Wickedly Magical (3 page)

His voice cracked, and he had to stop to blow his nose. When he gazed across at her, Barbara asked the question that seemed most obvious.

“So this man, how was he able to persuade all these people? Bribery?”

Ivan shrugged. “I figured he was one of those really charismatic figures you hear about, like the ones who end up leading cults full of people who think they’re gods or something. But my babushka swore he was using some kind of magic.” He glanced around the inside of the Airstream, then looked at Chudo-Yudo. “I thought she was crazy, to be honest, but now, I don’t know . . .”

“Hmmm,” Barbara said. “But then why didn’t he convince you to just drop the case and leave your wife and children with him? Surely that would have been simpler than casting a spell on an entire courtroom full of people, or whatever it is your grandmother thinks he did.”

“Oh, he tried,” Ivan said, curling his lip in disgust. “He told me that I didn’t want them anymore, and to go home and forget about them. As if simply saying it would make it true. Asshole.” He suddenly remembered who he was talking to. “Sorry. I mean, jerk.”

Barbara laughed. “Don’t worry about it. It sounds like he was an asshole, all right.” She gave him a thoughtful glance from under long dark lashes. “So, how did he react when you didn’t do what he said?”

Ivan said flatly, “He was shocked. It was as if he actually expected me to give up my children, just because he told me to.”

“Isn’t that interesting?” Chudo-Yudo said, to no one in particular.

“Yes, it is,” Barbara replied. “It certainly is.”

***

Barbara tapped her fingers against her leg as she thought. There was definitely something odd going on here. But one piece didn’t fit.

“So, this Jonathan could convince a whole room full of people, including your own lawyer, but you were somehow immune to his charm?”

Ivan shrugged. “I don’t know why, but yeah. Of course, I
knew
I was telling the truth, and there was no way I was going to walk away from my own children.”

She had a feeling there was more to it than that.

“I’m going to test a theory,” she said, a grin twitching into place and then vanishing again like a mirage. “Don’t worry—this won’t hurt a bit.”

Chudo-Yudo sat up alertly as she swirled her index finger through a couple of arcane symbols and muttered a spell under her breath. A green light shot out of the tip of her finger and hovered around Ivan’s chest before dissipating into a mossy-looking mist and slowly sinking into the carpet.

“Hey!” Ivan said, holding up both hands in front of him defensively. “What the hell was that?” His mug, on the floor again, made a funny croaking noise and wiggled in place.

Barbara snorted down her long nose. Humans—they always overreacted to a little harmless magic.

“Don’t be such a sissy,” she said. “I was just going to turn you into a frog for a minute. I would have turned you right back.”

Her guest turned pale. “A frog? You can do that?
Why
would you do that?”

“It was an experiment,” she said calmly. “And it proved my point.”

“It did? What point?” Ivan patted himself a few times, as if to make sure he still had all the limbs he’d started out with. “Jeez.”

“Magic doesn’t work against you,” Barbara said, trying to be patient as she explained the obvious. “I wonder why that is.”

“Oh.” Ivan stilled. “It might have something to do with this.” He pulled a small waterproof pouch out of his shirt, where it hung from a thin leather thong. “My babushka gave me this years ago, when I left home. She made me promise to wear it all the time. Grace used to tease me about it, but it always felt like a little bit of my grandmother’s love was always with me. It was comforting, you know? Besides, you should always do what your babushka says.”

“Indeed you should,” Barbara said thoughtfully. “I suspect that charm is all that saved you. Without it, you might have found yourself back home, with no wife, no children, and no idea that you even minded giving them up.”

Against her own inclinations, she discovered that she was beginning to care about this seeker and his problem. If nothing else, any man who would steal another’s children was despicable, and should be punished. (Despite their gruesome reputations, Baba Yagas protected children, not ate them.) But if this Jonathan character was using some kind of magic to bend the minds and wills of others . . . well, that was an entirely different kettle of fish. One that stank to high heaven. And definitely came under the heading of “something a Baba Yaga should look into.” Besides, there was that token. A promise made by one Baba was binding on them all.

“Very well,” she said, feeling fate’s steely grip settle like a mantle around her shoulders. “I grant your request.”

