God Ender (WereWitch Book 6) Page 2

  “Aw,” the wizard quipped, smiling, “I love you too, babe. Seriously, though, I’d prefer to keep on living for a while, so I will do my best on that front.”

  “You better.” She pointed a finger at his face before returning to her sandwich.

  He waved a hand through the air. “Anyway, about that ‘neutral’ reaction I mentioned. A lot of people are still tense and uncertain. They don’t think you’re the bad guy, exactly, yet the whole idea of a powerful caster who isn’t one of them, who’s raising an army of shifters to boot, makes them nervous. It’s the standard low-level xenophobia that always arises between different tribes or species. They don’t believe the Venatori propaganda, but in their mind, witches are witches and Weres are Weres. That’s how it’s always been. Those are people who’ve chosen to be scared on general principles.”

  Bailey furrowed her brow. “I see. I don’t have any interest in storming anyone’s house if they’re not doing anything to me. But I guess it’s understandable, with them seeing how much heavy artillery we’re marshaling and wondering if there might be a misfire. Something like that.”

  “Exactly,” Roland confirmed. “Some of them are forming small local coalitions. Not for offense, but for turtling up—barring the doors and hiding until this whole mess blows over. That obviously means we don’t have to worry about them aiding the Venatori, but it also means we can’t count on their support.”

  The werewitch took a sip of coffee and contemplated the information.

  “Hmm. I wonder if maybe this is an opportunity to reach out. Like, if I have time, talk to those people and convince them that we’re not gonna pull an Attila the Hun on them or their communities. That’s more what the Venatori are trying to do. And since they think they have the right to dictate how witches behave as well, I’d imagine they’d start an inquisition among their own kind after they wiped out us Weres.”

  Roland shrugged. “Perhaps, but it could be dangerous. Everyone in the caster community is on edge. Since all this started, there’s a sense that lycanthropes were a ‘sleeping giant’ with way more power than anyone knew or expected. Witches were aware that the werewolf community had its handful of shamans who had magical abilities, but the sense was that Weres were mostly a backwoods people and the shamans kept things quiet, offered guidance and support, and arbitrated in occasional minor disputes. That sort of thing.”

  That much, Bailey agreed, was true.

  “But now,” the wizard continued, “we…you…have been fighting an intercontinental war and countering a massive conspiracy, so the whole thing looks to them like it sprang out of nowhere a month or so ago. Most witches feel like they’re sitting on a powder keg.”

  Frowning, Bailey said, “Yeah, makes sense. And they’re mostly right.”

  The Venatori had assembled in the ritual hall within the great mansion, one of two main edifices that sat upon the property they owned in Lyon, France. Their headquarters also included a modern office building, but their new leader preferred the more traditional locale. She’d set up a throne before the altar at the far end of the hall.

  Watching her, and waiting for her to speak, former Grandmistress Gregorovia felt a mixture of awe and trepidation. She herself had been the Order’s final authority until two weeks ago when their original goddess had manifested in the flesh. She’d been reduced to the role of right-hand woman, high priestess to a living deity. It was galling to have been relieved of her authority.

  But it also took some of the responsibility off her shoulders. And with Aradia in charge, she was more optimistic than ever that they would achieve victory.

  The goddess’ appearance contrasted noticeably with that of her followers. She appeared to be thirty at most, whereas the senior Venatori were all women past the threshold of middle age since magic took a lifetime to master. She wore her night-black hair in a piled coiffure like an aristocratic lady of an ancient civilization, and black robes flowed from her body in long waves. Gold jewelry shone at her forehead, throat, wrists, and fingers.

  “Sisters, daughters,” Aradia began, her voice a curious bubbling whisper that was somehow loud enough to echo. “We have had a respite in which to recover from our Order’s recent failure. Now we must resume the fight. The time has come to declare total war against the upstart wolves. Are you ready?”

