Coyote: The Outlander (with FREE second screen experience) (26 page)

She would eventually tell him what happened, and she would tell him what she was. In her heart, she knew he would understand and accept her in the same way he had accepted that she was a woman. Their friendship went deeper than race or gender.

On the fourth day, they bade the Wea their farewell with the promise of a rapid return. The small village felt like a second home to them.

The pair headed to Indianapolis, where Pinkerton was waiting to hear the news of his Outlander. Coyote was conflicted about seeing him again. She knew if he ever found out that she was part Outlander, he would have her killed. The Pinkertons did not tolerate Outlanders of any kind. She doubted they would be any more forgiving of the ones that were part human. And yet her secret drew her to the Pinkertons. She wanted to keep her enemy close, where she could see him. Pinkerton had offered her a position in the IAAI several times. The next time he offered, she would take him up on it. Perhaps he could tell her more about the mysterious agency that Jim McLeod had mentioned. Coyote was left with so many questions, it made her mind spin. And on top of her questions, she now had a secret.

She was earth-born of an Outlander mother and a human father, the first half-breed she had ever come across. Westwood was the second. His secret was safe with her; she owed him that much. She hadn’t decided what she was going to do about him, whether he would remain an enemy or if she would explore any of his services that might be useful to her. Coyote knew she wasn’t quite ready to stop hating him yet, but in time, she might. It didn’t take her much time to make up her mind about bounty hunting, though. She was a hunter, born and bred. Coyote wasn’t about to run; it wasn’t in her nature. She liked her present life too much, and it would take more than a little secret to bring her down.

The shock slowly turned back into confidence, and a little smile played on her lips the day she said goodbye to the Wea tribe. To her relief, she noticed that Caesar, too, looked more at ease. He answered her smiles with light in his eyes again.
My mood is important to him
, she realized.
When I am distraught, he feels my pain with me, he suffers with me. He is a better person than I am, and a better person than I can ever be.

Her partner observed her, lost in her thoughts, and Coyote gave him a mock irritable glance. She pulled a cigar from her breast pocket.

“Can I help you?”

Caesar grinned and rubbed the spot between his heavy eyebrows. “Will you ever tell me what happened?” Caesar asked.

She looked away, but a broad smile spread on her lips. “Someday,” she said when she lit the cigar.

“But not this day?”

“Not this day.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There is a saying that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. I believe it takes a village to bring a book—which is not entirely unlike a child—into the world. The Coyote project, as I so lovingly call it, wasn’t just raised, but it felt like building a village. I learned a lot about the architecture in a story, and how to be a builder. It was a fun process, for the most part, and on occasion, it was a little scary.

But my village consisted of great people. I can’t thank them all individually, but I have thanked them in person, and they know they are in my heart.

There have been many ‘villagers’ that gave this book its personality. Beta readers, information sources, artists, and even a few mental cheerleaders who egged me on when I struggled.

Many building stones were handed to me along the way, and I had to search for even more.

At first I needed a structure, a layout for my village. I created a floor plan, maybe even a mock up of buildings and showed them to my Beta Readers, Greg Faherty, Kerri Patterson and Vix Kirkpatrick. They mulled over my plans, pointing out little flaws, and helped me improve them. For that I am very grateful.

The structures I built still needed a more sturdy foundation. Cue the editor, my lovely friend Lisa Lane. She’s made sure that my buildings will stand up straight, and helped me polish the rough edges around them. Lisa Jenkins, my proofreader, made sure all the street signs had the correct spelling, and all the numbers of the houses were correct.

A village needs to be alluring, needs to draw in visitors, so to brighten it, give it color and beauty, I was aided by Paul Chapman, who made me an incredible cover. Perhaps in a way he’s the head of tourism as well.

My own creative webmasters helped me bring something new to my village. Mike van der Linden didn’t even flinch when the TMH team and I told him of our second screen idea. He ran with it and created art. I often felt like the crazy diva architect that claimed ‘it would be perfectly okay to build the swimming pool on top of a flagpole’, and Mike took on every challenge we threw at him. Coen de Moor volunteered to build my personal website and put up with my slight case of techno-clumsiness. In a way, these men built the library for my village (every village should have one) where I could store my treasures of information.

