CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories by J. Posthumus (read after txt) 📕

to live in! To reverse engineer! She wants to do some home improvements.”

“All the spinning making her seasick?” I asked.

Baba Yaga, the Russian witch of Mundane legend and Faerie reality, owned the original mobile home: a monstrous shack with no windows and one back door, which moved on dancing chicken legs. Unlike Western witches, she used her broom for sweeping and flew about in an oversized herbalist's mortar, with the pestle for steering. Practical woman.

He nodded. “Her mortar's so old, the bowl's cracked, and the pestle's held together with spit and duct tape. She wants to adapt my technology to them and the house.”

Grace cocked one fine brow. Wish dragons could do that. “Your technology?”

“Sister, if I had magic to spare, would I stay in this form?”

“Why are you in that form?” I asked. The last time we'd seen pixies shaped as locusts was when they'd tried to start a tribal war in our town. Sounds trivial, until you get a half million raging insects. Grace had worked a major prayer spell that sent them all to Ancient Egypt. Ironic, yeah; God's got a sense of humor.

“I got drafted. I was trying to exfiltrate back through the portal when there was this gust and a brilliant light, and I woke up on the north side of the Caspian Sea.”

“Exfiltrate? You mean go AWOL.”

He showed us his leg tattoo: Make Magic, Not War. “I'm a conscientious objector. Got a problem with that, dragon?”

“Nope.” Probably saved him from being squished by some disgusted Egyptian.

“I couldn't change form. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to look like a household pest? That house was more than my home; it was my defense, my means of travel and my shot at earning some real bucks so I could find a way to remove whatever curse is keeping me stuck an oversized grasshopper.”

“So, how'd you get here?” I asked.

Jiminy huffed. “Hitched a ride. Geese, ducks, swallows.”

“Really? And what is the approximate air velocity—”

Grace stepped on my tail then leaned forward. “We'll see what we can do. I'm sure we can work something out.”

“You're not going to ask Baba Yaga about it?” He dropped the leaf he was munching. She ages a year every time someone asks a question. Makes her cranky, vengeance-and-curses angry.

Grace smiled reassuringly. “Don't worry. We know what we're doing. Where can we find you?”

He looked embarrassed. Quite a range of emotion for suborder Caelifera. “Actually, I saw a patch of grass outside… ?”

“Of course.” He settled onto Grace's open palm, and she took him out. When she returned, she swept up the leaves to rinse off and dry before grinding them with her own mortar and pestle with some rosehips for tea.

“He's hiding something,” she said as she spread them onto a paper towel.

“Don't they all? What's he going to pay us?”

She looked at the leaves. “Vern, his people died by the thousands. From my spell.”

“By God's hand. You were His conduit.”

“If we'd just stopped the war in time… ”

I knew that tone. This was a Penance freebie. I hate Penance.

Two days later, I was soaring above the Turya River in the Faerie Urals, where our sources last placed Baba Yaga's abode. I spotted the house, soaking its aging feet in the cool waters; it did look in need of orthopedic shoes and support hose. Considering its relaxed posture, I assumed Baba Yaga was out, so I settled upstream and helped myself to a drink, enjoying the unique taste of the higher cinnabar content. Lots of minerals in the Turya.

A few minutes later, I heard the howl of the wind in the forest, the crash of something hitting a tree, Russian swearing, then wind again. Baba Yaga flew into view.

The house came to reluctant attention.

Jiminy hadn't lied. The pestle was held together with duct tape. The front of the mortar was splattered with the remains of bugs and one unfortunate cuckoo bird. Must have clocked that bird good.

Baba herself wore a motorcycle helmet with a full visor, which didn't stop me from seeing the exasperated look on her face. She landed outside her house and got out. The patches on her leather jacket read “Born to Bespell” and an even better pun in Russian. In the mortar, I saw one of those video-game seats with the iPod attachment. She'd added a seat cover of large wooden beads. Someone shopped on Interdimensional eBay.

She cackled at me; they all did when they first saw a dragon the size of a pony. She pointed and waggled her finger. “I can fix that, but it will cost you.” She cackled again, like dry twigs snapping under a rockslide.

“That's not why I'm here, and you know it. Look, we can spend the day playing Twenty Questions, or I can lay out my client's accusations and let you explain your side. It'd save you from aging two decades and me from feeling like I have.”

The laughter stopped. “Fine. It's about the house, I'm sure. What did the pixie tell you? Wait… Did you feed my pets?”

That's how most people got the better of her: by bribing her pets. I gave her my best baleful glare.

“All right then.” She groaned as she crouched down. She looked as old as her house. People must have been pestering her with questions lately. I told her to wait and retrieved her seat from the mortar.

She paused, surprised. Guess people always remember to be nice to her pets and servants, but no one thinks to show kindness to her.

“Perhaps,” she started as she lowered herself into her comfortable seat, “I shall ask you questions instead. Such as, did he mention that he came to me for help and has been in my employ these past ten years?”

“You stole her ideas?” Grace glared at the grasshopper on our car's dashboard.

I'd gotten home an hour ago, made some phone calls, then told Grace to gather Jiminy for a trip downtown, to the offices of Aaron Percival, Attorney At Law.

Jiminy