The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  It was true. From moment to moment, depending on their mood and how tired they were, sometimes it felt as if they’d been in here for twenty minutes tops. At other times, it felt like they had been trapped here for years, and they were starting to forget the lives they’d once led back on Earth.

  Bailey tried not to entertain the latter notion. Every time it popped into her head, she thought of Jacob, and Kurt, and Russell, and Gunney, and Sheriff Browne. Hell, even Kevin. Anything to maintain that connection to the real world.

  They walked for perhaps another five or ten minutes—probably—and the trees around them grew larger and denser, as if they were reaching up intentionally to blot out more of the sky and darken the path before them. The sky stayed the same weird color, but the growing shadows made it seem like dusk was approaching.

  Roland reached out, and, to Bailey’s surprise, and even his, a green light grew just above his hand, as though he were holding a magical torch.

  “Huh,” he quipped, his face twisted in puzzlement, “I didn’t mean to do that, and it’s not very bright, but it’ll do.”

  Bailey walked beside him, contemplating what he’d just said. “You know,” she began, “back on that ridge with those things around us, I can’t remember thinking much of anything, or meaning to do anything in particular. It was like it all just became automatic. Kind of like physical fighting, only, you know, with magic.”

  “Hmm.” The wizard’s eyes glazed. “Yes, you might be onto something. My brain kind of went on autopilot also. Maybe that’s part of the lesson we’re supposed to learn here. Something about, say, how the strangeness and stress of this place is forcing us to rely on our magic in a more instinctual, or even physical, way than we have before.”

  The girl gave a sharp nod. “Yeah. Maybe. I was wondering if that’s how Weres are supposed to use magic. When you were instructing me, you made it sound intellectual. Don’t get me wrong, you obviously know what you’re talking about, but maybe there are different ways to learn the same thing.”

  She half-expected him to get defensive about that, but his mood remained neutral. He was lost in thought.

  “Almost certainly,” he said after a pause. “I showed you the way of understanding magic that made the most sense to me, but there are plenty of stories of people who came by their abilities through other means.”

  From up ahead, in the direction of the mysterious hill-like structure, came three bloodcurdling howls in quick succession.

  Bailey stopped and planted her fists on her hips. “You know, I think we should keep going toward that sound.”

  Roland raised an eyebrow. “I don’t like the idea, but it would be an opportunity to test our hypothesis.”

  She nudged him with her elbow. “Yeah. It’ll be fun. Another scary-as-fuck, life-or-death situation. We’ll have no choice but to figure out how the hell our magic works—again.”

  Taking deep breaths, they strode in the direction of the howls.

  Only a few minutes later, unnerving black shapes started to coalesce out of the shadowed nooks around them, or rose from the dark pools of stagnant water in the lower-lying parts of the swampy woods.

  “Crap,” Roland muttered. “I guess we have to level up now since they’re around us on all four sides instead of only three.”

  Bailey’s abdomen clenched; it was true. In the more forested area, it was easier for the wraiths to surround them with a simple ambush.

  The screams and howls started again as the glossy sable humanoids glided out from between the trees, their almost-liquid arms extending toward their would-be victims.

  Bailey felt her mind going blank again, and once more, she reached out with both hands. She did not disappoint herself. Red sparks and a small, controlled arc manifested once more, striking the phantoms closest to her and driving them away.

  She and Roland stood back to back, with him using disciplined bursts of fire to blast the ones closest to him while also subtly manipulating the earth and tree roots to block or trap the creatures who were more distant.

  Two wraiths slipped through their magical defenses, appearing only a few feet away. Bailey didn’t panic but instead tried something different.

  The entities seemed almost to be made of fluid, some kind of ectoplasm or ether or something. Concentrating on them, Bailey imagined the temperature around them and within them dropping to absolute zero.

  The wraiths froze. They stopped in place, stiff and unnatural, a rime of frost coating their undulating bodies.

  With them taken care of, Roland was able to drive off the others. Bailey helped, casting small bolts of lightning at some of the stragglers. Somehow, it went smoothly, even as it sapped every ounce of available energy from them. It was a task that came naturally despite being monumentally difficult.

  The reason for the strain was clear. Not only was it harder to summon sufficient levels of magical force, but Bailey and Roland both had been concentrating intently on their feelings and mental states, trying to pin down the right frame of mind for such a sustained usage of their powers.

  Soon the wraiths fled. The path through the boggy forest was empty of anyone save the two humans and the pair of icebound phantasms.

  “Nice,” Roland exhaled. He wiped his brow, looking exhausted, then turned to examine Bailey’s handiwork.

  “Now, this is interesting. How did you freeze these things without knowing what their body temperature is? When I punched a couple of them, they were cold as…I don’t know, a really cold thing. Wait, I’m over-analyzing this in a scientific way again.”

  “Exactly,” Bailey agreed. “I just thought about making them, well, cold enough to freeze. Seems like it worked.” Even though she’d been exerting less effort than usual, she felt like the battle had taken as much out of her as running a marathon.

