“Messy,” he commented. “As, I take it, our situation is?”
The empty bottle clinked as she put it down. “Messy indeed. Most of the people I met there seemed genuinely happy, but how much of that was due to the circumstances and how much was due to our friend John’s magical talisman, I couldn’t tell.”
She got up and grabbed a pair of leather pants and a tee shirt with a picture of a pair of legs wearing striped socks. The shirt read: Things just haven’t been the same since they dropped that house on my sister.
Chudo-Yudo nodded his approval as she came back over to sit on the couch. “So he does actually have one, then?”
“Oh you bet,” she said. “I managed to get a good look at it, and my best guess is it was probably something created by a Mer or Selkie mage. Their languages are so similar, and I couldn’t tell with just the short glance I got, but it definitely wasn’t Human in origin.”
“Uh oh,” Chudo-Yudo said. “That’s not going to make Her Majesty very happy.”
“I’ll just have to get it back before she finds out that an arcane object found its way into Human hands and is being misused,” Barbara said. “Believe me, I’m not going to let him keep it.”
“Is he evil?” the dog asked, an eager gleam in his wide brown eyes. “If he’s evil, I’d be happy to eat him for you.”
Barbara chuckled. “You’ve got a little drool there, buddy. But no, I don’t think he’s evil. Just greedy and self-absorbed, maybe a little broken inside. If I let you eat every Human that answered that description, you’d get very fat.”
“I could work out,” Chudo-Yudo suggested. “Besides, dragons don’t get fat. It’s a metabolism thing.”
She shook her head. “Nice try, but no. But just because I’m not going to let you eat him doesn’t mean I’m going to let him keep playing house with a bunch of brainwashed followers.” The corners of her mouth turned down in a grimace. “Especially not when children are involved.”
“Did you find Ivan’s little girls?” One giant paw snaked out to smack at a tiny lizard that had forgotten it was part of a carpet. The lizard gave a high-pitched squeak and flattened itself back out into the weave of the cloth again.
“I did.” Barbara got up and paced across the small room. “They haven’t been harmed as far as I can tell, but they’re not happy. They miss their father, and their mother barely seems to know they’re alive. Too busy playing footsie with Jonathan.”
“Footsie, eh? Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Chudo-Yudo snorted, and a wisp of smoke drifted up to the ceiling. “Do you think she’s under the control of the talisman?”
Barbara shrugged. “Hard to say. And I don’t care. The kids deserve to be with their father, and he deserves to be with them. Not to mention that I promised, and a Baba Yaga never breaks a promise. Legs, yes. Hearts, occasionally. But never a promise.”
“So are you going to go back in as yourself or as the old lady?” Chudo-Yudo asked. “And how are you going to get Jonathan to hand over the necklace? I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to give it up willingly, and you don’t want to risk any of the children getting hurt if there is a fight.”
“I’m not too worried about that,” Barbara said, baring her teeth in a grin that almost frightened even Chudo-Yudo. He thought it was probably a pretty good thing that Jonathan wasn’t there to see it. “When I’m ready to get it, that necklace is coming with me. But I’d like to figure out a way to negate its power once and for all. We wouldn’t want a thing like that to fall into the wrong hands.”
Dog and woman gazed at each other wordlessly, both imaging the already powerful High Queen of the Otherworld with a magical talisman that made people want to do whatever she desired. Of course, most people did that already, out of simple self-preservation.
“I see your point,” Chudo-Yudo said.
“Besides,” Barbara added. “I have an idea. But I need to take a walk and see if I can come up with something that will render that necklace into a chunk of useless, decorative metal. And maybe blow off some steam before my head explodes. I’ve been hanging out with Humans too much. They make me twitchy.”
Chudo-Yudo rolled his eyes. “You know, Baba, you were Human once.”
She shrugged, heading towards the wardrobe door that opened up to reveal a secret passage to the Otherworld or a closetful of clothes, depending on the mood it was in, and whether or not you knew the right way to ask.
“That was a long time ago. After all these years of drinking the Water of Life and Death, not to mention living the life of a Baba Yaga, I have about as much in common with Humans as you do.” She opened the closet, pulled out a sword, which she belted around her slim waist, then closed it again.