The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  Over the mountains came a squadron of black helicopters. At least a dozen, with seven or eight coming from the south, but a couple more from the other three directions, too, all converging on the Hearth Valley.

  Roland saw them, too. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, his eyes wild and his sweaty hair flying in the hot breeze. “Gondor called for aid, and the Riders of Rohan came. Hah! Oh, this is great!”

  Turning her eyes to the roads leading out of the hills, Bailey saw that the choppers weren’t the only vehicles coming into town. Black jeeps and vans streamed in off side roads as well as the main highway. One of them rammed a startled witch and crushed her beneath its wheels.

  They came to a stop on the high ground surrounding the town center, then doors opened and men in dark suits and glasses jumped out. All of them held strange silver guns that looked like something aliens in a science fiction movie would wield, and they wasted no time.

  Beams of magenta-white arcanoplasm shot into the melee, sending witches scurrying for cover, carving through magic shields, kicking up molten fragments of earth, and in some cases, striking the sorceresses and reducing them to piles of bleached ash.

  Will Waldsbach, bloody-faced but alive as he struggled atop the roof of the grocery store, threw up his arms. “Yes! Yes, goddammit!” He let out a howl of triumph. Other Weres, scattered around the valley by the violence, echoed him.

  The helicopters swept overhead and agents leaned out of doors to fire similar beams from the sky, killing a few more witches and putting others on the defensive. Bailey suddenly realized with a leap of her heart and spirits that the battle was winnable.

  Townsend was leading a group of men into the town square area along the highway even now, laying suppressing fire on the main cluster of Venatori who’d surrounded their commander. The witches turned most of their attention to fighting the agents, freeing up the majority of the Weres.

  Bailey knew what she had to do. She turned to Roland. “Stay here. Help them,” she barked, and then she fell to her hands and knees, already shifting, and leapt over the top of the nearest building to bound through the streets.

  With the Agency harassing the main force of sorceresses, Bailey made the rounds, directing her scattered wolves to encircle the town and systematically hunt down and destroy those witches who were positioned away from the central group.

  Some of the Venatori and their non-Order patsies fought valiantly, almost arrogantly, as though they refused to believe that the tide had turned. Others panicked and tried to flee.

  Most died. The few who tried to surrender Bailey just wounded, biting down on their legs or tossing them hard into walls and leaving them to be rounded up by other Weres. She’d have to trust them to keep watch and the witches not to try to backstab them. There was still the rest of the battle for her to fight.

  Magic rained down, and furry shapes pounced. Bodies dropped. Bailey knew her people were still dying, but with the battle’s outcome looking favorable, their sacrifices might well lead to victory. Given that the wolves knew the town and countryside, and using their superior physical abilities, the Venatori were having more trouble pinning them down.

  Soon, Weres again controlled the outskirts of the town and the forested slopes of the surrounding foothills, all the peripheral witches having been killed or otherwise neutralized. The main battle between the women in leather and the men in sunglasses still raged at the center of Greenhearth, however. With mounting horror, Bailey saw that agents were starting to soar into the air, clearly not of their own accord, some of them rising half a mile into the sky before plummeting back into the hills, screaming all the while. Cars levitated and smashed down among the men’s ranks. It had to be the Scotswoman; Bailey had been able to feel her power.

  Bailey shifted back to human form. Two wolves stood nearby, waiting for instruction.

  “Keep patrolling the edges and pick off any witches you can,” she said. “I’m going to help.” She set off at a run toward the main battle.

  The shortest route lay through an alley between two buildings. Bailey sprinted through it, thinking only of how she could pile magical pressure on the Venatori without hitting any of the agents or getting in the way.

  Then she tripped. Something had snagged her ankle, and flailing her arms, she flew straight toward the pavement. Beneath the point of impact, a burbling mass of blackish-purple fluid like a dark melting giant flower suddenly appeared.

