The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  Jamie and her friends would do their part. Appalachia, too, would soon be rid of the lycanthropic vermin and the threat to witchkind they represented.

  Night had fallen when they arrived at their destination, a wooded area outside the little town of Hillsboro, West Virginia. Here a good dozen houses, radiating out for a half a mile from an intersection of two dirt roads, were all inhabited by werewolves.

  As per the instructions, Jamie parked behind a tree just beyond the de facto hamlet. She and the three foreign witches stepped out, and the SUV containing Madame Chauvin pulled up a minute later.

  The squat witch made a circular motion with her hand. “Surround these houses,” she ordered, “and trap them all within a wall of fire which moves inwards.”

  Jamie drew in a breath and stepped into the forest, separated from the other seven by what seemed a too-long expanse to either side. She felt the power of the Venatori agents growing in her head, and she merged with the coven-mind they formed.

  Oddly, part of the collective mind was blocked off from her. She’d never encountered that before; it must have been a side effect of the Venatori thinking in French, a language she didn’t know.

  Then a cue rang out, clear as an alarm bell. Once the fire had formed a complete circle, they released it and pushed it inward.

  It swept across the land, scorched grass and trees, and turned the buildings into infernos before the circle closed entirely on the road intersection and then exploded in an immense fireball. Jamie shielded her eyes and ears from the effects of the blast, mildly frightened.

  “Good, everyone,” said Madame Chauvin. “Jamie Gryphon, stay where you are.”

  She was helpless to disobey, even though a sense of wrongness hit her in the gut when she realized the other seven sorceresses had fled the scene.

  The betrayal was clear; a mass of shifted wolves, foaming at the mouth with rage, emerged from the forest across the street from where she stood and dashed straight toward her. She could fight, but she could not move from the spot where she stood, a victim of some magic beyond her ability to undo.

  Desperately she conjured another wave of flame and sent it toward the Weres, engulfing two, but then the rest were upon her.

  In making their initial strikes, the Venatori would leave their American accomplices to act as bait and take the fall. Jamie wounded one more wolf before the others tore her to pieces.

  Madame Chauvin and her six underlings had piled back into the two vehicles and were speedily driving far away from the scene.

  Southwest of there, near Bluestone Lake along the New River, a large-scale melee had been joined between the rest of the Venatori and their collaborators and those were-packs that had heard the rumors and come to help their fellows. The goal, Chauvin recalled, was to create as many American casualties as possible among both the lycanthropes and the witches while preserving the lives of Order members.

  That would rouse the werewolves and make it appear as though their species were going out of their way to attack local representatives of witchkind in a misguided form of retribution for the Venatori’s campaign in the Pacific Northwest a couple weeks ago.

  Bailey would have to fight, and all-out war could begin. At last.

  As they drew closer, the lights of the battle began to illuminate the sky. The violence being unleashed there must have been incredible. Smiling and shuddering at once, the veteran sorceress doubted that achieving maximum death and destruction would be terribly difficult.

  * * *

  “Bitches,” Townsend snarled. They now had visual confirmation that all four of the women within the supposedly abandoned Portland warehouse were dressed in standard Venatori uniforms.

  The man to his left looked at him. “What do we do, sir?”

  Townsend’s jaw muscles rippled. “Move in and take ‘em out, according to the procedure. As in, neutralize the threat, detain, and question first. If they’re stupid enough to fight back, shoot to kill.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He had seven men with him, all heavily armed and outfitted in paramilitary gear. They outnumbered the witches two to one, but even a single Venatori could be extremely dangerous if one wasn’t careful.

  Two agents remained outside on the earthen half-wall surrounding the lot, which was mostly covered by trees, acting as snipers in case any of the suspects tried to flee. The other six moved in on the building.

  While Agent Sorvald, a newer and younger guy, planted a suspension-field mine at the front entrance, Townsend supervised the entry into the warehouse through the back door.

  Predictably, they encountered multiple defensive runes.

  “Okay.” Agent Perez sighed as he moved the scanner over the walls. “There’s an invisible one right beside the door—there. It’s a silent alarm. Hits you with a psychic pang if you come too close to it.”

  Townsend nodded. “Of course. You know what to do, Perez.”

  The other agent fired up the scanner’s built-in abrader beam—a narrow, intense, and colorless laser that would melt and deface magical sigils, rendering them useless. Tongues of flame leapt from the surface as the rune distorted and then was lost altogether in the half-liquefied material.

  “Move in,” ordered Townsend.

  As they went through the motions of stealthily cutting the door open and slipping into the shadows within the building, Townsend reflected on why they were here.

  The Venatori, unsurprisingly, had failed to learn their lesson, which was typical of fanatics. After the defeat of their main force in Greenhearth, they’d continued to slip in reinforcements, suggesting that they’d always meant to escalate the conflict but were simply lying low for a couple weeks until their next move.

  When word had come in that a quartet of possible Venatori had been detected in Portland, Townsend had prioritized dealing with them over everything else. Portland was little more than an hour from Bailey’s hometown. He’d insisted on leading the mission.

