The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  Spall’s face adjusted until both men wore the same grim expression. “Fair enough. Let’s get to it, then. We’re wasting time.”

  He reached for a particular lever on the Le Sabre’s souped-up control panel, one which was bright orange to distinguish its importance. Townsend smiled but double-checked to ensure his seat belt was properly fastened.

  The car screamed as it came fully to life, a prototype jet engine suddenly protruding from the rear and blasting flames and fumes into the air behind them as their speed ratcheted up to well past two hundred miles per hour in the space of a few seconds. Advanced satellite logistics allowed them to view the locations of cars, lights, and other obstacles ahead well before they were in visual range, and the car auto-steered around them.

  Spall snickered. “This shit never gets old, does it?”

  Townsend’s stomach was churning, but he had to agree. “Fucking never.”

  He glanced out the side window as Seattle whipped past in a blur, catching only the briefest glimpse of a gawking onlooker, frozen in shock within the confines of his perfectly normal government-sanctioned vehicle.

  Chapter Twelve

  The men in the dark suits hit her in unison, but she was ready for them. The one who’d been calling to his allies on the walkie-talkie clotheslined her, his forearm crashing into her collarbone, but she fell back in time to soften the blow. And more importantly, she’d grabbed his arm with one hand and his belt with the other, and she used his forward momentum to pull him off balance.

  The Were growled as the girl rolled to the ground, tossing him aside as if he were the smaller of the two. Then the other’s foot lashed out at her.

  A quick pivot to the side protected her from most of the kick’s force. She yanked up on his ankle, causing him to stumble almost into a splits position, and Bailey bounded to her feet, turning the movement into an uppercut to his jaw.

  The second Were toppled next to the first, but neither of them was down for the count. They were tougher than the usual dipshits she fought; if anything, she figured she’d just made them angrier.

  Good, she thought. That means I get to wail on their asses even more.

  As her opponents sprang back up, Roland’s voice called from beyond the two shipping containers.

  “Bailey! I’m coming. I’ve got this asshole held for a minute. Just keep them there for a few seconds!”

  Her brain was burning with the fire of battle and slow to pick up on the nuances of speech, but she guessed he meant “held” in the magical sense.

  She made a fast decision to disobey Roland’s suggestion. It would be better to lure the two pricks toward the front of the warehouse. That way, when the girls fled out the back door, the Weres would have to either take the much longer, more scenic route out the front to catch them, or they’d have to go through Bailey and Roland.

  “You bitch!” Walkie-Talkie Guy rumbled as he advanced on her. His friend with the extendable baton didn’t look much happier.

  Bailey grinned at them the way a shark grins at an unsuspecting seal. “Don’t think you’re not gonna pay for that. And sooner rather than later.”

  Then she backed into the corridor between the containers, seeming to flee, but luring them into the bottleneck. They pursued, their rational thinking eclipsed by their brutish need to beat and kill her.

  She spared a quick glance over her shoulder. The third guy, the one who’d come in the back, was suspended in the middle of a punching motion, green sparks crackling around his limbs as an invisible field kept him in place.

  Meanwhile, Roland was advancing past him toward her. The dozen young women, fortunately, were all behind him, though in their half-drugged state, they’d stumbled into the corner instead of making for the door.

  Bailey turned back to her foes. Before she could take advantage of them both being limited in movement by the shipping containers to their sides, Walkie-Talkie, out in front, shifted and pounced.

  “Crap,” she growled.

  He was faster than she’d expected, clearing the distance between them even before his fur had fully sprouted and his clothes had fallen all the way off. It looked like he had enough control over his changing ability to shift his legs before the rest of his body, allowing him to launch into an aggressive leap by the time his enemy knew what was happening.

  There was no time to dodge, so Bailey caught him.

  “Bailey!” Roland exclaimed.

  The force and weight of the wolf knocked her off-balance, but she managed to throw him aside, though his powerful paws put a massive strain on her muscles and his teeth barely missed her face. With all her strength, she slammed him to the floor, cackling as the impact sent a noticeable vibration through the whole structure. The creature yelped.

