Coyote Tricks: The Bone Eaters Well

The well has opened and Kagome is on her way to her fateful meeting with Inuyasha, but what has happened to Kit? Something has gone terribly wrong!
This chapter is rated R for nudity, horror and graphic violence.
If you have not read the disclaimers and warnings in the first chapter, please do so before proceeding.

The Return

Spirit Singer, Shippo and Kaemon stood at the bottom of the hill awaiting Kit’s return.
“What is taking so long?” Shippo asked impatiently.
“It will take as long as…” Singer started but then jerked his head up sharply.
“What is it?” Kaemon asked.
“The well is opening” Singer said.
Shippo sprang up the stairs.
“No Shippo” Singer called “we don’t want to be recognized!”

Shippo had already thought of this though. Half way up the stairs he transformed into his fox form carefully remembering to make 4 of his tails invisible.
He reached the top of the stairs and saw the boy, Sota running across the courtyard towards the house.
“Grandpa!” He was calling over and over.
As soon as he had passed, Fox Shippo ran to the still open well house. Inside there was nothing. His spirit senses were tingling with the energy crackling around the room which he assumed was from the well opening. He sniffed and caught a lingering trace of Kit’s scent but couldn’t tell where the coyote had gone.
Hearing the sounds of the boy returning with the old man he quickly ducked back out of the well house and into the surrounding woods.

Shippo emerged from the woods near the bottom of the stairs and transformed back into his human form.
“The well seems to have opened and Kagome has gone but Kit is missing too” he told the others.
“Do you think he may have gotten caught up with Kagome and pulled back into the past too?” Kaemon asked.
“I don’t know, we hadn’t planned on him being in the well house when the portal opened” Singer said concentration plain on his face. “It is possible I suppose but there is no record of him being in the past.”
Shippo started at this comment. “Could he have been separated from Kagome and come out of the well at a different time?” He asked seeming very intent on the answer.
Singer thought for a moment. “I couldn’t say for sure without conducting a new examination of the well to see how the new portal off the nexus is formed. It would be highly unlikely though. Such temporal portals are usually fixed to two distinct points in time and those points will move through time in synch. Which is why according to your accounts a week on this side of the well is a week on the other, it shouldn’t vary. Why do you ask?”
“Master Kaemon will you excuse us for a moment?” Shippo asked.

He led Singer a short distance away.
“There is evidence that Kit visited the past” Shippo said.
“What evidence would that be?”
“Me. Colorado was not the first time I had met Kit although it was the first time for him.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before” Singer said concerned.
“I had reasons why I didn’t want Kit to know and it occurred long after Kagome came through the well so I didn’t think it would happen for awhile yet.”
“So you think he was pulled into the well now and came out at a different time.”
“I had to wonder but Kit currently has my scent markers on him and the Kit at that time didn’t. Even as a little kit, I couldn’t have missed that. The other thing is that Kit had a jewel shard.”
“It sounds like something that will happen in the future but I can’t rule it out until I examine the well again. In the meantime we need to search the immediate area to eliminate other possibilities.”

They looked up as the voices of Kagome’s family calling her started drifting down from the shrine.
“They will be tearing that hilltop up looking for her until she returns” Singer said. “We will never get near the well any time soon. Having been seen there a few days ago, we will draw suspicion to ourselves if we show our faces up there.”
“Yes I think you are right but we must do something” Shippo said thoughtfully. After a second he pulled out a cell phone. “They haven’t seen Toshiro. He could show up as a visitor to the shrine and offer to help look for Kagome. That would give him a chance to search the shine and hilltop.”
“Good thinking, Kaemon and I will start searching the surrounding blocks.”

-
Many hours had passed and the sun was beginning to set as Toshiro searched the woods along the shrine hillside.
“Kagome!” he called for the hundredth time as his fox senses searched for both her and the missing Kit. He paused as he picked up a scent. Changing his direction of search he saw a patch of light colored fur sticking out from under some bushes. He smelled Kit as well as blood, hurrying forward he lifted the branches to find a naked Kit lying unconscious on the ground. Toshiro quickly examined him. The blood smell was coming from various small cuts but otherwise he appeared unharmed.
“Kit” he said shaking him gently “are you ok?”
The only response he got was a groan. Taking out his cell phone he called his father to meet him at the bottom of the hill. He put his jacket around Kit and proceeded to carry him to meet Shippo.

It was dark by time he reached the street below. Shippo was waiting with the car and they quickly bundled Kit into the back.
“He doesn’t appear to be seriously hurt” Toshiro told his father. “I need to check in with the Higurashi family about the search, and then I will meet you back at the house.”

