elbows and looked at the sky. She joined him, saying nothing for a time.
While they rested, Bailey thought of something.
“Coyote,” she said, “I haven’t seen Fenris for a while—over a day at least. I’m not sure what he’s getting up to. Have you guys been keeping tabs on him? If I go looking for him or call him without a legitimate reason, he might suspect that I’m on to him, since the whole time I’ve known him, he’s disappeared whenever he feels like it, to do...whatever it is he does.”
The trickster god craned his neck and looked up at the clouds. “We have some knowledge of his movements and a fairly good idea of what he’s up to, yes. Fenris is devious, but he’s not as clever as he thinks he is, nor is he as clever as I am. It’s part of my portfolio as a deity, after all.”
“True,” the girl acknowledged.
Coyote went on, “Our council discussed these matters at great length. We are working on ways to deal with the situation and ensure that Fenris does not succeed. You, Bailey, are a key element of our plans, just as you are the linchpin of his.”
She grimaced as she stared into the distance, trying not to reflect too deeply on the extent to which she was someone else’s tool either way.
But it also meant that she had the power to tip the scales. No one had told her she had to simply stand back and hope for the best or any such crap.
“And,” Coyote added, “given that, I would say we have a good chance. You have risen to the challenges you’ve faced so far, have you not?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I have.”
They spend another minute or two feeling the summer air of evening around them, unspeaking. Bailey found she had another question, one which had been lurking in the back of her mind ever since she’d mostly accepted that Loki was right about her longtime mentor.
“Coyote. I don’t understand why is Fenris doing this? What’s he trying to accomplish by destroying Asgard and bringing about the goddamn end of the world as we know it?”
The man shook his head, his salt-and-pepper hair wafting in the breeze.
“I cannot fathom his reasoning. Perhaps vengeance for his having been excluded from the council, perhaps a misguided belief that it will somehow improve the universe. Or perhaps he’s simply abandoned himself to the prophecy that states that he must act as the catalyst for Ragnarök. There is no sane reason, but then again, the gods are not required to be sane. Some of us have existed forever—or near enough to forever to make no difference to you—and they are the way they are, that is all.”
Bailey skimmed back over conversations she’d had with Fenris, searching for things he’d said that might act as clues to his agenda. It was difficult to find much that stood out, and besides, how much of what he’d told her was true?
Coyote added, “Other deities, perhaps, started out as beings of sense and balance, but the long, slow, brutal procession of time has driven them insane. I don’t claim to know what the case is with our acquaintance, the wolf-father, but whatever his reasons, he must be stopped. Too much catastrophe will befall the world—multiple worlds, in fact—for us to allow it to happen.”
Rubbing her eye, the girl sighed, “Yeah, I can agree with that much. Are we training any more today?”
“We are,” the god confirmed. “Allow me to show you more magic that may be of use to you in the struggles to come.”
Though she was tired, Bailey recognized the gravity and necessity of their situation and complied.
Coyote showed her advanced tactics for manipulating the earth and ground, a mixture of geology and mysticism that exceeded anything she’d thought of or been trained in thus far.
Back and forth, the two drilled the spells and motions. She created small shifts in the earth hundreds of feet below them, and they watched as tiny earthquakes began, or the lay of the terrain began to shift.
“Furthermore,” Coyote added, “it is also possible to use the earth as a source of strength and vitality. You can draw upon its power. In a way, it’s like when you grounded yourself before bleeding out Aradia and Freya, as Fenris showed you. This is the reverse, you might say.”
Following his instructions, she sent out astral tendrils with her mind and locked into the ground around her. Bailey felt its living force: the reserves of kinetic, heat, and electromagnetic energy stored within its materials, as well as the potential for life in its fertile, plant-friendly soils or deposits of insects, worms, and other small creatures.
“I feel it,” she announced. “It’s like it was always there, but I never took notice of it.”
Coyote smiled. “Good. Yes, there’s tremendous power stored in obvious places, places so obvious you wouldn’t think to look. As a shaman, this is part of your heritage and your mantle. Shamans have always been tied to the elements around them and the latent magical strength of the planet.”
The werewitch felt another vista opening within her, a new skill or set of knowledge she could use.
She hoped that when the time came, it would be enough.
Bailey had felt like driving her Camaro, though it was only a few minutes into town. It was late morning of the day after her training session with Coyote, and having slept long and soundly following her workout, she felt like traveling in style.
En route to the auto shop on the slope off the main road, Sheriff Browne noticed her and waved to her, adding a stern glare to remind her to keep her speed at a reasonable level. She waved back and drove exactly thirty-one miles per hour in the thirty zone.
Shortly after the sheriff’s station, she turned onto the side road that took her to Gunney’s shop. When she arrived and climbed out of the vehicle, she saw the repair bays empty, and the aging mechanic sitting on a lawn chair near the rear of the structure. None of the other employees were present.
“Damn,” she muttered under her breath, “must be a slow week.”
Gunney waved to her. “Hi, there. Hope you weren’t looking to get some extra hours in on the side since we’re customerless at the moment.”
“Nah,” she retorted, “just wanted to hang out and see how you were doing.”
He stood up. “That works. Want something to eat? I got subs. Turkey club in this case, for a change of pace.”
She stretched her back muscles. “Sure, sounds good. I had a cheesesteak yesterday anyway.”
They brought out the sandwiches and ate them with orange soda. Gunney had picked up a whole case of the beverage, so the werewitch didn’t complain about him drinking one of “her” oranges.
While having their early lunch, Bailey filled the old man in on all that had happened, noting the way his eyes grew wide and distant.
He slowly shook his head in befuddled amazement. “Shit,” he muttered. “You’re not making all this stuff up, are you? I’m joking. I’ve seen too much with my own eyes, though I can’t
say I’ve been to this parallel dimension or whatever it is. But it sounds like what you’ve been doing, if you kinda sum it all up, is stopping problems before they happen so things can be peaceful. Am I right?”
The girl sipped the last of her soda. “More or less.”
“Well,” Gunney went on, “I don’t have any cars for us to work on, so if you’re in search of a task that will put your mind at ease, all I can think of is sweeping the damn floor.”
“That works,” she said.
They each grabbed a broom and began clearing the shop floor of dust, grime, and small bits of random debris, pushing it out into the gravel lot out back. While they worked, the mechanic talked.
“Granted,” he began, “not having any customers is on the boring side, but it’s also nice to relax. I know it won’t last. There’ll be more work to do soon, and when I get back to it, I’ll have to neglect other things— the tasks that all have to be done in order to win that day off, like today. We can’t always be at peace. Sometimes we’ve got to fight through bullshit for quiet times to happen.”
She swept a small pile of dirt out the back door and stood for a minute, leaning on her broom. “True enough.”
Gunney came up beside her. “I’d say that’s where you’re at, too. You’ve got a lot on your plate, but trust yourself, your family, and your friends—all the people who’ve worked with you and helped you so far. Well, except you-know-who, but let’s not get into that. Otherwise, you have what you need to get the job done. I know you can handle it. Then there will be peace again.”
The pair looked each other in the eyes without speaking until the older man broke the silence.
“For once,” Gunney remarked, “I think we should take a ride, only it’s my turn to drive. What do you say?”
