Baba Yaga walked over and leaned against the counter. “Firstly, I want to commend you on your approach. I am not trying to sound sarcastic or condescending. I am very proud of you. I know you don’t think it of me, but the most powerful must never lose their sense of humility.”
It felt like an invisible stopwatch ticked in the back of her brain. “Thank you, but please, that isn’t helpful.”
“I’m guessing you already tried talking with Ryan Ausar and he declined to help?”
She shook her head. “We keep getting his voice mail.” A harsh laugh escaped her. “The Devil has voice mail. Imagine that.”
Baba Yaga smiled. “I would think some would say that is a level of Hell. Albeit a lesser one.”
“I don’t suppose you know how else to get hold of him?”
“Not really, no. He’s not a mortal.”
“Is there anything else you can do?”
“In what way?”
“Please, I’m begging. I…I don’t know what to do. I need to get him back.”
“Firstly, let me remind you time moves differently here than it does elsewhere. It’s at my whim. So allow yourself a moment to breathe and relax. When you return to Yellowstone, only a mere second or two will have passed there.”
Lina closed her eyes, a minor sense of relief washing over her. She nodded.
“Look at me, my child.”
Lina forced her eyes open again.
“You are a goddess, Lina. I know you don’t feel like you are, but you have resisted for so long truly tapping into those primal forces within you. Whether out of fear of failure or fear of success, only you can answer that. You have memories of the past. You know what you’re capable of. You stopped an entire dark army in a former life. Do you not think you have the ability to handle this as well?”
“I don’t know how.” She covered her mouth with her hand and silently wept. She couldn’t live with herself if Jim died because she fucked things up.
“Shh,” Baba Yaga gently said. “Listen to me carefully. Quit thinking about what you know and what you don’t know. Follow what you feel. The same advice we’re constantly giving to Elain applies to you as well.”
Lina unclenched and clenched her fists again. “I’m a friggin’ goddess and I have no damn clue what to do.”
“That’s right,” Baba Yaga said, jabbing a finger at her. “You are a goddess!”
“I—” Lina’s mouth snapped shut as she stared at the woman for a moment. Confused, swirling thoughts rambled through her mind, tenuous, nebulous, nothing concrete enough for her to grasp and pull into full view to examine.
“How did you save yourself and Brodey from the fire?” she asked. “Did you think or did you feel?”
Lina swallowed hard. “I felt,” she whispered.
“You had no time to think, correct?”
Lina nodded.
“Had you stopped to think, you would have both died, correct?”
She nodded again.
“You spend far too much time thinking, child. It is understandable and forgivable, but you will have many, many years ahead of you in which to think. It’s time for you to feel and act.” She made a fist and raised it in front of her. “To grasp the world and bend it to your will. You are a mother and a mate and a businesswoman and a friend and yes, even a daughter. But you are before all of that a goddess. The Goddess of Sunrise. Zaria.”
She shook her fist at Lina. “The time for you to seize your power has passed. It is within you already. You must shed these limiting beliefs that anything is beyond you. Especially when you now form the new Triad with Elain and Mai. The three of you together are unstoppable. Only you can limit yourself. No one else can do that if you do not allow it. Just like neither Edgar nor Lenny could have taken your powers from you, no matter what they thought to the contrary.”
Lina stared at her for a moment, absorbing all of that. “Okay, not to get off the topic or anything, but since time isn’t an issue, and since I have you right here, how the hell did they come to that conclusion anyway? Where did they get their information? Zack said then that he’d thought cockatrice had died out.”
She smiled. “Zachary lived many lives tending to you, dear. His view of the world was rather limited despite the fact that he had all of his memories.”
“You’re saying I could just go get Jim back, blast those fuckers to kingdom come, and be done with this bullshit once and for all?”
Baba Yaga stepped around the counter and stood in front of her. She gently tapped Lina’s chest. “You are the only one who limits yourself, Goddess,” she quietly said. “Just keep in mind when you use your powers that sometimes there are times when they shouldn’t be used. Light and dark must always remain in some semblance of balance or else the world will fall into chaos no matter how good the intention. If you need an example of that you need look no further than the Spanish Inquisition or the Burning Times. Evil done in the name of good is still evil. We are all subject to the Goddess of All and to the whims of Karma. Use your powers wisely and well. Just because you can use them doesn’t mean you always should. Just like a parent shouldn’t always do things for their child. The child will become needy and petulant and expecting help all the time.”
Lina glared. “Are you saying I’m a petulant child?”
“No. But as a parent, you know what I say is true.”
She allowed her bubble of anger to dissipate. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” She slumped against the counter. “Is that why you play fortune cookie with us when we need help?”
Baba Yaga smiled. “I give you the answers you need, even if they are not always the answers you want.” Her smile faded. “You will learn to do that yourself.”
A brief flare of panic shot through her. “Wait a minute. You’re not abdicating your…whatever it is you do here, are you?”
“No, my dear. Only the powers of the Triad have been passed on to you, Elain, and Mai.”
“Yeah, and what are we supposed to do with that?”
