Wickedly Powerful

by Deborah Blake

  “What are you going to do to stop her?” Alexei asked. “She is a Baba Yaga.”

  Brenna looked at him as though he were even stupider than she’d thought. “Why, I’m going to kill her of course. The silly thing has left me no choice. If she won’t keep her nose out of my business, Bella will have to die.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  BELLA WAS LONG gone, the exhaust from her dirt bike merely a memory on the wind, before Sam finally let go of the railing and stopped gazing at where she had been. He shook himself, as if waking from a dream, and forced his legs to take him inside.

  Once there, he stared into the mirror he normally avoided except when he shaved, trying to see the man that Bella had seen the night before. She hadn’t cared about his scars, hadn’t even seemed to see them. Maybe she was right and what was on the surface didn’t matter. But that meant he had to face the truth: that what lay underneath was far uglier.

  He couldn’t believe how badly he’d behaved. He would have liked to have blamed it on guilt and confusion, but the truth was that once Bella was in his arms, she’d felt so right, he hadn’t felt guilty at all. And yes, her conjuring that ball of fire out of nowhere had startled and alarmed him, but he knew in his heart that she wouldn’t have hurt him. There was no excuse for what he’d said to her. No excuse at all.

  As he made himself a cup of coffee and prepared to go into service, Sam ran their argument over and over in his head. Had he overreacted when she’d admitted that Jazz wasn’t her niece? Probably, although he wasn’t sure if he was as out of line as Bella had thought.

  He remembered vividly the time when he and the other Hotshots had fought a dreadful blaze that consumed over a hundred acres, burning a swath of prairie and over a dozen homes, and killing three people caught in its path. Two of the Hotshots team had been injured that time, one of them trapped under a tree that fell unexpectedly and the other suffering from exhaustion and smoke inhalation. Sam would never forget the look on the face of the teenage boy who finally confessed to starting the fire—no remorse, no apology for those lost or injured, only an almost sexual gratification as he’d talked about watching it all burn.

  So Sam thought he might be excused for thinking, just for a moment, that it might be suspicious for a teenager to be wandering around in the forest when there were multiple unexplained fires. Of course, as soon as he’d said it, he realized that he knew Jazz better than that. Hell, he knew Bella better than to doubt her ability to judge someone truly.

  The truth was, he’d been taken aback by the fact that she’d lied to him. Or maybe, just let him believe the lies others had passed along to him, which she’d never corrected. Possibly because she was afraid he’d react in exactly the way he had, automatically assuming that if Jazz was a runaway, she should be returned to wherever she came from, regardless of the circumstances.

  Even Sam wasn’t naïve enough to believe that, although in general he did believe in following the rule of law. At the very least, he figured he should let Jazz tell him her version of the story before jumping to conclusions or taking any action. That was, of course, if Bella would let him anywhere near her not-niece, after the horrible things he’d said.

  He picked up the binoculars, already planning his apology speech for when he went out of service (and trying to remember where he’d seen wildflowers growing, in case he needed more than mere words). But the sight of a gray smudge rising toward the sky knocked any other thoughts out of his head.

  Thumbing on the two-way radio automatically, Sam continued to scan the area as he said, “Dispatch, this is Sam. I’ve got a smoke in the northwest quadrant, over by Hansen’s Mill. It looks bad. Copy?”

  There was a click as the dispatcher picked up. “Copy. How bad is bad, Sam? Do I need to call in folks from outside the county, do you think?”

  Sam looked through the glasses again, although the column of smoke was thick enough now that he could see it without them. “Roger that, dispatch. It’s about doubled in size since I noticed it a few moments ago, and that’s not a good sign.”

  A few choice curse words traveled through the ether before Willy clicked off his radio. Looking out at the smoke in the distance, Sam added a few of his own. Out of habit, he checked the clearing where the caravan sat, although it wasn’t anywhere near the area where the current fire was located. There was no sign of either Bella or Jazz, or, for that matter, her gigantic cat, who Sam was still pretty sure wasn’t really a dragon, no matter what she’d said.

  He hoped that she’d stay safe, although he was starting to get the feeling that safe and Bella were two words rarely found in association with each other. Sam wasn’t sure if he was more afraid for her or of her, but either way, he owed her an apology, and he planned to give it to her.

  As soon as the current fire was out and it was safe for him to leave the tower, however soon that was.

  * * *

  AS BELLA RODE her Enduro through the woods, she passed a few truckloads of firefighters, geared up and obviously heading for a fire. Worried, she glanced over her shoulder toward the caravan, but they were clearly headed in a different direction, and she figured Jazz and Koshka were safe for now. Worse came to worst, the caravan was completely capable of moving itself—and them—out of danger, should it become necessary, although it might be a little hard to explain if anyone saw it happen.

  She hesitated, torn between going after the firefighters and helping out there, and following the gut instinct that told her she would find the person setting the fires if she could locate the notch between the two mountains where Sam said the storm last night had originated. In the end, she kept moving down the trail, figuring it was better to stop all the future fires than to assist with just one. Especially since there wasn’t much she could do with the woods filled with Humans and their equipment.

