The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  A couple of the wraiths—indistinct humanoids, looking as though they were made of darkness given material form—started to drift out from between the roots and brambles just ahead of them.

  Barely slowing her pace, Bailey swiped a hand at the phantasmal creatures, engulfing them in a flashing sheet of yellow fire. Howling in awful hollow voices, they stumbled back, half-melted by the heat and light.

  No more of the things bothered them.

  As they emerged from the trees onto an open, boggy plain, something happened that neither of them would have expected.

  A portal opened, one that was completely different from the magical gateways they’d seen before. Those were like doorways of glowing amethyst-colored water, subtle and mysterious.

  This one was at least the size of the door of a good-sized garage, and it seemed like it was somehow thrown open from within on hinges of blinding sunlight, disclosing a shining expanse in which a single silhouette stood.

  “Whoa!” Roland exclaimed. “Who the hell is that? Don’t tell me it’s another—”

  The figure stepped through into the Other, and its footfalls were like the ringing of giant golden bells. The light behind the portal was so bright that it made the visitor’s features impossible to distinguish at first. Once the door closed, the glare dimmed, and slowly the werewitch and the wizard were able to make out the personage before them.

  It was a man, or a being shaped like a man. He stood at least seven feet tall, and his lean, muscular body was so perfectly proportioned that it almost reminded Bailey of an illustration advertising a fitness program. His beauteous, symmetrical face looked like it had been carved from crystal, and incredibly saturated blue eyes sparkled above his high cheekbones. Hair the color of polished gold swept back from his brow to spill across his shoulders.

  “Uh,” Bailey began, “hi.”

  The man took another step forward, although this time the ringing-bell sound was less pronounced.

  “Greetings,” he opened in a smooth voice about halfway between baritone and tenor that reminded the girl of a trumpet. His demeanor was not threatening, even though, as she now grasped, he was dressed for battle.

  Namely, he wore a gold-hued suit of armor consisting of a sparkling chainmail tunic complemented by metal shoulder pauldrons, forearm bracers, and greaves. A long blue cloak flowed behind him. He also had a round shield on his back, and a single-handed sword with a short guard and a broad blade hung at his side in a scabbard of gilded leather.

  Roland waved at the man, blinking, still stunned. “Greetings back. May we ask who you are?”

  “I,” the man replied, a calm smile on his handsome visage, “am Baldur, Norse god of light, purity, and beauty, and son of the All-father Odin.”

  The wizard exchanged a quick glance with Bailey. “Figures,” he whispered to her, then looked back at the newcomer. “Hello, Baldur. I am technically a servant of your aunt Freya.”

  The deity nodded. “Yes, Roland, I know of you. And you too, Bailey. You are Fenris’ vassal.”

  “Yeah,” she replied. “I, uh, didn’t know who he was until recently. I thought he was just a werewolf shaman. Well, I guess he still is. It’s like he’s the shaman-of-shamans. He’s teaching Roland and me how to use our powers more responsibly.”

  Putting it that way, she figured, would make it sound more pleasing to the god. Phrasing along the lines of “helping us grow our powers” might come across as threatening. And right now, she didn’t feel like having a being of Baldur’s power regarding her as a potential enemy. The Venatori had given her enough trouble, and they were just mortals, albeit highly dangerous ones.

  “Oh,” Baldur stated. His demeanor was oddly bemused—almost simple or innocent—yet the whole encounter seemed pregnant with subtle threats. “I had wondered why he was interested in you. That is why I have come—to find out your reasons for training under him and to test your worth. Anyone who draws the eyes of the Aesir and Vanir must prove their mettle.”

  Roland let out a long sigh. “Oh, crap.”

  “Hold on,” Bailey interjected. “Freya and Fenris have both tested us. It’s not like we are infringing on your business, is it?”

  Baldur seemed not to hear her words. He spoke again, still in a gentle, distant way, but now there was a colder, harder edge to his voice. “All the kin of Odin have our reasons. To command the attention of one of us is to spark the interest of the entire Norse pantheon. And perhaps some other entities, but they are beyond our purview. And here you are, a witch and a wolf. That makes you the children of my kin Freya, patron of witchcraft and Fenris, lord of wolves.”

