The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  “Farewell,” he added, then turned around. When Bailey looked up, he was gone. So was the Porsche.

  Fenris strolled across a lush green landscape, more oak savannah than forest since much of it consisted of rolling plains of emerald grass. The trees were regularly interspersed amidst the terrain, though hardly dense. The sky, mostly clear with wisps of white cloud, was visible overhead, and there were boulders—many great heaps and chunks of ancient limestone.

  The lycanthropic deity kept walking until he came to a pile of rocks the size of a modest one-story human house. Something about it was subtly different from the boulders he’d come to previously. He stood before it and waited.

  In the span of two heartbeats, the rocks moved and rose, rolling up over each other to assemble themselves into a humanoid shape of stones linked by unseen forces. The head-rock, with vague depressions that resembled eyes and a mouth, turned toward the hooded man.

  “What,” it asked in a voice like crumbling sediment, “are you doing here?”

  Fenris raised a hand, palm outwards. “I come in peace,” he stated. “And I wish to speak to your leader. Will he receive me?”

  The rock giant made a rumbling sound as its component parts ground against each other in thought. “If you are true to your word, perhaps he shall. Come, and make no foolish errors. We will not tolerate treachery.”

  “Of course.”

  Fenris followed the giant up a gentle slope toward a ring of hills where the trees were larger and the scattered rocks more numerous. They reached a rough wall of many different types of stone, within which was a courtyard of quartz and gypsum.

  At the center of the courtyard grew a massive tree, as big around as a tower. A recess had been carved into its trunk and was lined with flat stones in the shape of a strangely majestic throne. There sat another rock giant, larger by a head than the one Fenris had followed.

  To the sides, piles of minerals assembled themselves into the attendants and bodyguards of the king, who turned his face-boulder toward his guest.

  The monarch’s voice resembled a small earthquake. “You are Fenris, yes?”

  “I am,” responded the wolf-father. “Perhaps you have been paying attention to what’s been happening lately, perhaps not. Either way, I would inform you of it, and of the role you can play in bringing about Ragnarök and overthrowing the gods of the Asgardian pantheon.”

  The king of the giants stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Go on.”

  He told them of all that had happened with the frost trolls and the dark elves and of his plans involving Bailey. With her as the catalyst, the prophecy could be fulfilled, but in such a way that he would endure to lead the renegade peoples in a usurpation of the divine authority. They, the rock giants, would share in the coming victory alongside their allies, with only minimal obeisance to, and supervision from, him.

  Creaking and grinding sounds filled the courtyard as the beings of stone contemplated the god’s offer. It seemed at least five minutes before their monarch gave his answer.

  “We accept your proposal, Fenris,” he began. “We have spent too long banished to this dull and peaceful realm, which the deities thought would cool our tempers. We love battle and relish the opportunity to crush. It is part of who we are, and in our prison-realm, we have no enemies to fight. What better foes than the very gods who exiled us? Lead, and lead well, wolf-father, and we shall follow.”

  Slowly, Fenris’s lips rose at the corners in the shadow of a smile. “Good. Since I’ve planned this whole matter in great detail, you will experience no disappointment in my leadership. For the moment, I need you to marshal your forces to attack the boundary zone between your realm and that of the pantheon. Draw their attention; frighten them and convince them chaos is descending upon the universe of its own accord. Let them panic before the real strike befalls them.”

  Once more, the giant rumbled, “This we can do.”

  “Excellent.” Fenris raised his hand again in a gesture of thanks. “You will hear more from me soon. Good luck, my friends.”

  Since Balder had teleported his Porsche with him when he’d departed, Bailey walked back to town, or occasionally jumped into the air and flew when she thought no one was looking, surrounding herself with a cloaking shield to be safe. Random travelers passing through the valley would see no more than a distorted shimmer in the sky.

  It wasn’t only her being airborne that she wanted to hide, it was also that she was carrying an extremely powerful magic sword.

