C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-NINE
A Troll a Day
N
adja Grigorovich had just put her schedule on fast-forward. The troll she’d gorged on earlier had filled her to the brim with magick, sating the dark beast that dwelled where her soul had been and that was now always looking for something to gnaw on. Sated it for the nonce. She just might have to eat a troll every day, because she felt so lovely. They would always be on the menu when she became the Baba Yaga—an event that had been moved forward to tonight.
At her son’s bar, Nadja sensed demon magick all around. The doors opened after she blasted them with a shot of her own power. The mighty hammer of her will was unstoppable.
She did not like what she’d found inside. Not one bit. She’d raised her son better. The bar was empty other than Michael; his head was in his hands and he had two empty bottles of vodka on the table before him. His hair was wild and greasy, and he looked like he hadn’t slept for days. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles, and he was sloppy drunk.
One of the bottles went sailing past her head, and exploded into a thousand shards on the wall behind her.
“Get out. You’re not real.”
She ignored this. “Where is Grace?”
“How the fuck should I know?” he said, taking a drink from a third bottle that sat on the booth bench next to him.
“It’s your job to know, at least if you still want to be a demon.”
“Mamulya?”
Michael asked. He was really fucked up. He hadn’t called her anything but Nadja since he was six. “I missed you,
Mamulya
. My heart is full to see you.”
Nadja raised a brow and wondered if she slapped the spit out of his mouth whether anything he’d learned would come back to him. Maybe he’d remember where he’d hidden his balls. She was tempted to call and ask Grace to get them out of her purse. Whatever had happened to the delightfully menacing bastard she’d left behind, and who was this needy little bitch who had taken his place?
She sighed, deciding to try a different tack. A little subtlety might just be what was needed. Something catastrophic had happened to her little monster, and she needed to find out what it was.
“
Mamulya
is here, Mikal,” she said, speaking to him as if he were five years old all over again. “Come tell me all about it.”
She slipped into the booth beside her son and gently pried the bottle out of his hands. As she set it on the table, she thought she saw a redhead behind the bar, but the woman was gone in a flash, if she’d ever been there.
“Grace is fucking a demon,” Michael complained.
“That’s a problem?”
“Hell, yes. He gave me demonic crabs, the fiery shits, and screwed Grace in my very own hot tub. Ethelred told me she screamed his name and that he’s better than me.”
Nadja felt a faint stirring of an emotion close to maternal solicitude, at least as close as she ever got. No one was better than her son at anything.
Michael continued. “Sasha disappeared with a girl I bought for him, Petru followed them, and I shot my bartender only to have him replaced by a demon whore who’s tormenting me for some imagined wrong I did her. I’m in hock up to my ears with Ethelred and there’s no end in sight. Grace cast a Karma spell on me, so that when I tried to tag the back door of the new girl,
I
felt it. How fair is that? It’s not!”
He drunkenly flopped his head back on the table. “I’ve tried to do everything you asked,
Mamulya
. I’ve lied, cheated, stolen, killed, and punished as you said. I’m no closer to demonhood.”
Nadja petted her son’s head and rubbed small circles on his back like she had when he was a child with a cold. Ivan hit her every time Michael coughed, so it had behooved her to take care of him. Just like it did now.
“No, it’s not fair, Michael,” she said. “I will raise her for you after I am Baba Yaga. I promise, my son. If you want Grace, you shall have her. For eternity.”
Her boy’s eyes were haunted. “Will you also make the whore stop tormenting me?”
“Which one, Michael?”
“That
one,” he said, motioning to the bar. “That redheaded bitch I killed and put in a Dumpster. She haunts me. She gives me dreams, visions, chokes me while she touches me. And worse . . .”
“How did she die, my son? Did you strangle her?”
Michael nodded miserably. Then he glanced over toward the bar. “I told you I would tell my mother, you bitch. Ha,” he cackled. His head lolled back drunkenly.
“Answer the question or I can’t hurt her.” She tugged on his hair to make Michael pay attention.
“Yes, I strangled her and dumped her with the rest of the trash. Or my men did.”
“She’s angry then. But how did this dead hooker get magick?” Nadja kept petting her son’s head, hoping to soothe him.
“I don’t know, but she has it. She’s a demon now. She says she’s going to stay with me until I kill myself.” He nodded to a gold-plated nine-millimeter that was on the table, and he looked like he’d been pretty close to using it.
“No, son of my flesh! You mustn’t ever kill yourself. Not when you can kill others,” Nadia advised.
“Come here, little whore.”
The words were a magickal command. To her surprise, Jill found herself corporeal and bound, her personal power quiescent, unreachable. She was trapped. Trapped in this bar, trapped in a private hell. It was worse than the real one.
“Why are you tormenting my son?” Nadja compelled her to answer.
“He killed me. He strangled me because the demon crabs made him angry. Or maybe just because he’s an evil bastard.”
Nadja grimaced. “That was your lot in life, girl. You must accept it. He is stronger than you.”
“Not anymore,” Jill crowed.
“No, not anymore, demon. But I—
I
am stronger than you. You will serve. I bind you to him for all eternity.”
And with that simple sentence, a silver chain sprang from Michael to the inside of Jill’s stomach, attaching them. She belonged to him forever. Only the Devil could break this chain.
“Wait for his leisure!” Nadja screeched in closure. The bar’s heavy atmosphere instantly lightened, and Jill was sentenced to some shadowy place where she’d never again see the light of day. Not unless Michael asked for her or the Devil recalled her to Hell.
“Is that better, my son?”
“Yes.” Michael took a deep breath, his head fell forward, and he began to snore lightly on the table.
