The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  She smiled, and despite her suspicions, it was genuine. “Yes. We make a hell of a team.”

  They’d eaten most of the dead elk, and only bones, cartilage, and skin remained. The girl was amazed that they’d been able to put away so much meat, but they were gods, and this wasn’t Earth.

  Fenris stood up. “We should spar. I want to test your abilities once more.”

  After their long rest and filling meal, Bailey had found that she was refreshed and relaxed, not to mention bored. She jumped to her feet. “Sure. What abilities? I’ve got a lot of them.”

  He chuckled at that. “I know. In our recent battle with the trolls, I noticed that you did not shift. I’d like to see your wolf form and ensure you can still fight as well on four legs as two.”

  She made a sour face. “It’s easier to do magic in human form. I can do it as a wolf, but it takes more mental effort, and even then, I can’t seem to hit the same heights of power.”

  “I see.” He stretched his limbs and flung off his coat. “Yet you fought more with your body than your arcane capabilities. The lupine form is better for melee combat. Now, shift!”

  As he spoke, he grew and changed, his clothes shredding as, for the third time, he took on the shape of a wolf-creature the size of a farmhouse. Examining him up close like this in the eerie blue light of the realm’s strange extended twilight, he looked both impressive and monstrously sinister.

  Bailey inhaled, then shifted. To her surprise, her own clothes fell away too; a couple months ago, she’d altered her wolf form to be smaller so her wardrobe would stay mostly intact from one form to another.

  But now she was bigger. There was the familiar lengthening of body, the sprouting of hair, the reddish sheen from her eyes that encompassed her vision. She grew even larger than the first time she’d ever changed, swelling to the size of a pickup truck.

  When Fenris spoke, it was a psychic rumble she heard with her mind instead of her ears. That did not shock her since she’d communicated with her pack via a similar telepathy.

  Good, he said, but you are not as far along as you should be.

  She was puzzled. What do you mean?

  The wolf-god circled her, regarding her with his dark indigo eyes the way a natural wolf might evaluate a deer. Later. For the moment, fight!

  He pounced. She dodged, knowing she couldn’t confront his greater mass directly, but despite his size, he was every bit as fast as she was. Fenris spun in mid-air, and their teeth and claws lashed out.

  Bailey fell back, bleeding from superficial cuts, then pounced on her mentor’s furry front leg. Her teeth dug into it, and she sought to pull him off balance.

  He spun, dragging her through the snow and finally hurling her a hundred yards through the air to crash into a drift by the trees. When she sprang back to her feet, he was bounding toward her, though his left front leg was noticeably lame from her attack.

  Once more the two beasts clashed, Bailey fighting as furiously as she could and inflicting multiple wounds on Fenris, but she could not defeat him. He was larger, stronger, and more experienced, and the efforts of continuing such a lopsided battle wore her down.

  Finally he batted her aside with his shoulder, stepped on her stomach, and poised his fangs to rip out her throat.

  Is he really going to do it? she wondered, abruptly terrified.

  He did not. He dropped back on his haunches, looked at her evenly, and then changed back into a man, his hooded coat magically reconstituted over his body.

  Panting, the girl rose to four feet, then two. It took her a second to remember that she was naked, but after a moment of concentration, she retrieved the scraps of her clothes and repaired them through mental sorcery.

  “We will need rest,” Fenris stated, “since we gave each other several nasty wounds. As deities, the healing will be quick.”

  She nodded and fell on her rump by the fire, surprised by how exhausted she felt.

  Fenris came over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “When I said you were not as far along as you ought to be, what I meant was that in this realm, your size as a wolf reflects your stature as a divine being. You’ve grown as a goddess, so your lycanthropic form is bigger, but you are still not yet ready.”

  She held his gaze. “Ready for what?”

  He did not answer right away or directly. Instead, he looked off toward the horizon, where the light seemed to be brightening as the dimension’s pseudo-night reached its end.