  As she descended to the street and rounded the curve leading to her house, she bumped into Roland.

  “Oof, sorry,” he quipped, acting more flustered than he was in truth. “I screwed up the portal coordinates a tad and ended up in front of your house rather than behind as usual.”

  Before she could say anything, his arms were around her, drawing her to him. He gave her a short but deep kiss and nuzzled his forehead against hers.

  “Thanks,” she breathed, “I needed that. Was up all night fencing with Balder.”

  Roland cocked an eyebrow. “Is that what they’re calling it these days? Ugh, I’m going to be thirty in a little over a year. Can’t keep up with the dirty slang forever.”

  She slapped him, and he exaggerated the impact. “Dork,” she said. “Anyway, you used up your one bullshit joke for the day, so no ‘is that a sword in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?’ lines.”

  He spread his hands. “If you say so. Where did you get that? Balder, I assume?”

  “Yeah.” She glanced around, listened, and sniffed the air. “Listen, this thing is important. I’ll tell you later, but I need to get it hidden somewhere before anyone sees me with it.”

  Nodding, he stayed by her side as they went into the house, then down into the basement, where they wrapped the sword in an old blanket and placed it beneath a couple of boxes of ancient magazines and random knick-knacks.

  She wondered if it might be better to keep it on her person, but next time she saw Fenris, how would she explain it? She didn’t think that he’d fail to notice its awesome presence, whether or not she tried to disguise it with an invisibility enchantment.

  With the blade hidden, the couple reascended the stairs and sat down at the dining room table. Her brothers were home and waved to them from the living room. Although it would seem to outsiders as if they never worked, they ran a successful furniture-building business from the house, so they were almost always home. Their clients, few and far between because their pieces were expensive, came to them.

  “Wait,” Kurt began, “who are you people again?”

  Jacob threw a pillow at his face. “We’re glad you’re both back safe. Good news, also; most of the Weres in the area are with us if any shit goes down. I think they’re getting tired of all this danger and weirdness, but they’re loyal and tough. We can count on most of them if we need them.”

  “And,” added Russell, “you know you can count on us. To the death.”

  She nodded. “Shouldn’t come to that, Russ, but thanks, guys. I mean it.”

  Bailey and Roland filled the brothers in on the gist of what had happened, then they headed out to the pole barn, where Roland’s makeshift bedroom still lay, to be alone.

  “Shit,” Bailey muttered, “this must be what it’s like for those couples where one person is a high-powered executive who works sixty hours a week and the other is active-duty military or something. Don’t have a ‘relationship’ so much as conjugal visits every once in a while.”

  The wizard barked with laughter. “I don’t know why,” he chortled, “but that’s really funny. Probably because it’s true, more or less. But the crew back in the Other is doing okay for the moment, so I’m glad we have the opportunity for a conjugal visit. Finally.”

  She put her hand on his knee while he stroked her hair. “I hope,” Bailey mused, “they’re rotating the witches and agents back to Earth to take breaks. Seems like they were doing fine at holding the perimeter. How many o
f those disgusting blob things are left?”

  “Not sure,” he reported, “but we took out two more of them. There are another two that the Agency tech has found so far, but there might be more scattered gods-know-where. We’re making progress, anyway.”

  She closed her eyes. “Good. If I ever have the chance to spend more time with you guys in there without you-know-who dragging me off to fight random assholes, I’d say we can wrap this up and be done with Callie and her crone army once and for all.”

  Roland grinned. “I am very much looking forward to that. After this shit, she has it coming to a greater extent than she did as a mortal witch, which is saying something.”

  Bailey stretched her legs. “Yeah. It’s not over yet, though. I need some damn sleep, but once I’m refreshed, we’ll kick her ass. Well, all of her.”

  The wizard laughed again and sighed. “In a way, it’s good that things have come to a head like this. And no, that’s not another dirty joke. I mean, we’ve had the upper hand during this whole fight against the eldritch specter-things, so we know we can win, and then we can deal with Fenris. We beat a god before, and we can do it again. Once that’s done, there won’t be anything else. Peace. Only peace.”

