The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus Page 6

  In the quiet and stillness that followed, Bailey did a quick visual scan of the premises. The other diners were assertively trying to look at nothing while turning themselves invisible. Judy had returned to check on them, but she’d stopped in her tracks halfway across the floor, waiting. No one spoke or moved.

  Dan had regained enough self-control to have fallen back a step, weighed the odds, and considered how bad he and his henchmen looked, not to mention the consequences of a serious shitstorm going down in the middle of the town’s most popular bar-and-eatery. Plus, the two gangs were evenly matched in numbers. Or outnumbered, if Roland counted.

  The South Cliff leader snorted and waved a hairy hand. “The hell with this place. We got better things to do,” he growled. He turned around and took a few steps toward the exit, the other three keeping pace with him but backing up so their eyes stayed on the Nordins.

  Once he was safely out of arm’s reach, Dan looked back and tried to have the last word. “Fact that she ain’t even interested in men isn’t a problem that concerns us,” he opined. “She’d probably be a shitty lay anyhow.”

  Bailey couldn’t let that one go. “I probably wouldn’t even feel it, dipshit. Some of the girls around town say you’re the size of a spark plug.”

  Dan turned back around slowly. “Girls say a lot of stupid things,” he grumbled, and he led his cronies out the door. Everyone watched them leave.

  Bailey cupped a hand by her mouth. “See ya, Sparky,” she called just before the door swung shut.

  Judy turned her eyes heavenward and let out a deep breath, then realized that they’d skipped out before they’d even received their orders, let alone paid for them.

  The Nordins, meanwhile, settled back into their seats. Russell remained his usual quietly smoldering self, but Jacob and Kurt were now audibly groaning and rubbing their foreheads.

  “Of all the goddamned shit-assed fuckery.” Jacob sighed. “Life’s about to get fun, boys.”

  Kurt joined the chorus. “Yeah. I mean, did you have to say the spark-plug thing? They’re gonna bring down all kinds of crap on our heads over this.”

  Bailey scowled. “Someone’s gotta stand up to those bastards,” she stated. “Besides, they were looking for trouble.”

  Roland, observing them as he finished the last of his fries, was curious. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he inquired, “but are you afraid of them?”

  The Nordins looked at him in unison, not angry, but happy to answer his question. Jacob spoke first.

  “Not physically,” he explained. “Hell, we’d love to get our hands on those numbnuts and book them a free trip to the hospital to rethink their lives for a while. It’s the pack politics that are going to make our lives hell. The drama, you might say.”

  Kurt looked at Roland. “Yup. The Oberlins—they’re the family of the charming ringleader there—they’re old, respectable, and well-established, with money to burn. A lot more money than we have. They can cause some real trouble—worse than anything Dan Oberlin can do with his fists—if they’re pushed too far. Can’t solve those kinds of problems by just kicking everyone’s asses.”

  The Seattleite nodded, taking all the information in, and thinking that Kurt, despite being nineteen at most, was smart for his age. He also took note of the word “pack.” He had already heard Dan Oberlin say, “Weres.”

  For now, all he said was, “Money isn’t everything.”

  * * *

  The quintet left the diner together after they’d settled their bill and tipped Judy a bit extra for the stress caused by Dan and his little fan club. Of course, they also suggested that the diner recover the cash it had lost when the South Cliffs had walked out by sending a bill straight to the Oberlin household.

  Now they walked down Greenhearth’s streets. The misty rain had let up and the clouds had largely dispersed, revealing the sun for the first time that day.

  Roland seemed to think it odd that he’d collected an entire entourage, and was also a mite uncomfortable with leaving his car behind. Bailey felt he could live with it for now. There was strength in numbers. If the police drove by, they’d be less likely to hassle him if he was surrounded by Nordins.

  And the South Cliffs wouldn’t dare attempt an ambush on all five of them at once. Not unless they’d brought the entire rest of the pack with them, and that would pretty much be all-out war. No one wanted that to happen in the middle of town.

