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  Wickedly Unraveled

  A Baba Yaga Novel

  Deborah Blake

  Wickedly Unraveled (A Baba Yaga Book)

  Deborah Blake

  Copyright 2019 Deborah Blake. All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Support your favorite authors. Buy or borrow, don’t pirate.

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  Cover art by earthlycharms.com

  Interior design by Crystal Sarakas

  PRAISE FOR THE BOOKS OF DEBORAH BLAKE

  "Witchy and wild, this book has everything I'm looking for."

  -Tanya Huff, author of the Peacekeeper series

  "Paranormal romance at its best."

  - Alex Bledsoe, author of the Eddie LaCrosse novels

  "An addicting plot...I never had so much fun losing sleep!"

  - Maria V. Snyder, NYT bestselling author of Shadow Study

  "[Blake does] a fantastic job building layers in her world and developing interesting characters both old and new."

  - RT Book Reviews

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  "An engaging world full of thoughtful, clever details, and a charmingly dangerous heroine...Tightly plotted, with great fidelity to the Baba Yaga stories from Russian folklore that inspired the book." - Dear Author

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  "An exciting new series."

  - Tynga's Reviews

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  "[A] good tale with fantastical creatures described in vivid detail, and with a lovely romance woven in... Equally engaging and enjoyable."

  - Harlequin Junkie

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  "[A] fun retelling of the Baba Yaga mythology in a modern urban fantasy setting."

  - All Things Urban Fantasy

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  "The kind of paranormal adventure that will keep readers up at night."

  - Fresh Fiction

  Acknowledgments

  As always, this book took a village to create and polish. Huge thanks to my first readers—Judy, Lisa, and especially Karen, who said she thought it was my best book yet. (It’s not, but I love you for thinking so.) Special thanks to Judy for final edits and catching my screw-ups and making me look good. Better, anyway. Sorry about the commas. But only slightly.

  Huge kudos to my cover artist, Su from Earthly Charms, who accomplished the nearly impossible and came up with an amazing cover that was not only a great fit with the whole series, but matched as closely as possible the model for the first book. (Which came out from Berkley, so there was no way to duplicate her exactly.) Believe it or not, the dog was tougher to match than the woman! I can’t thank her enough for gracing my work with the perfect cover and working with me until it was just right.

  Big thanks as always to my agent, the wonderful Elaine Spencer, for her support and enthusiasm for all my writing, and for loving this series from the first. When I first sent her this idea, she accused me of being an evil genius eating bonbons in my tower while plotting dominion over other authors. No wonder I love her. (And no, I’m really not. Plotting, that is. The bonbons, well…)

  But most of all, thank you to all my readers, who keep asking for more books about the Riders and the Baba Yagas. You guys are what keep me getting up in the morning and typing long into the night. Y’all rock.

  To all those who have woken up one morning to find their worlds inexplicably changed. Love is never lost, even when it feels as though it is gone forever. Alex and Valette, Jarrod, and Carrie Ann, this one goes out to you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  About the Author

  OTHER FICTION BY DEBORAH BLAKE

  Chapter One

  “I think we should take a family vacation,” Liam said, gazing calmly across the knotty pine breakfast table. “We’ve never done that.”

  His wife Barbara blinked her clear amber eyes at him as though he’d just suggested they take a stroll through a field full of man-eating tigers.

  “You really think that would be a good idea?” she asked in a deceptively mild tone. After all, there were reasons they’d never done such a thing. Like the fact that she was one of the Baba Yagas, a powerful witch out of Russian fairy tales whose job it was to maintain the balance of nature and occasionally—if she couldn’t find a way around it—help a worthy seeker.

  “What is a family vacation?” their adopted daughter Babs asked, looking up from her bowl where she had been taking precise methodical alternating bites of cereal and then strawberries, careful never to mix them both. Her asymmetrical pixie-cut dark hair and wide eyes over a snub nose made her look adorable, if slightly elfin.

  Then there was that. That being Babs, who had spent the formative early days of her life trapped in the mystical Otherworld as a captive of a power-hungry rusalka and under the dubious care of Liam’s insane former wife.

  It had been almost four years since they’d rescued Babs and discovered she had enough innate magical power to convince the High Queen to allow Barbara to train the girl to become a Baba Yaga someday. Four years of living part of her life as normally as possible, while the rest was spent traveling with Barbara in her magical hut-turned-Airstream trailer.

  Although, Barbara thought ruefully as she pondered the question, “as normal as possible” took on a whole different meaning when dealing with a child who thought nothing of having a best friend who was a talking dragon disguised as a giant while pit bull.

