Summonings
By Dan Stein

          “It ain’t like I don’t have enough problems of my own,” Jonathan Carteris said, taking a hard drag off of his cigarette.

          He sat at a filthy table in a dingy bar just inside the city limits of a little shithole town in Arizona called Iago. He’d been awake three days straight, hadn’t showered in two, and the fucking beer wasn’t doing a damn thing for him. All in all, Carteris was regretting ever coming to this goddam dustbowl.

          “Please Mister,” the waitress said from where she sat across the table from him, “It’s just, my mama...she’s being attacked by something I can’t explain. It comes at night and leaves these terrible scratches on her, but you can’t see it. I heard you knew about stuff like this. I heard about what you did for the miners, and I was just hoping....” She trailed off and hung her head.

          Oh shit, Carteris thought, she’s gonna fucking cry. Why are you doing this to me? he wondered up at God. Haven’t the last three days been enough? The last two nights in the catacombs and what happened to Kyle weren’t enough fun for one week? Fuck, I just want to go to sleep. Oh hell, she is gonna start crying.

          On cue, the young woman started sobbing. Carteris couldn’t see her eyes-her blonde hair hung down in her face, obscuring them-but he knew her heavy mascara must be running pretty heavily already. “Ah shit,” he said, reaching over to touch her shoulder. She looked up at him, her pretty blue eyes red with her tears. Carteris thought he’d gotten used to the desperate, pleading looks like she was giving him now. God knew he’d gotten enough of them in his line of work. But there was something about the hopelessness in her gaze that gave him pause.

          Maybe it was just because he was tired. Or maybe the beer had made him more sappy than usual, but he actually felt sorry for the girl. Shit, he thought, she can’t be a day over twenty. How can she look so hopeless? “Alright,” he said. “I’m staying in the Motel 6 across the street. Room one-seventeen. I haven’t slept in a couple days. I’m going to pass the hell out for now, but come see me around noon and I’ll listen. Okay, kid?”

          “Erin,” she said, a little petulantly. Her eyes grew a little darker. Or maybe I’m just imagining it, Carteris thought. After the last three days he’d had, who knew what kind of weird tricks his mind might be playing on him.

          “Sorry,” he said. “Erin it is. Come see me tomorrow. I’ll see if I can do something about whatever’s happening to your mother.”

          A sudden smile lit Erin’s face. Damn, Carteris thought, she is a pretty little thing. If I was twenty years younger....but he let the thought trail off. No sense in dwelling on things like that. Especially in the mind state he was in at the moment. “Thank you, Mister Carteris. Thank you so much.” She wiped her eyes. “I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

          “Alright,” Carteris said and stood up from the table. His legs didn’t want to cooperate at first, partly because of the running he’d done in the past three days. I’m only thirty-eight, he thought. I shouldn’t be this broke down already. Guess I have to face it. I’m getting old. Finally, his legs decided to cooperate and he made his way, unsteadily, from the bar.

          Out in the hot, dry night of an Arizona summer Carteris began to really feel tired. On legs that clearly didn’t want to support him, Carteris walked across the empty street to his motel. Iago wasn’t much to look at, even in the dark. It was one of those towns that was a main street and not much else. If it hadn’t been for the copper mine just outside of it, Carteris was certain no one would have ever built a town here. The public works department obviously didn’t care too much about its buildings’ upkeep, or simply didn’t have the kind of money it would take to refurbish them. Just about everything except the Motel 6 and the McDonald’s right next to it looked damn near dilapidated, and even those were beginning to go. It was the perfect backdrop for the fucked up shit he’d seen happen the past few nights. Iago was nothing but a pit that its residents felt trapped in, a cauldron of negative emotions that was bound to attract things like he’d been dealing with recently.