One should not underestimate the importance of my husband Daan in my village. He supported me in building it, handed me mortar and all the tools I could possibly want. He’s the heart of my village, the one who had faith in me no matter what. He was the one who held me by the hand when I started building this village, and he took a romantic stroll with me through the many streets when it was done.

Last but certainly not least, my village needed life. It longed for villagers, for people to play in the streets and admire all the handiwork. That’s where you come in gentle reader. You are every bit as important, if not more, to my village as those who helped me build it. It is you who will truly give the existence of my village meaning, and for that you mean the world to me.

So here it is, my little place in the world. I hope you enjoy walking through the streets as much as I enjoyed paving them.

Out now in the Coyote series, Coyote: The Clockwork Dragonfly, available on Amazon!

COYOTE: THE CLOCKWORK DRAGONFLY

The Outlander, repugnant and obese, was only humanoid by the loosest of sense of the word. Bulbous layers of fat spilled from the clothing tailor-made for his large frame. The sun, just rising, glared from behind the humongous creature, casting a gold-rimmed shadow around him. He wasn’t tall; Coyote guessed he was at least a head shorter than she was, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in girth.

The sun obscured the Outlander’s face, which was a nuisance since Coyote wanted to look the creature in the eyes. It would help in determining her opponent’s next move, so she shifted a few steps in a semicircle, forcing the Outlander to turn along with her.

“You are a hard man to find.” Coyote’s British accent cut through the silence. A smile appeared on her face, and her body language was casual; she loved the beginning of a gunfight. “Tracking you down caused me a great deal of grief.” She looked at the Outlander from under her derby and raised an eyebrow.

“You think tracking me down caused you grief? Tracking me down was the easy part, little girl. The grief I’m about to give you hasn’t even started yet. You’ll regret the day you met me.” The voice of the Outlander sounded deep and hoarse—barely human. Thick liver lips hung low on his flabby face, and his eyes were small, bulging, round and wet like the eyes of a frog. The irises were yellow, the pupils reptilian slits of black.

He planted his wide feet firmer onto the ground, the flesh of his belly and fat legs wobbling with the movement.

“You’re right. I regret
meeting
you already,” she retorted, while her fingers played with the derby on her head, as was her habit. Long blond braids gleamed in the sun and spilled over her shoulders, down her back, and past her legs, where they almost reached the ground. A dark coat covered her frame and rested on her calves. Dust, gathered by her travels on the road, lay on her shoulders and the rim of her derby.

Her body wasn’t weary despite her travels, and adrenaline pumped through her veins – she was ready to fight.
Nothing beats a good showdown.

“You won’t be the first bounty hunter I’ve killed, little girl.” The Outlander guffawed, spittle flying from his lips. “And you won’t be the last.” He puffed up his impressive chest, and Coyote could not hide her smile. She liked to see overconfidence in an opponent.

“Are you sure about that, fat man?” She ran the palm of her hand across the butt of her gun, the way an owner would stroke a cat.
There is something alluring and powerful about having a shooting iron on my hip.
“Because you won’t be the first Outlander
I
kill.”

“You need to be a good shot to kill me with that.” The Outlander’s froggy eyes gleamed with pleasure, and his large lips rubbed against each other. With two hands, he lifted his stomach a few inches and let it drop again. “And trust me, no matter how good you are, you won’t be good enough. I never stay down long.” The creature leered at her as if he had a secret, and Coyote nodded—her smile never faded.

“They told me that about you.” She pulled her derby away from her eyes. “That’s a neat trick, being able to come back from the dead. Oh, I’m aware of that particular talent of yours.”

The Outlander blinked at her, his face betraying his surprise.

“I can see how you killed a lot of bounty hunters with that particular skill. They probably never saw it coming.” She winked at him. “It’s a little inconvenient, to say the least, to shoot an Outlander and have him get back up.” Coyote squinted her eyes and then shrugged. “It’s nothing I can’t work around.”

The Outlander let out a boisterous laugh—more spittle flew from his liver lips—and he revealed a set of grey broken teeth.

