The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  Roland knew he couldn’t match four or five Venatori in pure destructive force, especially not when they had a coven link established. That gave him an idea, though.

  He reached for the mental bond between the witches and turned his mind back to what had just happened in the Other, introducing the coven to their members who had recently been cut off.

  Two witches screamed horribly, clutching at their faces and hair and falling to their knees. Bailey attacked one of the ones still standing, knocking her over and rolling her partway down the hill during the distraction.

  Roland smirked with what he had to admit was sadistic glee, even if, on some level, he felt terrible for what he’d just done—link the minds of the remaining coven to their fellow witches now rotting within the Pool of Dark Reflections.

  He doubted anyone deserved to have their consciousness assaulted in that fashion, but he couldn’t afford to hold back. Not now, not with so much at stake.

  Lavonne bared her teeth in terrible rage. “You fools! It’s just a psychic illusion!” She raised her hands to try to crack the spell.

  Roland tried to stop her, but a giant serpent-like gout of flame drove toward his head and he stumbled back, barely managing to conjure enough earth and water to neutralize it. His wounded side screamed in pain.

  Meanwhile, Bailey was everywhere at once, shifting back and forth from human to wolf, tossing spells with every change and never letting their foes get a bead on where she was or what she would do next.

  Still, the two witches she’d pounced on were not down for the count. Lavonne bolstered them, and soon all five were again fighting as a unit. Bailey and Roland were back on the defensive, and Gunney, dumbfounded and battered, could do little but crawl behind a tree off to the side and pray.

  Lavonne seemed to sense the bond of emotion between the girl and her mentor. Leaving her four assistants to press the attack, she lunged around the periphery of the battle, seeking out the mechanic.

  Gunney saw her coming and tried to hide, but even out of sight and blanketed in the nighttime forest’s deep black shadows, he couldn’t escape her psychic probes and arcane tracking techniques. In moments she found him, pounced on him, and dragged him back out into the clearing with one hand twisted in his hair and the other pulling his shirt tight around his torso.

  “Bailey!” she bellowed. She’d augmented her voice so it echoed horribly through the woods and reverberated off the mountain. “No more tricks. Surrender! Surrender and all three of you will live. If you fight on, I will kill him and Roland first, and then you will wish for death. This is your final chance!”

  The blaze of combat came temporarily to a stop. The young duo, standing about twenty feet apart, both half-hidden behind trees, remained poised to attack or defend. Bailey’s eyes fixed on Gunney.

  Lavonne held him by the collar with her left hand, while her right hovered near his throat. A translucent blade of force energy or magical plasma, pulsating with purplish light, had encased her hand, and its sharp edge barely touched the leather skin below the mechanic’s whiskered chin.

  “What do you want?” Bailey called. “I’ll give myself up to save him, but you have to tell me—”

  “No!” Gunney cried. “Goddammit, Bailey. I’m getting old anyway. Just let me go. It’s more important that you—”

  The witch glared at him, and his face froze. He was still conscious, but had lost the ability to speak.

  “The girl,” Lavonne jeered, “must make her own decision.” She gazed at Bailey. “We wish to study you. Your powers may be able to help us do a great many good things for all of witchdom. You will not be harmed. Now, surrender!”

  Bailey’s shoulders slumped. She was close to despair, knowing that she’d failed. And yet, Gunney had mentioned something about one thing at a time. Perhaps it would be better to live to fight another day.

  “Study?” Roland snapped. “They’re going to stick you in a goddamn cell somewhere in Europe. Do you really want that?”

  Just then, one of the auxiliary witches fired a cheap shot—a simple low-intensity lightning bolt, one that bridged the distance between her and the wizard instantly, striking him in the thigh.

  “Augh!” he shrieked, face contorting in agony as his leg muscles gave out. He collapsed, felt the wound in his side tearing open anew, and screamed.

