The men exchanged glances, silently electing Mikhail to ask the tough question. “Could he have been fooling you all along? Fooling us all, I mean? I really liked the guy.” His handsome face was unusually somber.
She sighed. “Anything is possible. But you should have seen his face when Melissa accused him of murdering his own child. I’m not the best at reading Humans, but I’d be willing to swear that what I saw was hurt and shock, not guilt.”
Alexei shrugged mountain-sized shoulders. “That’s good enough for me, I suppose. So what do we do now? Do you want us to keep watching the other children?”
Baba didn’t know what she wanted. Or how on earth they could keep Maya from taking any more kids now that they didn’t even have a sheriff on their side. If they ever had one.
“Do any of them seem like liable targets, assuming she doesn’t just cut her losses and run back to the Otherworld? Or find someplace else to start again on this side of the doorway?” she asked.
Gregori said, “Two of them, no, but the others are possibilities. If she strikes again, she might go after one of them.”
“Assuming that Liam was telling the truth about any of this, and that all our theories weren’t based on the lies of a murderous madman,” Baba said, blinking furiously. One of Chudo-Yudo’s hairs must have gotten into her eye. Suddenly she couldn’t take another minute of this conversation. Lying, not lying. Married, not married. What did any of it matter anyway?
“But, Baba, you just said—” Alexei’s bearded face creased in bafflement.
“Do what you want,” Baba said, getting up from the table. “I’m going for a walk. I need to clear my head.” Just when she had been thinking crazy thoughts about maybe not being alone for the rest of her life . . . now she felt more alone than ever. Who knew that could hurt so much?
She started toward the wardrobe door, and got as far as putting her hand on the wonky latch before she remembered with a spearing ache that the Otherworld was no longer her refuge. It took all the self-control she had not to just bang her head against the door. Repeatedly.
Instead, she grabbed her boots from where they’d landed when she’d hurled them, scooped up her helmet, and slammed out the door. A minute later, the sound of a motorcycle roaring down the road filtered in through the open window of the Airstream, which still vibrated from her violent exit.
All three riders sat, speechless, staring after her. Eventually, Mikhail said to Chudo-Yudo, “What the hell was that all about?”
The dragon-dog gave his coughing laugh and sank down, furry white head resting on his paws. “I think our Baba has finally fallen in love.”
“Ah,” said Gregori. He pondered for a moment and then added, “I don’t think it is going well.”
Chudo-Yudo rolled his eyes under furry brows. “That, old friend, is the understatement of the century.” After a minute, he perked up and added, “On the bright side, I’m pretty sure that eventually I’m going to get to eat someone.”
*
“I FOUND YOU wandering lost in this land when you slipped through the door in a drug-addled stupor,” Maya said to Melissa in disgust, once they were back on the other side of the doorway, far from pesky sheriffs and overly solicitous bosses. “You were a broken woman, and I took you in. I gave you a new child to replace the one you lost. Fed you and cared for you. All I asked in return was the location of the doorway, and a little unimportant information about the place you came from and the people who lived there. And this one other small thing—to accuse your husband, a man you had already betrayed in a million ways. Why are you whining at me now?”
Melissa was crying, the glowing red light of the biggest moon shining on her tears like blood. “I did what you asked,” she said, speaking so softly her words barely disturbed the shimmering air. “But I didn’t know it would be so hard to see him again. To see his face when I said he killed our baby.”
She cried even harder, making Maya’s fingers twitch. She couldn’t wring the silly bitch’s neck; she might still need her. And it wasn’t as though the red-haired woman hadn’t played her part to perfection. But all this silly sniveling was going to drive her mad. Humans. Irritating creatures at the best of times. And this was not the best of times.
“I can’t go back again. I can’t. I can’t.” Melissa made her hands into claws and ripped at her skin, tearing her face until it bled, pulling at her long red hair, crying and screaming and laughing all at the same time.
Maya sighed and slapped her. Melissa just cried harder.
Maya sighed again. “Well, that’s the end of that, then,” she said with resignation. “Damned Human. You’re clearly too unstable to be depended on. It looks like time has run out on my little plan.” She’d already come to that conclusion anyway. “But first, one last child before I go. And I know just the perfect one.”
Melissa hid her head in her hands, rocking back and forth as Maya’s silvery laughter filled the eerie Otherworld sky.
TWENTY-SIX