MR. COYOTE AND THE MERMAIDS

Posted by C on February 02, 2001 at 07:20:48:

MR. COYOTE AND THE MERMAIDS
By C

I. The Journey

Every now and then, Coyote had a yen to travel. Since he was (generally) a considerate
coyote, he would map out his itinerary and get a hunting license for the route he planned to take.
This time, he was going to the seaside territory of Lemuria, so he looked into the cost of a fishing
license. To his delight, he found he could do a week's worth of unlimited fishing and hunting for a
reasonable fee. "Just let me pack!" he said. He loaded his magic backpack with all the gear he
could think of, including a small harpoon. Then he set out.

He went on foot, whistling and occasionally howling to pass the time. Within a few days, he'd
arrived in Lemuria, a place of lush forests and pretty seaside villages. The forests were as he'd
remembered them from an earlier trip; if anything, they'd spread and gotten denser. The farms and
villages were a different matter. Every one he came to appeared to be deserted. Grain was rotting
in the fields. What's up? he wondered.

He decided to investigate further, and he picked a village where the forest had encroached
almost to the very shore. Another oddity: across from the village, about a half-mile out at sea, was
a big island with a sheer, rocky face, overhanging a cove. He had been up this coast once before,
and had never seen this island. Sudden geological events were not unheard of in the Land of
Mythica, so maybe this was no big deal. But he wanted to learn more.

He went from door to door in the village. Every cottage, it seemed, was empty. He was just
about to give up, when someone shouted out behind him: "Put 'em up, varmint!" He turned and
saw an old man in ragged clothes. The man had a double-barreled shotgun pointed straight at
Coyote's cojones. He quickly raised his paws.

"Uh, sir, you may be laboring under a misapprehension . . . . " Coyote began.

"Hunh?" said the old man. Then he said: "Hang on a minute . . . ." Keeping the gun trained on
Coyote, he reached up and pulled what looked like plugs from his ears. "Just tell me this, son.
You some kinda fay?"

"Certainly not," said Coyote. "I catch and eat fays."

"Well, you came to the right goddamn place. They've taken over."

"Uh, before we, uh, go any further sir, could you point that thing in another direction?"

"What? Oh, sorry." He pointed it away. "I suppose this wouldn't have done any good against
fays anyhow."

"Exactly," said Coyote. "It takes--you might say--a special touch to catch and kill a fay."

"And I s'ppose you're tellin' me you got that touch?" the man asked in a harrumphing tone of
voice. Coyote nodded proudly.

"Cocky little carnivore, aintcha? Well, 'scuse me while I put these back in. You can come to
my place for a sitdown if you want; just speak real loud."

So Coyote accompanied the strange old man to his home.

When they got there, the man showed Coyote a place to sit and gave him a tin cup with a
throat-burning liquor in it. Then he took out his earplugs again. "I don't think I'll need these till
nightfall. That's the only time so far that I've heard the call."

"The call?" Coyote asked.

"You deaf, son? The call. It's a beautiful . . . singin' like, and when you hear it you want to head
out into that goddamned forest . . . or into the sea. But if'n you do, that's the end of you. Most of
the men hereabouts heard the call . . . and followed it."

"Why don't you begin at the beginning?" said Coyote. He had an inkling that what he would
hear would be familiar.

"The beginnin'. Well, it's like this. Part of the order of nature is forests that don't get too big,
and islands that don't appear outta nothin', and women mindin= their menfolk. Leastways around
here. We're not quite as magical along the coastline as some o' you other folk. No offense."

"None taken.@

"Well, inside o= one month, nature went out the window. The forest came down and swallowed
near everythin' up. That goddamned island popped up outta the sea. And the women stopped
obeyin' their men. In fact, they all left, includin' my wife 'n' two daughters! Purty redheads, all three
of 'em, and sweet 'n' mindful of their place, until things changed. Then, when they was gone, the
call . . . the singin' . . . it started. One man after another went in search of the voices that was
callin', and they all disappeared. I think they all died, I do. I knew my number'd be up sooner or
later, so I started wearin' earplugs. I hear the call--only at night so far--but it's faint, and so far I
can fight it. Still, I ain't young, and I aint gettin' stronger."

