The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  Townsend sighed. “The girl seemingly wants to get back to living quietly in her little Were community in Hillbilly Hills with her shitkicker sheriff protecting her and that 90s pop star of a wizard for company. Punishment would not only be unnecessary but highly disruptive.”

  “Agreed,” drawled Spall. “According to intelligence, the people of Greenhearth, Weres included, don’t know we exist. No reason to alter that state of affairs just to make a goddamn point. No reason to enforce the letter of the law over the spirit.”

  They nodded in unison, both having reached the same conclusion, which didn’t even need to be spoken. They’d let Bailey and Roland go for now, remove an ongoing problem by scooping up the witches, and then keep a close eye out.

  Until the next time their intervention was required. Which probably wouldn’t be long.

  Spall asked mournfully, “Are you sure we can’t just go on vacation?”

  Chapter Eight

  Townsend and Spall waited the appropriate amount of time before they descended from their perch and mysteriously appeared on the scene to take control of the investigation. It was generally advisable to wait until the local authorities had at least had time to get an account of the situation.

  The cop overseeing things turned and saw them. “Christ,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Officer,” said Townsend in a monotone, “hello. Agent Townsend, FBI.”

  “Spall,” added Spall, “Also FBI.”

  They weren’t actually with the Bureau, of course, but their people within the FBI would cover for them if necessary. And people tended to respect the feds. Those three letters carried quite a pedigree.

  The officer held up his hands. “Look, we got things under control, all right? Looks like there was a firefight and some idiot shot a fuckin’ gas line or something, and the winners fled the scene. We’re on it.”

  “Yes,” Townsend stated. “However, the perpetrators were interstate offenders. That makes them our business.”

  Spall went on, “We have already contacted your superiors, and they’ve agreed to cooperate. You need to do the same. We want to view the scene and question the suspects.”

  Frowning in defeated resignation, the man stood aside. “Yeah, okay, whatever. But one of them isn’t up to much. We have the paramedics on the way for her.”

  The two agents strode past the cop, grimacing. If the witch who’d been mauled ended up dying, it would remove the prospect of her causing further trouble, but it would create new problems.

  A couple of lower-ranking officers were trying to restrain the two witches, who were now conscious, which wasn’t easy since they kept dancing back, shrieking, and making ridiculous demands.

  “How dare you!” Shannon DiGrezza bellowed. “Look what she did to my face! It should be legal for me to hunt her down and strip the fucking skin off her cheeks, in addition to removing her nose! Gods. I’m going to need surgery!”

  The other one, Caldoria McCluskey, was bouncing up and down in her fury. “She threw me into a trash can!” she howled.

  “Ladies,” one of the cops stated, his patience wearing thin and his hand drifting toward his holster, “you are resisting arrest. If you do not calm down and cooperate, we’ll be forced to—”

  “Officer,” Townsend interrupted, his voice cutting sharply through the chaos.

  Everyone went silent.

  Spall picked things up. “We’re taking control of this situation. FBI. Your superiors have already been notified.”

  After a minute or two of pointless disagreement, the agents found themselves asserting order over the general disarray. They always did.

  One of the cops knelt beside the still-unconscious Aida Nassirian, keeping an eye on her while the other went to join his superior by the street and “secure the perimeter.” In practice, that meant “get out of the agents’ way.”

  “Ladies,” Townsend said to DiGrezza and McCluskey, “you know who we are, don’t you?” He stared at them through the dark glasses he wore even at night, totally still and completely unafraid.

  Spall was much the same. “And you undoubtedly know you’ve crossed the proverbial line at this point. There’s only so much we can do when these little vendettas suddenly become everyone’s business. The general public doesn’t need or want to be involved, now do they?”

  The two men took a small amount of satisfaction with their jobs as, all of a sudden, the witches calmed down and regained the power of rational thought. They even looked ever so slightly afraid.