  “A family vacation is when you travel with your family to someplace where you have fun together,” Barbara said, feeling as though the explanation was probably somewhat inadequate. After all, she’d never experienced such a thing either. Her youth had been spent (a lot longer ago than one might think) living in a wooden hut on chicken legs in the great forests of Russia, her only family the bad-tempered old Baba Yaga who trained her, and the three mythical Riders who came and went periodically.

  Plus Chudo-Yudo, of course, whose large white muzzle was currently resting on her booted feet under the table. He had been her best friend too.

  Babs pondered the statement thoughtfully, as she did most things. “But we travel in the Airstream all the time. We go places and fix problems. Is that not fun?”

  Liam shook his head, dark-blonde hair flopping into his eyes until he shook it back out. Barbara felt a flutter of affection for the gesture, which had captivated her the first time she’d met him. He got regular haircuts now, so it wasn’t as shaggy as it had been back then, but that one lock still seemed to have a mind of its own.

  “Well for one thing, that’s Baba’s job. You both might enjoy it, but that’s not the same as a vacation.” He smiled at the girl, who, at more-or-less nine years old, was both more sophisticated and infinitely more innocent than any normal Human child that age. “Besides, I never get to go on those trips. I’m talking about all three of us traveling together.”

  Babs’ large brown eyes lit up, although her face maintained its usual solemn mien. “All three of us together? Could we, Baba Yaga?” She gazed at Barbara, who sometimes got called Baba and sometimes B
arbara, but never mother. That was okay by her, since she wasn’t exactly the motherly type. Neither Babs nor Liam ever really asked her for anything…

  “I don’t see why not,” Barbara said slowly. “It might be an interesting experience.”

  A huge smile spread across Liam’s attractive face. “Seriously? That would be great! I have plenty of time coming to me, since I rarely take any off. And Belinda could easily cover for me.” Liam was the sheriff of rural Clearwater County, where they lived, and Belinda was his most capable deputy.

  Barbara felt a tremor slide down her spine, like tiny lizard feet scampering across her skin. With an effort, she dismissed the sensation. Probably just the occasional unsettled feeling that came from trying to adjust to the realities of everyday Human life and being married after eighty-plus years of magic and solitude.

  “Sure,” she said, pouring herself another cup of coffee from the enchanted coffee maker that usually lived on the Airstream, double-checking before she drank to make sure it was actually coffee, and not tea, or orange juice, or gods forbid, streamed yak milk. That one had been disgusting. “Did you have any particular destination in mind?”

  “What about the Land of Disney?” Babs suggested. “Mary Elizabeth said her mom took her there and it was very fun. She said it was magical and there were fairies, just like the Otherworld.”

  Barbara snorted down her long nose. “Not exactly. Disney is make-believe magic, not real like ours.”

  A tiny line formed between Babs’ brows and she glanced from Barbara to Liam. “That is just silly. Why would anyone want that?”

  “Not everyone can have real magic, sweetheart,” Liam explained. “So they pretend. I don’t think you’d like it anyway. It is very crowded and noisy there.”

  Babs made a face. She still found large groups of Humans overwhelming, although she would never admit it. They’d tried her at elementary school—way too much chaos and noise. After the third time Barbara had been called in to find the girl hiding in a back corner of the playground or inside a locker, they’d just given up and switched to home schooling. So large amusement parks were definitely off the table.

  “Maybe something a little less…ambitious…to start with?” Barbara suggested. “How about a camping trip?”

  Liam gave her a smug look, and put a colorful pamphlet down on the table, along with a couple of photos printed out from the computer. “What about this? It’s within driving distance, it’s beautiful, and shouldn’t be too crowded since the summer tourist season hasn’t quite started yet.”

  Barbara pulled the papers towards her and Babs jumped down from her seat, abandoning the soggy remains of her breakfast to take a look.

  “Ah,” Barbara said, pleased and surprised. “Niagara Falls. Good choice. Lots of great natural energy, not too many people. I haven’t been there in years.” She tapped one of the photos thoughtfully.” I used to know a river nymph who lived in that area. I wonder if she is still around.”

  Liam winked at her. “It’s also a traditional place for Humans to go on a honeymoon. As I recall, we never got one of those. It might be kind of romantic.”

  “I doubt most couples honeymoon with a miniature Baba Yaga trainee and a dragon,” Barbara said, but her heart did a silent dance anyway. She was probably the least romantic woman on the planet, but somehow Liam could make her forget that fact.

  “We are hardly most couples,” Liam said with a grin, and came around the table to kiss her resoundingly before grabbing up his sheriff’s hat from its hook. “But there is no one I’d rather take a belated honeymoon slash family vacation with. I’ll arrange the time off while I’m at work today, and we’ll make plans when I get home.”

