Witch's Bell Book One (49 page)

Ebony watched their little
interaction, still not following.
“Hold on, I've never even heard of
knights. If they're one of the magical races, then why don't I know
about them?”

“
Non-magical races,” Nate
corrected as he adjusted his tie.

“
Oh no, they have a special
magic all of their own,” Harry countered quickly, “it's will magic.
Very powerful stuff, that.”

“
Whatever,” Nate just shook his
head. “And it doesn't surprise me that you haven't heard of the
Knights, we hardly advertise ourselves anymore.”

“
Oh no, you love your little
secret societies, and hush-hush round-tables. Cloak and dagger
stuff, knights.”

“
Amour and sword stuff,
actually,” Nate interjected.

“
Hold on, knights are real? I
mean, more than just historical? Like, real real? Like there are
knights running around with their swords and gauntlets fighting
dragons and saving damsels, today?”

Nate shook his head
slowly.
“No.
Well, yes, but no too. Knights are real, and we do fight the
occasional dragon, and save the occasional damsel,” he said with
the barest smile directed right at Ebony, “but that's not the bulk
of our work, and never has been. We are sworn to protect humanity
from whatever threats gather in the darkness. We're sworn to uphold
the Good, the Right, and the Truth. We're sworn to—”

“
We get it, Mr Detective,” Harry
interrupted, “but I still don't believe you're really a
Knight.”

“
I have a suit of armor that
moves at Will, isn't that evidence enough?” Nate gestured at the
crumpled armor on the floor.

“
I'll admit that is weird,”
Harry grumbled. “But a true Knight is bound by more than words.
Show us your registration, chump.”

Nate rolled his eyes.
“Fine.”

Then he began to do something entirely
unexpected. The upstanding Mr Detective began to unbutton his
shirt.

Ebony sucked in a
breath.
“Ah,
what are—”

But before she could squeeze out the
words or a whistle, Nate had whipped off his shirt to reveal, much
to Ebony's disappointment, a singlet.

“
Right ....” Ebony said
carefully. “Do knights, as a rule, always wear singlets? Is that
why you took off your shirt?”

Nate pointed at the small tattoo on
the tip of his left shoulder. It was about the size of a coin. It
was a small circle with another circle inside. That was
it.

Ebony, already bored by the tattoo,
let her eyes drift to the rest of the Detective. To say he had
impressive arms, was the understatement of the century.

“
Ah, I see,” Harry said
carefully, “you are a knight. My mistake.”

Nate buttoned up his shirt,
catching Ebony's gaze and cocking an eyebrow.
“You done?”

Ebony sniffed carefully.
“Okay ... so just
because he has a really small tattoo, we believe his
story?”

“
That's not a tattoo,” Harry
said, “that's a Point of Registration. The man's a knight,
definitely.”

Ebony blinked hard and then
just threw her hands in the air.
“What is going on here?”

“
I'm a knight. We just covered
this.”

“
So, why are you here, Mr
Knight?” Harry's voice had lost the edge of antagonism. Perhaps the
prospect that Nate had fought dragons had impressed Harry. “You
knights don't act without orders from your Round Table. So what is
it, fess up, what's going on?”

“
You're very direct, bookstore.
You want to know why I'm here,” he turned to take a long look at
Ebony, “I'm here because of your Portal,” he said
simply.

“
Why, there something wrong with
it?” Harry grumbled.

“
You could say that. For a
couple of years now, Portals around the world have been decreasing
their output of energy. We don't know why,” Nate pressed the bridge
of his nose. “But the fields that support the Portals have been
fluctuating.”

“
Fluctuating?” Ebony asked.
“And? How is that important?”

“
Sorry, you an expert on
thermic-field dynamics? No, well I am. The flow of energy into and
out of the Portal has to be balanced, otherwise ....”

“
Reality goes pop,” Harry
rattled around on the ground. “But you're wrong, Mr Knight. If
anything, Vale's Portal has been increasing its output. Ever since
I've been here its magical fields have only been growing stronger.
Why, I remember when it was hard to raise a good fire-spell, now
every nancy wizard can do it.”

“
And that's why I'm here,” Nate
crossed his arms and sighed. “For some reason, the Vale Portal is
bucking the trend. For some reason, every other Portal on the
planet is taking in less energy than they're sending through,
except for Vale.”

Harry's buckle clicked for
several seconds.
“Oh my. Sounds like something is trying to come through
from the Other Side.”

“
We hope not,” Nate sighed
heavily, “we really hope not.”

“
So, hold on,” Ebony
interjected, still not really following, but not wanting to be left
behind either. “You knew about the Portal all along? Then why did
you ask me all those questions in my shop? Why did you borrow all
those books?”

“
To see what you knew,” he
answered simply. “We suspect that someone is working with ...
whatever is trying to come through the Portal. Maybe they're trying
to help it come through or maybe they're being used themselves. We
don't know. But I wanted to know how much you knew about the
Portal, to rule you off my list. I figured, as the witch consultant
to the police force, that you should be investigated first. With
the kind of connections you have with the Coven and the Force, you
would be in an excellent position to manipulate the Portal without
anyone knowing.”

Ebony crossed her arms
tightly.
“And what exactly did you learn, Nate?”

“
Ha!” he chuckled quickly. “Oh,
don't worry. You're about as capable of pulling that off as Harry
is of winning a Manners Contest. I ruled you out ages
ago.”

She huffed. Not really knowing whether
she should feel annoyed or relieved.

Nate offered her a
half-grin.
“Something wrong? You'd rather you were still under
investigation? You want to be pulled up before the Round Table
while you're fighting for your life against a rewriting spell? You
really that masochistic?”

