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*Trickster *

by anonymous

Part III of III

“You know, that shopkeeper. Bert, he's a smart one. Said killin' you ain't the whole fun I can have."

She didn't like the sound of that. His fingers were at her collar, shrinking her legs, forcing her back onto all fours. Coyote, at whose song men trembled, flattened her ears and listened to his cackle with a growing sense of concern.

“Would you beg me not to kill you again?"

“You wouldn't listen."

“No," he agreed gamely. He tugged on the lead, dragging her into the yard and tying her the post where she occasionally slept in the dirt. When she slept, instead of lingering in death for hours until he brought her back. “C'mere, Pike. Good boy."

Pike was a shepherd mix, the one who'd torn her apart a few curtain falls ago. When he saw the coyote alive again, the dog's muzzle curled. His owner laughed, and patted the dirt next to her. A hand on her collar dragged the coyote up and onto her feet, where she eyed the big dog warily.

“You're gonna get bred again. Mm-hm," he went on, when she flinched. “But this time, I ain't gonna kill you. No tricks. Better?"

She growled.

“Be better if you were in season, you mean?" The way he said it was more than a suggestion.

Coyote shuddered in disgust. There was no outward change, nothing she truly felt, but she saw the shepherd's head tilted. He sniffed about curiously, and then nosed beneath her tail. She had the brush curled beneath her, protectively. He nudged again, pressing his wet nose up against her spade and giving a few laps while she voiced her revulsion in a bubbly snarl.

“Oh, you're used to it by now," the human sneered, which was practically the worst part. He was greedy; when he'd first trapped her, his eyes had danced with the prospect of demigod pups—how smart they'd be, how obedient, how useful. In this, of course, he knew nothing.

But he'd bred her repeatedly, until the time she'd snapped at one of his other curs, her teeth opening him up down to bone. That was when he'd first strangled her in frustration. That was when, as his fingers brushed her collar and he worried about killing his golden goose, Coyote had stirred again. And he'd learned.

The shepherd pulled himself up onto her back. She twisted to snap at him, too, and the human grabbed her collar. “No," he ordered sternly. Her ears pinned helplessly, and she stood there, dumbly, as the mongrel began to thrust searchingly, hips humping at empty air. His other hand guided the dog, until the pointed, musky-slick end of his cock found her. Pike's hips arched, and Coyote's features contorted, and the poacher grunted his ugly chuckle. “In you now, isn't he?"

He was—a thick, stabbing pressure pushing up and into her heat-slick cunt. Pike took a second to steady himself and shoved, bone-stiffened length forcing its way in to the hilt. Now that it was too late to stop him, now that the dog was already bucking rapidly, pistoning into the coyote bitch under him, his human master let her collar go.

She growled meaningless protest as the shepherd grabbed her hips and powered into her. As Coyote, of course she'd mated before. And no, maybe not all of her partners had been willing. Maybe she'd shifted herself into a stag and took her frustrations at some failed scheme or another out on a hapless doe. But that was her right, was it not? She was a god!

And surely it had never been as undignified as this, hearing the bestial squelch as a dog's prick hammered into her, throbbing with sloppy pulses of sperm-rich precum. She could almost picture the obscene sway of his hanging balls as he prepared to drain them in her. His knot started to catch in her too-small body, started to wedge her open.

“You know, when he bred Hap's collie, only took once. She got out, see?" Pike pulled tight on her haunches, and she sensed that he was no longer even able to withdraw. His legs stamped at the ground as he fucked into her, knot throbbing thicker and thicker. “Bet it only takes once for you, too. He close?"

She said nothing.

His hand was back at her collar, twisting. “He close?" the poacher repeated the question, although Pike's muzzle was open and his frenzied pace was clearly nearing its end.

“Yes," Coyote gasped.

The big dog on her back huffed a low growl and jammed their hips close together. There was a jerking spasm, and a warm gush fountaining inside her, extinguishing her heat in the steamy, watery spurts of a feral dog's full load. “Breedin' you now, huh?" the man asked. “Bein' a good stud for you? I wonder. Albert said you'd be fun in other ways, so… tell me. When you come, bitch…" and as he trailed off his finger was under the collar, stroking between it and her fur. “When you come, do you howl like a coyote, or like a woman?"

