“Why don’t you tell her yourself?”
Baba Yaga turned, facing away from her. “Because I need to avoid Lina.” With her back to Gigi, it also meant her sister couldn’t see her reach up to her throat and take hold of the amulet.
She appeared in her own living room, relieved that it still worked. She’d been afraid, upon accepting the amulet, that once she’d occluded BettLynn she might lose access to this little realm. Long ago she’d disabled the portals that led to it via land. Very few dragons had been able to access it after that, only the ones she’d wanted to and to whom she’d granted special access.
Ones such as Jan and Rick.
And others of certain powers, such as Lina, Elain, and maybe, eventually, Mai.
If Baba Yaga was still around by the time Mai finally mastered her self-confidence and her “poofing” powers.
Going by her own visions—and plans—Baba Yaga hoped she’d be gone long before then. She’d planned her escape for too many years to believe otherwise.
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, Elain felt a little more rested. Ellie had nursed around midnight and slept through until nearly six.
That was a luxury, as far as Elain was concerned.
Even better, Brighton had scooted out early to go do his own thing. Lina had begged, pleaded, and promised Mom three times the reciprocal babysitting to once again take over for her at home while Lina returned to Elain’s. Elain’s men were out working, with Ain slated to return around lunch time.
After getting a shower, Elain tucked Ellie into her carrier and moved out to the kitchen, where Lina was already cooking breakfast.
“You’re spoiling me.”
“Hey, enjoy it.”
Elain carefully lowered her tender nether regions into a chair. “I’m trying to.” She was beginning to wish she hadn’t been so cavalier about refusing painkillers, even though she knew after another day or two she’d be feeling an improvement.
Lina handed her a perfectly prepared mug of coffee. “Want a cushion?”
“No, I’ll be okay.”
“Mai will come over shortly with BettLynn for a visit.”
“How about we make it a business meeting?” That had become their nickname for their Seer sessions.
Lina leaned against the counter. “Girl, come on, seriously? Take a day off. You just gave birth.”
Elain held up her left hand, ticking off each word with a raised finger. “Nuclear. Bomb.”
Lina frowned. “Damn you and your devil logic.”
By the time Mai arrived, Lina had breakfast ready for all three of them. Mai turned BettLynn loose on the floor to explore and play with Juju and Bea while Connor and Ellie both slept in a playpen Lina had set up in the living room.
“I feel like we should have some sort of super-secret ritual to start things off,” Lina snarked as she picked up her fork and scooped up a bite of scrambled eggs. “This is so…suburban.”
“I think technically this is rural,” Elain playfully replied. “So what do we know about this stupid fu-reaking vision?”
BettLynn, who was crawling around on her hands and knees but in human mode, had appeared in the doorway with the two Labs flanking her.
She sat on her bum and held her arms up. “TV pweese!”
Mai pointed at her. “No shifting?”
BettLynn nodded, her beautiful green eyes wide and imploring and absolutely adorable.
“Excuse me,” Mai said as she got up and scooped the little girl up and carried her back to the living room.
Lina and Elain heard the TV turn on, a cartoon, and Mai speaking to BettLynn before she returned and took her seat.
“Bribery, huh?” Lina teased.
“That started last week. Me and the guys talked about it, and if it helps her learn not to shift at the drop of a hat until she’s old enough to understand why, it’s worth it.”
“Agreed,” Lina said.
Mai, Micah, and Jim had been receiving training from an antelope shifter physical therapist who worked with Dr. Alberto’s office on referrals. She couldn’t come down to Arcadia all the time, and it was impractical for them to drive to Tampa several times a week, so they had learned techniques and video-conferenced with the woman to keep BettLynn’s therapy going.
Unfortunately, taking BettLynn to a regular human pediatric physical therapist was out of the question.
Especially when one of BettLynn’s shifting triggers seemed to be getting frustrated at her physical limitations while in human form.
“Back to our conversation,” Elain said, wanting to make good use of their time together. “What do we know?”
They hashed out everything they knew to date about the vision. Which, unfortunately, was limited.
“Maybe we could try going backward?” Mai asked. “Start at the end of the vision and try to rewind it?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Elain said. “We should try attacking this from all angles.”
Lina stared at her empty coffee mug. “What I want to know is why Baba Yaga was so eager to suddenly dissolve the Triad and hand power over to us after all those years. Especially with something this huge coming down the pike.” She finally looked at Mai, then Elain. “Control freak turned passive viewer calls up the bush league team before the playoffs? Prophecy or not, I don’t buy it. I feel like we’re being played.”
“Agreed,” Mai said. “I don’t like being manipulated.”
Elain hoped she wasn’t blushing, and hoped Mai wouldn’t be upset with her over what she’d done to her friend. “I don’t know. But we need to play the hand we’ve been dealt. We’re smart people. We can figure this out.”
“Maybe we’re overthinking it,” Mai said.
“We’re probably overthinking it,” Lina added, “but I don’t know any other way to approach it.”
“I think we need a séance,” Elain said.
Mai and Lina looked at her. “A what?” Mai asked.
“You know what that is.”