  Gregorovia nodded within the hood of her dark burgundy robe. “We are, Lady of Witchcraft. We shall trust in your guidance. You have our full confidence, and we are prepared to be led to ultimate triumph.”

  Behind and around the former Grandmistress, the other members of the senior council, as well as various high-ranking lieutenants and functionaries, echoed her words.

  As with her, there were misgivings among a smattering of the witches. Aradia had founded the Venatori Order in times so distant as to be virtually forgotten, yet this was the first time she’d personally manifested in recorded history, save for the vaguest of rumors from the Classical Roman Era. Some members felt that the deity was usurping their self-governance.

  Yet under the lax and lukewarm patronage of the Norse goddess Freya, the Order had received no aid to speak of. And finally, Freya had all but sided with the lycanthropes against her own people.

  It could not be tolerated. Gregorovia was willing to abdicate a portion of her authority for the sake of having a patron who supported them.

  The echoing whisper continued. “It is well,” Aradia pronounced, “for there shall be no more niceties or indecision. No more picking away at isolated settlements in a haphazard effort to gain the popular support of those witches who lack our commitment and conviction. Rather than scheme, we shall use force, wisely and strategically directed.”

  “Yes, Lady,” Gregorovia agreed. Hearing her prior tactics disparaged rankled, especially since she thought they had been using a good strategy. Nonetheless, she awaited the deity’s commands.

  Aradia smiled. She had a cold, placid, alien beauty, and the expression looked subtly unnerving on her face.

  “We know who our primary enemies are. Defeating Bailey and eradicating her race must be our chief goals. We shall start with her, then eliminating the rest shall take almost no effort.

  “Therefore, pockets of our best witches shall be dispatched to eliminate her most important people. Pack alphas. Elder shamans. Trusted lieutenants, mentors, and capable agents of every sort. Local and regional allies in the Pacific Northwest of America. We shall kill those whom Bailey Nordin relies upon, leaving her alone, powerless, and ripe for destruction.”

  The former Grandmistress bowed her head. “It shall be as you wish.”

  “I,” the goddess continued, “will aid you indirectly by appearing before those communities of witches who might be willing to join you, but are afraid to act. With my blessing, we can expect that your ranks will once again swell with volunteers.”

  Gregorovia closed her eyes. If Aradia’s plan worked, it would undo all the damage that traitor Roland had done to their cause in the eyes of other casters.

  Aradia’s face grew grimmer and frostier. “Because of the universal prohibition on direct intervention by divine beings, I cannot force our brethren to aid you, but I can persuade them to consider it. And many of them will because they know, as we do that the time has come for war. The wolves shall not defeat us!”

  Chapter Two

  Things remained quiet as day faded into evening. Bailey, Roland, and her brothers walked home. It wasn’t too far, and they felt like they could use the exercise and fresh air. Summer had almost arrived, and the weather was warm and pleasant. Vacationers from Portland and Salem drove by on the highway occasionally, and the townspeople waved to them.

  It made it easier to ignore all the damage done to buildings in the central square, which might take months to repair.

  “Man,” Jacob commented, “I just hope it doesn’t get much warmer. Here in the mountains, at least we don’t get it as bad as the folks down lower on either side of us. Hot and humid to the west, and drier but even
hotter to the east. Still, I’ll take winter over summer.”

  Kurt scoffed. “Hah! Easy for you to say. We live in the Pacific Northwest. We don’t have winter, not really. Unless you go way up high into the snowcaps and shit.”

  “That would be fine with me.” Jacob shrugged. “We’re furry animals in human form, better adapted to cold than heat. If the town gets burned down, I say we pull up stakes and head for Alaska.”

  Russell made a grunting noise in his throat. “I like the thought of Alaska, but I’m staying and fighting.”

  Bailey jumped in, trying to stop the conversation from getting too serious. “Yeah, yeah, the snow is always whiter on the other side. Unlike you dipshits, I have traveled, and people complain about the weather everywhere. If we make contact with some other species from Alpha Centauri, that’s probably the first thing they’ll discuss with us.”