"Please go on," said Coyote.

"After the others was gone, I started seein' fays everywhere. Used to be, you'd see somethin'
like that once or twice a year. But now the air is full o' little butterfly girls. Real purty little things,
but mean as snakes. They killed my dogs, my cat, my goats. They . . . they drink blood. I think if
I ventured out a ways into the forest, I'd see other, bigger fays, before they kilt me. So I don't go
there. I don't think the call comes from the forest though; no, everytime I've heard it, it's been
comin' over the water. From that island."

"I think I can help you," said Coyote.

"How's that?"

"Well . . . this sounds like some manifestations I've read about. In some places, at some
times--nobody knows why--the forces of magic get out of balance. Here it looks as if the female
force has gotten stronger than it should be. When that happens, all the evil female fays within
hundreds of miles flock to the site of the imbalance. They're hoping they can add their energy to
what's already there and make the change permanent. If they can do that, they may create a
separate female realm, into which unlucky males are transported from time to time for them to
torture and kill, or . . . ."

"Or what?" said the old man.

"Or . . . the change might spread, till all of Mythica is infected."

"So girls might take over everythin'?"

"Evil girls," said Coyote. In most species--except some spider varieties and a few others--men wear the
pants and girls wear the panties; good girls know the difference, and submit. Bad girls want more,
and really evil girls, with enough supernatural power, want everything there is. Somehow your wife
and daughters were corrupted, and so they left."

"Good gods," said the old man. "Can you get' em back?"

"I don't know . . . ." said Coyote. He had an inkling the answer was no, but he'd break that to
the old man later.

"So you'll help me? I mean--you got lotsa reasons to do it on your own account."

"Exactly," said Coyote. "But, believe it or not, I think I'm going to need some female help." Without explaining himself, he picked up his backpack where he had left it on the floor and walked out into a clearing in front of the old man's cottage. One there, he rummaged around in it until he found the box he was looking for and pulled it out. In big letters on the side of the box, the old man could read: ACME SEA SPIDERS: FUN FOR THE WHOLE HUNTING FAMILY! Coyote opened the box and pulled out what looked like a gray silk bag. He turned to the man and said: "It's been dehydrated for storage and shipping. Could you bring me a pot full of cold water?"

When he was given the water, Coyote slowly trickled it down over the bag, until it looked
entirely soaked, then he laid it gently down on the ground. Within minutes, the bag grew in size,
until it was about as big as a medicine ball. Next, Coyote and the man could see long black legs
poking through the material and slowly shredding it.

"I'm none too partial to giant spiders," said the man.

"You don't have a thing to fear from these girls," said Coyote. "They hanker after a different
prey entirely."

"How do you know they're girls?"

"In this species, they're all girls. They woke up one morning and found they could do both jobs
now, and that was the end of the boys."

"Oh," said the old man.

It took half an hour, but finally the bag was reduced to a few strands of dirty-looking silk.
There, in its place, stood three night-black spiders, each as big as a mid-sized dog. "Are you our Mommy?" said one of the spiders to Coyote.

"I'm none too partial to spiders that can talk," said the old man.

Coyote motioned him to be quiet and approached the creatures. "I'm not exactly your mom,"
he said. "But I'll do what I can to help you out. You're sea spiders, and your favorite food comes
from the sea. But you're still a little young and unsteady for an ocean voyage, so I want you to go
into that forest and see what you can rustle up. Bring it back here by tomorrow morning. And for
goodness' sake, don't kill anything until I've had a chance to look at it. Can you do that, girls?"

"Sure, Mom, but it'll be hard not to eat anything till then."

