Witch's Bell Book One (42 page)

She could call her mother, or
try and get in contact with the Coven, but something told her that
was a far worse a plan than it sounded. Her mother, after all,
would likely know what was happening to Ebony
– if she could help, or even
wanted to help – then she'd already be here. Avery Bell was a
witch, a powerful witch – she would either sense this powerful,
terrible change of events – or she would be caught up in it. And if
Avery had been truthful when she'd told Ebony that it was others in
the Coven that had voted to punish her, then perhaps her mother
really couldn't help ....

The same with her father. He
would either be caught up in it, or
.... Well, he would be if Ebony got him
involved.

No, considering how much Ebony
had been punished for her past and continuing advances against the
Grimshores
–
she was going to do this alone. Well with no-one but Harry, at
least. She had no qualms about bringing him in on this. The
cantankerous old fool would likely pull up his foundations like a
skirt and trundle after Ebony if she tried to leave this city, or
fight against unknown powers on her own.

Harry loved a fight, almost as much as
he loved a book. He'd been a powerful wizard, after all, and had
been pitted against things too horrible and too powerful to
name.

As Ebony neared her shop, her feet
started to move faster and faster, until she broke into a run. Her
hair slapped against her back, her hands gripped into fists at her
side, and her skirt flared around her like a cape.

If there was someone in her
way
– if
there was a witch, a wizard, a demon, or even a Grimshore – in
Ebony's current state she'd likely run right past them, or through
them.

The more she ran, the more the
determination pooled up around her. She was doing something, even
though it was something as simple as running. And she was heading
somewhere, even if it was somewhere as obvious as Harry's. But she
had made a decision, and now turned her energy to fulfilling that
choice. Ebony Bell was doing something, and
purposefully.

She turned the corner to her street,
her heart pounding heavily, but soundly.

But just as she crossed the pavement,
heading for Harry's with the most direct route possible, she spied
the police cars. And the wizards.

Yes, wizards.

There were wizards standing
around outside of Ebony's store, all dressed up in their leather
and with their numerous tattoos glinting in the sun. That was the
thing about wizards: they very much weren't a bunch of old men with
prodigious beards and blue robes. No, the closest analogy to any
human group would be bikies. Wizards were mostly large, hairy men
with tattoos, and an attitude to match. It was to do with the type
of magic they practiced
– it wasn't the light handed feints of the
magicians – real wizard magic required a lot of strength, both of
mind and body. And the tattoos were as much to impress girls as
they were to adorn themselves with empowering symbols of magic. And
the hair, well ... there was something about men, power, and beards
that Ebony had never really figured out.

Ebony drew up so sharply that she
practically fell out of her shoes. But she was careful enough to
immediately duck into the shop next to her. In fact, the move was
so quick, so sharp, and so smooth, that it thankfully didn't draw
the attention of the hoard down the street. They were all looking
the other way, or simply congregating in front of the shop,
obviously trying to get in.

And Harry was, obviously, not
being helpful. The door was closed, and every single blind was
drawn. In fact, there were now blinds on the front windows
– even though there
hadn't been any when Ebony had left in the morning. Harry was
obviously hunkering down.

Were they after her, or were they
after Harry?

The mugging last night. The man had
been after her bag, hadn't he? Had he been after the keys to the
store? Or had he really only been after Ebony?

Ebony, her throat so dry and narrow
that it felt like she was breathing through a sand-encrusted straw,
walked further into the Turkish takeout she'd automatically ducked
into, staring out the windows, but at the same time trying her
hardest not to be seen through the glass.

“
Ebony!” the owner suddenly
announced happily from behind her, hands outstretched.

She turned and blinked quickly at him.
She was blinking way too much today. It appeared to be her
go-to-reaction for finding out her life was currently being
destroyed and rewritten by someone who really didn't have her best
interests at heart.

“
Ebony! I haven't seen you in
days! And may I say,” he nodded appreciatively, “you are looking so
nice!”

She kept blinking. Grghh! She really
had to stop doing that. But she couldn't help it; someone was being
nice to her. It was like she'd just walked out of a dark room and
into the full-sun of the morning.

“
Ah, I am, Mohammad?” she
answered carefully, as if giving him plenty of time to change his
mind and throw his shoe at her.

He didn't, but he did pick up
on her alarmed/fatigued/bamboozled state, and nodded with obvious
tenderness.
“Bad day?”

She nodded.

“
Hey, why are the police outside
of your store, anyway? Are they waiting for you? You work for
them,” he shrugged, “and they look impatient – maybe they are here
to pick you up for some case or something.”

She shrugged.
“Yes,” she answered
dryly, “here to pick me up.”

“
And what's with the bikers, eh?
Why are the bikers and police together? Is this Co-operation
Saturday, or something?” Mohammad laughed heartily at his own
joke.

Ebony just clenched her teeth together
and tried to think.

Why was Mohammad being so nice? Well,
he was always nice to Ebony, that was no real shock. But today,
when the rest of the world wanted to hunt her down? Why was he
immune?

Maybe she just hadn't mentioned the
Grimshores in his presence, or maybe it was something more than
that. Casting a spell over everyone Ebony had ever met, making them
all believe she was a terrible naughty little witch, would take an
astounding amount of magic. Not only would you have to virtually
blanket the city in a forgetting-spell, it would have to be
directed specifically at their memories of Ebony.

