The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  He stepped forward now—a tall, broad-shouldered figure in bulky clothes with a hood obscuring his face.

  “All of you,” he began, his gravelly voice low but strangely resonant in the silent lot, “have received the advance portion of your pay. You’ll get the rest tomorrow, or at the earliest convenient time thereafter.”

  A skinny but mean-looking young Were stepped forward. He was one of the semi-feral ones who lived on the far fringe of the valley who’d never fully integrated into modern human society.

  “That wasn’t all, though,” the scrawny fellow pointed out, and he extended a finger tipped with a long, dirty nail. “You said there was the chance of advancement. In the organization.”

  Marcus nodded. “Yes. If you succeed, all your names will be passed on to the people in charge and fast-tracked for promotion. Lots of opportunities to make even more money, not to mention garner bigger responsibilities and more respect.”

  The various werewolves shuffled their feet at this. They were impatient, almost hungry, for the task to come.

  Another, the thick-armed girlfriend of one of the bigger guys who looked about as tough as any of the males, nodded sharply. “Good. We deserve it by this point. Besides, it’ll be fine. I heard this chick is a total bitch anyway.”

  Most of the males chortled at that.

  Marcus’s face eased into a dark smile. “Form your own opinions when you meet her if you haven’t already. I understand some of you have encountered her before. Take whatever you know into consideration before you move. She’s no pushover, but she’s just one girl against all of you.”

  ‘All of them’ meaning fourteen total—two small gangs from neighboring towns, plus a smattering of local agents of the kidnapping ring. Marcus had touched base with most of them before he’d arrived in Greenhearth, and adding the others to the overall force hadn’t taken long.

  Money talked.

  “So,” a tubby, dark-skinned werewolf asked, “how hard are we supposed to take her out? Taking someone out usually means killing them. Do we want to go that route?”

  Currents of tension crackled between the members of the group. Marcus was not intimidated by the question, though.

  “No,” he replied, “unless absolutely necessary. Just mess her up badly enough that she’ll be out of the picture for a nice long time. Time in which she can lie there in a bed, shitting into a pan and thinking about how stupid it was of her to interfere in our operations. Thinking about how she’s going to mind her own business for the rest of her days.”

  In point of fact, Marcus wasn’t there on behalf of the traffickers, but he was good at making people believe what he needed them to believe. Most of these goons weren’t the sharpest tools in the lycanthrope community’s shed anyway.

  What they were, though, was useful. They’d all been recruited by the kidnappers at some point or another, and it had made them greedy and ruthless. They’d do almost anything to advance themselves and their modest fortunes.

  The female raised a beefy hand. “What about the wizard she’s got with her? He’s just some skinny fuck, but supposedly the magic is real. Helped him take out the South Cliffs.”

  Marcus pretended to consider their options for a few seconds. “Give him the same treatment as the girl. He’ll have no choice but to head back to Seattle, with lots of bad memories of ever setting foot in Oregon.”

  The wolves grunted and nodded. Another asked about the car.

  “It’s beautiful,” he effused, and was obviously sincere about it. “They don’t want that thing destroyed, do they? Hell, some of us might even consider a pay cut if we could keep it.”

  Marcus shook his head. “It belongs to the old man. He’s not guilty of anything except being friends with Bailey. With the sums you’ll be getting, you can buy your own and get it tricked out the same way.”

  The Were frowned and looked like he was about to protest.

  “Although,” Marcus cut him off, “now that everyone knows he has it, it would be a shame if someone stole it from him, say, two weeks later. In a completely unrelated incident. Wouldn’t want people tying it to Bailey finally getting her ass kicked into next year.”

  Vicious smiles and laughter went around the group at that.

  “Hey,” someone asked, “who’s got the construction shit?”

  “Me,” replied a voice. “In the truck. No problem.”

  Marcus fielded a few more questions, including reassuring them all for the fifth or sixth time that they’d be paid what was owed as long as they succeeded.

  Which they wouldn’t.

