The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  Roger was dazed. “Goddamn. I knew a guy once who tried staring into the sun. Now I know why he was so fucked up.”

  Bailey urged them on since there was nowhere else to go. They shielded their eyes with their arms as they stepped through the opening. Such was its overwhelming radiance that it obscured everything in the room beyond. They might as well have been stepping into the center of a star.

  Will snorted. “At least it got gradually brighter, so our eyes had time to adjust.”

  The werewitch took the lead.

  Is this light the next trial? Or is it just a trick to screw with us before the real deal begins? What the hell is in this room?

  She advanced slowly, feeling out her steps before she put her weight onto them. The chamber seemed large, open, and empty. It was impossible to determine where the powerful glare was coming from, but once the whole pack was inside, it dimmed to manageable levels.

  “Finally,” someone panted.

  As the light faded, they all took their forearms away from their faces and looked up.

  The chamber was long and broad and faced with smooth white stone that reflected a fraction of the glow. It was almost totally bare of features or decorations, but it was not devoid of inhabitants. A group of people stood before them; Bailey guessed ten or twelve.

  Then two of the Weres made low gasping or moaning sounds. Bailey blinked and squinted.

  Jim stumbled back a step. “Holy shit. Good gods. That’s frickin’ wrong.”

  The icy apprehension Bailey had felt when they’d first seen the light came back at once, and staring at their new company, she understood why. She had seen things like this before, but it still disturbed the hell out of her. As for the others, they probably thought they’d wandered into a nightmare.

  Across from them, the figures numbered eleven. At first, they’d looked similar to the pack—startlingly so, but that was an understatement. They gazed upon perfect duplicates, exact clones. The other half of the room might as well have been a mirror.

  Bailey spoke in a soft yet confident tone. “Don’t panic,” she told her Weres. They wouldn’t be much use to her if they were terrified. “Wait and see what happens before we do anything.”

  She advanced two steps. In tandem, the other Bailey advanced two steps, the movements synchronized to hers.

  She stopped and examined the room’s edges.

  “It’s not a mirror,” she pointed out. “The passage behind them is different from the one behind us.”

  Will sputtered, “Well, that’s just great.”

  Across from him, the other Will mimicked his facial expressions.

  Bailey raised a hand. “You all stay put. I’ll approach, uh, me.” The other Bailey had raised its hand, then the two werewitches charted a symmetrical path across the floor until they stood only three paces apart at the center.

  Staring into her own eyes, her confidence drained away. Uncanny dread grew in its place, but the clone did not seem actively malevolent. The doppelgangers Bailey had confronted by the black pool and in the spirit realm were obviously creatures of evil disguised as her.

  With this one, she had no idea.

  Looking toward the ceiling where the light seemed to come from, she shouted, “Spirit! Ancestors, whoever you are. What are we supposed to do here?”

  Nothing answered, nor did the light turn blue. As far as she could tell, the wolf guardian wasn’t watching them.

  Then Bailey noticed something. When she looked up to address the spirit, the other Bailey didn’t imitate her. It just stared straight ahead.

  “Who are you?” Bailey asked herself. “What are you?”

  The clone took two steps forward so that it was only a pace from its mirror image. “Bailey,” it said. “Kill yourself. Do it. And kill me, too. All of us.”

  The girl’s skin crawled, and she heard and sensed her Weres behind her, shifting in borderline alarm. She wanted to turn and run, but if she did that, the whole pack would fail.

  Instead, breathing sharply through her nose, she planted her hands on her hips. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Huh?” She glanced over her shoulder at her crew. “Can you guys believe this shit?”

  A couple let out snorting laughs. They were afraid, but by highlighting the absurdity of the situation, she’d taken the edge off their rising panic.

  Facing her mirror-image again, she inquired, “Why should we?”

  “It’s the only way,” the other Bailey stated. “Think about it. You’re a threat. You put people in danger simply by existing. Not only your actions, but your power will keep attracting more and worse trouble. What comes after the Venatori? Who will you make an enemy of next?”