  The other guy, Baton, was almost on top of her, but she paused to kick Walkie-Talkie hard in the ribs, hopefully breaking at least a couple of them.

  Then the extendable metal rod was swinging toward her face, and Roland was at her side.

  With a nasty thwacking sound, the baton raked down across Bailey’s cheek, and as she reeled in shock and pain, she saw it strike Roland as well, causing him to pinwheel backward and almost fall over.

  This guy is nothing to fuck around with, she realized. She also saw the green sparks around the third guy vanish as Roland’s spell wore off, then he and Baton were only a few steps away. To her shock, she almost panicked.

  Her hands thrust out in front of her independent of her conscious will, and she felt something flowing through her and being channeled toward her fingertips in a rush that was both frightening and exhilarating.

  “Holy fuck,” the third guy exclaimed as red sparks suddenly blazed around the girl’s hands and a crimson glow engulfed them—and stayed there. They hesitated.

  Roland was a step beyond her, his hand also extended outward. Shouting a strange word, he cast a translucent globe of shimmering force that exploded around the two men’s chests, knocking them back to crash into the shipping containers. They hadn’t hit hard enough to take them out of the fight, but it bought Bailey and Roland time.

  The wizard paused to gape at Bailey’s hands since the magical aura around them hadn’t faded instantly, as somehow they’d both expected it to. Then he rushed behind her to shout at the freed girls, trying to urge them out the back door while they still had a moment.

  Bailey stood in the center of the floor, unsure of what to do. She couldn’t figure out how to channel her magic beyond herself, say, into a telekinetic blast the way Roland had, but she knew that something was happening with her abilities.

  The two men recovered faster than she would have liked. Walkie-Talkie was back on his feet, staggering in pain but still able to fight.

  “They’re getting away!” he snarled, gesturing past Bailey.

  Baton looked at him. “Should we go around?”

  “No. Flatten these two fucks! There’s still all the other girls.”

  Bailey spread her hands as if to welcome them. “We tried this game once already, didn’t we?” She wasn’t about to let them get past her, although a second later she grasped that, by “all the other ones,” the Were had meant the women in the other two buildings.

  Then all five of them clashed, and there was no room in her mind for anything but the fight.

  Bailey struck the dark-suited men with her hands, and it seemed like some kind of electric shock took hold of them. For every blow they landed on her, she landed two or three of greater strength (and pain) on them. But the power faded with each strike, and soon the red glow was no longer surrounding her hands. Walkie-Talkie had been put back on the ground by then, though, and it looked like he was down for the count.

  At the same time, Roland had taken off his belt and was using it to thrash the guy he’d magically frozen a minute ago; he took a couple of hard punches to the stomach but held his ground. He was tougher than he looked, she had to admit.

  Baton swung his weapon at her face again, but she had learned from her mist
akes. He was too fast for her to catch the strike, so she sprang to the side and aimed a fast, strong, sweeping kick at the back of his knee. He yelped as his leg crumpled and he toppled backward.

  Bailey took a second to catch her breath. They were winning, but the last two sons of bitches still hadn’t given up. She looked behind her. The captured girls were gone.

  “Roland,” she called, “how’d you convince them to finally get the hell out of here?”

  He’d just whipped the third guy hard enough to buy himself a second or three for pleasant conversation. “Gave ‘em my phone,” he answered her. “I can always get another, and with any luck, I’ll even forget Shannon’s number. Told them to call the cops and tell them what’s going on.”

  “Awesome,” Bailey shot back. She noticed that the still semi-conscious Baton grew ashen-faced in horror at the mention of the police. Seeing her opportunity, she stepped in and punched him hard in the jaw, finally removing him from the fight.

  The third guy, though recovering from the painful blows of Roland’s belt, also looked scared. “Fuck. Fuck!” he exclaimed, then turned and ran.

