The last time she’d created a portal on this spot, it had opened on a yacht. The boat was long gone, though, so they both went into the drink. The plunge caught Vaporlock by surprise. He released her and kicked to the surface. Her burning lungs forced her to surface, too. She took a deep breath; it still made her head spin again. The crazy motherfucker was still too close. He treaded water a few feet away, spluttering as though he’d swallowed a mouthful. Good. I hope some fucked-up parasite lays eggs in your esophagus, you shitbag.

Mollie opened a return portal. A deluge flushed her back to the gaming floor in Talas. She staggered to her feet amid flapping fish and a smattering of dockside jetsam. The carpet squelched underfoot. The momentary gust of African humidity carried a mélange of outboard fuel and cold medicine. Mollie rolled her eyes. Like a draining bathtub, the portal had sucked Vaporlock back, too. She’d meant to leave him with the crocodiles.

She scanned the room for something hefty. She settled on a ten-foot leather sofa in the corner. She dropped it on Vaporlock’s head as he staggered to his feet. He made an oof sound but didn’t get up.

Voices and footsteps approached; the splash had made a ruckus. Mollie stepped into her Bismarck apartment. There she changed out of her sodden clothing and leaned against the bathroom counter until she stopped shaking. She might have caved his head in. She was okay with that, all things considered. But what the hell had come over him in the first place? It’s like he was somebody else entirely.

She plucked a beer bottle from the refrigerator in Idaho. Downed it. Wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. She waited for the burp, then returned to Talas.

Mollie emerged on a catwalk that opened on a series of cheaply furnished bedrooms. She didn’t bother looting the hookers’ quarters; Baba Yaga wouldn’t have allowed them to keep anything of value. But Mollie wouldn’t have wanted to touch anything in those rooms without disinfecting it with a blowtorch first. The last thing she needed was to contract some mutant hybrid of gonorrhea and the Andromeda Strain while swiping paste gems from a call girl’s bedside table.

Mollie hadn’t always known how to tell the difference between real and fake jewelry. Thanks, Ffodor.

But if anybody in this shithole had real jewelry, it was the queen bitch herself. Mollie’d had an “audience” with the old witch; the memory was traumatic enough that she could still picture the scene. She opened a gateway into Baba Yaga’s quarters without trouble. A few minutes of watching and listening convinced her the coast was clear. It was hard to case the apartment without looking at the furniture, but she tried.