Wickedly Dangerous (13 page)

Steely determination caused tiny sparks to arc off the tips of her fingers, singeing the paper slightly as she slid it into her pants with the rejected ointment. “Don't you worry,” she said. “I'll find them.” The words
and find out what the hell is going on here
were added only inside her own head.

THE FIRST PLACE
she stopped was only about a mile down the road from Bob's, on a rough gravel street that dipped into a gulley off the main route that ran through town. The place she was looking for perched precariously on a hillside overlooking a stream that looked like it flooded every spring. The house had faded, peeling white paint, and the roof was patched with mismatched shingles. A few chickens wandered lazily through the front yard, pecking at the dirt and clucking at Baba when she got out of the truck.

“Hello, girls,” she said, magically producing a few handfuls of corn to toss in their direction. Baba liked chickens; they were cheerful, useful, and entertaining. If she ever settled down in one place, she was going to get herself some chickens. Of course, if she did, Chudo-Yudo would probably just eat them.

“Are your people home?” she asked the nearest hen, a black and white beauty with fluffy feathers that covered her feet. “I need to talk to them.”

The door to the house opened a crack and a skinny man of around thirty stuck out his head, gazing at her with a pleasant but slightly befuddled expression.

“Are you talking to my chickens?” he asked, opening the door wide enough for her to see two small children peeking out from behind his gangly legs. “I wouldn't bother, if I were you. They're not very bright.”

“That one's Esmeralda,” the little boy added. “She lays a lot of eggs, so we're not going to cook her for dinner.”

Baba glanced down at the hen at her feet. “Do you hear that, Esmeralda? That's good news, isn't it?” Esmeralda squawked loudly and both kids giggled. The boy looked to be around five and his sister maybe a year or two younger.

Baba took a few steps closer to the house and said, “Hi, my name is Barbara Yager, and I'm looking for a woman named Lily. Does she live here?” She aimed a small smile at the children, which made the girl duck her head shyly and stick her thumb into her rosebud pink mouth.

“Lily is my wife,” the man said and looked more closely at Baba. “You're that herbalist who sold her the cream for her tendonitis.” He shook his head ruefully, catching the boy by the back of his overalls when he tried to make a break for the yard. “I'm not so sure she's going to want to talk to you. Her arm swelled up like a balloon when she put that stuff on it.”

“Like a balloon,” the boy said in his high-pitched voice, giggling some more and spreading his arms out to show how big the arm had gotten. “Whoosh!”

Baba winced. “That doesn't sound good. I heard from Bob O'Shaunnessy that there was a problem with some of my remedies, and I've never had that happen before. So I came to give Lily her money back and see if I could figure out what went wrong.” The knot in her stomach pulled itself tighter, making her suck in her breath.

“Oh,” the man said. “Well, we could use the money, although I know she said it wasn't much.” The threadbare shirt he wore seemed to prove his point. “If Bob sent you, I'm sure it's okay. He's good people. Fixed my old Toyota for next to nothing.” He held the door open wider. “Come on in. I'm Jesse, and these little monkeys are Trudy and Timmy.”

Baba thought it wouldn't hurt to have these folks on her side. Besides, she liked Jesse and his little ones. “Actually,” she said, “I've got a double-your-money-back guarantee on all my herbal medicines. So you'll be getting back twice what Lily paid me.” She looked down at the chicken and added, “Isn't that right, Esmeralda?” which made the children giggle again.

Jesse's smile grew a little wider. “Well, that's pretty fair,” he said. “Though I suspect Lily would be happier if her arm didn't look like a giant sausage.”

Baba winced again, dismay rattling her bones. Jesse and the kids led her down a short passageway into a small rectangular living room with pale blue walls and homemade denim curtains pulled shut against the afternoon sun. Children's toys were everywhere; three dolls and a stuffed bear sat in mid–tea party, and a pile of colorful plastic interlocking blocks seemed to have exploded over half of the worn wooden planks. An equally worn-looking woman was stretched out on a battered sofa, one arm encased in an ice pack that was slowly dripping onto a few red and yellow blocks on the floor underneath it.