  He was confident of that. Bailey, with her shifting abilities and emerging magical powers, could handle them, and the wizard was no slouch, either. The two had already wiped the floor with half the soldiers of a professional criminal organization.

  And if by some chance it looked like the ambush party would succeed at crushing her, Marcus would intervene, guaranteeing their failure and making it that much easier to win Bailey’s trust.

  The hooded man raised his hands. “She ought to be back soon. Probably just before dark. Get ready.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sunset would soon take a bow and hand things over to nighttime, and in the mountains, the shadows always seemed deeper and blacker.

  “Almost home,” Bailey commented. “Hell, I think we might have to go straight to the Elk. I need some damn food after everything we did today, not to mention that extra beer or three.”

  Roland stretched his arms. “I wouldn’t object.”

  They crested a hill not far from the city limits and found themselves looking at an orange barricade and a series of cones.

  Bailey’s face scrunched in irritation. “What the hell? How’d the road get damaged in the couple days we were gone?”

  “I dunno,” Roland murmured. “Shit happens. Of course, they might just be burning off their extra budget funds for the quarter. That happens all the frickin’ time in the city.”

  The barricade indicated a detour to the north, down a dirt road that was difficult to see from the highway. Bailey had seen the road there before, but she’d never been down it.

  “Meh,” she quipped. “This’ll only cost us, like, five minutes tops. Just hope we don’t kick up too much gravel and scratch the Trans Am.”

  Moments later, they came to another barricade.

  “Bullshit!” the girl exclaimed. “Those morons. You can’t tell someone to take a detour and then block that off too, for fuck’s sake.”

  She came to a stop and parked the car off to the side of the road, then clicked her seatbelt and hopped out before Roland could offer commentary of his own. He followed her. The headlights were on, illuminating some of the barrier and the road ahead.

  “Well,” said Roland, “it’s just a few cones, and I’m not seeing anything wrong with the road. We could always just break another law and hope to get away with it.”

  As he spoke, Bailey was distracted. She could smell and hear and somehow even feel people around her. Weres. Lots of them.

  “Roland,” she said in a low voice, “get back in the car. Now.”

  Then the trap was sprung.

  Dark shapes appeared all around them. Some bounded out of the woods on all fours like dogs, and others dropped out of trees. A couple emerged from behind a truck parked in a nearby lot, and the rest simply strode toward them, making no effort at concealment whatsoever.

  They were surrounded by at least a dozen, maybe more.

  Roland sighed. “Maybe we should have stopped for a cup of coffee. My alertness isn’t up to snuff.”

  His partner, though, had raised her fists and drawn her lips back from her teeth. “Who the hell are all you?” She thought about making a dash for the car, but there were enough of them to flip it over or tear the tires off; some Weres were strong enough for that. She refused to risk the Trans Am that way when they might be able to talk their way out of this.

  One of the dark figures near the head of the casually str
iding group extended a hand toward the car, his thumb and forefinger pantomiming a gun. “Head for that lot over there,” he growled, “or the Trans Am gets it.”

  Low, nasty chuckles went around the group.

  Roland glared at them. “That’s just mean. Totally unfair.”

  Bailey ground her teeth together but slowly started moving toward the muddy patch of earth behind them and to the left. “What’s this shit all about? If you dicks, whoever you are, wanted to kill us, you would have done it already. You here to deliver some kinda message?”

  As she said this, two more Weres ambled up, holding the barricade and the cones from the highway. They’d set them up temporarily, then, specifically to trap her.

  The whole group, still surrounding the Werewitch and the wizard as they walked, reached the edge of the lot.

  “Yeah,” said the man who’d spoken a moment ago. “A message. That’s exactly right. The message is…”

  Someone kicked Bailey in the back, causing her to stumble forward.

  “Welcome home, you meddling-ass little bitch.”

  Werewolves piled into Roland, shouting and snarling, and all hell broke loose.

