Wickedly Ever After: A Baba Yaga Novella(11)

Barbara shrugged, turning around to hand an apple back to Babs, who was strapped into a car seat that Barbara swore was unnecessary (since the Airstream would never let anything happen to them) and which Liam insisted upon anyway.

“Not exactly,” she said. “But I told it we were in a hurry, so I’m not surprised.” One corner of her mouth turned up as she watched Liam watch the steering wheel steer itself. “You should have seen it when it was a hut on chicken legs. Sometimes when I was a kid I’d go to sleep in Russia and wake up in Poland.” She thought about that statement for a moment. “Of course, the border moved around a lot, so occasionally that was politics, not magic.”

“Gah,” Liam said succinctly.

“I know, I hate politics too,” Barbara agreed.

“This is the strangest family vacation ever,” Liam said.

Barbara handed him an apple and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.

“Maybe,” she said. “I wouldn’t know, since it is the first one I’ve ever taken, our honeymoon aside. But I’m kind of enjoying it so far.”

“Me too,” Babs said from the backseat, crunching contently.

Liam just looked at them both and shook his head. “It’s no Disneyland,” he said. “But the company is good.”

***

They met up with Liam’s friend Phil in the employee parking lot at Phoenix Technologies, sliding the Airstream in next to a slightly battered Toyota Corolla with a sticker on the back window that read BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY. THERE’S NO INTELLIGENT LIFE DOWN HERE.

At a little after nine at night, the rest of the lot was largely deserted, with only a few other vehicles scattered here and there belonging to dedicated folks working long shifts. As they pulled up, a lanky form straightened up from where it had been leaning on the smaller car. In the truck’s headlights, Barbara could see a man with short brown hair above square black glasses, dressed in tan pants, a white shirt, and a navy blue windbreaker. An ID card hung on a lanyard around his neck. A huge smile lit up his plain but pleasant face.

Liam hopped out of the passenger side and they clasped hands, then banged each other on the back with that half-hug thing Barbara had seen men do before. She helped a sleepy Babs out of her car seat in the rear and walked around to join the others. Chudo-Yudo was inside the Airstream itself, since there was no way he would leave their first prize unguarded when they went inside.

Liam introduced Barbara and Babs to his old friend. “Barbara, this is my old roommate from college, Phil. Phil, my wife, Barbara, and our little girl, Babs.”

Phil gazed at Barbara with unabashed admiration, taking in her black leather jacket, black scoop-necked tee, short pleated leather skirt, and tall black boots.

“You told me she was gorgeous,” he said to Liam. “But you didn’t say you married Xena, Warrior Princess. Holy crap. Kind of makes me wish I’d been able to make it to the wedding. That must have been something to see.”

“I mentioned the socially awkward part, right?” Liam said to Barbara with a grin that was part apology and part pride.

Barbara shook her head. Half the time she had no idea what the heck most Humans were talking about. “I’m not a princess,” she said to Phil. “To be honest, most of them are pretty useless anyway.”

“You never saw the show?” Phil asked. “Xena: Warrior Princess; she was so cool, wore lots of leather, carried a sword, and kicked a lot of”—he looked down at Babs—“tushy.”

“Barbara doesn’t watch television,” Liam explained.

Phil’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “What, never?” he said in the kind of tone most people reserve for when someone admits they beat puppies.

“I am not a princess either,” Babs said in her clear, piping voice. “But I have a sword, so maybe I am a warrior?”

Phil smiled at her, his grin adding unexpected charm to his otherwise unremarkable features. “I’m sure you are. But yours is a toy sword, right? Xena’s had a very sharp edge.”

Babs gazed up at him in the dim light. “It is a real sword. Why would I use a toy sword? That is just silly.”

He blinked, looking at Liam and shaking his head. “Jeez, and my wife, Tina, wouldn’t let me get our son a squirt gun because she said it encouraged violence. You guys must use some interesting parenting techniques.”

“You have no idea,” Liam said dryly. “You have no idea.”

***

Phil led them to a small door set at the back of the building. A complicated lock blinked from red to green when he swiped his badge through it and they followed him into the cool, air-conditioned building’s interior. The long hallways were quiet and seemingly abandoned, although periodically they passed a door that gleamed diffuse light through its glass panels, or heard reverberating voices in the distance.

Eventually they reached Phil’s lab, where he swiped the badge again and waved them inside. “Welcome to my lair,” he said in a mock-spooky voice. It would probably have been more impressive if he hadn’t looked so cheerful.

The room itself was large and sterile-looking, with white walls lined with stainless steel countertops and small glass terrarium-type cages. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead and some of the counters held tools and machinery Barbara couldn’t even begin to guess the purpose of. The air smelled odd, almost too clean, with an underlying hint of chemicals and a tang that reminded her of ponds and stagnant water.