That whore had kept him up and tormented him for days. Nadja decided to let him sleep for a few hours. She couldn’t believe that the prostitute had managed to push her strong son almost to the point of breaking. If Nadja hadn’t shown up when she did, his brains would be splattered all over the wall behind them.
Well, she didn’t need him for this part of her plan anyway. Nadja concentrated very hard and changed form into that of an old woman with a basket of apples. Ingenious, if she did say so herself. Very old-world magick—something that Grace wouldn’t see coming until after it choked her to death.
She threw some more magick around the bar, making sure her son was protected at least until she got back, then headed out the door. Slowly, she made her way across town, enjoying the freedom of this cronelike form. Nobody paid her much mind at all. She liked the attention she got wearing the shape of the body Sasha had bought for her—men all liked to stare at her ass—but it was nice to be inconspicuous, too.
Not that anyone respected the elderly in this country. Most were treated like children who couldn’t do for themselves, not as the great sages they were in her culture. In her village, everyone gave grandmothers respect. They had seen so much, had so much knowledge to share....
Also, you never knew who or what was wearing that skin. It was well-known in magickal circles that many creatures preferred the form of an old woman. In her village, an old woman knocking on your door at night was something to be feared. Here it was just a hassle. No one believed anymore.
That was something that she was going to change when she was Baba Yaga. People would remember to fear the night and its creatures. That old saying about how there was nothing in the dark that wasn’t there in the light? It was bullshit. There were all sorts of horrors that crawled in the shadows, just waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to spill out into the world in an ink-dark stain of evil. They would all answer to her, Nadja Grigorovich, descendant of Rasputin, and ruling Baba Yaga.
But for now, gaining the trust of a younger person was best accomplished in an old and withered form. She would see if Grace Stregaria had taken lessons from her grandmother’s knee, or if she was like every other modern youngster who would open the door to an old woman and her basket of apples.
She scattered a few pieces of fruit in the hallway, easing her old frame to the ground as if she’d fallen. When she gave a giggle, the sound emerged as a deranged cackle, but this suited her just fine. She pounded hopefully on Grace’s door.
The door didn’t open, which surprised Nadja. Perhaps Grace had taken to her lessons, after all. The possibility hadn’t really seemed likely; she had to stop assuming people were as stupid as they seemed.
She pounded again, hoping no one else stumbled on her. Nadja didn’t think she could play nice twice; it had just about killed her earlier with Michael. Scratching a final time in desperation, she gave a sigh of relief when the door finally opened.
It was no wonder that Grace was screwing this demon instead of her son. Not that Michael wasn’t handsome; he was. She was proud of his features. But this demon was . . . something else. Maybe he’d be free for a hookup after she’d taken her rightful place as the world’s preeminent witch.
He took one look and shut the door in her face.
“Help, I’ve fallen!” Nadja thought about adding, “And I can’t get up,” but she was sure that would be pushing it. Plus, she’d giggle. She flopped down all the way to the ground and let out a small mewling sound.
“Old woman, sell your sob story elsewhere. As if I’d let you anywhere near either of us with an apple.”
“He’s so mean,” she howled, hoping she might attract the neighbors and force his hand. “I’ve fallen and he won’t help me.”
“Yes, I am mean. I’m the scourge of old ladies everywhere. Beat it, or I’m going to shove those apples somewhere no one has explored since the Dark Ages. Beat feet, hag!” Caspian called through the door. “I know better than to trust your kind.”
It had probably been too much to hope that this was going to work on Caspian, seeing as he was a demon. But Nadja wasn’t giving up. She howled again in a voice so high pitched and irritating that she annoyed herself. The door opened again, and she peered up into Caspian’s smiling face.
She didn’t know what the hell he had to be so happy about—until he dumped a pitcher of rose water on her. To add insult to injury, he tossed salt on afterward. And not just a pinch of the stuff. He got some in her mouth. Her magickal disguise began to shimmer, and she knew the jig was up. For now, anyway.
“I’ll get you,” she said as she disappeared.
So, now what? If it had been Grace alone, the girl would have been too weak to deny her pleading entreaties. But with the demon there, apparently protecting her . . . ? She had to find a way around him.
Inspiration struck like a blinding light. She’d turn into Sasha and use Petru! Except, she was sure Katerina would have warned the big lug somehow; she wouldn’t leave him to muddle along uninformed. The woman hadn’t been in love with Sasha, and she would have warned
him
. Now Katerina had
love-struck
stamped all over her forehead, so it seemed like a foregone conclusion. She likely did it without breaking her vow of silence, too.
So, no. That plan wouldn’t work, but something similar might. She needed someone or something big that could just burst in and take Grace out of Caspian’s hands. Something that could get past the hex bags she’d smelled. Or . . . she could just say fuck it and burn the place down. That sounded like the most expedient of plans. Why bother being tricksy? Seraphim’s magick was strong, but not even hex bags could survive a healthy dose of arson.
Nadja hobbled down the stairs, not daring to change forms. Someone might see her, and that wouldn’t do. She meant to keep her powers a secret. As she exited the stairs, she blew a kiss in the general direction of the building, and magickal flames sprang up wherever she looked. They crawled high up the walls, spreading in an elegant ballet of death that would consume all it touched.
She would have made an excellent getaway if she hadn’t tripped over a homeless man who’d been watching the whole thing.
“I didn’t see shit,” he said as she stood up.
“I know,” she whispered, and then added a few words of magick. His eyes glazed over with a white film. “And you never will again.”
The delay was fortuitous. She turned just in time to see a very interesting development—Grace jumping off the roof and gliding down into the nearby alley sporting lavender wings. But that wasn’t what impressed her most. What fascinated her was that Grace’s demonic sex god was holding on to her for dear life. He had no wings.