"Fair enough," said Coyote. "Get yourself a meal, but save some extras for me." He turned to
the man. Just then, something yellow-winged came fluttering by and headed into the forest. Coyote
got a clear view of it: a butterfly girl, about the size of an adult cat, dressed in a yellow shift with
matching panties and heels. She didn't seem to have noticed the spiders. "Go get her, girls," he
said, and they went scuttling off.

"Butterfly girls are mean and stupid," said Coyote. "Unless my girls catch something else, we
won't learn much. So let's just cross our claws and wait for the morning."

II. Butterflies Bagged

Next morning, after a restful sleep in one of the old man's spare beds, Coyote went out to take
a leak. He paused in the clearing in front of the cottage and whistled. Sea spiders like to ambush
their prey directly rather than waiting for it to blunder into a web. They prefer webs for storage,
and that's exactly what confronted Coyote as he looked out toward the forest. A huge, trembling
expanse of silk, gemmed with dew, stretched between two trees in front of him. It took a second
for him to process what he was seeing, but then he made out that the web was decorated with
more than dewdrops. Stuck to it, at regular intervals, were about twenty captured butterfly girls,
their arms pinned to their sides with silk, their wings fastened together behind them. It was their
frightened trembling that made the web tremble. Coyote realized just then that he could hear the
girls' piping, high-pitched voices. Some just sobbed with the hurt of their capture. Others cried
out: "Caught, caught, caught . . . ." "Stung me . . . stung me . . . ." "Why? Why? Why? . . . ."
Coyote strode over to the web.

Seen close up, they were strikingly pretty little fays. They had yellow wings, or white, or blue,
or green, or red, and their outfits all matched their wing-color. Near the middle, he saw the yellow
girl he'd caught a glimpse of the day before. He reached up to pull her from her sticky prison and
discovered that she was quite easy to detach from the surface on which she'd been mounted. He
was a little careless, and she reached her head down and bit his paw.

"Yowww! Little bitch!" he yelped and hurled her to the ground. There was now a tiny hole in
his forelimb, welling blood. He got a band-aid and disinfectant out of his backpack and treated the
wound. He then picked the girl up off the ground, much more carefully than he had handled her
before. The webbing still bound her tightly, and his grip was firm, so all her squirming and
struggling were in vain.

"Bad doggy!" she piped. "This . . . can't . . . be happening! Bad doggy!"

"But it is happening," he said. "Now tell me: who's your leader? It'll hurt a lot worse if you
don't."

"Leader? Everything got good. We came. You . . . spiders . . . can't be happening!"

"Did someone tell you this would never happen? Did someone tell you you wouldn't be
caught?"

She just stared at him, a look of complete bewilderment on her lovely face. Obviously, she
knew nothing. She and her sisters had just flown where the kind of evil that fostered them was
strongest.

It was time to finish up. He gently slipped one of his claws beneath the waistband of her
panties. She began to wail and beg: "No! No! No!" He ignored her pleas and drew the panties
down to her ankles, which were bound together with webbing. Then he pushed her legs back and
put the very tip of his tongue against her vulva. (He knew that the venom secreted by his tongue
would start a burning itch there.) She screamed and discharged a salty-sweet mix of honey and vinegar.
He swallowed this with relish and kept massaging the space between her legs. She squealed and cried; he could plainly see the tracks of little tears down her diminutive face. He kept on going. Her struggles became more violent, and her feet started kicking. He counted six orgasms--six discharges of delicate liquor--before her body stiffened in his paw and she was gone. He opened wide and swallowed her.

Just then, the three spiders came out of the forest with trembling, kicking additions for the giant
web. "Marvelous work, girls," said Coyote. "I've had one already; if you don't mind, I'll have
another five or so to finish up breakfast. You divvy up the rest and I'll do some reconnoitering in
the forest."

"Sure thing, Mom," said one of them. Together, all four hunters attacked their meal.

III. Vampires Vanquished

After the sobbing and the tears, the squeals and the shrieks, and the plucking of many pairs of
little panties, Coyote spent the rest of the day reconnoitering. At dusk, he decided to plunge into
the depths of the forest. It was at night, after all, that the call came. The spiders asked if he'd be
safe, and he told them (with foolish bravado) that he could handle himself.