  “I hope so,” Bailey said softly.

  “I know so.” Roland moved around to rub her shoulders. “We can live a normal life together. Well, as normal as is possible with me dating a goddess, but I can finally get you a proper ring, anyway.”

  She chuckled and rubbed his hand. “Thank you.” The weight of her extensive efforts was bearing down on her, she realized. She wasn’t in her usual feisty mood to trade verbal barbs. Roland seemed to grasp this and was content to simply relax alongside her.

  After perhaps half an hour, the wizard suggested, “Want to take a short walk outside? I know you’re tired, but nothing refreshes like the woods. I’ve grown to appreciate that now that I’ve gone native in this microscopic hamlet.”

  “Sure,” she agreed. They strolled outside, surprised to discover that the afternoon was waning into evening. Time seemed to be passing more quickly.

  The girl decided her lover was right; the fresh air did her good. Still, she soon found herself wanting to head back and collapse.

  “Let’s go to bed early,” she offered. “I think we both need it.”

  He pinched her ass. “Right.”

  Slapping his hand away, she growled, “To sleep. In the morning, if no one interrupts us like usual, we’ll see.”

  He made a pouty face but only said, “Deal.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Agency came to their door at eleven the next morning.

  Jacob, sighing, answered it. “Oh, hi. You guys again. Guessing you want to talk to Bailey. She’s upstairs.”

  The girl heard the exchange from her bed, where they’d retreated after the walk, and she quickly slipped into her clothes and made ready to head down as Roland begrudgingly sat up beside her. After half a minute’s freshening up in the upstairs bathroom, she descended the staircase and saw Agents Velasquez and Park waiting for her.

  “Hi,” she opened. “The usual, or are we doing something different this time?”

  Velasquez adjusted his dark glasses. “Both in a manner of speaking. We’re going back into the canyon, but frankly, we’re getting tired of fucking around. Also, the boys back at HQ have finally realized this is serious. Come out front, if you would.”

  Roland followed as the werewitch accompanied the agents into the bare area that served as mutual driveway and parking lot for the Nordins as well as their neighbors. It was filled with agents, about fifty total.

  “Nice!” the girl commented. “Of course, it’s not like I plan to lean on you guys for the dirty work. I’m the goddess here, so I’ll do the heaviest of the heavy lifting. Still, it’s good to have more backup.”

  “Right,” Park agreed. “And with more men, we won’t have to stop to recharge our weapons as frequently since we can rotate waves of troops into and out of battle as needed, keeping continuous pressure on those things.”

  Roland nodded with an appreciative look. “Your research and development team ought to do something about the charging issue, though. It’s nearly as bad as using weapons that require ammunition, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Ha-ha,” Velasquez replied in a monotone. “If you’re ready, let’s go. The sooner, the better. These guys are the cream of the Agency’s crop, and we can’t borrow them indefinitely.”

  Bailey asked for five minutes to prepare herself. She also made the decision to duck downstairs and grab the sword from under the crates.

  Yeah, she told herself, Fenris might pop out of the air again and see it and wonder what it is and where it came from. I can probably tell him that I made it; he thinks I’m smart enough and strong enough that he’d believe that. Probably. And it might be useful against the Callies. If it can kill a weakened god, I’m sure it will massacre a bunch of crone ghosts.

  She and Roland said goodbye to her brothers, then reemerged and announced that they were ready to go.

  Velasquez stared at the thing in the girl’s hands. “The hell? A sword? It doesn’t even have a handguard! Magical, I’m guessing.”

  “Yep,” Bailey stated.

  Roland took a step toward Velasquez as though preparing to confide in him. “You know, I noticed the lack of a guard myself and thought about saying something. Then I remembered that when it comes to defense, we can make our own handguards the size of a giant ice wall.”