  “Shit,” Kurt marveled, “that’s one of the deepest things she’s ever said! Roland must be rubbing off on her.”

  The wizard, who’d been following them in bemused silence, quipped, “I try to rub her whenever I can, it’s true.”

  Bailey and Russell both shot him thunderous glances, and he raised his hands in an innocent expression of surprise. “What?”

  Soon they were back at the Nordin residence, a century-old farmhouse near the northwestern corner of town. A pole barn out back had become Roland’s new quarters. Beyond that, the backyard led to a pine-forested slope.

  The grass and trees were still recovering from the magical damage the Venatori had wrought when they’d attacked the werewitch in her home as she slept. They all tried to ignore it.

  The Nordin boys threw some chicken and potatoes into the oven and turned on a football rerun from the previous autumn.

  Bailey and Roland shared a chair in the far corner of the living room, huddled close together. They didn’t say much. It was nice to simply be together and for things to be peaceful.

  The girl wondered, though, how her brothers felt about her relationship with the wizard, now that everyone knew about it.

  I already pissed a lot of people off by resisting getting married to a Were, she mused, and here I am dating a male witch. At least almost everyone seems to like him.

  Footsteps approached the house, and everyone except Roland perked up. Then a knock sounded on the door. Jacob got up to answer it.

  “Oh, hi, Gunney,” he said. The other four relaxed. “Did you want to talk to Bailey?”

  “Yeah, if she’s not busy.”

  The werewitch slid off the chair, kissed Roland on the cheek, and marched to the door. “Well, what brings you here? You haven’t been to our house in, shit, five or six years.”

  The aging mechanic was still wearing his smudged overalls, but he’d taken off his baseball cap and held it by his side, so his shaggy hair spilled over his craggy, bearded face.

  “True,” he conceded, “but better late than never. Listen, I know you could use some time to relax these days, but I got an interesting project up at the shop and wouldn’t mind some help.”

  Bailey smiled. “Sure. Besides, working on cars is relaxing. Just give me a minute here.”

  She went to the bathroom, said her goodbyes, and followed Gunney outside to hop into his truck. He drove them the short distance to the auto shop, explaining the gist of the job as the vehicle rumbled down the street.

  “It’s this old Model T hotrod. Admittedly, it’s a kit car, not an original, but you know, still kinda nice. Right now, it’s all matte black, but it’s the guts that need work first before we worry about the skin.”

  Bailey chuckled. “No shit. I still need to get my car painted, but it’s in sound working order, and that’s what matters most.”

  “Indeed.”

  The old man fell silent for a minute or two, then added, “I need something constructive to do. Business has fallen off. The fucked-up stuff going on means fewer people are out off-roading or taking trips since they don’t want to be caught alone in the middle of nowhere, and you know how bored I get when I don’t have cars to work on. Not to mention, well, who knows what you’ll get up to next, or where you’ll go. You’ve been spending so much time in parallel dimensions—I heard most of the details from Will, by the way—and then you went off to Idaho right when things were calming down again. I’d like us to spend time together while we can.”

  Unspoken but obvious was the implication that either or both of them might not have another chance if the Venatori came back in force. Bailey was like the daughter the older man had never had, and in turn, she’d thought of him as a second father.

  They pulled into the parking lot, opened the shop, and wheeled in the Model T.

  Gunney summarized the project in more detail. “We’ve got a fairly simple assembly here. Gotta put the top of the engine together, though most of it’s already under the hood. Still, might take a bit of time. Tell me when you want to call it a night. Oh, and clock in over there so I can pay your ass.”

  Bailey was way ahead of him. “Yeah, yeah,” she called from the time clock.

  They set to work at a steady pace, moving purposefully but in no great hurry. The hours whiled away into night as the pair assembled the upper end, the cylinders, and the intake, getting a satisfying coating of grease and grime on themselves and watching as the engine slowly progressed toward viability.