  “This,” DiGrezza protested, “is fucking ridiculous. You don’t have the right to threaten us!” Her anger had lost its edge, though; she was just putting on a show to save face.

  McCluskey, by now, had glanced past her toward Aida and the cop who knelt at her side. “Hey, what the hell happened to Aida? Fuck. She isn’t dead, is she?”

  “No,” said Townsend. “An ambulance is on its way and will be here momentarily. And,” he stepped closer to them and lowered his voice so the officer wouldn’t hear, “we will have a few of our agents at the hospital where she’ll be taken, posing as employees, to ensure she doesn’t get into any trouble while she recuperates.”

  Spall took a step forward, too. “It looks like you two could use some medical attention, as well. Will you require similar supervision?” He arched an eyebrow, the gesture visible despite his sunglasses. “Or will you be good girls and cooperate, coming with us downtown to receive private care while discussing things further?”

  McCluskey looked confused and frightened. DiGrezza was still pretending she was the queen of the parking lot, issuing orders to her unruly subjects, but the façade was cracking.

  “Supervision!” She scoffed. “If you’re offering superior private care, then, of course, we’ll accept that rather than have to languish in some regular-person hospital. But this is still complete nonsense. What do you mean, ‘discuss things further?’ We already told these cops what happened. We randomly encountered my psychotic ex-boyfriend, and he and his new, ugh, girlfriend went ballistic on us.”

  The agents almost smiled.

  “Sure,” Townsend quipped. “We’d be happy to hear it again, and all the ramifications of the public disturbances it’s caused. Downtown. Where you will come with us.”

  “Quietly,” Spall clarified. “Without any unnecessary and utterly pointless resistance.”

  As his partner finished speaking, Townsend reached into his jacket and produced a small, silver-hued cylindrical device, holding it up for the witches to see. They stiffened and swallowed whatever bullshit remarks they’d been preparing to spit out.

  Townsend told them, “We have toys for dealing with your kind when you’re not willing to work with our entirely reasonable demands.”

  “Things could get messy,” continued Spall. “Dangerous. For you, that is.”

  DiGrezza’s defiance was in shambles now. “What is that?” she asked, her voice quavering.

  “Well,” Townsend explained, “there’s only one surefire way to find out, isn’t there? Keep giving us shit.”

  “But,” elaborated Spall, “the last witch who did that? It took a week to get the stains out if I recall.”

  Finally, the two young women agreed to cooperate.

  The paramedics arrived and quickly set to examining all three witches, particularly Nassirian. The agents inquired as to her condition.

  “She’ll live,” said the medic who knelt beside her. “Pretty messed up, though. A lot of deep lacerations and blood loss. Fractures in her right arm, and probably a concussion.”

  All in all, Townsend and Spall were starting to feel a bit better about things. The three witches would be removed from the playing field for now. Nassirian wouldn’t be physically up to troublemaking for a while, and she wouldn’t die.

  If a fatality occurred, they’d have no choice but to bring Bailey Nordin in. Charges would be filed: manslaughter at the least, maybe even second-degree homicide. Oh, sure, she’d get off because it was clear
ly self-defense, but as long as no lives were lost, things would be easier for everyone.

  Townsend announced to the cops, the medics, and a couple of random citizens who had drifted over to watch, “I think you should all consider forgetting this ever happened.”

  * * *

  “Yes,” Roland urged, excitement and even joy in his voice, “you’ve got it. Almost. Keep it up. That’s it.”

  Bailey stood on the cool grass of the park, hands out in front of her, reddish sparks hovering around her fingertips and softly illuminating the deep shadows cast by the surrounding trees. She didn’t understand why it was working, or how, but something in her spirit leaped and soared, nonetheless.

  As she enjoyed the exultation of finally succeeding, she tried to expand on what little she’d conjured and turn it into a crackling arc of electricity. But it didn’t cooperate, and her joy turned to frustration.