She lifted her head as they all trooped into the room. “What's going on?” she said, then hoisted herself up with a grunt when she saw Baba. “Hey, I was going to come by and see you.” She held up the swollen arm. “I think there was something wrong with that stuff you sold me.”

Ouch.
Baba could feel the dark, prickly aura coming off the arm from half the room away. She didn't know what had caused it, but it wasn't anything she'd made, that was for sure. She handed a twenty to Jesse, who stuffed it into his pocket as if afraid she'd change her mind, and went over to perch on the sofa next to Lily.

“May I take a look?” Baba asked, peeling off the soggy pack and handing it to the little boy. Lily's pale skin was covered with tiny reddish bumps and the arm was so swollen it felt more like a tree limb than a human one. She laid her hands gently on the surface, feeling for the malignant energy that overlay the normal healthy muscle, bone, and skin and pulling it out, bit by bit, until it was gone. For good measure, she mended the original tendonitis, easing the strain and inflammation caused by too much lifting of small wriggling bodies.

It wasn't a good idea to do such a blatant healing—one of the reasons she used herbs instead of magic most of the time. But this woman had trusted her to help, and she couldn't just leave her suffering.

“Wow,” Lily said, her voice colored with something like awe. “That's amazing. It feels so much better. What did you do? Reiki or something?”

“Um, yes, Reiki,” Baba said. The popular energy healing technique was as good a cover as any. “The salve should have worked without it, but since you seemed to have a bad reaction to something in the mixture, I thought I'd better use the, um, Reiki to fix it.”

Lily was so happy to have her arm back to a normal size; she clearly wasn't interested in questioning the logic of the statement. “Gee, well I really appreciate it.” She glanced at her husband ruefully. “I guess we should give you your money back, since you cured the tendonitis after all.”

“Oh, no,” Baba said, waving one hand in negation. “Not after what you went through.” She paused, and then added, as if the thought had just come to her, “Although since you're obviously not going to be using it, I'd be glad to have the salve back.”

“Sure thing,” Jesse said, and ran off to fetch it.

Baba enjoyed a cup of invisible tea with Trudy, Timmy, and the dolls until he got back, and was almost sorry to leave. She had a rare moment of wistfulness, thinking about what it might be like to have a child of her own. Impossible. But still, there were times . . .

“I apologize again for the bad reaction. That never happens,” Baba said to Lily on her way out.

Lily shrugged, her tired face still pretty and astonishingly cheerful, under the circumstances. They were clearly people who made the best of what they had. Baba found herself liking them a lot, and wondering if there was some way to help them out. Too bad that geese who lay golden eggs were no longer in fashion. And a surprise oil well in the backyard would only pollute the stream.

“Do you ever play the lottery?” she asked Jesse as he let her out the front door.

“Huh?” He shooed away a couple of chickens with one foot. “Sure, every once in a while, when we have an extra dollar to spare. Never won more than ten bucks, though.” Brown eyes gave her a puzzled look. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason.” she said, and waved good-bye to the kids, who waved back enthusiastically as she pulled out of the driveway. Their uncomplicated good will made her smile all the way to the main road, but her pleasant mood vanished as soon as she pulled to the side to check out the container that Jesse had returned to her.

It was hers, all right—a small white, almost translucent jar with a faint gray cursive
BY
etched onto the porcelain. But the contents inside bore only a passing resemblance to the salve she'd so lovingly crafted. Bits of dark green matter flecked what should have been a pure beige cream, and it smelled
wrong
, like rotting wood and curdled milk and the dawn of a sullen day after a night of bad storms.

What the hell?

Lips tight, Baba put the truck back into gear and pulled onto the highway, headed in the direction of the next address Bob had given her. There was something decidedly odd going on here, and she was going to find the explanation if it killed her. Or better yet, whoever was behind what was clearly a plot to discredit her. Somehow, she had a feeling Maya had her dainty hands in there somewhere. If that bitch was ruining Baba's good name, there was going to be hell to pay.

*   *   *

BY THE TIME
she got back home, Baba was so angry, she was shaking like an aspen in a hurricane. It was all she could do to roll the BMW down off the ramp she kept in the back of the truck and park it to the side of the trailer until she could find the time to fix the paint job. Right now, she had more important things to do. Like track down whoever was making her clients sick and beat the living crap out of them.

