Wickedly Dangerous (Baba Yaga, #1)(5)
“Not at the moment,” she said, kicking her boots off and strolling over to the half-sized refrigerator to mull her limited breakfast possibilities. “The sheriff seems harmless enough. But I think I may have found out what called us here. He told me they’ve had three children go missing.” She scowled at the scant inch of orange juice hiding behind the bottle labeled Water of Life and Death. “Remind me to get orange juice the next time I go into town, will you?”
She gave up on the fridge and grabbed a granola bar out of a cupboard overhead, munching on it as she fiddled with the coffee machine. Nothing in the Airstream ever worked exactly as expected, and she really wanted coffee, not hot chocolate, tea, or, gods forbid, liquid gold. That one had been hell to clean up.
“Orange juice. Right.” Chudo-Yudo pulled a huge bone out from under the couch, ignoring the fact that the space was taken up by a large drawer. The laws of physics didn’t work all that well in the Airstream either.
“So, do you think someone invoked you to find one of the children? Usually they’re blaming you for disappearances, not asking you to solve them.”
Baba snorted. “That was in days gone by, old friend. No one even remembers the Baba Yaga anymore; certainly no one who realizes it is a job title, not the name of a single person. If we were in Russia, maybe, but who here would know to call on me for a favor?”
She sniffed the coffee, which only smelled a little like the blue roses that made up its essence, and settled down with boneless grace onto the couch. She scratched Chudo-Yudo’s head absently, hearing her nails scritch on nonexistent scales. A puff of contented smoke escaped from his canine snout as he lay his massive head down on her bare feet.
“So how are you going to find out if you were called to this benighted backwater to search for missing children or for some other reason?” Chudo-Yudo asked, his words distorted by the bone hanging half in and half out of his mouth.
Baba snapped her fingers, and a local newspaper appeared out of the herb-scented air. “I expect someone will come tell me, alas.” She sighed. She was a lot more comfortable with dragons than she was with human beings, for all that she had been born one. Many, many years ago. Before she met the preceding Baba, who had rescued her from a barren Russian orphanage and set her on the path that had led her to a flower-filled meadow, an attractive sheriff in desperate need of a haircut, and a mystery with her name written all over it.
*
LIAM SLAPPED AT another whining mosquito and took off his hat to wipe his forehead with an already sodden handkerchief. He’d searched for over three hours along the river’s muddy banks, and the only things he’d found were empty beer bottles, a snapping turtle in a bad mood, and an old red ball that had clearly been there for years. He’d made a note of the ball anyway, just in case, but he finally had to admit that he wasn’t getting anywhere. It was time for him to head back into the office; those piles of paperwork weren’t going to fill themselves out. And Nina got snippy when he didn’t check in every couple of hours. As if he were likely to run into something more dangerous that an irate turtle out here.
Still, he made all his officers follow a regular check-in schedule, and as Nina liked to remind him, part of Liam’s job was to lead by example. Never mind that he had more than ten years’ experience on most of them. And that he hated having to conform to anyone’s rules, even his own.
As Liam came into the clearing where he’d parked, Barbara Yager opened her door and stepped out to raise a hand in greeting. Like the first time, her appearance seemed to cause his mind to stutter and spin, and his heart to beat out of sequence. Then she took a step forward, and the world fell back into place.
He coughed, trying to catch his breath. Too much time out in the hot July sun. Or low blood sugar, maybe. He’d skipped breakfast, as usual, in his eagerness to get to the search.
“Are you okay, Sheriff?” the dark-haired woman asked. She seemed more curious than concerned. “Would you like a glass of water?”
“That would be very nice, thank you,” Liam said with gratitude. Water, that’s what he needed. He’d forgotten to take any out with him. He followed her into the Airstream when she beckoned, and looked around with interest. It was compact and surprisingly luxurious; the furniture was covered with rich jewel-toned brocades, velvet, and what he thought was some kind of nubby raw silk. Not standard issue, even for a top-of-the-line model. It was a strange contrast with the black leather. The woman was a puzzle. Liam didn’t much like puzzles. He preferred things to be simple and straightforward. Like that ever happened.
“I’ve never been inside one of these before,” he said, accepting the crystal goblet she handed him and draining it in one long swallow. “It’s pretty impressive.”
“Thank you,” she said, refilling the glass. “All the comforts of home without the pesky land taxes.”
Liam pulled his sunglasses off and stared at her. “You live in it year-round? I thought you taught college in California. There was a Davis address on your driver’s license.” Lie number two, he thought.
Baba shrugged. “I teach on and off. More off than on, these days.”
Movement caught Liam’s eye, and he took an involuntary step backward as a huge white dog crawled out from underneath the dinette and spat an equally huge bone at his feet. Its black tongue lolled, as if it was laughing at him.