  The wizard snorted. “Oh, no, you don’t.” He cast another telekinetic orb at the man’s back. It knocked him into one of the cages, bending the bars and sending him to the floor. He didn’t get back up.

  Bailey extended her hands in front of her and ceremoniously dusted her palms with fierce, almost clapping motions. “That’s that,” she gloated. “We’re getting pretty damn good at this, especially working together. The wizard and the Werewitch.”

  In the back of her mind, she knew she’d be hurting later. The baton strike plus a couple of solid punches would have their belated vengeance after the adrenaline wore off, but for now, there was only the rush of victory.

  “Right,” Roland panted. “And hell, you almost cast a proper spell there. I’m not sure what that was, but it looked like some kind of crude but effective electrical concentration-type thing. We’ll talk more about it later. For now—”

  Before he could finish, reality reminded them that they weren’t done here yet.

  A black SUV whizzed past out front, visible through the windows even as its engine made a guttural cry, smoke trailing behind it.

  “Shit,” Bailey cursed, smacking herself in the forehead. “The other girls! They’re taking them away from here.”

  Roland was beside her as she darted for the back door, flinging it open and leaping outside, then barreling away from the warehouses toward the lot where they’d parked.

  “Good news,” the wizard told her as they ran. “They’re going the other way, which means they have to weave through the whole mass of buildings before they can get onto a main road. We ought to be able to cut them off from the northeast if we’re fast enough.”

  Bailey’s mind raced ahead of the situation, trying to concoct a new plan on the fly. “Don’t talk to me about fast, boy. You’re the one lagging behind right now.”

  As if irritated by the accusation, Roland picked up the pace and started to pull ahead of her. He was slightly taller, after all, and had longer legs. “That’s because I was doing reconnaissance. I was intentionally lagging behind.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the girl replied. “Sure.”

  She managed to find her keys in her pocket as they bounded across the street to the lot and opened the door of the Trans Am almost before she stopped running, thankful she hadn’t crashed into the vehicle and scratched the side with the keys or anything like that.

  For his part, Roland was positioned by the passenger door just in time for her to unlock it.

  They both climbed in, Bailey firing up the engine before she bothered with her seat belt. They could put those stupid things on after they were on the move.

  The wizard extended his hand toward the windshield, pointing ahead of them. “Keep going the way we were going before we stopped,” he instructed. “Don’t go back the way we came. Then take a hard left at the corner of the lot with the warehouses here. We’re going to circle around and head them off.”

  “Okay, I get it,” she acknowledged. “Let’s run these fuckers into a ditch filled with— Wait, can’t do that. Shit.” She’d never been in a car chase where her target vehicle was carrying a bunch of innocent victims. That made things a lot more complicated.

  Bailey shifted into drive and gunned it. The Trans Am burst out of the lot and was on top of the turn Roland had mentioned in seconds, and it fishtailed as she whipped it around to the left.

  Roland patted her shoulder. “We’ll catch them. Don’t worry. Our car has a firebird painted on the hood. We can’t possibly lose.”

  “Oh, shut up,” she grumbled. Her gut tightened with a pang of worry for the vehicle. If she damaged—or totaled—Gunney’s prize of prizes, she’d fall on her knees before him and spend the rest of her young adult life working to pay for its replacement.

  Though even he could appreciate what they were trying to do right now.

  They whipped around the next turn and caught sight of the SUV about a quarter-mile ahead. Bailey pressed the gas pedal to the floor, but the rival driver, having emerged from the tangle of the warehouses onto a proper road, was doing the same thing.

  “No, you don’t,” she grated. “You motherfuckers will not get away from us.”

  As both vehicles headed toward the nearest main street, Roland, steeling himself for the high-speed pursuit to come, glanced out the window to see what appeared to be a tricked-out car from the 1950s, possibly a Le Sabre, parked on a side road.

  * * *

  Agent Spall killed the jet engine in a way that allowed it to die slowly. The Le Sabre slowed down naturally as the engine wound down, its scream fading to a mere roar.