After a few minutes of walking, he found a stream full of chilly water. He stopped to drink. As
he greedily guzzled, he heard an unmistakably feminine voice: "Are you here to hurt us?"

He looked up and in the twilight he could clearly see three beautiful, smiling women, with heads
full of brilliant red hair. They wore red shirts that reached to just above their navels, white panties,
and red and white pumps. Each had a pair of velvety red batwings. One, the woman who'd
spoken, was clearly older than the other two, perhaps in her thirties. The younger ones were about
eighteen and nineteen. The old man's wife and daughters, Coyote said to himself.

"Depends, ma'am," said Coyote. "I'm not too hungry at the moment, but if you're evil fays, that
won't help you."

"Evil? Goodness no. We just wanted to be free, and now we are."

"How many people have you killed in just the short time you've been 'free'?"

"Why . . . no one at all. Don't be silly." Her smile had been replaced by a look of anger.
"What do you have against ladies who choose their own paths?"

"Your proper paths were chosen for you when you were born in Mythica: to be protected and
cherished by men, and to obey them. May I ask, ma'am, when did your husband last take you to
his bed?"

"About . . . a month ago," she said, with the look of someone distracted and half-dreaming on
her face.

"He slipped your panties down, didn't he? Just like all the times before, all the way back to your
wedding night?"

"Yes . . . . " she said. Coyote inched closer.

"Those panties are a symbol: of your weakness and vulnerability, and of your surrender to the
good man who pledged himself to look after you. When he took them down, he was claiming
what's . . . ."

"Mom! He's trying to hypnotize you!" shrieked one of the girls. All three hissed and bared long,
sharp canine teeth.

Foolish to try that trick on three at a time, thought Coyote. He squared off and got ready for a
fight. Then, to his dismay, he realized they were hypnotizing him. "You can't move," they said in
unison. "You're weak . . . you're vulnerable." His paws dropped to his sides.

Just then, three dark shapes dropped down from the overhanging trees. A sea spider landed
on the breasts of each vampire and clung there. The wicked trio screamed as fangs pierced their
tender flesh. They beat at the spiders with their fists, but these just glanced harmlessly off the hard
black shells. Soon the powerful spider toxins did their job, and all three fell thrashing to the ground.

"You've saved my life, girls!" said Coyote. "I don't know how I can repay you!"
"You're our Mom; of course we saved you!" said one of them.

"Now--I know you'd like to chow down," said Coyote, but vampires aren't very good to eat. If
you're hungry, I want you to go look for some more butterfly girls, OK?"

"OK, Mom," they said, and off they went. Coyote was telling the truth here; the three spiders,
of whom he was starting to grow very fond, might get sick if they feasted on vampire.

He went over to the three captured women, who were moaning and whimpering, and started to
question them.

"Why should we tell you anything?" asked one of the girls. Coyote bit her on her already
wounded breast. When she was done screaming, he said: "That's why."

"Tell him . . . everything," said the mother, her face wet with tears. "Just . . . tell him."

So they did. It was a band of mermaids who had set off the imbalance with powerful magic
they had recently discovered. They had made an island thrust up out of the sea and used it for their
headquarters. They had made the forest spread. They had summoned in every evil female fay who
would heed their call. And they had gone to work on the human beings in the neighborhood,
seducing the men to their destruction and turning receptive women into fays. The mother and her
two daughters had drained the blood of dozens of men, as well as a few women who wouldn't go
along.

"And now for your punishment," said Coyote. He stripped each vampire of her panties, then
held the garments, wet with urine and honey, up to the sky. (Each lady had a pubic patch of the same
unnaturally bright red hair that adorned her head.) "Since you've dishonored these," he said, "they
can kill you now." Realizing what was coming, they shook their heads violently and begged for
their lives. Unmoved, he strangled each woman with her own underpants. He then waited by the
bodies until they turned into dust.