What? No. But as those splashes of heat pulsed in, she couldn't ignore the living warmth spreading her open, twitching as Pike sired a nice, healthy litter in her ready womb. Couldn't ignore the throbbing tendrils of pleasure, even as she tried to fight it. He humped, and the pleasure rose, and wouldn't subside. Coyote couldn't make it subside. Her captor saw it, worked his fingers through her fur, snickered…

She trembled all over, breath leaving her in hoarse chuffs. Her ears went back and she snapped breathlessly at the air, and all she could do was curse herself for the humiliation of it. Until it was over, at least, and her vision cleared to see the man's grin. His jeans were tented, and he undid them lazily. “Didn't howl at all, eh? Suck me off while I think about that one."

Coyote couldn't, really; he was almost too big for her muzzle. What he meant was for her to stay on all fours while he pushed his cock between her lips and fucked her mouth, gagging her on his taste, and the thick smell of it. He hadn't washed since the time he'd raped her, the day before; she tasted that, too, herself, and the carnal satisfaction of the shepherd filling her pussy became even more revolting.

Pike turned, pressing his rump to hers, and kept shooting into her while his master thrust his own hips shakily. “Maybe… maybe you'd be better…" he mused, and Coyote's form shifted back again, her legs lengthening, her body stretching out. At least he was a better fit for her muzzle, now; at least she could still breathe, even when he pushed her nosepad into the curly hair of his crotch. “Suck," he growled.

Coyote sucked. A minute or so later, Pike pulled out, and a generous flood of dog semen gushed from her stretched lips. She felt him lapping her clean, and shuddered again, even though it made the poacher laugh. He whistled, and new footsteps trotted over. The first dog she'd met, a big cur. He'd bred her to that one more than a few times.

Always as a coyote, but the thought that the dog might be confused didn't even time to give her any hope. The cur reared up, and found his target almost immediately. As she yelped around the human cock crammed into her maw the man's dog was already finding his way deeper.

There was no way to resist him, slick as she was already with one dog's essence and held in place by the collar. She tried to resist reacting. He was so warm, though, hot and thick and veiny—contoured exquisitely to seat himself in her folds. It wasn't her desire, it was her captor's, but the dog eagerly mating his new two-legged bitch felt horrifyingly good all the same.

She sucked harder, bobbing her head quickly on the man's shaft. If she could get him off, maybe he'd at least let go of her at the moment of his orgasm. He groaned like it was approaching, which gave her the slightest sense of hope. Behind her, the feral was starting to pound a forming knot into her, and her unwilling body took it with a telling, rapid squish that was at least as telling as a human groan.

Coyote was close, too. A few more seconds and he's gonna tie you, you're gonna get your reward, it's gonna be so amazing when you feel him finish in you… feel that cum all hot and wet, knocking you up like a good bitch. Let him do it, let him—she jolted and realized her collar had been released. She was being raped by a dog, heartbeats away from spewing his copious load in her ready depths, and—

She gasped for air, as the man yanked his cock free, and grabbed tight hold of her scruff. “Howl," he was telling her, and the knot was in her now, really in her, a solid bulge that her spade clamped down on, begging for the mutt's finish. And he was tensing, throbbing, his strong legs pushing up and up to force his shaft in deeper, his humping jerking and short and—

Heat erupted in her, and she howled. She bucked, her fingers dragging in the dirt, and she howled as pleasure clenched her cunt around the steel-hard dog dick pumping squirt after messy squirt of compatible, potent canine semen deep where it could find its target. She was being bred, the pups forced on her, and she came so hard on the feral claiming her that she didn't even realize she was sobbing until the tears were already streaking her muzzle.

Then she knew why, too, because the man had let her collar go. “Like a 'yote," he grunted. “Shoulda known you'd howl like a—coyote—bitch. Like an animal. A filthy—fuck—a filthy animal, ohh… oh, fuck, yes..." His breathing was uneven; his fingers were gripped tense around his cock, stroking quickly. “Open," he gasped, and reached for her to make the order count.

But it didn't matter, she couldn't have gotten her muzzle in place anyway before thick, stinging seed spattered her fur. She tasted the second or third spurt when it landed on her muzzle—or the fourth, maybe? It all ran together, dribbling down her fur, plastering her lips, forcing her to shut her eyes. Pearly and viscous, more staining than the dog in her pussy felt even despite the greater sureness of that load doing its work.