  Agent Townsend sighed in borderline relief. Driving that fast was a rush, but he’d never got used to it. They had the technology to make it relatively safe, but it was always a riskier proposition than driving normally.

  Of course, they weren’t exactly in a normal line of work.

  The car, under Spall’s direction, slowed down to a reasonable sixty miles per hour and then decreased all the way to thirty as they approached the warehouse district in the semi-wooded hills where Nordin and her little friends were probably having their soirée.

  Spall grunted. “No way of knowing what’s going on here. Probably another kidnapping bust, given the resemblance of this area to that waterfront where the shit in Portland went down. We should have brought backup.”

  Townsend shook his head. “Backup wouldn’t have been able to keep up,” he pointed out, “especially not with the way you drive. Seattle PD’s cars haven’t entered the space age yet. Also, the normie police might have seen things we’d have to wipe from their minds later. Containment is always the first priority.”

  His partner sighed. “You’re right. Fucking shit. Maybe I should have joined the normie police instead of the Agency.”

  “Maybe,” Townsend suggested, chortling in a low, sardonic tone. “But then you would have missed out on all the fun.”

  Spall parked the prototype Le Sabre on a back street just up the hill from where the warehouses began. They unbuckled their seat belts, stepped out of the car, and closed the doors. Staying up here for the moment would enable them to keep an eye on the area and survey the overall situation while they decided whether to move in.

  Then something else moved instead.

  “Whoa!” Townsend exclaimed as engines roared and air rushed and a black shape barreled toward them.

  It was a nondescript SUV driving at or near-top speed. Its wheels were a blur, and its body rattled from the indignity the driver was exerting on it, pushing it to the limit of its capabilities.

  Right on its tail a second or two later was another black blur, smaller but driving at least as fast and gaining. It took a second, but as it shot past, both agents recognized it as a ’79 Trans Am, complete with a golden bird painted on the hood.

  Both men stood silently as the fury of the vehicles’ roars w
ent out of range of hearing and the dark blurs from sight. The woods were quiet and peaceful without them.

  They turned to face one another.

  “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and a giant pile of steaming bullshit straight from the bull’s ass,” Townsend stated, his voice flat. “They’re up to their usual fun-filled antics.”

  Spall shook his head, simmering with controlled anger. “This is fuckery of the highest order. Even that goddamn jet engine wasn’t enough to get us here in time to stop these idiots from doing idiot-stuff like the idiots they are. I really need a fucking vacation.”

  In unison, the friction between them ended. Unspoken consensus returned, and they hopped back into the Le Sabre. Spall had already started the engine by the time Townsend had pulled out his mobile device and booted his tracking monitor.

  There was no one else in the warehouse district that they could see. Later they’d return to double-check, but for now, the bigger problem was the noisy, messy spectacle another car chase would undoubtedly make.

  Spall drove after them. “Another good idea blown to hell, and not the good kind of blown. That backwoods Were is up to her hero tricks again, and the pieces of shit she’s tangling with aren’t helping.”

  Townsend locked onto Bailey’s coordinates. “That, unfortunately, is very fucking true. And it’s highly likely that SUV contained a bunch of kidnapped girls. Local law enforcement will be interested in that.”

  His partner threw a glance his way as he kicked the car up to seventy in a forty-five zone, trying to close on the Trans Am.

  “Are you suggesting,” he asked, “that we arrest the asshat traffickers? If so, I’m inclined to say something like, ‘Well, it’s about time.’ Since it is.”

  “Negative,” Townsend shot back. “For the third goddamn time, containment, containment, containment. It’s our first and ultimately only duty. The fuckery between the two groups here pales in comparison to the apocalyptic fuckery that would result from another of these public spectacles revealing the existence of the supernatural to the plebeians. It would be like a cross between a zombie movie and one of those X-Men story arcs involving those Sentinel things. Not something even we could deal with.”