          Fuck it, Carteris thought as he reached his motel room on the first and only story of the small Motel 6. I don’t want to think about that shit. About poor Kyle. I just wanna fucking go to bed. He pulled the room key from his pocket and slid it into the lock. Out of habit, he only cracked the door enough to get his arm in and flick the lightswitch. It was an old habit, brought on by the fact that there were indeed things waiting to get you in the dark. At least they were for men like him. Carteris knew this for a fact. It had been driven home even further the past few days. The lights safely on, he entered the motel room, still bracing himself should he see anything out of the ordinary.

          After a quick inspection of the room, Carteris decided that it was okay. No hexes, no spirits, no demons...for once. He closed the door behind him and locked it. Taking off his shoes and his trusty trench coat, Carteris creaked toward the bed. Light’s still on, he reminded himself. Don’t fuckin’ care, he answered promptly, falling onto the bed without removing the rest of his clothes. Thankfully, the air conditioning in the motel worked, so Carteris wasn’t worried about getting too hot.

          He closed his eyes and began letting his mind wander. So much had happened in the last three days. No goddam sleep. Kyle. And now this Erin girl. His mind began to get a little loopy, and he found himself dwelling on how pretty she really was. Cute smile, big blue eyes, blonde shoulder length hair, petite little body with a great ass. He began wondering what it would be like to fuck her, and almost instantly popped wood. Yeah, he thought, nothing wrong with fantasizing a bit. Here’s to a nice dream about some barely legal pussy.

          God, I’m fucking hard, he thought as he fell asleep, smiling contentedly.

          The dream Carteris got was anything but pleasant. In his dream the events of the past few days began to play out all over again.

          “You’re a bastard, Kyle. You know that, don’t you?” Carteris had found himself returning the shit-eating grin in spite of himself.

          Kyle suddenly stopped smiling. All at once, his face grew deathly white. “That’s no way to talk of the dead, buck.”

          Wait, Carteris thought, this isn’t how it happened.

          Kyle started laughing as the muscles holding his jaw on began to spontaneously tear away. Carteris watched in stunned amazement as the jaw fell clean off and onto the floor in front of Kyle. Somehow, he was still laughing, his tongue wiggling strangely out of the ruins of his face. “Fuckin’ A, buck!” he spoke somehow. “What a goddam adventure!” He reached out for Carteris almost looking like he was going to embrace him. But then, Carteris noticed his hands had changed in to the grasping, vicious claws of the reavers in the catacombs.

          “Fuck me!” Carteris screamed, backpedaling quickly “Stay the fuck away from me!”

          He didn’t even notice the chair behind him until he was suddenly falling backwards, down, down much farther than the floor could have possibly been. Oh shit, he thought. I’m in a dream.

          It wasn’t the first time he’d had a lucid dream. And he was certain it wouldn’t be the last. But why the hell was he still falling, and why was everything so suddenly black? What is this horseshit? he thought indignantly.

          All at once, Carteris wasn’t falling anymore. Without any kind of transition, he was crouched in the darkness of the catacombs once again.

          “Oh God,” Kyle whispered beside him. “We’re fucked this time, aren’t we?”

          For a split second, Carteris was startled, frightened that the shade of Kyle that had attacked him in his office was back. But then, lucidity began to fade once again, and Carteris....had reached over to put his hand on Kyle’s shoulder, trying to offer him what little comfort he could.

          Their little expedition of twelve (nine workers, a local deputy, Carteris, and Kyle) had only walked maybe half a mile into the catacombs when the things had shown themselves. Mitch had been the first to go. The things had pounced on him out of the dark before he’d even been able to register the warning howl. The unlucky bastard’s misstep had been the only thing that had allowed Carteris and Kyle to get away. They’d been forced to flee further into the caverns. Everyone else had panicked and fled other directions. Carteris had had no idea what their fate was. Every so often he’d heard a distant scream, and he’d had no choice but to assume another one of the party had been claimed by the pale things in the dark.

          “Some kind of what, buck?” Kyle’s voice came again, the venom from his office seeping back into it. “Got yourself in over your head again?”

