Witch's Bell Book One (11 page)

“
Detective Nate?” Ebony couldn't
hide the surprise in her voice. “Unlikely.”

“
Come on, have a look,” Barney
waved her forward as he crossed the concrete floor to the shooting
range.

Ebony felt her lips tighten a little
as she followed him.

Barney eventually drew open the door,
ushering her inside to quite a scene. There were several other
officers, most of whom were female, gathered around one of the
shooting cubicles. They were all standing back behind the line,
their faces alight with some kind of dumb, excessively-girly
wonder, as Detective Nate shot bullseye after bullseye

“
Twerp,” Ebony said under her
breath, narrowing her eyes at Nate's back.

He was out of his usual jacket, the
sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows, and that damn
black tie of his sitting just as flat as usual against his torso.
The look on his face was one of careful, but easy,
concentration.

Ebony's nose twitched slightly. There
wasn't a drop of sweat twinkling against his brow, because it all
just looked too easy for him. But what was worse, what was far
worse, was how darn attractive he looked.

“
Stupid little—” she began to
mutter.

Nate stepped back, clicking the safety
on his gun, and running an arm over his brow to wick away the
non-existent sweat.

He gave a smile at the assembled fans
behind him and then glanced over at Ebony.

She narrowed her eyes, tilted
her head up, and whipped her hat off.
“Barney,” she said in a very loud
voice, “you know it's been absolutely ages since I've fired one of
those things.”

“
You mean a gun, Eb – don't
you?” Barney asked, taking the hat.

She waved a hand.
“One of those
things.”

Nate hadn't said a word yet, but his
brow was furrowed with amusement.

Ebony waited patiently, her hand held
out until Barney furnished her with an unloaded gun, and then a
clip.

“
You actually ever fired “one of
those things'?” Nate mimicked her voice perfectly.

Ebony didn't answer, just
walked into a cubicle, not bothering with the mufflers or other
protective gear because, after all, she was a witch. She waited for
the target to come up, and emptied the clip, bang into the center
of the bullseye. She smiled with satisfaction. She was just as
accurate
–
if not better – than the silly Detective Nate.

She turned, looking more triumphant,
she hoped, than Julius Caesar upon conquering Gaul.

Barney gave the obligatory cheer and
woot. But Nate, Nate just stood there.

She couldn't tell if he was impressed,
shocked, annoyed, or just bored. But he certainly wasn't groveling
at her awesome skill, which was what Ebony had aimed
for.

“
What,” he said after a moment,
unwrapping a piece of gum from his pocket, and popping it in his
mouth, “am I supposed to be impressed?”

Ebony narrowed her eyes, choosing to
answer with a haughty silence.

“
Because I'm not,” Nate chewed
the gum from side to side. “You're a witch, after all.”

“
I didn't use my magic,” she
assured him, “I'm just that good,” she gestured a hand towards the
target.

“
Right, of course you
are.”

Oh lord. She hated it when he
said that. It seemed that every second word Nate said was a
sarcastic
“right.”

“
Na,” Barney walked off behind
Nate, grabbing something from the wall, “Eb can't use magic to
shoot – it's one of the restricted magics. Her old man was DI Bell.
He still holds the unbeaten record for accuracy,” Barney dusted the
photo he'd grabbed from the wall, with the corner of his sleeve,
and smiled down at it.

“
Your father was Detective
Inspector Derrick Bell?” now Nate finally looked impressed, but
only mildly.

Ebony virtually
curtsied.
“Yes, indeed. And, like father like daughter, he taught me
everything I know about those funny gun things.”

“
Right,” Nate began to roll down
his sleeves, still chewing on his gum. “Things make a lot more
sense now.”

Ebony couldn't keep the smile off her
face. She'd won.

“
I always wondered why you got
this job,” he began to push past her.

“
Because I'm trained in both
ordinary and magical forms of combat,” Ebony drummed her fingers
against her chest.

“
Nope,” Nate put a hand on the
door, not bothering to turn around, “nepotism.”

“
Why you little—” Ebony
began.

Barney gave a sharp laugh and
handed back her hat, taking the gun.
“That guys a laugh.”

“
That guy is just
so—”

The door to the shooting range opened
suddenly, and a very serious looking Ben dashed inside. His face
was that shade of white it always took when Ben realized that not
even his usual sense of cheer would see him through.

“
What?” She crammed the hat on
her head, even though she was inside. “You look like you've just
seen a —”

“
Ghost,” Ben finished her
sentence, “yeah, we've just had a report of someone doing a Death
Summoning out at the graveyard.”

Ebony's hand froze on her hat,
her face setting like starch in the sun.
“Blessed be Hecate,” she said softly,
words shaky.

“
I'll start the car.”

Chapter 5

Ebony felt her heart pounding
as she half-jogged, half-ran beside Ben. One hand was clenched,
fingernails scraping against her palm. The other hand was removing
the wide-brimmed hat from her head and unceremoniously dumping it
onto the concrete floor of the depot.
“What do we know?” her voice was icy,
practically chilled to zero Kelvin from her usually sunny
disposition.

“
Not a lot,” Ben ran a hand over
his mouth, eyes still rounded with shock. “But this is really bad,
right Eb? I mean, do we call in the Coven?”

Ebony swallowed carefully,
taking a quick sigh.
“They'll be there ... if it gets serious
enough.”

That was the thing about the Coven,
the entire reason they had set up their special relationship with
the police department in the first place was so that the police had
the means and knowledge to deal with magical crime on their own. A
witch was kept on as liaison. But mostly the police were expected
to be able to deal with whatever crazy, hideous, and unfortunate
magical maladies might strike the citizens of Vale, without calling
in the big guns.