  “It is my hope,” he explained, “that you will rise to my stature. New possibilities will open up, and our universe will be far better with another entity like me.”

  He began talking more about the practice and focus she’d need to continue improving, and his projections of when the trolls might break the truce. The girl tried to listen and nod her head and offer minor, banal comments when she could.

  But within her mind, a single thought kept repeating. What he’d said about wanting her to be exactly like him had set off a cold, nauseated sinking sensation within her that did not lessen as long as the notion screamed in her brain.

  It’s true, what Loki said. There’s no other reason he’d want me to be his equal since everyone says not to train your replacement unless replacement is the point. It’s all fucking true.

  Chapter Six

  Loki smiled as he reclined in his chair in the great, airy crystal chamber that looked out upon blue skies and clouds—the council’s meeting room, where he’d not sat since before Fenris had attempted to murder him. It saddened him that he hadn’t been able to vote in Bailey’s trial.

  Though apparently his son, having assumed his form, had voted the way he would have, with a “yea.”

  Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom, raised his hands as his eyes glimmered beneath his ibis headdress. He usually acted as the council’s spokesman and mediator, thus coming closer than anyone to being its leader, though officially, all six members were of equal rank.

  “So,” he intoned, continuing the conversation that had been going on for quite some time, “we are all satisfied that there is no deception here. That everyone is who they claim and appear to be, and that Fenris is far away and unaware of our having convened.”

  Heads nodded. Since Bailey, who’d taken over Freya’s seat, was not present, the only other deities in the room besides Loki and Thoth were Thor, Norse god of thunder and war, Balder, Norse god of beauty and innocence, and Coyote, the good-natured trickster god of the Western American tribes.

  “And,” Coyote chimed in, “with Fenris safely gone, I’m afraid there’s no denying the truth anymore, is there? For all her intemperance of late, Freya was right.”

  Thor put a hand to his eyes and shook his head. “Aye. I scarce want to believe it, but it’s true: Loki’s bastard means to start Ragnarӧk. I didn’t think he was that mad. I should’ve known something was wrong, though, when he insisted on dealing with this stupid frost troll incursion by himself. Normally he would have preferred to have Mjӧlnir and me by his side! No troll can stand before my mighty hammer!”

  Balder shook his head, ignoring Thor’s extraneous comment. “I, too, would have expected better of him, despite my listening to Freya at first. But the evidence is against him. He has moved against us with killing intent, and his activities with regard to Bailey and other things have been most suspicious. What he is doing in the trolls’ realm should be investigated in more detail.”

  Thoth nodded. “Exactly what Fenris hopes to accomplish by this, I cannot say. You of the Norse pantheon, this deals more with your domain, yet I fear that the consequences will spill far beyond your purview. Other divine pantheons could be involved, damaged, or altered beyond recognition. The destruction that will rage might easily affect the world of mortals and possibly destroy it altogether. Even if other gods are left alone, the obliteration of so many of their followers would leave them weakened and change our universe to the point of devastation.”

  Loki sat in silence, listening to the other deities fina
lly grasp what he had long suspected, and what his son had confirmed the day he’d tried to kill him. Loki had allowed him to think he’d succeeded. It had been perhaps the cleverest, or at least the wisest, thing he’d ever done.

  Balder asked, “But what can we do? We might be able to attack and kill him, but it’s possible that the things he’s set in motion could proceed without him. And with Fenris dead, we may not be able to learn what his plans are in time to stop them.”

  Coyote offered, “We should rely upon Bailey for now. She’s close to him. Perhaps too close; Loki says she was hostile and skeptical about his accusations. Yet if nothing else, we might be able to get important information from her without seeming to move too aggressively.”

  The gods all agreed to this, but none of them could offer a further solution. There was a dreadful hesitancy in them all, a sense that things might be slipping beyond their control.

  Loki raised his hand. “I have a suggestion.”

  Thoth looked at him. “Oh? Speak, Loki.”