  “You ever been to Boise?” Bailey asked. “It’s not a place people usually think of to go for a vacation, which I suppose is why Roland and I chose it. We’ll do Reno next time, or go down to California if we’re feeling adventurous. Hope the smog doesn’t kill me.”

  Gunney laughed. “I’ve been all over the West. Did a lot of driving around when I was your age or so. Got into some trouble in Boise, though nothing too serious, and the town’s probably grown so much since then that I wouldn’t recognize the place. I’ll tell you the story in exchange for...”

  He’d been about to ask Bailey to hand him a rag to wipe off his hands, but she’d extended one toward him before the words had left his mouth.

  Madame Bertolio adjusted her shirt. It looked silly in her estimation, and it was uncomfortably tight, but glamor magic would only get them so far. They also had to dress the part. Wearing the traditional Venatori leather uniform in the United States was no longer advisable.

  She glanced at her subordinates. “Positions. I will dispatch the signal through the coven-mind when the time is right.”

  The other eight witches agreed without speaking and surrendered part of their individual wills as Bertolio wove the threads of the coven’s mutual consciousness into a tight pattern. Even when physically separated, their thoughts would be well-coordinated.

  Two of the sorceresses placed themselves in strategic but inconspicuous places near both the front and rear exits of the nightclub. It was located in a rather dark and labyrinthine part of Seattle, away from the prying eyes of the general public. Most of its clientele wasn’t human, after all.

  Madame Bertolio flicked her hand, and the seven, including her, moved toward the main doors.

  She was young enough that the glamor spell to make her look like an extremely attractive post-college girl did not require massive or obvious outpourings of magic. The women with her were all in their middle or later twenties. They had no problems getting past the bouncer’s screening process.

  Within, the club was decorated in a faintly neo-gothic style, and shades of purple, green, and deep blue predominated where lighting was concerned. The DJ played a mixture of EBM, metal, darkwave, and industrial, most of it recent, but a sampling of hoary old classics from the ’80s and ’90s as well.

  Bertolio and her posse pretended to engage in idle chatter as they scoped the place out. Anyone who saw them would have assumed they were a gaggle of European students on vacation. Four or five of the male patrons were already eyeing them.

  It took little more than a minute and a half for the coven-mind to collectively identify which of the attendees were wolf-shifters. T
welve total, divided evenly between men and women. They were most interested in one of the males, but the witches intended to deal with all of them.

  Rather than spread out for a simultaneous multi-pronged strike, the seven stayed together and chose their positions based on what would make for the fastest straight line through the writhing mass of bodies on the dance floor, as well as some of the more inert ones clustered around the tables and benches along the sides.

  A few stupid men approached them and tried to flirt. Bertolio and her subordinates offhandedly replied with vacuous comments, saying just enough to avoid attracting suspicion while also keeping their would-be seducers at arm’s length.

  The muscular werewolf called Jim, lieutenant to the alpha of the Silver Star pack of southern Washington, had drifted to the far side of the dance floor along with a female Were who seemed to be enjoying his attention. His little vacation in Seattle was going well.

  Until now.

  Do it, Madame Bertolio thought, and the words spread throughout the coven-mind without audible speech being necessary.

  The two witches outside deployed powerful magical shields that sealed the front entrance and rear fire exit. Out front, the bouncer, gawking in shock, was trapped in the shield and hung like a statue within its viscous arcane field.

  Then the seven within the club made their move.

  One of the younger witches grabbed the young woman next to them around the neck, pulling her off-balance and into a headlock as Bertolio conjured a sword blade of glowing magenta plasma and plunged it into the were-girl’s heart. Her scream rose above the pounding music, then other screams joined and mingled with it.

  The witches shoved their way through the crowd, which melted away as panicked revelers flattened themselves against the walls or fled in vain toward the exit.

  Bertolio saw a young local witch recording the spectacle with her phone. Good, she thought, and broadcast it among the coven. That way, none of her followers would try to aggressively stop the girl from taking video footage.