The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  It was a diverse crowd. Witches and wizards, certainly. Most were unaffiliated locals.

  A smattering of vampires. By now, Townsend had learned to pick them out, and they were more common than usual in sunlight-deprived Seattle and its satellite cities. They had a noticeable pallor, even the ones from darker-skinned ethnic backgrounds, and moved in a quick, slightly unnatural way that reminded the agent of a lizard or a snake.

  Speaking of reptiles, there were also a few ophidian face-changers. Such people were rare, and fortunately for the Agency, they could only disguise themselves with a single human visage that was modeled on their true, serpentine features. It gave them an odd and distinctive look.

  He wasn’t sure about lycanthropes, though. Two or three big, hairy men presented likely candidates, but more investigation would be required.

  Furthermore, it was possible that the witch cult’s little affair yesterday had convinced the entire shifter population to stay home and lie low for a while.

  Townsend dispatched his troops to different parts of the dance floor through the use of hand signals. Identifying the undercover Venatori would require effort, but not much time. He expected the mission to be over within ten minutes, tops.

  Four minutes passed before one of his subordinates, Agent Velasquez, spoke into his earpiece. “Six lovely ladies in the northeast corner. I think laying the moves on them could result in a very productive night, my man.”

  “Roger,” Townsend replied, his voice scarcely audible under the pulsating electronic music.

  He and the others closed in on Velasquez’s position and spotted their targets. Half a dozen women—three of whom looked a little old to be attending a rave, but then again, Townsend was well into middle age himself—were standing in a cluster and talking among themselves. Taken out of context, they would not have been suspicious.

  But their clothing and faux-casual demeanor and glamor spells could not disguise the fact that they did not blend in. Something about them was...off.

  The witches noticed the team at the moment all ten of them were assembled.

  “Now,” Townsend barked.

  The agents pounced, grappling with the four ladies out in front while the remaining two hung back and raised their hands to cast spells. If they decided to cut loose, casualties would be significant. But Townsend was counting on them having orders to avoid collateral damage, given the Venatori’s recent PR debacle at Greenhearth.

  The four witches who’d been seized shouted protests in English, French, and Italian, trying to keep up the charade that they were ordinary partygoers on holiday from Europe. But the two in the rear were panicking. One conjured a plasma sword, and the other formed a crackling fireball in the palm of her hand.

  Townsend tussled with a petite French woman. Despite her size, she’d used magic to subtly augment her strength, and he was having trouble subduing her. He noticed the two deadly spells about to be cast.

  “Knife ‘em!” he shouted.

  One agent hurled his blade, the spinning weapon grazing the shoulder of the witch with the fireball, while another lunged and stabbed the one with the plasma sword in the thigh. Both women shrieked and stumbled back into the wall, their bodies shuddering from the infusion of arcano-electric current. Their spells died in their hands.

  Then the true fanatical desperation of the Venatori was made manifest. The witch struggling with the lone female agent next to Townsend detonated an explosion centered on herself.

  The world cracked asunder, and Townsend’s vision went black as the concussion and heat and sonic force drove him head over feet through the air. Faintly he saw the stampede of the terrified crowd as they tried to get away from the blast. Most of them fled toward the sole exit, although a few just pressed themselves against the far walls. Concrete, metal, and plaster cracked and smoked.

  Townsend crashed to the floor. Most of his body was numb, and he could barely see or think. His ears rang and throbbed; he couldn’t hear anything else. Struggling not to pass out, he lifted his head and looked toward the scene of the brawl.

  Three of the witches and five of the agents were dead, or almost dead, and one or two bystanders also lay still upon the ground. Fires burned here and there. Townsend’s men were still too disoriented to act.

  The surviving sorceresses tossed lightning into the wires and rafters, sending a barrage of sparks through the basement and shorting out most of the electrical equipment. The music ceased and the normal lights winked out, leaving only a pair of dim emergency lamps embedded in the walls. In the resulting confusion, the witches fled through the crowd and vanished up the stairs.