  The Norse god of mischief smiled and flexed his hands, satisfied at the notion that he was the most knowledgeable person in the chamber regarding the situation at hand.

  “What we should do,” he told them, “is take turns shadowing Fenris. Following him, observing but not directly intervening. If we can guess what his next move is, then we can get ahead of him and sabotage him in advance or do things to distract him and draw him off, slowing down his timetable.”

  No one objected, and Loki continued before any could interrupt. “And that’s only the half of it. The other half deals with Bailey. While one of us, regardless of which one, trails Fenris and keeps him away from the girl, others can meet with her privately and begin instructing her in the part she might have to play.”

  Thoth rubbed his broad, dark chin as the others’ eyes grew distant with contemplation.

  “You see,” Loki went on, “Fenris’s plans hinge on Bailey. He requires her in order to bring his little scheme to fruition, so she is his weak point. For us to move against him could cause unnecessarily messy ripples throughout the cosmos, not to mention make him desperate enough to try something even more ridiculous than what he’s done so far. But if the werewitch can resist him, that might wrap things up rather more easily.”

  The gods agreed.

  “Aye,” said Thor. “I’ll teach her battle, and the rest of you can teach her further magical techniques or ways of thinking and perceiving things like a proper god. Obviously, she’s got some talent in all those things, but she’ll need more.”

  No one objected.

  Raising his hands again, Thoth proclaimed, “It is settled, then. We shall draw lots to see who shadows Fenris unless someone wishes to volunteer. The others of us will prepare a program to instruct Bailey to be our instrument. Let us decide who will do what first, then we shall depart and begin.”

  Leaving Bailey to rest by the remains of their fire as daybreak brightened the cold landscape, Fenris set off again into the woods. He shifted into wolf form as soon as he was out of the girl’s sight, covering an enormous distance at a run, and quickly found the clearing of the frost troll king’s icy throne.

  “Fenris,” the monarch greeted him, his beady eyes narrowed with suspicion. “We played along, but what was the purpose of that? You cannot be both my friend and my enemy!”

  The wolf-god raised a hand palm outward in a gesture of appeasement. “I understand, great king. You must realize that the girl cannot know what we mean to do. Not yet, anyhow. This temporary ‘surrender’ of yours is the best way forward.”

  Trolls of the king’s retinue snarled under their breath. They clearly wanted to fight and regarded the truce as humiliating or nonsensical. Fortunately, their leader was smarter than they were.

  Fenris explained, “It will keep Bailey on her toes, looking for further threats from you or elsewhere, thus distracting her from the rest of our endeavors. At the same time, she will think that she and I won an honest victory here and that all is well, for the most part. I have no reason to suspect she knows the truth.”

  “Fine,” the king barked. “But why is she so important? I’ve never seen or heard of her. And what would you have us do now that we are bound not to attack?”

  The wolf-father tried not to laugh at the troll’s density. “The girl is crucial; I will say no more than that. As for your part to play, the farce of your supposed surrender provides you with a certain amount of cover. As long as you do not directly attack Asgard again, everyone will assume you’ve been beaten and are in no condition to fight. In fact, their watchful eyes will grow sleepy, and you will find it easier to marshal the bulk of your forces for the real battle to come.”

  The troll monarch tilted his head as full understanding dawned, and it trickled down to his subordinates, who grinned with savage triumph at the thought of having fooled the gods.

  “Yes,” the king rasped. “I will raise the mightiest army in the history of our world!”

  Fenris nodded. “Do so, your majesty. Rally every troll you can find who is willing or able to fight. Marshal them in force, with the best weapons you have, train them in combat, and drum up their bloodlust. The time is coming soon.”

  A few of the creatures hoisted clubs and spears and axes into the air in response to his words, their eyes gleaming.

  “And,” Fenris went on, “when the day does come, we shall have our revenge. The gods, languishing in their fat and lazy stupor, will be caught unaware. We will unleash hell and take Asgard, reducing it to ruin and rubble.”

