Wickedly Dangerous (Baba Yaga, #1)(93)
“Welcome to the Otherworld,” Baba said, letting go of his hand so she could pull her sword out of its scabbard. The long silvery length of it glittered dangerously in the moons’ cold radiance, and Baba herself suddenly looked like something out of a fairy tale; both more beautiful and more deadly than she had ever seemed on the other side.
Perversely, Liam only found her more attractive—magic of its own kind, since he wouldn’t have said that was possible.
“Wow,” he said, for lack of a better word.
Baba sparked a rare grin, becoming just Barbara again. “Pretty, isn’t it? I imagine it takes a bit of getting used to, when you’ve never been here before. Sadly, we don’t have time to let you adjust slowly. We need to find Maya before she does any more damage.”
Liam glanced around at the empty field and the trees that lay beyond it. There was no sign that anyone had ever walked here before them, not so much as a bent blade of grass or a hint of a path. “How?” he asked.
Grin widening, Baba pulled a long golden strand out of the velvet pouch hanging at her waist. It dangled from her fingers like something a poor miller’s daughter had spun out of straw. “Remember this?”
He peered at it, more confused than ever. “That’s the hair you took from Maya’s car, right?”
“This,” Baba stated triumphantly, “is one of Maya’s hairs.” She laid it out carefully on the flat of her sword, where it adhered like, well, magic. “Since it is a part of her, it will be drawn back to where it came from—and lead us straight to Maya, no matter where she’s hiding.”
Alexei guffawed, although Liam still didn’t understand, until Baba slowly swiveled in a semicircle, the sword held out straight in front of her like the divining rod Liam had once watched a gnarled old man use to locate a hidden spring. As it came even with a line of trees on either side of a shadowy lane, the strand of hair began to glow, dimming as the tip of the sword moved past, then brightening as she swung it back again.
“Handy,” Liam exclaimed, as they started off down a gentle slope toward the trees. “They never taught us that one in the police academy.”
A shrill cry broke through the quiet scene, and half a dozen centaurs charged out of the forest’s edge, razor-edged silver swords slicing the air before them. At their backs, a motley array of sharp-toothed, long-clawed nasties ran or crawled or flew toward the new arrivals. None of them looked friendly, and all of them looked quite capable of inflicting serious damage.
Liam swallowed hard and reached for his gun, trying to figure out the best place to aim on a part man, part horse. “Since I don’t have a sword, I hope my gun still works here.”
Baba nodded, her eyes focused on the enemy ahead. “In some ways, it will work better here than it does at home, since most Otherworld creatures can’t tolerate lead any more than they can cold iron.”
He blew out a breath, marginally relieved to know he still had a functioning weapon. He hadn’t been sure how the strange rules here might have affected something so strongly human in origin.
“Of course,” she added in a matter-of-fact tone, “most of the beings here have never been to your land, so they don’t even know what a gun is. They undoubtedly won’t be afraid of it until you actually shoot one of them.”
“Oh,” Liam said. “In that case, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” But that didn’t keep him from taking the weapon out and holding it in a firm grip. It might not scare the locals, but it sure as hell made him feel better.
Gregori nodded grimly at Baba, a wickedly bright silver scimitar in his hands. “You two go on and find the boy. We’ll take care of this lot.” He and the other two Riders started down the hill toward the oncoming horde, Alexei’s eyes bright with berserker glee.
Liam looked at Baba uncertainly. “Shouldn’t we help them? Three against dozens . . . it hardly seems fair.” Bloodcurdling cries rang out as the wave of creatures surged up around their three companions.
Baba just smiled her secretive little smile, as if she knew something he—and the enemy—didn’t. “It really isn’t fair. Even on a bad day, the Riders could wipe the floor with that bunch without even breaking a sweat. Besides, I think you mean four against dozens.” She pointed up at the sky, where a brilliant red dragon was swooping down from the shadow of the largest moon, causing a ruby-hued eclipse.
“What the hell is that?” Liam asked, as they pelted down the hillside past the gory battle being waged on their behalf. Fur and blood flew through the air, green and blue and crimson.
Baba’s eyes twinkled. “That,” she said, “is Koshei. Glorious, isn’t he?”
And then they just ran, following the glowing light on the edge of Baba’s sword, onward toward a small boy who was depending on them to find him and bring him home.
TWENTY-NINE
THE SHINING HAIR on the silver sword led them through treelined paths of emerald green and past barren shores where crusted eddies of salt were the only evidence of long-vanished seas. Even the weird and uncanny areas had their own eerie beauty, with the exception of some spots where the fabric of the land seemed warped and distorted, crumpled in on itself in sickly shades of olive gray and mottled brown mixed with a twisted licorice black.
As they sidled past a section where rocks had melted into hissing puddles of molten lava that ate away at everything in its path, Liam asked Baba, “Is this normal? I mean, as much as you can use a word like that in a land like this?”