  The girl put her hands on her hips. “What kind of ‘test’ do you have in mind?”

  Roland winced. “Don’t encourage him, Bailey.”

  Ignoring the wizard, the god said, “Trial by combat, of course. Let us see how you fare against my father’s host of fallen heroes.”

  Roland slapped a hand over his eyes, tilting back his head and groaning.

  Baldur snapped his fingers and the holy spirits of the courageous dead appeared around them, summoned from Valhalla. Their forms coalesced out of the wisps of fog, translucent men clad in Dark Age armor, although some were clad only in hide pants or loincloths, and a few wore more modern accoutrements.

  All had weapons, and they raised them, letting out war cries that collectively sounded like the howling wind of a gale.

  Bailey fell into a fighting stance instantly out of habit. “All right, then,” she growled.

  Their foes, being ghosts, couldn’t be confronted using physical force. Bailey first tried raising a magical shield on both her and Roland’s flanks. Transparent sheets of reddish light appeared, and the apparitions, on coming into contact with them, were slowed as though trying to wade through molasses.

  That gave Roland enough time to launch an attack.

  “Haaaaaa!” He spread his fingers, and multiple bolts of lightning raged toward the new wraiths. They were not huge and powerful, but threatening enough, and the warrior spirits who took them full in the face were frozen in place, crackling with static, before winking out of sight. Returned, perhaps, to the sacred dimension from which they’d been called.

  Bailey figured Viking ghosts couldn’t be too much different from either the shadow wraiths or the mist demons they’d fought before, both of which were susceptible to fire. She conjured a giant blaze and then sent it rolling toward where her adversaries were thickest, watching with satisfaction as it left only wisps of smoke.

  Still, Baldur’s army was enormous. The pair fought well, but the numbers they faced never seemed to dwindle.

  “Hey!” Roland shouted, “Didn’t I just vaporize that asshole a minute ago?”

  Bailey was busy pushing back a crowd of berserkers with a wave of concussive force and had no time to examine the asshole in question.

  “Shit,” the wizard went on. “I did! Goddammit. I just remembered…”

  Bailey cringed inwardly. Uh-oh. Kinda doubt this is going to be good news, she thought.

  Roland’s voice remained audible even over the racket of combat, so he might have been amplifying its volume via a spell. “Those who are taken into Odin’s hall are blessed by being able to fight endlessly, resurrected each time they’re killed. That means that when we toast these guys, they’re just popping back to Valhalla. At that point, our shiny friend up there,” he gestured toward Baldur, “can summon them right back here.”

  Bailey suddenly felt cold. For a second, her next attack, a lightning bolt that dissipated the ax-wielding revenant in front of her, almost faltered.

  If what the wizard said was true, the battle was unwinnable—not that she intended to go out without a damn good fight.

  “Give ‘em hell!” she screamed. “We’ll make them sick of jumping back and forth till they stage a fuckin’ mutiny!”

  Roland trapped a few warriors inside a dome of green plasma. “I don’t think it works that way, babe.”

  Bailey watched
him for a second. The ghosts he’d just ensorcelled couldn’t move and seemed reluctant to just plow into the deadly energy around them. That gave her an idea.

  “Well, they can’t get cycled back if they’re still here,” she pointed out.

  She summoned air to surge toward the raging host, air from which she’d sucked every iota of heat. The freezing wind washed over them and frost formed around their ectoplasmic bodies, which soon stopped fighting, encased as they were in ice.

  “Hah!”

  Roland saw what she’d done. “Good idea.” He turned toward a column of Vikings advancing toward him with swords and shields and conjured a torrential downpour of liquid nitrogen. The effects were the same as Bailey’s freezing wind.

  Then, a few of the phantasms emerged from their icy coffins. They moved slowly but were undeterred, much as they’d gradually pushed through the arcane shields moments ago.