  Within the warehouse was one more alarm rune. Perez neutralized it the same way he had the first, while another agent covered the slight heat-blaze with a small Vantablack screen, and a third used a mobile cloaking device to protect them from easy magical detection.

  The group paused to examine their targets. The four witches sat on two couches under a dim lamp, shuffling and looking at cards. It was impossible to say whether they were diverting themselves with a game or engaged in some kind of divination. Not that it mattered.

  Townsend motioned for the man with the cloaking device to move to the far side of the warehouse to create a diagonal crossfire if the suspects resisted. Then Townsend and the other four walked into the central space, arcanoplasm guns held at the ready.

  “Okay,” Townsend barked. The women sprang to their feet instantly. “Hands up. Do not try anything, or you’re dead. We’re taking you in for questioning. You ladies understand English, right?”

  To be safe, Agent Perez repeated the instructions in French.

  Scowling, the witches slowly raised their hands. Then one threw a lightning bolt.

  “No!” someone squawked. The bolt deflected off a portable shield as magenta beams streaked from the agents’ guns. Two witches collapsed in sparking piles of ash as the other two bolted for the front door.

  The one in front triggered the suspension-field mine. A purplish dome of light spread out, trapping her in place and incapacitating her with painful static shocks.

  The fourth and final witch stopped a foot short of the magenta field and spun to face the agents. She was a tanned blonde woman who looked downright furious.

  Townsend snapped, “Stop or you die. What were you doing here? Tell us.”

  Obviously suppressing her urge to fight, the woman swallowed and said in a heavy German accent, “We are here for Bailey. Unfinished business with her. That is all.”

  “Oh, really?” Townsend jeered. “Last time your organization came ‘just’ for Bailey, you ended up turning the Northwest into fuckin’ Syria. Now, you and
your friend there,” he gestured with his chin toward the other witch, who was still trapped in the suspension field, “are going to come with us and tell us the truth.”

  Before the sorceress could respond, Agent Wilson came up to Townsend, holding aloft a cell phone on which he’d taken a call. “It’s for you, boss.”

  Frowning, Townsend spoke into the receiver without taking his eyes off the blonde sorceress. “Townsend. What’s up?”

  “Agent,” the voice intoned, “we have a major incident in Eastern. Three Were settlements in West Virginia were burned, followed by a god-awful pitched battle out in the hills. It looks like it was mostly local witches involved in the carnage, surprisingly. But between them and the wolves, the death toll is in the dozens and growing. Might pushing multiple hundreds. We need you back at HQ on the double to get on speakerphone with the agents who witnessed the scene.”

  The German witch suddenly shot straight up into the air, throwing a wave of boiling acid as she rose.

  “Shit!” Sorvald exclaimed as half of the lethal substance blanketed his arm and side, raising steam from his black tactical armor.

  The other agents fired arcane beams in a constricting pattern at the woman as she tried to crawl along and then through the ceiling. Just before she reached a skylight, Townsend put a magenta ray through the back of her head. Her top half ceased to exist, and her burning bottom half plummeted toward the floor.

  Two other agents were helping Sorvald strip off his armor. Beneath it, his skin was messed up, and he tried not to scream in pain. He’d need an ambulance, but he would live. Townsend called 911 at once.

  Meanwhile, Agent Perez clapped a pair of anti-magic cuffs on the one remaining sorceress after the suspension field started to fade. The Agency was improving its suicide prevention measures. They’d probably get something useful out of the woman.

  “Still,” Townsend growled more to himself than to his men, “at this rate, we’re going to have to start telling our guys to just shoot them on sight.”

  * * *

  Bailey’s eyes snapped open. Before her was an endless expanse of black, absolute nothingness without dimension or direction. It was at once flat and infinitely deep in its lack of features.

  Only one thing was visible, directly in front of her: the blue spectral wolf who had pounced on her with such speed that she’d been unable to react.

  Shouting reflexively, she brought up her arms, summoning a thick swath of electricity and arcane plasma, enough to block most incoming attacks while itself providing offense against the hostile spirit. She threw the crackling reddish mass at it.

  Although it was blazing white, its light did nothing to illuminate the darkness that was all around. After striking the air in front of the wolf, it fizzled away to a wisp of steam and was gone.

  Bailey gaped, and the wolf looked at her with its steadily glowing eyes.

  “Stop,” it commanded in a voice much like the one she’d heard the spirit use in the temple, only gentler. “This is not an attack on you, but a private inquisition into your heart and soul. You are not here to defend yourself from physical harm.”

  She breathed out, dismissing the worst of the tension in her and trying to trust the spirit’s words.

  “Here and now, Bailey Nordin who is called Nova, your inner fears, private thoughts, and deepest, most secret desires will manifest—not for battle, but for discussion. You might find it more trying than combat, for your heart will be laid bare for the shamans who linger in this temple to see and judge. There shall not be unconditional acceptance. You must be worthy.”

  Hearing that, she quailed, then dispelled the fear with a short shake of her head. She nodded slowly in the dark.

  “If you are false in your words or intentions, or if your intentions are mad, foolish, or grossly impure, it will go poorly for you. Thus it is not a test of skill or ability. This hall has seen many shamans of average talent who nevertheless were accepted because they meant well. Because they were willing to learn, grow, and compromise. Thus they were found worthy.”