  Bailey lashed out with her fists, the near-exhaustion she’d felt from the day’s exertions vanishing as something reenergized her—not only adrenaline but a kind of primitive rage that could only be called up by desperation. Screaming raggedly, almost foaming at the mouth, she thrashed at two guys near her, crunching one’s nose and feeling his blood on her fist while kicking and madly kneeing the other’s groin and stomach.

  Fists and feet and what felt like a thick wooden stick battered her, numbing her in places and slowing her down, but she barely felt the pain.

  “Roland!” she cried. “Fry their asses! Don’t fucking hold back!”

  There was a flash of green light and weird imploding sound, almost like a miniature and inverted sonic boom, as three Weres who’d been standing nearby crashed into each other from different angles, sucked into a central main point. Two of them staggered and groaned in pain. The third, who’d been between the others and smashed by both of them, toppled like a felled tree.

  “Ha-ha!” a woman’s voice cawed. “Break her fucking knees! And see if you can take out a few teeth!”

  Bailey pummeled her way through the fat guy in front of her, driving toward the voice. The female Were took a clumsy swing, but Bailey was already pouncing, her hands around the woman’s neck to throttle her.

  Then boots slammed into her sides, hands grabbed her hair and ripped strands of it out, and she was lifted and hurled against a tree.

  While airborne, she caught a glimpse of Roland staggering under the attacks of four Weres at once, trying to cover his face. He was tougher than he looked, but they’d never fought this many people before.

  One of the wolves attacking him, who’d shifted mostly into beast form, howled in pain and fear as his fur lit on fire. He dropped into the mud and started rolling around, extinguishing it after a moment but out of the fight.

  It wasn’t enough. The other three kicked Roland to his knees and started punching him in the head.

  “Roland!” Bailey shrieked. “Goddammit. Roland!”

  There was no other choice. She had a couple of seconds before the assholes around her attacked again. Since she was out of spare clothes, she stripped off her shirt and pants and boots, then, not knowing how she did it, shifted.

  “Holy shit!” someone exclaimed as the girl changed, suddenly becoming twice, even three times the adversary they’d faced until now. “I thought she couldn’t—"

  The voice cut off as Bailey pounced on the speaker, knocking him over and clawing a long strip of skin from his chest. She then head-butted his face and left his head stuck in the mud, unconscious and bleeding.

  Then the wolf was back in action, lashing out at anyone near her, bowling through attackers on her way toward the nice blond man from Seattle who’d agreed, seemingly a long time ago, to pretend to be her boyfriend.

  All but one of the Weres beating Roland up fled or leaped away, but just before Bailey reached him, two others, both in beast form, hit her from the side in a sharp, powerful, coordinated lunge.

  Her massive canine body was bowled over, but she sensed and smelled where they were, and bounded into the air before they could strike again. She jumped against a tree, launched herself off it, and tore into the two who’d hit her.

  One fell back squealing in pain, a tendon near his shoulder severed by her jaws, and she scratched the other’s face, taking the scruff of his neck in her mouth and whipping him against a tree. Claws and feet lashed out at her, drawing blood and bruising flesh, but not stopping her. Not yet.

  Roland hit one of the still-humanoid attackers with a holding spell, immobilizing the man in a greenish static field, and then reared back to blast the others, but there were too many. Far too many, even for one of his power.

  Again fists struck his face, then suddenly, four werewolves had grabbed him by the limbs, stretching him out like a medieval prisoner on a torture rack. He let out a groan that turned into a scream.

  “Yes!” howled the female Were in the group, maddened by bloodlust. “Rip his fucking legs off! Tear them off!”

  They were going to do it. Bailey panicked, almost tripping over her powerful lupine limbs in her rush toward him.

  “Magic,” the wizard groaned as the attackers twisted his arms and yanked on his legs. “Ah, fuck! Magic! I can’t. Bailey!”

  Whatever it took, the Werewitch realized. When her feet next hit the ground, they were hands, and she stood on two legs. She ran toward him. More of their foes were closing in, but she had a second. She would do whatever it took. Somehow.

