Witch's Bell Book One (13 page)

“
Manners?” he said as he took
off his suit jacket, handing it to her, “I don't know what those
are. But here's my jacket, if you're cold.”

Ebony looked at the jacket,
then up to him. She was trying to detect the joke, because she was
sure that this had to be one.
“What are you playing at—” she began.

“
You're going to run around a
cemetery in no shoes and a white cotton dress that's only going to
get more see-through,” his voice wasn't filled with its usual
irritating arrogance. “I thought you could use a little ...
discretion.”

Ebony looked down, expression
alarmed. Darn. Sure enough, her dress was starting to go just a bit
see-through
– not that you could see all that much yet. But another ten
minutes in the rain, and the world would know precisely the style
and color of underwear bookstore-owning witches prefer. She grabbed
at the jacket, throwing it on in a quick move.

Nate just looked away, pretending to
be more interested in the noises coming from the cemetery
beyond.

Once Ebony had finally managed
to do up all the buttons on the jacket, she gave a little
cough.
“Well,” she was, for once in her life, more than thankful
the dark storm-clouds were out in force because at least Nate
wouldn't be able to see the exact shade of pink she'd turned. “Th
... thank you,” she finally pushed the words out.

Nate cracked a grin so large it
looked as though his face was going to be split in two.
“What did you just
say?” his head bobbed to the side, and he leaned in even closer.
“Because it couldn't have been what I just heard.”

She clutched at the jacket,
trying to ignore the subtle but just perceptible hint of cologne
that emanated off the collar.
“I said thank you,” she raised her head in
defiance. “Like you will later, when I save your butt from
ghosts.”

“
Okay,” he nodded, “but you ruin
the jacket, you pay for it.”

Ebony blustered.
“That's not very
gentlemanly!”

“
I wasn't being a gentlemen,
remember? I don't have any manners. I was just covering you up so
you don't distract the officers.”

Ebony flashed her teeth.
“Are you calling me
distracting, darling?”

Before Nate could snap back a
quick response, or hide a careful cough, Ben turned to them. His
face was dripping with rain, his eyes sallow with the cold and a
hint of dread.
“Okay, our guy's in the middle of the cemetery. He's got
himself down into a crypt—”

Ebony swore softly.

“
We don't know his name, but
we're sure he's not a full-blown wizard or magician, or one of the
other magical races.”

“
Hold on,” Nate put up a hand,
“how are we sure about that? I mean, if we don't have an
ID?”

“
We're sure because he's still
here, and not splattered against the headstones. No actual wizard
would do something this idiotic; they're all regulated, like the
witches. No one who actually knew the consequences would do
something this absolutely horrible.”

Ben took a shallow breath and
continued:
“we know he's in a crypt, and we know he's got some kind of
spell protecting the door—”

Ebony swore again.

“
Well,” Nate rolled up his
sleeves, the white fabric already distractingly see-through, “can't
we just bust in another side? Or break the spell? I mean, isn't
that what Ebony does?”

“
This isn't a normal situation,
Nate,” Ben sighed again, the growing shadows catching underneath
his eyes and making him look more tired than Ebony had ever seen.
“Look Eb, explain it to him. We've got to wait for more police
back-up anyway. You've got about five minutes, then we
move.”

Ebony took her own, deeper
sigh, and angled her head to the heavens above.
“You've got about another five
minutes till the sky opens up too,” she said under her breath. The
ominous clouds, rolling in off the mountains beyond, were now
fleeting towards them like crows on the wind. From the weather, to
the day, the feel of the place – Ebony didn't like this one
bit.

Ben marched off, pulling his phone
from his pocket as he did.

“
I don't get it, if this is so
dangerous, why don't we just move?” Nate looked down at her. By now
his shirt was all but transparent, allowing Ebony a complete view
of the Detective's impressively-chiseled physique.

And if it was any other day,
Ebony would have commented on it, or at least offered a cheeky
whistle. But the fact was, she was cold, and she had such a feeling
of dread billowing in her stomach, that she felt like she was going
to float away on a black cloud of fear at any moment.
“Look, just like
any other police operation, we have to wait for backup.”

“
But I thought you said the
witches weren't coming, yet. And I hate to say it, but what use are
ordinary humans against whatever the he – heaven, is waiting for us
in there?”

“
In a word? Guns.”

“
What?”

“
Guns, Detective Nate. I think
you'll find they're still quite effective against most magical
creatures. They make loud noises, give off smells, and if you are
lucky, propel metal objects at the speed of sound.” She pulled her
gaze from the Detective's wet clothes, and back up to the sky
above.

“
I don't get it, in the past our
guns have hardly done a thing—”

“
Oh, they won't work against
everything, that's for sure. You face a cloud apparition – and
filling it with lead isn't going to count for much. Anyhow, that's
not the point.”

Nate flattened his tie, for the
fifty millionth time in his life.
“But we're fighting ghosts, right. I
really don't think—”

“
Two things,” she held up two
fingers, the long sleeves of Nate's jacket almost completely
obscuring them, “you won't be using ordinary bullets today, and you
won't be fighting the ghosts.”