IV. Nereids Netted

When Coyote met up with the spiders back at the cottage, he said: "Ladies, it's almost time to
get your sea legs." He explained what they were going to do, and then they had the best sleep they
could.

They got up just before dawn. He took his harpoon out of his backpack and gripped it firmly
in his right paw. Then the fay-killing quartet went down to the shore. They looked out at the island
and could make out the cove quite clearly. "That's where they'll be," said Coyote. "Let's whip
some pretty ass."

The spiders walked out onto the water, then began to dart back and forth, like skaters on ice.
When they'd gotten fully accustomed to the new surface, each spun out a sturdy cable from her
behind. Coyote twisted these into a single cable, which he tied around his waist. Then they were
off. They took an indirect path, weaving here and there over the water, but all the while gradually
approaching the island. Coyote's plan was for the spiders to drop him off on the island's far side,
along with the cable. They would then proceed to the cove, to carry out their part of the
assignment.

When they reached the shore, Coyote took up the cable and wished the brave trio good luck.
Then he headed inland, the silken line in one hand, his harpoon in the other. The ground
rose quickly, and soon he was climbing rather than walking. Finally, he came to a cliff, from which
he could see the mainland he had just left. Right below, two hundred or so feet down, was the
cove. It had a narrow beach. Lying on the beach, very close to the water, were twenty or more
mermaids--sleeping, he hoped.

He untwisted the cable into its three parts and tied these end to end. Then he made one end fast
to what looked like a secure outcropping. He tied the other end around him, just under his
shoulders. Down he went, hoping to rely on hand- and toe-holds rather than a single strand of spider
silk. Once he did lose his grip; the silk turned out to be as strong as steel, and he was able to swing himself back to the cliff-face without a mishap. When he reached the end of the spider cable, it was a safe drop to the beach, so down he jumped. When he hit the sand, he immediately hid behind a bush.

All the while he was climbing down, the mermaids hadn't budged. He'd figured they would be
resting after a night devoted to evil. He now got a better look at them: beautiful, of course, they
were women down to their groins, with big scaly fish tails of the most brilliant colors: turquoise, scarlet, lime green, yellow, orange. In each case, the mermaid's hair was exactly the same color as her tail. They lay there, many of them snuggled up together, as if they hadn't a worry in the world.

Coyote stepped out from behind the bush, the harpoon ready in his right paw. Just then a
blue-haired, blue-tailed beauty sat up, raised her hands above her head, and said: "Oh no girls,
we're caught!" The others sat up as well and, laughing, put their hands up, too. "We're caught!
We're caught!" they merrily repeated. The blue girl then fixed his eyes with hers. "Drop the hurty
thing right now," she said. And he did. He had never felt a more powerful hypnosis in his life.
"Now just stand there." A tornado couldn't have budged him from the spot.

She threw back her luxuriant blue hair, then began to stroke her breasts with her hands. "Is this
where you were planning to stick me?" she asked.

"That was one possibility," Coyote allowed.

Next she rubbed her belly, then drew a long-nailed finger along the hairless cleft at her groin.
"More possible targets?"

"That's right."

She took a deep breath. "We lost track of a lot of our agents on the mainland, so we figured
something was up. To judge by the number we can't contact anymore, I'd say you're pretty
efficient. And I can tell . . . other things by looking into your eyes."

Now he had to hope that all the blocking spells he knew would deflect her from more important
information to less.

"You seem to be completely without mercy." she said. "You'd be amazed at the number of
sentients who just can't kill a girl. But you got a taste for lady fays a long time ago. You like doing 'em."

"I can't lie, Miss. I surely do."

"Why do you think that is?"

"It's the pretty face. And the pretty body. And the pretty, perfumed slit down below. I
could've eaten sheep, or goats, or whatever, but I learned early on that a pretty body that was
squirming and trembling, a pretty face that was begging for its life . . . . Well, Miss, it was more
than just an eating experience. And of course, if she's evil, well that takes it up another twenty
notches."

"Why's that so important?"

