“Yeah, damn,” Chewie agreed.
Marcus made a movement toward where he would have carried a gun in bygone days, looking warily around the bus. “Do you think this Brenna came here with Kesh? Maybe to get the Water of Life and Death for herself?”
Chewie shook his head, bits of drool flying off in every direction. “Nah. For one thing, I don’t smell her here, and believe me, I’d recognize her scent after living with her for nearly two centuries.”
“Two centuries?!” Marcus’s eyes were wide and stunned. “How long can Baba Yagas live?”
Chewie waved the question off with a paw as incidental to the discussion. “Besides, I don’t see Kesh as the type to share, no matter what kind of deal they have cooked up between them. The Water of Life and Death is one of the most precious substances on earth. There’s no way he’d just give it to Brenna. No, my guess is that she gave him the information on how to get in here, knowing that if the Queen discovered you’d allowed the Water to be stolen, she’d be more likely to give Brenna back the position of Baba Yaga.”
He looked at Beka with pity in his big, dark eyes. “It’s possible Brenna doesn’t even know about the poisoning, so maybe she isn’t actually trying to kill you.”
“Just get me kicked out of my job and banned from the Otherworld,” Beka said bitterly.
“Yeah, that.” Chewie shrugged. “So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to let Brenna and Kesh win?”
If it had just been her life on the line, Beka might have given up. But she’d made a promise, and Baba Yagas always kept their promises. She might not be one for much longer, but she’d be damned if she would let those little Selkie and Mer babies die because of Kesh’s greed for a power that didn’t belong to him.
Think, Beka, think. You’re a Baba Yaga. No two-bit, too-handsome Selkie prince is going to beat you.
“No,” she said, so firmly that Marcus blinked and Chewie took a half step backward. “No, we are not going to let them win. We are going to track down Kesh, take back the Water, and kick his ass from here to the Otherworld and back again.”
“That’s my girl,” Marcus said. “Um. How?”
“Yeah,” Chewie echoed. “How? He could be anywhere by now, and I can’t follow his scent if he goes underwater.”
“I’m guessing he’s going to be holed up somewhere on land,” Beka said. “If he has to avoid being seen by his father or any of his people, he’d have to stay onshore whenever possible. With all his talk about being a ruler here, I’m guessing he’s found himself a posh mansion somewhere and is sitting around in luxury gloating over his upcoming triumph in true arch-villain fashion.” The fish-eating, double-crossing son of a kraken. “And if he’s on land, I can find him.”
She crossed the room to root through an enameled box of miscellaneous shiny bits of crystal, old keepsakes, and the few pieces of jewelry she hadn’t made herself. “Aha!” she said, pulling out a gemstone-encrusted pendant hanging from a thick gold chain. “I thought I’d thrown it in there.”
“Are those diamonds?” Marcus asked, gaping at the sparkly necklace.
“Uh-huh. And some rubies, and I think maybe the blue ones are sapphires,” Beka said, walking back over to them. “Kind of over the top, if you ask me.”
“Ah,” Chewie said, a hint of laughter in his eyes despite his worry. “Let me guess: Kesh gave it to you.”
“Yup. This was one of his ‘little trinkets’ he brought me when he was trying to woo me, back in the beginning.” Before he’d decided it would be easier to kill me. “He told me he’d found it in an old wreck and thought of me, which is kind of a backhanded compliment, really. But the important part is that he carried it on him for an entire day before he gave it to me.”
She favored the guys with an evil grin. “The moral of this story, boys and dogs, is never give a Baba Yaga something that once belonged to you—no matter how briefly—if you aren’t going to want her to be able to track you down later.”
Beka took down her favorite sword and started grabbing a few basic magical items out of her tool cabinet. “I’m going to create a spell to find Kesh, using this pendant as a focus, and then I am going to go get what he stole from me. If I have to kill him a little in the process, well, that’s just too bad.”
It all sounded very good, but it probably would have been more impressive if she didn’t drop the salt because her hands were shaking so much.
“I have a better plan,” Marcus said, looking grim. “You find him, and I’ll kill him a little.”
“Marcus, you’re a Human. You can’t be involved in this. Besides, you have no idea how dangerous Kesh can be.”