  Nodding, the wizard raised a foot and kicked one of the wraiths over. It rolled down a gentle slope and broke into pieces against a tree. “Hah!”

  Bailey picked up the other one—it weighed almost nothing—and threw it into one of the pools of water, where it bubbled and sank out of sight. “Now let’s keep going,” she offered.

  They strolled ahead, cautious but not overly afraid, and talked.

  Roland went first. “Whatever is going on here with our ability to fight these things,” he remarked, “I think it’s leading us in the right direction, even if we don’t have all the answers yet.”

  “Something like that,” said Bailey. “Shit, I’m tired. Want to sit down and rest for a minute?”

  The wizard made a half-assed sound of disapproval but then nodded. “Yeah, I think I do. How about by that tree right up there?”

  They walked for another moment, then reclined against the base of a thick tree the color of iron that grew from an elevated patch of land. The height of their resting place kept them above the more waterlogged parts of the ground and offered a mild advantage in being able to spot anything that might approach. The tree looked somehow less sinister than most of the other ones. More natural.

  “So,” Bailey prompted once they were comfortable and had caught their breath again, “about these Vantoretti chicks who seem to want our asses.”

  “’Venatori,’” Roland corrected her. “And I already told you most of what I know.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you? From what I remember, you said a bunch of the kind of stuff someone says when they want to shut other people up without really telling them anything.”

  He groaned and pinched his nose. “Why do women always think that? Never mind. Well, I already told you I’ve never encountered them face to face, and that’s true. I’ve heard the stories; most witches and wizards have. They’re boogeyman-type figures. I suppose in Europe, they’re more real, but even in America and elsewhere, there’s a general understanding that yes, they do exist.”

  Bailey nodded. “Okay. Go on. What’s their, what, their mission statement? You and those agents said they were fanatics but were pretty vague beyond that.�
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  “Well,” Roland replied, sounding huffy, “I don’t know all the details. They’re pretty secretive, so the rest of us have had to sort of connect the dots based on what little we know for sure. They think of themselves as the arbiters of what is and isn’t ‘correct’ or ‘proper’ witchcraft, and they act as the self-appointed enforcers of major magical taboos.”

  Suddenly Bailey went cold and felt sick. She flashed back to something Sheriff Browne had said to her a few weeks ago, when she and Roland were preparing to depart for Portland for the first time.

  The thing about werewitches—about the terrible and violent proscription against them in the conventional Were community, and how they used to be burned at the stake in the bad old days.

  Roland went on, “They have tremendous power. They draw their ranks from the most gifted of witches, snatching them up as young children. Their field agents are trained to hunt down societal rogues or dangerous magic users who go warlock—you know, assholes who delve into serious black magic and whatnot—and destroy them. And sometimes, their recruitment drives do not involve consent. There are a few tales of them outright kidnapping children they think would make good assets.”

  “I see,” Bailey responded darkly. “You’re gifted, aren’t you? Did they ever try to ‘recruit’ you?”

  Roland swallowed and fidgeted; he seemed uncomfortable with the question. “I didn’t fully grasp what was going on at the time,” he answered her, “but it’s quite likely that I narrowly dodged them, or their third-party agents. I have the power to qualify, yes, but they’re a matriarchal group, so males aren’t as valued. Plus, whenever I was around people who creeped me out, I would downplay my powers and act stupider than I was. That sort of thing.”

  The girl just stared. It seemed like everyone in the world of American magic had been after Roland in his youth at some point or another.

  “And now I’m too old for their patented brainwashing to take effect, so I think I’m in the clear of being press-ganged into their organization. Of course, they might want to kill us both. You for, well, being what you are, and me for being with you and helping you. Or they might just kill you and then pull a Shannon and use me for breeding stock.”

  Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what I was afraid of, but not so afraid that I’m just gonna wail and gnash my teeth or whatever.”

  She took his hand, holding his gaze. “That will not happen. Not to either of us.”

  * * *

  The silver Cayenne drove down the road. Not north, but west.

  “Ugh,” Shannon jeered, trying to control her sudden upsurge in anger. “I cannot fucking believe that those Eurotrash bitches think they have the right to tell us what we can and can’t do.”

  “Yeah!” Callie agreed loudly. “They just want Roland for themselves anyway. What a bunch of fucking bullshit!”

  Aida shook her head. “They looked so graceless, so uncomfortable in those stupid leather outfits. Roland would like us much better, I think.”

  Shannon drove on, staring straight ahead through the windshield at the darkened road before them.

  They’d made a show of driving north, of course. Stopped in a small, repulsive hick town to use the bathroom and gas up the vehicle, and then, when it seemed to be clear, looped back around to go toward Greenhearth by a different route.

  There was no guarantee that the Venatori knew where Bailey and Roland were. They probably just had general reports about the Pacific Northwest, and had then tracked down Shannon via a basic parlor trick that allowed witches to keep an eye on one another.

  As such, Shannon had performed a quick magical “cleansing” on her vehicle, while also cloaking it from remote viewing and ordering Aida and Callie not to cast any spells unless she gave them permission.