  “Damn,” Bailey panted, cursing her overconfidence. Their foes didn’t have material bodies, so they couldn’t be converted into immobile solids.

  Baldur flourished his arms and even more ghosts appeared around them, as though he’d emptied half of Valhalla to swell the ranks of the undead legion.

  There was no way Bailey and Roland could win, and they knew it. It was a battle of attrition they were doomed to lose.

  Grimly, trying not to succumb to despair, they backed away, slowing the specters with ice or arcane essence or vaporizing them with fire or lightning.

  Soon they had a cluster of trees at their backs, so densely grown that they formed a veritable wall. It might stop, or at least slow, any attempt by the specters to attack them from the rear, but it also meant they were trapped.

  Bailey thought of something. “He said he wanted to test us, not kill us.”

  Roland formed a long sword out of green plasma and swung it at two fighters in front of him, cleaving them in half and reducing their temporary bodies to steam.

  “Given how Valhalla seems to operate,” he responded, bitter sarcasm in his voice, “it could be that this is Baldur’s way of inducting us. In other words, the whole idea is for us to die in combat. Get it?”

  She did. Before her, the host of the risen slain swelled like an oncoming tidal wave.

  Moments later, still fighting no matter how hopeless, both the wizard and the werewitch found themselves depleted and surrounded. Any move they made would invite the stroke of some arcane weapon, which they somehow knew would be just as deadly as a real one.

  But no such blow came. The dead heroes stopped, poised to kill but seeming to wait for something.

  Baldur raised a hand over his head. “Halt,” he called, his voice echoing across the bogs like an entire marching band’s worth of golden trumpets.

  Bailey and Roland stood heaving, eyes wide and hair wild and stringy, trying to gear themselves down from the mad rush of combat. The warrior spirits, having neglected to press the attack, now fell back, their swords and spears and axes resting on the damp ground.

  The god of light was watching them from his position just up the slope, fingers stroking his beautifully shaped chin. “I see,” he stated in a softer but no less melodious voice. “Very interesting.”

  The young woman wiped sweat from her brow and moved the hand back through her hair, slicking it away from her face. “So, did we pass?” She was worried that the answer would be no since the spirits probably could have killed them if they’d wanted to.

  Baldur walked a few paces closer toward them. He looked almost confused by the question. “I discovered much I wanted to know,” he replied. “Namely, that you do not pose an immediate threat to the gods.”

  Roland coughed. “Thanks.”

  “However,” the tall deity went on, “you clearly have the potential. Both of you are stronger than usual for mortal weavers of spells. Also, you fight well together, almost like soldiers who have served side by side in many conflicts.”

  Bailey nodded. She and the wizard had battled together a hell of a lot of times by now, even if they’d only known each other for maybe two months.

  Baldur raised both hands and looked from side to side at the spectral host he’d summoned. “Heroes of old who died bravely in battle, your task here is ended. Return now to Valhalla and Sessrúmnir until you are called upon again.”

  The sound from before, like a clanging gong of tremendous size, spread across the plain, and the Viking spirits slowly faded like night mist burned away by the sun.

  Watching this, the werewitch and the wizard emptied their lungs in relief and relaxed their postures. Both wondered if the incorporeal warriors would have destroyed them or stopped at the moment of truth, as they had a moment ago. For now, nothing suggested that Baldur would threaten them with anything further. The danger had ended.

  The god did, however, stride toward them, each footfall ringing an invisible bell and creating a flash of light.

  Bailey wondered why no such effects happened when Marcus moved around, but then remembered that he usually traveled in disguise. What she saw before her was Baldur’s true form, comparable to the towering wolf-beast Fenris had reverted to when he’d finally revealed his identity.

  The deity stopped about ten paces from them. “Tell me,” he asked pleasantly but with an enigmatic twist of curiosity on his mildly smiling mouth, “why has Fenris seen fit to train you? What is it about you two that so greatly arouses his interest?”