“You can work around my immortality?” He laughed again, and his whole body shook.

“You’re not immortal, fat man,” Coyote retorted with a warm smile. “People who can’t die are immortal. You can die; you’re just hard to kill.”

The Outlander slapped the thick flesh of his belly and rubbed it slowly, the smile still prominent on his pudgy face. “You think you can shoot me with that pea shooter of yours?” His voice took on a metallic quality, like nails dragged across iron.

“I
know
I can shoot you with my pea shooter. I am one heck of a shot.”

“And you think you can kill me with your iron bullets?”

“Iron bullets alone won’t do the trick, but I hear that
Huzela
juice in your blood will help those bullets kill you just fine.”

The rubbing motion stopped and the Outlander gawked at Coyote.

“Caesar?” Coyote’s tone was soft and smug, and the Outlander jumped a little when Caesar touched him. The big creature turned just in time to see the little man with coal black skin run from harm’s way. Caesar held a large, intricate copper syringe with a curved needle in his hand, and Coyote chuckled at the sight. The fat creature roared in outrage.

“What have you done to me, you bitch?” He charged toward Coyote, and she could see the color in his eyes turn from yellow to red.

This Huzela juice must be powerful stuff,
she thought. Before the creature could take more than four steps, Coyote pulled the trigger and put a bullet in his eye. The Outlander stood still in his tracks. He looked stunned, a small hole gaping where his right eye used to be. Then he dropped to his knees and fell forward with a heavy, meaty thud.
Normally a bullet does a lot more damage to a living thing,
Coyote marveled. Not that she minded. She never liked cleaning up the mess some Outlanders left behind, but it was an unfortunate part of the job.

“Told you I was a good shot.” She stood over the fallen form of her bounty, her lips formed the shape of an “O,” and as she blew the smoke from her gun, the heat of the barrel glowed near her skin. The bounty hunter holstered her gun with a swift movement and placed her hand on her hip. Caesar watched from a distance, and Coyote shot him a triumphant smile.

“I like nice and clean jobs like this one.” She tugged on the rim of her derby, and was about to ask Caesar to help her with the body when the Outlander exploded.

A thick, odious purple matter covered everything around the corpse, including Coyote herself. She got most of the load directly in her face. Chunks of metallic-smelling organs covered her derby, hair, and clothing. The sticky, warm substance had an acidic quality, which caused it to tingle across her skin. At first the scent was metallic—like the smell of copper pennies—but it rapidly became more pungent, smelling of rotting flesh. With a grimace on her dirty face, she spat the offending taste of Outlander offal from her mouth. Her eyes met Caesar’s, who looked equally stunned.

“Well this is just fine and dandy isn’t it?” Her hand crossed her face to get the innards from her nose and cheek. “No one told me these guys explode,” she complained. “These Outlanders should come with a warning. ‘Keep your distance when you kill them,’ would be a good start.”

Caesar—who escaped most of the mess, with the exception of a few smaller meatier pieces, which landed in his hair—walked closer to his partner. He bent over the largest mass of unrecognizable organs and bodily matter, his eyes scanning the debris to find evidence that this creature might rise again.

“It’s not going to get up from that, Caesar.” Coyote picked a chunk of something hideous from her hair. “It’s in a thousand pieces, for heaven’s sake.” He shot a final look at the dead Outlander and nodded.

“I will clean this mess up.” Caesar looked at her in earnest as he spoke to her with his meticulous accent, pronouncing each word with a deliberate slowness.

“It’s very disgusting,” Coyote muttered. She didn’t want to clean up the body parts of the dead Outlander; she wanted to find herself some water to get this off her and to get her clothes cleaned.

“I cannot leave this mess here for anyone to find.” He didn’t scold her; he never did. Caesar was right that the Outlander needed to be cleaned up. It was all a part of their job. “I can do this without your help, Coyote. I have enough money to buy some aid from a local, should I find it necessary.”

“Do what you have to do. I’m going to find myself a bath,” Coyote said, with less gratitude than she felt, and she flicked a partial organ that she plucked off her shoulder to the ground.