She couldn't escape the smell, which was if anything worse than the taste. The way it dripped, mixing with the salt of her tears, she could almost keep any from hitting her tongue. The man was too spent to force it on her, anyway. Laughing, though she couldn't see him. “Oh, we're gonna have fun tomorrow, bitch. Gonna take you into town. Show you off."

This time when he left the darkness was not from her decease but because she couldn't open her eyes. Didn't want to, gasping her hitching sobs into the dirt. Like Pike had, the cur turned and stayed close while he drained his load in her, and Coyote wept. At how good it had felt. At how helpless she'd been. At how much she had to admit to her own terror at what tomorrow would bring.

It needed to be over. She needed to see that it might be over.

And yet.

Cackling to himself at the thought she might already be pregnant—less now from his own desire for her puppies than because he saw what the notion did to her—the man dumped a bucket of water over Coyote to wake her the next morning, and then turned her back onto all fours.

She said nothing on the walk into town. He said nothing, either, but left her tied to a stake in a field perhaps two hundred yards from the nearest building. The field had been close-grazed; she could smell nearby livestock, and the scents of a hundred people or so. A prosperous, new mining town in the mountains, where anyone might come to make their fortune.

Some of them, a crowd of about twenty—men, women, a few children—came back with the poacher. “That's just a coyote," the one standing closest to him said. “The hell do you think you're on about? Not gonna pay a bounty on that."

“Not just any. I told you that. Special. Off this one, and she comes right back. Think of that, sheriff. Now, I got big plans, I wouldn't disturb your peace if I didn't… but if you don't believe me—you don't believe me, do you?"

“No. The whole county knows you're a damned liar. And a thief, to boot. Should have you arrested right now."

“Well. Nobody steals coyotes," he countered. “Tell you what. Ain't you wanted to teach your son to go for varmints? Let him try. Heard he's already a crack shot."

“Jimmy?" One of them must've been making a joke; she heard laughter run through the crowd.

“You got your rifle right there. Don't you?"

A boy, probably ten or eleven, blond-haired, bright-eyed, stepped forward. The sheriff went to his horse, and came back with a rifle that the child took with far more certainty than one of his age should've been permitted. They were fifty yards away or so, close; he knelt, propped the rifle, and aimed straight at her.

Coyote felt the first shot go wide—well over a foot above her, disturbing the air with an ominous snick as it passed. There was no point in yelping, in begging for her life. She knew that. All the same, Coyote shuddered to hear how clinically the man was instructing his son. How to adjust his aim, how to control his breath.

She heard the lever action cycle. This time the bullet was near enough that it rippled her fur. More instructions. She turned towards the crowd, watching them in impotently hateful eyes. At least, facing them, she figured the shot was more likely to find her skull.

The child fired again; missed again. The gathered humans—gathered mortals, mortals who should've been worshipping her—muttered, and finally the town elder, or sheriff, or whatever he was handed the rifle over to another child. His daughter, she supposed. Coyote watched the girl raise the weapon up, sight carefully.

There was a flash, and an aching pressure punching its way through her. Crippling pain followed a moment later. Her back was arched, and Coyote found she couldn't relax it. Her hind legs were locked, dragging as she twisted her body to look at what had been done to it. Off-balance, she went down with a yelp.

She heard the girl's excited cry. I got him! Papa, I got him! A second yelp, as a fresh wave of agony clenched the coyote's body, blotted out whatever eager shouting followed. She wrenched her shoulders about to see blood gushing down her side, soaking into the dry earth.

Turning the other way there was nothing. The bullet had driven its lethal way deep into her vital organs and lodged there, below her spine. She could feel it inside her, burning. Desperately, yelping like any stricken animal, she bit at her side, worrying her fur for the lead just beneath it. I got him! Coyote lay flat on her side, panting, marshaling her rapidly ebbing strength before contorting again to sink teeth in her side.

Get it out of me get it out of me get it out you can't do this to me don't you know who I am don't you—

She collapsed a second time. Raising her head to lunge for a third attempt, she saw the humans coming closer. Her legs had finally unlocked, but they were just kicking, erratically; she couldn't really control them. Her paws scrabbled the earth like she was running, or trying to run, and gaining no purchase.