Ebony pressed her teeth
together and just stared at him.
“How do you know about the spell?” she
asked. “In fact, it was you that drew my attention to the fact I
couldn't act-out against the Grimshores. If you hadn't shown me, I
probably would never have found out, and I'd probably still have
friends, a job, and a hope!”

“
Ah, well. I haven't been
completely honest with you there,” he was unusually sheepish,
considering his forthright nature.

She simply kept her arms
crossed.

He patted a hand along his neck. He
was having great difficulty saying whatever was on his
mind.

“
Oh no,” Harry suddenly growled,
“you didn't, did you? You didn't use Ebony as bait?”

Nate clenched his jaw and
sucked his lips in.
“Yeah, I did.”

“
What?” Ebony
snapped.

Nate put up a hand.
“Okay, I used you
as bait. I knew that spell was on you ... because I was the one
that found the book in the crypt.”

“
But you ... you said no one had
found it!” Ebony's voice was tight and high.

“
I lied. I found it, and took it
home,” he shrugged. “And you're lucky I did. Otherwise whoever is
working for the Grimshores – whoever is manipulating the Portal –
they would have grabbed that book instead. And if they'd gotten it,
Ebony,” he looked directly at her, “you wouldn't be here
anymore.”

“
Hardly an excuse,” Harry
roared, “taking the book for protection was one thing, but you
haven't broken the spell! You've just left it there, letting it run
its course, letting it sap at Ebony's life while you just stand
around and straighten your tie.”

Ebony's skin began to prickle
and she took an enormous sniff.
“Why?” was all she could manage to
ask.

Nate, for perhaps the first
time in his life, looked truly ashamed.
“I had to,” he tried to explain.
“Ebony, you don't understand how important this is. What's
happening with the Portal—”

She put up a hand.
“You think the
Grimshores are somehow manipulating the Portal—”

“
No, I think whoever is helping
the Grimshores is manipulating the Portal. You don't get to be
where the Grimshores are without having connections, magical
connections. And I'd say that whoever is helping them, is probably
the person I'm looking for—”

“
Probably? You're not even sure,
are you? This is all speculation,” Ebony's voice was getting
louder. “You think that someone magical is helping the Grimshores.
You think that someone is manipulating the Portal. You think that
the two are connected. And based on all those thoughts, you put me
in danger,” she nodded her head slowly, even though she wasn't
agreeing with anything.

“
You rotter,” Harry
concluded.

Nate pinched his nose
again.
“Look. You don't understand. I wasn't going to let anything
happen to you. I saved you from the mugging, remember? I had my eye
on you, Ebony; I wasn't going to let any real harm happen to you. I
just had to find out—”

She stared at him.
“No harm? Everyone
has turned against me. I've lost my job. I've had my magic taken
away—”

Nate clicked his
fingers.
“Exactly. You were punished for the slightest of crimes
before the Grimshore spell could really take effect. That's why I
acted in the way I did, Ebony, I swear. It doesn't make sense that
you were punished the way you were unless the Coven, or one of the
Coven Witches, had something to gain.”

“
But why?” Ebony's voice peaked
with desperation. “None of this fits together!” she put her hands
on her neck, trying to alleviate the growing tension. “In the
crypt, in the cemetery – there was something gathering,” she
suddenly remembered the eyeless birds, and gave a shiver. “It was
all too easy. Something had come before me and sapped the magic out
of the protection spells .... And that man in the crypt, he didn't
have a clue what he was wearing, what he was saying – he was
setting himself up to be attacked, to be absorbed, to be consumed
by a greater magical force ....” Ebony tipped her head back and
took a deep breath. “If you're right, if a witch was working for
the Grimshores, then why on Earth was it so easy for me to stop the
spell? Why was the magic so weak to begin with? Any witch worth her
money would have known that other creatures would be flocking to
that cemetery—”

“
That's the point,” Nate kept
trying to straighten his tie.

“
Oh, I hope not,” Harry muttered
from the floor, “because that is a terrible point.”

“
What?” Ebony sighed
desperately. “You all seem to know what's going on, and I don't
have a clue.”

“
Whoever is working with the
Grimshores, isn't necessarily working for them,” Nate nodded. “The
Grimshores were being set up, just as you were.”

“
Set up?”

Nate closed his eyes for a
brief second.
“Whatever is coming through the Portal, Ebony, it's big.
And it needs power, a lot of power. Now, whoever is working with it
– whatever witch or wizard is trying to pull it through the Portal
– they'd know this. Their task would be to find it power. To find
it magic, to find it opportunities.”

Things began to click into
place for Ebony, and she found herself staring into the Detective's
never-deviating gaze.
“You mean they're feeding “it’? They're finding
purposeless-magic, and throwing it to whatever beast waits at the
other side of the Portal, like a keeper throwing meat to the
lion?”

Nate nodded.
“The more they can
disrupt things, the more they can encourage magic with no purpose,
the more they feed it. The Grimshores were probably meant as an
offering, of sorts. Whoever has been planning this, has likely
fattened the Grimshores up for years, just waiting to pull the rug
from under their feet and let the lion descend.”

“
Years? The Grimshores have had
their power for almost a century—”

“
Some magical-creatures can live
for an aeon, you know that. And it takes time, lots of time, and
lots of power to try and bring through a creature from the Other
Side.”

“
You're suggesting someone has
been planning this all for what, a hundred years? Isn't that a
little farfetched?”

Nate crossed his arms and
stared at her.
“You are being rewritten by a spell you accidentally
consummated when you carelessly let yourself get stabbed in a
crypt, while you were trying to prevent a man from summoning Death.
I think you have reason to suspend your disbelief for a time, don't
you?” he shook his head. “It's all speculation, Ebony, but that's
all I have to go on now.”