Wickedly Magical Read Free Page A

care. If he couldn’t get his girls back, his life wasn’t worth living anyway.
    The Baba Yaga tucked her wild cloud of hair behind one ear and scowled at him. “I’m a witch, sir, not a marriage counselor or a lawyer. I suggest you try one of them and save your grandmother’s favor for something more appropriate.”
    Ivan’s fingers clenched around the mug and hot tea splashed unheeded onto his jeans. “Do you think I’d be here if I hadn’t already tried everything else?” he asked bitterly.
    “When my wife first took the girls, I tried talking to her, then I tried a lawyer, then I tried the cops. At first, it seemed like that would work, but then my wife and her new boyfriend managed to convince everyone that I was a monster—that I’d molested my own children. The cops warned me off, the courts issued a temporary restraining order, and even my own lawyer turned against me. It was insane! As if I would ever do anything to hurt my girls. I never even spanked them, no matter what mischief they got up to.” He gazed into her amber eyes, trying to project his innocence like a message from his heart to hers. It seemed futile; nobody else believed him anymore, so why should she?
    One slim finger tapped red lips thoughtfully. “You realize that lying to a Baba Yaga is a
really
bad idea, right? Epic, monumental, catastrophic bad.”
    He nodded. “I’m not lying, I swear. But I don’t know how to convince you.”
    She nudged the huge pit bull with one foot and he rose, yawning wide and showing off equally huge, sharp white teeth. “If you’re familiar with the legends, then you probably know that Babas were supposed to be able to sniff out lies with their long noses.” She touched her own nose a tad self-consciously, and then yanked her hand back down again.
    “Um, yes. I remember something like that.”
    “Ha,” she said. “The Babas actually have something of a secret weapon. You might be able to lie to me, but no one can fool Chudo-Yudo.” She patted the furred giant affectionately.
    A long distant fragment of story floated to the surface of his mind. “Chudo-Yudo, that’s the dragon that guards the Water of Life and Death, right? I think my grandmother told a tale about the Baba Yaga controlling the dragon, or something like that.” He smiled at her. “Cool name for a dog. Especially one that travels with a Baba Yaga.”
    The witch sighed, a hint of humor hovering briefly at one corner of her mouth. “Controlling might be too strong a word for it, really. No one controls a dragon, not even me. And the dog isn’t named after Chudo-Yudo, he
is
Chudo-Yudo. One of them, anyway. Each Baba Yaga has one.”
    The pit bull grinned toothily at him, and shot tiny sparks out of its nostrils. Ivan fought the impulse to jump out of his chair and run for the door. He’d been braced for a mythic witch—sort of—but dragons? Dragons were another thing altogether.
    Barbara raised one dark eyebrow, eyes glittering dangerously. “It’s not too late to withdraw your request,” she said in a dry tone. “You’d forfeit the favor the old Baba promised to your grandmother, of course, but at least you could leave in one piece.” She started to rise from her seat.
    “No,” Ivan said, as firmly as he could manage while watching one of his shoelaces smolder. “I came for your help, and I still want it. I am telling the truth, I swear it.”
    The eyebrow rose even further, but she subsided into her chair. “Chudo-Yudo?”
    A cold black nose sniffed him up and down, and a surprisingly gentle tongue licked his hand, and then his face. A whiff of sulfur made him choke back a sneeze.
    The dog peered intently at him for a moment, then sank down onto the floor between them, and said in a voice like gravel being ground between two boulders, “He’s telling the truth, Baba. Looks like we’ve got us a genuine seeker.”
    ***
    Barbara stifled a grin as the poor man jumped so violently the mug flew out of his hand and