Tricked (17 page)

Moving slowly and as noiselessly as possible, I crept down to the river’s edge to slake my thirst. I was hungry too, but I didn’t want to tear anything open in the stress of a hunt—nor did I wish to announce my presence here any more than absolutely necessary. Having nothing else to do, I returned to the concealment of the blackberry bush and sighed into another recuperative sleep.

Coyote woke me in the morning, calling from across the river.

“Hey, Mr. Druid! Where are ya? Mr. Druid!” I poked my otter head out from under the blackberry bush to locate him visually. The voice of paranoia in my head—
and the memory of yesterday’s augury—said he might not be alone.

Coyote was standing on the bank where he’d last seen me. He looked like himself again, blue jeans and boots and a sleeveless white undershirt, big silver belt buckle, and shining black hair falling from underneath a black cowboy hat. I watched him and the brush nearby to see if there was any movement. He kept calling, and his voice sharpened with an edge of irritation when I didn’t reply.

“Don’t make me hunt for ya! I ain’t in the mood!” he yelled. Deciding it was worth the risk to show myself, I tested out my vocal cords and let out a high-pitched otter call. It sounded a bit rough but the volume was there. Coyote swiveled his head toward the sound and spotted me walking down to the bank. “Oh, there you are. Took ya long enough.”

Pausing at the riverbank, I chittered at him again. Now that I was in the open, he could point me out to any unfriendly creatures he might have hiding nearby, if that was his plan. Instead, he just stood there, hands on his hips, bemused at my behavior.

“I don’t speak Otter, ya dumbass. What are ya waitin’ for? Get over here so we can get back to the rez. Unless I’m talkin’ to a real otter, in which case I’m the dumbass and you can just stay over there.”

I cheerfully suggested that he juggle hedgehogs, since he couldn’t understand anything I said, and slipped into the river. Keeping my head above water was manageable this time, though it hurt like one of Torquemada’s special tortures.

When I emerged, dripping, Coyote squatted down and spoke with more venom than I’d ever heard from him before. “Guess how much I like being eaten by a huge fuckin’ dog, Mr. Druid,” he said. “Chewed up an’ swallowed, an’ I didn’t die until I hit the acid in his
stomach ’cause he gulped my head down whole. I remember every horrible second of it. An’ afore that I got turned into mincemeat by a buncha thunder gods. I’ve died twice now for you, an’ both times were some o’ the worst ways I could possibly go. You better be worth it.”

Making otter noises would be insufficient reply, so I bound myself back to my human form and gasped at the pain as a few of the muscles tore again in the shift. My vocal cords held it together, but just barely.

“Thank you,” I rasped as I lay on the riverbank, cold and naked. “Sorry about the trouble.”

“Aw, don’t thank me yet,” Coyote said, a wry smirk on his face. “I’m takin’ ya right back to them skinwalkers. They’re prob’ly still hungry for Druid. An’ if they ain’t, they’re still pissed about us bein’ in their territory. They gotta be dealt with one way or another.” He paused, thinking of something else, and gave two short barks of laughter before adding, “Plus your hound and your girl are going to kill ya for makin’ ’em worry.”

“She’s not my girl,” I said, which was probably not the smartest reply I could have made.

Coyote snorted derisively. “Yeah, whatever.”

“She’s my apprentice,” I reminded him. For some reason this conjured a vision of Leif in my head, anxious to start a Shakespearean quote duel, and I could hear him say, “The Druid doth protest too much, methinks.”

Coyote shook his head. “I don’t care, Mr. Druid. Can you walk now?”

Experimentally, I pushed against the ground with both hands and discovered that I couldn’t keep my head up or endure the excruciating pain the movement caused. Bunching the muscles in my shoulders and back affects the neck—check. I could cut off the pain, but it was there for a reason. I tried to lever myself up using only my left arm, on the theory that it was the side opposite the wound, but that was a no-go too. Bunching
up the shoulders in any way made those torn muscles scream.

“Wait. Let’s try something else.” I rolled over gingerly onto my back and then held up my left hand. “Help me up. Just pull gently.”

Coyote locked his hand in mine and pulled. The pain this time was more of a wail than a scream. I tried to keep my shoulders as relaxed as possible, and once I got my feet under me it wasn’t so bad. What I needed was a brace.

“All right?” Coyote asked.

“Yeah. I’ll have to move slowly, but I can walk with my head tilted like a zombie.”

“Good. I got a truck parked and waiting in Fourth World.”

“Any clothes in it?”

“Nope. You got clothes right there.” Coyote pointed to my jeans and shirt on the riverbank, which had been thoroughly nosed and stomped on by Garm.

“Wet and muddy ones.”

“So walk back naked, Mr. Druid, it ain’t no matter to me.”

Getting into my jeans was an exercise in patience for both of us. Cold and wet jeans are no fun to put on in any circumstance, but especially not when you have to keep your head as still as possible. I didn’t bother with the shirt.

When I signaled to Coyote that I was ready to go, he said, “Okay, just put your hand on my shoulder and follow.” I did so. We took four steps and were back on the side of the road a short distance from where the skinwalker had torn out my throat. A blue Ford half ton was waiting there, no doubt stolen. Coyote wanted to get in and drive back to the camp right away, but I insisted on messing up the earth where my blood was collected and dried. I used a little bit of power to churn the earth there
and bury it completely, mixing it into the dirt while I was at it to prevent it from being used against me later.

“You think that skinwalker could have come back here and gotten to this blood while we were away?” I asked.

“Naw,” Coyote said. “I got him pretty good. They’re both laid up healin’ somewhere. Prob’ly won’t hear from either one of ’em for a couple days. But they’ll be back soon enough. Maybe you’ll be in decent shape yourself by then.”