“Keep the balance.” She shrugged. “Follow your instincts. What you do and the path you choose doesn’t just affect you and your kin. It affects the entire world. And just because there are dark creatures out there with so-called supernatural powers doesn’t mean they might not attempt human-made evil upon their fellow residents of this planet.”
“They…what?”
Baba Yaga didn’t respond.
Lina stared, a new and growing sense of horror creeping in. “Holy fuck,” she whispered.
Baba Yaga slowly nodded. “You have an immediate concern to deal with,” she said, “but I’m afraid the problem extends well past simply keeping humans from figuring out if shifters and other fae races exist or not. There are some who care nothing for themselves and only for their dark legacies. And some plans are already in play. Ryan Ausar and his forces will soon have their hands full and be calling upon you all for assistance.”
Lina’s hand shot out. She grabbed Baba Yaga’s arm before the Immortal could step away.
Lina found herself standing in the middle of a crowd in a city, but she couldn’t tell where. The blue tinge to her vision told her it was from the future, not something that had already happened. From the signs on the nearby businesses, she knew she was in America, and either on the outskirts of downtown or in a smaller city.
She felt the wind kick up, hot, stinging as dust blew against her cheeks. She put a hand up to protect her eyes when a fireball blossomed like a cancerous flower in front of her, the heat searing her skin and evaporating people around her.
As the images solidified in Lina’s mind, she fought the urge to throw up. After a few moments, she couldn’t look anymore and released Baba Yaga’s arm, the image dissipating.
Shaking, Lina had to grab the counter for support. “Fuck,” she whispered.
Baba Yaga leaned in close. “This is about far more than one missing man. I know he is the world to you all, but never lose sight of the greater picture.”
 
; She finally looked at Baba Yaga. “A fucking bomb? How the holy hell am I supposed to go up against some shithouse-rat-crazy cockatrice terrorist setting a goddamned bomb off? And when is that supposed to happen?”
Baba Yaga’s expression turned grim. “I don’t know, Goddess, but you will have to find a way to answer those questions if you wish to stop the vision you just saw from becoming reality. The future is not yet etched in the stones of time, so you have the power to change or even prevent it entirely. However, time is growing short. If you are going to change the future, you must work fast to eliminate the threat.”
Lina still wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. “You can’t even give me a hint?”
“Everything you need to know, Goddess, is already right here.” She tapped Lina’s temple. “You just need to learn to calm down and access that information. You’re not used to having to deal with this kind of pressure. Believe me, this is nothing compared to what the future may hold. You also need to look around you. You will find help in the strangest of places, with the most unusual bedfellows.”
“I am absolutely not cheating on my men.”
Baba Yaga burst out laughing. “Metaphorically, my dear. Quit being so literal. Perhaps if you can learn that, it will help you in your quest. In fact, I think you’ll find you have very little to do for a successful outcome. In this instance, at least.”
Lina found herself back in the woods, her friends all starting and letting out startled cries when she suddenly reappeared.
She did not want to admit defeat.
Closing her eyes, she tried again. “I am with Jim.”
When she opened her eyes, she was still standing with her friends.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
Somehow, she’d suspected it wouldn’t be that easy.
Or, maybe that was the problem, that she hadn’t expected it to work.
Brodey Lyall, who’d been given a pair of shorts by someone at some point, stepped forward. “Nothing?”
Shaking her head almost physically hurt her soul.
“He’s not in the campground, the cabins, or even in any of the private residences or dorms,” he said. “They’ve all been checked out. No sign of his scent. The fuckers who took him have been all over the damn place in the past couple of days, though. Old scent trails. They’ve been here for a while, planning.”
“Any chance they took him up into Gardiner?” she asked.
“I went up there myself. Is it possible? Yes. Likely? No. I didn’t smell the car at all. They must have come in through a different entrance.”
“What did Baba Yaga say?” Ain asked.
“She said it’s likely I wouldn’t have to do much for a successful outcome to this.”
“That’s good, right?” Brodey asked.
“I don’t know. I wish I knew.” She went back to the tree she’d beat up earlier and slugged it one more time, then turned and leaned against it. The image of the bomb exploding had seared itself in her mind.
Blackie stepped forward, head cocked, hands on his hips. “What else happened?” he asked.
She gave him a short shake of her head.
He considered her for a moment before nodding. Obviously, he’d taken the hint that she didn’t want to talk about it in front of everyone. He looked around. “Anyone see Mercedes?”
Lina realized the female wolf wasn’t around. “Jan, Rick, and Kael are still in the air. Maybe they all found something.”
“Well, it’s close to dark. We need to get back to the lodge and regroup, make sure no one else has found him or any better leads.”
Lina laid her head back against the tree. “I am such a sucky Goddess.”
“Quit saying that,” Blackie scolded.
Very little light was left, just a deep purple casting blacker shadows throughout the area, when they returned to the lodge. Inside, Elain sat with her arm around Mai’s shoulders. Mai held a sleeping BettLynn, in puppy form, in her arms, the leash tightly wrapped around her hand. The young mother looked shell-shocked.
“Anything?” Elain asked?