-
The room was dark when he opened his eyes, the only light coming in from the open door leading into the hall. He could hear voices talking in the next room. Confusion racked him for a moment.
‘Where am I? Who am I?’ he thought. He reached out with his senses, concentrating on the speakers in the next room. The information came to him.
‘I am Kit, a coyote hanyou. I am in the house of Shippo, a Kitsune.’
He concentrated more as his head began to clear and more information filtered to him. He started identifying the other voices.
‘That is Toshiro, Shippo’s son; Kaemon, the human scholar and…’ a sense of satisfaction filled him ‘Spirit Singer, my master and bard.’

After a moment Shippo and Singer came into the room.
“He seems to be sleeping peacefully” Shippo said after examining the coyote briefly. “We probably should just let him sleep through the night. I’ll leave the room door open so we can hear him if he stirs overnight.”
The coyote’s eyes opened and watched them leave the room. As soon as they turned the corner, a satisfied grin broke out on his face. “Good” he said quietly.

-
Late into the evening a dark shadow drifted from room to room in the house touching each of the sleeping residents in turn. In each case the individual stirred uncomfortably in their sleep but did not awaken and then the shadow would move on to the next.

-
Kit did not know where he was. He was in the middle of dark gloomy forest like something out of some Halloween picture. He was naked and worse very human. He tried to reason things out. Was it possible that he had been knocked out for a month and his time had come again? No, that didn’t make any sense and it didn’t explain how he had gotten here.

A wind rattled through the trees. Kit shivered as it chilled his body. Echoing all around, barely heard above the wind there was a deep malevolent laugh.
“Who is there?” Kit shouted. The laughter continued for a few moments and then the wind and the laughter died away.
Kit heard a sound like low growl behind him. He spun around. At first he saw nothing but then gradually he made out the reflection of eyes looking out from beyond the trees. They were moving low to the ground.
‘It is a canine’ Kit thought. His frail human senses could not tell him if they were wolves, dogs, coyotes or what. The growling sound came again. Kit started to back away when he heard a sound behind him. He whirled around as a large fox came out of the trees, its fangs bared. Another large fox came out of the trees on his left.
‘This doesn’t make sense’ Kit thought ‘foxes don’t hunt in packs.’
Then he noticed the fox in front him had five tails and the one on the left had two. A third fox came out of the woods on his right. This one only had one tail.

He looked directly at the five tailed fox.
“Shippo?”
There was a flash of lightning and in place of the foxes stood Toshiro, Shippo and Koto.
“You have no place here human” Shippo said.
“I don’t understand” Kit said confused. “You said I was part of the clan.”
“There is no place in my clan for humans…” there was another flash of light and Shippo’s clawed hands lashed out faster than Kit could follow.
“Father?” Toshiro said weakly as he fell dead at Shippo’s feet, his still beating heart in Shippo’s claws.
“…or half breed scum.”
“But we are mates” Kit said in a rising panic.
“Hah! I only lowered myself to mate with you to get what I wanted” Shippo leered looking over Kit’s shoulder.
Kit turned around. There was another flash of lighting illuminating the scene behind him.
“Noo” Kit said in a quiet wavering voice.
Spirit Singer lay on the ground before him. His cold glassy eyes staring into the dark heavens; his throat ripped out. Kit looked up at the figure standing over his mentor’s body.
“No” he said in a barely audible whisper.
Looking back at him was his normal self. Kit Coyote opened his mouth in a big grin exposing his fangs still dripping with Singer’s blood.
“Humans” Kit Coyote said turning to face Human Kit “are only good to be our prey”
Kit Coyote started moving towards him transforming into his full coyote form in mid step and leapt.
The coyote hit Human Kit square in the chest knocking him to the ground. Human Kit looked up to see the coyote’s bared fangs descending on his throat.
“NOOOOO!”

-
Shippo jerked awake. He had a vague impression of a dream with Kit screaming but he couldn’t remember the details. It was still dark outside, his bedside clock showed 4:00 AM. He rose and pulling on a kimono went to check on Kit. As he entered the hallway to the guest rooms he thought he saw a shadow moving at the end of the hall. As he moved down the hall the shadow resolved into Kit, dressed only in his usual sleep pants, standing outside Spirit Singer’s door. Shippo walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Kit jerked away from him.
“Don’t touch me!” he yelled. “Don’t you ever touch me!” Then Kit strode down the hall to this room, shutting and locking the door behind him.
Shippo knocked on his door. “Kit what is wrong?”
There was no answer. Shippo was about to go and get his master key when the door opened again. Kit stood in the doorway.
“Shippo” he said plainly
“Are you alright?” Shippo asked.
“I’m fine” Kit said distantly “I just…I just need some time ok?”
“Alright can you tell me what happened to you?”
“Not right now” Kit said “I’m still tired, in the morning.”
Kit shut the door again.
Shippo looked at the closed door for several minutes then with a sigh returned to his bed.
--
Author’s Notes: Nightmares, Shadows and Odd behavior, something is not right but what is it? Next chapter, The Voice from the Well.