  But she still felt guilty, heading away from a fire instead of toward it, and that emotion gave her a little glimpse into what Sam must feel every time he stayed in the tower instead of going out to fight a fire. Bella’s fingers clenched on the handlebars as she flashed back to their fight. She wished she could just check in on him and make sure he was okay; even if he never wanted to see her again, she still couldn’t keep herself from thinking about him and worrying about how this latest fire was making him feel.

  Focus on the job, Bella, she reminded herself, hearing the voice of her mentor in her head. She steered the bike around a broken branch that was lying over half the narrow roadway and turned off onto a smaller spur—more a path than a road—that seemed to lead in the direction she wanted to go.

  Finally, she slowed the bike, stopping it altogether when she felt the first ripples sliding over her skin like cobwebs in a dark basement. Magic. She could smell it in the air, sense it in the tingling at the tips of her fingers and in the small hairs on the back of her neck. She’d been right; someone nearby was using magic.

  Of course, it could be some local Wiccan type, sending out an innocuous spell for prosperity or love, but somehow, Bella didn’t think so. Whatever she was feeling had too much power behind it for that.

  Leaving the Enduro tucked away behind some overgrown berry bushes, Bella crept down the path until the sensation of enchantment on her skin grew even stronger, like tiny waves as they brushed against the shoreline. Peering out from behind a wide and sturdy tree, Bella spotted someone leaving what looked like a crack at the base of the hill. For a moment, she almost didn’t believe her eyes, but it was impossible to mistake that frizzy gray hair or the funky long batik skirt, as colorful as always in reds and oranges and yellows, which made it stand out even more in the midst of all the greens and browns of the forest.

  It was Brenna. Now Bella just had to figure out what to do with her.

  * * *

  BELLA WISHED THAT Koshka was with her; she’d feel a lot better about bearding the lion in her den with an actual dragon by her side. But of course, one or the other of t
hem had to be at the caravan. It wasn’t as though she could leave an inexperienced teenager guarding the Water of Life and Death. So that option was out.

  She seriously considered the option of calling in one or both of her Baba Yaga sisters, either of whom would be happy to get their hands on Brenna, especially after what she had tried to do to Beka. But the Queen had made it clear that she expected Bella to handle this situation on her own, and it wasn’t a good idea to disappoint the Queen. For a moment, Bella even debated going to the Otherworld to report in to Her Majesty, but in truth, she didn’t have anything concrete to report.

  Yes, she’d found Brenna in the forest. That was certainly suspicious under the current circumstances. But so far there was no proof that she’d had anything to do with the fires, other than Bella’s suspicions, and there had been no sign of the Riders, or anything to implicate her in their disappearance. With Bella’s luck, she would drag the former Baba Yaga before the Queen, only to discover that she’d decided to move to the Human lands and take up rug hooking and making moonshine.

  No, there was no other choice. Bella was going to have to get a closer look at whatever was in the cave Brenna had just left. Luckily, the older witch had been carrying a basket over one arm, so hopefully she was going out to gather herbs and such and would be gone for some time. All Bella had to do was pop her head inside, see if there was anything that could link Brenna to the fires, and then, once she had evidence to back up her theory, she could call in reinforcements.

  Bella crept down the slight incline toward what looked like a shadow, but which she was pretty sure was actually a hole leading into the mountain. She held on to slim saplings as she worked her way toward the entrance, a pungent green odor drifting up from the plants she crushed as she created a new path through the undergrowth. A lone bird let out an alarmed squawk, then winged away as she stopped for a moment at the edge of the woods.

  Nothing moved.

  There was no sign of Brenna, or anything else larger than the squirrel that stood on its hind legs and gazed at her indignantly before racing up a tree with some treasure held clenched in one bulging cheek.

  Goose bumps crept up Bella’s arms, but she told herself that she was just being oversensitive. After all, even if Brenna returned before Bella was done checking the place out, a retired Baba Yaga was no match for a young, active one. Not that it didn’t make sense to be cautious, with Brenna’s history. After all, it didn’t take magic to try and kill someone, and she’d already proven she was capable of that. Bella shook the feeling off and bent over to push away a few straggling wild roses that guarded the entrance to the cave, wincing as a thorn caught the back of her hand and lifting the injured flesh up to lick off the tiny beads of blood that welled up in the thorn’s wake.

  But once she’d inched her way inside, one cautious, sliding step after another, she dropped her hand, the minor wound forgotten in the shock of the scene that greeted her.

  The first thing that struck her was the smell. It was beyond rank, some indescribable mixture of raw sewage and the coppery tang of blood and the acrid stink of a chemistry experiment gone wrong, all overlaid with the stench of sweat and desperation. It hit her like a wall, making her stop in her tracks and cover her nose, taking shallow breaths through her mouth instead.

  But that was almost worse, since now she could taste it, the fear and the excitement and the magic in the very molecules of the air.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, what she saw almost made sense of the odor, if only her brain could take it all in. Her mind kept trying to transform what lay before her into something else, something less horrible, less impossible.

