Winner Takes All (Were Witch Book 9)

by Renée Jaggér

  Velasquez gestured to them sharply. “You guys. We’re going in directly. We need multiple advance scouts to figure out what the hell is coming at us on each and every one of those screens, and we need you all to survive so we can hear the wonderful news straight from your mouths, preferably. Video footage is nice, too. Retreat the instant things get dicey.”

  They understood. In another three minutes, everyone was ready for battle.

  As they ascended back to the main floor, a generalized message came over the intercom. It began by more or less repeating what Velasquez had just reported, then it moved on to indicate that the brass hadn’t wasted time deliberating on the senior agent’s suggestions.

  “We will be recalling all available field agents,” the voice stated.

  Velasquez chuckled, though without much humor. “Finally, they realize I know what I’m talking about.”

  “Every available hand is needed on deck. Anyone with experience. This includes a recall of semi-retired senior agents and a fast-tracking of those who are still in the late stages of recovery from injury. We repeat, something big is going on. This could be the one we won’t walk away from if we fuck it up, gentlemen. Over and out.”

  When the elevator opened, Park turned to his senior partner and quipped, “Fast-tracking the injured into a resumption of duties, huh?”

  Velasquez smiled. “You know what that means. Not firsthand, but you’ve heard me talk about it before. Townsend’s coming back.”

  “Ahh,” Park commented, his tone appreciative. “Just in time for him to be reintroduced, I would guess, to the center of all fuckery in the known universe, or however you guys used to put it. Am I right?”

  “You are,” Velasquez declared. “The walking shitstorm of the century, Bailey N. Nordin.”

  Bailey refilled the redheaded girl’s cup with water and waited for her to speak.

  “We…we didn’t…” The young woman coughed, then took another sip of water and swallowed it with what looked like a painful motion of her throat. “We didn’t even know what was happening at first. It was all so sudden. They had effectively won the battle, or most of it, by the time we were aware that we were under attack.”

  The others confirmed the red-haired girl’s words. Bailey glowered into the flames of the fireplace, where they’d started a blaze with pieces of destroyed furniture.

  The South Asian guy had briefly filled her in on the gist of it. They’d been sleeping when a vast number of the ogre- and goblin-like creatures she’d fought outside had stormed the castle from multiple directions, killing almost everyone in minutes.

  It was exactly as she’d feared—a ruthless cut to the heart, a headshot delivered from a rooftop to an unsuspecting victim.

  After they’d refreshed the other four survivors with water and soothing words, they’d moved everyone to the central den, where there were couches and deep-pile rugs, as well as the fireplace. The more seriously wounded got the couches, and Bailey covered them with another shower of healing magic.

  To her frustration, despite being a full goddess, she was insufficiently talented to bring them back to full health all at once. Her talents ran more toward destruction. She’d always been a fighter.

  Once everyone was calmed down from the lingering terror of the siege, Bailey had begun to piece together the overall story of what had transpired.

  “The grounds,” one of the kids explained, “were normally guarded. Sentries here and there and watchmen at all hours, but only a cursory force to stop lone attackers or perhaps small groups. And to sound the alarm. Well, they did sound the alarm, but it wasn’t enough.”

  A man, who looked somewhat older than the rest who had taken a nasty gash in his left leg, added, “There were so many of them. Hundreds upon hundreds. They swarmed right over the guards and the castle.”

  “And,” added the South Asian guy, “it wasn’t a disorganized mob, either. They’re not so smart, but they can follow basic orders and understand simple tactics. Someone instructed them on how to assail this place. Hitting all the weak points, knowing which places to strike at first to get control of the complex and cut everyone off from everyone else. Like hitting the right domino and watching all the rest fall down in sequence. There was no way we could respond fast enough.”

  The redhead concluded with, “As if somebody inside had helped them ruin everything.”

  Bailey’s hand trembled around the stone cup she held. “I see. Yeah, it was a planned attack. Make no mistake.”

  There was a long moment of silence as everyone stared into the crackling orange flames, their faces crisscrossed by flickering shadows.

  The man with the gashed leg queried, “Do you have any idea who might have planned it?”

  “Yes,” Bailey responded at once. “But I can’t tell you yet. There are...other people who are looking into a few things. That’s all I can say for now. We have to be careful not to, uh, blow our cover or whatever. But we’re gonna figure it out, and soon. And then someone’s going to pay.”

  The uninjured guy muttered, “Doesn’t surprise me. This was an act of war.”

  Bailey was starting to feel mildly nauseated, so she decided to change the course of the conversation. Particularly since, while she considered it justified to detour to help these people, she still had her primary mission here to fulfill.

  “So,” she began, “anyone seen Balder lately? The Norse god of innocence and beauty. Looks the part, though he wears armor and carries a sword half the time, so I’m not so sure about the ‘innocent’ part. Some of you might have met him.”

  “Yeah,” replied a boy with long braided hair and violet eyes, who’d barely spoken ‘til now. “He was here recently, uhh, maybe two days ago? We don’t know where he is now, though. He was supposed to lead an advanced class on combat and forestry training, but he never came back.

  The werewitch grimaced. “And did anyone else go out with him?”