  “Oh, crap!” she exclaimed as she landed in it. It clung to her limbs and body and hair like glue, and she struggled to turn over enough to see what was going on.

  Above her stood Rhona, laughing with glee as her brown braid whipped behind her like a snake’s tail. She’d set some kind of invisible tripwire and caught Bailey like an insect on flypaper. A violet plasma-blade grew from her hand.

  Then she screamed. Another magical blade, this one emerald, protruded from her chest, and she looked down at it even as her eyes went glassy. Roland tossed her aside and her body slumped, unmoving, against the wall.

  “And to think,” the wizard gasped, “I was starting to feel like a third wheel.”

  “Roland, help me get out of this stuff,” Bailey urged. “And thanks. I need to get into that battle. It’s looking like a stalemate.”

  Grimacing, he knelt beside her and drew all the moisture out of the strange black substance so that it hardened and then crumbled to dust. She broke through it and struggled back to her feet. Then, together, they charged toward the battle.

  Once they were out on the highway, a quarter-mile or less from the edge of the melee, Bailey realized that they might be too late.

  The Venatori’s commander, grinning hugely as her hair flapped in the breeze, raised both her hands and made another sound-enhanced announcement even as beams and bolts and waves of force streaked around her. Bailey had the disturbing impression that not only was the woman relishing all the violence of combat, but she also enjoyed showing off.

  “You men think you’re hard,” she proclaimed, her voice echoing over the din. “Do you know how old I am? Thirty-six. And I sit on the ruling council. You think I got that far that young by being soft?”

  With a swipe of her hand, the hillside behind her shifted as though an earthquake had struck it. But it wasn’t the land moving; it was the trees.

  At least two dozen fully-grown pines detached from the slope, their roots torn free of the ground, and flew upwards in an arc, descending toward the lines of the agency’s soldiers like colossal green javelins.

  “Holy living fuck!” Roland shouted. “Well, she obviously specialized in telekinesis.”

  The agents fired their alien weapons skyward, destroying some of the trees and sending burning fragments raining down. Without the beams pressing down on the witches, lightning and ice shot out from the ranks of the Venatori toward their foes. Two agents fell dead.

  Bailey threw up her arms. “We gotta stop those things!”

  Roland was already on it. A huge mass of shimmering green light, the biggest shield he’d ever conjured, spread above the men in black. The trees struck it and slowed but did not stop. Their large mass, combined with the broad area he’d had to cover, made it impossible to keep the shield strong enough to immobilize the projectiles.

  Instead, the werewitch reached up with her mind and grabbed them. One or two at a time, she directed telekinetic force of her own against them, shifting them off-course and causing them to thump into abandoned side streets or fly back toward the hills to crash amidst the forest.

  It was all the help the agents needed. Townsend had rushed back to his jeep and come back with what looked like a silver grenade. He pressed a button and tossed it into the mass of the witches, right toward their leader.

  The woman’s resounding laughter cut off as the bomb detonated. A huge sphere of crackling purple light spread over the sorceresses, ensnaring some of them in a static field that left them immobilized and writhing in pain.

  The Venatori leader had already countered,
though. A mass of hazy darkness spread from her to the witches nearest her, encompassing and protecting them, and then, her face contorting in a snarl, she whipped a hand in front of her face, and all the women within the gloomy substance vanished with a purple flash.

  It was over. The witches’ leader had retreated, leaving only the dead and the captives.

  Bailey fell to her knees, her arms flying skyward. “Yes! Oh, gods, I can’t fucking believe it. We did it. It’s over!”

  Similar shouts and howls and cheers went up around the valley as Weres and agents and normal humans were overcome with elation and relief. They’d repelled the seemingly insurmountable attack. They still lived.

  Roland came up behind the girl as she knelt and put his hands on her shoulders. She leaned her head back against his lower body. He handed her a man’s shirt he’d found somewhere.