  All three Riders were there, in a cavern whose walls seemed to waver and creep instead of standing still, wreathed in a fog of magic and smoke from a pile of sticks that smoldered under a cast-iron cauldron. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling near the edges of the space like teeth of some great monster, and the damp floor was covered with muddy dust and fluids better not examined more closely.

  One part of Bella’s attention noticed a worktable bearing the huge cauldron that steamed forebodingly amid a clutter of arcane tools and glass jars filled with oddly colored liquids, but mostly her vision was taken up with the Riders.

  Oh, her poor, poor Riders.

  She nearly wept to see them, so battered and bruised she barely recognized them, she who had grown up with them since she was a small child. They were encased in cages of some malignant enchantment; that much was clear at first glance. Nothing else could have held them long enough for Brenna—and it must have been Brenna—to have caused the kind of damage that met Bella’s eyes.

  All three Riders were appallingly gaunt and had obviously been tortured. They were filthy, their clothing reduced to rags, Mikhail Day’s usually pristine white leathers a muddy tan, where they still existed at all. The Riders themselves were covered with cuts and bruises in various bilious shades of purple and green and yellow. Alexei’s large hands were blistered and red, Gregori had one eye swollen completely shut and numerous open wounds that still oozed blood, and Mikhail . . . Mikhail barely lifted his head to acknowledge her appearance, gazing upon her with an expression of unmitigated grief and horror and despair.

  Tears sprang into Bella’s eyes, and one hand went involuntarily to her heart. “Oh no,” she said brokenly. “How could she do this to you? How could anyone do this to someone else?”

  She walked quickly to the nearest cage, where Alexei crouched like a captive bear, shoulders hunched and his injured hands held uselessly out in front of his body. “Just let me take a look at the magic she is using to hold you here,” she said, stomach roiling from the sight of her friends in such distress. “I’ll have you out of there in a minute, I swear. Just hold on.”

  “No, Baba,” Alexei rasped, his usually powerful voice reduced to a whisper, as if days of screaming had worn it away. “You must leave. You must leave now. It is a trap.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “WHAT?” BELLA SAID. She swiveled around, but saw nothing. Maybe Alexei was paranoid and rambling. Who could blame him, after everything he’d been through? “Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay. I’ll get you out of here.” She gritted her teeth as she got a closer look at his hands. “The Queen is going to kill her for this.”

  “Never mind the Queen,” Alexei said. “You have to get out of here. Brenna sent out that ripple of magic on purpose, to lure you in. She knows you’re in the forest, that you’ve been stopping her spells from working. She intends to kill you.” He gazed at her beseechingly, a single tear dripping into the tangled remains of his braided beard. “Please, leave us, Baba Yaga. Go get help if you can, but you must leave now.”

  Bella scanned the enchantments laid on the bars of the cage, trying to figure out how to unravel them or tear them down. They were complicated and yet simple at the same time, like a series of ribbons wound in and around one another until you couldn’t see beginning or end. Under different circumstances, she would have admired the artistry of the magical work; as it was, she wanted to rip them apart with her bare hands.

  “I’m not leaving you here like this,” she insisted. “I’m not afraid of Brenna. I’d rather not confront her, but if I have to, I will. Don’t forget, I’m a Baba Yaga at the height of my powers. She’s an old woman who hasn’t had any of the Water of Life and Death in a long time. I can take her.”

  “You don’t understand, Bella,” Gregori said from his enclosure next to Alexei’s. He pointed at the cauldron she’d noticed on her way in. “Brenna has been working on some strange and evil potion, drawing on our pain and immortality, and on the distress she has inflicted on the trees and creatures of the forest with the fires she’s been setting.”

  Bella could feel the muscles in her jaw clench. “So, it really was her behind all these fires. I knew I sensed magic on the wind. But I don’t understand; what is the potion supposed to do?
Why on earth would she go to all this trouble, put you three through all of this unspeakable madness?”

  “Madness is the right word for it,” Gregori said, even his formidable calm seeming to be wearing thin around the edges. “She believes that the potion will give her back her power and her youth, much as the Water of Life and Death does, except this elixir is derived from pain and suffering instead of being created from the Queen’s faerie magic.”

  “That’s insane. Nothing can do that.” Bella tried spinning tiny tendrils of her own energy into the bindings of the cage in front of her, hoping to find a weak spot.

  “I’m not so sure, little one,” Alexei said, his tone grim. “The potion isn’t finished, thanks to your blessed interference, but I swear, she is stronger than she was. Stronger than you think. You must leave before she returns.”

  “She can’t be that powerful,” Bella insisted, still struggling with the magical lock, which seemed to have caught up her strands of energy the way a submerged log can snag a fisherman’s hook. The harder she tried to get it loose, the more stuck it became.

  “Sometimes it is better to be clever than to be powerful,” a triumphant voice said from the bottom of the slope leading into the cave. Brenna stepped forward, teeth bared in a mockery of a smile. “Although I like to think that these days, I am both.”

  Bella’s breath caught in her throat, but before she could move, Brenna pulled a shimmering globe out of the basket she carried over one crooked arm. The orb was filled with a sickly-looking yellowish glow that matched the one Bella could almost see hovering around the Riders’ cages, if she gazed out of the corners of her eyes.