  “Seventeen or eighteen students. They haven’t come back, either.”

  Trying not to panic with worry, Bailey asked for the exact coordinates of where the Norse god’s training course was meant to take place. No one seemed to have paid attention to the specifics, but by asking three of the survivors, she was able to piece together a ballpark estimate.

  “All right,” she announced to the five, “I need to go look for them. Stay here for now; later on, we’ll send someone to check on you. The place should be well-stocked with food and water, and you can all get some rest. I’ll put a shield around it that they’d need another god to break through.”

  She said her goodbyes and left, then proved she was as good as her word. Raising her arms, the goddess of both Weres and witches summoned a multi-layered magical barrier of massive thickness and incredible power that encased the keep like a solid crystal dome. It would hold for four or five days, she was confident. That ought to be enough time.

  Inhaling slowly, she turned toward the section of the forest where the one she sought had last been seen.

  Chapter Four

  His boots tramped down the earth and the grass and the weeds and his hair flew out behind him, occasionally brushed by the grasping branches of the dense trees. Sunlight filtered through only in pale and narrow shafts; mostly, the forest was as dark as dusk.

  Balder stopped, willing himself to breathe as softly and shallowly as he could. His right hand clutched at the magical arrow embedded in his right shoulder. Its barbs were gradually transmitting a poisonous plasma into the ether that served him as blood, but he dared not pull it out. If he did, the arrowhead would explode, discharging all its power at once, making things worse, if not killing him in an instant.

  If he left it in, there might still be time.

  He listened; the woods had gone quiet again, though he’d strongly suspected that his pursuers were still following. They must have stopped when he stopped, knowing they’d be easier to hear otherwise and planning to gain on him little by little each time he moved. They knew he was wounded, lo
st, and alone, and that his strength was flagging.

  The god of beauty had taken a dozen and a half trainees into the forest to further their education in fighting in the woods. If the rumors about Fenris’ planned uprising were true, they might well need it. He’d come to the training grounds without consulting the council. They had been busy at the time, and they’d spend far too long discussing things and deliberating.

  So, Balder had simply taken action.

  And now his trainees had scattered, he might well be dying, and he’d been chased deep into the woods, beyond the farthest reaches of the trainers’ obstacle courses. It was possible he was approaching the bounds of another realm within the Other, a wilderness unknown to the gods.

  He started running again, summoning his divine powers of perception to guide his path, but his inner vision was clouded. The arcane toxins of the arrow were interfering with the functions of his mind, and an obscure property of the enchanted forest was making things worse. Ironically, the disorienting quality was part of why it was a good place to train young god-beings and demigods in forest-based combat scenarios.

  As his feet resumed running, he faintly heard all the other feet that were still chasing him.

  Onward he fled, dizzy, pained, and tired, trying to bear back toward known territory but never breaking out of the labyrinth of trees into anything that looked familiar. His pace slowed. They’d catch him soon.

  Balder gritted his teeth, turned, and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. There was no longer any point in fleeing. He resolved to face them and make a stand—a last stand, perhaps.

  The gaps between the trees came alive with dark, slender shapes, moving with a sinewy grace that was somehow unnerving; snakelike, in a way. They were humanoids, lightly armored in black, with pointed ears, skin of dark purple, and hair of pale silver-white. They stared at him hatefully with their glossy, oversized eyes.

  He was totally surrounded. Any narrow avenue of escape would take him between two of his foes, and more probably lurked farther back in the shadows. There were as many in sight as the trainees he’d led earlier, and the sounds suggested another half-dozen or so.

  Four held black bows raised, with arrows nocked and ready to fire. For some reason, they did not shoot.

  Instead, six of their warriors advanced with drawn swords. The blades were long, though set in one-handed hilts, as well as narrow and slightly curved. The way they held them bespoke centuries of skill, for the swordsmen among the dark elves were legendary.

  But Balder was a god of battle as well as beauty. He drew his rapier, and the long blade shone with blazing white fire.

  Three of the elves gasped and squinted, unaccustomed to such brightness, and Balder seized the initiative. He pounced.

  With a strangled cry, for his shoulder pained him, he drove the point of the blade into the nearest elf’s throat, wicking it aside in the same motion toward the face of the second. The first dropped to his knees, clutching his bleeding neck, as Balder engaged two more at once with quick feinting strokes.

  Rather than dogpile him for a quick kill since they’d risk losing at least one or two of their number, the swordsmen hovered around the wounded god’s periphery, jabbing and lashing with their nimble weapons like men with poles tormenting a cornered bear.

  Balder flung himself at two who’d stumbled too close together; his rapier knocked aside their scimitars and he crashed into them, bowling them over. One was dead with the rapier’s point in his heart before the other could recover, but the remaining fighters attacked him from behind all at once.

  A curved blade cut into the golden-maned god’s side, and he grunted in pain, stumbling back, as more swordsmen joined the fray, grinning cruelly as they observed the flagging strength of their lone opponent.

  Now he had two debilitating wounds and faced nine instead of six.

  He raised his burning sword before his face. “Come then! Pay for the right to say you’ve killed me!”

  They charged. Willing, it seemed, to purchase his destruction at any price.