  The werewitch grimaced, setting her jaw, and refusing to break eye contact with the doppelganger.

  It went on, “What happens when the gods get involved? Will you be able to handle that? Hmm? You’re not doing so well as it is. Roland got kidnapped. While you’ve been off pretending to be a shaman, the man you love was taken away from you. What do you expect will happen when an angry deity shows up in Greenhearth?”

  Bailey swallowed. Behind her, her pack had gone stone-silent.

  Still the clone pressed. “Do you think you could handle fighting Freya? She’s the goddess of witches, as far above the most powerful of the Venatori as they are above ordinary humans. To consider it is to invite failure. All you’re doing is endangering people. Every time you attract the attention of another entity who feels threatened by you, you make yourself into a bigger target and have that many more distractions keeping you away from the people you love.”

  Inside, Bailey felt like she was melting, but she kept up her tough exterior. A new fear arose that she might break down emotionally in front of her Weres.

  Before she could respond, the mirror image continued its pitiless assault. “You can’t be everywhere at once, so you can’t save everyone. Even the old gods can’t do that. And it will come down to that, Bailey. There is no escape from having to make a choice between you and your loved ones.

  “What other option do you have? Killing yourself is the only way. It’s the best plan. Your death will spare everyone you care about.”

  The spiel concluded, and Bailey’s reflection stared at her with a flat, neutral expression. It had made a perfectly logical argument.

  The werewitch shut her eyes. The doppelganger was right. By destroying herself, Bailey could guarantee that the people and beings who hated and feared her would stop threatening her town, her friends, and her family. There would be no more collateral damage.

  It was safe. But was it right?

  Fucking shitty-ass hell, she grated. I didn’t come all the way through this crap just to find out that the ultimate answer to everything is to do what any idiot can do and jump off a bridge. Who do they think they are to tell me that? Besides, they’re still after all lycanthropes, not just me.

  She puffed up her chest and pointed at the clone.

  “All right, we’re gonna go right down the list,” she began. “I hope everyone’s listening.”

  The hall was silent except for her voice.

  “First of all,” she insisted, “we don’t know that witch told the truth, but let’s be generous and say she did. So, Roland’s been taken by the Venatori, whatever. My alphas, my friends, and these good Weres behind me all gave their oaths that they’d be loyal and agreed that they’d help me get him back. They believe in what I can accomplish when I’ve got him by my side, so I think we got that one covered.”

  Having said that out loud, she was feeling better already.

  She continued, “I can’t dismiss that loyalty by throwing myself on a sword just to get rid of the chance that I’ll screw things up. They’re looking to me to lead them. I have to meet them halfway by trying to get it right, no matter what. Running away from the responsibility I’ve already taken on would be the easy way out. The coward’s way out.

  “And third, if I kill myself, then it’s like saying that all this h
as been for nothing. It ends the chance that we’ll fail, but also the chance that we’ll succeed. We’re stronger together. I believe in their abilities as well as my own. Not gonna cast a vote of no confidence in their ability to help me, or say they were wrong to support me. These guys here in the room, but also the alphas and shamans of the past, and all the wisdom they’ve built up over the years. And Fenris, our god. Would he have invested in me like this if I was doomed to just make things worse? Besides, they’re killing all Weres, not just me. You think that’s gonna just stop?”

  The image before her flickered around the edges, and the bright light in the ivory chamber pulsed with uncertainty.

  “No,” Bailey stated, “we’re not gonna do it like that. We’ll find a way. Or push comes to shove and all else fails, I’ll do it myself. Fuck this test, fuck you copycat assholes, and fuck the witches and even their goddess. We can do it because since we’ve been in this temple, we’ve learned how much stronger I am when I’ve got them by my side. And how much stronger they are with me leading them. That counts for something, dammit. So far, there’s nothing we haven’t been able to conquer.”

