The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  In wolf form, Bailey bounded upward and seized Ragnar by the ankle with her jaws. He was too big, strong, and heavy for her to trip, but she threw him off-balance. Before he could recover, she shifted back into humanoid form, kicked him in the groin, and punched him in the face.

  He fell back a step or two, but despite her strength, she’d done little more than stun and annoy him. His mouth foamed and his big, hammer-like hands latched onto her waist and shoulder, and he picked her up like a limp mannequin and slammed her into the wall hard enough to crack it.

  Pain exploded through her body and dimmed her consciousness. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to roll aside, barely missing the blow from Ragnar’s fist where her face had been. His knee and shin took her in the back of the legs, and she tumbled down the steps.

  Carl passed her as she fell. Both scions stood at the top of the staircase, half-crouched in fighting stances, and began to circle one another.

  Bailey sprang to her feet. She held her head between both hands to steady her vision, and she heard the two speaking to each other over the pounding of blood through her skull.

  “You’re dead,” Ragnar snarled. “Neither of you can match my strength.”

  “I’m the child of a shapeshifter as well as a goddess,” Carl threw back. “Which means, yes, I can.”

  His form distorted and grew bigger, taking on the exact dimensions of his opponent. The werewitch hoped the transformation would also grant him the berserker’s incredible physical power.

  Bailey started rushing back up the steps as the two hulking figures crashed into each other. Their impact resembled a none-too-distant thunderclap and sent a tremor through the stone castle. Bailey had to steady herself. Dust fell from the ceiling.

  Wavering snarls and howls of bestial fury erupted from the struggling pair. They smote each other’s faces and chests with blows that would have put holes in a solid concrete wall, grappling with enough force to uproot mature oak trees. They spat rippling explosions of magic as soon as they had the elbow room.

  The girl shielded herself from the worst fallout of the struggle, then dove toward Ragnar’s right leg, punching and kicking his knee.

  Carl shouted, “Get back!”

  Ragnar’s thick arm swept toward Bailey’s face, but she was pirouetting back and away from it. Carl piled into the berserker.

  I can’t go toe to toe with him. With either of them, she concluded. Only magic will work at this point.

  As Carl forced Ragnar away from her, moving the battle down the second-floor hall, Bailey listened carefully, then reached out with her arcane consciousness and felt for the stomping feet of the two combatants. Once she had a firm bead on the Norseman, she cast the spell.

  The stone beneath his feet melted into a small pit of lava that was knee-deep. He roared in pain and shock; his divine resistance was strong enough that he didn’t burst into flames or melt, but it clearly was hurting him, and it gave Carl the opportunity to land a full-force blow on the side of his head.

  The punch hit harder than Bailey could have imagined. She heard bone crunch, and the berserker’s head spun and wobbled in ways that looked unnatural as his entire body rose into the air from the lava hole and flopped on the floor, his legs smoking.

  He didn’t rise again. Bailey ran to his side as Carl crouched, ready to fight more if need be.

  Ragnar was still alive, but he was severely wounded. His neck was broken, and a section of his skull had cracked inward. He coughed up blood.

  “Bailey...Carl,” he gasped. “You would have made...fine friends.”

  Carl’s form altered subtly as he returned to his usual shape, which was imposing but not as massive as Ragnar’s.

  The Viking warrior turned his gaze to the face of Bailey, who stood watching him and biting her lip.

  “Forgive me,” he pleaded. His voice had fallen to a whisper. “The old call...to violence and battle... If not for it...we might have been...”

  His voice trailed off, and his body stiffened while his eyes went glassy. Bailey put a hand over her face and shook her head.

  Carl, breathing heavily, came to her side and put his hand on her arm. “We need to go tell the other trainers what happened. There might be other people who were wounded who need help.”

  “Yeah,” Bailey agreed. They hurried back down the stairs. “More people who might have been friends if things were different.”

  * * *

  All courses and activities had been suspended until further notice. With two of the trainers and several members of the support staff dead, the damage done to the keep, and a general atmosphere of dread, anger, and sadness suffusing the grounds, it was agreed that everyone needed time to recover.

  The students had all been sent to their rooms while the surviving staff dealt with the mess. Bailey had hugged Carl before dropping him off at his room. Then she’d returned to her own to reconvene with Fenris.

  “This,” the wolf-god boomed, “is outrageous. I cannot believe her! What was she thinking?” His fist shot out and turned a chair into a shower of splinters, which he kicked into the roaring fireplace.

  Bailey watched, stunned. She had never seen her mentor like this. The only time he’d come close to this level of unrestrained fury was when a group of wolves from the Eastmoor pack had tried to deny her right to ascend to High Shaman. He’d killed one of them, revealing his true form in the process, to obtain their obedience to his will.

  He’d still been in control of himself then. Now, Fenris seemed to be barely containing the same type of rage Ragnar had fed upon during his crazed rampage.