“I know, but you’re not serious, are you?”
Lina seemed to be following Elain’s train of thought, though. “You mean a little outdoor communing. Circle time.”
“Bingo.”
* * * *
They’d finished breakfast and were about to move out to the living room when Ain returned. Elain had started to get up to kiss him when she got a whiff of him.
“Um, eww.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. Straight to the shower, don’t pass go or collect a kiss first.”
Lina was even holding her nose. She pointed at their bedroom. “Yeah. I don’t even have a super sniffer. Go.”
Then Elain’s cell phone rang.
Ortega.
“Sorry, I need to take this,” she told them. “Jaguar Seer business.” She walked out the back door as she answered it, not stopping until she’d reached the edge of the woods and, hopefully, out of range of shifter hearing.
“What’s up?”
The jaguar’s rich, rolling accent flowed through her phone like honey. “My dear, how are you doing? We haven’t talked since you gave birth.”
“You are so sweet and yet so full of bullshit, my friend.”
He chuckled. “I should know better than to try to fool my Clan Seer, eh?”
“I love you, Ortega, you big fuzzball. What’s going on?”
He spent about fifteen minutes discussing incidental, trivial things that Elain knew were leading up to his main topic, which he finally got to.
“Oh, I also wanted to know if there was a good time in the near future for me to come to Maine to give my…eh, report about a certain wolf’s confirmed demise.”
Yeah, this was something they still had to deal with. They couldn’t let it drag on too long for fear of people asking too many questions when the news about Rodolfo’s “passing” was finally revealed to everyone.
“There’s a regular Clan Council meeting in two weeks. I’ll confirm with
Ain and get back to you later today.”
“Excellent. And? How are your little ones, lovely momma?”
He could still sound like a flirt, even while innocently asking about her children. “Connor’s growing like a moose, and Ellie’s beautiful and perfect.”
“Ah, good. Just like her mother, then.”
Elain giggled, glad he couldn’t see her rolling her eyes at him. He was harmless enough when it came to this. “How’s Fiona doing?”
“She is well.” His voice subtly changed, deepening, full of emotion. “Thank you, again, for making me see what I had lost sight of. I think we are all better off focusing on the future. I am forever grateful and forever in your debt, my dear.”
“You’re welcome. All part of the gig.”
Humor returned to his tone. “Our very busy Seer.”
“I meant as a friend, but sure.” She left him laughing as she ended the call and headed back to the house.
Ain had made it out of the shower. Everyone stared at her as she walked in.
“It’s okay. It was Ortega, wanting to know when the next Clan Council meeting is so he can…present some information publicly.”
The others, especially Ain, relaxed. “Brodey’s not going to like that news,” Ain joked.
Elain snorted. “Tell me about it.”
“What?” Lina asked. “Why?”
“Road trip,” Elain and Ain said together.
* * * *
It was mild for a May afternoon in Florida, with a cool sea breeze reaching all the way from the Gulf into Arcadia. After lunch, the women opted to take their business outside to the backyard, in the shade of a sprawling oak tree just behind Elain’s house.
Far enough away that even Ain and his shifter ears couldn’t hear what was going on from where he was watching the kids in the house.
Elain was even more relieved that Brighton was apparently out of the house for the day and not anywhere on the property, since he’d had yet to return.
Zack and Kael accompanied them this time. They’d brought the Beasts over, and Mom had returned to the house with Joss to watch them all with Ain. It was also a reward for BettLynn, for having not shifted all morning.
“You know,” Kael said, “it’s probably not a bad idea to be recording these sessions. I mean, some of them we might want to be able to watch again, just in case.”
Lina shrugged. “I’m good with that.”
“Me, too,” Elain said.
“Sure,” Mai said. “Why not?”
The women settled cross-legged on the ground, close enough they could hold hands with each other. Zack and Kael remained standing, on opposite sides of them, their iPhones ready to capture the action.
“What do we do?” Elain asked.
“I have no fucking idea,” Lina admitted.
“We want to see if we can track down more details from the vision of the bomb, right?” Mai asked. “I like the idea of trying to walk it backward.”
“But if we can change events to prevent it from happening,” Elain said, “doesn’t that create one of those paradox thingies?”
Lina shook her head. “No. It isn’t like Doctor Who, where there are fixed points in the time stream that cannot be altered. It’s more like one of those books we had as kids, where you followed the story along and had page choices for different actions. You want to follow the path to the right, turn to page twenty-five. Follow it left, page thirty. Then you could always back up if you didn’t like the results of what happened. What we’re seeing from the future hasn’t happened yet. Probably why our visions are in blue when we see the future.”
“Because it’s what will happen if current events continue on their path?” Mai asked.
“Right.”
“Then how,” Elain asked, “will we be able to change the future if all we’re seeing is one possibility?”
Lina gave her “the look.” “Again, I’m spit-balling. I’m just as lost as you are. I’m hoping that if we change something, the visions will change. This is all theory. If you have a better idea, just say it.”
“I don’t. That’s the problem.”
Mai held her hands out to either side. “We going to sit here talking all day, or we going to try this?”