  Trolls jumped up and down, beating fists to their broad chests, and the king, grinning with fantasies of red victory, invited Fenris to stay for an impromptu feast.

  He agreed. The trolls made a smooth circle in the snow in which to sit and brought out a flat-topped rock for the wolf-god to use as a chair. Then they roasted an assortment of meats and paired them with a foul-tasting but potent liquor fermented from winter plants that lay beyond Fenris’s knowledge.

  As the congregation ate and drank, the wolf-god, sitting by the king’s right hand, engaged his ally in conversation.

  “Fenris,” the huge troll-leader asked in a low voice, unheard by his rowdy minions, “I like your plan. But my men are not smart enough to know how easily it can go wrong. The gods are not as lazy as you say. They will notice what is happening and oppose us. How do we deal with them before they can stop us?”

  The renegade deity stroked his stubbled chin beneath his hood. “There are ways. I do not know yet how we will remove them, but it can be done, and it will. I have several ideas but must remain flexible rather than committing to any of them. There is something important to consider.”

  The king leaned closer.

  Fenris took a drink of the troll’s powerful liquor and breathed in through his flaring nostrils. “The prophecies are both clear and adamant about certain things. It is of absolute necessity that we destroy both Balder and Tyr.”

  The monarch raised a shaggy eyebrow.

  “Tyr,” Fenris explained, “does not sit upon the council, but he is far from untouchable, and his presence can be required, in one way or another if we require it. He, the god of justice, must die along with the god of beauty. Only with both of them wiped out can Ragnarök proceed.”

  “Aye,” the king agreed. “If we can help you slay them, we will. But what of Thor? He is the one who worries us the most. He’s killed untold numbers of our people with his hammer, curse him!”

  The wolf-father waved a hand dismissively. “He is not of great concern. For all his might and readiness to charge into battle, he is doomed. I will leave him for Jormungandr, the World Serpent. It is that creature’s destiny to fight and slay him. If all goes well, the gods shall die, and in the new world, it will be beasts who reign.”

  He tore into another strip of meat with his teeth, his ancient mind playing out all the scenarios of what might occur as his hulking ally quaffed another flagon of liquor.

  “Good,” said the
king. “Great! This is what we’ve waited for through generations of patient anger. The gods should never have ruled. The world has always been ours!”

  Fenris smiled, though deep in his mind, he did not agree. Most of what he’d told the troll-monarch a moment ago was true to his intentions. A new world was coming, and creatures who had long hidden in its shadows would now stride free across its broad avenues and sit in its high places.

  But Fenris had long-term aspirations. Asgard deserved to fall; the pantheon was owed its destruction. Still, he was a part of that pantheon, and with its residual wisdom as his heritage, he, having survived the conflict, would be better qualified than any other entity to act as sovereign over all creation.

  Chapter Seven

  Roland pushed his shield back, forcing two of the shrieking ghost-crones along with it and directly into the path of an agent’s disruptor rifle. Their corpse-like faces lengthened in horror as the green plasma tore them apart, only for their residues to be sucked into the agents’ wrist-tanks.

  Dante laughed beside him. “Is it just me, or are these things a lot stupider and weaker than Callie was?”

  “They are,” Roland confirmed, “but they’re still dangerous, and we’ve only made a dent in them, so don’t celebrate too soon.”

  The two combined squads of mortals in the central pathway had retreated after eliminating the initial wave-attack of crones and rejoined the third squad at a juncture-point between paths. There, the three-dozen-strong force made their stand against the onslaught of the undead clones.

  And by Roland’s estimate, they’d destroyed a minimum of one hundred and fifty of the things, while losing none of their own number. Combat against the creatures was growing routine, to the point that he was getting tired of looking at so many incarnations of Caldoria McCluskey, borderline unrecognizable though she was.

  Yet they’d been fighting for an hour and a half to two hours. Channeling magic in the Other required more effort than using it back on Earth; the casters were all growing drained of strength.