"Because she's a threat to Mythica. And something about the gall of it: here's a world where
males really do take care of their ladyfolk: always smile for them, always get them flowers, always
hug them when they cry, and always do what they can to protect them, including laying down their
lives for them. A female really is on a pedestal here . . . ."

"If she follows orders. Some of us aren't so good at that."

"Some of you are evil."

She laughed. "You're absolutely right, Mr. Coyote. My friends and I are evil." She gestured
to the other mermaids and they began to laugh as well. "We want to replace peace and order with
destruction and chaos. Men guarantee order, so we're down on most men. But I think there might
be a place for you in our group. I want disorder, but not too much. I could use an enforcer. I'd
feed you really well: all the disloyal fays you can eat."

"How long would I have to think about this . . . offer?"

"A minute or so. Would you really rather be dead?"

She had the fatal weakness of all female fays (indeed of all women): she couldn't stop talking. But she
was inexorably pushing him to a point he didn't want to reach. If he said yes, just to go along with
them, he might be subject to an obliterating curse for breaking his word to supernaturals. "When all
the men are gone, how do you plan to, uh, make new evil fays?"

"You've seen our magic at work already, Mr. Coyote; you know it's pretty strong. All lady fays
who've come within the range of it can now inseminate one another. So men just aren't necessary
anymore. We'll keep some around for entertainment, of course."

"How'd the imbalance come about?"

"We made it. We learned a spell that would cause a local disturbance. The mermen got
wind of it just before we killed them, poor dears." More laughing from the cruel cuties. "The next
step was to cram as many bad girls into the area of disturbance as we could, and we did that,
too. The imbalance has spread, and it looks as if it'll continue spreading."

"All of Mythica under your fin," said Coyote.

"That's right," she said with a smirk. "Now what are you going to do?"

"I like to know who I'm agreeing with. What's your name?"

"Pantanassa. I need to know what you plan to do."

"That's a pretty name, for a very pretty lady."

"This is getting a little annoying. The next word out of your mouth had better be yes, if you don't
want to die."

"Ye-," he started to say.

At just this moment a mermaid shot up from beneath the water about ten yards from shore,
pointed out to the mouth of the cove, and screamed: "Sea spiders!" Sea spiders!" Several more
girls surfaced and repeated the cry.

Everyone on shore now looked out to where the cove gave way to the broad blue sea. There,
skating toward the beach at a leisurely pace, were the three spiders, two at either arm of the cove,
and one in the middle. You couldn't see it, but they were drawing a huge net, a kind of purse sein,
behind them below the water. To judge from their screams, the mermaids knew very well what the
spiders were up to. Some just clutched at their breasts or tore at their beautiful hair and wailed
with terror. (Nothing frightens a mermaid more than sea spiders.) Others dived deep, in hopes of
swimming under the net they knew was coming. It was no use. The spiders had secreted several
wads of hardenweb, a special stuff that takes on the density of stone or metal within minutes.
They'd used the lumps to weight the net so that it reached all the way to the bottom. And, unlike a
human net, it had sticky strands that caught any girl who tried to lift it and swim underneath.

Realizing the sea was a dead end, some of the mermaids looked to the land for their salvation
and started slithering for tree cover. Pantanassa was one of these. They had forgotten Coyote,
and, panicked as they were, they could no longer bind him anyway. He snatched up his harpoon,
ran to the mermaid leader, and flipped her on her back with his foot. She raised her hands in
supplication, all her arrogance replaced by tearful terror. He brought the harpoon down hard, right between her navel and her cleft. The sound that came from her now was half groan, half shriek. He knew she wasn't going anywhere, so he pulled out the harpoon and went to the next girl, and the next. Within at most a few minutes, he had harpooned every fay on the beach, twenty or so girls. Meanwhile the spiders had come ashore. They drew their big net out of the water, and it held at least another thirty. The spiders dashed from victim to screaming victim, both theirs and Coyote's, pumping a strong dose of venom into each. Once stung, the girls could squirm and beat the sand with their tails, but that was about all, aside from crying bucketsful. (Pantanassa cried more bitterly than any of the others.) Coyote then spent the next couple of hours disentangling the netted fays and lining everyone up on the beach with a twist of web
pinning her arms to her sides.