  Townsend looked down at himself. One of his arms and most of his body below the navel were severely burned.

  “Oh, fuck,” he rasped. “This is…the apotheosis…of fuckery. I’m…fucked.” He coughed up blood.

  Agent Velasquez ran to his side and shouted something. It looked like “Sir!” followed by his name, but all the senior agent could hear was the persistent muffled ringing.

  His vision was starting to fade. At least, he thought, we picked off another handful of them and stopped them from killing any shifters here. That means other Weres won’t retaliate against innocent witches and kick off a total shitstorm. I’d say this mission almost qualifies as a success. At worst, it was a stalemate.

  “Spall,” he croaked, unable to perceive his own voice, “looks like…we finally–”

  Everything went black.

  * * *

  “Damn, I’m hungry,” Gunney grumbled. “It’s impressive that the sandwich shop stayed in business after the damage they took in that battle the other week, but I woulda thought the cheesesteaks would be here by now. Probably should have just gone and picked them up.”

  Bailey sipped orange soda from a glass bottle. “At least we have plenty to drink in the meantime.”

  “Yeah,” the mechanic acknowledged. “Dunno why, but I had a feeling we might all be getting thirsty soon, though I’d like something a little stronger. How did you guys come to the conclusion that my shop was the best place to wait for a goddamn siege, anyhow? I’m happy to help, but I’d rather not lose my business.”

  Roland raised a finger. “Well, you did weather a siege last time the Venatori attacked, didn’t you?”

  Gunney frowned. “True.”

  They all languished on shop stools behind the main auto bays, trying to enjoy the pleasant weather despite the awkward circumstances. Bailey and Roland had spent the night in the office, and while Gunney trusted them, it wasn’t something he was used to.

  The Nordin brothers were worried, too. Bailey had told them the truth—that they had reason to believe the Venatori might try something, but so far, there was no clear threat. Until further notice, she’d rather not put her home in danger.

  “Okay,” Jacob had said over the phone, “but we’re gonna come by and check on you later, and give us a call every couple hours, okay?”

  She’d agreed.

  Gunney finished his soda and tossed the bottle into a plastic-lined bin. “Those goddamn scum-sucking bitches,” he muttered. “Pardon my French, but shit. They got us fortifying our homes and businesses and jumping at shadows because of this crap they pulled two hundred miles away in Seattle. They’re like the guy who loses an argument, so he runs away spewing petty-ass insults and then comes back and slashes your tires two nights later. I ain’t never gonna trust a witch again after this.”

  Roland cleared his throat, and the mechanic looked at him.

  “Present company excluded, of course. Substitute ‘Venatori’ for ‘all witches,’ though it’s disturbing how many of the regular ones sided with them. At first, anyhow.”

  Bailey cracked her neck. “We changed a lot of their minds. Fenris, what do you make of this? Any insights?”

  The towering shaman crouched in a shadowed corner of the shop’s exterior, sitting comfortably on dust and gravel. “I am confused,” he admitted. “Even for zealots, their actions make no sense. Aft
er their crushing defeat, they should have backed off. Either given up altogether, or at least spent a month, three months, or even six recuperating and reconsidering. Yet they’re pressing on with more strikes against Weres only two weeks later. Why? What is spurring them on?”

  Footsteps approached, and someone offered an answer to Fenris’ rhetorical question.

  “A god,” the voice stated. “Well, a goddess.”

  Everyone looked up. The newcomer was a lean, athletic Latino man in his early to mid-thirties with sleek black hair and a deep bronze tan. They’d never seen him before, but his attire made him instantly recognizable—a suit of dark gray-green, not quite black, coupled with sunglasses.

  Bailey did a quick magical scan on the guy to ensure he wasn’t a witch in disguise. He checked out, and therefore must be a legitimate messenger of the Agency.

  “Hi,” she greeted him. “I’ll assume you know who we are. Who are you, and where’s Townsend? He busy?”

