by Renée Jaggér
From three directions they came: west, northeast, and southeast. Their warriors streamed through the emptied streets, picking up speed as they rushed toward the battle. Their human shouts became animal snarls as most of them shifted. Wolf-beasts leapt into the fray.
Operating as a unit, the witches were able to notice and respond faster than Bailey would have liked, but they seemed shocked, and the power of their individual attacks weakened as they were forced to divide their strength among more targets.
Here and there, wolves fell and died, but Bailey and Roland were able to neutralize most of the Venatori’s attacks. With grim satisfaction, they watched as the lycanthropes swarmed over the witches, knocking them over and ripping out their throats.
It was an awful sight, but under the circumstances, Bailey could not object. Those women were threatening to destroy the entire community.
There was only one left, a tall, athletic witch about Bailey’s age, with brown hair in a Dutch braid. Madly, frantically, she fought on, hurling fire and concussive force in all directions, slashing with a sword blade of magenta plasma at anyone who got close. She was surrounded by enraged werewolves.
Bailey shouted at the top of her lungs, “Take her alive! We need her alive.”
Roland encased the witch in a shield-bubble, neutralizing her attacks while also protecting her from the pounces of three overzealous Weres, who got stuck in the shimmering greenish light and flailed drunkenly as they then sank through it slowly, back to the ground.
To the werewitch’s surprise, the young woman conjured another plasma blade and tried to carve through the shield, still trying to get at her target.
“Goddamn,” Bailey marveled. “She’s nothing if not determined. Roland, I think we need to knock her out or something. The rest of you stand down unless she gets through and threatens one of us.”
“Okay,” the wizard said. “You hold her while I try a little something.”
“Deal.”
As Roland canceled the shield, Bailey created her own, smaller and tighter to hold the desperate young woman in place but leave her head exposed.
Then the wizard, contorting his fingers, caused a mingled mass of vapors to coalesce in front of the witch’s face. She tried to turn away and hold her breath, but Roland kept the pungent cloud where it was until the woman had no choice but to inhale. She slumped listlessly against the shield, and her eyes rolled back in her head.
Bailey nodded. “Nice. What was that?”
“Chloroform,” Roland reported. “That stuff that people in movies put on rags and then hold over someone’s face. I don’t think it lasts very long, though, so let’s tie her up or something.”
The bloodlust was draining out of the lycanthropes at this point, and although they still looked like they wanted to bite the witch’s head off, they cooperated with Bailey’s will. Someone brought cord and duct tape, and soon the woman was trussed from shoulders to ankles with her hands also tied behind her back. Bailey insisted on leaving her mouth free, though, since she wanted her to talk.
Then Officers Jurgensen and Smolinski lent a hand in carrying the prisoner back into the sheriff’s station.
“All right,” Bailey announced to the crowd of wolves, “I’m gonna question her, and we’ll get to the bottom of what they’re planning. I can’t thank you all enough. You’ve done damn well, coming to our aid like this. I’d like to ask some of you to stick around, at least on the edges of town, and keep an eye on things. The rest of you can go home.”
Some few of them looked almost cheated, as if they’d expected to annihilate their enemies and howl in triumph over the bodies.
Of course, there were still multiple corpses in the street. A siren was sounding, even as the local paramedics arrived to deal with the carnage.
The Weres scattered, and Bailey and Roland followed the deputies back into the sheriff’s station. As soon as she stepped through the door, Browne, reclining on a chair in the lobby with an open first aid kit in front of him, hailed her.
“Bailey. We have a spare pair of cuffs, the special kind we used to keep Oberlin and his boys from shifting. I’m no expert on these things, but we think those ought to keep our guest from trying any more shenanigans.”
Roland gave an appreciative nod. “That will probably work, or at least make things more difficult for her, interfering in using her hands to direct the arcane. If all else fails, she doesn’t seem to be all that strong, so I should be able to contain her.”
“Good.” The sheriff grimaced. “Christ, we just had a gun battle in the streets of Greenhearth. People are dead. We don’t need any more of that kind of thing.”
