“Dad says no,” Wiry said.
Headlights pierced the dining room window, making everyone wince. The truck’s engine rumbled just outside. Daddy Coy Wolf returned, armed with a machete. He held it to Jared’s neck.
“Don’t give me that garbage, Granny G,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “You are going to give me one of your offshore bank account numbers sooner or later. I’ve got all the time in this world. Do you?”
Mallory casually wandered closer to Maggie. She smiled at Jared and gave him a wave. Thinking she’s cute, as his mother would say.
“No,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “Your goodwill means squat. Show me the money or I’m going to take the head off your Trickster and you can go find someone to resurrect him.”
They all waited for the verdict.
“Depends,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “If it’s a real account.”
“You made her mad,” Mallory said.
“I’m not following this jumped-up human’s orders,” Daddy Coy Wolf said.
“He says bad things about you, Jwasins,” Mallory said. “He’s trying to turn them against you.”
More silence. Jared wished he could hear them.
One of the boys came to the doorway and said, excited, “One point three million dollars, Dad.”
“Good,” Daddy Coy Wolf said, lowering the machete. “That makes us even, Granny G. I’m saying this now in front of everyone so we’re crystal clear: when you stop paying us, we’ll stop working for you. You are not my Colonel Kurtz. I am not following you up the river for sick kicks.”
Another long moment of everyone standing around, and Jared could see why Mave was frustrated when they left her out.
“You can all make the same deal,” Daddy Coy Wolf said to the others. “I’m guessing she’s secretly promised you all the moon and the stars. Did she say who’s in charge? Did she tell you it was you and only you?”
“See?” Mallory said. “Look how he’s playing them.”
“We’re a pack,” Zip Tie said.
“We’re a replacement pack,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “We’re a distant plan B. For fuck’s sake, get your head out of your ass or you’re going to get your pack killed.”
Zip Tie looked back at the other coy wolves then crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re ready.”
“Don’t say I never warned you,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “Okay, Trickster, you’re up. Bring Granny G home.”
Jared cleared his throat. “You’ve got to take the charm off my neck.”
“Seriously?” Daddy Coy Wolf said.
“Seriously,” Jared said. “I’m tapped. I used everything to take her there. I can’t bring her back by myself. I need my familiars to help and I can’t join them with the charm on.”
More silence.
“Obviously,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “He’s a Trickster. It’s all in the name.”
“We’ll bring you juice, Trickster,” Zip Tie said. She nodded to her people.
“I can’t just join with anyone,” Jared said. “That’s not how this works.”
“How does it work?” Daddy Coy Wolf said.
“You can’t travel to other universes with your body. You have to disintegrate to move through dimensions.”
“Yeah, that sounds made up,” he said. “Try again.”
“If this universe is one mountain and the other universe is a different mountain, then imagine they are separated by a hole that is so deep it never ends. You can’t walk to the other mountain. I have to go to her and move her between them like a bridge. It is hard. It costs a lot. If you don’t believe me, try to do it yourself.”
“We can eat your mother piece by piece,” Zip Tie said.
“Do it,” Jared said. “And I won’t do sweet fuck all for you. Granny G will starve to death. We all lose. Yay.”
“Puppy,” Mallory said. “Be good.”
“I want her out of here,” Jared said.
“Go,” Daddy Coy Wolf said.
“Jwasins!” Mallory protested, but the ogress was clearly not having any. “Fine,” she said, pouting. “I’ll be right outside, Puppy.”
Mallory paused at the doorway, stepping back as the coy wolves in human form dragged two teenagers, a girl and a boy, to Jared’s feet. They were both missing their right arms. They flopped to the ground when they were released. He felt his organs stirring, upset, ready to run.
“First of all, ew,” Jared said. “And second, I’m tapped and I need real juice. You’re asking me to run a marathon and then trying to feed me Tic Tacs.”
“Fussy, fussy, fussy,” Mallory called. “If you’d listened to me, he’d be a good Puppy by now.”
“Out,” Daddy Coy Wolf said.
She left, smugly smiling.
Everyone stood around for a while looking unfocused. Jared tried not to wonder where Sophia was or what she was doing that was more important than killing Georgina. He didn’t know how long he could stall them before they started cutting his mother apart.
Then he felt a crackle of power, like a zip of static electricity. What they dragged through the door next was utterly gutted, dirty from head to toe, a corpse, but still he recognized it as one of the Tricksters from his dream, the Bear that had shrugged off his fur to become a man. They dumped him at Jared’s feet so he had a close-up view of his future.
Time. Time shifted. But it didn’t. Jared couldn’t grasp what had changed with the arrival of the bear Trickster. He felt it, but he didn’t understand what it meant.
“You’re eating Tricksters now?” Daddy Coy Wolf said, talking to the ogress he called grandmother. “That’s severely stupid.”
“She uses our organs to make your skins,” Jared said.
Daddy Coy Wolf stared at Jared, and then at the bear Trickster.
“I’m out and so are my sons,” Daddy Coy Wolf said. “I’ll drive my boys to safety, then, and leave this abomination of a skin at the hotel. If the rest of you stay, you deserve what you get.”
Daddy Coy Wolf’s sons put their hands on either side of their mouths and ripped open their human skins, shedding them. They loped out the door, followed by Daddy Coy Wolf. The truck’s engine revved and then backed away, the disappearing