  Now the white-hot rage was back. Bailey felt it growing, rising like a wave reaching its crest and about to crash down. “Why the hell did you do that? Are all witches lying pieces of shit who try to sucker-punch people during negotiations?”

  Lavonne swiped her mage-blade in the girl’s direction before returning it to its place beside Gunney’s throat. “Be silent! We will be taking Roland as well. He too has a purpose to serve.”

  “Yes,” one of the other witches gloated. “He’ll make a fine stud, aiding us in producing future generations of excellent Venatori.”

  The wave broke.

  “Go fuck yourselves!” Bailey raged. “Better use of your time than trying to fuck him. All your pretenses of being this big wise authority over the world of magic, and you’re no damn different than those bitches who wanted Roland as their sex slave.”

  Lavonne began to press the ethereal blade into the flesh of the mechanic’s neck.

  Bailey leaped, spreading her arms wide and summoning everything she could think of to help her. Her need was great, and failure was half a second away, but half a second was better than nothing.

  Spiraling torrents of electricity and wind converged on Lavonne from three directions, striking her before she could slash Gunney’s throat. The witch howled in pain as the electricity flowed through her body and the winds tossed her about like a discarded toy.

  The other four Venatori struck at the same time. With their leader incapacitated, they could not cast spells at the same intensity as with a functioning coven, but they were not slouches. Advancing walls of concussive force, gouts of subterranean flame, descending hails of frozen nitrogen shards, and invisible assaults on the girl’s emotions and will buffeted her.

  She surrounded herself with a shield as she rocketed into the sky above the tree line, then descended toward Lavonne. Gunney, she saw, had seized the opportunity to wriggle away and get behind the fattest tree he could find. Now it was just Bailey and the witches.

  As she came down, whizzing past tree branches, she tried to summon something like a spear made of the pure essence of magic, something that could cut through lesser spells. Like the Venatori leader’s translucent knife, but more powerful.

  A pointed mass of reddish light emerged from her hand, and focusing all her concentration on the task at hand, she shifted into wolf form, trying to preserve the spear. To her shock, she succeeded.

  Lavonne was recovering from the triple blast she’d taken. The bun atop her head had fallen apart, and her hair hung wild and loose about her head. Her eyes widened. She raised a hand to create a jagged bowl-like shield, one that would stop Bailey’s descent and injure or kill her at the same time.

  The werewolf caught herself on the side of a tree and pounced again, sacrificing almost no momentum, driving toward a weak point in the shield, one not enforced with spikes. The magical red spear pierced the glimmering mass and cracked it.

  “No!” Lavonne gasped.

  Her disciples, panicking, threw crude blasts of plasma at Bailey. In her lupine form, she was fast enough to dodge them, and she did. And she hadn’t lost her new weapon, the glowing point of which now hovered in front of her face.

  Lavonne gathered all she had for one last apocalyptic strike, but Bailey accelerated her speed—the opposite of what Marcus had taught her about resisting gravity to fall more slowly. She accepted gravity’s pull and descended like a bolt of lightning.

  The Venatori leader never got to try whatever arcane defense she was preparing. Bailey’s magical spear split her head open in a shower of blood and sent her body flying as the werewolf crashed to the ground. The collision kicked up walls of dirt and ro
ck and sent out a tremor that knocked the other witches off-balance.

  Bailey rolled and tumbled, struggling not to succumb to pain or confusion. She’d forced enough earth out of her way to avoid killing or seriously injuring herself on impact, but the whole world was chaos for a second or two. She flung herself onto undamaged land, shifting back into human form at the same time.

  Roland still lay unconscious. He and Gunney were alive—and the Venatori commander was dead.

  The other four witches tried to fight on, but they were badly demoralized. Bailey plunged into them, changing back and forth from wolf to woman, deflecting magic attacks and responding in kind. She moved too fast and hit too hard for them to resist. The seconds stretched out like minutes, and yet all too soon, every one of them had fallen.

  One, whom Bailey bit almost in two with her powerful jaws, would never get back up. The others might live.