  “You know,” he pointed out, “you really should be facing the opposite direction for that.”

  “Shut up.” She laughed. “You’ll pay for that later. For now, though…”

  She sighed, got to her feet, and put on the shirt, which came almost to her knees, then they walked toward the center of town.

  The Agency’s personnel, aided by the sheriff and his deputies, were securing the area and detaining the witches who’d been caught in the purple energy field created by the silver grenade. From around the edges of town, Weres dragged other sorceresses they’d wounded or captured.

  Sirens blared as a fire truck and a couple of ambulances made for the village’s center—not a long drive since Emergency Services was right next to the sheriff’s station. Random citizens drifted out of their homes, frightened but slowly realizing the threat had passed.

  Townsend greeted the pair. “I told you,” he said, resting his silver plasma gun on his shoulder. “I said I’d get through to them eventually. I wish it had been sooner, but it wasn’t too late. And we’ve sent a message, one they’ll have no choice but to get.”

  Roland nodded. “Let’s hope they get it good and hard.”

  Behind Townsend, other agents clapped anti-magic handcuffs on the frazzled witch captives, peppering them with questions and promising them clemency if they cooperated.

  Soon, emergency workers began to care for those who needed it, and the Weres who’d fought so bravely congregated around Bailey.

  “Thank you for all you’ve done,” she told them. “We’ve lost more of our brothers, but it was thanks to our actions that we saved a lot more.” Looking around, she saw Russell among the surviving warriors and almost melted with relief. He was spattered with blood, but it didn’t seem to be his.

  The Weres saluted, the fierce gleam of pride and admiration in their eyes saying more than words could.

  Bailey went on, “I gotta help with the cleanup and make sure everyone else is okay.”

  Roland accompanied her as they returned to the mass of humans. Behind them, the lycanthropes melted into the forest.

  Gunney came down to check on them and the Camaro. Parked in the rear corner of a lot just outside the town center, it had somehow survived the miniature apocalypse, much to the relief of both him and Bailey.

  Townspeople came by to offer their thanks or congratulations. Occasionally they were livid with residual fear over the fact that this had happened, but on the whole, it seemed that everyone understood what was going on and why.

  As Bailey did what she could to aid them all, some put their hands on her shoulder or gave her nods as they passed.

  Roland smiled. “I’m starting to think people like you. It’s not just me, then.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She grunted as she unloaded a pallet of bottled water the grocery store was donating to the emergency workers from a truck. “They better not get the idea that they’re allowed to like me the same way you do, though.”

  “Damn right,” he said, smiling, then planted a quick kiss on her lips.

  The hours passed, everyone helping everyone else get to the finish line of a long, hard day. Roland disappeared to join her brothers in cleaning up some wreckage that was blocking the street.

  As darkness began to creep over the mountains, Bailey headed off to take a coffee break. She’d been tending wounded townsfolk at a makeshift outdoor clinic they’d set up near the sheriff’s office.

  Suddenly, a tall figure was standing beside her, having appeared out of nowhere. Again. “Bailey,” he said.

  She turned to him. “Nice to see you. It would have been even nicer to have had your help. Sorry. People died out there, but we won. Kicked their asses all the way back to France or wherever, I hope.”

  “Yes,” said Fenris. “War has started, whether we wanted it or not, and your people rallied behind you. You commanded them ably and helped your allies as well. The situation may be horrible, but you’re handling it. I’m proud of you.”

  She was embarrassed by the praise. “Thanks. I just…worry. I’m starting to feel like I’m a kid on a slide, just getting to the part where you no longer have the choice to get off; you can only slide down. Does that make sense? I mean, I’m worried that all this means my visions are coming true. There’s gonna be more all-out conflict and destruction and death.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and admitted to herself that she was afraid of what her god might tell her.

  When she looked at him again, his face was unreadable—as usual—in the darkness of his hood.

  “We’ll just have to wait and see,” he stated.