  The ten werewolves had begun walking forward to join her.

  “So,” she concluded, spreading her arms in a taunting pose, “if you want me dead, you’re welcome to come do it your fucking self.”

  Will was beside her, and the others came up on her flanks, backing her up.

  The eleven clones stared, then blinked. Then they attacked.

  Chapter Eleven

  The barn lay a stone’s throw beyond the edge of the forest, at the rear of an emerald field of tall grass that swayed in the breeze that swept down from the mountains. A single dirt road connected the property to the outskirts of Greenhearth, and the farmhouse at the other end of the field was abandoned.

  Within the barn, four women dressed head to toe in leather stood around a sturdy wooden post, looking at the man who hung from it.

  He was slender but had a respectable helping of lean muscle, on the taller side, and pale, and his blond hair hung over his face in a sweaty, dirty, disheveled mass. His arms were suspended over his head, and shackles bound his wrists to the post. His legs were folded under him at the knees. Chains encircled his body, further binding him to the wooden pillar, not to mention restraining his powers.

  Madame Pataky, who was in charge of the interrogation, slid the black leather gloves off her hands.

  “Tell us,” she began in her low, guttural voice with its thick Hungarian accent, “why the girl Bailey went to this temple. What was she doing there? Why did Fenris bring her to that spot? Tell us.”

  She had asked all these questions before, and judging by the intimidating cast of her heavy frown and glimmering eyes, she was getting tired of not receiving the answers she wanted.

  Roland looked up. One of his eyes was bruised and swollen half-shut, and there were red welts on his face and torso. Nothing had been done that would kill or permanently damage him, but the last half-hour hadn’t been pleasant.

  “You’d make a great American cop, you know,” he said, the salty, metallic taste of blood on his tongue from where his lips had been split. “I’m pretty sure the skill of asking a bunch of questions too fast for a person to answer any of them is a job requirement.”

  Pataky grabbed his hair hard enough that some of it was uprooted and slammed his head into the post. “Tell us,” she growled, repeating the string of inquiries.

  Roland sighed and allowed his eyes to droop toward the dirty floor. “Okay, fine. We were on a date. Bailey had heard about the temple, and it sounded like it had this really sexy goth-club sort of vibe, like with kind of a BDSM thing going on and lots of dark corners to sneak off into. You know how it is.”

  The witch’s lip trembled, and she raised her hand again.

  “And,” the wizard added, “as for her goal in being there, uh, she has a thing for danger and the risk of imminent death. Have you seen how she drives? If she didn’t have a pet sheriff here in town, I’m pretty sure her automotive habits would get her legally classified as a terrorist and deported to Yemen. Anyway, scary ancient temple. She figured it would help her get in the mood. That’s how women are, needing time to ‘warm up’ and all that nonsense. What could be a bigger turn-on than a hazardous forgotten crypt filled with sacred mementos of long-passed ancestors and weird magical traps?”

  One of the junior witches was shaking her head while pinching her nose. “This is a waste of time. We should have killed him.”

  “Silence!” Pataky barked, spinning toward the impertinent underling before turning back to Roland.

  The wizard resumed his string of replies. “And Fenris is interested in her because she’s interesting. Obviously. I keep her around because convenient booty calls are hard to find. That’s what girlfriends are for, right? Ha.” He flashed them his most charming grin. “Especially ones that on her end of the bargain, fulfill her bizarre kink for forbidden love affairs with witches. Male witches. Like me. It’s your classic Romeo and Juliet dynamic, except that we’re both legal adults and haven’t killed ourselves yet. Still, Shakespeare would be proud.”

  Madame Pataky was still listening, but only half her attention was devoted to the task. She’d taken a metal rod out of a holster at her hip and was fitting a rubber grip to the handle.

  Roland cleared his throat and shook the hair from his eyes. “Which brings us at last to what I’m getting out of the relationship. Well, I don’t know. Relationships never make much sense. Maybe I’ve always had a secret fur kink? Not that we’ve had sex while she’s in wolf form—yet—but it’s something to think about. I guess I’m just a freak in general.”

