by Renée Jaggér
He pursed his lips, and his dignified face became thoughtful. “You might be right about that. Balder is not the most expressive of gods, but he’s knowledgeable and knows when to push me.”
“Yeah,” said Bailey. “And think about it. Who stopped Ragnar, the trainers? The gods? Nope. It was us, demigods-in-training. Doesn’t that mean we have the power and skill we’ll need?”
Carl shrugged. He seemed conflicted, as though he agreed with her but didn’t want to be obvious about it in case it led him to conclusions that would get him in trouble with his patron.
“Anyway,” she murmured, “this isn’t such a bad place, and it’s good for keeping sharp and meeting new people if nothing else. Besides, I’ve got people to impress. People and gods. Here, it’s nice to be just another trainee for a while. Not a shaman, a werewitch, or even the inheritor of frickin’ Aradia’s power, but only another newbie going through the motions. It’s liberating.”
The scion gave her a sad smile. “Sometimes I shapeshift into a random stranger and go places I’ve never seen before where no one knows who I am, so I understand. But we were sent here because the deities wished it. They seem to be concerned about you. Why else would they have sent me to spy on you?” He laughed.
Scowling, she grumbled, “Good point.”
“Running off would look reckless and might rekindle their suspicions,” he continued. “So let’s go with the flow until further notice. No one thinks you’re a threat here, and no one thinks you’re special. We’re all equal. Dumb neophytes in need of training, like you said. We can spend time honing our skills, cracking skulls, building muscle, and, you know, having fun.”
The girl recalled how good it had felt to smash Carl’s helmet with her warhammer. “Yeah, you convinced me. Good job. Let’s get some food and then talk to the trainers about what they have available.”
They had brunch, which consisted of banana bread, yogurt, and tea, then sought out one of the trainers. The nearest man who fit the bill was a short, squinting, rotund individual who looked fearsome but turned out to be surprisingly good-natured.
“Looking for training, are you?” he quipped in a strange accent that sounded like a cross between Irish and Mandarin Chinese. “Well, we’re happy to oblige, we are. Got things brewing right now. Of course, there’s been plenty of action for everyone’s tastes of late with the battles in the castle and the murders and all.”
Bailey cracked her neck. “We’re ready. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a weapon.”
“No weapons,” the trainer chided, and she and Carl both frowned. “Today, you’re getting magic lessons.”
Fenris stepped out of the portal into a long crystalline hallway, one he’d been in many times before and very recently. He walked down the corridor toward the hazy arch that led to where the deities of the council sat in session.
The wolf-god stepped through the barrier and into the chamber. The councilmembers looked at him with eyes that ranged from flat and neutral to downright suspicious.
Thoth folded his broad dark hands before his face. “Fenris. We did not summon you, but if you have important matters to discuss, we will hear you out. Considering, in particular, your mentorship of Bailey.”
The hooded man replied, “There are important things we must talk about. Not least the fact that Bailey would be in no condition to be mentored by me, or anyone else, had we not narrowly avoided the consequences of a gross error made by this council.”
He did not look at anyone but stared into the bluish-white haze behind the central throne. There was a beat of uncomfortable silence.
Thor, his red brows bristling, rumbled, “What error? And there is always the risk of death during training. You know the dangers involved.”
“I do,” Fenris returned, “which is how I know this went far beyond the normal risks. Trainees are expected to brave hazardous conditions, but ones that aren’t expected to kill them unless necessary. Contrast that with having a dangerous and violent man sent with orders to kill her.”
Freya and Balder had grown visibly stiff, discomfited. Thor seemed subtly shocked, and Thoth and Coyote were at once aghast and curious. Only Loki looked as though the words had not fazed him.
Grinding her teeth, Freya inquired, “Speak plainly, Fenris. Of what do you accuse us?”
“Dishonesty,” he stated, “and incompetence. In your case, especially.”
The goddess of witches dug her fingers into the armrests of her chair, and the electrified green light that played about her head grew in intensity.
Fenris continued, “The spy you sent to keep an eye on Bailey was a berserker, one with evidence of being severely disturbed and lacking in the ability to control his bloodlust. He seems to have invented reasons to murder other students, and even a pair of trainers, at random. Then he attacked my pupil, all because you invested him with the power to make his own judgment as to whether she needed to die. A man whose sole purpose in life was to kill! Bailey and a scion named Carl narrowly managed to destroy him. After he’d done tremendous damage to the entire operation, that is.”
Coyote stared at Freya. “Why in all the universes did you do that?”
“Furthermore,” Fenris added before his sister could speak in her defense, “the one named Carl is another spy, sent by Balder. He, at least, seems to be sane.”
Loki snorted. “The plot has thickened. I thought I was the devious one...”
Freya stood up. “Why have you come? Truly, Fenris? To challenge me? To announce a full break with the will of this council? To—”
“No,” the wolf-father shouted. He kept his calm but raised his voice to its full volume to cut her off. “I have not come to take any drastic action, but simply to reveal the truth so the entire council may assess the matter and act as it deems wise.”
