by Renée Jaggér
Chapter Five
Most of the alphas and lieutenants had never been into the Other in any capacity, let alone the part of it that was the sacred territory of their race.
“Wow,” one of them breathed, his eyes as big as golf balls.
Bailey and Fenris had brought them right to the edge of the enchanted forest. They were still a fair distance from the temple, but here was where the holy ground began. It was more rugged than the rest of the Other, but also far more beautiful—a wolves’ paradise of lush wilderness beneath a perpetually full moon.
Their god stepped forth and raised his arms to summon their attention. “My children,” he proclaimed, “this place has long stood as our one unassailable sanctuary. And yet, only two weeks ago, it was assailed by our deadly enemies, the Venatori. It is fitting that our plan is to lure them here again. It shall become their graveyard. We will fertilize our hallowed soil with their corpses.”
Bailey tried not to frown. That’s a damn harsh way of putting it. It’s true, but still. We’re not the bloodthirsty ones here. We’re just defending ourselves from their crazy-ass schemes. But leave it to Fenris to get a reaction out of the boys.
Hearing their deity speak, the warriors instantly got over their slack-jawed wonder and took to pumping fists in the air and cheering. There was a vicious edge to it that Bailey didn’t much like, but it meant they were ready to fight.
As they needed to be.
Bailey took a step forward. “Okay, we’re going to go over the basics of the plan, and then we’ll move on to the details of what each of you will be doing. Understood?”
They all nodded or grunted.
“Good. Simply put, the gist is that we make it too hard for them to attack our people back on Earth by making sure they’re always in large groups or someplace in public where the police would get involved right away, stuff like that. Not to mention, all the high-value targets—meaning you guys and me—will conveniently be glimpsed ‘fleeing’ into the Other. So, they take account of their choices and decide the best thing to do is chase us in here—where we’ll have pockets of Weres set up waiting for them, and a few other tricks up our sleeves. Then we kick their asses so hard, they have no choice but to abandon their crusade against us once and for all.”
She left out the part about drawing Aradia into the battle and destroying her. The Weres knew the goddess was involved in the current shenanigans. For all their courage, they didn’t need to test it by ruminating on a battle in which a deity might personally participate.
Fenris took over the next stage of the briefing. “This spot will be the staging point. When you pretend to take cover, you will arrive right here. Then you’ll move up the slope into these woods. We will have the advantage here. It won’t take long to put them on the defensive.”
The Hemlocks’ alpha raised a beefy hand. “Sorry, but how is this place better than our own home forests? Do we get, say, a magical bonus here?”
The tall shaman’s mouth twisted into the faint shadow of a smile. “Not exactly. Rather, the opposite. The Other naturally imposes limits on casters’ channeling of arcane power. Granted, the Venatori are skilled enough that most of them can operate at nearly full potential, but even a slight dampening of their magic’s potency will work to our benefit. Furthermore, destructive spells are easier to cast in open terrain. In the woods, we, when shifted, will be more maneuverable since this is our element. We also possess senses sharper than those of any witch. We’ll use guerilla tactics, hit-and-run, to wear them down and finally crush them.”
Fenris led the whole group up the forested slope as he and Bailey went into more detail about the roles each Were would play. They familiarized themselves with the terrain as they walked, and most of them shifted into wolf form to get a feel for the ground, the trees, and the air.
The two leaders took a short break while the wolves explored. Fenris looked at Bailey. “You seem distracted. Is something wrong?”
There was no point in lying. “I’m worried about Roland, mainly. He’s walking alone into the lion’s den. Everyone’s going to be on edge after what went down two nights back. But then again,” she acknowledged, rubbing her nose, “it’s his goddamn hometown.”
* * *
“Listen,” Roland urged, holding his hands out in front of him in a gesture meant to emphasize how exasperated he was getting, “I’m from here, okay? My family is the living equivalent of a Seattle Historic Landmark. And I’ve been to this club, like, four or five times before. Mostly when I was younger, but still. I just want to know if everyone is okay and ask them what the hell happened.”