  He tugged on Babs’ hair before heading out the door. A reserved and self-contained child, she wasn’t comfortable with kisses or hugs most of the time, so she and Liam had gotten into the habit of substituting affectionate hair tugs instead. It seemed like a small gesture, but she’d once made Liam drive all the way back from town to their yellow farmhouse just because he’d forgotten to do it on his way out.

  Barbara admired his butt as he left, her lips still tingling from his kiss. That man. Oh, that man. She dragged her attention back to the table with difficulty.

  Barbara gazed at her protégé. “So, what do you think about this idea? Do you want to take a family vacation? It would be a new thing, but not so different from what we do already, you and I.”

  Babs pondered for a moment. “I suppose it would be good. I like to travel in the Airstream, and I like it when we are all together. So traveling all together should be good, right?”

  “Right,” Barbara said, gathering up the breakfast dishes. “It should definitely be good.”

  So why did she have a feeling that disaster was lurking right around the corner?

  “Are you sure we need all that?” Barbara asked as Liam brought another load of supplies into the Airstream. This seemed to be a box of board games, coloring books, and what looked suspiciously like the making for s’mores.

  “It’s traditional,” Liam said with a straight face. “You can’t argue with tradition.”

  That much was certainly true. When you were a legendary character out of old fairy tales, tradition was etched into your bones like the passage of water was carved into rocks. But surely there were limits.

  “You packed sleeping bags,” she protested. “We’re traveling in a moveable house with beds. Comfortable beds. Why would we need those?”

  “Tradition,” he insisted again. “What if we want to sleep outside under the stars?”

  Barbara rolled her eyes at him, but didn’t bother to argue. Liam had thrown himself whole-heartedly into their first family vacation, and she didn’t want to ruin his fun, as ridiculous as most of it seemed to her. Liam had been patient and understanding about the necessity of her going off on numerous Baba Yaga missions during the few years they’d been married. If he wanted to over-pack for a vacation with a woman who could manifest out of thin air just about anything they needed, she wasn’t going to be the one to stop him.

  He turned to her as if to ask a question, then stopped in his tracks as a loud humming sound filled the trailer. “What the—?”

  Barbara got a sinking sensation somewhere between the bottom of her cropped red tee shirt and the top of her black leather pants. With a sigh, she put one hand out, palm up. A miniature man-shaped figure wearing leaves for clothing and an acorn as a cap landed lightly in the middle of her palm, his oversized wings vibrating slightly even when he was standing still.

  “Hey, Baba!” Chudo-Yudo said as he bounded up the stairs and into the Airstream. “Did you see a—” He screeched to a halt as he saw their small visitor. “Oh. You did. Damn. I was hoping it was just a bug.”

  “Who are you calling a bug, you oversized mongrel?” the sprite said, waving a sword in the dragon-dog’s general direction. The weapon in question wasn’t much larger than a toothpick, but Barbara knew from experience it was much sharper. Her visitor didn’t seem to be in much shape to do any damage, thought. He’d clearly had a tough journey—he was gasping like a marathon runner nearing the finish line. She could feel his whole body trembling.

  She cleared her throat. “My apologies,” she said to the wood creature. “Were you looking for me?”

  Catching Liam’s eye, she gestured toward the cupboard where she kept her herbal remedies. “Can you fill one of those tiny cups from the bottle marked restorative honey, please?”

  To his credit, once the initial surprise wore off, Liam didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a doll-sized goblet from the array available, and used the dropper on top of the bottle to fill it. He handed it to the sprite with a small bow and Barbara felt a swell of pride. Followed by a sinking feeling that their family vacation was about to be derailed.

  “My thanks to you,” the little man said, once he’d swallowed the potion and had caught his breath. “And to your consort. He is clearly not a bad sort, for a Human.”

  Liam r
olled his eyes, but stayed where he was, eying the sprite warily. Since he normally made himself scarce any time there was Baba Yaga business, Barbara was pretty sure he, too, was worried that something would keep them from leaving that very morning as planned.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked. “It’s only, this isn’t a very good time…”

  The sprite raised one green-tinged eyebrow. “You are busy with a more serious matter?”

  Barbara sighed. Only my marriage, she thought. “Not at all. Please tell me what brought you here, and how I can help?”

  “I come from the wood to the north,” he said. “Three days hard flight, as my people measure it. There is a wrongness afoot we thought you should be aware of. Magic ill-controlled, that threatens those in the surrounding area. We need the Baba Yaga to put a stop to it.”

  Uncontrolled magic. That was bad. “Where does this magic come from?” she asked. “Is it some creature from the Otherworld who is disregarding the queen’s rules against blatant magic in the Human lands? Some fluke of the natural world?”

  The little man scrunched up his face in disgust. “Worse,” he said. “A Human.”

  “A Human with magic?” Liam said, forgetting that he was trying to fade into the background. “Is there such a thing?”