  He shrugged his shoulders to the best of his ability with his hands fastened over his head.

  Disappointingly, Pataky didn’t look amused. She raised the metal rod.

  “Um, so,” Roland queried, “does this mean–”

  The baton struck him across the jaw, creating a hairline fracture in the bone and drawing blood. Before he could even spit, she jammed the point into his side and unleashed a low-level electrical current. It was still enough to set his whole body shaking and his muscles seizing up.

  The sorceress retracted the device. “Keep your mouth shut,” she demanded, “unless you have useful things to say. Give us real information now, or we will remove your ability to talk.”

  He shuddered and shook the sweat off his face. “Oh, fuck off. What is it with witches? If you want me to spill all the beans, you’ll have to torture me harder. Like I said, I’m a freak.”

  Madame Pataky motioned for her aides to move in closer, to hold the wizard down.

  “As you wish,” she said.

  * * *

  The doppelganger’s hands shot out, clamping around Bailey’s throat as the other clones surged past their leader to the sides, engaging the rest of the wolf pack in a melee that was, in every conceivable way, a perfect match.

  At other times, Bailey might have been terrified. The double before her was the best replica of her own face she’d seen, and after the eerie placidity of the scene they’d recently been through, the creature’s sudden murderous rage was worse still.

  But after all she’d been through in the temple, and after delivering a speech in which she’d promised not to give up, she refused to be intimidated.

  She flexed her neck to protect her throat from the grasping hands, then lunged out with her fist. The knuckles struck the clone on the jaw and knocked the mirror-face aside with enough force that the hands released Bailey’s throat and the familiar body was forced back two steps.

  To the sides and behind her, the remaining ten werewolves crashed into their doubles, the scene playing out like a bizarre bout of shadow boxing as identical pairs attacked one another with nearly identical moves.

  The werewitch conjured a bolt of lightning like a giant spark that leapt from her to her target, but it struck her double’s hand. She felt her muscles trying to seize up in pain; somehow,
the clone had taken control of the bolt and created an instant looping circuit that divided the damaging effects equally between them.

  Bailey canceled the spell at once and summoned a gout of fire from below the doppelganger’s feet. She affected the change fast enough that it should have engulfed her foe, but...

  Her phantom twin blocked it with a sheet of frost, crouching on a half-melted platform of ice. Then she forced the frozen mass downward to shatter on the ground and turn flames into steam before hurling the mass of vapor and ice shards at Bailey. The girl blocked it with an arcane shield.

  She has my number, Bailey lamented. Whatever she is, she’s got my speed, my powers, and maybe even my tactics down pat. Confronting her head-on really is like trying to fight my reflection.

  Back and forth the battle raged through the chamber, lycanthropes and their mysterious doubles trading blows, dodging swipes, and wrestling with no quarter given, yet neither side could gain a clear advantage.

  Jim’s voice shouted, “Switch it up! Everyone fight someone else!”

  As Bailey sought to block her clone’s magic and counterattack in a creative way that wouldn’t be anticipated, her Weres ducked and shuffled laterally through the available space, reducing the doppelgangers to confusion before each of them struck at another’s double.

  For a minute, perhaps, the pack had the advantage, and solid blows connected with faces and stomachs as they drove their phantom opponents back. But it didn’t last.

  As a collective, the clones adapted to and mimicked Jim’s strategy. They’d seen how each of the Weres fought, and the mirror-Bailey directed her subordinates to engage them based on who seemed to possess the best traits versus the weaknesses of their opponents. Big, tall doppelgangers attacked shorter men, and faster doppelgangers attacked slower men.

  “No!” Bailey barked, “keep ahead of them! Beat them at their own game!”

  Struggling with an enemy who seemed to predict everything they did, the wolves nonetheless changed up their tactics again and again, the entire battle becoming a breathless and fluid chess game.