          Instantly, Carteris knew he was in a dream again. What the fuck is this shit? he wondered. Something isn’t right. Something’s fucking with me. Fuck, did I check the room for dream sigils?! Did I purify myself? He hadn’t, he realized. Something or someone could have very easily entered the room and planted some paraphenalia under the mattress or even the pillow. Fuck, he thought. Amateur! he cursed himself. How could you fall for something like that?

          Absorbed with wondering how he could have been so stupid, Carteris barely noticed that Kyle, or rather more likely the dream demon that had been unleashed on him, was still talking about something or other. He ignored it completely, concentrating instead on trying to figure out who would have laid the trap for him. Some relative of one of the victims, maybe a cult member that they’d missed. Sure, but who?

          All at once, Kyle yanked him out of his fugue. “Are you listening, motherfucker?!” he shouted, drawing Carteris close to his rotting, no longer even vaguely humanoid face. Carteris recoiled from it in spite of himself. The thing was no longer even trying to pretend it was Kyle. It had more eyes than Carteris could register, and clicking mandibles set over a jagged bird’s bill. Its breath stunk like a decaying skunk, and Carteris had to fight from retching, reminding himself whatever happened in the dream happened in real life. That was how this sort of curse worked, and he didn’t relish the thought of choking to death on his own vomit.

          It wasn’t his first encounter with a dream demon, but it was his first time on the receiving end. Normally, he’d been the one entering someone else’s dream to exorcise the unclean spirit. “I don’t know how you’re doing this, you piece of shit,” the demon was saying, “but you’re about to get a full dose. Nobody fucks with me!”

          Then, Carteris was flying towards the wall, the demon having hurled him at full force. Oh shit, he thought. He’s gonna batter me to death. But the moments passed, and the panic subsided, and the wall never came. Instead, Carteris was once again falling through nothing. Alright, he thought, he’s gonna try again. I’ll probably lose lucidity like last time. Got to stop that from happening. But how? Think dammit. Think! And just as suddenly, Carteris was lying on his side in another part of the catacombs, Kyle’s freshly deceased corpse beside him. Already, he could feel his mind going. Shit, think of something fast! Think of......but Carteris’ mind was lost again to the past.

          “The Children of Coyote,” the voice had said as though it should be obvious. “We will converse more, later. But for now…”

          “…For now, we’re going to lose some unnecessary limbs, motherfucker,” the voice changed to that of the dream demon.

          Carteris was completely in control of his faculties again. There was no transition this time. No period of confusion. He remembered what was going on instantaneously. Okay, he thought. Do it right this time. “Oh would you shut the fuck up?” he said, rising to his feet.

          “What did you just say to me?” the dream demon said from somewhere in the blackness in front of Carteris.

          “You heard me, dipshit. You think this is the first time one of you has invaded my mind?” He was completely bluffing. He’d never been so careless before. But he had dealt with their kind, and he knew a bit more about how the world of the dreaming worked than the demon likely gave him credit for.

          “You’re full of shit, meat. I’m gonna tear holes in your kidneys and pleasure myself with them.” The demon laughed.

          Carteris wasn’t impressed. This was how the fuckers worked. They could hurt you, that was true. But for them to really get their jollies they needed you scared. Carteris knew that much about the dream world. That and much more.

          “Fuck you, moron,” he said, and willed the cavern to be lit. Bright light flooded the cave, revealing the twisted form of the dream demon as it truly was. It had the head of a horse with empty eye sockets. Its torso was that of an emaciated woman, skin cracking and gangrenous. Its arms extended well past its knees and ended in hook-like hands. It had both male and female genitalia both massively engorged and leaking blood, and its legs were those of an elephant. It stepped back at the sudden advent of the light, taken aback.

          “What the fuck are you doing?!” it screamed.

          That was one thing about dream demons; they were notoriously fearful when revealed in their true forms, which varied greatly. Self conscious bastards, Carteris thought. “Listen Sparky,” Carteris said, “Like I said, this isn’t my first dance in the dream world. I know the rules of this place and I can manipulate them just as good as you. It’s all about will in here, ain’t it fucker?” To prove his point he willed a lit cigarette into his mouth and took a deep drag. “Ahh, that’s better,” he said, exhaling the smoke. “Now you want to tell me what this is all about?”