  But it was over. The invaders had lost.

  The girl morphed back into her humanoid form, and for a moment she stood, heaving and throwing her head about, half-expecting more foes to emerge, but none did. Almost wanting to cry with relief, she instead ran to Roland.

  He groaned and heaved himself into a half-sitting position. “Oh, fuck,” he moaned, face contorting with pain. “I hate being shocked, and I think they managed to undo most of Marcus’s healing job on my side. I might need human medical attention again.”

  Bailey hugged his head to her chest. Strangely, she was unconcerned about being naked anymore. “We’ll get you whatever you need. Just don’t die on me, okay? You made it this far, and we beat them.”

  He made a sighing, sputtering sound. “We did, didn’t we? Well, mostly you. Good job.”

  The girl left him there for a moment and dashed over to Gunney.

  “I’m okay,” he said at once. “It’d be nice if you could untie my damn hands, but they weren’t able to do much besides muss my hair.”

  While she was in the midst of freeing him, a glowing portal of deep amethyst opened about halfway between her and Roland. Out stepped Marcus.

  “What happened?” he demanded at once. “Are you all right? I’m shocked they were able to ambush us like that. I did what I could.”

  Bailey let out a long, slow breath. “Yeah. Roland’s torn up again—same wound. He’s gonna need some treatment ASAP, but I’m mostly okay, and so’s Gunney. I…” she swallowed, “I killed two of them. Their leader, and one other. And the three who are left aren’t in any condition to fight.”

  “So be it,” Marcus murmured. He went into the house and got her a blanket to wrap herself in.

  Soon, emergency vehicles were driving up the faint dirt road; what little civilization the town could provide had come to Marcus’s obscure forest clearing. Sheriff Browne’s cruiser was there, its red and blue lights flashing, along with an ambulance and a fire truck. A crowd of civilians had also formed, watching the bizarre spectacle from behind hastily-placed orange and white barriers.

  Additionally, there was a group of Weres, mostly young bucks, plus a handful of their mates, hanging around on the east side of the street and watching the proceedings. Bailey didn’t recognize them, but thought she might have seen one or two of them once before. Probably some pack from elsewhere in the region who’d come to town.

  And amidst them all, Bailey caught a glimpse of the other agent—the surviving partner of the two Men in Black, or whoever they were.

  Soon she found herself briefly in conversation with the sheriff, who was on the verge of a full tantrum over the amount of batshit craziness engulfing his town lately, only for the agent to appear.

  “At ease, Sheriff,” the man said, his nondescript face placid behind his dark glasses. “I’m Agent Townsend, and I’m in charge of the current situation.” He flashed a badge. “My superiors will contact you shortly with everything you need to know. For now, I need to talk to Miss Nordin.”

  Browne was a large man and not used to being pushed around. “This is my town, Agent. You better have a damn good reason to be taking control of its affairs, and I better hear that reason post-haste.”

  “You will,” Townsend stated.

  Casting a final bug-eyed glance at the girl, Browne left to supervise his deputies in managing the growing crowd.

  Townsend took Bailey aside. She was glad to see him, for once since she knew he’d keep the regular authorities off her back, but before she acknowledged him, she checked on Roland again. Marcus had done something to stop the bleeding, and the paramedics were doing the rest.

  She turned to Townsend. “Okay, Agent. First of all, I’m sorry about your partner. He was a brave man, no way to deny that.”

  Townsend grimaced and looked aside for a couple of seconds. “Yes, he was. Maybe too brave.” He turned back to the young woman. “I have to say thank you for wiping those bitches out. I’ve talked to my superiors, and they’re in agreement that the Venatori have to pay for this. We’re going to retaliate, and we’re going to make sure they can’t get away with crap like this on American soil ever again.”

  Bailey crossed her arms and nodded. “I like the sound of that. I only killed two of the five—unless some of the others died of their wounds—so you can probably question them.”

  “I intend to,” Townsend said grimly. He glanced around. “Oh, good. My party wagon just arrived.”