Bailey walked over and laid a hand on the man’s big shoulder. “Thank you, Sheriff. You’ve always been good about…working with us. Looking out for the Weres. I’m sorry this happened, but frankly, we weren’t the ones who started it. Now we’ll deal with it as best we can.”
He gestured down the hall. “You can start by getting some answers out of that lovely lady we brought back, so we have some idea what to expect next and can plan accordingly.”
The captive witch was being held in a secure room near the back of the building. The room had a window, albeit one with bars over it. Jurgensen had clapped a pair of the anti-magic handcuffs on her, and Roland stood careful watch.
Bailey looked into the young woman’s eyes, which burned with hatred and a noticeable twinge of madness.
“All right,” the werewitch asked, “what is your name?”
“Rhona,” she replied. “You do not need to know any more than that. You only need to know you will die for defying us. Nothing you can do will save you in the end.”
Bailey could tell that this would prove to be difficult.
For twenty minutes, they interrogated her, posing both obvious questions and ones that were indirect. They taunted or provoked her to try to get her to blab information unwittingly, threatening her with being processed by the dreaded American criminal justice system.
Nothing worked. Rhona remained defiant. The one thing they could glean was that the Venatori intended to make further attempts to kill Bailey, but beyond that, they could get none of the details.
“Shit,” Bailey rasped. “Can’t we just, I dunno, stick a fork in her thigh and twist it until she cooperates?”
By now, Browne had joined them. He glared at the girl. “No, Bailey. Even though she’s a foreign enemy combatant—and wounded a sheriff, I might add—she’s still got basic rights. We cannot torture a suspect.”
Bailey frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “I guess you’re right. Damn. Kinda surprised I suggested that. The stress must be getting to me.”
At that, Rhona smirked. “It is not over yet.”
The werewitch wanted to knock her teeth out, but she took a sharp, deep breath and counted to ten.
Pounding footsteps ran down the hall and the door burst open. Officer Smolinski leaned in, his breathing ragged and his eyes bulging.
“There’s more of them coming!” he reported. “They came right out of fuckin’ nowhere! Like, they teleported in.”
Roland pinched the bridge of his nose. “They probably did teleport.”
“Hah!” Rhona laughed, her face lighting up with nasty exhilaration. “You idiots. It never occurred to you that I was no more than a plant! I spearheaded the first wave, and I am being tracked. You will be besieged in the place you thought would be safe. You will all die, and we will laugh over your bodies!”
Browne looked at her evenly. “Shut up, you crazy-ass…ugh. Someone put some tape over her mouth while we deal with her friends. And get those damn Weres back here! We’re not done yet, it seems.”
Jurgensen was already trying the phone. “Dead, sir. They either cut the line, or they’re, uh, interfering with it with magic or some shit. I dunno. This don’t look good, though.”
Bailey glanced out the window and saw two figures in the Venatori’s distinctive leather uniform closing on the building. She thought
she could make out the shadows of one or two more off to the sides. The witches must have completely surrounded the building.
Bailey’s hands balled into fists. “Not done at all, Sheriff. Not by a long shot. Time to give ‘em hell.”
Chapter Thirteen
Roland raised a shield that covered almost the entire building. “I can’t sustain a full-strength one of this size,” he apologized, and veins stood out on his neck and forehead. “It will offer us some protection, but they’ll get through eventually, or I’ll get too damn tired after ten minutes or so. You guys really need to drive them the hell off quick.”
They didn’t have to wait to get their chance. Down the hall, the front doors blew off their hinges.
“Oh, shit!” Jurgensen cursed, picking his rifle back up and charging toward the bare portal.
Bailey was right behind him, and Smolinski fell in behind her, although he remained partway down the hall to keep an eye on Browne, Roland, and Rhona in the back room.
The werewitch’s first thought was the Venatori had somehow reached beyond Roland’s shield to destroy the door from within, but she was wrong. They’d simply walked up and carved the green light apart with their conjured plasma-swords. It healed itself, but they were able to push through in the time it gave them.
