The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  The lead witch seemed to be considering her proposal. She raised a finger to her nose as if to scratch it.

  Roland suddenly leaped toward the girl. “Bailey!” he cried.

  A purple bolt of lightning had descended from the sky at the same time as a gout of flame erupted from the earth beneath the werewitch’s feet, trying to trap her between two forms of blazing death. Roland had encased her in a field of green light that blocked the worst of it.

  Bailey reeled in shock. A tremor went through her body from the residual electricity, and the intense heat was like climbing into an oven two-thirds of the way to baking temperature.

  But it dissipated, leaving her with the realization that the sorceress had summoned magic of incredible power almost instantly—even here in the Other, where magic was dampened.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  “Get them!” the lead witch shrieked.

  Simultaneously, Estus barked “Stop them!” to his pack warriors, and Weres and witches clashed. Roland rushed forward, a desperate look on his face, trying to counter the staggering might of the Venatori’s spells.

  Bailey broke free as the lead witch’s fire and lightning spells died, and Roland’s shield dispersed a fraction of a second later. By the time she reached the fray, the battle was already going badly, even with thirteen of them against only a dozen of the Venatori.

  A surging cloud of magenta plasma crackling with sparks and weird acidic bubbles surged from one of the side witches’ hands and Roland intercepted it, trying to collect it within a sphere of green light to turn it back on its caster. His face strained with the effort; opposing just one of them seemed to take up everything he had.

  This left the other auxiliary sorceress and the more powerful leader to the Weres.

  Bailey hurled a cluster of icicles at the leader. She easily swatted them aside, but in the brief moment it took her to do that, Estus and his warriors got closer to their opponents. Four of the less-battered ones closed around the assistant to the left.

  Then Bailey’s sight was obscured, but it seemed the quartet of lycanthropes stopped in place, somehow magically prevented from moving in for the kill.

  The Venatori leader, suddenly cackling with contempt, threw an arm over her head in a powerful arcing motion aimed toward Bailey, Estus, and the rest.

  Suddenly it was as though a giant invisible slab of concrete had been lowered onto them from on high. An irresistible force pressed them down, driving them to their knees or making them fall on their backs or faces.

  Then the witch twirled her hand one hundred and eighty degrees and twisted her fingers into a sort of claw or pincer shape with an unpleasant hiss.

  At once, they were all struck with a terrible wave of pure fear. Bailey panicked, her thoughts and senses eclipsed by a powerful sense of danger, a blind and unreasoning desire to flee to safety. As her head turned from side to side, seeking the easiest mode of escape, she saw that most of the young Weres were in the grip of sheer terror too. Only Estus, kneeling with his staff and gritting his teeth, seemed able to put up a resistance.

  Roland magically shoved the witch he’d been struggling against, incapacitating her for a second, and glanced at his comrades. “Oh, no you don’t,” he swore, and cast a speck of light into their midst.

  The speck landed between Bailey and the shaman, quickly growing to a miniature sun of greenish-white light. The werewitch felt soothing calm and a renewed sense of hope arise and struggle against the wave of fear.

  The lead sorceress glared at Roland. “Stay out of this!” she snapped, and with a quick gesture of her chin, exploded the earth beneath the wizard’s feet. He stumbled and rolled back down the slope amidst the lycanthropes.

  But by now, most of them had defeated the terror spell and resumed their charge. Of the four who’d surrounded the witch on the left, two had fallen, but the others left her hard-pressed to join her leader in countering the Weres’ attack.

  “Estus!” Bailey cried, seething with anger and the need for retribution, “Shift! We’re faster and can take more damage that way.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when she found herself on all fours again, her eyes turning red.

  Up ahead, Roland was tossing everything he had or could think of at the Venatori—an outright clusterfuck of elemental blasts and invisible debuffs that interfered with their ability to focus a full attack on the werewolves—but the wizard was losing ground fast. The witches’ leader had helped defeat the assaults on her aides, and the three were again combining forces.

  Roland threw a kind of green comet in a lateral arc. It twisted around and then drove straight for the witch on the left, distracting her long enough for Bailey to move in. She bounded high in the air and drove down toward the woman, who was momentarily engaged in deflecting the comet.

  Below her, she saw a big shaggy wolf with white and gray fur leading others in a frontal assault on the Venatori leader.

  Bailey streaked through the air, feeling the damp wind against her fur as the ground rose up to meet her. For a second, it looked like she would smash into the witch before she could react. Violent exultation rose.

  But then the sorceress leaped backward, her movements sped up by magic. Bailey crashed into the ground where she’d stood an instant before, her claws tearing up the turf and scattering muck.

  In the split second before she pounced again, the werewitch saw with wonder that Estus was using magic while himself in wolf form. He’d created something like a battering ram made of shimmering silver light, protecting him and his Weres from the Venatori’s attacks as they charged. But some of the magic was penetrating the shield, and she saw a lance of plasma streak through the breast of a young wolf, raising a cloud of bloody steam and making the creature yelp in pain.

  She lunged at her target.

  The witch threw a lightning bolt but missed as Bailey changed directions with stunning speed. Then she piled into the woman, knocking her over and biting down on her shoulder and chest.

