God Trials (WereWitch Book 7)

by Renée Jaggér

  She inhaled and plunged onto the logs, swaying with vertigo as her feet struggled for purchase on the curved surface. She forced herself to look straight ahead. Looking down would doom her.

  Then she started to slip. Instinctively, she shifted into her wolf form, her body elongating and sprouting fur. Her clothes distended and gained a few rips and tears but stayed on her since she’d regulated the size of her lupine shape to remain within those limits. Her greater strength and agility in wolfen form saved her. Grasping the log with her forelegs, she dragged herself back to the top and center and bounded on, jumping as much as she ran, using her clawed feet and giving herself no time to fall.

  Soon she was running through the grass at the other side of the chasm, and she stood up, once again in the shape of a young woman.

  Ahead was something like a cave or a ruined building. Before she reached it, a path from elsewhere in the forest intersected the one she was on, and she almost crashed into another pseudo-god. He looked like a wiry man of Asian descent.

  Their eyes widened at the unexpected meeting, and the man slashed at Bailey’s face with a weak plasma blade, one that would have scalded and temporarily blinded her but not killed or seriously maimed. She fell back, conjuring a shield in time to block his next strike. His speed was incredible.

  Rather than try to match him in hand-to-hand combat, Bailey commanded the nearest tree to crash into his midsection, knocking him aside. As the man struggled to his feet, branches and vines and grass grew and twisted around him, imprisoning him there. Bailey surrounded the entire mass with a thick shield.

  Then she turned and ran onward. The man would be able to cut or blast his way out in a minute or so, but that was enough time for her to pull ahead.

  The stone structure looked like a crude temple or crypt, but it might have been a natural formation. On either side of it, the vegetation was dense, so it would take too long to destroy it. She moved into the black doorway at a trot but had to fall to her knees when the passage narrowed to a tunnel.

  There was no light. With her eyes rendered useless, Bailey was forced to rely upon her other senses. She was grateful that as a werewolf, she had a natural advantage over those who came from human stock.

  She sensed small changes in the quality of the atmosphere up ahead and heard the way her displacement of dust and space moved the air through gaps or holes.

  When one of the openings drew near, she darted a hand out in front of it and retracted it instantly. Wood, stone, and metal ground as a long object like a spear shot out of the hole.

  “Crap,” she muttered and crawled under the opening flat on her belly.

  There were others, and she didn’t know how she avoided being skewered. She conjured a shield around herself, one optimized for deflection rather than absorption, and two of the spears grazed her, only to be knocked off course and broken before they could return to their homes.

  Grinning, the girl completed the tunnel and emerged into a short hallway with a rectangle of daylight at the far end. She ran back out into the forest.

  It occurred to her that breaking two of the spears would make it easier for anyone who came through the passage behind her to get through in one piece and thereby catch up to her. She dismissed the thought and pressed on.

  A short way up the trail, the girl heard the sounds of a fierce struggle going on ahead and to her left. She thought about intervening. The combatants might keep each other distracted, but if one defeated the other, she’d find herself with a new adversary.

  With the element of surprise, she might neutralize two opponents at once. She crept through the foliage and looked.

  Ragnar was there, his blond mane flying in the breeze as he grappled with a leaner man with short dark hair. The Norseman was bleeding from a wound in the meat of his shoulder, and near the feet of the men lay a woman Bailey didn’t know who had a nasty cut to her torso, along with a broken neck. She was dead.

  Both men looked up as the werewitch intruded.

  “Bailey!” Ragnar shouted. “It’s him. He’s got to be the killer!” He shoved the other guy away from him.

  The girl, her heart pounding, moved toward Ragnar’s side. The dark-haired man’s head darted around, and he hurled a static-tinged blast of kinetic force at the two of them. Since Ragnar was in front, he took the bulk of the spell and tumbled back into a tree. Bailey, shrugging off the minor effects that got through to her, caught the Viking under his good shoulder and hauled him to his feet.

  The other man had fled.