The girl was looking at her curiously. Her father put his paw—hand—paw, they were animals, weren't they, human beings?—on her shoulder. “You shouldn't let him suffer, Mabel," he told the child, and unholstered a revolver before handing it to them.

She. I'm a goddess. Your goddess. Coyote opened her muzzle to snarl but the child aimed and fired too quickly for that. She got the snarl out anyway, and it was already weak, raspy with the blood filling her throat and trickling down her pelt from her ravaged chest. Her legs spasmed faster, twisting her body in the now-muddy dirt. The girl fired again. Again.

There was barely any pain by the last shots as she emptied the revolver. Coyote lifted her head, opened her muzzle to lunge for the girl. Her head dropped; her mouth closed on dirt. She bit at nothing a few times, by instinct, as everything went black and—

“See? Good as new, sheriff," the poacher crowed. “Hap. That you? Gimme that axe you got, Hap."

She barely saw him swing before she was opening her eyes again, and this time the field was gone. She was tied up outside the town saloon, and her captor's form was disappearing through the open doors. A crowd had begun to gather. A few children, including the girl and boy who'd shot her.

One of them tossed a rock. Coyote yelped as it crunched into her foreleg—not big enough or thrown fast enough to do damage, to do anything more than smart, but the jeering locals had already learned her secret. The girl, Mabel crept close enough to peer inquisitively at the leashed beast. “I thought I killed you…"

“You did. I'm a god," Coyote hissed: low, so that only she could hear. “A merciful one. When I kill you, it'll only be the once."

Mabel drew back sharply, turning to find her brother. “It talked to me!" That got the attention of the others, too, who were willing to believe almost anything at that point. “I swear it! It talked to me! It said it was going to kill me!"

“This thing?" she heard someone snort. And now Mabel's brother had found his courage. He lunged forward, and plunged a bayonet into the coyote's chest before she could escape. Using his weight to push it through her, he pinned her like a stuck butterfly to the ground. Coyote kicked and fought for breath, but if he couldn't aim with the rifle at range he was much more sure of himself now. Heart skewered, she was dying fast, sliding down the blade, her broken form convulsing a few times before—

“Now you be nice. Ain't signed no deal yet," the poacher said, and went back into the saloon.

They contented themselves to lesser blows. Stones, mostly. Poking her with sticks. When the saloon doors opened she sometimes heard her captor's voice from inside, telling one story or another. It became more slurred as the day wore on, and whatever deal he was negotiating, whatever plans he had, came to fruition.

After an hour or two, by early afternoon, the novelty of torturing her to near-death wore off, and the townsfolk left her aching body be. She shut her eyes, and schemed in the daydreams that being abandoned permitted her. Then something nudged her flank.

It was a boot. The boot's owner was Bert, whom she'd seen when he visited the poacher. “You talk," he said. “I've heard you talk. I know you can talk."

“I talk," she answered.

“I wonder if I should take him up on his offer. Buy you. See what happens. But, then I got to thinking. Folks come to Albert's General because they expect a fair deal. That's odd, isn't it? Not much fair about this, though, is there, mutt?"

She found his tone unnerving, even though he wasn't her captor, had no power over her. Something in the way he talked brought a rising, convicted anger to her speech. “I'm not a dog. You know that, too."

“For a… dog," he repeated, stressing the word. “You are remarkably like us. Or we are remarkably like you."

She spat. “I'm nothing like you."

“Nothing?"

“Nothing."

Albert smiled, and ran his fingers along her lead. “Really? Because I could have sworn so. That laugh, when he ended you, was such a coyote laugh. That girl's cry of excitement when the bullet struck home—oh, that was a coyote's hunting cry." The poacher would be feeling it, now—would come out to tell him off, as he sensed their bond being challenged. Albert alone could not break that spell, enchanted as it was by a god.

But the poacher stayed inside. “What would you know of coyotes?"

The old man's smile twisted into a grin. “Of coyotes? Coyote, She-With-the-Eyes-of-Summer-Sunset? She-Whose-Footfalls-Are-the-Alpine-Lakes? Coyote, with a tornado's howl? The snatcher of unwatched infants? The one whose song runs flocks off the cliffs in their madness? How could I forget you?"