  “Dammit!” she exclaimed, slashing a hand through the air. The crimson light winked out.

  She blinked and stiffened. “Well, fuck.” Slowly she let her breath out.

  Roland, beside her, stared into the now-dark space between her hands and shrugged. “Meh. It was something, though, wasn’t it?”

  It was. It was enough to convince them that the testing device hadn’t made some kind of error. She really did have magic. She was a Werewitch.

  Not a very good one yet, though. It had taken another forty minutes of concentration and practice just to regain the tiny results she’d briefly seen during their fight with the witches. But she supposed it was an okay start for Day One.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “Hell, even that little bit is kinda incredible. I think we should call it a night, though. We already answered the most important question.”

  The wizard laid a hand on her shoulder, and she did nothing to stop him. It was just a friendly gesture of support. “Indeed. What you saw back in that parking lot wasn’t a fluke.”

  After fleeing from their arcane brawl with Shannon and Aida and Callie, they’d driven straight out of Seattle, detouring to the east just to be safe and then bearing back west toward Olympia, where they planned to find a room for the night.

  But neither of them had felt like retiring just yet. They were both hopped up on a bubbling cocktail of emotions, and neither could put their curiosity to rest. They’d seen Bailey start to redirect that spell. They had to know what it meant.

  They’d found a quiet little park near the edge of town and quietly slipped into a stand of trees by a lake for another lesson in sorcery. This time, they’d gotten results.

  The pair returned to their ride, hoping no one would be too curious about what they were doing there at this hour and both bitterly aware that the Smokey and the Bandit car wasn’t hard to miss if there were some sort of statewide APB out for them. Though, of course, Roland had magically cloaked it.

  But no officers of the law waited for them; the lot was dark and quiet and peaceful. They climbed back in, buckled their seatbelts, and took off toward the center of town without any problems.

  Roland was thinking about something. “You know,” he pondered aloud, “I’m almost wondering if someone might be, well, restraining the usual authorities from interfering with us. Of course, I’ve been dropping spells here and there to make us less obvious, but even so. Remember what I said about the Men in Black-type guys?”

  The girl nodded. “Yeah. I still dunno if I believe that shit. I mean, yeah, it’s easier to believe in than Freyja, but we’ve seen her. I still haven’t seen anything to confirm that there’s some agency going around covering our tracks to keep the natives from getting restless.”

  Roland laughed. “You’re not supposed to see them. They’re a covert agency, after all.”

  She nudged at him with her right elbow. “Fair enough.”

  Comfortable silence set in, but soon Bailey’s thoughts returned to the subject of spellcraft.

  “So,” she inquired, “why do you think it didn’t work? I mean, it did, but in the park back there, I was trying to conjure a lightning bolt like the one Shannon threw at you. It would be good to be able to give her a taste of her own medicine if she shows up again. Anyway, all I managed was a few sparks. I mean, I was happy to manage anything, but at the same time, I was mad at myself for not doing better.”

  Roland ran a hand through his lank yellow hair, which looked like it could use a wash after all they’d been through.

  “Who knows?” he replied. “Concentration and focus are part of it, yeah. You probably distracted yourself. What I can’t figure out though, and what’s really making me worry that I don’t know all the ins and outs, is how your emotions tie into it.”

  She shot him a glance and raised her eyebrows before returning her gaze to the road ahead.

  “What I mean,” the wizard went on, “is that, for one thing, I don’t know if magic works the same way for werewolves as it does for us.”

  Bailey frowned. That had occurred to her, but she hadn’t brought it up, in part because she was afraid of what he’d say. It was more comforting to think he had all the answers, but things were rarely that simple in life.

  “And,” he extrapolated, “about the emotions. Well, your sudden ability to change form is a kind of magic too, you know. The first time you did that, it was because you were trying to protect me from the goddess. Thanks, by the way.”

  “No problem,” she replied, playing it cool, even though she was yearning for him to bring his intelligence to bear on her seemingly intractable problems.