Caught fays have a scent that's incomparable: a compound of honey, pine forests in autumn,
and steaks crackling on a grill. When a fay is incontestably bagged, when her body knows its
time has come, her breasts quiver and ache, her nipples harden and sharpen, and a rich, frothy
milk spills forth; her cunt secretes--sometimes spurts--a clear honey-like nectar; and the tears
that pour down her cheeks are perfumed. Every delightful liquid that she now distills in the
extremity of her grief, pain, and shame contributes to the unforgettable fragrance. Coyote had
greedily inhaled the scents of the netted butterfly girls and the three luckless vampires. Those were
faintly discerned preludes compared to this: fifty or so mermaids, all ravaged and ruined! He drew
in breath after breath charged with their aroma.

When everything--and everyone--had been put in order, it was time to leave the island. The
spiders used their hardenweb to make hooks as strong and sharp as steel. Coyote slipped a
hook into the belly of each mermaid, just above her vulva. Every one of them squealed pitiably
when she was stuck. He then tied web cables to the hooks and clutched all the free ends in his
right paw. The spiders would tow him, and he would tow the mermaids, back to the mainland.
"Your last ocean voyage, ladies," he said. The mermaids sobbed and wailed in response.

The old man was loafing disconsolately on the beach when he saw Coyote and the spiders
come out of the water, pulling their spectacular catch behind them. He whooped and ran over to
help them. Soon all the mermaids were at a safe distance from the water. No one would escape
today.

It was time now for a speech. Coyote faced the trembling, crying, shuddering girls and said:
"You've murdered the mermen who were appointed by benevolent magic to be your husbands,
protectors, and masters. You've murdered God knows who else. You've thrown the realm of
magical energy into disorder and imbalance. You've brought a horde of fays as evil as yourselves
down on this innocent neighborhood. Have I missed something? I have three hungry,
hard-working sea spiders here. I think they deserve the first pick." He turned to the spiders and
said, under his breath, "Save the leader for me." "Sure, Mom," they said and started their meal.

A sea spider likes to grip a captured mermaid somewhat in the manner of a man holding
a sandwich with both hands. It plants two legs on either side of the victim's groin, then pumps in
more venom to minimize struggling. As the girl falls into a cycle of powerful death orgasms, the
spider starts sucking out her essence. So it happened now. "No! No! No! Please, Devil, no!" they shrieked, or "It hurts! It hurts!@ or AI'm caught I'm caught I'm caught!" (this time without laughter). The spiders were hungry, so each took three victims. The rest, except for Pantanassa, they wrapped and saved for later.

Coyote went to Pantanassa. "I'll try those breasts now," he said. When the wails, sobs, and
whimpers were over, when she was done trembling, when she had flicked her tail for the last time,
he stretched his jaws wide and swallowed her whole.

"Did you . . . did you find out anything about my wife and girls?" the old man asked. Coyote
was fishing for an answer when a strange sound filled the air, something like the whirring of a
dynamo.

"What in the gods' names . . . ?" said the man.

"It's time for Redress," said Coyote, glad for the interruption. "There are hundreds, maybe
thousands, of evil fays in the vicinity. The restored balance won't tolerate their continued presence.
Just look!"

A vast cloud swarmed in towards them. When it got closer, they could see that it was
compounded of hundreds of butterfly girls, flying in erratic circles, emitting fearful little cries. The
cloud hovered now above the big spider web. Then, one by one, each fay gave an especially
poignant squeak and dropped into the web. Soon there would be no more room. Realizing what
was happening, the sea spiders quickly spun new swatches of netting, and these were soon
occupied as well. "Tarnation," said the old man.

"About your womenfolk," said Coyote. "I, uh, saw three redheaded fays on the island . . . .
The Redress hit there right away . . . and they died. I'm sorry."