Lina took a deep breath. “We were kind of hoping we’d get back here and he’d be here.”
“Where’s Cail?” Blackie asked.
“He went out again with Wally and the others.”
“Tell her,” Mai whispered. “Callie, please tell her.”
A shiver raced up Lina’s spine. “Tell me what?”
Callie walked over. “Sit down.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Sit down,” Elain quietly said. “Trust me, you want to be sitting down.”
Lina looked at Zack, who shook his head.
Fuck.
She sat on the floor next to the comforter.
Callie knelt in front of her, clasping Lina’s hands in hers. “You want the good news or the bad news?”
“Bad.”
Callie hesitated. “Well, okay. That throws a monkey wrench in how I was going to tell—”
“Just fucking tell her,” Mai said, startling Lina and everyone else from the force of her voice.
Callie glanced at her, nodding before focusing on Lina again. She turned Lina’s left hand over and traced the sigil on her palm. Lina felt a tingle of magickal energy as she did. “You’re an old soul.”
“Um, yeah?”
She traced the sigil again. “Brought together with Rick and Jan. Zack.”
Lina felt the shiver grow to full blown chills. “Spit it out, Callie.”
“The babies are Bertholde, Colm, and Sean.”
Lina wasn’t sure exactly what Callie had said at first. She stared at her friend, then leaned over so she could look at her sons, asleep on the comforter, and BettLynn asleep in her mother’s arms.
Lacey walked over and held out her iPhone.
Lina wanted to burst into tears at the picture of Bertholde. She took the phone from Lacey and stared at the picture for a moment, the woman’s brilliant green eyes…
She blinked.
Lina felt the breath suck out of her as she realized what they were trying to tell her. “Wh–What?”
Callie gently lifted Luka’s left palm. She muttered an incantation as she traced the design with her finger. It briefly lit up with a faint, golden light before fading.
Zack was the first to her side, to catch her before she fell over. Lacey took her phone back while Zack supported her.
“No…what did that bitch…no!”
Callie cradled Lina’s face in her hands and made her look at her. “It’s okay,” she said. “They were together before, they’re together again.”
“It was…they are…” She trailed off, staring at the babies.
Okay, it’s official. I’ve lost my mind.
Chapter Thirty
Mercedes waited until she was absolutely sure she was free of the wolves and other shifters before she shifted back into her wolf form and continued sniffing around.
Hopefully the other shifters, even if they did manage to get a sniff of her, wouldn’t recognize her cockatrice side. Especially since she didn’t smell much like one normally, even when shifted into cockatrice form.
After a few minutes of circling the cabin and carefully eliminating the friendly shifters’ scents, she picked it up, what she suspected were the two abductors.
They did lead to and from a smell that disappeared, the scent of a car, and the human’s scent also disappeared.
She knew better.
She took a few deep breaths, the overwhelming aroma of piney woods shrouding most other scents. She made a few widening circles around the cabin, frustrating her at first.
Then, she found it. The stink where they’d shifted into cockatrice form.
They had doubled-back. And they were likely carrying their human captive.
She followed the scent trail down to the edge of the Firehole River, then picked up the scent on the other side. Sure enough, there was the human’s scent, briefly, before it disappeared again.
They mu
st have set him down to get a better grip on him.
The car was a red herring. Likely the cockatrice were working with a third conspirator, who was now leading the wolves and their allies on a wild-goose chase down the main road.
After looking around, she shifted back into human form and removed the backpack. She adjusted the straps to fit her larger form, donned it again, and shifted into cockatrice mode.
With a mental grin her beak couldn’t replicate she set off, able to cover more ground faster on two cockatrice legs than she could on four wolf ones. More quietly, too. After a few minutes, she picked up the human’s scent again from time to time, where he’d been brushed along branches next to the path the cockatrice were forging through the woods.
And now she could see the occasional track along the forest floor. Two different cockatrice, one of them definitely carrying the human to reduce his scent trail.
Smart.
These weren’t two younger cockatrice then. They were older, old enough, at least, to be strong enough to shift and carry a full-grown human male while they ran and left little trace.
Mercedes picked up the pace, each stride taking her ten feet farther along, her beak down long enough to keep her on the path. They were heading deep into the park’s interior, north, uphill. Staying away from fire roads and main trails, and hidden by the thick stands of trees, they could easily remain hidden from land and air searches.
They were skimming the edge of a fire scar, never veering out into the areas cleared out just a few years earlier despite new vegetation already beginning to make a comeback. They also skimmed past melting snowpacks, never going so high as to lose the treeline or encounter endless expanses of snow that would quickly betray their presence.
They’ve planned this for a while. This wasn’t some random kidnapping. They’d been working on this long enough to have a path well mapped out.
The pursuit went on throughout the afternoon, as the sun arced across the sky and the light slanted through the trees, taking on a golden cast when it peeked through the fuzzy grey quilt of clouds trying to blanket the entire park. She saw no sign over land or by air of the other shifters.
She didn’t know what the cockatrices’ plan was, but she suspected if she didn’t get the guy back before dark that it would be almost impossible to get him back alive.