Witch's Bell Book One (41 page)

As the memory welled within her,
Ebony, just for a second, realized how dumb it all sounded. Ending
a friendship over something as silly as a little plastic
toy?

But now the course of history had
changed, or memory at least, and Ebony was the one who had stolen,
or lost, that little lucky charm. Another turn in her rapidly
disintegrating wheel-of-fortune.

She opened her mouth to reply,
not really knowing what to say, but now Nate descended on her like
a strike from the heavens above. He latched a hand over her elbow
and twisted her to the side. For just the briefest of seconds, his
expression appeared to change
– to soften, to crinkle, to shiver. Then that rock
of an expression was back. “You were asked to leave; now I'm passed
asking.” He twisted her arm until she couldn't help but follow the
direction of the force, and he tugged her down the
corridor.

Though the various detectives
and uniformed-officers around her looked on with interest, there
was still the hint of that mild confusion over their faces. It sat
above them like low-level cloud blocking out the vast sky
above
–
befuddling and with the hint of rain.

No one moved or said anything, not
even Ben. Though his expression was far more pained than the rest.
His eyes flickered, like a fire fighting to stay alight. But that
was all.

Ebony was being manhandled down the
corridor, past her co-workers, and not one of them had a thing to
say about it.

“
Let me go!” she protested
vainly, putting up a fair fight, but stopping herself from actually
reversing the Detective's grip and trying to flip him onto the
floor. She still had the training of her father. And even though
she was now a jobless, hated, magic-less witch, she fancied she
could still throw a man twice her size.

By the time they'd reached the
stairwell, and they were mostly alone, save the occasional
suited-up detective
– Ebony was pretty ready to fight back. “Get your hands off
me,” she warned, “or so help me, I'm going to flip you. You're all
under some stupid spell from the Grimsh—”

“
Ebony,” he hissed in her ear,
not releasing his grip for a second, “you say their name again, and
I'll gag you.”

She started to push against him,
twisting her arm in his hand, until her wrist jammed against the
gap in his thumbs, and she could finally tug herself
free.

She stepped quickly away from him,
descending three or four of the stairs, pressing her back into the
railing as she went, not wanting to take her eyes off him for a
second.

He didn't dive after her and latch
onto her arm like a hook onto a fish, but he did walk after her. He
sucked in his lips, his chin jutting out way more than usual, and
his eyes blazing like a fire in a gas plant.

If Ebony had ever seen Nate angry, she
was wrong, dead wrong.

Detective Nathan Wall was livid, and
marching after Ebony with the determination of a whole
army.

Chapter 18

Ebony shifted back, her breath quick
and harsh in her chest. She didn't like that look in his eye, she
really didn't like that look.

Could it be possible that the
magic the Grimshores were using
– whatever it was – could it be possible
that it had turned Nate against her? Made him angry, violent
even?

She was only just beginning to
learn the extent of this magical meddling in her life. And now Nate
was
–

“
Just get out of here,” he
didn't grab her again, but was close enough that his breath beat
against her like a wave against a levy. “Get out. Leave. While you
still can.”

Ebony fought the urge to protest, to
plant her feet and ask just who he thought he was to throw around
threats like that. But who did Ebony think she was right now, for
starters, let alone Nate? The whole world was threatening to pull
the rug from under her high-heels, and she was getting hung up on a
little threat. Not that the threat was little, or the man who was
offering it. But still, maybe Ebony should just leave.

“
Ebony, go,” Nate's voice
twitched a little, if a voice could actually twitch, that was. It
peaked and dipped like an economic graph after a crash. And his
expression went with it.

For the first time, Ebony realized
that Nate was barely holding onto something. Containing something
behind that wall of anger like a genie in a lamp.

“
Nate?” she questioned, lips
dropping open.

“
Get out of here,” he rounded on
her again.

This time she got the
message.

She danced lithely to the side,
perhaps even faster than he'd expected she could move, and ran off
down the stairs. She didn't stop running, in fact, until she was
right out the front doors of the police station. Though she'd
slowed to a passable jog whenever she'd passed a uniformed
officer
–
knowing that perennial rule about cops chasing anything that ran –
she made it out the door quickly though.

She walked with a steady pace,
almost jogging to the other side of the road. She wanted to get as
far away from the police station as possible, and as quickly as she
could do it. Now she was out of the place, the sheer peculiarity,
and yet danger, of the situation started to dawn on her. Her whole
life, her whole life had just changed. She'd thought things had
moved quickly last night
– with the mugging, and the conversation with her
mother – but this was now just insane.

Reality was melting around her
like icing left out in the full sun. Her memories, everything she'd
once held sacred
– now, apparently, all gone.

And yet
... not gone. It wasn't the
fact that Vale itself had changed. Here it still was, stretching
out around her in its palette of browns, grays, and blacks. The
pavement was still solid beneath her feet, the buildings still
standing around her, and the sun was still shining in the
sky.

Everything was the same, and
yet different. But Ebony couldn't easily point to the
“out there” to
discern the problem, because the source was within her. It was the
fact that the reality she was now being forced to play a part in
was not the one she remembered from this morning.

The world hadn't changed, only her
world had.

Ebony kept up a very even and steady
pace, her heels hitting the pavement with regular clicks. She
didn't have a plan of where to go, but just knew she had to get
away from here. It was the look in Nate's eyes, the timbre of his
voice. Nothing fit. And yet she couldn't help but feel the real
anger behind his actions. Was he her friend, or very much her foe?
Was he under the same cloud of forgetting that everyone else seemed
to be under? Or was Nate Wall, as usual, just different?

