Kevin Hearne: Tricked

“Right. So if we just burn ’em and disperse the ghosts, then they’ll hightail it to Window Rock or someplace, turning regular assholes into superfast shape-shifting cannibal assholes.”

“Don’t you have a ritual to combat these guys?”

Coyote lifted his hat and scratched his head. “Well, Mr. Druid, it’s all defense and no offense. It’s protection like the Blessing Way, and there’s some exorcism in the Enemy Way — but there’s nothin’ to kill ’em with. All the killing rituals are on their side—’cause they’re practicin’ Áńł’įįh , the Witchery Way. Sometimes we get lucky and can turn their own spells against ’em. But these guys got smart and stopped doin’ ceremonies like that a long time ago, stopped spreadin’ their corpse powder around. Ain’t a doubt in my mind these spirits were behind that. They used their speed and strength to kill people and left me an’ the hataałiis nothin’ to work with.”

“So how do you kill them?”

“You can’t kill ’em,” Joe said, his voice cut with a note of impatience. “They’re damn spirits. All you can do is send ’em somewhere else — somewhere safe.”

“An’ that means sendin’ ’em back to First World,” Coyote said. “These things have been playin’ around up here for far too long. Once we get ’em back there, they’ll be stuck.”

“Why would they be stuck?” Granuaile asked. “Is there flypaper for spirits down there or something?”

Joe laughed and squatted down on his haunches to untie his jish . “That’d be nice, ’cause then they wouldn’t bother us when we visit. But Coyote means they won’t be able to leave First World again. The doorway to Second World was closed long ago, an’ now only he an’ I can go back there an’ return again.” He peered up at Coyote. “We’re gonna need to get these caltrops outta the way, though, before we can start.”

Granuaile said, “There’s a couple of brooms in the hogan. I’ll go grab them.” As her footsteps crunched behind me, I felt foolish standing there with a naked sword, so I gingerly crept back into the circle, keeping my distance from the skinwalker’s body, and recovered the scabbard. I sheathed Moralltach and slung it over my back. Coyote tossed his manila envelope onto the ground behind him; whatever was in there wasn’t important to him right now.

Inside Joe’s jish were some feathers, rattles, pouches of herbs, and two sacred buckskins. He divided the contents with Coyote.

When Granuaile returned with two brooms, we carefully brushed all the caltrops to the south side against the wall. She saw Frank there and quietly said, “He was such a sweet man. How did he die?”

“Heart attack. They didn’t get him, though. Other way around.”

She didn’t reply, only nodded, and then leaned her broom up against the wall of the butte. The two Coyotes were murmuring to each other in their own language. When they finished, Joe set off toward the other skinwalker, who had fallen to his death some thirty yards away to the west. Coyote stepped closer to the blackened one that Frank had killed and motioned us over.

“Wanna tell ya somethin’ in case somethin’—well, just in case, all right? See, in the beginnin’, me an’ Joe weren’t much differ’nt than that thing you see there.” He pointed at the boiling blackness of the First World spirit. “Except we were a whole lot sexier, o’ course. First Man and First Woman, they were spirits of the air too. We were people of mist, if you wanna think about it that way. An’ as we rose up through the worlds, we changed, an’ these bodies were given to us by the Holy People.” He tossed his head toward the spirits before continuing, “These fuckers, however, came up with us from First World, but they never got their bodies. They’re unevolved, see? Unless you wanna count the fact that they’ve turned from plain ornery to pigshit evil. Thing is, like Joe said, we can’t do anything to ’em when they’re spirits. So we’re gonna give ’em bodies. Their own bodies, not somebody else’s body they can possess and turn to the Witchery Way. Then we step on ’em.”

“Beg your pardon?” Granuaile said.

“They’re insects,” Coyote said. “Not sure what kind. Could be ants, could be those hard-shelled bigass beetles, could be dragonflies or locusts, but insects no matter what. When we get through with this ceremony, they’ll be bugs, and we can kill ’em easy and send ’em back to First World. They won’t be coming back, though. So you two can help by kinda standin’ over there.” He pointed to a space between the two skinwalker corpses. “Once they’re bugs, they’re gonna try to get away — they’ll skitter around or fly or somethin’—and we could use your help to chase ’em down.”

“What if they do get away?” Granuaile asked.

Coyote shrugged. “Ain’t that big a deal. What’s the average life span of a bug? They’ll die eventually. A bird will eat ’em if we’re lucky. They’ll be on the slow train to First World instead of the express, that’s all. The important thing is they’ll be mortal and won’t be able to harm anyone after this. We’re gonna get started now before the ch’įįdii start to disperse, all right?”

He bent down and grabbed a pouch of corn pollen and an eagle feather.

“Um—” I said, but Coyote started to sing before I could form a coherent question, and I knew he wouldn’t stop for my benefit now that he’d begun. Joe’s voice joined in from over by the other skinwalker, and that left Granuaile and me with nothing to do but worry.

My apprentice asked the philosophical question first. “Is he trying to create something out of nothing, sensei? Can he do that?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go stand over there where he asked us to.”

Granuaile kept talking as we moved. “Don’t you know how the stories went? How did First Man and First Woman get their bodies? You can’t tell me you don’t remember.”

“Well, I’m fairly certain the process didn’t involve gasoline,” I said, watching the two Coyotes sprinkle gas on the skinwalkers’ bodies as they sang and danced around them clockwise.

She snorted. “That’s a safe bet.”

“I understand why they’re doing it: They have to unbind the spirit from the ch’įįdii before they can shove it into a body. It just seems to be a very modern way to do it. You’d think they’d use some pine or juniper or something.”

Granuaile frowned. “Yeah, that is weird. He seemed like he was in a hurry, though.”

“True. And it’s not an important part of giving the spirit a body. The buckskin has a lot to do with that.” Both Coyotes had set the bodies on fire now and the spirits were billowing, straining to get away. They definitely did not like the light. Nor did they want to be bound to those ch’įįdiis anymore.

“What do they do with the buckskin?”

“In the Diné Bahane’ , there are a few different stories where the Holy People gave spirits a corporeal form. Usually they covered up corn or special stones with sacred buckskins and then invited the Wind to blow underneath the skin. Nilch’i was the name of the Wind, and it always had to blow four times — four was an important number. But the idea was that you had a Breath of Life thing going on there, like you see in many creation stories.”

“Oh, cool.” Granuaile flashed a quick smile at me. “I like how certain ideas seem to be almost universal.”