Witch's Bell Book One (5 page)

“
Yep, powerful spell too,” Ebony
nodded his way.

Finally, Ebony realized with relish,
that slightly lost look was returning to Detective Nate's eyes.
Finally, he didn't look like he was riding the wave any
more.

“
What?” Nate asked
dumbly.

“
There's a spell on the wall,”
Ben walked up to him, and pointed at the etchings in the plum
paint. “I thought it was a calling card, or something.”

“
No, it's a love spell,” Ebony
tilted her head to the side. “A fairly fiery one, I might
add.”

“
Okay, I don't know anything
about magic,” Nate conceded through gritted teeth. “But there is
still a dead body in that room,” he pointed out with desperation.
“Whether there are magic symbols on the wall or not, surely the
fact there's a corpse on the bed is important?”

“
I told you,” she found her
confidence returning as Nate's grip on the situation obviously
waned, “it's a love potion.”

“
Right, okay .... Dead body,
huh? That's quite a love potion. Real attractive.”

Ebony rolled her eyes, letting her
mascara-clad lashes flutter. Now that she knew what she was dealing
with, the horror had left her. This wasn't a murder at all. Even
though there was certainly a heavy evil in the air, it was
something Ebony could deal with, now that she knew what she was up
against.

And what exactly was she up against? A
naughty witch, to be precise.

“
Is this sanctioned magic?” Ben
trotted up beside her.

“
Oh no,” she laughed abruptly,
“definitely not. Someone will be getting in trouble with the Coven,
I think.”

“
How do we find her?” Ben picked
up the latex gloves Ebony had abandoned on the TV stand, and
stuffed them into his pocket. “What exactly are we looking for, and
Eb,” Ben gave a small smile, “what is with the dead
body?”

“
Finally,” Detective Nate
mouthed.

“
It's a husk. The witch, whoever
she was, committed a binding spell. I can't tell you why, they're
fairly nasty, desperate incantations. The woman had obviously lost
her mind.” Ebony trotted over to the window and looked up at the
clouds above. Was it her imagination, or were they
thinning?

“
So is it a dead body, or isn't
it?” Ben shot Nate a grin of camaraderie, which Ebony noted with a
peeved twitch of her nose.

“
For the last time, it's not a
dead body. Well, not really. The witch has swapped her body for
that of something else. The actual witch, her soul, is still alive.
Whatever is sitting in her bedroom is just an empty
casing.”

“
Swapped her body,” Nate
repeated, voice vacant, “right. That's ... kind of heavy. What did
she swap it for?” he swallowed.

“
Oh, I don't know. Probably long
legs, round lips, and a killer smile. That ... or wings and a
forked tail.”

“
Sorry?” Nate's voice peaked
with alarm.

“
The witch has either decided to
change herself into whatever she thinks is the most beautiful thing
imaginable, or she's gone and swapped her body for a powerful
demon.”

“
Most guys – and I think I'm
right in making this generalization – usually go for the long legs
over a forked tail.”

Ebony played with the ends of
her long hair.
“Oh, it doesn't really matter. Either the witch has turned
herself into an alluring bombshell, hoping to catch her man, or
she's turned herself into a powerful demon, ready to exact its
revenge for a love left unrequited.”

“
That's quite a distinction,”
the edge of uncertainty and unease was starting to lift from Nate's
voice, “don't you think we need to know which one that is? I don't
mean to rush you or anything, but isn't a demon-witch hunting down
some poor man kind of a problem that we, as police officers, should
deal with?”

Ebony gave a sharp
laugh.
“Don't get excited, rookie, it's not our problem
anymore.”

“
Not our prob—” Nate
began.

“
That's Coven work,” Ben
interjected, the smile returning to his lips. “You sure about this,
Eb?”

“
Oh yes, I think we can all go
home. Well, after someone buys me a doughnut.”

All the other officers in the room
started to pack up, the level of conversation moving from its once
respectful hush to the ordinary bluster of a room full of hardened
police officers.

Ebony was almost sure she could even
feel the dark edge of energy lift like a veil in the
wind.

Despite the fact everyone else
seemed satisfied, Nate stood there, not moving an inch.
“So we don't do
anything. There's a dead body in the other room, and we do
jack.”

“
You see, there are two sides to
magical crime,” Ben clapped a hand on Nate's shoulders, giving them
a shake as if to loosen them up. “There's our side, and there's the
witches’ side. We get involved when ordinary humans commit crimes,
and Eb here is our consultant when it comes to all the magical
stuff. She even helps us track down the bad guys. But when a crime
is just between witches or whatever, then that isn't our problem.
The Coven or the Wizards deal with that.”

“
We're the police,” Nate said
stalwartly, “isn't all crime our problem?”

“
Not in Vale,” Ben said with a
broad smile. “Which is a damn good thing. Less work, see? Plus, let
me tell you, you don't want to get involved in witch crime – can be
nasty. We hand it over to the Coven, and they deal with it a treat.
It's all part of the Pact.”

“
I see,” Nate said blandly,
shaking his head, “actually, I don't see. How do we trust this
Coven enough to deal with these crimes impartially? Aren't they
likely to be lenient against their own kind?”

Ebony snorted.
“The Coven is a
counsel of the oldest, most powerful witches. It is their sworn
purpose to uphold magical law. If magical law forbids the use of
certain spells, then if a witch breaks it, it's up to the Coven to
punish her. And if you think they're lenient, you have another
thing coming. You break their rules and they'll send the first
squadron of Hell after you.” She finally flashed Detective Nate a
smile. “And that's why this is no longer our problem. The Coven can
deal with this one, I can go back to the store and clean up, Ben
can try and teach your handful of brain cells all the things you'll
need to know about policing in this town, and you, Detective Nathan
Wall, can study those books I gave you.”