  It was, of course, rumored that the Venatori might be powerful enough to overcome such mid-range tactics, but Shannon refused to believe it. Besides, the leather-clad quartet had every reason to believe the trio from Seattle was now headed back home.

  “Uh, hey?” Callie asked as they came into the easternmost foothills of the Cascades. “How do we avoid those skanks if they show up in town?”

  Shannon didn’t feel like dealing with that, but she had to admit it required consideration. “I already cloaked us,” she grated. “And we can just say that going through the mountains and then heading due north is the faster route because it is. We took the long way down.”

  Aida grimaced. “They will not believe that, but it might at least buy us time. We should be alert for them. One of us should scout for their presence, while another looks for Roland. And Bailey.”

  “Yeah,” Shannon said. “It’s your idea, so you can be our Venatori scout. And Callie, once we get into the valley, you start seeking out any signals from those two. Of course, if we run into any of them, let me do the talking.”

  So intent were the three witches on the partitioning of their duties that none of them noticed another SUV, cloaked so well they would have had to use intensive truth-revealing spells to perceive it in any detail, which they passed on a nondescript stretch of black country road.

  Nor did they notice that the other vehicle pulled out perhaps half a mile behind them, tailing them as they drove into the mountains. To the west.

  * * *

  Since it still didn’t look like the hill, or whatever it was, was getting any closer, Bailey and Roland had simply adopted the big gray tree as their temporary base of operations.

  “Okay,” said the wizard, “so we agree that part of the key here is the ‘thinking without thinking’ state of mind, or ‘no-mind’ as all the kung fu guys would put it. Something like that.”

  They were standing now, though still leaning against the metallic-hued trunk as their strength gradually returned to them.

  Bailey nodded. “That we do. Instinct and intuition, instead of getting all intensive and scientific about it.”

  Roland punctuated his points with gentle chopping motions of the side of his right hand into his left palm. “And,” he resumed, “we agree that part of it is stress and necessity and desperation. That’s almost impossible to replicate when we’re safe, so there must be some other way to access the right frame of mind when we aren’t being menaced by horrible creatures from beyond the grave.”

  Squinting as she glanced around them to ensure that no more wraiths were about to show up, Bailey said, “Yeah, that’s the hope.”

  One of her biggest fears was that she would not be able to exert willful control over her powers, and would simply have to pray that they worked when she most needed them to.

  “And finally,” Roland concluded, his mouth taking on a cocky twist, “we agree that one thing I said before is still very much true—part of it is focus and concentration. Though perhaps a slightly different type than what I originally had in mind, or what we’re used to.”

  “Yep.” Bailey realized, out of nowhere, that since stepping into the Other, she had not experienced hunger, thirst, or the need to go to the bathroom. That furthered her suspicion that time was somehow suspended here.

  The wizard closed his eyes for a moment, piecing things together. He challenged his considerable intelligence to apply itself in new ways.

  Bailey did the same. She wasn’t sure if she was as smart as he was, at least, as book-smart, but she knew she was far from dumb. She’d always been a fast learner.

  What else was different? she asked herself. Less intensity, greater control. But also…

  She snapped her fingers. “Duration,” she said aloud. “We were consistently channeling the same level of power for…well, a while. It’s hard to judge time here, but a lot longer than I remember using magic for back home.”

  Roland’s eyes flicked open. “Yes, that’s true. Shit.” He blinked and exhaled through his nose. “It’s so obvious, in fact, that I didn’t even think about it, but you’re right. We somehow created a sustained flow of magic rather than hurling it in bursts of elemental power, or even casting conve
ntional spells.”

  Bailey watched him, noting how it almost looked like a new sun was dawning before his eyes. Magic was new to her. That put her at a disadvantage in some ways, but it meant that all that was happening here in the Other was part of her learning experience.

  Roland had already learned. As such, the introduction of new information or even new modes of magic meant he was having to unlearn some of what he already knew.

  “Okay,” the girl quipped, “let’s see if we can do it again, minus our dark liquid-y friends getting involved.”

  For what felt like hours, they tried and tried and tried, without success.

  First they attempted to recall their emotional states during the two battles with the wraiths while concentrating on magic. Bailey summoned a few sparks, and Roland a mild flare or two, but that was all.

  Then they tried ignoring the magical component until their brains were in the right place. Roland related all he knew about meditation, and suggested to Bailey that she imagine she was “in the zone” at the auto shop, working on car stuff that interested her and required all her attention but induced a calm and focused determination.

  That helped some, but they still couldn’t translate it into a successful magical working. There was some important element they hadn’t yet uncovered—a missing link.

  Frustration grew, anger at themselves and despair in rising and falling levels of intensity over whether they’d even be able to get back to the world they knew to make use of their powers.

  Bailey briefly entertained the horrible thought that Marcus had intentionally trapped them here.

  She tried to kill the idea as soon as it arose. He couldn’t have done that, she asserted. There was no reason for it. Why would he have spent so much time helping her, just to set her up for this? If his goal was to destroy her, he probably could have done so outright, given how powerful he was.