Thor spoke up at once. “What wasn’t wise, Freya, was sending a bearshirt on an undercover reconnaissance mission. What possessed you to do that? Such men are for battles where dozens of men need slaying, not for work that requires sober judgment!”
The Vanir goddess turned to glare at the Æsir god.
Thoth chimed in before she could speak. “I’m afraid I agree. Freya, we’ve trusted your wisdom thus far, but that was downright stupid on your part.”
She sat down, too furious to speak or react.
The Egyptian lord of the occult raised a hand and continued, “It must be said, however, that we—all of us—have been keeping an eye on Bailey. We are concerned about her ability to handle the amount of power she possesses, but we haven’t sent proxies to spy on her.”
“Aye!” Thor reiterated. “That smacks of devious plots, I say. We have stuck to watching when we can or asking people in the know. If we make a play, everyone shall know of it openly!”
Coyote shook his head. “Alas, so many godlings full of potential and promise died for no good reason. This council has much to answer for by allowing such a thing to transpire.”
“And,” Thoth went on, “sending agents after Bailey comes perilously close to direct interference in mortal affairs. Something must be done.”
Silence reigned for what felt like far too long.
Freya, resembling a bomb prepared to go off, asked in a soft voice, “What?”
No one offered any immediate solutions except Fenris.
“Perhaps,” he suggested, “Freya should step down from the council. At least for a time.”
“What?” she screamed. “How dare you!”
Balder too balked at the notion, joining his fellow Asgardian in protesting such a move. Both argued that removing Freya would throw off the council’s delicate balance.
Thor shrugged, seemingly annoyed with the debate. Though he’d been among the first to agree that Freya had made a bad choice, the whole discussion left a sour taste in his mouth.
Loki, for his part, laughed at the bickering around him. So much chaos clearly amused him.
Coyote and Thoth agreed with the basic wisdom of Fenris’s prop
osal but quickly turned to disagreement over the merits of how best to implement it.
Freya projected her voice above the general chatter. “Don’t trust him!” she announced. “Fenris has a plan, make no mistake. He means to meddle, to advance upon us from an oblique angle!”
Scratching his beard, Thor admitted, “Possibly.”
Fenris interrupted, “No, I only seek to protect my disciple, my people, and the stability of the world they live on.” But by the time he’d spoken, further squabbles had erupted. He frowned, realizing that none of the council thought him trustworthy. Their differences of temperament and opinion divide them, but they were united in suspecting him of...something.
“Prove it,” he shouted at them all. “If I am guilty of playing you false, display your evidence of my crimes!”
None of them could. Instead, they kept arguing.
Roland sipped his coffee. He’d ordered a very nice-looking platter of pasta primavera and preferred to admire it a moment before he started eating. Dante, meanwhile, had received a crude but appetizing-looking plate of fish and chips.
Roland spoke first. “Since I’m closer to Portland, I’ll take the responsibility of checking on our friend Megan in a few days.”
“That’s fair,” Dante agreed as he salted his fries.
Upon returning to the woman’s occult supply store, the two wizards had presented her with an ultimatum: leave the Pacific Northwest immediately, go as far away as possible, and don’t come back. In return, they would not inform the families of the missing witches that she’d been complicit in their deaths. She had, after all, been blackmailed by a caster of superior power, but they refused to let her off the hook entirely.
“The important thing,” Roland remarked, “is that we neutralized you-know-who. That’s two down, one to go.”
Dante gave him an odd glance.
“Never mind,” the older wizard said, waving his hand. “There were three of them—my stalkers. I have yet to see or hear from the third. With any luck, she took a long vacation to Antarctica.”
The younger caster swallowed his food and rolled his shoulders. “In any event, we handled this whole thing cleanly. If it had gone on much longer, witches might have started blaming each other, or worse, they might have blamed the Weres. I don’t want the peace we’ve created to get fucked up.”
Roland finally picked up his fork. “No sane person does.”
A car pulled up outside the diner, its blinding electric-blue lights shining straight through the window. Once the lights, along with the engine, died, the vehicle itself was clearly visible—an elongated black Maybach. The doors opened, and out stepped two men in dark suits and glasses.
Roland sighed and tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling. “Now what?”
Dante wiped his mouth. “Uh-oh. Them showing up usually means trouble, even when they’re on our side.”
The agents pushed their way into the restaurant and came toward the booth where the wizards sat. Roland recognized one as Velasquez, the new leader of the task force that had helped them take on Aradia. The other was an Asian guy he hadn’t seen before. He understood that Townsend was still recovering.
“Hello,” Velasquez said. Before the casters could reply, he and his partner sat down on both sides of the booth, forcing Roland and Dante to scooch inwards and blocking them from making an easy exit. “We need to talk,” the agent added.
Roland nodded. “It’s nice to see you again too, dear. And my, aren’t you looking lovely!”
Ignoring the comment, Velasquez gestured at the newcomer. “This is Agent Park, my new partner. We know who you are, and we remember the services you’ve done for the United States. We still have to ask what you two are doing in Portland.”