Ivan’s expression was a combination of shock, gratitude, and a little alarm. “You do? I mean, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me until it’s all over,” Barbara said grimly. “Something tells me this isn’t going to end well for everyone involved. Someone may get turned into a frog yet.” And that was the
good
news.

***

After Ivan left, Barbara dug her laptop out from the back of the kitchen cabinet where it lived, finally finding it hiding behind Chudo-Yudo’s extra water bowl, a pile of ancient cookbooks, and a forgotten jar of raspberry jam. At least she hoped it was raspberry jam.

As much as she disliked technology (she still refused to get one of those silly cell phone things), the lure of easy access to knowledge had been too hard to resist, hence the computer. But she used it so rarely, it didn’t make any sense to keep it out in the open.

Still, it came in handy on occasion. Like when she needed to see what she could find out about one Jonathan Bellingwood.

An hour later, she had some interesting facts and a few more questions that even access to the magic of the Internet didn’t seem able to answer.

“Hmm,” she said. “‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ to quote Alice.”

Chudo-Yudo looked up from gnawing on the remains of his bone. There wasn’t much left. “What?”

“It’s a quote from
Alice in Wonderland
,” Barbara said.

“I
know
that,” the dragon said grumpily. “I’ve read my Lewis Carroll. I meant, what is so curious?”

Barbara pushed the laptop away and rubbed her eyes. “Well, there is plenty of information on Jonathan Bellingwood. Some articles in the local paper about his ‘spiritual retreat’ as he calls it, some advertisements for talks he’s given, and a couple of the usual unhappy letters to the editor about cults invading the neighborhood. All of which, interestingly, appear to then be retracted by the writer in the following edition.”

She wandered over to the coffeemaker and asked it nicely for a cup of French roast. She got something she was pretty sure was Ethiopian, but at least it wasn’t orange juice. Or a vodka martini. Like everything else in the Airstream, the coffeemaker had a mind of its own.

“So what’s so curious about that?” Chudo-Yudo asked.

“Two things,” she replied, savoring a sip of coffee that only smelled faintly of blue roses, a necessity in a Baba Yaga’s diet. Her sister Baba, Beka, who lived in California, put them in her sushi rolls. Ugh. Raw fish. Barbara thought it was much easier to let the coffeemaker deal with them.

“The first is that Ivan seems to be the only person to have actually had an issue with the man and stuck with it. I found a few reports of parents complaining that their daughters had disappeared into this commune and not come home, but no one else ever seems to have pursued the issue. Unless we’re assuming that all these girls eventually returned, which is unlikely, I’m guessing that our mysterious friend was able to persuade everyone else to do what he wanted.”

“And the second thing?”

“I can’t find any references to Jonathan Bellingwood before about two years ago. There is one article from when he first arrived in DeKalb in which he mentions coming from the Monterey Bay area, but when I looked for information about him there, I came up empty.” She slammed shut the lid of the laptop in frustration and shoved it back under the counter. “Bah.”

“Well, that leaves two options,” Chudo-Yudo said reasonably. He was way too accustomed to her occasional bouts of crankiness to be impressed by them. Besides, any fits of pique not accompanied by gouts of flame were pretty minor in his book. Her other sister, Bella, whose elemental affinity was fire, now
she
had some impressive shows of temper.

“Oh?” Barbara was annoyed enough, she was even willing to take input from a dog. She hated it when she hit a wall. Unless she actually got to
hit a wall
in the process. That she kind of enjoyed. “And what would those be, pray tell?”

The dragon-dog held up one black-clawed toe. “One: he was lying about coming from California.”

“Or?”

A second claw joined the first. “Or two: he was there, but either keeping a lower profile, or using a different name. Luckily, we know someone who lives out there who might be able to do some poking around in person.”

Barbara suddenly cheered up, both at the possibility of solving the mystery, and at having an excuse to talk to one of her favorite people.

“Good point, your furriness!” she said, and went to fetch her scrying mirror.