  Ragnar grunted, “We have to get him. I don’t care what they said about not teaming up!”

  “Agreed,” said Bailey. “Stopping the murders is more important.”

  In unison, they broke into a sprint, following the obvious trail left by the suspect. Bailey spared a regretful glance at the dead woman.

  The thicket fell away behind them and they entered a grassy sward between two high sheer cliffs, with ruined stone walls here and there to provide obstacles or block routes of escape. The dark-haired man was well ahead of them but seemed to be losing ground.

  Someone jumped out from behind a rock protrusion as the pair ran. His forearm struck Bailey in the face and she crashed into the cliff, snarling in pain and anger.

  By the time she got her bearings, Ragnar had plowed into the attacker and was punching him in the face and stomach. It looked like he was about to sweep the Norseman’s ankles with his foot, so Bailey kicked him in the tailbone. He yelped and crumpled, and Ragnar threw him aside.

  “Come on,” the Viking urged, and they continued their pursuit.

  At first, they closed the distance, but their quarry managed to speed up and maintain his pace a good hundred yards ahead of them. There was no end to the canyon in sight, only an endless natural corridor. However, the path widened in front of the place where the dark-haired man’s feet now struck the earth.

  Bailey summoned an inferno of roaring flames to block the suspect’s path forward. He staggered to the side of the wider space, then Bailey and Ragnar were on top of him, cornering him against the cliff wall.

  “You,” the Viking growled, “will pay for what you’ve done!”

  “No!” the man protested. He looked at Bailey while gesturing at Ragnar. “I didn’t do anything! He’s the killer.”

  Bailey scoffed, thinking of a comment Sheriff Browne back in Greenhearth had once made to her. “If you’re innocent, why’d you run away?”

  Failing to produce a good answer, the man shrieked and launched a torrent of magic at his pursuers. Bailey shielded herself and Ragnar from most of it, and the Norseman waded straight ahead while the werewitch moved in from the side.

  Bailey launched a narrow bolt of concussive energy that struck the man on the hip. He stumbled to his knees, and his spells died.

  “Prove it,” Bailey demanded, moving closer to him and conjuring a red plasma sword to hold near his face. “If Ragnar’s guilty, what’s the evidence?”

  The man’s eyes rolled up and his mouth opened and shut, but no sound came out. He cried out again, and Bailey was swept off her feet by an icy whirlwind that tossed her into the grass across the canyon. Then the man was running through the dying fire, shielding himself from its heat.

  Ragnar charged after him, jumping over the flames. He called back over his shoulder, “I can’t wait for you. He must not get away. Catch up if you can.”

  The werewitch climbed to her feet, gritting her teeth at the punishment of all the blows and tossings-around she’d taken, and stared after the two dwindling forms.

  “What the fuck is going on here?”

  Roland lay on the floor of the side storeroom, Dante beside him, in a fetal position with his hands behind his back. They’d wound ropes and cords around themselves to create the illusion of being bound, but of course, they were not. The cords would fall away with a sharp tug. They feigned unconsciousness, but both were wide awake.

  Night had fallen an hour ago. They’d been lying here ever since,
hoping the witch-creature arrived sooner rather than later.

  It’s been long enough at this point, Roland thought, that by the time we spring up, we’re going to be stiff as all hell. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  Through the intercom, Megan’s voice hissed, “Someone’s here! I think it’s her. I’m going to let them in.”

  Roland flicked his eyes toward Dante, who matched his gaze and responded to it with a barely perceptible nod.

  The shopkeeper’s footsteps moved across the floor outside and the front door opened. They heard light footsteps, along with the swish of long robes. Somehow, hearing that sound, Roland decided he would have imagined a figure in a hooded black robe even if Megan hadn’t described her visitor that way.

  The storeroom door opened. “Here you go,” said Megan. “They’re sedated. No problems, right?”

  Roland’s gut tingled. She sounds nervous. The witch might suspect something, but then again, Megan seemed so terrified of her that she’s probably always nervous.