  The young agent frowned, and when he replied, it was obvious that he was choking back on something painful. His tone of voice made Bailey’s gut clench before his words registered in her mind.

  “Agent Townsend was severely hurt last night during an operation in Tacoma,” he stated. “One of the Venatori we were tracking suicide-bombed herself, and Townsend and four other agents were near her. Three died, and another man of ours is alive but in critical condition. I was there and didn’t escape entirely unscathed, either.”

  Bailey noticed that there was bulk that might indicate bandages on his chest and shoulder under his suit and around his right wrist.

  “Jesus,” Gunney lamented, putting a hand to the bridge of his nose.

  “I...” Bailey started. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what to say. Townsend is one of our strongest allies. He’s helped me a lot. Is there something we can do to help?”

  She hadn’t known him well on a personal basis, but it still stung her terribly. She was getting sick of having friends hurt or killed.

  The agent shook his head to clear it and focus rather than in response to anything the girl had said. “Townsend acted bravely, and we stopped them from killing any more Weres for the time being. I’m Agent Velasquez. Townsend appointed me to be your new contact with the Agency in the event that anything happened to him.”

  Bailey nodded. “Nice to meet you, Velasquez, although I wish it could’ve been under happier circumstances. We heard about the attack in Seattle two nights back. Thought about coming to help, but we figured the Venatori were setting a trap to draw us away from Greenhearth.”

  “Yes,” he acknowledged, affecting the blunt and stoic demeanor of a federal operative to the best of his ability. “That had occurred to us, as well. But there’s been an even more important development, and we wanted you to stay in the loop, given your importance to the overall situation.”

  A car pulled up on the other side of the repair bays, and out stepped the sandwich shop’s delivery girl.

  “Well,” Roland said, “pull up a stool, and you can have half my cheesesteak if you want.”

  Velasquez passed on the offer of food, but nevertheless sat down and told them the whole story once they were alone again.

  “Recently,” he began, “we managed to turn one of the prisoners we took from the Venatori. Extracting even a small amount of useful information from them has proven highly difficult, due to their fanaticism and the magical techniques they have to resist interrogation and manipulation. There were some calls to resort to grossly unconstitutional methods, but that sort of thing tends to be unreliable anyway.”

  “Ugh,” Roland remarked. “Well, good for you.”

  The agent went on, “We used a mixture of threats and promises of clemency, combined with a clever ‘shock collar’ approach to convince one of them to act as a double agent. We implanted a microexplosive in her via a new experimental surgical procedure, and she had no way of knowing where the device was. A remote signal can be bounced off satellites from entire continents away, at which point it would detonate—not killing her outright, but flooding her bloodstream with a metal particulate we’ve developed that would slowly poison her and remove her ability to use magic.”

  Roland raised an eyebrow at that, clearly disturbed by the implication for his species.

  “We’ve also,” Velasquez continued, “been using it in weapons that can de-power the Venatori without killing them or using large, messy static-field grenades. Anyhow, if set off, the microexplosive would make her useless to the Venatori, and that would probably be a death sentence unto itself. So, she agreed to return to France under the pretense of having escaped from us and feed information back to our HQ.”

  Bailey’s eyes widened. “That’s a hell of an elaborate scheme. You guys seem to get the best toys before everyone else does.”

  “Yeah,” said the agent. “Anyway, we heard back from her right before the disaster last night. It seems that leadership of the Order is no longer in mortal hands. This ancient pagan witch-goddess, Aradia, has returned and seized control. Now she’s prodding them to keep fighting and make themselves supreme among casters. It isn’t just about you guys—meaning shifters—anymore. Aradia thinks that although they’re extremists, the Venatori should reign as the primary power among witchkind. After what happened a couple of weeks ago, they’ve lost support in the larger community. This goddess feels they ought to take it back and more, through force if necessary. That includes continuing and winning the war against Weres, starting with you.”

  Fenris was silent throughout the man’s monologue. He brooded, deep in thought.