***

Barbara might not have had a cell phone, but luckily, she didn’t need one to talk to one of her fellow Babas. In this case, she was going to try and contact Beka, the youngest of the three Baba Yagas who lived in the United States. While all Babas traveled around quite a bit while taking care of their various duties, they tended to have a one particular place they called home. Luckily for Barbara, Beka liked to park her converted school bus (also once a hut on chicken legs, of course) on a small lot overlooking Monterey Bay.

With the curtains closed against the oncoming night, Barbara placed her scrying mirror—smooth black glass backed by silver that was etched with arcane symbols and ancient runes for communication—carefully on the table in front of the couch. With Chudo-Yudo sitting quietly next to her, she turned off the light and lit a fat yellow candle with a snap of her fingers.

The flickering glow of the burning wick danced across the dark surface of the glass like the shadows from a bonfire, and Barbara remembered the last time all three witches had been gathered together, sitting around a fire and sipping Chablis from carved wooden goblets. She focused on that evening, and the rare feeling of companionship they’d enjoyed.

With a whispered spell, she sent that connection out into the ether, along with a mental call to Beka. Then she waited, relaxing into the light trance state necessary for Baba-to-Baba communications across time and space; legs crossed and hands resting lightly on her knees, she settled in to wait for as long as it took. Beka would probably sense the summons right away, but there was no way of knowing how long it would take her to find the quiet and solitude she would need to be able to answer.

Some time later—an hour or three—a deep ringing sound arose from the mirror, much like the tone one heard from the metal rim of a singing bowl. Barbara opened her eyes and stared into the dark center of the scrying mirror. A dim glow slowly brightened to show the face of a lovely young woman, as blond and tanned as any California surfer girl. Which this particular Baba Yaga was, when not out chasing monsters or preventing ecological disasters.

“Beka!” Barbara said, a rare smile lightening her usually severe face. “How is the world’s most ridiculously cheerful and perky Baba?” Barbara herself only had a rare acquaintance with cheerful, and if she met perky in a dark alley, she’d probably stab it if no one was looking. But she was quite fond of Beka despite her very un-Baba-like sunny disposition.

“Hi Barbara!” Beka said, her voice echoing slightly as it traveled through from her mirror to Barbara’s. “I’m sorry it took me so long to respond to your call, but I was in the middle of an epic wave, and I hated to leave it. I figured that if it was something urgent, you’d yell louder.” A crooked grin made her look even more adorable, if that was possible. But Barbara saw dark shadows under Beka’s eyes that belied her light tone.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Barbara said. “I would have. Are you okay, Beka?” Beka’s mentor hadn’t been as emotionally distant as Barbara’s had, but there had been other issues there that Barbara suspected had left their mark. “I know Brenna has only been retired for a couple of years. Have you been running into anything you need help with?”

The glow in the mirror dimmed briefly as Beka looked away, and her smile wasn’t as bright as it had been when she focused her attention back again. “No,” she said. “I’m fine. Why, don’t you think I can handle the job?”

Barbara blinked in surprise. “Don’t be silly. Of course I think you can handle it. Hell, you had a longer training period than any Baba Yaga in history.”

If anything, Beka looked grimmer. “I know.” She let out a sigh, then shrugged off whatever was bothering her and gave Barbara her usual cheerful grin. “Since you called me, I assume there’s something
you
need help with. Maybe an ogre you can’t handle with one arm tied behind your back? Or perhaps a handsome prince that’s bothering you, who you’d like me to take off your hands?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh, hah,” Barbara said. She tried to remember the last time a handsome man—prince or otherwise—had showed up. Other than Koshei, of course. But he was a dragon, so she wasn’t sure that counted. Still, what the heck would she do with a Human guy? Even if she met one she found attractive, he’d probably run screaming as soon as he found out who and what she really was. There was a reason Baba Yagas didn’t date. Numerous reasons, actually.

“I am calling about a guy,” she said. “But he’s no prince. I have a situation here involving a so-called guru who might or might not be using magic to influence people. I tracked him back to his arrival in this area a couple of years ago, but then the trail went cold. There was a suggestion that he might have been somewhere around Monterey Bay before he got here, so I thought I’d ask you to check around.”

Beka looked intrigued. “Huh. How did you get involved? The traditional worthy seeker?”