“Damn,” Chudo-Yudo said. “I guess this means we’re not going back to California. I’ll go get the map.” He heaved himself up with a put-upon sigh and went into the Airstream for a moment, coming back with a large, now slightly damp, map of the United States in his mouth.
Beka and Bella exchanged sympathetic glances. A Baba Yaga’s tasks could come to her in various different ways. Sometimes, like with Ivan, a Baba “just happened” to be in the right place at the right time, or sometimes people were drawn to her once she arrived at wherever she was going. The universe just seemed to work that way, at least when Baba Yagas were involved.
But every once in a while, when there was something big afoot, a Baba would get The Call, a kind of subliminal mental pull towards whatever problem needed her special attention. No one else could hear it besides the Baba it was aimed at, and there was no ignoring it. When you were called, you went. It was as simple as that.
Chudo-Yudo dropped the map on the ground in front of Barbara and the other two women walked around the fire to look over her shoulder as she knelt and held her hand out over it, index finger moving slowly over its surface as a pointer. She closed her eyes to better concentrate on that inner voice, and when she opened them, she peered down to see where her finger had landed.
“Where the hell is that?” Chudo-Yudo said plaintively. “It looks like the middle of nowhere.”
“Someplace in upstate New York,” Bella said, peering at that section of the map with interest. “I suspect you’ll have to get closer to the area before you figure out which little Podunk town The Call is actually originating from.”
“Huh,” said Beka. “I haven’t heard of any major natural disasters or anything lately, have you? I mean, like an upsurge in tornado activity or something else that might need a Baba Yaga to get it back under control.”
“I don’t think I have either,” Bella agreed. “Barbara?”
Barbara didn’t answer, caught in the grip of a peculiar shivery sensation she’d never felt before.
“Barbara!” Bella said sharply. “What is it?”
“I don’t exactly know,” Barbara said. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded far away and dreamy. “This isn’t like any other Call I’ve ever had. It’s . . . different. Stronger. As if I can hear Fate saying my name out loud, leading me to a path that will change everything.”
“Change it how?” Beka asked.
“I don’t know,” Barbara said in a quiet voice. “I only know that after this, nothing will ever be the same again.”
Keep reading for an excerpt from
WICKEDLY DANGEROUS
Available now from Berkley Sensation
The crackle of the two-way radio barely impinged on Liam McClellan’s consciousness as he scanned the bushes on either side of his squad car for any sign of a missing seven-year-old girl. He’d been down this same narrow country road yesterday at dusk, but like the other searchers, he’d had to give up when darkness fell. Like the rest—volunteers from the nearby community and every cop who could be spared, whether on duty or off—he’d come back at dawn to pick up where he left off. Even though there was little hope of success, after six long days.
His stomach clenched with a combination of too much coffee, too little sleep, and the acid taste of failure. Liam McClellan took his job as sheriff very seriously. Clearwater may be a tiny county in the middle of nowhere, its population scattered between a few small towns and a rural countryside made up mostly of struggling farmers, overgrown wilderness, and white-tailed deer, but it was his tiny county, and the people in it were his to protect. Lately, it didn’t seem like he’d been doing a very good job.
Mary Elizabeth Shields had disappeared out of her own backyard. Her mother had turned her back for a moment, drawn by the flutter of a bright-hued bird. When she turned around, the girl had vanished. Such a thing would be alarming enough on its own, but Mary Elizabeth was the third child to go missing in the last four months. To a lawman, that meant only one thing: a human predator was stalking the children of Clearwater County.
There had been no trace of any of the missing children. No tire marks, no unexplained fingerprints, no lurking strangers seen at any of the places from which the children had disappeared. No clues at all for a tired and frustrated sheriff to follow. And this time it was personal; Mary Elizabeth’s mother was one of his deputies. A single mother who adored her only child, Belinda Shields was beside herself with grief and terror, making Liam even more discouraged over his inability to make any headway in the case.
A rabbit bounded out of a tangle of sumac, and Liam slowed to avoid hitting it, his tires sending up a spray of dusty gravel. In his rearview mirror, he thought he caught a glimpse of an old woman walking by the side of the road with a basket of herbs over one gnarled, skinny arm. But when he looked again, no one was there.