  She frowned and looked into the distance at the warm red glow behind the Cascades to the west, then toward the gathering darkness to the east.

  “I guess so.”

  Note from Renée

  You made it! Here we are again at the end of book 4! Thank you so much for reading this far.

  Avoiding the topic of coronavirus since we’re living that joy (except to say I hope this finds you and yours well), let’s talk about Zoom. I’ve been having fun with it since all my meetings are now held this way. To maximize my enjoyment, I do things like put donuts and croissants up as backgrounds to taunt my team members. Last week, I put up a background showing a live tropical scene with rolling waves and palm trees, and halfway through the meeting, I found out half my head was gone, due to the magic Zoom performs to put me in the picture. No one thought to mention it (thanks, everyone). Kids, don’t try this at home. You need your head, especially in meetings.

  There is nothing else to do but drive to get food and work, so drive to get food and coffee I shall! Well, there are hikes in the woods (carefully social distancing from raccoons and squirrels and blue jays), and Empress Josephine gets her daily walkies in the direction of her choice, but nothing that has me interacting with other humans. The drive-through at the semi-local Starbucks (next town up—this is rural Oregon) is finally open at times when I can get there again. Hallelujah! My routine is re-established. Fish tacos and flat whites, here I come!

  I always thank my advance reader team, but I also want to thank the Early Reader team, the ones who read my stories after they are edited. They catch the oopses and point out any last-minute dichotomies, and as such, they helped make this book (and every book) its best. Couldn’t do it without you, folks! Thanks for having my back.

  I hope you enjoyed Bailey’s and Roland’s further adventures. And if you get a moment, drop me a review, please. Those are the lifeblood of any writer. We appreciate you!

  Until next time,

  Renée

  Were Rages

  Were Witch Book 5

  Chapter One

  The young woman, almost twenty-five years old, sat at the crude wooden table within the cabin, watching the sun go down over the mountains through the window. The day’s fading light had turned blood-red as it fell over the little town of Greenhearth, Oregon, and it was all too easy to remember the people who’d been killed or wounded there in last week’s battle.

  So, she thought, I officially became a were-shaman’s apprentice—finally. I’m on the path now; it’s re
al. I learned to control the magic powers I didn’t even know I had a couple of months ago, so my abilities don’t kill me. While I was at it, I pissed off a goddamn zealot cult of super-powerful, fanatical witches—our friends from the EU, the Venatori. And to deal with that crap, I built a loyal following of werewolf packs who’ve pledged to act as my army, and we kicked sorceress ass together. But they’ll probably be back. Any week, any day, maybe any minute. They hated the werewolves before they hated me, so they get a twofer when they go after me.

  The man in the other room pulled the teakettle off a stove as it whistled, pouring the hot water into two cups.

  Most girls, her mind plowed on, spend their summers soaking up the sun in Cancun, learning just enough Spanish to know what “cerveza” means and flirting with dumbasses in tight swimming trunks. And here I am, preparing for a war. Oops?

  The man’s heavy footsteps moved into the cabin’s small, homey kitchen. He held a steaming mug in each hand. “Bailey. Your tea.” His voice was deep and gruff, yet somehow calm. He set a cup down in front of her on the table, then sat down across from her.

  Their meal was already on plates before them. Simple, but nice enough. Slow-cooked Salisbury steak, boiled peas, and mashed potatoes with real butter and homemade brown gravy. Just the kind of thing Bailey Nordin liked; it was good to find out that her mentor knew how to cook.

  They ate in silence at first and waited till the meals were half-gone before they tried their tea, which had been served only a hair short of boiling. The sun set all the way behind the Cascades, and now the only light came from a small lantern on the windowsill.

  Bailey sat back, taking a short break from her food. “This is kinda nice,” she quipped. “The food, I mean, but also the cabin and the isolation. We can keep an eye on the town, but at the same time, we’re far from it, and nothing down there can bother us.”