          “Fuck you, Carteris! This is my world, I make the fucking rules!” The dream demon’s form suddenly changed. It became a huge larva with a baby’s face, chittering madly at Carteris. The cavern grew red and dim. All over the gelatinous blob of the demon’s body thin tentacles formed and shot out, only to withdraw a few moments later.

          Carteris held the cigarette in his mouth, trying desperately not to show that he was a little frightened at the thing’s display of power. He’d been lying about his level of control over the dream world. He knew how to make a few simple things happen, but his will was nowhere near strong enough to affect such large changes. “Nice trick, sweetheart,” he settled on saying. “Can you make a thousand naked Italian girls appear and dance the Electric Slide?”

          The dream demon screamed, mimicking the screams of the things in the cavern, but amplifying them and somehow managing several octaves at once. The scream rattled in Carteris’ brain, sending waves of pain through his head. Suck it up, he forced himself to think. Don’t let it know you’re intimidated. You’re dead if you let it know you’re intimidated. Suck it up! Gritting his teeth in pain, Carteris used every ounce of his willpower not to cover his ears. Finally, the raging demon ceased its caterwauling.

          “Hell of a set of pipes, you got there! I’ll give you that!” Carteris yelled unintentionally. He could barely hear himself.

          The dream demon charged at him then, hissing shrilly and sending thin streams of spittle over the gums of its baby face. Stand your ground, Carteris thought as it rushed him. Don’t give in. Don’t move back. Don’t fucking move back. Its tentacles whipped out around his waist and dragged him upward. Just keep smoking, Carteris thought. Don’t let it know you’re scared. Just keep smoking. The dream demon drew him close to the baby face. It screamed again then, this time the quiet cry of a tortured infant. It then promptly vomited a reddish paste right into Carteris’ face, extinguishing his cigarette.

          Carteris coughed uncontrollably. The stench from the vomit was terrible. It reeked of ashes and dead flesh. Fuck! He thought. What the hell is that?

          “Wanna know what that is, motherfucker?” The dream demon spoke in its normal voice. “That’s fucking cancer. That’s what’s inside you right now. Still like those smokes so much?” It laughed.

          It can’t be, Carteris thought involuntarily. I was just at the doctor’s last month. I can’t have…stop it. It’s just trying to rattle you. To make you afraid so it can take you down. Fuck this little piece of shit. He’s nothing. Nothing.

          “Please, asshole,” he spoke in spite of the stench, trying not to gag. “You really think that’s going to scare me? You’ll have to try harder than that. I’ve had scarier baths.”

          The baby face grinned toothlessly at him, red runnels on its chin. “Oh, I’ll do better, you son of a bitch.” Carteris noticed the baby’s jaw didn’t move. It just remained smiling at him eerily.

          Then everything was black again, and Carteris knew he was falling through lucidity back into the demon’s territory, the land of the dreaming. Keep it together, he willed. Keep it together, but he could already feel his mind slipping once again. Goddamit! I need some kind of trigger to bring me back! Something to remember about that night. What happened next? And all at once, it hit him.

          Spider woman, he thought…and he had been tied to an altar where the leader of the Children of Coyote had been preparing a ceremonial knife by heating it in an open flame.

          Wait, he’d thought with more rationality, they’re Navajo. What do you know about Navajo? Think of the story the maniac was telling you. The boys who killed the monster. Why does that sound familiar? Think hard, you asshole. What gods might have helped them? Which ones do Navajo believe in? Coyote for one. No fucking help there, classic trickster god. Sky spirit? Not too useful underground. Then he’d remembered the statuette still residing in his pocket. Spider woman…

          Carteris awoke in the dream before the dream demon showed itself this time. Alright, one chance to get the drop on this asshole. Play it cool, Jon. Don’t let it know that you’re lucid. Remember, the dream world is partially composed of your mind, you have some control here too. He tried to remember what he’d done in the dream next. Keep the fiction going, wait ‘til you can spot the bastard and then hit him hard.