  A voice replied, “Good.” It sounded as though it had been carved with a razor from the lungs of a mummified corpse. Roland had to exert tremendous willpower to keep from shuddering.

  He felt rather than saw the creature’s eyes moving over them. “I don’t recognize this one,” she rasped, seeming to indicate Dante. Then her gaze moved to Roland, and wind hissed between her teeth. “But I know him! It’s Roland. How did you manage to subdue him? And where is Bailey?”

  Oh, shit. Roland groaned inwardly. They hadn’t planned for the contingency of the mysterious witch knowing him. He wondered if she was an agent of the Venatori.

  “What?” Megan gasped. “Who? I don’t know who that is, and I just gave him a drink. He didn’t suspect anything.”

  “Bullshit!” the hideous voice retorted. “Don’t lie to me. If you know anything about Bailey or where she is, tell me now!”

  The shopkeeper stammered in panic. Roland considered jumping up to attack but decided against it. If he and Dante ended up killing the creature, they’d lose their chance to find out where the missing witches had been taken.

  Then he felt powerful magic being employed. Megan’s gibbering fell silent as the crone cast a truth-saying spell on her. She rasped, “Tell me everything you know.”

  The young woman replied in a slurred monotone, “Nothing. I do not know who Bailey is.”

  A noise that was half-snarl, half-gurgle answered her. “Fine! Obviously you don’t. You don’t realize what you have here. I’ve been trying to get my hands on this man for a long time, and at last, I have. Say nothing, and await my next instructions.”

  Megan stepped back as the small robed figure came into the room and opened a warped-looking portal. Roland wondered where it led.

  The crone ground out, “This will be an interesting night. Heh, heh.”

  The wizards felt themselves rising from the floor as the witch-creature levitated them and hurled them into the gateway, where dizzying cold and flashing purple light engulfed them.

  Chapter Six

  Bailey ran up hills, through tangles of jungle, and over rocky cliffs and badlands. Spring-loaded traps, nets, and more pitfalls challenged her, but she evaded them all. Her blood pounded in her skull. Tiredness threatened to overwhelm her, particularly since she felt nauseated from lack of food.

  But she pressed on. Here and there, she caught glimpses of Ragnar and the man he followed. Other times they vanished into the wilderness ahead of her.

  At one point, an athletic-looking black girl bowled into her from the side and attempted to take her out of the race. Bailey saw her shielding her head and torso, so she launched a lightning bolt at the girl’s feet, shocking her into immobility, then sinking her chest-deep into a conjured mudhole.

  Leaving the young woman to figure out how to free herself, the werewitch continued.

  Soon after, she spied a tall, broad-shouldered figure with long platinum hair standing in a clearing beyond a wooded slope. Jogging between the leafy branches, she emerged ready to greet Ragnar, then froze, gasping.

  The Norseman stood over the body of the dark-haired man, who lay crumpled on the ground with his head bashed in. A bloody rock rested at his side. Ragnar breathed heavily after the fight.

  “Shit, Ragnar,” Bailey exclaimed. “What the hell happened?”

  He looked up, regarding her with a steely gaze. “I caught him, and we fought. He refused to surrender, so I had no choice but to put him down to protect the others.” He stood up straight and paused. “But I heard what he said to you, and I can see how this might look suspicious.”

  She squirmed in place. “It would have been better if you’d captured him alive,” she muttered.

  Ragnar growled, “If you believe I am the killer, you’d be justified in putting me down, would you not?” Slowly, he turned around, exposing his vulnerable back.

  Bailey stared at her new friend. She’d known him for less than a full day. Truly, there wasn’t much to suggest she ought to trust him any more than the man who lay dead at his feet. And yet...

  “No,” she stated. “I’m not going to shoot you in the back, Ragnar. I don’t think you’re the murderer, and if by some chance you are, they’ll catch you anyway. Still, we might have trouble explaining why this guy’s dead.”

  Ragnar shrugged. “I appreciate your trust, but it was foolish of you not to have at least knocked me out.”