  With the privacy offered by the open air and mostly empty streets, they resumed their conversation with a little encouragement from Bailey and her brothers.

  “So, Roland,” she quipped, “I got the impression you had more to say before we were rudely interrupted back there. Care to finish your story?”

  He ambled beside her, keeping pace with the Nordin siblings, which not many humans could do. “I can talk more or less endlessly about a bunch of different topics,” he admitted, “but I’d finished my story, and we were starting to discuss…strategies? I think we’d just eliminated the one involving the goat.”

  Kurt snickered.

  “Right,” Bailey acknowledged. “Well, the gist of what I had in mind is that we can cover each other’s backs. Fill in the holes in the other’s story, if that makes sense. But if you can tell us anything more about your situation, then let’s hear it. It’ll help us make up our minds.”

  “Yeah,” Jacob assented. “Talk about wizard stuff, or even just about Seattle. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be really, really weird.”

  Roland smiled, taking the veiled insult in good humor and apparently enjoying being the center of attention.

  “You asked for it,” he shrugged. “For starters, Seattle is approximately one-hundred and seventy miles north of Portland, and is the largest city in the state of Washington, as well as the northernmost large city in the United States, unless you count Anchorage. It was founded in—”

  Russell interrupted. “We know that, smartass.” He grunted. “Tell us the good stuff.”

  “Wizard stuff,” Jacob clarified. “Wizard stuff as pertains to Seattle.”

  Roland pretended to be exasperated by their requests. “Fine.” He sighed.

  A Sheriff’s Department cruiser drove by and Bailey tensed, but it didn’t slow down or stop and had soon vanished down a side street.

  Roland began the next phase of his tale. He spread his hands almost theatrically as he spoke. Somehow this didn’t come across as arrogant or ridiculous; it just seemed natural for him, possibly something his family did.

  “I come from a wizarding line that predates the foundation of the city,” he explained. “We’ve always kept highly detailed family records because our family is unusual. For some reason no one has quite figured out, we often produce heirs who display more magical potential than normal, frequently on the male side. That’s the truly unusual part. The common wisdom has always held that witches are more inherently magical and usually reach greater heights of power.”

  Bailey listened with growing fascination. Given the nature of her upbringing, she knew that there were more things in the world than many regular humans chose to acknowledge, but she’d also never really been away from home. Wizards and witches in Seattle might as well have been aliens in Mongolia.

  Furthermore, what he’d said about abnormally high potential cast more light on the motives of his pursuers.

  “Thus,” Roland continued, “those of us who are born as these ‘prodigies’ are considered to be especially prized marriage prospects. Whichever family gets to mingle their blood with ours also gets an uptick in power, and therefore in status.”

  As Bailey contemplated this, he frowned and added, “Of course, marriage isn’t strictly necessary. Some people would be happy just to use me as a…stud.”

  Jacob broke out laughing at that. However, remembering how Bailey had reacted to his earlier wisecracks, he kept any further ones to himself.

  Roland went on, “In conclusion, I’m mobile, I have enough money to last me a while, and I figu
red the last place a trio of ruthless, obnoxious, Machiavellian witches would think to look for me was in some Podunk little town this far from even Portland.”

  There was an awkward jerk in his otherwise smooth stride just then, as though he’d caught himself in some way or suddenly thought of something. He glanced at his new friends.

  “Uh,” he added, “sorry about the ‘Podunk’ thing. Didn’t mean to sound condescending.”

  Kurt waved a hand. “Meh, don’t worry about it. We are a smaller, out-of-the-way sort of town. Not exactly Portland, but not just two cabins in the woods, either. If you want to go someplace like that, we can point you in the right direction.” He chuckled.

  “Hmm,” Roland retorted, “I’ll keep that in mind. Two cabins in the woods might be overdoing it, though.”

  By now, the brothers were warming up to Roland, at least somewhat. Bailey was thankful for that. Making her scheme work would be a hell of a lot harder if they’d decided to hate the poor man.

  Then Roland said something that shocked them all.