          “Spider woman, hear my plea,” he yelled, as he had done the first time this all had happened. “Spider woman help me against these who would undo what those boys did so long ago!” He poured his aura into the outcry, expending just enough mystical energy to make it seem real using the statuette as a focus. The spider woman had assisted the boys who’d killed the monsters. Before, Carteris had been able to recall that much of the story which he’d heard from Kyle when he’d questioned him further about the statuette. It had been a long shot, but it had been all he had and he’d poured all his remaining energy into the summoning. This time, Carteris wasn’t desperate. He knew it would work. This time, he could focus his real energies on another kind of summoning, but he’d have to time it perfectly, just when the demon revealed itself. He slowly conjured the true totem he’d need for the conjuring as a tattoo on his back which was hidden from onlookers by the altar.

          In the dream, Spider Woman had appeared, the classic half-spider, half-human. Her coming had evoked a scream from the creatures and a somehow worse one from the assembled Children of Coyote. She began spinning webs that ensnared the cult and their monsters as they fled, just as had happened not too long ago. He watched as the cult’s leader wrapped himself further and further into one of her webs, struggling until he asphyxiated himself in the impenetrable web. All around him those who spider woman wasn’t slaying outright, were doing the same.

          At the time it had filled him with extreme satisfaction to watch his enemies get what was theirs. That sort of thing always did. Now he feigned glee, while observing carefully for the dream demon. Something would be out of place, and that would be the demon. That was how they always hid. I’ve just got to remember, he thought. What’s out of place? What? There, he thought, noticing the one creature that wasn’t panicking. “See you later, asshole!” he shouted, and released the summoning energy from the totem he’d conjured on his back.

          That was the beauty of magic. The words weren’t the important thing, just the manipulation of energy and a few well-placed symbols. Once you got past the mumbo jumbo, it gave you a great opportunity to spout one-liners, and Carteris was too much a fan of movie heroes to ever resist.

          The thing Carteris had summoned formed just above the dream demon out of a piercing white light that forced Carteris to shut his eyes momentarily. When he opened them, he saw the dream demon in its true form, looking up at the glowing, beautiful, winged man floating above it. “Oh shi-,” it had just enough time to utter before the angel turned it into cinders with a holy light.

          Carteris laughed as the dream cavern evaporated around him. He found himself unbound again. This deserves a victory cigarette, he thought, and, since he was still technically in the dream world, willed one into existence. He took a deep drag and turned toward the angel, who regarded him blankly.

          “You summoned me for this measly task?” the angel asked, his golden, perfect features betraying irritation.

          “Sorry about that, Gabe,” Carteris said. “It was the best I could come up with on short notice. Demons forget that angels can go anywhere they want, even dreams.”

          “Come now, Carteris. You know I don’t favor you in the best circumstances, but to summon me for a low-level dream demon. That’s sad even for you,” Gabriel the archangel said. “Besides, you know I’m more into intellectual pursuits than fighting. Why didn’t you call Michael or Uriel? I’m sure they would have been much more appreciative to be dragged from whatever they were doing than me.”

          “That’s the thing, Gabe,” Carteris said, walking on nothing toward the archangel, “I called you for that brain of yours really. The dream demon was just incidental. What I really need is information. Mainly, who sicced the bastard on me in the first place? By the way, you don’t mind that I smoke, do you?” He smiled, knowing full well that all angels were haughty as hell, and generally hated dealing with people, especially people with the power to constrain them like Carteris.

          “You know I don’t have lungs, Carteris. And stop calling me Gabe,” the angel sneered, looking for all the world like he wished he could just tear Carteris’ head off and get back to what he had been doing.

          “Fine. Gabriel, who did this to me?”

          The archangel told him.