If, and only if, something got
completely out of hand and the sanctity of the Portal itself was at
risk, would the Coven come in. They might send more
representatives; add a couple more witches to the force. But the
Coven
– as
the ruling council of the witches – would only be seen on the
streets of Vale if Hell, or its equivalent, bubbled up from the
depths. The Coven weren't there to save the ordinary citizens of
Vale from the everyday mishaps of magic. They were there to save
their souls from the once-in-a-nightmare offerings of
damnation.

So, much to Ben's
disappointment, he was never likely to see the council of hags
march onto the streets to instill a little bit of much-needed
order. No, by and large, the police were trusted to be able to deal
with these things on their own. And if they couldn't
....

“
Look,” Ebony unclenched her
hand to grab at the passenger door handle. “This is bad, Ben, I'm
sure it is. But you know the rules. The Coven aren't going to
bother getting out of their rocking chairs and putting down their
knitting for this.” Ebony was about to pile into the car, when she
saw Detective Nate occupying her seat. “What?” she spluttered.
“That's my sea—”

“
Just get in the back,” Ben's
voice was curt and sharp.

Ebony, for once, just did what she was
told.

“
But they'll send
reinforcements, right?” Ben continued as he gunned the
engine.

“
If things get out of hand,”
Ebony began to kick off her high-heels, shoving them under the seat
with her feet. She really, really liked those heels. They were
white, soft, and reminded her of the glamor of the ‘50s. They went
perfectly with this dress, and she wasn't about to let the
tormented ghost of some recently-deceased soul ruin them. A girl
had to have boundaries, a witch doubly so.

“
I don't get it,” Nate managed
to look at Ebony through the rear-vision mirror, even though it was
angled towards Ben as he sped up the ramp and out of the depot,
barely waiting for the roller doors to open. “If this is serious
enough to get you to follow orders, why don't we just call for this
backup now? We can't go into a dangerous—”

“
Oh, you don't understand,”
Ebony harrumphed, pushing herself further into the seat behind her,
and crossing her arms tightly over her chest. This wasn't how today
was supposed to go, a little voice in her head reminded her.
According to her wonderful morning plan, around about now she
should be sauntering off to grab Turkish delight and catch a film
at the old refurbished cinema just at the end of her street. Ebony
stared out the window, her expression cold. “The entire point of
the Pact, the entire point of me acting as your consultant, is so
the Coven keep their interference to a minimum.”

“
You mean they have better
things to do with their time than help us mere mortals stay this
side of death?” Nate scoffed from the front seat. “Sounds real
nice.”

Ebony barely held back the urge
to give the back of his seat a sharp kick.
“No. Look, if we called the Coven
every single time an old grandmother picked up a possessed coconut
from the fruit market, then don't you think the rest of Vale would
catch on? I don't know if you've realized this yet, but not every
witch looks like me.”

Nate mumbled something under
his breath that sounded suspiciously like:
“no one else looks like you.” Ebony
ignored it. “Not all witches have a stunning sense of fashion,
excellent jewelry and, I don't know, a face at all. The Coven are
the most powerful of the witches, and let me tell you, when you get
to that stage, you physically change. You don't look like an
ordinary human anymore, because guess what? You aren't human any
more. You've given yourself up to power completely, and it has
seeped through every cell, every pore, and every inch of your body.
So Detective Nate,” she stressed his name like an irate principal
calling the dunce to the front of the class, “if you want a group
of faceless, wild hags busting down-town every other day, then I
can tell you how to contact the Coven. But if you'd like the
citizens of Vale to remain peacefully ignorant about the true
nature of their city, then you'll have to stick with me.” Ebony
finished with a huff, arms closing tighter and tighter around her
chest.

Nate stared at her squarely
through the rear-vision mirror, his gaze as even as a builder's
level.
“Right, of course. But if we need it, we have back up,
right? Even if it's a bunch of toothless, faceless, old
ha—”

“
Oh shut up,” Ebony really did
kick the back of his chair now. “I might get away with calling them
hags, Detective, but a word of advice – never follow me for
behavioral directions. And yes, we have the backup, if we need it.
But it will come at a cost.” Ebony ended with a punctuated breath
of air, then fell silent.

Costs. She rolled the word
around in her mind. Though she wasn't about to announce it to the
annoying Detective, the costs she was warning about wouldn't fall
on his wide shoulders. No, they'd fall on her appropriately
proportioned, much cuter shoulders instead. And maybe that's why
Ebony was so angry, she reasoned. She was going into a very
hazardous situation knowing that if, or when, it all went to Hell,
she'd be the one dragged down with it. While the police department
might do an internal review if something went horribly wrong, Ebony
would be called up in front of the Coven. The Coven
... and they
weren't a very lenient bunch.

Ebony took a steadying breath.
There was only one thing she could be thankful for
... maybe. Of the
Nine witches that sat on the Vale Coven, Ebony actually knew one
quite well. Fantastically well, in fact. Avery Bell, after all, was
Ebony's mother.

Which faced Ebony with the exceedingly
uncomfortable fact that if she somehow failed today, she wouldn't
just have to wipe the egg of her face and submit to the punishments
of the Coven, she'd have to explain it all to her mother as
well.

Ebony tried to shift the strap on her
dress, in an attempt to make it sit straight and even against her
shoulder. Lord, she hoped everything would go well, but she had
that feeling in the pit of her stomach that tonight would end with
a bang.

“
Why don't you kick the back of
my chair again,” Nate suggested, voice harsh and sarcastic. “You'll
find that comes with consequences as well.”

Ebony thought she caught a
glimpse of Ben rolling his eyes from the driver's seat.
“You two are like
my kids – annoying as hell when you're together, but strangely
companionable when you are apart.”