  “Okay,” she replied, wishing she had something cleverer to say.

  “Now, Bailey,” the wolf concluded, “we will learn. Deep down, are you doing this for the right reasons?”

  In less time than it takes the eye to blink, the spirit was gone, and in its place was a circle of men around the girl’s position. She didn’t know any of them personally but recognized their type. Each of them was a pack alpha, strong and true to the ways of wolfdom but of a greedy, unimaginative, often cruel type. They looked at her the way they might view a side of meat when hungry.

  Their hands reached out to grab her, clutching her clothes, the flesh of her bare arms, or the curve of her hips, all trying to pull her toward them. Struggling not to panic, she fought them off, ripping herself free of their grasp, swatting away their hands, moving into what little space she could make by force between them. She didn’t let any of them touch her for more than a second.

  She was terrified, and yet everything happened in a distant, dreamlike fashion. The images shifted, and she saw her failure as the innumerable alphas refused to give up. One after another, they subdued her and made her their own. She saw herself tied to each of them at the arm, only able to move when they moved.

  Bailey knew what was happening; it was her fear of being married off, treated by her own people as a tool or prize. It was the reverse image of the joy and relief she’d felt so recently when Fenris’ proclamation had freed her from that hated tradition. Escaping what she saw before her was one of the main reasons she’d been so eager to chase shamanhood.

  The spirit spoke again. “Is this it? Do you seek to become a shaman just to flee a duty you consider undesirable? Do you truly care about the wellbeing of packs beyond your own and Weres besides yourself? Duty to all lycanthropes is the shaman’s ultimate task. Do you think you can do that if your only motive is escape from circumstances you dislike?”

  She almost burst into tears—the kind of hot, angry tears a child succumbs to when they feel betrayed. When adults lead them into a rhetorical trap they have no way of understanding or preparing for. The unfairness of a situation where, because the child could not expect what was to come, they had no other option than to be wrong.

  But the spirit had said that her honesty would be judged.

  “Yes,” she replied in a choked voice, “but only in part. At first, that was one of the biggest perks—the notion of being free from having to marry some guy just because the old rules say so. But it’s not the only reason. The more I’ve learned, the more I realize how important it is to give something back. I never fit in very well among Weres, but since Fenris showed up, I have a way that suits me. With us all under attack, it’s like I have a larger obligation to help.”

  The spirit, its wolf form again coalescing out of blue light as the phantoms of Bailey’s fears wavered out of sight, looked at her and waited.

  “I have the power and the potential to make a difference. A good one. And I want to; I didn’t even realize how much I wanted to. What I thought I wanted, starting out, isn’t what’s driving me now. I see how much more there is to it.”

  She wasn’t sure if she’d worded it as well as she could have. Maybe she wasn’t being clear or eloquent, but it was the truth.

  The ghostly wolf nodded its great head. “So be it. We believe you, Bailey. And you have passed the first test.”

  Had she been in the woods, she might have slumped against a tree in relief.

  “But,” the spirit went on, “your trials are not yet concluded. There are many more in the battery to come. Some will move beyond conversations of the soul into the realm of the physical.”

  Well, she thought, and half-wondered if the spirit could hear her think, that’s something I have experience with.

  “Now,” said the wolf, “there is another thing we must know. Can you choose between what is best for your people on the one hand and what your heart desires on the other?”

&nbs
p; Her gut clenched and she felt like she might be falling, having sensed the implication of the entity’s words.

  Horror nearly overwhelmed her as a new image reared up from the blackness. Roland, standing alone, his usual calm confidence shaken and his handsome face drawn with sudden vulnerability, surrounded by angry Weres. Attacking him with intent to kill.

  Chapter Five

  Wolves crashed into the wizard or were flung away by his magic, the noises of battle and pain and fury filling the void of blackness. Helplessly, the girl watched.

  The faces of the lycanthropes trying to rip apart her beloved changed then, even while in beast form, they became vaguely recognizable, and a selection of them shifted back into humanoids. There was no mistaking them: people from her town, individuals she had known her whole life.

  “No,” Bailey groaned. “Stop this. It isn’t right. You make this stop right now!”

  She could no longer see the wolf-spirit, but its voice echoed above the din. “Name a side in the struggle,” it announced, “and reinforce your conviction with action. Do that, and it will end.”

  Once more, she fought to keep from crying; it was too much.

  Will Waldsbach was among the attackers and he fell back screaming, his hair on fire and his arms burnt. A guy with whom Bailey had gone to high school collapsed with a deep plasma wound in his stomach. Roland was bleeding from eight or ten different wounds as the enraged Weres tore at and slashed his slim body.

  Each blow struck, regardless of who was the recipient, was mirrored in the core of Bailey’s being. Everyone’s pain was hers too.

  “No,” she shouted, gathering the power of her magic and unleashing it all as a wave of pure arcane force. Its raw, elemental strength disrupted the vision and pushed away the manifestations, so they grew smaller and fainter and moved in slow motion.

  Off to the side, she saw the spirit watching. It seemed undisturbed by her action.