  The witch screamed. The sound mingled with the awful noise of combat occurring just to her right, and Bailey slammed the woman into the earth again and again, trying to knock her out and take her out of the fight.

  Beside her, more wolves had fallen, but their charge, combined with Roland’s cornucopia of sorcery, had finally broken the Venatori’s defenses. For all their power, they simply couldn’t defeat such a large group of beasts, especially combined with Roland’s and Estus’ magic. The assistant on the right toppled as well.

  Bailey, salivating from the salty, metallic taste of the left-hand witch’s blood on her lips and teeth and tongue, looked up.

  The last of the Venatori, the leader, was retreating. She apparently deemed the battle unwinnable or had judged the cost of victory too steep to be worth the risk. She fled with hurried half-jogging strides up the slope of the hillock.

  Beside Bailey, Estus had finished subduing the other witch. Bailey was confident he could complete the job by himself, so she lunged for the leader. A moment later, the shaman followed her. Both somehow knew that neutralizing the coven’s head would remove the worst of the threat.

  The Venatori leader disappeared. She simply winked out of existence.

  Bailey let out a snarl of shock and frustration that turned into a howl. She heard Estus shifting his position, spinning back to face the way they’d come. Bailey did likewise.

  The woman had deceived them. She was back at the point they’d just departed. She seized her two fallen assistants by the arms, hoisted them to their feet, and opened a large, ragged portal like the purple doorways Marcus had conjured. She heaved herself and her subordinates through.

  Bailey pounced, but the portal closed as she reached it. The Venatori were gone.

  She let out another cry of rage. Her paws stomped the soft, damp earth, clawing it up in irregular clumps. Once the initial force of her fury was expended, she tried to relax and felt herself standing on two legs, her skeleton returning to its
original conformation and the fur receding from her body.

  Thankfully she had clothes this time, due to her foresight before the first fight. After she dressed, she checked on Roland, finding him mostly okay, aside from near-exhaustion and a couple of minor burns and abrasions. Meanwhile, Estus checked on his Weres. The ones who still lived had formed a cluster around their shaman and the bodies of the fallen.

  Estus spoke to everyone at once. “We drove them off,” he proclaimed, his wheezing voice labored with both physical and emotional pain, “but at great cost. We’ve lost several of our people, and there are far more of them than just those three. I know not how many they have in America right now, but a trio is an unusually small band by their standards.”

  The younger Weres watched intently as he spoke. The eyes of some of them grew moist with tears. It occurred to Bailey that they might blame her for the witches having attacked them.

  Estus went on, “When they decide someone or something is a problem, they adopt a scorched-earth policy. I’ve heard the stories. Many of us have.” He glanced at Roland. “Soon they will return with greater numbers, more firepower, and a level of ruthlessness beyond what we saw here today. Bailey, Roland—you must leave.”

  They perked up, and Roland was about to admit he wasn’t sure he was capable of opening a portal, but to his surprise, the shaman reached out and opened one himself, chanting only briefly before the glowing oblong mass of watery purple energy appeared.

  “Go,” said Estus. “I will remain here. We must see to our dead and wounded. It’s you they’re after. We have no desire to tangle with them again, but we’d also advise you to prepare yourselves. And we wish you luck. Go!”

  Nodding solemnly, almost sheepishly, the werewitch and the wizard stepped through the amethyst doorway and back into their own world.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bailey and Roland had insisted on paying a visit to Juniper, Oregon for the funerary services. It was a hamlet so small that it did not appear on most maps, and Bailey was pretty sure it was located on state or federal land, besides. It was little more than a cluster of houses and a tiny store within a scrubby high-elevation valley, surrounded on all sides by snowy peaks.

  They’d helped bury the bodies and stood solemnly during the rites. None of the Juniper pack spoke to them, save Estus. Bailey suspected that he had told everyone the story of what had happened—and why. That meant he’d discouraged them from thinking of her as an enemy, but also that they knew she was indirectly responsible for the deaths of five of their young men.

  In such a small settlement, five deaths were too many.

  It was easy to tell who had been the mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers of the deceased. They were either the most emotional, openly weeping, or the most stony-faced. The rest of the community also was somber, or in some cases, seething with barely concealed anger.

  Estus presided over the funeral. They were reaching the final part of the ceremony, where the shaman invoked the wolf-god Fenris to protect and guide all lycanthropes and the other gods to be at peace, and Weres in general to be brave and strong and true.

  The girl’s ruminations turned inward. Is this what it means to be a werewitch? Having so much power it draws trouble, and leads to people dying for no real reason? On some level, this happened because of me.

  The young wolves who’d perished fighting the Venatori hadn’t been doing anything wrong. They weren’t criminals, like the human trafficking ring she’d confronted before. They were just a normal Were pack.

  Granted, the Junipers had attacked her out of nowhere, but they hadn’t been out for blood. They were only testing her. And the five who’d perished had lain down their lives defending her from the foreign witch cult, recognizing its agents as a threat to their kind.

  And for all her supposed power and apparent progress, she hadn’t been able to protect them.

