Witch's Bell Book One (40 page)

“
Ebony Bell, you no longer work
here,” Chalcedony's voice grated like a rasp over metal. “In fact,
you're lucky you still even can work, considering what you
did.”

“
What I did,” Ebony repeated,
using every single ounce of effort and will not to turn around and
run home wailing about how unfair the world was.

A couple of detectives gave bare
laughs. Bare, unfriendly laughs that clearly told Ebony they were
siding roughly on the side of Chalcedony, the Grimshores, and all
that was wrong with Vale.

Ebony dug her fingernails deep
into her palm and chewed on her lips for a bit.
“I didn't do much, Chalcedony,”
she said. “In fact, taking the time to think about it, I really
haven't done much my whole life.”

Chalcedony gave a harsh little
laugh at that.
“Now, if you are finished making an idiot of yourself, you
had better leave this station before you're thrown out.”

Definitely unfriendly, Ebony reassured
herself in a kind of detached way. As her emotions and sensations
seemed to simmer her in a sauce of terrible uncertainty, a little
part of Ebony stood to the side and watched. Witches watched, after
all, didn't they? Or maybe it was simply a reaction to not being
able to believe what was happening to her. One moment she was the
sassy, competent, but wild witch-consultant to the Vale police
department. The next she was some kind of vile, unloved little
creature who had disgusted everyone without having done anything in
particular. Nice, very nice.

But Ebony couldn't maintain this
little detached frivolity for too long. Because just when
everything seemed to be going pear-shaped, he popped up.

Nathan Wall walked towards her, his
face as blank and expressionless as a slab of new marble. Every
single step forward he took, Ebony found herself being wrenched
further and further into the reality of the situation, until it
writhed at her skin like ants trapped in honey.

If she had enjoyed a single ounce of
detachment before, she now paid the price. Her lips began to
prickle, her eyes began to flicker, and her skin felt like it had
been snap-frozen then thawed.

She watched his expression, her own
melting into some kind of drooped-lip pout.

“
What's going on here?” he
asked, as he drew up alongside Chalcedony. His expression was still
as readable as a lost, ancient language.

What he was thinking, Ebony had
no idea. And what he thought of Ebony, well
....

“
Oh nothing, darling,”
Chalcedony turned and flashed him a smile.

Ebony's brow clunked down a
full notch. Darling? Had Chalcedony just drawled out a little pet
name for the Detective? Or was that tone of familiarity
–

Chalcedony turned and patted
Nate affectionately on the chest.
“I've got this; you can go back to
work.”

Ebony found herself blinking
like she was back in that wind-tunnel full of sand. This time it
was different, though. It was now as if Ebony was staring at a
world that was quickly disintegrating
– leaving chunks and bits of the
universe that once was, flying around and hitting her in the arms,
face, and eyes, like a relentless blizzard.

Nate didn't say anything, he didn't
move, and his expression stayed the same. In fact, Nate looked
exactly like Nate. He didn't have that same tinge of confusion that
littered the faces of Ebony's co-workers, or former co-workers, if
the stories were to be believed.

Nate looked like the first time she'd
met him. His feet were planted as if he were trying to grow roots,
his jaw jutted forward with an angle that could cut the wind in
two, and his eyes shone with a determination that seemed like it
could burn forever.

Was this the same man she'd kissed
only this morning?

Ebony felt sick, giddy, wild, mad,
stressed, pathetic, done for, and just totally overwhelmed. But she
somehow still stood there. If she just kept her feet in the same
place, and her balance intact, she could weather this storm by
simply being.

“
Well, are you just going to
stand there, Ebony?” Chalcedony turned on her, arms locked together
again. “Because I really will throw you out.”

“
I ... am sure you will,” Ebony
managed. She could feel the desperation rising in her like a
king-tide. But she couldn't let it win, she told herself. No, no,
no. She couldn't become desperate too. Desperate people in
desperate situations were, well, Desperate with a capital D. She
needed to find some other way, something to latch onto for
support.