Elain took her hand and then held her other out to Lina. Once the circuit was completed, they all closed their eyes. Elain felt a gentle, almost pleasant tingling wash through her. Not like when they did the ceremony in Yellowstone, or made the house disappear, or even when they fought Aliah. This wasn’t like wasabi in her veins, it felt more like…
Well, a vibrator. Only turned on very low, and not focused on her clit.
Which was a good thing, because the last thing she felt at that moment was sexy.
They sat there in silence for a moment, Elain expecting Lina to start the process when the goddess spoke. “I got nothing. Elain, please do the honors.”
Elain took a deep breath, unsure what to say. She finally decided on the follow-her-gut method.
“Future future, speak to me. Gathered here among us three. We wish to look upon a face, please show it to us in this place. The one who wishes to cause death, who wishes to deprive of breath. Innocents many we must save, to keep them from an early grave. Please show to us the vision dire, so that we may prevent dark fire. Start at the end rewind the blast, and in the future, show us the past.”
About the same time she felt Mai and Lina’s hands clamp down on hers, Elain involuntarily took a tighter grip on her friends’ hands. Behind her eyelids a horrific mushroom cloud had appeared. The vision also had a bluish tint. Elain even felt the heat, heard the shrieks of the dead and dying around them.
But…like a DVR on rewind, the picture changed. The mushroom cloud and accompanying heat receded. As the three of them stood there in the vision, holding hands together in a circle on the street corner, Elain started to speak, softly narrating what they were seeing for the sake of the two men filming them, hoping she was actually speaking out loud and not just in the vision.
As she looked around, frantically studying street and business signs and reading them off, she realized they were missing the whole point of this exercise. There weren’t any newspaper boxes anywhere, but she turned, in the vision Mai and Lina turning with her, and started looking at license plates on cars.
“Missouri…Missouri…Tennessee…Kentucky—what the fuck? Missouri…Missouri…Tennessee…Kentucky—”
In the vision, Lina and Mai were also now looking around, reading off license plates as well as expiration sticker dates, something Elain had brain-farted on.
“Okay, so we’re looking at less than two years in the future right now,” Elain said, looking up to see where the cloud was still pulling back on itself in the near distance. She pointed in its direction. “We have to find the source of that.”
In the vision, she dropped the other women’s hands and started running toward the receding mushroom cloud. Mai and Lina followed her, even though they didn’t actually break the circle in real life. Elain realized that cars were driving backward and pedestrians were walking backward. Only they were moving forward. And they were invisible. When Elain dodged a car she accidentally ran through another one parked on the curb.
Emboldened, she stopped trying to follow the streets and instead ran through buildings, not hesitating, only slowing a little every time she emerged from a new one to get her bearings and not lose sight of the cloud.
“It’s almost too small to see now!” Lina yelled.
“I know,” Elain said. “Keep running!”
Mai was keeping up what would probably appear to be a nonsensical stream of narration to Zack and Kael, describing what buildings they were running through, giving information about the people that she saw inside, while Lina and Elain focused on not losing track of the shrinking mushroom cloud.
“We’re running south,” Mai said. “The shadows. It’s late in the afternoon and we’re running south. It’s warm. It’s summer. Has to be.”
“Goddammit!” Elain screamed when they ran up over a levee and then down onto the bank of a river.
Lina tried to cross it, but couldn’t. She wasn’t actually getting wet, but would still sink down into the river when she tried to cross.
In the distance, to the south and west, the mushroom cloud completely disappeared and all seemed normal, other than the fact that everyone was going backward except them.
Behind them, Mai started screaming. “Marston. Marston. MarstonMarstonMARSTONMARSTON!” Mai’s eyes rolled back in her head and in the vision, Elain caught her.
When she opened her eyes, Elain actually did have Mai in her arms, Lina helping support her.
The men stopped filming and rushed over, but Mai was already coming around.
“Holy fuck,” Mai muttered. “What the hell?”
Lina looked furious. “Marston. You kept saying Marston. Was it Marston Hill? Did you see him? I didn’t see him. Was he there?”
“I…I don’t know.” She looked at Elain. “I never saw him. Is that what I was saying?”
“At the end, there, yeah.”
When Elain suddenly felt heat ratchet up a few degrees from Lina’s direction, she yelled, “Zack!”
“I got her.” He grabbed Lina under the armpits from behind and dragged her away from the other two women. “Goddess girl, chill out. It’s okay.”
“Marston fucking Hill?” Lina raged. “He’s behind this?”
“We don’t know that,” Elain said, trying not to panic. “Calm. Down.”
The edict immediately worked. “I still want to know how you can do that to me,” Lina said.
“That makes two of us.” Elain returned her focus to Mai, who was her immediate concern. She couldn’t very well poof down to fricking Bolivia at that exact second and ask Marston what the ever-loving fuck.
Not without risking Lina and possibly even Mai suddenly figuring out their poofy skills and following her.
“Let’s get everyone back inside in the kitchen,” Zack said. “Get Mai a drink of water, and take a few deep breaths, and review the footage to make notes.”
“Good idea,” Elain said. “But I need to go make a call.”