“Beka,” Marcus said, “you’re scaring me. Please don’t tell me that you’re married. Or dying from an incurable disease. Or . . . a lesbian, or something.” He stared at her anxiously.
She giggled at that last one, humor for a moment washing away the somber expression that had come over her features. Then she sighed, her entire body drooping. “No, none of those. Definitely not a lesbian.” She stared straight at him, as if daring him to run. “I’m a witch.”
“What?” Marcus almost laughed, too, practically giddy with relief. “You mean you’re a Wiccan? Hell, Beka, I don’t care what kind of tree-hugging religion you follow.” Yes, he thought most of the New Age goddess worship stuff was kind of silly, but it wasn’t as though it bothered him. Hell, one of the guys in his unit was a Wiccan, and he’d been just as tough and dependable as everyone else, even if he wore a pentacle around his neck instead of a cross.
She shook her head. “Not Wiccan, Marcus. A witch. You know: flying broomstick, bubbling cauldron, turns people into toads.” She sighed again, which made her breasts do interesting things under the blanket, distracting him for a moment. “Let’s do this a different way. Have you ever heard of Baba Yaga?”
Marcus tried to focus, although having her nearly naked next to him made it difficult. “Um, I think there was a story my ma used to read us when we were young that had someone by that name in it. Didn’t she eat children or something? And lived in a weird hut that ran around on chicken legs?” He stared at her. “Why are we talking about fairy tales now?”
“We’re not,” Beka said flatly. “We’re talking about me. I’m a Baba Yaga.”
“What?”
“A Baba Yaga. It’s not so much a person as it is a job title,” she said, as if she were talking perfect sense and not gibberish. “They were best known in Russia and the surrounding Slavic countries, but there have always been Baba Yagas throughout Europe, and eventually they moved to the Americas too. There are three of us here now: me and my sister Babas, Barbara and Bella. Babas are powerful witches who are responsible for watching over the doorways to the Otherworld and maintaining the balance of the natural world.” She scowled. “That used to be a lot easier in the old days, believe me.”
“Is this some kind of joke?” Marcus asked. He could feel himself pulling back, the world turning gray again. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was foolish fairy tales like the ones his da used to tell them when he and Kyle were kids. “Because if it is, it isn’t funny.”
Those damned stories of magical sea creatures had made Kyle feel safe and invincible on the water. And that had gotten him killed, as much as the stoned-out-hippie flake his father had hired had.
Beka rolled stormy blue eyes at him, like the sea before a big blow. “You don’t believe me. I don’t blame you. Hell, I wouldn’t believe me either.” She gestured widely. “I don’t expect you to take my word for it, any more than I would expect you to accept that this bus used to be a hut on chicken legs.”
He glanced around the bus. It was unusual, certainly, but there was nothing enchanted about it. “Look, Beka—I should tell you that I can’t deal with this kind of paranormal nonsense. My father brought us up on idiotic tales of Selkies and Mermaids and sea monsters. Hell, he even told us that a Mermaid had rescued him once during a storm. My brother believed all that shit. I don’t. The world isn’t a romantic place full of magic. It’s a hard, dangerous jungle, which will kill you if your head is in the clouds. So if we’re going to continue to get along, I’m gonna have to ask you to drop it, okay?”
“I can’t,” Beka said in a small voice. “Because it’s all true.”
“And next I suppose you’re going to tell me that Chewie really is a dragon,” he snapped.
“Actually,” Beka said, almost managing a smile, “he is. But I don’t expect you to believe that either. Not without proof.”
“Fine,” Marcus said. He would be patient. He would be calm. And when she failed to come up with her so-called proof, he would patiently and calmly drag her off to see the best shrink he could find. “Are you going to turn me into a frog?”
She made a face. “Not while you’re sitting in my bed, I’m not. I like frogs just fine, but ew.”
Before he could decide if she was taking a joke too far, or just plain crazy, she snapped her fingers with a decisive motion, and her surfboard appeared in the middle of the kitchen with a crisp pop. It spun lazily in midair for a moment before gently coming to rest on the polished wooden boards.