But what did she have left? No magic,
no friends, and only a vague belief that her memories were worth
fighting for.

What was she without her magic,
her friends, and her memories? She was just the name itself
– Ebony Bell, empty
and unfurnished.

So she'd fight for Ebony Bell, then,
whatever that meant. Two little words. Currently devoid of magic,
love, and their usual charm. But the only things Ebony could still
say, with confidence, were still certainly hers.

“
But you won't,” Ebony sniffed
in a deep breath. “Because I haven't done anything wrong,” Ebony
said the words with force, pushing herself to believe in them as
she pushed them out of her mouth.

“
Haven't done anything wrong?”
Chalcedony said with a guffaw of laughter. “Are you out of your
mind?”

Ebony nodded.
“The jury is still
out on that. But here's a question for you,” Ebony swallowed. She
was fighting for her name, she told herself. And it was now up to
her to prove that Ebony Bell was something worth living for. “Tell
me, Chalcedony, what actually happened at the crypt? What time did
you arrive? Who was down there? When did we get the call? What was
the weather like? Who was the culprit? What was he summoning? How
long had you been working for the police station beforehand? What
exactly did I do?” the words gushed out of Ebony like lava boiling
from a break in the Earth. As soon as she opened up the flood
gates, every question she'd been longing to ask the universe gushed
out of her, all laced with an aching, fierce emotion.

She was fighting for herself
now, Ebony repeated to herself; she was fighting for Ebony
Bell
–
whoever that was.

Chalcedony's expression began
with a fat-cheeked laugh, which slowly shifted down until she wore
a look of confusion akin to the detectives around her.
“I started working
for the police department ...” she trailed off.

“
After I was unfairly punished
for a crime I did not commit,” Ebony said, voice
stronger.

“
You did,” Chalcedony suddenly
spat back, voice like a whip. “You fool, you endangered all of your
friends and co-workers, Cecilia, even the citizens of
Vale—”

“
Oh, really?!” the passion was
now arcing through Ebony like electricity through a live wire.
“It's now gone up to include the citizens of Vale, has it? What's
it going to be next? The world, the Universe? Everything that has
ever been and ever will be? Just what, for crying out loud, am I
supposed to have done? Can you actually tell me that, Chalcedony?”
Ebony's hands were now curled into such tight fists that it felt
like they'd stay that way for the rest of her life.

Once again Chalcedony wavered. When it
came to the facts, to the actual details, she couldn't supply them.
She was like a student that had crammed for an exam, only to find
that the questions she'd studied weren't on the test. She looked up
and to her left, trying to blink out an answer.

The more Ebony watched, the more she
felt sorry for Chalcedony.

It was a disarming feeling, and
one that started to slide down Ebony like a sheet of ice trailing
over her skin. Chalcedony had no idea what she was doing, no idea
why she was here. Deep underneath the anger and vanity, was
...
fragility.

“
You failed as a witch,”
Chalcedony suddenly snapped back, her voice ringing with
righteousness.

“
Failed as a witch,” Ebony
repeated dully. “That's not an actual answer, is it? You can't tell
me a single fact, all you can do is paint an emotive picture. Well,
let me tell you, I would be very worried about that, witch. When
you can't remember what you've done, then you can't be sure of what
you are doing,” Ebony cracked out her last words with a surety that
didn't seem to belong to her. It was different, very different from
the usual confidence she had, or at least the confidence she had
once had as a witch. This had an edge, a sharp, glittering edge of
experience, that cut forward like the strongest blade. Ebony wasn't
just throwing around a catchy comeback here; she was saying
something for the benefit of them both. If you can't remember what
you've done, you can't be sure of what you are doing.

The words cut deeper into Ebony the
more she thought about them. If Ebony forgot or truly doubted her
memories, then how was she to know what she was doing? How was she
to have any direction at all in her present, if her past was a
hazy, insubstantial fog?