  The deity ranted, “Freya was completely reckless to do this. Sloppy, careless, and frankly, stupid. Her presumptuousness and paranoia went too far this time. She might not have given Ragnar the order to murder all those students and make an attempt on your life, but it matters not. What did she expect to happen? She chose a berserker, one who was downright unstable and disturbed and permitted him to use his own judgment to decide whether and who to kill. She must have known this would happen! Damn her!”

  In a sheepish voice, Bailey added, “It makes even less sense when you consider that Carl was sent by Balder. I thought Balder and Freya were on the same team? What the hell happened?”

  “She’s unfit,” Fenris snapped. “I’m tempted to challenge her myself, but I cannot. If I did, it would bring down ruin upon too much of the universe. At the very least, she ought to be removed temporarily if not permanently from the council and forbidden any greater leadership position than presiding over benign witches. Clearly she has lost her right to dictate what happens in the world of rising demigods.”

  Bailey sat down and poured herself a glass of water. It was barely suppertime, but she felt like she was ready to pass out for the night. “Shit,” she muttered, unable to think of anything clever or useful to say.

  Fenris’s nostrils flared as he breathed in, then let it out slowly. He regained his composure and eased back into his usual stoic demeanor.

  “I am sorry for coming so close to losing control like that,” he told the Were. “But I’m stunned at what my sister allowed to happen. I can’t retaliate against her for this, but you can.”

  Bailey arched her eyebrows, terrified that he meant...

  “No,” the wolf-father said, holding up a hand palm outward as though reading her thoughts. “I don’t mean for you to kill her as you did Aradia. The necessary solution is subtler and gentler, along the lines of what I said a moment ago about removing her from the council until she sees reason.”

  “You mean,” Bailey surmised, “present a case that Freya screwed this up badly enough for the other gods to kick her out? Something like that?”

  “Essentially, yes,” he confirmed. “But not yet. We should strengthen our own position before we move.”

  The werewitch had four or five different ideas about what that might mean, and none sounded any more likely than the others. “How so?”

  Fenris clasped his hands behind
his back, and he slowly began pacing around the room. “It would involve remaining here for a while. Continuing your training. Continuing the process of meeting people—gods-to-be, future champions of the various divine pantheons—and winning them over, getting their trust and support. Do you think you could do that?”

  Bailey hesitated. She was fairly confident that she could, but it seemed odd to her. After what had happened with the murders, the training ground might not function properly for a time.

  And, her mind added, how does making more friends help me boot Freya off the council? I don’t understand.

  Rather than pressing her for a response, Fenris continued, “What I intend, you see, is for you to build a base of supporters. People who will vouch for you, and furthermore, who some of the other gods will listen to. If enough beings join you and confirm your integrity, the conclave will have little choice but to pay attention when you explain to them how Freya jeopardized everyone with her little scheme.”

  It was a minute or so before Bailey replied.

  “I’m not so sure,” she began. “It seems…I dunno, weird to me. What happened was a big enough deal that I would have thought we should do something about it right away. But then again, I don’t understand the way things work between the gods yet. You’d know better than I would, and I’ve always had good reason to trust your judgment.”

  “Good.” Fenris thanked her with a solemn nod. “As for the immediate present, I’m sure you’re tired, but if you can manage, I would like to further your training while I’m able.”

  She cracked her neck and drew in a breath. “I think I can do that. I’ve been through worse. More of the stuff from last night?”

  “Not quite,” he elaborated. “What we learned last night will help you overall, but tonight I think we should focus on the specifics of combat. In particular, defense. You haven’t had to confront many if any beings who are equal to or greater than you in terms of raw magical power. Your skill with the use of shields has improved, but there are other things you can do to protect yourself from being overwhelmed by strong opponents.”

  “Oh?” she asked, curious. “Might help, I’ll admit.”

  The wolf-god came closer to her. “Yes. Ways of using shields you haven’t thought of yet. Ways of maximizing their deflection potential. Also wards, which you don’t seem to know anything about. A ward is a kind of ‘smart shield,’ you might say, which can be activated and then left to operate on its own, though it will only protect you from certain types of attacks. Still, it means not having to concentrate on maintaining a conventional shield all the time.”

  Bailey blinked. “Damn. Wish I’d known about those earlier.”

  Offering no feedback on her last comment, Fenris raised his arms and began his lesson.

  Bailey listened, rapt and appreciative, as her teacher explained how to identify different types of magic, elemental and otherwise, in the atmosphere around her or in the basic composition of reality. These magics, if present even in infinitesimal quantities, could be used much like antiviruses to create arcane locus points that would negate any magic involving the same elements, and the wards would follow her around for a fair amount of time—as long as an hour if properly constructed—and offer ongoing protection.

  “Let us begin,” Fenris extrapolated, “with heat. We have a fireplace in this room, and fire is traditionally one of the first elements any student learns to manipulate. Begin by thinking about the heat in the room and identifying how it is woven into the fabric of all that surrounds us.”

  In a way, Bailey philosophized, it’s like starting over from scratch and being a newbie again, but I know enough that learning to make wards should take a lot less time than all the other shit did.

  As the night progressed, she learned that she was correct.

  Chapter Ten

  The werewitch opened her eyes.

