“Help!” a voice cried in the distance. “Help! Can anyone hear me?”
Alexei gazed mournfully at the bag in his hands and then tucked it under his arm as he took off down a hiking trail to the side of the pull-off. His huge strides ate up the distance as he jogged past trees and shrubs and one curious raccoon who looked more startled than alarmed as the huge man went thundering by.
“Hello?” Alexei called. “Hello? Where are you?”
“I’m right here, stupid,” the raccoon muttered, but Alexei just waved at him and kept going.
“Hello?” the voice said. “Is somebody there? Help me! I need help!”
Alexei screeched to a halt as he almost tripped over a massive tree lying lengthwise at the edge of a clearing, still partially attached to its base. An orange chain saw lay canted on its side near the roots and a flannel-clad arm flailed around in the air not far from it. The rest of the body the arm was attached to was out of view until Alexei stepped carefully over the tree and looked from the other side.
“Hey there,” he said cheerfully to the man lying underneath the main part of the tree, partially covered by the fronds of branches. “That looks mighty uncomfortable. Are you okay?”
The man glowered at him. “No I’m not okay, you idiot. A tree fell on me!”
Alexei stroked his brown beard, still kind of missing its longer, braided length. The man on the ground had a bushy beard even darker than his, and longish graying hair that touched the top of the plaid shirt he wore. For all the yelling, the man didn’t seem to be injured or bleeding, except for a couple of small scratches. From what Alexei could see, the branches were keeping most of the weight of the massive trunk from crushing the man, at least for the moment. He was, however, most definitively stuck. The tree was gigantic, and it was going to be nearly impossible to move it without harming the man even further.
“I can see that,” Alexei said, in his usual matter-of-fact tone. There was no point in getting upset about these things. “Are you hurt? Can you tell if anything is broken?”
The man shook his head. “I hurt all over, dammit. There’s a flipping tree lying on me. It’s hard to breath. Damn thing is pressing right on my chest. And I’ve been lyin’ here for hours and I’m starting to lose feeling in my legs. You’ve got to get me out!” A note of panic crept into his voice and he started thrashing around.
“Calm down, calm down,” Alexei said. Okay, maybe there was some point to getting upset. Or at least a little worried. “I’m a lot stronger than I look, and I look plenty strong. Hang in there. I’ll get this thing off of you.”
The man’s eyes widened until Alexei could see the whites all around the edges. “There’s no way any one guy could move a tree this big. It would take a damned fork lift, and they’ll never get one down this trail. I’m going to die here,” he moaned. “Oh man, I’m going to die under a damn tree.”
Alexei shook his head. “I’m not going to let you die. It’s against my rules. Do you want me to go for help?”
“Don’t leave me!” the man shrieked, his beard wobbling in the air. “I don’t want to die alone!”
Alexei sighed and put down his bag of food. “Fine, fine. Let’s just see how bad this is.” He walked over the a place higher up on the tree where he thought he could get a good grip, and gave a mighty heave.
Fifteen minutes later, he had to admit that the answer was “Pretty damned bad.” He was stronger than any three normal men put together—maybe four on a good day—but he couldn’t lift the tree more than an inch or so no matter how hard he tried. Sweat was running down his face and his arms were quivering with strain, but the man was still firmly pressed to the ground and his cries were getting weaker and more pitiful.
Memories flooded back as Alexei stopped to try and catch his breath. Mikhail weeping quietly in his cage, trying to keep his brothers from hearing him. Gregori groaning after a session of being bled nearly to the point of death by the insane witch that had trapped them all in a cavern deep in the woods. These woods, actually, although many miles away across the extensive lands of the National Forest. His heart skipped a beat when that thought floated through his head. Ironically, it hadn’t even occurred to him before this. Now it was all he could think about.
Maybe these woods were cursed to forever thwart him. He had used all his considerable strength to try and save his brothers, and he had failed. Failed them, failed himself, failed the Baba Yagas who depended on them all, and who now had to undertake their tasks without assistance. And that had been a complicated situation, fraught with magic and trickery. This should be easier. A tree. A simple tree. But he was going to fail again. The thought was almost unendurable.