Ebony found herself scratching at her
arms, neck, and face. Basically any sensation that arose, she
quickly grabbed at, as if checking that it wasn't a spider creeping
over her flesh. She licked her lips too, but her mouth was so dry
that the move only served to make her flesh sting and
smart.

Where to now, where to now?

She didn't stop moving, just marched
ahead. Though march was the wrong word. Lope was a closer fit. She
wasn't heading anywhere with great determination, she was just
heading away from something with enthusiastic
desperation.

Nate. Her mind kept on going back to
Nate. In fact, every single suspicion, feeling, or general thought
about the guy that she'd ever had, now welled up in her mind as if
she'd just drilled into an artery.

Who was he? What did he want from her?
Could she trust him? How did he fit into all of this?

Ah, lord. She was tired. She was
stressed, enfeebled, fatigued, and yet sparking with nervous
energy.

She needed to get out of
here
– here
being her current life – and have a bath and a whole chocolate
cake. But that didn't look like a realistic prospect right now. In
fact, her current prospects only seemed to include losing
everything she had left and ... and what exactly?

What was meant to happen to her
now?

She blinked back the emotion as she
just kept walking. Without really realizing it, she was heading for
Harry's. It was a beaten track for her, and possibly the only place
in this city that was safe for her at the moment. Though, if the
Grimshore's magic could make it through the police station, would
Harry really be much of a match for them?

But she had to go, she told herself,
because Harry's was potentially the only place that still had
evidence on the Grimshores. Whoever had stolen the files from the
police station had likely done a very thorough job. But breaking
into a magical bookstore to pilfer a couple of history books was a
whole other level of crime. Harry wouldn't like that, and Harry
could make the walls fall in on you. He could pull the floorboards
out from underneath your feet. He could make the light fittings
shatter all over you. He could wrap you up in the blind cords and
dong you over the head with a comprehensive encyclopedia the size
of a boulder.

They could mess with Ebony, but could
they really mess with Harry?

It really depended on what
their magic was and how they were using it. Casting spells over
people and changing their memories, was one thing
– a terrible thing,
for sure – but still only a certain kind of magic. You couldn't do
spells like that on a store like Harry. Harry didn't keep his
memories in his head, or have them attached to objects like so many
people did – with treasured rings, photos, or journals bringing up
memories like keys in locks. No, Harry's memories weren't so much
anywhere, as everywhere.

Harry's memories were in the light
bulbs through the store. They were the way the wind whistled past
the windows on a stormy day. They were the way the keys grated in
the lock. They were the way silence wended itself around the
bookcases and boxes like a snake around its eggs.

Harry was intangible, and his memories
were intangible. Still, if you found some way of burning down the
store, Harry, and his memories, would be gone too. But short of
actually taking an ax to his foundations, you couldn't cast a
forgetting-spell on a store. You couldn't make Harry forget himself
for even a second.

You could try by stealing every single
book he had on a certain topic, but Harry would simply replace
them. Harry, when he'd died, had become his store, and his
collection. In summoner terms, the two were now equated. And, just
like a plant, you couldn't break off a leaf or steal a book without
returning later to find another one growing in its
place.

Harry's, she repeated to herself with
determination, was the only place for her now. Perhaps it had been
the only place for her ever. Perhaps her foray into consultancy
work for the police department had always been a mistake. It didn't
matter though; the only thing that mattered was going through that
red door and walking in to that old store. Surrounded by something
so familiar, she assured herself, she wouldn't be able to forget
anything more. No doubt could assail her, no memory leave her when
she was in the presence of Harry.

And, if it really came to the
fact that Ebony's life was being rewritten before her eyes, she'd
rather it happen surrounded by the comfort of stories, than the
confusion of the city. Though it sounded odd, being surrounded by
other people's stories at a time when your own was flapping in the
wind, felt like it would be reassuring. Because those stories, for
the most of it, ended well. No matter what the danger, the stakes,
or the pace
– they all resolved themselves. You pick up a dire-looking
novel about a heroine facing terrible odds and, odds are, she'd
overcome them in the end. That was the rule of stories, wasn't
it?

Ebony sighed, rubbing at her
eyes, but still pushing on. Oh how much she just wanted to stop,
sit down and not move again. Oh how much she just wanted to pack it
in and give up. But even though there didn't seem to be an easy
option available to her
– a well-placed helicopter with the word “escape”
emblazoned across it – Ebony knew she wouldn't be able to accept it
anyway. Yes, she felt almost dragged under by the desire to give
up, but some part of her knew that giving up was the last thing
she'd ever do, quite possibly literally.

If you are dumped in the ocean, you
have to keep moving to stay afloat. So that's what she was doing.
Moving. Without great purpose or direction. Just with a nervous,
itching energy.

As Ebony drew closer and closer
to Harry's
–
ever careful to keep an eye out for potential attackers, or
fireballs from the sky – she realized how smart, and how very dumb
this was. If someone really was after Ebony, if they really did
want to get her on her own, now was the perfect time. And if they
really were strong enough to make it through the police's magical
defenses, then Harry's wouldn't pose too much of a
problem.

But then again, it was where
she'd decided to go. Magic, or not, the right thing to do, or
not
–
Harry's would be where Ebony Bell would make her stand.