  At the end of the evening, her lesson in warding and advanced shielding completed, she’d fallen into a deep slumber that had seemingly commenced within three heartbeats of her head striking the pillow. She didn’t know how long she’d slept, but it felt like an entire day.

  She sat up. “Fenris. How long was I out?”

  The tall man was seated at their table, perusing an old leather-bound book. He snapped it shut with one hand. “Long enough. It is now late morning by the time kept in this realm. They’ll shut down the mess hall soon, so I will fetch your breakfast myself while you stretch your legs and wash your face.”

  She thanked him and he departed, then she began her brief start-of-the-day preparations.

  As Bailey freshened up, she reflected on last night’s endeavors. It hadn’t taken long for her to get the hang of a basic and functional anti-heat ward. It was somewhat sloppy and would have lasted for less time than would be ideal, but it had served its purpose. She’d been able to stick her hands into the fire without needing to shield herself and come out unharmed.

  Her mentor had also explained the idea behind full deflective shields, how they had to be made of arcane matter that had a curved surface and a “springy” or grease-like structure, the better to send an opponent’s attacks back at them. They’d run out of time and energy before they could attempt to conjure one.

  Fenris returned carrying a tray piled with a platter of steaming egg and sausage scramble, a hunk of cheese, a thick slice of toasted bread, and a mug of honeyed tea. He set it down in front of her on the table, and she thanked him before she dug in.

  “Did you eat?” she asked him around a mouthful of toast and eggs.

  “No,” he answered her, “but I am not hungry. I hunted when we got here. Only in the mortal world do I find myself wanting to eat often.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, fair enough.”

  The lupine deity seemed distant while Bailey completed her meal, as though he were thinking about something that had little to do with her. She asked him what was on his mind.

  “My family,” he responded. He continued to stare into space.

  She slurped the last of her tea. “Gotcha. Families are pretty complicated, aren’t they? Mine’s not too bad. I imagine yours has a few more problems. Wanna tell me about it? I’ve always been curious about this stuff.”

  He made a low sound in his throat, then inclined his head. “I suppose it would not hurt to tell you the whole story. It might be useful to know since you will essentially be joining the pantheon soon.”

  “Exactly,” she confirmed and leaned back in her chair, folding her hands behind her head as her stomach set to work on digesting the huge breakfast she’d massacred.

  Fenris put his big hands on the table before him, then looked at the girl as he began.

  “It all goes back to the war between the Æsir and the Vanir, two groups of gods and immortal beings who were originally antithetical to one another but eventually blended and mingled. The Vanir preside over the domains of earth, fertility, wisdom, and soothsaying, including much of what we now know as sorcery. The Æsir represent battle, courage, truth, and justice, which are the values humanity most commonly associates with us. Long ago, before my birth, the two groups clashed during the dark primeval era, when battles between the deities ravaged all planes of existence.”

  Bailey focused intently on the wolf-father’s words. She hadn’t heard of the conflict he described. She knew only a smattering of the most basic stories from Norse mythology since Were culture paid little attention to anyone besides Fenris.

  “The Æsir are generally considered to have won, though narrowly. It was a Pyrrhic victory, and the terms set at the end of hostilities represented a truce more than a conquest. The two groups began to parse out their mutual dominion. Tensions remain, but the days of open war are long past. Odin, the chief of our pantheon, is of the Æsir, and so are his children Thor and Balder. Freya, Loki, and I are of the Vanir.”

  The werewitch furrowed her brow. “I thought you were all brothers and sisters,” she commented.

  The wolf-father waved a hand in a vague
gesture. “In a manner of speaking, yes. It is complicated. Our families are not like those of mortals. Except, of course,” he added with a small, rueful smile, “in that parents and children still disagree, and siblings tease and pressure and occasionally resent one another, and there are many invisible dynamics that make no sense to an outside observer.”

  Bailey chuckled at that, though she knew that it was a dark joke. She got along well with her family, but the Nordins had their secret inner workings, as did anyone else. She knew of families that were far more dysfunctional, though.

  Fenris went on, “I was an accident of sorts, a bastard child born to my father Loki and the giantess Angrbodha. Some feel I do not qualify as a full god. Some think that my parentage, being part jotun, makes me dangerous, so I’ve always been the black sheep. It is this lingering prejudice on the council’s part that keeps me from sitting in any of their chairs.”

  Hearing that, Bailey’s heart ached, and she reached out to put a hand atop those of her mentor. Her immediate family had always accepted her, but until recently, her wider family—her pack—had not.

  Fenris continued, “It has been ages upon ages, with me trying my best to minister to my people, the Weres, though I am not given the full complement of dignity usually afforded a god.”

  Bailey assured him, “It’s okay. I understand in a lot of ways, believe me. I think I went through the mortal version of the same thing.”

  “I suppose you did,” he acknowledged. He went on to describe the details of the internal politics of both his brood within the Norse pantheon and the council, which included deities from other traditions. He told her of uncertain ties, of vague yet all-encompassing expectations, of confused emotions and lingering resentments that had played out across millennia as entire human civilizations rose and fell.