  Before she could ask him what he meant, a twist of his finger conjured a storm cloud that engulfed her and threw her back while invisible hands punched her stomach and slapped her face.

  He ran off as the cloud bore her backward. “Oof! Ragnar! What the goddamn hell...”

  “We’re still in competition!” He laughed. “And the race is not yet over!”

  Bailey surrounded her body with a shield of spiky arcane essence that blocked the unseen fists and tore the cloud apart. It dissipated and she dropped to her feet, dusting herself off and cursing her stupidity. She should have known that the jovial, macho Norseman would not forget about the competition for an instant.

  As she set off, summoning a second wind for the final exertions of the race, her gaze lingered on the dead man in the clearing. She hoped he was the murderer since if so, it meant the danger was past. The trainers could retrieve his body later.

  What remained of the course was perhaps one-fifth the length of what she’d been through thus far, though it took all her strength to make it to the end. She evaded three more traps and defeated one more contestant, a burly man who appeared to be in his thirties, before the finish line hove into sight at last.

  The line was drawn across an open gap in the dense woods at the end of the trail. She saw and heard people bustling beyond, but it was hard to tell how many. She hadn’t seen Ragnar since he’d run off, so she was almost positive that the best she could hope for was second place. She knew she was far from last. She’d left too many others behind her for that to be a possibility.

  Bailey dashed across into an open field, then slowed her pace until she came to a stop, bending over with hands on her knees to gulp in air. Malkeg, standing beside the finish line, barked, “Fourth!”

  Fourth? her mind echoed. Not what I’d hoped for, but could be far worse.

  Looking up, she saw Ragnar and Carl and learned they had placed second and third respectively. She hadn’t seen Carl at all, so he must have passed her via a different route.

  “Bailey,” Carl greeted her. “You didn’t do badly. Most of the trainees are still bumbling around out there.”

  “Thanks,” she replied.

  Ragnar, despite his impressive showing, looked disgruntled. “I should have placed first,” he opined. “But I suppose this fellow was the better man.”

  Following his gaze, Bailey took in the winner. She vaguely recalled seeing him around but hadn’t particularly noticed him until now.

  He was approximately the same age as she was, mid-twenties, of average height but in excellent physical condition
with a leanly-muscled runner’s body beneath his simple modern clothes. He had wavy medium-length hair, the color of which was in the limbo between dark blond, light brown, and red.

  “Hello,” he greeted her in a nondescript bari-tenor voice, “I’m Ethan. Looks like I made it out in front. Anyway, they’ve opened a portal for us to head back, so I think I’ll do so.” He shrugged and walked off, then strolled through the purple gateway at the other end of the field.

  The girl watched him go. Something about him seemed “off” to her, but she couldn’t place what it was.

  She turned her eyes to Ragnar and he nodded at Malkeg, who was watching as the fifth and sixth of the trainees crossed the finish line. When he was done, the pair approached him.

  “What?” the man demanded.

  Ragnar spoke first. “We caught the murderer.” Bailey confirmed most of the details of his brief story.

  Malkeg silenced them in the middle of the tale with a sharp wave of his hand. “We know he’s dead. We found the body moments before you finished the course. From what we know of that man, weighed against the investigation so far, there’s no reason to suspect he was our assassin. We’re curious, Ragnar, why you had to kill him.”

  The Norseman bristled, and Bailey interceded on his behalf. “He was threatening us,” she pointed out. “I tried to get him to come along quietly and answer some questions, but he kept tossing lethal magic and running away, not trying to discuss anything. Seemed suspicious as hell, if you ask me.” She swallowed and decided to say what had to be said. “He accused Ragnar of being the killer instead but didn’t offer any evidence, so I—”

  “Be quiet,” Malkeg snapped as Ragnar glared at her with a mixture of fury and hurt. The trainer went on, “Idle speculation is of no help to us. Ragnar, tell me again what happened from the beginning. Did you see the man murder that girl?”