          “Son of a bitch,” Carteris murmured, waking up and realizing he was tied to a different bed than he’d gone to sleep in. He couldn’t tell much about the room around him. It was fairly dark and smelled of must. Dim light flowed in through a red curtain hanging down over the single window in the room. Carteris could tell the walls were wood, but not much else. Still, while he didn’t necessarily know where he was, he was pretty sure he knew who had taken him there.

          “Erin!” Carteris shouted, hoping to throw the young girl for a loop by demonstrating his foreknowledge of her presence. “I know it was you girl. You get out here!” He put some bass in his voice, hoping to intimidate the waitress into letting him go.

          “How?” Erin’s voice came from a darkened corner of the room. She stepped out into the dim light, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and panties. Carteris couldn’t help but notice how shapely her thin legs were. Not now, old boy, he thought. She approached him, a look of fear in her blue doe eyes. “How did you beat the demon? How did you know it was me? Oh God! What are you going to do to me?!” She began crying.

          What the fuck? Carteris thought. What am I going to do to her? I’m the one tied up! But she only knows me by reputation. Play on that and maybe I can get her to untie me. “You untie me and explain exactly why you did this, I might decide to only make my curse last a year,” he threatened, flashing his best evil grin.

          “You promise?” she looked up through her tears and uncombed hair. “I didn’t mean to. I was just so angry!” She began to untie Carteris' left arm. “I didn’t know what the ritual was. Chris said to use it if he ever didn’t come back. I didn’t know what it would do! I didn’t even know it would do it you. I came this morning like you asked and found you thrashing around. It reminded me of my mother, and what was happening to her. So I brought you back and tied you down to keep you from hurting yourself. I had a hunch, so I reread the ritual more carefully and figured out what must be happening to you. I didn’t mean it. Please don’t hurt me.” Surprisingly, she threw her arms around him and buried her head into his shoulder, sobbing quietly, and mumbling, “Don’t hurt me,” over and over.

          Carteris couldn’t help but be ashamed for intimidating the girl. Twenty or no, she was barely an adult and obviously had a lot to learn. He put his free arm around her, trying to offer some comfort. She’d made a mistake. That was all. “It’s okay, kid…,”

          “Erin,” she insisted between sobs.

          “Erin, slow down. Explain to me who Chris is, and what this ritual was.”

          “Chris is my older brother. He’s into magic and stuff. Sometimes he goes up by the mine at night and does all kinds of things he won’t tell me about. The ritual was something he said would bring justice if he was ever hurt. Is he hurt, mister? Do you know anything about my brother?” She pulled back and looked Carteris in the eye, her own eyes betraying a deep hurt inside of her.

          It all began coming together for Carteris. Her brother had been one of the cult members. He had concocted some half-assed spell to be directed at the one who murdered him. Oh shit, Carteris thought. This poor girl. How do I tell her what her brother was involved in? And that it got him killed? He looked into her big blue eyes, wiping the tears away with his free hand into her blonde hair…and something dawned on him.

          “But that cult was composed only of Navajo, and you definitely aren’t Navajo, blondie,” Carteris said accusingly.

          Erin grinned and said, “Okay, you caught me. He wasn’t my brother. He was one of my children.” She looked up at him with eyes no longer blue, but a deep black. Her mouth opened in a grin full of canine teeth far too wide for a human, but perfect for a…”Coyote,” Carteris finished aloud.

          Erin’s smile widened as she stood up, her body expanding to that of a humanoid coyote standing fully seven feet tall, with a rattlesnake for a tail and a great black mane with raven feathers woven into it. Slivers of drool fell from Coyote’s maw onto Carteris chest. Gabriel you piece of shit! Carteris thought. You could have fucking warned me what I was really dealing with! I think I’m going to have to bully an amateur mage that got lucky and now I’m face to face with a Navajo fucking god! Thanks, asshole!

          You should have asked more questions before you went off half-cocked, Mr. Carteris, Gabriel’s solemn voice sounded in Carteris’ head, the barest hint of humor in it. Think twice before you summon me so flippantly again.