  “Truth be told,” he began, “there’s another reason I chose Greenhearth. Moving in magical circles, one naturally hears about supernatural things of all sorts, and at some point, I heard this town was a haven for werewolves.”

  No one missed a step, but something passed between them like a spark of static electricity, and Bailey was suddenly afraid. She couldn’t put a finger on why, just a general feeling of dread and anxiety.

  Jacob cleared his throat. “Sounds like you hear some interesting shit. Werewolves?”

  “I do,” Roland confirmed. “Of course, I can’t tell who is or isn’t one, and the only way to find out would be to expend a great deal of magical energy on an appropriate spell, which I don’t feel like doing right now. Or if I were to see one of them transform, I guess. Anyway, the important thing is that no one is going to look for a wizard in a town full of wolves.”

  By now, they were nearing the northern edge of the town proper. Buildings were sparser, and the trees more dense. It was quieter, with far less vehicular traffic and no pedestrians besides them. The residential area stretched on a ways before they were out into the true boonies, but there was more privacy here.

  Jacob halted. “Okay, everyone stop.”

  They all heeded his suggestion, turning to him to hear what he had to say next.

  “Roland.” Jacob snapped his fingers. “No offense, but could you stand over there for a minute while we have a quick powwow? Family conference, you might say. Keep in sight, though.”

  Russell looked from his siblings to the wizard and back and nodded his approval.

  Roland just shrugged. “Not a problem.” He trudged uphill to the place Jacob had indicated, a flat grassy area where the road curved beneath a streetlamp.

  The Nordins moved a few yards farther from him and huddled.

  “Jacob,” Bailey began, her voice a sharp whisper, “what’s the problem? Why are you doing this?”

  He stared at her. “Did you just hear that? He claims to know all about us, basically. We still don’t know anything about him aside from what he told us, which for all we know might be one hundred percent pure bullshit. Hell, the Oberlins might have hired him to fuck with us, and that whole incident at the diner might have been staged to flush us out or something.”

  Bailey’s fear from a moment ago shifted; now, she was almost furious. “Oh, come on. You know that’s not true. They wouldn’t have gone to that much trouble even before we pissed them off. I mean, yeah, they’ve never liked us, but their plots don’t go that deep.”

  Russell surprised them by speaking next. “Probably not,” he whispered, his voice little more than a deep vibration, “but Jacob’s right about one thing. We don’t know who he really is.”

  Kurt rubbed his chin. “Yeah. Sorry, Bailey, but we’re not gonna let you run off with him alone at this point. At least until we can, you know, interrogate him or whatever a little more thoroughly.”

  Bailey shot a quick glance at Roland. He stood nonchalantly on the low ridge, hands in his pockets, admiring the foggy mountains that encircled the valley.

  Looking back to her brothers, she grated, “Fine, escort me for my own safety for the time being, and we’ll grill him a little harder. Maybe even, I don’t know, check his damn driver’s license. But I can usually tell when someone’s lying, and I don’t think he is. If he’s telling the truth, I can’t pass up this opportunity.”

  Jacob looked her in the eyes. “You like this guy already? Eh, don’t answer that, sorry. But fair enough. We’ll keep him around, but we’re also gonna be keeping an eye on him.”

  “Right,” she agreed hurriedly. “Wanna take him home?”

  The brothers nodded.

  “Okay.” She stood up straight, formally ending the huddle. “Let’s do that, then.” Turning around, she motioned for Roland to come back down and rejoin them.

  “How was your huddle?” he asked mildly.

  Kurt beat her to a response. “Fantastic. Next play’s a guaranteed touchdown.”

  Jacob poked Kurt in the ear, causing him to stumble. “Cute. But yeah, Roland, we’ve decided to head back to the old Nordin family castle.”

  Bailey added, “You’re coming with us. Obviously.”

  Chapter Five

  The family dwelling wasn’t actually a castle. It probably didn’t even qualify as an estate except in the strictly legal sense of being a property that had been passed down through several generations.