It took a moment longer for
Chalcedony to bounce back, but bounce she did.
“You've never been a real
witch,” she said with the kind of spite someone should only reserve
for the criminally wicked. “You've always been a failure. A danger
to yourself and others. No idea what you're doing, and no control
or dignity,” Chalcedony's blond hair fluttered over her shoulder in
a breeze that just wasn't there. “What you did at the crypt was
unforgivable. And now they've taken your magic away, permanently.
It serves you right.”

“
Permanently?!” Ebony echoed,
jaw dropping. Now there was a development. The more she pushed at
this situation, the more she tried to find out, the less she
submitted – the more it found ways to punish her. First it was with
Frank and the Grimshores. By the second time she'd mentioned them,
he was ready to practically burn her at the stake. The same was
happening here, wasn't it? The more she pushed, the more the
situation pushed back. All in one morning she'd lost her apparent
sanity, her friends, her job, her magic, and Nate ... though she
wasn't quite sure she'd ever had him.

Stunned, Ebony stood there. What would
happen if she kept pushing, she wondered with a chill. What was
left to take? Her family, Harry, her life?

She swallowed, her throat dry and
parched. This was it, she had to decide. Walk away, or keep pushing
at the impenetrable wall until she lost everything she ever had, or
the darn thing fell before her.

What was the point of backing down if
she'd have to watch all her friends walk around in this terrible
fugue? What was the point of giving up if her treasured magic had
already been snatched from her? Her job, Nate? Why stop
now?

What did she have to lose?

Ebony opened her mouth, but a hand
descended onto her shoulder with the gravity of, well,
gravity.

She looked up into Nate's steely
expression. Being this close to him brought a strange mix of
emotions to the fore. The swirl of this morning's kiss, the
confusion at having lost him before she'd even known him, and that
little doubt at the edge of her mind. That little doubt that had
always told her that Detective Nathan Wall was much more, much more
than he seemed.

“
Leave now,” he said, voice as
sharp and harsh as a gunshot.

She jerked her head backwards, not
expecting his mood, his words, or his tone.

“
Excuse me,” she began, trying
to latch hold of her strength before it all dwindled away, “but
there's a serious problem here, and—”

“
Yes there is,” he agreed
firmly, “and it's you. Now leave,” Nate's expression was as stony
as a quarry, and just as hard.

Ebony's eyebrows practically
crossed.
“No—”

Nate pushed her back
now.
“Would
you rather be escorted out?” there wasn't a gram of warmth left
anywhere on his expression, in his voice, or in those blazing eyes.
But there wasn't confusion either, there was –

She backed off, not sure of what to
do.

Chalcedony shook her head
slightly.
“Ebony, you never knew when to quit. Even when we were
kids, you'd always blaze ahead like an uncontrollable idiot. I was
done with you long before you stole my lucky charm.”

Ebony blinked back, still
trying to duck out of the looming shadow of Nate, but confused by
Chalcedony's claim.
“Sorry, what? Who stole who's lucky charm?”

“
My little plastic knight,”
Chalcedony uncrossed her arms with a smile, and stared blatantly at
Nate. “Didn't count for much though, did it Ebony? Your
uncontrollable, foolish ways have just led you happily into your
current plight. You have no one else to blame, Ebony, no one else
to blame,” she repeated the saying as if it were a
prayer.

“
You stole my lucky charm!”
Ebony blustered. Her lucky charm – her little plastic
knight.

It was a little plastic knight, in
white and gray armor, with a little plastic, silver sword. She'd
found it in the attic one-day when she was a child, and had carried
it around with her like a teddy bear. She'd talked to it, confided
in it, trusted it, and cherished it. And, being a witch, her
adoration had imbued it with the kind of magic that solidified it
as the luckiest of charms. Then, one day, it was gone.