"That was prob'ly them," the man said. "'Bout what I reckoned would happen. Oh well." He
pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose with a big honk. "Say: you and your, uh, friends are
welcome to stay here awhile. I'll spend the week tidyin' up, and then I'll be leavin' myself. Nothin'
keepin' me here now."

"Thank you sir. A few days to rest up would be nice. My spiders have gotten their sea-legs, so
I've a feeling they'll want to head out as soon as they're finished here."

And so it was. Within just two days, every evil mermaid had been sucked dry. It took another
day for Coyote and the spiders to polish off all those bad butterfly girls. The ground was littered
with tiny panties, looking for all the world like little flower petals. When at last every wicked fay
had been brought to justice, Coyote and the old man waved goodbye as the three plucky spiders
skated out to sea. Then Coyote and his host shook hands and Coyote set out for home.

V. Incident of Travel

Coyote was making his way back along the coast road. He was at the outermost limit of the
magical disturbance he had helped to quell, and he witnessed one last example of Redress before
the landscape became dull and routine. He was coming around a bend in the road when he heard
an agonized scream, clearly female, coming from the forest to his left. Curious, he followed his
ears a few hundred feet into the woods, where he came upon a clearing. There, backed against a
tree, was a land fairy, one of those fays who rely on their size and their big, strong legs to save them
from predators. Her beautiful though rather plump face was framed by thick, night-black hair that
reached to her waist. Her great, round breasts were enclosed, barely, by a lavender shift. Her
belly swelled gently out over lavender panties. Her big and shapely legs were set off by high heels,
again lavender. She was formidable, but she was in mortal trouble: her face was now red and
swollen with weeping; her breasts quivered like big dollops of jello; her panties were soaked. What mighty bear or lion held her at bay? Nothing of the kind; just a common tomcat.

The Redress had weakened her right before the young cat came wandering by. He saw her and
scented her fear, and so he ran up and snapped at her leg. Instead of kicking him aside with a
crushing blow, she screamed and tried to run away, but a strange fatigue enveloped her. She had
barely made it to the tree before she could go no farther. He was playing a game with her when
Coyote came upon them: nipping at one leg, then the other. She shrieked with every bite. At one
point she cried out: "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!" But the cat didn't comply. Coyote looked
on, fascinated.

Finally, with a great effort, she raised one leg as if to kick at the little feline. His response was to
dart in, leap up, and plunge his teeth into the band of lavender that stretched between her thighs.
Her cry now was a long, bitter, shuddering wail. She fell gasping to the ground. The tomcat
came up and started tugging for all he was worth at the waistband of her underpants.

"Let me help," said Coyote. While the little cat looked on with some degree of suspicion,
Coyote wrestled the bagged fay's panties down her legs and over her toes. Sobbing, she struggled against him, but it was mostly her weight that made stripping her an effort. When he was done, he had to catch his breath. Then he pulled her legs far enough apart to allow the cat to run in and bury his tongue in the black-furred wetness of her cunt. She screamed again when the rough tongue went to work.

She looked at Coyote, and recognition now dawned. "You . . . you did this," she gasped.

"Yes I did, Miss," said Coyote.

"It was g-going to be all . . . all right. I was going to be a f-fine lady in the bad girl kingdom. Then you came along . . . . You k-killed us all. You killed us!"

"That's right," said Coyote, "with plenty of help."

"It . . . took two . . . two b-bears to b-bring my momma down . . . and I've been . . . caught by
a cat! Caught by a cat! I'm so ashamed! Oh, my panties . . . my panties! Ohhhhhh, Momma, it hurts! It hurts it hurts it hurts! Unnhhh!"

"It's all right," said Coyote brusquely. "It feels good, too; admit it. And besides, you're going to
be dead very soon. Why all the fuss?"

"Momma! M-momma!" she cried as the first of her death-orgasms came over her. It took a
full half-hour for the kicking to stop.

"Have a feast, little guy," said Coyote, and went on his way.

THE END