  Velasquez frowned as a couple of his men snickered. “You’re hilarious, kid, now go attend to your girlfriend’s needs or whatever. We’re going in.”

  Ten minutes later, they all stood on the safe side of Bailey’s ice wall within the canyon, near the natural slope that had led them to the first of the gelatinous magic-nodes. Bailey saw that the mortal forces left there to hold the fort numbered less than a dozen. The only witches who’d remained were Dante, his girlfriend Charlene, and three other sorceresses Bailey didn’t know personally, and six of the original twelve agents.

  Velasquez stepped up. “We sent everyone else back for R&R. Our perimeter’s been holding, so we had every reason to surmise that these few could manage while we gathered reinforcements.”

  Dante waved. “Hey. Good to see we’ve got the big guns back. And the big sword, from the looks of it. What is that thing? It looks like a longsword, but it doesn’t have a guard!”

  “Wow,” Bailey riposted, “really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  Charlene poked the wizard in the ribs. “I’m sure she can think of a way to protect her hand if she gets in a swordfight with these things.”

  “True enough,” Dante conceded.

  Velasquez waved a hand. “Right, right. Everyone form up. There should be another node in the canyon a short way beyond Bailey’s second artificial wall.” He gestured at the mass of rock she’d created last time to block the rest of the gorge. “The plan is a full-frontal assault to get to it while we reduce the numbers of the enemy as much as possible.”

  Bailey took the lead, with Roland and four elite agents immediately behind her. Then she swiped her sword toward the huge wall of stone.

  It parted down the middle, the halves slowly swinging inward like a titanic double door. The shelves of sediment and minerals ground against each other and left dust and gravel in the air. Before them, the rest of the canyon opened up, swarming with eldritch crones.

  Bailey grinned as the rush of battle came over her. “Here goes nothing.”

  She charged forward, holding the sword vertically at her side with her right hand while throwing her left forward. A rippling column of fire and plasma streaked through the center of the gorge, incinerating a hundred or so witch-spirits. Then she parted the flames in much the same way as she’d parted the stone, pushing the two walls of blazing death to the sides and burning more of the phantoms while preventing others from attacking them from the flanks.

  Velasquez shouted, “Excellent work. Everyone, forwa
rd!”

  The entire force jogged ahead. Bailey had cleared a good third of a mile for them, and when she’d split the wall of fire in half, she’d pushed all the residual heat along with it. The stone beneath their feet had returned to normal temperature.

  Another few hundred of the creatures were streaming toward them from across the canyon, and others had snuck around the sheets of flame to attack from the rear or sides.

  The agents and casters in those positions quickly dealt with the stragglers while Bailey plunged into the main force ahead. She threw horizontal tornadoes of lightning and ice, tidal waves of acid and plasma, and huge projectiles of burning metal. Callie’s doubles disintegrated by the dozen, yet their numbers meant that the carnage represented only a fraction of the entire force. Bailey watched as a couple dozen floated toward her, close enough for her to have hit them with a thrown softball, howling in their creepy and mournful way.

  “Fine,” she mumbled. “Say hello to my little friend.”

  A bolt of both lightning and fire descended from the sky, striking her sword. Though it took a moment of intense effort, she stabilized the enchantment and hoisted the glowing blade over her head, swinging it rapidly but with tight control. She remembered most of Balder’s footwork lessons as she carved a swath through the specters.

  The blade cut through their ethereal forms as easily as if they were flesh, leaving wounds that burned and sparked. Any crone hit by the weapon dissolved in seconds, leaving only the vague essence for the agents to suck into their wrist-mounted tanks.

  Time passed, and the battle raged on. It felt like perhaps half an hour when silence settled over the canyon as the witch-things dispersed. The conflict was not yet won, but Bailey suspected that they’d wiped out most of the horde. Two or three hundred more hovered overhead or nearby, hissing at them and trying to decide whether to press the attack., and before the mortals was another of the blue-and-black gelatinous sculptures, the anchors for the crones’ magical power.