  Bailey seemed confused or annoyed by the question, so Roland figured he’d have to be the one to answer it. He almost made a smartass quip focused on “arouse” but thought better of it. Baldur’s oddly pure and naïve personality was such that he probably wouldn’t get the joke.

  Instead, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to cover for her.

  “Well,” he intoned, “I think Fenris has no serious interest in me. I’m not one of his ‘children,’ so to speak, so he just figures he might as well help me fine-tune my magic a bit. Probably the same thing with both of us.”

  Baldur cocked his head to the side. “And yet Bailey is one of his children, so she must be his chief focus. Why?”

  Roland hoped Bailey would be smart enough to keep quiet. For his part, he did something he would never have pictured himself doing—giving the silent treatment to a god.

  Chapter Four

  Bailey straightened up but otherwise relaxed as the haze of battle receded. She’d found it difficult thus far to come up with any satisfactory answer to Baldur’s questions besides the one she’d already given—that Fenris was training her to use her powers responsibly.

  As such, she was glad that Roland was stalling the deity with his usual flippant bullshit. Now, he seemed to be reduced to staring the tall, shining man down, and a mortal was guaranteed to lose that sort of contest.

  She swallowed some leftover spit and found her voice again.

  “Because I have magic,” she stated. “It’s that simple. It’s been a long time since any werewitches were born, just a few male shamans here and there. I guess he wants to make sure I’m trained right, so I know what I’m doing and can help the Were people. I have more power, so he figures I have more responsibility.”

  She spread her hands, palms toward Baldur, and arched her eyebrows. It wasn’t a shrug; she hoped conveyed something like, “That’s it. What more do you want me to say?”

  Which was, of course, how she felt.

  The god tilted his head back to its normal position. “I see. That is most intriguing—that you would be such a rare specimen, and he would desire to see you realize your potential according to such notions of wisdom and justice.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

  Baldur smiled again in his faint, enigmatic way. “Thank you, mortals, for treating with me. Each of us, the ruling family of Asgard, must take heed of the actions of the others. Now, having tested you, I must go. Farewell.”

  He gave them a coy nod of the head that was oddly ladylike and then walked back up the slope toward the point where he’d firs
t made his entrance. With a wave of his hand, the massive golden door opened on the realm of crystalline sunlight and the deity vanished into its blazing depths.

  The portal slammed shut behind him and disappeared. It left only a faint metallic ringing in the air behind it.

  Roland slumped against a tree. “Good lord, I’m glad that’s over. Any dealings with powerful entities from other planes of existence are potentially hazardous as all fuck. We’re more or less humans, and no matter how smart we are, how the hell are we supposed to know how a god or a demon or a fairy sprite or an elemental or anything of the sort thinks? You never know where you stand with them.”

  Bailey stood, hands on her hips, staring at the empty patch of air where the gateway to Asgard had been only a moment ago. Something roiled in her stomach. She was disturbed, but she didn’t know why.

  She turned to the wizard. “Is that why you seem kinda standoffish with Marcus? Wait, you were like that with him even before we knew who he was.”

  “Eh, you might say it occurred to me that something about him was a bit…off. Though aside from putting us through all this Spartan crap and never seeming to show up when we need him most, he hasn’t done anything I can take issue with, so maybe I’m wrong. But why would Baldur be interested in us?”

  The girl was wondering the same thing. “Yeah, it’s weird, but like you said, we can’t understand their way of thinking. Maybe it’s like some, uh, I dunno, upsetting-the-cosmic-balance type of thing.”

  The wizard stood back up and began strolling casually up the slope. “Could be. Something like that. I’m not an expert on the inner workings of frickin’ Valhalla. It makes me curious, though.”

  Bailey fell into step beside him, slowing her pace once she’d caught up. It occurred to her that she probably knew what Roland was about to say, and she didn’t much like it.

  “What?” she prompted.

  “I’m wondering,” he extrapolated, “if there’s internal strife going on up there. Office politics, Machiavellian shit, or just plain old family drama. Why is Fenris spending so much time on Earth? What’s his standing in the pantheon right now, anyway?”