The proprietor was a vampire named DeMornay who, having chosen a building in which to house his establishment that was easy to sun-proof, kept unusual hours for his kind. Apparently he often awoke at three or four in the afternoon, and then did not go to sleep until a couple hours past dawn.
Such were the ways in which ancient creatures had adapted to the modern world.
“I understand,” DeMornay drawled, his basso profundo voice clashing with his thin, effete appearance, “and I do remember you. Somewhat. But for safety reasons, I can’t divulge much of my clients’ personal information right now. The mass murder has left people rather jumpy. It’s been bad enough for business as it is. Violating the well-established protocols of confidentiality would drive customers away when I can’t afford to lose them.”
Sighing, Roland admitted defeat. “Fine. May I at least see the place? For old time’s sake, I guess. I could use a drink, anyway.”
The vampire gave a dry chuckle. “Of course. I never said you couldn’t attend the club. Granted, we technically do not open until nightfall, but I’ve been known to make exceptions. Welcome back.”
He admitted the wizard and served him a basic but refreshing Screwdriver, then returned to readying himself for the night.
Roland looked around as he sipped his drink. Besides him, the only other “exceptions” were a young couple, probably witches, who paid him no attention while they swigged from bottles of hard lemonade and chatted in low voices.
A couple of the rails, he saw, were still broken. And they hadn’t yet fully removed the bloodstains from the floor.
Roland wandered over to the couple. “Hi,” he opened. “Pardon the interruption, but I used to come here all the time, and I’ve been trying to figure out what happened. The reports have all contradicted each other.”
They looked up at him with annoyance through half-lidded eyes. The girl was definitely a witch. Her dress was old-fashioned and semi-formal, not quite a RomantiGoth style, but close. The guy was more the type who did not wear cloth sleeves, the better to show off his sleeves of ink. Roland was pretty sure he was a mundane human, albeit one who was “in the know” about the supernatural. DeMornay would never have admitted a Muggle.
“Umm,” the girl said, “my friend Sheila posted the video, like, everywhere. Look it up.” She turned back to her date, and both ignored him.
Nodding, Roland took a quick tour of the bloodstains, finished his beverage, and showed himself to the door. Once he was outside, he turned his face to the heavens.
“This,” he murmured, “is why I left Seattle.”
He checked his phone and looked up the names of the Weres who’d been killed. He could find out more from the witch community by hitting up some of his old friends, but right now, it seemed more important to reach out to the local shifters. Chances were, tensions were already near the boiling point.
Among the victims was a local werewolf named Greg Holmquist who’d been well-liked. If Roland were to speak to his family, word would get around.
The wizard used a combination of inside sources, obscure Internet forums, magic, and the slight hacking skills he’d developed over the years to procure an address. The Holmquists lived in Fremont—not far, in fact, from the Troll, or from the library where he and Bailey had spent an afternoon perusing the “special” collection.
“Off we go,” he remarked and caugh
t the first bus.
Twenty-five minutes later, he stood before the small blue bungalow with the correct number out front, knocked on the door, and waited. A minute passed, then footsteps approached, and a short, tired-looking woman with red-rimmed eyes opened the main door a crack, leaving the screen door shut.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Hi. I’ve come to apologize for what happened, on behalf of myself, the rest of my kind, and Bailey Nordin, if you’ve heard of her. My name is Roland. I’m a Seattle native, although I’ve been away from home.”
The woman, probably Greg’s mother, at first stared at him open-mouthed in a kind of dull shock, as though multiple emotions were fighting for control of her reaction and she could not choose between them.
“You’re a wizard,” she declared.
“Yes. I came back after I heard about the recent tragedy. It...depressed me greatly, especially since the Venatori do not speak for all of us. Hell, I’m dating a Were. I just wanted to offer my condolences and my support, if you’re willing to have it.”