He really did need to study those
books, Ebony thought to herself quietly. The Detective didn't stand
a chance in this city if he didn't know about its magical flavor.
Vale was an odd place at the best of times, and at the worst it was
frankly terrifying. And, much to Ebony's discomfort, these days
things seemed to only be getting worse. While it was true that
every generation always thinks that the battles they fight are far
worse than those that have come before, you could be forgiven for
putting more faith in that fact in Vale. Ever since Ebony had moved
to this city as a child, Vale had only become wilder, more
dangerous, and more ferociously magical.

Nate eventually just shook his
head lightly.
“This has been an ... unusual morning. I bet it's going to
be a hell of an afternoon, to boot.”

Ebony hissed through clenched
teeth.
“Don't ever make statements like that, rookie. You never
know what you'll invite if you go around provoking the
universe.”

“
Provoking the universe? Or
provoking you?” the Detective almost smiled.

Ebony laughed, tipping her head
back and letting her tassels play against her shoulders.
“Oh too late,
you've already provoked me, rookie.”

“
Alright Eb, when you're done
eating the rookie alive, I'll drop you back home,” Ben sidled up to
her. “As much fun as it's been, I've got a ton of ordinary,
everyday, boring crimes to get to.”

“
And I have to clean up after
this morning. And you,” she poked a red fingernail at Detective
Nate, “better read those books and return them to me
sharpish.”

The look on Detective Nate's face
summed up the morning perfectly: his eyebrows peaked with defiance,
his jaw jutted with attitude, and his eyes glinted with an
insufferable knowing.

By the time Ebony had made it back to
the store, it was well into the afternoon. It would take her the
rest of the day to clean up the mess, and probably most of tomorrow
too. She had bookshelves to coax back into place, magazines to
sort, and boxes to fill again.

But despite the epic workload, Ebony
found herself smiling. It was one of those smiles that curled your
lips up until your cheeks pressed into your eyes.

Strange day, she admitted to herself,
very strange.

A tsunami of books in the
morning, a witch that risked it all on a forbidden love spell in
the afternoon, and of course
... the strange, delightfully irritating,
Detective Nathan Wall.

Despite being a consultant witch for
the police force, and owning a magical second-hand bookstore,
Ebony's life was usually fairly boring. She'd pack books on
shelves, occasionally deal with customers, and trot down to the
police station to remove a curse from a ring.

Normal stuff, boring stuff. But now
the winds of change were blowing, and Ebony could feel them playing
against her hair.

Now the only question was, just what
would happen next?

Chapter 3

Ebony shifted her body from side to
side, head weaving to and fro as the music pumped through her
store. Her hair flicked around her like a skirt flaring in mid
twirl. She clicked her fingers in time with the beat, and shook her
wrists up and down till her copious golden bangles tinkled like
little triangles.

Ebony didn't believe in working
without music. Working without music was like working without food:
unsustainable, boring, and dull. So whenever she worked, she always
made sure she had two things with her: blaring music and a bag full
of candies sprawled across the counter.

Cleaning up the store had been quite a
task. Harry really had put on a show the other day when he'd tried
to teach that new detective a lesson. Really, Ebony sighed, though
it had been amusing when it had happened, she was now thoroughly
sick of picking up books and stuffing them into shelves.

Time for a candy then. Ebony just
dumped the three or so books she had in her arms down on the
ground, little dust clouds eddying up off the floor as they struck.
Sweeping the floor was a task she had simply never gotten around to
doing. It was because of brooms, she'd convinced herself, she just
hated brooms. Human fiction had gotten that part dead wrong over
the years. Witches didn't fly around on broomsticks all the time,
black cloaks billowing in the wind, wands at the ready. Why?
Because witches hated house work, the color black was boring, and
wands were for magicians.

Plus, Ebony reasoned as she flung
herself down the old metal spiral-staircase that separated the
first-floor from the second, people expected dust when they came
into a used bookstore. If the books they were looking for weren't
absolutely caked in the stuff, how would they know they are old and
used?

The stairs clunked with rusty creaks
as Ebony's red, bedazzled high-heels pounded them. This bookstore
really was old. It was a large open-plan building, with a high
ceiling, and was just stuffed to the brim with books and
dilapidated magazines not a soul had ever likely read. The counter
was off to one side, right at the front of the store, near the
fire-truck red door. There was an old cash register sitting on top
of it, and a glass bowl full of candy and ludicrously colored
lollipops. She always offered one to customers after they'd
actually bought something, just to sweeten the deal.

The rest of the first floor was
sliced off erratically with giant, dark, stained, wooden
bookshelves. Rather than having them neatly arranged in rows, with
labels and some kind of order, Ebony preferred the hodgepodge
method of library cataloging. There were old, red, velvet
banana-lounges dotted around the place, their fabric torn and worn
with age. And behind the lounges, or to the side, or in front of
windows, or wherever she damn pleased
– were the large bookcases, their
shelves simply overflowing with books of all sizes, colors, and
content.

It was a rabbit warren, as her father
described it, a crazy rabbit warren dug out by rabbits on barely
legal drugs. Ebony had always giggled at that description. Her
mother seemed to have a different opinion though. A messy mind,
Avery Bell had always warned, summoned a messy life.

But Ebony loved the place, she'd
finally convinced herself. Sure, having no actual order meant that
most people became too frustrated in their search to buy anything.
But that didn't matter, because for the few people that stuck it
out, it was always worth seeing that look of wonder in their eyes.
That marvelous glint of achievement as they realized that they had
found just what they were looking for, despite the sheer chaos of
the place.