Witch's Bell Book One (39 page)

Frank just shook his head, his
skin pasty with shock.
“Now I don't know what's gotten into you today,
and maybe I don't want to know. There is little wonder, considering
your current behavior, that you've been replaced as our witch
consultant. Really, what would your father think?”

“
Replaced?” Ebony shook her
head. “What are you talking about?”

“
Ebony Bell, stop playing this
game. I have work to do, and you'd best go and do yours, lest you
find yourself without a job, and without a foot to stand on.” Frank
turned concertedly back to his work, obviously deciding to ignore
her from now on.

Ebony turned from him, face hot, and
walked away.

What, in all that was holy, was going
on here? Had the station's defenses been overcome? One moment Frank
was fine, the next he was treating Ebony like the scum you scrape
off city drains.

Ebony's hands started to shake as she
climbed the stairs. It was all she could think of doing, receding
and heading back to her office, her home amongst all those files.
Magical files, after all, could not lie.

As she walked up the steps, she tried
tremendously hard not to cry. Her skin was hot and itchy, her body
limp and weak. None of this was right, nothing at all. Frank, the
Police Chief, Cecilia, the gaunt man. What was going on?

She had to check the files; Ebony
closed her eyes and drove the words into her mind. She had to go
and check what she'd written about Cecilia and the
crypt.

Ebony started to take the steps
quicker. Magical files could not lie, she repeated to herself. And
whatever paperwork Ebony had done regarding the crypt case would be
upstairs amongst the files. All she had to do was retrieve it, read
it, and then
... well ... try to convince everyone else they were
mad.

Ebony still shook as she finally
reached the top-level. Her lips were dry, her eyes wide, and the
beginning of a serious stress headache was forming in her shoulders
and temples. But nonetheless, she practically dove towards the most
recent files.

She reached out a hand, spying where
they should be on the rack, and finally snatched the right Manila
file.

She opened it.

It was empty.

Chapter 17

Ebony stared at the file in her hands,
not really believing what she was seeing.

It was empty, completely
empty.

She hastily put it down, reaching
instead for the file behind it. She leafed through the contents,
hoping that somehow the crypt file had simply been misplaced. Far
from it, she found with a shudder that raced down her back. Not
only was the crypt file itself missing, it seemed that every single
file relating to magical crime that Ebony had written in the past
several weeks, was gone. All of them.

Ebony blinked hard, as if she'd just
stuck her head in a wind-tunnel full of sand. She put down the
files and stepped away from the shelf with a jerk of her
body.

This was all some kind of mistake, her
rational brain tried to tell her, just someone playing a terrible
joke.

Ebony waited for laughter to
erupt from behind her. It didn't. So she just let her mouth pull up
into a bare, awful grin. It was the kind of smile a monkey showed
in the face of danger
– with curled lips, but not a single ounce of
mirth or laughter.

“
Oh lord,” she said softly,
wiping at her eyes with a sweat-moistened palm. What was she meant
to do now?

This was a desperate situation,
utterly desperate. So what should she do? Run through the police
station and try and raise the alarm? Hope against hope that there
were still people out there that
... that what? That still liked her? That
remembered that Ebony hadn't stuffed up all that badly on the crypt
case? That remembered that Cecilia Grimshore shouldn't be hanging
around with a man that had once kidnapped her?

While it was certainly alarming in the
extreme that Cecilia was acting best buddies with her once vicious
attacker, how many people would be moved by Ebony's tale of having
stuffed up markedly less on the crypt case than most people
thought? It was really a matter of opinion, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

Ebony rubbed at her face again, biting
hard into her lips. Hold on girl, she told herself quickly. You're
doubting yourself again. And sure enough, she could feel that
almost thick pall of self-doubt swirling around her. Though the
effect of it was lessened up here amongst the files, Ebony could
still feel this powerful desire to question everything she knew,
and not take a single word of her own as fact, let alone
gospel.

She took a breath. She was
missing something here. This situation was surely desperate, but
Ebony making herself desperate was hardly going to fix it. In fact,
it was one of the essential principles of summoning magic
– a lesson Ebony
would do more than well to remember in her present state. While she
may not technically be able to practice magic at the moment, that
didn't stop her from remembering, and appreciating, the knowledge
of the witches. And any half-baked old hag worth their Hecate
statue would tell Ebony one thing right now – if you don't like the
situation you are in, become the opposite.

When faced with a fireball-wielding
wizard, wield water. When attacked by a death-calling maniac, call
life. And while such lessons were certainly sound principles for
summoning witches, surely they could be extended to ordinary life?
So, when faced with a desperate situation, simply become everything
but desperate. When you find yourself amidst a situation of fierce
hatred and vicious anger, fill yourself with passionate love and
divine grace. If attacked by the rude, become the polite. If
waylaid by the confused, call on inspiration.

When everyone around you lacks
control, find your own. When the situation you're in seems to be
spiraling down into a bottomless pit of insanity, horrendous
danger, and perilous uncertainty
– climb your own ladder of sense, safety,
and knowledge.

Ebony took a tremendous breath, and
tried to take the lesson to heart. Okay, she told herself with the
barest of smiles, you can do this. No, Ebony didn't have magic; so
no, it was unlikely that the principles of summoning magic would be
enough to rectify the situation. But it was worth a go.

She stared out the window at her own
reflection, and the cityscape and mountain-ranges beyond. You can
do it, she told her reflection, just find the only certainty in
this uncertain scenario, and latch onto it.