Again the woman seemed unable to know how to react. She looked aside for a moment, swallowed a lump in her throat, and then fixed him with a keen stare. “How do you know Bailey?”
“She’s the one I’m dating,” he replied. “Here’s a picture of us.” He showed her a photo on his phone of the two of them biting into an extra-long steak sandwich at a restaurant in Boise.
The woman stared at it for a full minute. “Okay. You can come inside if you want. Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” He followed her in.
The house was dim and basic but cozy. Roland was surprised to discover five more people within, all Weres, sitting in a circle in the living room. Mrs. Holmquist introduced them: her husband, sister, and two other children, as well as a neighbor who’d stopped over to talk. They all looked at him with frosty uncertainty.
He repeated what he’d said to the woman, elaborating upon the basic theme of how the Venatori’s atrocities did not represent all of witchkind, and how he and Bailey were on their side. Once they started to warm up to him, he also repeated Bailey’s warning that the Venatori would soon return, and the importance of being prepared.
“She’s working with Fenris right now,” he explained, “on a plan to lure them into a trap and put an end to their little campaign once and for all. And if you or any other Weres throughout the Pacific Northwest need help, call out to Fenris. He’ll open a portal and ferry you into the Other—the parallel dimension we use to travel from place to place—where we’ll have a bunch of fighters waiting. They won’t catch us unaware again.”
The group digested his spiel. After a moment, Mr. Holmquist looked the wizard in the eye.
“You,” he began in a gravelly voice, “are the first caster to have reached out to us. We expect nothing from witches, Venatori or no. If you and Bailey are together, perhaps that explains it, but...thank you. We’ll do as she recommends.”
Roland smiled. “No, thank you.”
He took his leave, confident that things had gone well, and that the Holmquists would disperse the message throughout Seattle. Urban lycanthropes tended to be more assimilated into society than rural ones, which made them harder to pinpoint even for Fenris.
“Now,” the wizard groaned, “on to building the other half of the bridge.”
Which meant talking to his own kind. He didn’t relish the prospect.
Witches his age or younger tended to be sarcastic, elitist, shallow, and totally devoid of wisdom regardless of their intelligence or magical ability. He decided, therefore, that it would be better to aim his diplomatic efforts at the community’s elders. Some of them would remember him since he’d been popular as a kid.
“Oh, God,” he gasped, a cold wave of nausea striking him as an especially unpleasant thought intruded upon his brain. “What if I run into Shannon?”
He wracked his brain for recent information on the subject of his longtime stalker.
When he’d called or texted his family and old friends, they hadn’t mentioned her, so that was encouraging. Perhaps with her friends Aida and Callie dead and herself beaten and humiliated, Shannon had given up and left Seattle, moving on to greener pastures where she’d find a nice man to marry. One who had a thing for batshit-crazy women.
He strolled toward the nearest bus stop. “But when have things ever been that easy?”
* * *
Thus far, things had been easy, in that the dreaded Ms. DiGrezza hadn’t shown up. But in all other respects, they’d been pretty fucking difficult.
“So, by all means,” Roland concluded, with a dramatic flourish of his hand, “if you want to wreck your city and country, lose the respect of your neighbors, and quite possibly get yourselves killed while you’re at it, help the Venatori next time they show up. But if any of those things sound like they might be bad ideas, bar your doors and put some headphones on when they knock on your door. If you can’t or won’t join us, at least don’t join them.”
The dozen witches sitting around the table stared at him with eyes like polished stones. It wasn’t that they disagreed, or that they were likely to jump in on the attempted were-genocide or anything of the sort. Or so it seemed to him.
No, the reason for their chilly reception was far more infuriating in Roland’s mind.
They thought he was being rude by bringing it up.
He’d managed to convene the twelve of them in a private dining room at a hotel his family occasionally patronized. Sitting before him at the moment were some of the leading lights of Seattle’s sorcerous community, all older folks, nine females and three males. He knew eight of the women and two of the men.