  It lay on the northwest edge of Greenhearth’s farthest mini-suburb, with a couple of other houses nearby but none behind it, only the hills. The lot was a respectable one acre, and the edifice a two-story quasi-Victorian, not quite a farmhouse but not quite a regular house, either.

  Bailey was suddenly self-conscious about how old and rundown the place looked. She and her brothers kept up with repairs and resurfacing to the best of their ability, but nothing could hide its age. The place had been built almost a century ago. No one would ever mistake it for a spotless modern saltbox.

  “I like it,” Roland remarked, putting her fears to rest. “Clearly a house with a proper history. Lots of character.”

  Jacob chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it, I guess. Lots of shingles that have had to be replaced, and lots of layers of paint covering lots of—”

  “Be quiet,” Bailey snapped. “Our friend just complimented our home. No need to run the false modesty routine, Jacob.”

  “Whatever,” he retorted. “I’m sure they’ve got places even older than this up in Seattle.”

  Roland nodded slowly. “They do. Some date back to around the time the Civil War ended, although that’s nothing compared to some of the early English and Dutch places on the East Coast, or settlements established by the Spanish in Florida or the Southwest. The Northwest is still the wildest part of the contiguous United States.”

  Kurt made a stupid quip thanking him for the history lesson, of course, but something about his words had spoken deeply to them all.

  Just as they were about to mount the front porch, the doors swung open and out stepped a small boy about seven years old. He was shirtless, barefoot, and dressed only in muddy jeans. He was lean but precociously muscular and had bright red hair and freckles.

  He was also carrying a full-sized refrigerator on his back.

  Roland jerked to a halt and then stumbled back a step, his eyes wide and his mouth open. “Holy shit!” he blurted.

  The boy paid no attention to him. The bulky fridge had gotten stuck on the doorframe.

  “Here,” Bailey said, and she and Jacob sprang up the porch steps to help. They repositioned the appliance and floated some of its weight long enough for the kid to squeeze through, then they let go.

  Jacob regarded the boy with a crooked but affectionate smile. “You got it?” he asked.

  “Yup.” The kid hitched the fridge up a notch, then thumped down the stairs, the huge white mass seeming to weigh no more than a backpack on his s
houlders. “Hi, Kurt. Hi, Russell. Hey, who’re you?”

  Roland still seemed to be in shock, so Kurt spoke on his behalf. “His name’s Roland. You might see him again later. Anyway, hope that thing works out for you.”

  “It will!” The boy beamed. “Thanks again. Bye!” He scampered off, the refrigerator bobbing and hiding him from sight after a moment, so it looked as though the appliance was floating by itself toward the house next door.

  Roland rubbed his eyes. “The hell? What the fuck do you people put in the water around here, anabolic steroids? Those are illegal, you know, especially for a kid that age.”

  Bailey went to his side, biting her tongue as her brothers laughed at the out-of-towner’s ignorance. “That’s Joey Hauer, the neighbor boy,” she told him. “He’s a werewolf. What you heard about this town is true. He could probably bench-press you a few times over.”

  The Seattleite’s shock faded. His face now showed something like wonder.

  “He’s a sweet boy,” Bailey went on. “A little rascally, but that’s to be expected. He was just here to pick up a fridge that’s getting replaced shortly. Literally pick up, I guess. Theirs broke, so—”

  Kurt cut in. “At least he remembered to lift the damn thing door-side up. Otherwise, it might have fallen open, and we’d be picking the shelves up behind him.”

  Roland was still staring at the neighboring house, where Joey’s family had emerged to help him finagle the appliance through their front door.

  “Well, then,” he marveled. “Werewolves do exist. And they’re that strong? Incredible.”

  Bailey tried not to flush with pride. “I suppose it is, isn’t it? And, well, we would know.”

  Roland turned and stared into her eyes.

  This was it, Bailey realized. Time to come clean with him. There was no point in delaying any longer.

  “All right,” she announced, “let’s go inside. Roland, we need to have a serious talk. About this town and the people in it. What you just saw proved that some of what you’d heard was true.”