Dante stroked his hair. “It’s partway between our hometowns. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and wanted to hang out and have a nice meal. We almost succeeded.”
Agent Park snorted. “You’re right about the ‘nice meal’ part. Is that Alaskan cod?”
Dante blinked in confusion.
Velasquez butted back in, getting straight to business. “That’s obviously bullshit, given the coincidences involved. Our intel informs us that several witches have gone missing. Not huge numbers of them, but enough to be of concern. With you guys and the furballs getting along so splendidly lately, and the Venatori lying low, who the fuck could be responsible? We’re curious.”
Roland countered, “You assumed we would know?”
“Sure,” Park shot back, grinning broadly. “I’m new, but I read your file. You’re a leader. If you sucked, maybe you wouldn’t know, but it sounds like you’ve got too much on the ball to be caught totally unaware by something like this.”
Roland made a pouty face. “Gosh. I guess I do suck, then.”
Dante snickered at that.
Waving a hand sharply, Velasquez snapped, “Enough with the smartassery. We also know Bailey has mysteriously vanished again, at a time when supposedly nothing is wrong. That seems a little strange. You know we’re not your enemies. We’re on the same side. Don’t make things difficult for us, and we can keep being friends.”
The wizards sighed, and Roland turned to Velasquez after taking another swig of coffee. “Fine. We heard about the missing witches, so we investigated. The situation has been resolved.”
“Details,” demanded Velasquez.
The casters reluctantly filled the agents in on all that had happened.
“And of course,” Roland elaborated as they neared the end of the story, “it turned out it was Caldoria McCluskey, who I’m sure you also have a file on, seeing as she and her girlfriends were the ones who basically started the entire mess involving Bailey and me. We thought she got lost or killed in the Other, but wraiths of some sort got hold of her and turned her into this undead hag-like creature who needed to drain the powers and life force of other witches to restore herself. Meaning that yes, the people she kidnapped are dead.”
Dante added, “We dusted her, though. Tired her out and then blasted her into oblivion. All should be well from here on.”
In the middle of the wizards’ account, Velasquez had pulled out a small laptop and begun keying in information. With the story done, he hit the Enter key, apparently checking a database Roland suspected was exclusive to the Agency.
The agent shook his head and let out a dry, sardonic chuckle devoid of humor. “There’s one little problem with the end of your story,” he observed.
“True,” Roland admitted, “we forgot to craft a clever punchline.”
As Park watched with a grim expression, Velasquez turned the screen toward the wizards. “What you had there was what we call an eldritch crone, kind of a magically empowered super zombie. They’re rare but serious business. There’s no way you destroyed one that easily.”
Dante scoffed. “It wasn’t what I’d call easy, exactly, and there wasn’t anything left of her.”
Velasquez adjusted his glasses. “Maybe you destroyed her body, but not her spirit. I would’ve thought this would have occurred to you guys, being sorcerers and all. She’s probably still out there in incorporeal form, siphoning bits of magic from other witches until she has the strength to reconstitute a physical body, though it’d be a frail and feeble husk until she could absorb more victims. That would be enough for her to move and cause problems.”
“So,” Park surmised, “we need to find her—or it, whatever—and stop her. Again.”
Roland held up a hand. “Let me eat, then we’ll be happy to help. I can’t magically track anything worth a damn on an empty stomach.”
“Make it fast,” ordered Velasquez. “We have tracking capabilities of our own, though. Finish your meals and come with us. We’ll show you the hardware, then we’re all going on a hunt.”
Bailey and Carl sat cross-legged, facing one another on a circular patch of dirt in the middle of the forest. Tall trees and dense foliage surrounded them so that they felt as though they were at the bottom of a dark-g
reen cylinder.
Their trainer for the current exercise was a stern-looking woman who had introduced herself as Deona. As if sensing the first questions her students were on the verge of asking, she cut them off with a curt explanation.
“Sitting is preferred when one is a beginner at illusion magic. It requires tremendous amounts of control and mastery, which is why we’re teaching you this first. Should you feel that conjuring illusions is of little value in and of itself, be aware that the effort that goes into learning it will improve your overall latent divine abilities and condition you to accept extra physical and magical strain.”
Bailey nodded. Fenris had adopted a similar philosophy in his many lessons with her.
Carl looked more skeptical. “I’m a shapeshifter,” he pointed out. “My body can take on most any appearance I want. This seems redundant, in all honesty.”
“As I said,” Deona repeated, her tone growing harder-edged, “the exercise itself will be beneficial. The ability to alter your form is not the same thing as being able to create external images and sounds.”
He scowled but offered no further protest.
The trainer went on, “Neither of you is in immediate danger, yet the godly magical ability lying within you and not subject to discipline can eat away at you like a cancer. In rare cases, it may burst like an overfilled balloon. With power like yours, the results of that would be much like an atomic explosion. I hardly need to add that this is best avoided.”
“Yeah,” Bailey conceded, “sounds about right.”
They began with Deona walking them through the gradual process of creating mental images, then projecting them into the outside world. First they did easy stuff like spheres and cubes, and the trainees found that even simple shapes required constant mental attention to maintain.