Their leader was Mrs. Noreen Ashbury, who’d always sort of reminded Roland of the evil stepmother from the Disney animated Cinderella. She wasn’t evil, and her wardrobe was a bit more up to date, but those were the only minor differences.
“Roland,” she said, as though addressing a child, “we appreciate your passion and enthusiasm. However, the matters of which you speak are ultimately of minimal concern to us. The Venatori are distasteful people, but if there were a legitimate threat against us from the lycanthropes, we might conceivably agree to a marriage of convenience with them.”
His stomach roiled at that.
“But,” Ashbury went on, “your recent scry-broadcast made clear what we’d suspected, namely that the Order is once again attempting to drum up public support for one of their crazed endeavors. They tried something similar years before you were born on a smaller scale.”
The wizard blinked. “I did not know that.”
“You’re young,” she stated as though that explained everything, and took a sip of tea. “It’s true that there’s been a distressing flare-up of violence lately. Yet in many ways, this seems like business as usual. The affairs of werewolves, meanwhile, are not a primary concern of ours. Yes, we’d prefer they not be exterminated, but if this is just a feud, then it’s up to them to fight.”
Roland felt his face taking on a curdled expression of resignation. The meeting was shaping up to be a Pyrrhic victory. Seattle’s elder witches were evincing no interest in joining the enemy, but equally little concern for helping Bailey.
Then Mrs. Ashbury raised a finger in an imperious gesture that drew his attention. “There is one other thing, though,” she added.
“Oh?” He had a bad feeling about this.
“Tell us,” the older woman insisted, “what you’ve heard about the goddess Aradia supposedly manifesting to sponsor the Venatori’s efforts.”
Shit, Roland thought.
“Uh,” he responded, “based on everything I’ve seen and heard, it’s possible. I haven’t seen Aradia, but I did see Freya. Twice. The first time was a couple of months back, and you all presumably saw her yourselves during the broadcast. That was the second time. So if nothing else, I’ll be the first to admit that yes, the gods are real. But we all know how trustworthy the Venatori are. They might be claiming to have a dei
ty on their side as yet another propaganda venture.”
Mrs. Ashbury frowned, and the other elders mimicked the expression.
“I see,” she said, her tone neutral. “Young though you are, you’ve always shown signs of intelligence. What is your opinion of Freya’s role in this? And, if she exists, Aradia’s?”
He’d have to speak carefully. He cleared his throat and rustled his hair to stall for time.
“Freya,” he opined, “is a stern goddess, but she probably has our best interests at heart. I can’t speak for other deities, though. The old legends about them having much the same personality quirks and selfish traits as humans seem to be true. On some level, the divine hosts have their own motives. They care more about our veneration and our obedience to their goals than they do about us for our own sake. With Aradia, who can say?”
One of the older wizards scowled at his borderline blasphemy, and the women didn’t look comfortable, either.
Ashbury finished her tea and set down the saucer. “Very well, then. I’d say this meeting is adjourned. Thank you, Roland, for making us aware of what is going on. We cannot pledge any support toward your new friends, but we can, if nothing else, help you by staying out of the way.”
“I’ll take what I can get.” He shrugged.
Being younger and faster, he was out the hotel’s front door before the rest of them had departed the dining room. As he paused for a breath of fresh air on the sidewalk, he realized that a young man was looking at him.
“Hi,” Roland said. “Do I know you? You seem vaguely familiar.”
The guy stepped closer. “I think we’ve met once or twice. You’re Roland, right? I’m Dante Viari. I, ah, I was at the club.”
Roland examined the young wizard. The two of them weren’t dissimilar. Dante, like himself, was thin and blond, with a shock of pale hair that hung down over his face. He was pale and green-eyed, an inch or two shorter than Roland, and perhaps three or four years younger, which would make him approximately twenty-five. He wore a tight black turtleneck and equally tight jeans.