          “You bastard!” Carteris yelled aloud.

          “No need for name calling,” Coyote spoke, his voice a deep growl that held an odd aftereffect of the sound of children tittering. “I suspected you might find a way to defeat the dream demon. I knew you were good. You’d have to be to decimate my children like you did. In a way I’m glad you’re still alive so I can have the pleasure of ending you myself.”

          Stalling, Carteris asked, “But why the Erin disguise, why bother with the dream demon at all? Why not just come after me yourself?”

          “Do you think me a fool?” Coyote grunted. “I know what you’re capable of, so it made sense to take precautions to make sure you weren’t armed with any tricks. A trickster knows another of his kind, and, if you didn’t know, I am a trickster god. Did you know you were actually asleep moments after I sat down at your table in the bar? It was a simple matter to drag you back to this place without raising any eyebrows. No one questions a young girl taking an obviously drunk man from a bar. They generally just assume that the girl is either a relative or a hooker and let it go. Child’s play, really.”

          While Coyote had been bragging, Carteris had been taking mental stock of any and all assets he had. No foci for a summoning this time. Coyote had made sure to strip him completely, a fact he hadn’t realized until he’d lifted up the sheet covering him and found the one-eyed bastard looking back at him. The place was strangely devoid of mystic energies except those coming from Coyote himself. And it was unlikely Carteris would be able to manipulate anything that was directly under his enemy’s control. So what then? There’s got to be a way out of this. There always is. But he was coming up with nothing. Was this it then? Did he really have no more tricks up his sleeve?

          “Well, not that this hasn’t been delightful, but I really should get to vivisecting you for what you did to my children,” Coyote spoke, reached one clawed hand for Carteris’ belly. “Fortunately, I have more. Too bad you’ll never know the joy of kids, corpse.”

          Corpse? Carteris thought. The word sent a vague notion through Carteris’ mind that he should be getting an idea from that. But what good were corpses in this situation, he didn’t have near the right ingredients to raise zombies and what good would they do against a god? So, what then? He thought, painfully aware of how close Coyote’s fangs were getting. Oh shit, I’m going to die! Oh shit! Fuck! Stop! Think! Corpse. The idea’s on the tip of my mind. The tip…of course, he thought! The only type of summoning that doesn’t require anything more than an open mind.

          Carteris smiled up at Coyote, who gave him a quizzical look. “What are you smiling about, trickster?”

          “Look behind you,” Carteris uttered the old classic.

          There stood the spirits of the miners that had died in the caverns at the hands of Coyote’s children over the past few weeks, looking very, very angry. Many of them were wielding spiritual weapons forged from their very essences. The perfect weapon against a creature more ethereal than physical.

          “Oh no,” Coyote said, as the vengeful spirits closed in.

          Several minutes later, Carteris exited the shack just outside of Iago, having retrieved his clothing. Fortunately, his smokes had still been intact in his duster pocket. He pulled one out and lit it, savoring the flavor of the menthol in his throat. He looked to his right and smiled sadly. “I’d offer you one, pal. But I know you always hated these things.”

          Kyle’s specter smiled at him, barely visible in the rising Arizona sun. He was, fortunately, fully intact, his face restored in death. Kyle didn’t say anything. It was rare that the dead truly did. Most people that heard things at séances were hearing the boredom of malicious entities, not their passed on loved ones. Kyle offered him a small wave and stepped forward, disappearing back to whatever awaited him in the afterlife.

          “I owe you and your boys one,” Carteris whispered after him. “You were a good friend, Kyle. I’m so sorry.”

          The spirits hadn’t destroyed Coyote, not that Carteris had expected them to, but they had given the god something to think about. Coyote would think twice before underestimating Carteris again. And Carteris intended to be well out of the god’s sphere of influence before it got done licking its wounds.

          “I was getting tired of this fucking dustbowl anyway,” Carteris said as he began strolling back into Iago, fully intending to catch the first bus the hell out of town.