  “And the second time, it was the same sort of thing, plus anger at the witches. Then, you didn’t only shapeshift, but you also caught Callie’s spell and started to turn it back. Sort of. Almost. Both times, you were being fueled by an emotional reaction.”

  Bailey wasn’t going to debate that. It was her nature to be protective, fiercely so, of people she cared about.

  The wizard held up a finger. “But in the park just now, it was your anger at yourself that killed the spell. You can see how that creates a conundrum. I’m sure there’s an answer; it just doesn’t make sense to me yet.”

  “Me neither,” she admitted. She wondered if it had to be the kind of anger involved in life-threatening situations in order for it to trigger her abilities. If that was the case, she might never have control over them.

  Roland shook his head. “Maybe there’s one mental state that sets off the shapeshifting, and another that’s tied to sorcery, at least in your case. We’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

  “Yeah,” she acceded. “The shaman might know.”

  “We can hope.” He was being sincere, not sarcastic, and knowing that, she smiled warmly.

  Within half an hour, they had checked into another modest but serviceable little motel room, much like the one they’d rented in Portland a bit over a week ago. It gave her a feeling of déjà vu, and again she felt the awkwardness of sharing a bedroom with a man.

  Roland seemed distracted, though. He was wrapped up in intellectual wizard stuff, probably on her behalf.

  Just after they’d settled in, Bailey’s phone rang.

  She drew it from her pocket, glanced at the number, and swiped the green icon. “Gunney! Hi. What’s up?”

  “Bailey,” the man said. “First of all, are you okay? And more importantly, is the car okay?”

  She snorted into the receiver. “Materialistic old coot. Thanks, though. All three of us are fine—me, Roland, and the Trans Am. Got into a bit of a scuffle, but nothing serious.”

  “Of course.” He sighed. “The scuffle gods just keep bestowing their blessings on you, don’t they? Anyway, I gotta talk to you about something, and it’s kinda serious.”

  Her gut tightened. His tone didn’t suggest it was an emergency, but when he said something was serious, he meant it. Roland perked up, not quite eavesdropping, but standing ready to join the conversation if necessary.

  “See,” Gunney went on, “this little investigation you’re conducting might get more
complicated real quick. Sheriff Browne’s been busy, and not just guarding the South Cliff dipshits.”

  He explained that since Bailey and Roland and the sheriff had been the ones to deliver the kidnapped girls back to their parents, the sheriff had become the local go-to man for similar cases.

  And as it turned out, there were more cases like that than anyone had realized. People from all over Oregon and Washington, and in a couple of cases, even other neighboring states, or British Columbia, had been in touch about their missing daughters. Browne had received plenty of calls and emails, and a few in-person visits.

  Bailey’s mood darkened with concern, fear, and once again, anger. “Goddamn, Gunney,” she grumbled. “What have we gotten ourselves into? Sheriff Browne doesn’t have the ability to handle cases over a quarter of the fuckin’ country. This whole situation sounds like it’s ten minutes from blowing up into some kinda national media circus.”

  “Exactly.” He sighed again. “Listen, a lot of the cases are in Washington and the Seattle area from what they’re saying, and people are wondering if you could look into it. Hell, I’m wondering, since you did so well last time. I know you can’t get the cops involved, since this is pack business. Just keep your eyes and ears open, but be careful. Damned, damned careful. Especially as long as you’re driving my car.”

  She nodded, oddly certain he was picturing the gesture even though he couldn’t see her. “I’ll do all of the above, old man. You just focus on getting that damn Beamer shuffled off its mortal coil so you can repair my truck.”

  “Hah!” he chortled. “Yeah, will do. I’ll see you soon. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I won’t.”

  They hung up.

  Roland stretched his legs. “I got the gist of that. More human trafficking by those bastards who’ve been chasing us? Gosh, they seem like such charming people.”

  Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the long and short of it.”