Now, whatever was going on was
big, and big with a capital THIS IS BIG. But just how big was it?
If Ebony was the center of this mess, then wouldn't it make sense
to only cast magic on those that were directly around her
– people that could
actually affect her, and whose affected memory would have a big
effect on Ebony herself?

The Grimshores were evil, for sure,
and they seemed incredibly powerful. But why waste magic? Why seek
out and cast a spell on the whole city, when just the police
department and Ebony's family would do?

Magic, like money, was about
maximizing returns. You only ever spent as much magic as you would
be sure of reward.

Ebony took a sharp little
breath. She was going to try something here. Ebony was going to be
honest.
“Look Mohammad, I have to be honest with you. I'm having a
really, really bad day.”

“
Free Turkish delight,” he said
automatically, grabbing at the glass jar on his counter and
selecting the largest piece before tossing it to Ebony.

She smiled. And it was
genuine.
“I'm afraid I might need something more than that
....”

He nodded sagely.
“A pastry? Coffee?
Both?”

“
I was thinking something more
along the lines of access to your fire escape,” Ebony bit into the
sweet, allowing the sugar to seep through and temporarily raise her
mood.

Mohammad didn't look at her
askance and run outside to call the police, though he'd obviously
made the connection.
“I see. So, the police aren't here to pick you up
– they're here to pick you up.”

Ebony patted the icing sugar
off her fingers and just nodded. It was all she could do. She could
try to mumble a defense
– try and tell him that the world was against her,
very literally, and not to believe the stories about her because
they were magically made-up.

Mohammad appeared to think for
a moment, and then nodded heavily.
“The fire escape is just around the back,
and the key is on this key chain behind me.”

She sucked down a deep
breath.

“
You know,” he said as he
motioned her around the counter and handed her the key, “you are a
good person, Ebony. When good people have bad days, it's criminal,”
he handed her another helping of Turkish delight. “And you know the
police, they chase criminals.”

She laughed again, blowing the icing
off the top of the sweet she'd just been handed with the puffs of
her giggles.

“
This, I think, is what has
happened in your case,” he nodded sagely at her.

“
You mean that if I start having
a good day, they'll stop chasing me?”

He shrugged.
“You know the
police, they are like cats; they chase anything that runs. All you
need is for them to chase something else.”

She smiled through a
sniff.
“Yes,
I really do.”

“
But anyhow, no more chatting.
Time for you to start evading the law. And me, I'll go out and give
you a distraction.”

“
No, I couldn't ask you to do
that. I really don't want you to get involved. Please, don't do
anything dumb for my sake,” Ebony fixed him with the most genuine,
steady gaze she could muster. It was true; she really, really
didn't want to drag anyone else into this mess.

Mohammad shrugged again.
“I'm not going to
go at them wielding a knife – not that kind of distraction. I'm
just going to ask those friendly officers why they haven't been
able to find those kids that keep painting graffiti on my store,”
he sniffed. “They can't even spell – it's annoying.”

Ebony bit into her lips, but
smiled nonetheless.
“I really don't want you to get in trouble.”

“
I won't. Now go –
go!”

“
Thank you, Mohammad,” Ebony
nodded at him then turned and ran out the back of the
store.

All the shops along this side
of the street had fire-escapes that went up to their roofs. They
were all old buildings, and the fire-escapes were hardly safety
regulation
–
hence the ability to lock them. No, the shop owners either used
them as a means to clean their back windows, or in order to access
the roof. All these shops were built in a certain era, and all had
these sloping, interconnected roofs. Sometimes, though rarely,
Ebony would drag a chair up onto the nook between the roofing iron
of Harry's, and catch the sun. She had a door, see, an internal
door that led up to the roof. It was such an odd feature of the
building. But from the mezzanine level, you could take a second
winding staircase up to this little nook that was barely two meters
squared, and that afforded a brilliant view of more
roofs.

It was just the kind of feature
the old Harry would have specifically built into his shop
– simply because it
made no sense. It was kooky, eccentric, and highly unlikely ever to
be used, unless you needed archers – or, well, another route in.
And Ebony needed the latter, though she fancied the former would be
useful at laying down cover fire too.

Her plan was to get to the top
of Mohammad's roof, somehow lay low, and make it across the
practically joined roofs until she reached her own. Then she'd
plead with Harry to open the door, run down stairs, and
... blow
raspberries at the officers outside. Or, at least, come up with a
better plan once she was actually there.

Ebony quickly, but quietly, took to
the fire-escape. There were wizards outside her store, after all,
and wizards were clever blighters. They had to deal with their fair
share of magical insanity, so knew that you always kept an eye out
for the strange. And Ebony Bell crouching along the rooftop would
be just the strange they were after.

So she took each step carefully,
ensuring that her heels practically kissed the metal grate with
their gentleness. The last thing she wanted to do was make a grand
old clanging and banging, and draw every cop, wizard, and
neighborhood dog her way. She gripped the metal railing, then
re-gripped it as she moved along slowly. By the time she finally
reached the little ledge that led up to the roof, she was so tense
from the carefulness of it all, that she was ready to just run
berserker-style across the roofs, screaming like a wild banshee at
the football.

But she contained herself, and
quietly hefted herself onto the roof. Though the metal did groan
and grate a little at her sudden weight
– it wasn't the equivalent of a
cymbal crash in the orchestra. It would be nothing above the
general hum of city life.

For the next part Ebony finally
twigged, and took off her damn heels. It was a pity to let them go,
considering how darn pretty they were, but she quickly realized
that trotting over sloping metal in heels afforded about as much
traction as detergent against ice.