He closed his eyes and shuddered. He was about as useful as that raccoon he had passed on the trail. Maybe he could find a clan of beavers to gnaw through the tree. Except that would require a body of water nearby, and he didn’t think there was one. Now he was just being ridiculous. Useless and ridiculous.
If only Mikhail was here. He could turn into that giant green monster and probably lift the tree off the man with one arm tied behind his back. Now that was a useful gift. Alexei’s newfound talent was just the ability to talk to animals. Fun, but completely unhelpful in situations like this.
Or maybe not.
His eyes snapped open.
“Hey,” the man said weakly.
“Shush,” Alexei said, glancing around at the trees nearby. Finally, he saw what he was searching for—claw marks, fairly high up, deeply scratched into the bark. Excellent.
“Hellooo the forest,” Alexei called, mentally translating his words into the necessary language. In the beginning, he hadn’t even known he could do that. Then all the animals he’d ever tried to talk to, from Lulu the Great Dane to dolphins and sharks, had understood him with no problem, so it became clear he could. Thankfully, he understood them back with the same ease. “I could use a hand here. A paw, anyway.”
He repeated the call a couple of times and less than five minutes later, a massive grizzly lumbered out of the forest. Its humped shoulders and long claws made it look ungainly, but Alexei knew that it could move incredibly fast if it had a reason to. The big male was probably close to eight feet tall when standing upright and could have weighed as much as seven or eight hundred pounds. Most people would have found it intimidating, but Alexei had always felt a certain kindred to bears, since he was somewhat bear-like himself.
“Good day,” he called out. “Thank you for coming.”
“Hello,” the bear rumbled. “Who are you?”
Alexei didn’t smile, since it wasn’t a good idea to show your teeth to a predator, but he bent his head politely. “Greetings, sir bear. I am Alexei Knight, once the Black Rider, friend to the Baba Yagas.”
The bear’s short, rounded ears perked up. “I know a Baba Yaga. Her name is Bella. She is very nice. She puts out food in the winter for anyone who is hungry. Any friend of hers is welcome in my forest.”
“Who are you talking to?” the man under the tree asked. “What is that sound? I can’t see anything.”
The bear shuffled over and sniffed at him curiously and the man gave a muffled shriek.
“Bear! There’s a bear!” he said.
“Of course there is,” Alexei said crossly. “I called him to help me.” He turned to the bear. “I tried to lift this tree myself, but I am not strong enough. Do you think you could pick it up long enough for me to pull this Human out?”
The bear gave a chuffing laugh. “Silly Human. Should not play with trees so large.” He gave a great huffing sniff. “Human smells funny. Not right. But yes, I will help the friend of the Baba Yaga.” He put both massive paws on the trunk and Alexei scooted over to stand near the man’s head. As soon as the bear lifted the tree, Alexei grabbed the man’s shoulders and slid him a few feet away to safety. He hoped he wasn’t aggravating any injuries the man had, but there didn’t seem to be much other choice.
Once the tree was back on the ground, the be
ar walked over to Alexei. “Silly Human,” he the grizzly repeated. “Should stay out of my woods next time.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” Alexei said.
“Bear,” the man said weakly, and his eyes rolled back as he fainted.
Alexei snorted, sounding remarkably like his new furry friend. “I think he’ll be fine,” he said to the bear. “I appreciate your helping me.” He trotted back to where he had dropped his lunch bag and got out the two subs. “Here. A small snack to show my gratitude.”
The bear sniffed. “I smell meat and cheese. My favorites. Call any time.” He took the sandwiches gently into his toothy mouth and lumbered back out of the clearing. Alexei watched his lunch leave, feeling rather wistful. But he cheered up when he remembered he still had the cookies. That was something, anyway.
Shaking his head ruefully, he turned back to the man he had just rescued. He was checking him over when the lumberjack regained consciousness.
“You seem okay,” Alexei said. “You’re a lucky guy.” He helped the man sit up.