  A black van had pulled up. Out of it stepped two men dressed much as he was. They looked different, but with the dark-green suits and black glasses and identical haircuts, it was hard to tell.

  After a moment’s discussion, the three men each took a pair of handcuffs that Bailey saw as one passed through a headlight’s beam were engraved with strange runes.

  Townsend glanced at her. “Anti-magic cuffs. A little something we whipped up recently, just in case. Separated from their leader and beat to hell like this, none of the witches ought to be able to stop us from rendering them just about totally harmless.”

  “Good deal,” Bailey remarked.

  The agent dangled his pair in front of her face. “Behave yourself like I warned you before, or there might be a pair of these things in your future. Rules are rules.”

  His tone was almost teasing, but she knew that on some level he meant it. She just stared as he walked past and joined his newly arrived teammates in cuffing the barely-conscious trio of surviving Venatori.

  Gunney walked up, but before he could say anything, Roland reached toward Bailey from his stretcher. “You know,” the wizard quipped, “we might get some interesting use out of a pair of those handcuffs.”

  The mechanic groaned and looked heavenward. Bailey blushed, thankful it was dark.

  Before she came up with a response to what Roland had just said, Marcus rescued her by walking up and interposing himself.

  “Bailey,” he opened, “please accept my congratulations. You—and Roland—have done well. Extraordinarily so. You’ve defeated a large contingent of Venatori and saved the town. You’ve come into your powers in an unusually short span of time. Even with all the pressure you’ve been under, you made it.”

  She bowed her head, embarrassed by the lavish praise. “Thanks, Marcus. I mean, obviously, I couldn’t have done it without you. You’ve been a godsend.”

  He smiled in a mischievous way. She’d never seen that expression on his face.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied, “but I’m afraid there’s more.”

  Roland rubbed his temples. “Here we go. Back into the Other for yet another excursion into the far reaches of arcane clusterfuckery?”

  “No,” said Marcus, looking briefly at the wizard before returning his gaze to the werewitch.

  Gunney interrupted them. “Now hold on a second. You—Marcus. When I first told you I’d ask Bailey if she wanted to train under you, you never said anything about bringing this kind of shitstorm down on our town. Those witches, or whoever the hell they were, damn near killed all of us. Whatever you’re about to propose, it sure as fuck better not make things any
worse around here.”

  The shaman didn’t seem perturbed by the comment. “No,” he stated. “I’m proposing something that will ensure your town is protected from things like this for many years to come.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  After they’d placated Gunney—Bailey knew he was just worried about her—Marcus had taken her into the woods to talk, away from the noise of the crowd and the vehicles. Roland had been bundled off in an ambulance, and based on prior experience, Bailey knew he’d be out of the hospital soon.

  The shaman sighed, the sound of it deep like wind over a field, and looked at the moon. “Bailey, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through so much, but there’s a purpose behind it all. Everything up ‘til now has been a test to see if you’re fit for a certain role.”

  Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “Let me guess: you want me to become a shaman.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Yes. You have everything it takes to become a spiritual leader to your people—our people—and more. It’s a hard path to walk. You’ll have many more challenges and many responsibilities, but it also offers perks. Salvation, even. You will be above the traditional laws of mating.”

  Bailey drew a sharp breath. She was afraid to ask for details and hoped he would offer them of his own accord.

  He did. “A shaman can marry who he or she wishes, or not at all. The rules don’t apply. It’s the ancient way, and few if any Weres would question it. Rather than being pressured to marry, you could be the alpha if you wished, but that offers a whole new set of trials. You have shown that you’re worthy. Can and will you live up to your potential? You will, of course, walk a narrow path, with the things you feared to each side. With your powers, the second nightmare vision beside the pool could become a reality if you’re not careful.

  “Not every pack has a shaman, of course. Your own pack does not. If a shaman is not born to a pack, it often looks to an affiliated pack’s or a regional shaman for spiritual leadership.