And she was gone. Not the way that Stefan could go, but just so swiftly my eyes couldn't follow her. I'd seen a fae fly through solid matter before, so it wasn't a surprise that she did so. Which was good, because I'd just had one terrible surprise, I didn't need any more.
The first rule about the fae is that you don't want to attract their attention - but they don't tell you what to do once you have.
"I thought Baba Yaga was a witch," I told Uncle Mike hollowly. Who else would be flying around in a giant mortar?
"Witches aren't immortal," he told me. "Of course she's not a witch."
Baba Yaga is featured in the stories of a dozen countries scattered around Eastern Europe. She's not the hero in most of them. She eats children.
I glanced over at Adam, but he was still focused on Mary Jo. She was shaking like someone on the verge of hypothermia, but seemed to be alive still.
"What about that bag," I asked. "What if someone picks it up from the river?"
"A few minutes of running water will remove any magic from a spell set in fabric," Uncle Mike told me.
"It was a trap for the wolves," I told him. I knew that because it had tasted like vampire. "No one else except for the mobile mountain was affected... Why him and none of the rest? And what in the world is a snow elf? I've never heard of one." As far as I'd ever known, "elf" was one of those generic terms coined by mundanes as a way to refer to the fae.
"The government," said Uncle Mike, after a moment to consider what he wanted to tell me (getting the fae to share information is harder than getting a drop of water from a stone), "requires us to register and tell them what kind of fae we are. So we chose something that appeals to us. For some it is an old title or name, for others... we make it up, just like the humans have made up names for us for centuries. My favorite is the infamous 'Jack-Be-Nimble. I don't know what that is, but we have at least a dozen in our reservation."
I couldn't help but grin. Our government didn't know they had a tiger by the tail - and the tiger wasn't going to tell them anytime soon. "So he made up the snow elf bit?"
"Are you going to argue with him? As to why the bag aimed at the wolf worked - "
"I have another true form," said a soft, Norse-accented voice behind me. There weren't very many people who could sneak up on me - my coyote senses keep me pretty aware of my environment - but I sure hadn't heard him.
It was the snow elf, or whatever he was, of course. He was a couple of inches shorter than me - which he could have fixed as easily as Zee could have gotten rid of his bald spot. I supposed someone whose true form - at least one of them - was ten feet tall didn't mind being short.
He looked at me and bowed, one of those abrupt and stiff movements of head and neck that brings to mind martial artists. "I'm glad you are fast," he said.
I shook the hand he held out to me, which was cool and dry. "I'm glad I'm fast, too," I told him with honest sincerity.
He looked at Uncle Mike. "Do you know who set it? And if it was aimed at the werewolves or at me?"
Adam was listening to the conversation. I wasn't sure how I knew, because it looked like he was totally involved with his battered wolves. But there was something in the tension of his shoulders.
Uncle Mike shook his head. "I was too concerned with getting it away from you. Berserker wolves are bad enough, but a berserker snow elf loose in downtown Pasco is something I don't want to see."
I knew. The bag had smelled of vampire.
The snow elf knelt beside Mary Jo and touched her shoulder. Adam pulled her gently away, setting her in Paul's lap, and put himself between her and the snow elf.
"Mine," he said.
The elf raised his hands and smiled mildly, but there was a bite to his words. "No harm, Alpha. I meant no trouble. My days of roaming the mountains with a wolf pack at my beck and call are long over."
Adam nodded, keeping his eyes on the enemy. "That may be. But she is one of mine. And I am not one of yours."
"Enough," said Uncle Mike. "One fight a night is good enough. Go home, Ymir."
The kneeling elf looked at Uncle Mike, and the skin grew tight around his eyes for a moment before he smiled brightly. I noticed that his teeth were very white, if a little crooked. He stood up, using just the muscles of his thighs, like a martial artist. "It has been a long night." He made a slow turn that encompassed not just Uncle Mike, the wolves, and me, but everyone else in the room - who I just realized were all watching us... or maybe they were watching the snow elf. "Of course it is time to go. I'll see you all."
No one said anything until he was out of the building.
"Well," said Uncle Mike, sounding more Irish than usual. "Such a night."
MARY JO WAS MOVING BUT STILL DAZED WHEN WE GOT her outside. So Adam instructed Paul and his friend (whose name, as it happened, was Alec and not Sean or Stan at all) to take her to Adam's house. Paul packed Mary Jo in the back of her car with Alec and started to get in.
He looked at my feet. "You shouldn't be out here barefoot," he told the ground. Then he shut the car door, turned the key as he turned on the lights, and left.
"He meant thank you," said Adam. "I'll say it, too. I can think of a lot of things I'd rather do than try to defend Paul from Baba Yaga."
"I should have let her have him," I told Adam. "It would have made your life easier."