  “To achieve their aims, the Venatori, under Aradia’s new war plan, are going to hit hard, hit fast, and hit first. The witch we turned wasn’t high-ranking enough to sit on their top-level war councils, so we don’t have the full details, but we know that something is coming and soon. Based on the last two nights, I’d say it’s begun. Surgical strikes against important Weres. They seem to be targeting alphas, and acquaintances or helpers of alphas that are close to you.”

  Bailey clenched her hands into fists. “Shit. I don’t want a full-on war either, but if they think they can pick off my friends and allies, they’ve got another think coming.”

  Velasquez stood up. “Come up with a plan on your end, and keep us informed of what you aim to do. Here’s my number.” He handed her a slip of paper. “I’ve got to get back to our side of the fight. We might be able to mitigate the worst of this, but things will escalate further. That’s inescapable now. I can’t promise I won’t go the way of Spall or be out of the game for a while like Townsend.”

  Bailey frowned. She hadn’t talked to Townsend recently, although she’d thanked him for his help last time she saw him.

  “And to be honest,” the agent admitted, “I kind of like being alive and mostly unhurt.”

  Chapter Four

  The quartet ate the rest of their lunch without speaking after Agent Velasquez had departed. When they were done, Bailey leaned back, craving another orange soda. “They know how to make a good cheesesteak, I gotta say.”

  “Agreed.” Roland wrapped up the third of his he’d been unable to eat and stuck it in Gunney’s fridge. “Now, about this brilliant plan the Agency apparently wants us to come up with. Fenris, you got anything? It’s not like you were distracted by the bodily needs of us mere mortals.”

  The deity was never seen eating, although Bailey somehow suspected he hunted game in the woods on his own time. He rubbed his whiskery chin and looked at the werewitch.

  She cleared her throat. “If you were waiting for me to ask you the same thing, I hereby do so. What would you suggest? I have my share of ideas, but there isn’t one that seems better than the others. I can’t make up my mind to focus on the short term, long term, or medium term. Hell, I’m the official shaman of the Hearth Valley, but I haven’t spent a single full damn day fulfilling my duties. I was on vacation, and I’ve been doing other shit since then.”

  Part of her was em
barrassed to ask. Don’t be stupid, Bailey, she told herself. Nobody’s perfect, and you know that Fenris isn’t going to give you crap for wanting advice and encouragement. He’s the one who trained you.

  The tall man stood up. “You are on the right track.”

  “I am? Well, that’s good, not that I was aware of it.” She ran a hand through her long brown hair and tried to be optimistic that they’d figure things out.

  “Yes,” said Fenris. “What you said about short term versus long term, I mean. You need a plan for now, another plan for later, and a final one for the endgame. As long as you have an idea of what each one is, it’s a matter of starting out with the most immediate one, leveraging your actions toward the longer-term goal, and then adapting the details as the situation changes.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “That makes sense, I suppose. And I’m thinking the first thing we should probably do is send word to all the pack alphas in the area to watch their backs.”

  “I concur.” Fenris stepped closer to the girl, his somber face as unreadable as always. “Spreading word is a wise first step. The rumors are probably getting around by now, but hearing confirmation from you will put a lot of minds at ease. Even if the situation is disturbing and dangerous, it will help for them to know the facts rather than the distorted gossip.”

  Roland sighed. “It’s too bad there isn’t a ‘corporate board of werewolves’ so we could just send out a memo to everyone. Maybe that could be part of the longer-term plan.”

  “Maybe,” Bailey conceded. “But I’ve got phone numbers for a lot of alphas, so I’ll send them a group text and tell them to repeat my words exactly to anyone they think ought to know. That’ll cut down on the urban legend bullshit.”

  “Or rural,” Roland quipped.

  Bailey punched him lightly on the arm. “Notwithstanding the smartass remarks. Next, I’d say we ought to use magic, including some from witches who are on our side to give them a horse in the race. They can track the Venatori and get an idea of their next move, something like that, so we can prepare to defend. Or go after them and drive them right the hell out of America before they can do anything else.”