  “Get off him!” she bellowed, thinking of the kidnapper from the last SUV whom Roland had electrocuted, and all he’d said in the park. She thrust forth her hands.

  To the shock of everyone, a sparking red glow turned into a red bolt of lightning that thundered through the air, sizzling the very vapors of the atmosphere and striking the muscular guy holding Roland’s left leg.

  “No!” he screamed as the lightning knocked him to the ground, his body spasming in agony.

  Then the bolt, still raging, moved across the ground, kicking up dirt and mud and smoke, and landed in the stomach of the man holding Roland’s right leg. He shrieked and thrashed around before tumbling to the ground.

  The two Weres holding the wizard’s arms cursed and dropped him, fleeing in opposite directions.

  “What? What is this shit!” the female’s voice exclaimed. She was almost sobbing at the thought of what had just happened—Roland getting to keep his legs, after all.

  She and two others piled into Bailey from the sides.

  “Urgh!” Bailey groaned as their fists smashed into her face and neck and back, probably cracking a cheekbone and smashing her kidney. “You fucks! Get off!”

  She pushed against the ones in front of her, but not only with her hands. A reddish dome of light expanded from the point of impact and the male Weres flew back, clearing a good twenty feet before hitting the ground and then rolling another ten.

  That just left the woman, who had frozen in fear.

  “Fuck off,” Bailey growled and punched her straight in the nose. It collapsed under her fist and the woman screamed, the sound seeming to come from underwater thanks to the amount of blood flooding her sinuses. She ran off, flailing her arms.

  Half the attackers had decided to abort the mission. The other half, six or seven, huddled in two groups on either side of her.

  “Take this message,” Bailey shouted, “back to them!”

  A huge, roaring ball of fire erupted from the ground just in front of the group to the right, and they all scuttled backward, yelling in terror, their hands and hair burning, throwing themselves to the damp earth to extinguish it and then crawling away into the woods.

  The group to the left just ran, and kept running until they reached the highway where they’d set up their fake d
etour, then vanishing from sight.

  Bailey collapsed. The incredible exertion of what she’d just done, combined with the beating she’d taken and everything else that had happened today, was too much. All of it came down on her at once.

  Roland saw her fall and crawled toward her. He was about twelve feet away. “Bailey,” he gasped. “I’m pretty messed up. Ha. But I think you messed them up even worse.”

  She lay on her back, awake but unmoving, barely able to think, her breath heaving. She thought she could see a faint red-and-blue glow from somewhere beyond the woods. Sheriff Browne coming to check out the commotion, perhaps.

  “Roland,” she wheezed. “We’re gonna make it. I think.”

  But she wasn’t sure of that.

  Then another dark figure appeared. A tall man simply dropped out of the trees overhead, landed as though he’d taken a mild hop off someone’s porch, and stood nearby, looking down at them. He did not attack or do anything else.

  Bailey felt her strength starting to come back. Gritting her teeth as pain tried to immobilize her body, she forced herself into a sitting position and looked at the stranger. “Who the hell are you?” And where the fuck had he been while they were being attacked by those lowlifes?

  The man stepped closer, then knelt and extended a hand. “I’m here to help,” he said. His voice was low and rough, but oddly resonant. Almost soothing.

  The girl was in no position to refuse, and she was suddenly too tired to question things. She took his hand—it seemed huge and incredibly strong—and he gently lifted her to her feet.

  Then he knelt again beside Roland, helping the wizard stand as well, although Bailey had to stagger to his side to steady him.

  Roland had taken even worse of a beating than she had. His face was wrecked, possibly to the point that he might need reconstructive surgery, although it was hard to tell in the dark and with all the blood flowing over his chin. Thinking of how beautiful he was—or had been?—her stomach churned, and she almost burst into tears.

  The big man spoke. “You’ll both need help from the usual professionals,” he stated, “but there are ways I can help, too. I’m a shaman of the werewolf people—our people. Not like these degenerates who attacked you. They’ve been seduced by criminals from the city. There are older and better ways than anything they can even conceive.”