“Many have."

“The townsfolk, perhaps." Albert untied the lead from the hitching post, and wrapped it thoughtfully about his wrist. “But not me. Fine work, Coyote, this lead. This collar. Your children."

“They're not my children."

As easily as he'd untied it, he placed the end of the lead in her open mouth. “You feel no sense of pride? No ownership?"

Coyote unworked the enchantment, just in case. Her eyes darkened, because the sky above them had begun to cloud. “No. They're as nothing to me." Thunder rolled, far off, echoing from the mountains. That was her subconscious at work, she knew, although she did precious little to suppress it. “Nothing at all."

When, lead still in her mouth, she started up the road that lead out of town, the man followed, his stride even and easy. “Then it's not on you to discipline them?"

She was being baited. She knew she was being baited. The man's grey hair had begun to darken towards deep black. Raven black. Lightning struck, close, completing its transformation. His eyes glinted. Coyote stopped, and met his gaze. “Discipline? No."

Thirty paces behind her, the saloon door opened. The poacher looked to her, and then up at the sky. And then back to her. He knew. “Get… get back here," he ordered, but his voice was faltering. “Get over here! Damn it!"

Coyote rolled her shoulders, and stretched up, onto two legs. Legs that supported her, and strengthened, until the grin on her muzzle was disturbingly feral, but the easy way she flexed her fingers was even more disturbingly human. She tossed her leash aside contemptuously. “Or what?"

The first drops of rain began to fall. The size of acorns, heavy, slamming into the dirt like artillery and making an intermittent drumbeat of the awning above her. More people had begun to filter out of the saloon, and of the other shops on the town's main street. They looked at her. And they, too, knew. Not just who she was, but who Coyote was. “Are… are you doing this?" a man in a blacksmith's apron asked.

Somewhere, in his shop, was a brand intended for her pelt. “Am I? You think me capable of that? Then you do recognize me. Introductions aren't necessary? And you—you know who I am, now?"

She'd posed the question to a woman who leaned out from the general store. “You were—you're a—you were a coyote," the woman stammered. “You were just a coyote…"

Coyote held out her paw, and the woman's sundress untied itself, pulling from her body. Her undergarments followed, jerked across the space between them, and settled onto the coyote's form in a fluid ripple that defied the construction of mere fabric, subject to mere physical laws. “And now I am radiant in my beauty. Am I not?" Subtly she shifted, letting her body fill the dress out. “I wear it better than you. I do many things better than you."

The drops fell harder and harder, churning the road to mud. “Parlor tricks," the blacksmith insisted. “You and him both. You're some kind of hucksters."

“Oh." She laughed. “I am the huckster, my friend. Peter—Peter Ingerson, isn't it? But this, this is just a bit of rain. Think of all it will do for the town's crops. Your waterwheels, Peter."

“Our dam," Albert muttered, next to her.

She put a paw over her chest. “Oh. Yes. Your dam. Well…"

Something in the way she said it did the trick. Panic had began to spread. She heard the click of a revolver's hammer; turned to see the poacher. Even as she raised her paw he fired, quickly, emptying the weapon in two shaky seconds. The lead bullets hung in the air, just before her fingers. She gathered them into a ball; spun it until it was red-hot.

When she spread her fingers, the lead stretched out into a thin disk, hissing and spattering as she stepped out into the street and the raindrops battered it cool again. Albert, content to be soaked, followed her. “Hard to get clean that way," he pointed out, smirking.

“It's a nice dress," she said. “Be a shame to ruin it just yet."

She started walking again, uphill this time. Past the saloon door. The poacher's face was ashen. “If you flood us—if you—if—you'll die, too, you know." Was he stupid enough to think that, after all he'd done to her? Or did he simply assume, having faced it so many times, Coyote would be loathe to experience death again? “You'll die with the rest of us."

He wouldn't know. Her voice was soft, and yet he heard it clearly anyway despite the deafening downpour. They all heard it. “No. Not us. You don't have to worry. You, I have plans for. You mean I'll die with them. And no, I won't. They should worry, though, that's true." She left the human, the mortal-but-not-enough human, standing in the door of the saloon, clutching his empty weapon.

