Wickedly Dangerous (Baba Yaga, #1)(68)
“Hmmm. Maybe we can use that,” Liam said. He held the list up to the light. “There are two kids out of the remaining seven who stand out as unusually cherished. Davy is the only child of an older couple who tried for years to have kids, and finally succeeded after sinking every penny they had into in vitro fertilization. The other one is the only survivor of a car accident that killed her brother and twin sister; if her parents lost Kimberly, I think it would destroy them.”
Baba tapped her fingers on her thigh. “Either one sounds like a perfect target for Maya. Of course, if we’re wrong, then we’re leaving the other five kids vulnerable for nothing.” The crystal stem of the wineglass in her other hand snapped in two. She dropped it on the ground before Liam noticed, sucking on a small cut until it closed. Damn it, she did not want Maya to get her grimy supernatural paws on one more child.
“Well, I could have deputies patrol near all the kids’ houses, but there’s no good way for me to explain why I think those children are at particular risk without admitting we burgled Callahan’s office.” Liam grimaced. “And if I did that, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be giving orders to anyone.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” Baba agreed. “So we have the Riders keep an eye on the five we think are less likely to be her next victims, the best they can anyway, and you and I each watch one of the two kids we think she’s most likely to grab next. She’ll probably make a move soon; I’m guessing her attempt to get me locked up was because she’s worried that I’ll discover the location of her secret doorway. She must be feeling the pressure even more now that we’ve thwarted her again.” She straightened. “Which kid do you want me to take?”
There was a palpable lack of response from Liam’s direction, and when she looked over at him, his eyes slid away from hers.
“What?” she demanded. Then the other shoe dropped.
She stood up, one booted foot crunching pitilessly on what had been priceless crystal. “I get it,” she said. “After all this, you still don’t trust me enough to have me watch one of the children. In fact, you don’t trust me at all, do you?”
The drowsy coals flashed into sudden wakefulness, flames shooting upward as if to meet the stars halfway. Baba’s heart roared with matching fury and pain, its intensity catching her by surprise. One rare tear fell onto the fire and evaporated, like a stillborn dream of happiness.
“Barbara—” Liam stood up too, his face a conflicted arena of guilt and some emotion too intangible to name. “Baba. It’s not that I don’t trust you, exactly. It’s just—”
“I know,” she said, bitterness seeping out of her like poison gas into the clean night air. “I’m odd, mysterious, and infuriating. And you can’t put the lives of those you are sworn to protect into the hands of someone like that.”
TWENTY
LIAM FELT LIKE the world’s biggest heel as he watched Baba wipe her face of all emotion, returning it to its usual cool, unreadable mask. They’d been having such a pleasant time, despite the grim subject, and he had to go and stick his foot in it and hurt her feelings. Until that very moment, he hadn’t even been certain she had any to hurt. He should have known better.
The problem was—he really didn’t trust her. Yes, he believed that she was trying to help the children. But her methods were . . . unpredictable at best. And they clearly had some very different ideas on what constituted acceptable ways of arriving at a solution to the problem.
Still, none of that was the real issue.
“It’s not that I don’t trust your intentions,” he said, standing there helplessly, trying to figure out how to explain himself without making the situation worse. “It’s that I don’t understand you. I don’t know who you are—what you are—how you can do the things you do.”
He pointed at the shattered crystal goblet, its brilliant shards currently reflecting prisms of red light while poking out from under Baba’s black leather boots. “For instance, you can actually fix that, can’t you? With your, um, magic, I mean.” Hell, he could hardly bring himself to say the word; how was he supposed to work with someone who actually used it?
Baba shrugged, shooting him a cool glance from underneath inky lashes. “Sure. If I wanted to expend the energy it would take to collect all those little pieces and meld them back together again. But I’m a practical kind of witch. I’m much more likely to just go inside and get another damned glass.” She turned her back on him and stalked inside, heels clomping on the metal steps with teeth-rattling force.
Chudo-Yudo sighed. “Now you’ve done it. Benighted Human idiot. I have to live with the woman, you know.” He picked up the half-empty wine bottle gingerly between large, sharp teeth and followed her into the trailer.
Liam debated his options for about a half second: turn tail and go home, or try to explain what he meant and fix the damage he’d done. Then he picked up the rest of his beer and walked into the Airstream, hoping he wasn’t going to get struck by lightning or turned into something slimy and unpleasant. Either way, he felt a lot more comfortable having this conversation with Baba in the bright lights of the Airstream’s interior than having it outside in the darkness.
“You still here?” Baba asked without looking around as he closed the door behind him. She pulled a plain, slightly tarnished copper tankard out of a cupboard, clearly not in the mood to risk a more delicate piece. “I thought we were done.”