  Bailey had opted to hunt through the woods on four legs instead of two, her sword lashed to her back all the same with a magical cord. Her wolf body carried her over roots and between gnarled trunks faster than she could move in human form, and her senses were heightened. Tiny details of great significance leapt in front of her eyes, ears, and nose.

  She’d passed beyond the edge of the known training grounds when she came to the site of what had to be an ambush. Bodies were sprawled throughout a circle of trees, all dead. Balder was not among them.

  Arrows were embedded in wood or earth. What looked like sword strokes had split sections of bark asunder, and odd burn marks suggested that powerful magic had been used here.

  But something was odd. The corpses numbered only ten. The boy in the keep had told her that Balder had taken almost twice that number on his training excursion. It was possible he’d been mistaken, but Bailey didn’t think so.

  She continued through the forest, sensing and recalling that magic was disrupted by the nature of the place. She’d have to be careful, especially since her nose picked up the trail again with ease, and further scars of magic and weapons confirmed what the aromas had already told her.

  Dark shapes materialized out of the shadows. They moved at a steady but unhurried pace, focusing on something ahead of them and confident that they’d find it. Bailey made out five or six goblins, seemingly led along by a trio of thin humanoids who were about her height. Their black armor and long white hair identified them as dark elves. They had moved to strike beyond the borders of their wasteland homeworld.

  Bailey snuck up behind them, then stood up and shifted back into human form. She cleared her throat loudly, following it with “Excuse me!”

  The hunting party spun to face her, brandishing their weapons. “Who are you?” one of the elves hissed. “Are you...”

  “Probably,” she replied. “What’s going on? You hunting squirrels?”

  One of the goblins squealed, “Shut your mouth! Go away, you! Die!”

  Ignoring it, the apparent leader of the elves sneered. “None of your concern, girl. You look familiar, yet we are here merely to secure our borders, which have expanded into unclaimed territory. We will forget we saw you if you turn back now.”

  Bailey glanced past them and saw traces of the trail she’d been following.

  She put her fists on her hips. “I’m afraid I can’t do that because my own squirrel-hunting activities are taking me in that direction.” She gestured. “We could always split the squirrel between us.”

  One of the elves fired an arrow at her faster than she would have thought possible, but she’d expected as much and flung herself aside while covering her front with a shield. The arrow glanced off it at the point it would have entered her face.

  The other creatures attacked.

  Bailey unslung her sword and drew it in a flash, cutting the first goblin in half. Then she conjured a torrent of water that pushed back two goblins and two elves, freezing it solid so they were trapped in a cocoon of icy spikes that pierced their bodies in multiple places.

  The last elf, the archer, shot at her again, and she caught the arrow telekinetically, turned it around, and launched it into the chest of another goblin. By then, she was airborne, her sword hacking down at the bowman’s head.

  One goblin remained alive, alone amidst the bodies of his fallen comrades. Bailey didn’t move against him; she simply held her sword out from her stomach, ready to swing in any direction, and stared into the small creature’s eyes.

  Trembling, he first dropped his jagged sword and then fell to his knees. “Lady! Great lady, please. No kill! I tell you what want to know. Please!”

  “Okay,” she said, advancing two slow steps and lowering the sword. She kept it ready to bring up again at an instant’s notice but figured it would behoove her not to actively threaten the goblin. He was terrified of her.

  She blew a breath out through her nose
and spoke. “You heard what I asked the elves. Tell me everything you know, especially about Balder. And about what your plans are, and who sent you here, and why.”

  The goblin’s ability to speak in ways comprehensible to human-like beings was limited, and the fact that he was hysterical didn’t help. By asking him to clarify things and parsing her way through the gibberish and broken diction, she pieced together most of what she needed.

  Balder was indeed here, first and foremost. Under the leadership of an elite band of dark elf warriors, they’d been sent here to track him down and finish him off. The goblin didn’t know who had given the order at the very top, and he didn’t seem to care, either. As his fear subsided, it was replaced by an increasing wave of vicious excitement.

  “Ragnarök!” the beast exclaimed, his green-lipped mouth breaking into a grin. “Is coming—is here! Promised to us! It will come!”

  Bailey raised her sword an inch. “Promised by who? And when is it coming?”

  “Soon! Now! Very soon!” the goblin shrieked, ignoring the first question. “Asgard fall down! Gods all die! They dead, over, gone. Age of monsters is coming. Is here! We slaughter all! You die!” He bobbed up and down on his feet, too caught up in his sudden surge of enthusiasm to consider his position.

  Bailey had heard enough.

  She whacked the goblin on the head with the flat of her blade, drawing a sharp cry of pain from the creature, then kicked him into the nearest tree. He slumped, unconscious, probably injured. She couldn’t bring herself to execute him outright while he was unarmed and had surrendered, but if he died later, she couldn’t honestly say she cared much.

  Jogging on into the forest, Bailey picked up the trail easily enough. Both the elves and the goblins were agile and stealthy in their ways, but the dark elf homeworld was mostly a rocky desert, as she recalled, and the goblins were too numerous and undisciplined. Neither was able to move through the dense forest without leaving some sign of their passage.