“Jack,” the man said, holding out one hand. “My name’s Jack. Thanks for getting that tree off me. I don’t understand how it happened. One minute I was cutting it down, and the next, I was pinned underneath. I probably would have died if you hadn’t come along when you did.” He glanced around. “Was there a bear here, or did I just hallucinate that?”
Alexei shrugged and grinned at him. “I wouldn’t worry about it. You’re safe now. Do you need me to call someone to come get you?”
Jack stood up gingerly, patting himself down as if to check that everything was still in the right place. He winced at a couple of places and gave a cautious cough. “I think I’m mostly just bruised. Might have cracked a rib or two, but all things considered, I think I got off pretty easy. The branches on the underside mostly kept the weight of the tree off me, even though I couldn’t move.”
He pointed further down the trail. “My truck’s not far from here on an access road. I should be okay to get back to it and drive home.”
“If you’re sure,” Alexei said. “You must be feeling a little shaky after all that.”
“Just hungry,” Jack said. “I’ll be fine when I get something to eat and drink.”
Alexei handed over the bag in his hand reluctantly. “There’s water and a couple of big cookies in there. But I’d get checked out just in case.”
He watched Jack limp off with the rest of his lunch, but a sense of satisfaction eventually overtook the regret over his lost food. It felt good to be able to use his new gift to help someone, the way he had when he’d worked with Beka to find and stop a dragon-turned-pirate back in Cape Cod. Alexei loved his new life with Bethany; what’s not to like about living with a beautiful woman, and helping to run a bar? But he had to admit to himself that occasionally he missed the adventures he used to have with his brothers and the Baba Yagas.
Brenna had stolen a lot more than their immortality from the three of them, and moments like this one were few and far between. Still, it had been fun. Well, probably not for Jack, but it all worked out okay.
Alexei walked slowly back to his Harley, savoring the resinous smells of the woods and the chatter of gossiping squirrels. He wondered if Mikhail and Gregori would show up at Bella’s. Then he smiled. At least he had a good story to tell them if they did.
Chapter 5
Mikhail pulled his white Yamaha into the large dirt clearing that doubled as a driveway for Bella and Sam’s cabin in the Wyoming woods. Beka’s colorfully painted converted school bus was parked next to Barbara’s gleaming silver Airstream, but his was the only motorcycle, so clearly his brothers weren’t here yet. Or weren’t coming at all, as he’d predicted.
He didn’t bother to put down the kickstand, since his enchanted steed could stay upright perfectly well without it when there were no nosy Humans to question the impossibility. He hadn’t even grabbed his white leather saddlebags before the front door of the cabin burst open and what seemed like a torrent of people flowed out.
After a flurry of hugging (and a friendly punch on the shoulder from Barbara, who wasn’t the hugging type, and after all, had seen him recently), the crowd resolved itself into its composite parts. Fiery-haired Bella stood with her husband Sam, his formerly vivid burn scars barely visible, and gave Mikhail a smile as bright as her tresses. Beka grinned at him, her willowy blond California surfer-girl good looks belying the strength that allowed her to swim with the dolphins for hours or take on a modern-day pirate who threatened to pollute her beloved ocean.
Barbara, beautiful and fierce with her slightly long nose and wild cloud of dark hair, simply nodded her head. Little Babs stood next to her wearing her usual solemn expression, although her eyes sparkled at the sight of her friend from home.
Only one person stood apart from the rest, gazing at him shyly from under shaggy bangs that edged into equally shaggy brown hair that was longer than when he’d seen it last. The turquoise blue streak was new. Of course, everything about Jazz was different. Insanely, impossibly different.
After all his years of traveling with the Baba Yagas, and in and out of the fantastical Otherworld, you’d think he would have grown accustomed to the impossible. Yet nothing he’d ever seen compared to this. He’d heard what happened, of course, but knowing about it and seeing the reality with his own eyes were two completely different things.
“Jazz?” he said. “Is that you?”