About her was a bustle of frantic activity—men and women trying to gather some scanty possessions before making their way to higher ground. Someone tugged at her arm. “Please." A man—the woodcutter, whose axe had beheaded her—with a woman close beside him. “We didn't know."

“You forgot," she corrected.

“Forgot," his wife agreed hastily.

“Ignored," Coyote growled. “He told you who I was. Now, who do you suppose will die better than I managed? You?" she asked the woodcutter, and then nodded to the woman. “Your wife? The one inside her? Perhaps his…" she lifted her muzzle, searching, narrowing her gaze towards the other end of town. “His father? I suppose we'll have to see."

The woman burst into tears, not that those helped. Not that those had ever helped. The sound of water more ominous than rain was growing from upstream. Some of them were praying now. Albert watched it with idle curiosity. Coyote could not be bothered. She turned, found a patch of grass, and sat. “If you don't mind," Albert said, joining her. “I haven't recently, and…"

A brown, churning flood was now visible, trees and stones and splintered timber at its head. “If you like," she allowed. What was one more death? She did, at least, hold her paw out, and twist the trajectory of a boulder carried on the surge of the ruined dam. Watched it come closer. Closer. Closer.

The sky was clear; the ground beneath her muddy.

Coyote stood, and shook like a dog. Dirt and water sprayed from her fur, and the dress; both were dry when she stopped, although her paws still squelched in the mud. She'd ended up close to the high-water mark; beneath her, the valley was scoured. Nothing was standing in the town, only broken walls and foundations that yawned like ugly, empty promises.

Footfalls light, she made her way down towards the nearest ruin. It occurred to her as she did so that the poacher's cabin was at higher elevation still; it, and his cursed dogs, were doubtless doing fine. The smithy was not. The heaviest anvil had only traveled a hundred yards. She picked it up, carried it to the ruin, and sat atop it in the warming sun.

Presently she heard a heavy, uneven trod. She looked over her shoulder to see a monstrous beast: a bear, with gnarled paws and great curved fangs. It shambled on two legs, the sabers of its claws clicking as its arms swung. The kind of beast that the authorities might put out a bounty for. The kind whose capture would burnish the reputations of the greedy and the prideful.

“This was you?" Coyote asked.

Saliva dripped from the thing's muzzle as it chuckled. “This," it said, voice rumbling from somewhere close but not its mouth, exactly. More a dark thought. “Was you, I think you'll find. Your hubris. That collar…"

“I had my reasons."

Another chuckle. “Do you know… in their campfire stories, I heard of someone else. One who flooded the earth itself, as we once did. Afterwards, he promised never to do it again. He made of the rainbow a pact. A sign of his covenant."

She looked to the clouds, and saw nothing, in any case. “What a waste of a rainbow."

“Perhaps, yes." The creature started walking, and she rose from the anvil to follow. Its great snout dipped down, pushing up the planks of a fallen wall. Beneath it a family had taken shelter. They were crushed; the end had been quick, she supposed, faster than drowning. “These are your children."

“Mm." They no longer interested her. More interesting was the beast's form—the way stars seemed to glitter in its pelt, and the tigereye glint of its fierce gaze. How its claws were the sharpness and color of obsidian. It was a masterwork, nearly as fine as the collar she'd crafted.

When Coyote kicked a beam, dropping the wall back to reinter the flood's victims, the beast snorted. “They are. And you are a terrible mother. I told you I'd prove it."

Had he? Perhaps she remembered that, yes; some offhand remark, months ago. “You asked me to discipline them just earlier today."

“And you did this. You never change, Coyote."

There was a weak groan from further up the path, where the saloon had been. One of the hitching posts remained, somehow. The poacher was smart. He'd figured there might be a little magic left in the cord that had bound her, and tied it around his wrist to hold on against the flood until the waters receded.

Now he was pinned under a drowned horse, but still alive. Coming to consciousness slowly. Looking around. Catching sight first of her companion, and then Coyote herself. His fingers were unsteady with terror as he plucked at the lead. “Coyote," he breathed. “My—my lord…"

She ignored her former tormentor, focusing on what the beast had said instead. You never change, Coyote.

No. No, that was true.

“Perhaps." She grinned, showing fangs, pacing slowly towards the shaking man. “But I do learn."