The question was, though, what did she
really know?

She knew
... that she was Ebony Bell.
That she was a witch, though currently without magic. That she
owned a magical second-hand bookstore called Harry –

Ebony suddenly snapped into a
smile.
“Harry!” she said out loud. “Of course.”

Harry was her store, her
charge. He also had the largest collection of history books this
side of the Library of Alexandria. Yes, the magical files that
could exonerate her might be missing, but Harry would still have
his own source. Somewhere within that dusty shop she should be able
to find a tome or two on the Grimshores. So, even if the whole of
Vale turned against her
– Ebony gave a shudder at that horrible thought –
she could still find out what on Earth was going on with the
Grimshores.

It was a start. But what to do
about Frank, the Chief, and
– quite possibly – the rest of the police
station?

How far did this go? How many people
no longer believed Ebony's account of what happened at the
crypt?

She sucked in a breath, quickly
swallowing as she did.

She had to find out, didn't she? She
couldn't just stay up here, waiting to go home, while some unknown
force changed her friends and rewrote her life.

She had to at least go downstairs to
face it.

With a very deep rattling sigh that
sounded more like it belonged in a movie of the undead, Ebony
turned to head downstairs. But, just as she did, she realized that
she should at least make an attempt at hiding the Grimshore files.
They were, after all, at least a hint that the Grimshores weren't
all they were cracked up to be.

Ebony quickly pushed her way to the
back of the room. But the sight that met her on her desk set
Ebony's new-found resolve back a mile.

All the Grimshore files were
gone. The picture with the Grimshore family crest. Even the box
with the black, rigid
“Grimshore” etched across the side, was
gone.

In fact, her desk was empty
altogether. The notebook was gone. Even her pen was
gone.

Ebony put up a hand to her mouth and
just shook her head silently.

Any evidence she had that the
Grimshores were even the slightest bit iffy, was now gone. The only
thing she had to rely on was her memory. Which, in her current
state, was somewhat like a dehydrated explorer in the desert
relying on naught but a picture of water.

It took her almost a minute to
steel her resolve and try and root it all the way down her body
with words of encouragement that ranged from
“you can do it, Ebony!,” to “if
you don't go and do something, someone is going to do something
horrible to you.”

Eventually, she turned around.
She'd go downstairs. Try and find out, subtly, what other people
knew of the Grimshores and the crypt case. If every single person
she talked to wanted to hit her, or worse, every time she cast any
aspersion over the Grimshores
– then Ebony would have her answer, and, likely, a
bruised eye to match it.

She hit the stairs with her heart
rattling deeply in her chest. But at least she was moving. At least
her driving pulse was helping her to push on.

As Ebony descended the stairs,
feeling more and more like a little rabbit trotting into a den of
foxes, she realized that people were returning from the Praytors
case. Uniformed officers were walking to and fro, mouths pressed
thin and gaits even. The detectives were back too
– Ebony catching a
glance of Ben's back as he dashed off down the corridor.

Ebony tried to swallow a quick and
painful sigh at the sight of Ben. What would he think, she asked
herself. Would he have forgotten about the crypt case too? Would he
spy Ebony and wonder why on Earth she was here? Would he march over
to her and give her a jolly good, Ben-style, talk-down for her lack
of diligence and ability in dealing with the crypt case?

With a slight shake of her head, Ebony
realized there was only one way to find out. She set off after him,
heart now louder than a military band in full patriotic
swing.

There was something to be said for no
longer having magic. Every emotion, every sensation that Ebony
felt, now felt realer. It came with a great deal more attached to
it. No longer could she write-over an unpleasant sensation with a
quick spell. With her abilities and magic in check, all Ebony could
do was actually watch and listen. She had to pay attention to what
she was feeling and thinking, and try to move through it for all
she was worth. Even though she couldn't see the other side, and
hadn't the foggiest where she was meant to be heading
to.

“
Ben,” Ebony finally called out,
almost catching up to him, “Ben?”

Her heart was in her mouth, trying to
shake through her neck like a wild dog on a chain.

Ben turned slowly. His
expression was strange, confused. He appeared to look at Ebony like
a man staring at an apparition in smoke. Was it really there or
just his mind playing tricks on him?
“Ebony,” he said slowly, “what are you
doing here?”

Ebony swallowed again, and this
time it hurt.
“I came in today, you know, like I said I would last
night?”

“
Last night?” Ben made a face
that said the words “last night” sounded like alien mumbo
jumbo.

But before Ben could fully process the
thought, the last person Ebony wanted to see, walked up behind Ben.
Chalcedony.

Chalcedony appraised Ebony like
a farmer might look at a fox that had broken into its chicken
coop.
“What
are you doing here?” she asked abruptly, folding her sleek arms
over her even sleeker shirt.

Ebony's skin started to
prickle, but she had to press on, she told herself. Nothing about
this situation was going to be easy from here on in. And if it
wasn't going to be easy, then Ebony had to make herself as hard and
unyielding as stone.
“I work here,” she tried to swell the confidence
inside her until her words didn't rattle like a rasp from a
ninety-year-old.

Chalcedony's lips curled, but
no one in their right mind would call it a smile.
“You work here,”
she repeated loudly and clearly.

Other officers and detectives began to
turn around, staring at Ebony with as much puzzlement as Ben was.
It was as if Ebony was now the only square in a sea of circles, or
the only bright red piece in a puzzle of grays and blacks. She
didn't quite fit.