Two witches were right there, poised to strike with their blades. Bailey knew she could not afford to be merciful. She struck the woman on the left with a lightning bolt strong enough to fell a hundred-year-old tree, and the sorceress flew back against the lobby wall, a smoking corpse.
Jurgensen opened fire. His rifle punched two holes through the chest of the witch on the right, and she spun, bled, and collapsed. There were three more behind the initial pair and they stomped in, shielded and conjuring all manner of terrible enchantments.
Bailey expended as much magic as she could to neutralize the attacks. Then, almost not knowing what she did, she shifted. Bending over, feeling her hands become feet and her body become far more powerful, she would have a chance to hit the witches with something they probably weren’t expecting. During a lull, she pounced.
Magic flashed and something burned her side, but she plowed into the attackers anyway, sending them in multiple directions like felled bowling pins. Her jaws closed on the neck and chest of the nearest one, teeth piercing flesh, and the power of her bite broke the woman’s neck. Then she launched herself at the others. A plasma blade cut a strip of flesh from her shoulder and everything became an incoherent whirlwind of violence, but still she lived.
Behind her, Bailey heard shattering glass, twisting metal, gunshots, and screams. She tossed her head, clearing space around her, and as suddenly as combat had begun, it seemed to end. The witches were beating a hasty retreat out the front door.
Part of Bailey wanted to pursue them and finish them off, but she dismissed the bloodthirsty notion and spun back to check on the others within the station, standing up to change back into human form in the same motion.
The first thing she saw was Officer Jurgensen sprawled on the floor, moaning and pawing at a deep gash in his abdomen. Her eyes widened, and she dashed toward a first-aid kit Browne had already opened.
The deputy motioned. “Bring it here. Leave it with me. Check on them.” His voice came out in a strained gasp.
She deposited the kit beside him, hoping he had the strength to attend to himself for a moment while she ran down the hall. She didn’t even think about being naked at this point.
The Venatori had destroyed the window and the entire section of wall around it, and debris covered the floor. Roland, Sheriff Browne, and Officer Smolinski all seemed to be fine, although they looked confused.
Rhona was gone, only a tipped-over chair and a pair of plasma-cut anti-magic handcuffs indicating that she’d been there. Sometime during the fight, the witches had reclaimed their own before they’d slipped away.
Bailey wondered aloud, “Why was she so important? She was just a sergeant, wasn’t she? And they let all the other witches under her die.
Roland, his face curdled with distaste, looked into the distance. “They’ve got some convoluted plot in the works. I can’t fathom their minds, though. All we can do is try to prepare for anything and fight hard when we have to.”
Browne, struggling to his feet with a crutch they’d fetched from the supply room, growled, “There’s been plenty of fighting already. We don’t need any more.”
They checked on Jurgensen. He seemed okay for now, but he would need serious medical attention soon. While the deputies remained within to secure the building and put out the last of the guttering fires, the sheriff, the werewitch, and the wizard wandered outside to check on what was happening with the town.
Amidst the smoking ruins and confusion, someone strode across the pavement toward the group. Bailey looked up. It was Agent Townsend.
The man was stomping the earth with each step, moving as fast as a human can move while still qualifying as a walk rather than a jog. Yet, there was no undignified sense of rushing. He was simply moving with great purpose. His hands were balled into fists, his jaw was clenched, and his face had a reddish-purple tinge to it.
“Agent!” Bailey called to him. “Damn. Do you know what happened? They—”
“I sure fucking do!” he roared, flinging his hands up. Spittle flew from his mouth, and Bailey wasn’t sure whether to cringe or burst into crazed laughter. She’d never seen him like this. “Unbelievable!”
Roland cleared his throat. “Well, believe it, Townsend. The Venatori just turned this nice little town into a warzone. The good news is, this time they ran into people who knew they were coming and were able to fight back. Most of them are dead.”