“Feeling better now that you have the bike back?” Chudo-Yudo asked when she came in the door. He was sprawled across the entire length of the couch, one large white paw holding his place in one of Baba's historical romances. He liked to read as much as Baba did, although he preferred fantasy—especially those with dragons in them.

He ducked as one of her boots went flying across the Airstream and bashed into a cupboard on the far end. It was quickly followed by its mate, which hit the exact same spot with a hollow thud. A stream of cursing colored the air inside a light robin's egg blue.

“I take it that's a no, then,” Chudo-Yudo said, closing the book with a broad canine sigh. “Didn't the mechanic do a good job?”

Baba stomped over to sit next to him, flexing her toes in the soft fibers of the rug with relief. She hated wearing shoes. And never wore socks.

“Bah,” she said. “The bike is fine. At least as fine as it can be, until I can do something about the way it looks. But I ran into a problem.”

Chudo-Yudo cocked his head to one side. “How unusual for you,” he said in a sarcastic tone.

“This is serious,” Baba said, scrubbing her face with both hands, as if she could wash away the last couple of hours. After visiting three more people, and being variously yelled at, cried on, and threatened with a lawsuit, she felt like she was covered with some kind of viscous, malignant sludge. “Someone's been tampering with my herbal remedies,” she told the dog.

That got his attention, and he sat up straight, the book sliding unnoticed to the floor, where tiny silk flowers helped to break its fall.

“The hell you say!” His brown eyes went wide. “All of them? How? Why?”

Baba shook her head. “All the ones I could track down anyway. Bob told me that people had been complaining, and his father—” she took a deep breath at the memory of the old man's nasty accusations—“let's just say that ‘witch' is the nicest word being used to describe me. I had one woman whose arm swelled up when she used my cream on it, another who sneezed so hard she fell off a stool and broke her ankle, and a guy who came to me for a hair growth shampoo that made his hair fall out instead.”
And hadn't that been fun to try and fix subtly. Great goddess.

“Holy Mother Russia,” Chudo-Yudo said. “That's awful.”

“Those aren't the worst, though,” she said, heart heavy as she remembered the hysterical mother who swore Baba's cough syrup had made her baby so sick, she'd had to take him to the emergency room.

The woman had been distraught, and wouldn't let Baba into the house, slamming the door in her face when Baba asked to come in. She'd had to do what she could to help the infant from outside, standing in the insubstantial shadows by the bedroom window and praying that no one would drive by and ask what the hell she was up to.

“As to how, I have no earthly idea,” she added. Her head felt like it was reverberating with the accusing voices of all those she'd let down; she couldn't think a clear thought past the murk and the misery of it all.

“All the medicines I've been able to get back look like my mixtures in my bottles, but every single one of them has been adulterated with something horribly wrong.”

She pulled the vials and jars out of her pockets, which as usual held as much as she wanted them to hold. Chudo-Yudo put his massive head down next to them and sniffed. Then he let out a huge snort, eyes watering and black nose twitching.

“Ugh. That's nasty,” he said, rubbing a paw across his muzzle. “Feh.”

Baba looked for something else to throw, frustration making her fingers itch to break things. “Tell me about it. And all those people now think
I'm
responsible for making the dreadful concoctions. I
hate
this.”

She didn't normally care what anyone thought about her, but this was different. For one thing, she'd found the town, and the people in it, unusually charming. Before this all happened, she'd actually been daydreaming about staying. Just an idle fancy of course, but still. For another, it touched on her honor; that made it matter. And anyone who dared to make a baby sick on purpose and blame it on her? That person was in for a world of pain.

Chudo-Yudo's furry face rumpled in puzzlement. “But how could anyone tamper with all those treatments without someone noticing? It's not like a person could go from house to house messing with the jars in every single place. Someone would have seen something suspicious, wouldn't they?”

Baba sighed. “You'd think so. And if Maya was behind it for some reason, she's not exactly a ‘blend in with the locals' kind of gal.”