  But she did have power. Not as much as people thought, or maybe more, but she had some. All she needed to do was learn to use it better.

  A shiver went through her, a mixture of rage, sadness, and solemn determination. She made a vow.

  I will become a full and proper werewitch or shaman or whatever I need to become to stop things like this in advance. I will become a protector of my people.

  Roland, still standing beside her, saw that something was amiss. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she grated. “I just… I feel like I failed. This shouldn’t have happened, Roland, and I’m never going to let it happen again. I can’t make up for these poor guys getting killed on my behalf, but I can save other people from ending up the same way.”

  “Well,” he replied, giving her a wan smile, “I’ve got your back. As always.”

  She nodded and clasped his hand.

  Estus came up to them, his face grave but not unkind. “Thank you for your help,” he wheezed. “You fought alongside us against the common foe, and I think your coming here today was the right thing to do, even if part of my community is not happy to see you.”

  That was no surprise. “I understand,” she said. “And I’m gonna have to get going. Roland too. We need to get back home. But if you guys need anything, let me know. And if I hear about any trouble coming your way, I’ll warn you.”

  “Yes,” the shaman agreed. “I will do the same. At least we are rid of the notion that you meant to take over our pack. Goodbye.”

  Bowing his head, he trudged off.

  Bailey and Roland went in the opposite direction, away from the plateau where the village lay and toward the winding mountain road where the black Tundra was parked amidst a thick stand of trees. Bailey pulled her keys out of her pocket a few steps before the vehicle and sensed someone was watching her.

  Her eyes snapped up, almost immediately locking on a tall, broad-shouldered figure in a baggy hooded coat standing amidst the pines on the slope.

  “Oh,” Roland quipped, “there he is. He must have had to spend a long time looking for a bathroom, and then needed a nice nap.”

  Marcus strolled down. Bailey knew he’d heard the wizard’s comment, but the older man did not react to it. She was just happy to see him again.

  “Bailey,” he opened. “I’ve gleaned some of what happened. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help, but I had something very important come up. Please tell me the rest. Spare no detail.”

  She traded glances with Roland, who, frowning, nodded. Then she turned back to Marcus.

  “Okay,” she began, and took a deep breath.

  She told him everything. Every event, every blow, every thought she’d had from the moment he’d left them until now, to the best of her recollection. Some things had already grown hazy, but most of it she remembered vividly.

  The tall shaman did not speak, except to ask the occasional brief question to clarify something when Bailey was having trouble describing it. Otherwise, all he did was listen.

  When it was over, he surprised her by smiling, albeit in a bittersweet way.

  “Bailey, you have done well,” he stated. “Based on what you’ve said, you’re growing in terms of your power, control, and tactical intelligence. You did all you could, and you stood up for another pack, fighting alongside them after they approached you with hostile intent. That is what a good werewitch is supposed to do.”

  The girl blinked. She hadn’t expected him to say that. She’d figured he would chastise her for screwing everything up.

  “Thanks.” She let her breath out. “I still feel terrible, but hearing you say that helps a little.”

  Nodding, the shaman told Roland to wait by the car a moment. He took Bailey by the shoulder and guided her deeper into the woods to speak to her privately.

  “Tell me,” he began, “about your second vision by the pool. If you want me to help you interpret it, I must know everything about it. Hold nothing back.”

  She winced. Describing the physical ordeal was bad enough. Having to go into detail about the mental torment she’d suffered was ev
en worse. Nonetheless, she explained to him all that she’d seen, thought, and felt.

  Reaching the conclusion, she wrung her hands. “I just… I want to do the right thing, but I’m not sure what that is. I’m being pulled in different directions. Is this normal?”

  Marcus looked deeply into her eyes, his face placid, tough, and wise. “Yes,” he answered her. “It is.”

  She exhaled sharply and allowed her shoulders to slump, too relieved to worry about looking weak or emotional.

  “Normal for a werewitch, anyway,” the shaman went on. “We aren’t considered ‘normal’ by most other standards, but you know what I mean. Unfortunately, things may well get worse before they get better. You’re doing a good job of coping, but there’s more to come. And at this level of magic, the mental aspect is just as important as the physical.”

  That made sense. “What do I do now?”

  “Take some time off. Go home, see your family, and try to relax. It’s true that we don’t have much time, but we have enough for you to recover so you’re at your best next time. The Venatori will be back, but they’ll likely need some time to re-strategize. I will keep an eye out for them in the meantime.”

  Bailey put her arms around his shoulders, and he embraced her back. “Thanks, Marcus.”

  * * *

  This time, Gunney came out of the shop to meet her halfway. He must have been worried.

  “Bailey,” he called, “where the hell you been? I heard about some Weres from down south getting killed. No official information yet, but…” He seemed uncomfortable. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I thought you might know something about it. Mainly I was concerned about you, of course.”

  She intercepted him in the middle of the lot, and they continued back toward the auto shop. She wished he had opened with something more casual, more friendly, but at least he cared about her safety.

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “That was me. I mean…” Her gut clenched. “I wasn’t the one who killed them, but it happened because of me. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve been tearing myself up ever since it happened.”