“I know all that!” the agent snapped. “I just fucking said. I saw half the goddamn fiasco on my device. And don’t get defensive. If you think I’m mad at you, you have no idea how mad I am at my superiors for not dispatching the cavalry yet, and even that is only a tiny fraction,” he held up his thumb and forefinger pinched around about an inch of air to show how tiny, “of how mad I am at them. This was a brazen attack on humans in public! Fuck this shit!”
Sheriff Browne, leaning on his makeshift crutch, eyed the man askance. “Could you keep your voice down, Agent, if you’re going to talk like that around all these kids? Things are bad enough in this community lately, for God’s sake.”
Townsend glanced at him but didn’t heed his remark. He continued to rant and rave.
“This is exactly the kind of thing my entire career was based on avoiding. And frankly, it’s the Venatori’s fault, not mine! They’re the ones who defecated all over the general truce we’d established. Next time they show up, we’re going to burn them at the stake!”
Bailey grimaced. Tensions were pretty high around here.
At a scenic lookout south of Greenhearth, dozens of Weres gathered. It was big enough to qualify as a small park, and it overlooked the Hearth Valley. They’d chosen the spot for its symbolic beauty, for its relative seclusion from human activity, and because it wasn’t too far of a trip either for the wolves of Greenhearth and the Juniper, Whitcomb Creek, and Shashka packs.
Bailey had also invited the Eastmoors, but they were among the packs the Venatori had exterminated. It was the last thing they’d done before invading her town.
Roland had declined to come, feeling that this was, by definition, a Weres-only event. He needed some time to rest and think anyway.
The werewitch stood before the assembled ranks of her people, along with the shamans who still lived, Alfred Warner of the Whitcombs and Fred Grotowski of the Shashkas, whom Bailey had never met. He had been the teacher of the now-dead Nick, and his long, thin face was grim with sorrow.
Also with them was their god. Fenris, in his human guise as Marcus, effectively represented Greenhearth and its packs as “acting shaman” until such time as Bailey could take over her full duties.
Knowing who he was, many of the Weres were dazed or uncomfortable. Yet, his presence
emphasized the seriousness and reality of their situation.
Warner was the first to speak. “Yesterday,” he began, “emissaries of the Venatori, a sorcerous order based in Europe, launched an attack on our friends and neighbors in Greenhearth. It’s come to light that this was only the last of a string of strikes against Were communities throughout the Northwest US. The Eastmoors, whom some of us were acquainted with, were wiped out, along with multiple packs in Washington. Those of our boys who died stopping them did not do so in vain because these new enemies would have done the same to every last one of us.”
Bailey was uncomfortable with the belligerent, almost militaristic tone of Warner’s speech, yet nothing he said was inaccurate. He’d summarized the truth.
The memorial service proceeded, and tempers cooled as the focus shifted to the three Weres who’d perished rushing the witch Rhona’s unit. One was a South Cliff, one a Whitcomb, and one a Shashka. Bailey did not know any of them, although the South Cliff, Tyler Ives, was a guy she’d at least heard of and probably seen around town.
All had laid down their lives, rushing to her aid.
Earlier that afternoon, she’d been to a town hall meeting in Greenhearth where the mood kept threatening to veer into panic and mass anger.
The town’s human population knew the Weres as their neighbors and had never held any antipathy toward them, but they were understandably loath to get caught in the middle of a war that had nothing to do with them. People shouted and threatened to leave. They hinted at lawsuits or suggested going to the national news media if it meant protecting their children. Who, Bailey wondered, could blame them?
Bailey, Sheriff Browne, Agent Townsend, and the mayor had all tried to assuage their concerns, pointing out that large forces were in motion to put a stop to the Venatori’s depredations. The townsfolk, inclined to stick by their own, at least appreciated that Weres, a wizard, and local law enforcement had shut down the attack before any more humans had been hurt or killed.
Any more, since the sheriff would be walking with a cane for a while and Jurgensen had died of his wounds. His funeral wasn’t until next week.