The first time he’d met Bella’s apprentice was when she had helped to rescue him and his brothers from the evil Brenna. At that point Jazz was just a teenage runaway from the foster system. She got caught up in the whole dramatic affair only to discover that not only was the magic she’d always dreamed of true, but that she had an amazingly powerful innate talent for it.
In the end, the High Queen of the Otherworld had granted Bella permission to train Jazz to take up an extra position as a Baba Yaga. As Barbara had pointed out, the Human world was growing more complicated every day, and the existing witches were having a tough time keeping up with the Human-created imbalances in nature. Adding another Baba seemed like a sensible move.
Jazz had spent a brief time with the Riders after they had been freed from Brenna’s torture. They had been in terrible shape, both physically and mentally, and Mikhail had only a vague and disjointed memory of the ragamuffin teen Bella had taken in after she’d found the girl living alone in the forest. Then he’d seen Jazz again almost a year later, when Bella and Sam brought her to Mikhail’s wedding.
But that girl had been sixteen, and the woman standing in front of him now looked more like she was in her mid-to-late twenties. Only her brown eyes looked the same, wide and clear and wary, the eyes of someone who has seen much more cruelty and evil than she should have, no matter what age she was.
Not long after the wedding, Jazz had attempted an ambitious spell to give the Riders back their immortality. A noble aim, but one which had backfired badly, causing the girl to age ten years in an instant, nearly killing her. Bella had arrived in time to save Jazz’s life, but the damage was done. The queen had declared Jazz too powerful to be allowed to continue to live on the Human side of the doorway without more training, and ordered both her and Bella to spend a year in the Otherworld so that Bella could provide the girl with an intensive course in how to be a Baba Yaga.
Now they were home at last, and the adult version of Jazz stared back at him, biting her lip from underneath her fringe of brown hair.
“Hi Mikhail,” she said in a quiet voice. “It’s nice to see you again. How are Jenna and the baby doing?” She gave a barely visible wince. “Sorry. I guess she’s not a baby anymore, is she?”
Mikhail smiled at her, bringing all his not-inconsiderable charm to bear to try and set her at ease. “Flora is doing great,” he said. “She’s starting to walk and getting into everything. You’ll have to come visit. Jenna would love to see you again.”
This earned him a hesitant smile in return. “Thanks,” Ja
zz said. “I’d like that.” She glanced over his shoulder. “Um, are your brothers coming? I know Bella invited them.”
Mikhail shrugged, not wanting to show how much their absence cut to his core. It was a pain he’d grown accustomed to, but it never stopped gnawing at his soul. “Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. They’ve always been a tad unpredictable.”
At Barbara’s side, her dragon Chudo-Yudo, (in his guise as a giant white pit bull), gave a snort. Tiny sparks shot out of his broad black nose. “That’s an understatement,” he said.
Chewie, Beka’s dragon, who looked (for the moment, anyway) like a huge ebony Newfoundland, nodded in agreement. “We had a running wager on which one of you would show up first.”
“Or at all,” Bella’s Norwegian Forest Cat-dragon added, looking as disgruntled as any true cat deprived of a treat. “I had my money on none of you coming.”
Mikhail hid a grin behind one hand as he pretended to cough. It didn’t to do piss off the dragon-cat. He had sharp claws in either form. “Sorry about that, Koshka. I’ll try to make it up to you. I might have slipped a couple of cans of tuna into my saddlebags before leaving the house.”
Koshka perked up. “I suppose I’ll forgive you, then,” he said.
“I’m not sure any of you is going to win that bet,” Barbara said, nodding in the direction of the long dirt road that led to the cabin. The distant rumble of powerful engines grew closer as a black Harley and a red Ducati came into view. “For which I am immensely grateful.”
A weight he didn’t know he’d been carrying seemed to lift off of Mikhail’s shoulders at the sight of the two motorcycles and the cargo they carried. His heart beat so fast, he could feel it pulsing against his ribs. He couldn’t have said if it was from excitement or nerves at the thought of finally reuniting with his brothers after all this time.
The bikes came to a halt in front of the group already standing there. A massive form dismounted from the Harley and lifted its helmet to reveal the slightly changed but still familiar face of his middle half-brother.
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