Wickedly Magical (Baba Yaga, #0.5)(9)
Barbara shrugged. “Innocent he isn’t, sweetie. After all, he slept with another guy’s wife. But yeah, I’ll hold off on anything drastic until I can get more information. Just let me know what, if anything, you find out.”
“Will do,” Beka said, her voice growing fainter as the connection started to fade. “Let’s try to meet up with Bella sometime soon, if we can. I miss you two.”
“That would be nice,” Barbara said. “Call me if you get anything.”
The mirror dimmed back to black and the candle in front of it snuffed itself out with a whoosh, leaving her sitting in the darkened trailer for a moment until she waved her arm through the air and the lights came back on.
She straightened up, one hand rubbing her back, which ached a little from bending over the mirror.
“You okay?” Chudo-Yudo asked solicitously from the floor by her feet. Long-distance scrying could take a fair amount of energy. “You look like you could use a glass of wine.”
“Good idea,” Barbara said, rising to her feet and heading for the refrigerator with her fingers crossed. It was sweet that he was so concerned. The fates were with her, and a bottle of a nice dry white was lurking in there, right behind the Water of Life and Death in its crystal container.
“While you’re up . . .” Chudo-Yudo added, “You might as well get me a snack.”
Ha. So much for concerned. She pulled a hunk of roast beef out and put it on a plate in front of him.
“So what now?” he asked around a mouthful of meat.
“Now I go join a cult,” Barbara said. “I hear you meet the nicest people there.”
***
It wasn’t easy for Barbara to blend in with a crowd at the best of times, what with her cloud of ebony hair, almost-six-foot height, and the fact that her usual attire consisted of either head-to-toe black leather or colorful gypsy-bohemian skirts. But she guessed that the folks drawn to Jonathan Bellingwood’s events tended to be a little more conventional, so she ended up wearing a pair of black jeans and a white peasant top. She pulled her hair back into a tidy braid and put on flats instead of her usual motorcycle boots. That was as close to “blending” as she was going to be able to get.
About seventy-five people were gathered at the event advertised in the paper as “Tuning In—Tuning Up.” Whatever that was supposed to mean. Some kind of consciousness raising thing, as far as she could tell. All Barbara cared about was that it would give her a chance to see her mystery man in action, and possibly get some idea of whether or not he was using magic.
She’d hoped that Ivan’s wife Grace might be in evidence, but the only person on the pavilion stage at the local park was a slim blond man with wavy hair and an aw-shucks smile. Jonathan Bellingwood’s charisma was clear as soon as he started speaking, and he soon had the crowd in the palm of his hand. But as far as Barbara could tell, he was just clever, articulate, and good at manipulating people’s emotions—nothing supernatural involved.
The so-called guru talked for a while about the usual stuff: paths to enlightenment, becoming your own best self, the healing power of the mind, and all that. He led the group in a powerful guided meditation that ended up filling the area with a low-level hum of energetic potential that even Barbara could feel in her bones as a soothing balm. For a moment, she almost began to think that Ivan was simply involved in an unpleasant custody battle. Not nice, but also not her area of expertise.
And then something shifted. It was subtle at first. As Bellingwood finished up the meditation, he sent a few young women out into the crowd with collection baskets for donations. Nothing all that unusual there (as long as he had the proper permits, Barbara assumed), but then, as he started talking about how grateful he was for any donation, no matter how large or small, and how good it felt to contribute to the work, Barbara began to feel a tugging sensation. It was faint, but forceful all the same. Even she almost reached for her wallet, and she didn’t carry one.
All around her, people were smiling and putting bills into the baskets. Little children were searching their pockets for coins, and an old bag lady who had just been resting on a bench nearby glanced around furtively and thrust one grimy hand into her sagging bosom and pulled out a ragged dollar.
Barbara growled quietly to herself and moved over to stand next to the woman, regardless of the smell that arose indelicately from her clothes and belongings. Barbara laid one unusually gentle hand on the bag lady’s dirt-encrusted sleeve.
“You’d better keep that for yourself,” Barbara said quietly. “I expect you need it more than he does.”
The woman blinked as if waking from a dream, scowled at Barbara, and walked away at a rapid, if somewhat lopsided, trot, tucking her precious hoard back inside its formidable hiding place.
Barbara tucked her hands under her arms, less to restrain herself from donating, since once she’d recognized the uncanny “push,” it no longer had any effect on her, but mostly so she wouldn’t give in to her normal impulse to stop the magic cold and send it back to the one who used it to take advantage of all these people. With interest.
She didn’t want to reveal herself yet; not until she could figure out how exactly he was doing it. This close to Bellingwood, it was clear to her that he was a Human. She’d thought it was possible he was some kind of paranormal creature using magic from the Otherworld in defiance of the Queen’s edict to keep a low profile. It was not a good idea to defy the High Queen of the Otherworld. Not if you wanted to keep your head attached to your body, and your form looking like the one you’d been born with. Even Baba Yagas didn’t mess with the Queen.