Maybe. Getting into the truck while keeping my head as still as possible was awkward, but I managed it with only a couple of spikes of sharp pain.

Coyote drove with the window down and leaned his head out a bit into the wind. “So, when will the gold be there, Mr. Druid?”

“Sometime after the coal mines shut down,” I rasped. “The elemental wants them out of commission permanently. You’ll have a big labor pool to draw from.”

“An’ if the coal starts up again, the gold shuts down, is that it?”

“Right,” I said. Monosyllables, I decided, were good. Especially since I couldn’t nod.

“That means you’re goin’ to have to stay here longer’n you thought.”

“Yep.”

Coyote grunted but said no more until we drove up to camp. Granuaile and Oberon came running toward the truck.

Before we opened the doors, Coyote turned off the engine and said, “By the way, Mr. Druid, you lost a day. It’s Monday morning.”

I’d been missing for two nights? They were going to kill me.

Oberon approached at a dangerous speed as I stepped
gingerly from the cab of the truck.
Slow down, don’t jump on me, okay? I’m injured
.

Neck. Under the skin; you won’t see it. I’ll explain to Granuaile and you’ll hear it all
.

As she hurried to catch up, Granuaile’s face was cycling through expressions of relief and worry and determination to make me pay. I held up my hands in case she wanted to throw her arms around my neck and hug me—or in case she wanted to grasp my neck in her hands and choke me.

“Where have you been?” she demanded, stopping several paces away and folding her arms in front of her.

“Sorry to make you worry,” I grated, “but I’ll be okay soon enough.”

Her eyes flicked down to my wet, muddy jeans and noted my profound lack of shirt.

“What happened to you?”

“Someone took advantage of me.”

Granuaile shot an uncertain glance at Coyote.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Coyote said. “Far as I know he’s still cherry.”

I jumped in with a fuller explanation before Granuaile could react or Oberon could question that particular colloquialism. “On the way back from the mine, I got attacked by a skinwalker and then we got chased by Hel’s hound, Garm.”

Granuaile’s jaw dropped. “How did you escape?”

“I didn’t, really. Coyote saved me.”

“Uh, what was that, Mr. Druid?” Coyote asked, cupping a hand behind his ear. “Didn’t quite hear that.”

“Yes, you did.” I didn’t feel like rehashing my brush with death while Coyote loitered nearby, so I gestured to Granuaile’s car. “Let’s go to town,” I told her. “We have business to attend to and clothes to buy. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Hey, when are ya gonna be back?” Coyote asked.

“Before dark, don’t worry,” I said.

On the way in to town, I informed Granuaile and Oberon that I quite nearly died and that only Coyote’s intervention had prevented me from being completely eaten by the skinwalker and Garm. He’d saved me twice and died for me twice.

“I owe him big now,” I said. “Damn it.”

“Well, that explains why it was quiet in the hogan last night,” Granuaile said. “One skinwalker stabbed through the shoulder and another one shot twice. They’ll be laid up for a while.”

I gently begged to differ. “Not much longer, I expect. They’ll have accelerated healing as well, and if they still have the Famine spell laid on them, they’ll be desperate to reach me. I’m hoping that’s not the case, though. How goes the Blessing Way?”

“It’s almost finished. The hogan will be completely safe after tonight.”

We reached the outskirts of Kayenta and Oberon wagged his tail, seeing the buildings.

“I imagine someone’s working at it,” I said. Granuaile darted her eyes quickly at me but then realized I must be talking to Oberon. She was getting used to my occasional non sequiturs.

“Where to, sensei?” she said.

“Head for the big box store. I can pick up some clothes and a neck brace there. Or, rather, you can. Don’t think they’ll let me in looking like this. It’d be nice to have a pair of sandals too.”

“Got it.” I gave her my sizes and she left Oberon and me sitting in the parking lot.

Oberon asked.

Breakfast. There’s a place on the highway called the Blue Coffee Pot
.

Oberon asked. His tail wagged in excitement, thumping against the backseat.

I hope so. We’ll get you camouflaged and you can squeeze in somewhere
.

You could use a bath
, I told him.

I can probably think of something
, I replied.
What sort of story are you in the mood for?

That’s no fun. The ninjas are almost always invisible, and if they’re not then they’re wearing black pajamas and they don’t want to talk about anything. How about a story with samurai instead? I can tell you about one of them
.

Yep. I spent a couple years in feudal Japan until Aenghus Óg chased me out of there
.

Most definitely
.

You do? Report what?

Ah, yes. Report, Snugglepumpkin
.

well. What I found out is that she is secretly obsessed with lasers and wants to equip everything she owns with them. When nobody else was around, she would talk to me about her plans to mount giant frickin’ lasers on top of her truck, her roof, and above her front door, to disintegrate missionaries and stray cats that come to take a dump in her front yard. She is a completely awesome lady. She even shared with me that she prefers T-bones to New York strips, and that means she is one of the finest human beings on the planet.>

Oberon. What did you find out about the building site?

Yes, they need to ship out their products somehow
.

No, the kind of transformers she’s talking about transmit electricity. They are, sadly, inanimate structures
.

Yes, you did very well. You’re at negative twelve now
.

Gravy, indeed. It was comforting to know that Coyote planned to follow through on his plan—or at least he was thorough enough in his trickery to make sure that Sophie and her crew believed they were going to build all that.

Granuaile returned with a bag full of clothes and a
neck brace for me. I put the latter on first, and it eased some of the strain immediately. That would allow the muscle to grow back a bit faster.