“
Aren't the ghosts the ones
doing all the damage?” Nate gave a quick shrug as the sound of
concrete cracking filtered clearly over the walls. “Aren't they in
there right now smashing up the whole cemetery?”

“
No, they're the victims
here.”

“
The victims,” he repeated,
voice empty. “But they're ghosts.”

“
Now, now, don't be
discriminatory. Anyone can be a victim, Detective. But the real
culprit today is the evil blighter who has crammed himself inside
that crypt. The ghosts are just trying to protect themselves, and
what they were, from being sucked up by his pointless
spells.”

“
I don't get this,” Nate ducked
slightly as an even louder noise seemed to crack through the dark
afternoon like a bull-whip by his ear. “And shouldn't we hurry up
and do something?”

“
We're waiting for the
restricted ammo to come in. As soon as it arrives —” she didn't
finish her sentence. Because as soon as it arrived, well, Ebony
would have to think of a way to achieve the impossible. Because
that's what this would be. Somehow she would have to make her way
through the cemetery – through the wild, enraged ghosts, and
through the various horrible creatures that would have been
attracted to the excess magic – and finally into a highly protected
crypt. Once inside she'd be faced with some jumped-up, cape-wearing
loon who didn't understand magic, but still had the balls to steal
into a graveyard and perform rites on the dead. And ... if the
idiot was successful, she'd likely come face to face with Death
itself. She'd have to do all this in an oversized jacket, with no
shoes on, and in the pouring rain. And, she'd have to ensure no one
else got hurt.

Oh man, that little voice in the back
of her head moaned again, you should be watching a movie by
now.

“
So what are the parameters,
what do we do? And what the heaven is going on?”

Ebony just looked up at him,
rain trickling off his face.
“Okay, time for a crash course in Death Summoning.
There are several ways to directly rewrite a story, Nate, this is
one of them.”

“
Rewrite a story,” he repeated,
voice incredulous. “Are we going to be dealing with a bunch of
Gothic copy-editors in there?”

“
Look at it this way; we are
bound by our past. Our past is a reminder of who we are, but it is
also a shackle. Without it, we would be lost. But if you hold too
closely to the past, then it restricts what you can do in the
future. If you have been an ice-skater all your life, but would
really like to be a particle physicist, then you can't just wake up
one day and decide to start smashing some atoms together. Your past
will remind you – your memories, your friends, the photos of you on
your mother's bookshelf – they'll all remind you of who you
were.”

“
I get it. You can't click your
fingers one day and change jobs, the color of your hair, and blood
groups,” Nate said.

Ebony gave a small
laugh.
“Strange examples, but they work. The past keeps us on
track, but it also binds us to one path. However, there are certain
ways, certain magical ways, of lessening or eliminating the hold of
yesterday over today. If you can appease, or even change the past,
then you can do virtually anything you want in the now.”

“
And that's what's happening
here?” he questioned, wiping at the rain dribbling down his
forehead. “But what's this got to do with death?”

“
You rewrite the lives of the
living through altering the lives of the dead. You sacrifice the
past for the benefit of the future,” she closed her hands before
her. “By using the recently-deceased, Detective, you can summon the
force of Death. And when you have it in your presence, you can use
the immense magic released to rewrite your story. Death is a
universal force, and its power is unimaginable. Death is the very
thing that keeps stories going, not that you'd know it. The very
thing that keeps the alive alive, that keeps the moving in motion.
Everyone thinks that Death is the end; well they're dead wrong.
When things begin to slow down, when their energy begins to ebb –
they die. And through death they change forms, break up, then
recombine in other ways. The movement is preserved.”

Nate hardly looked impressed by
her impassioned description, and simply kept blinking the water
from his eyes.
“But the dead are dead. Trust me; I'm an
ex-homicide-detective. How exactly do you call this “death” through
a corpse?”

“
Death, unlike what most people
believe, isn't an instantaneous thing. You don't die, then Death
severs your soul, and you skip off to the afterlife, or get reborn.
You dream first. It can take up to a week, or even more. But the
soul goes through the memories of its life – the dreams, the
achievements – and, well, collates them. It's like marking up a
score sheet at the end of a game. It’s a way for the soul to be
clear about what it's achieved, before it moves on.”

“
Sounds like mumbo jumbo,” the
Detective declared with a cough.

“
No, mumbo jumbo is a special
type of magic practiced by the witches of the Caribbean, Detective.
And let me assure you, it doesn't sound anything like it. Plus, I'm
not asking you to believe in this, I'm just asking you to
listen.”

“
Then skip to the stuff I need
to know, time's ticking.”

She pursed her lips.
“Time doesn't tick,
clocks do. Time wanders. But that's not the point. The point is
your little bad-guy in there has found the grave of the
recently-deceased. He's probably been planning this for some time,
too,” Ebony wiped the water off her face, only for the now
driving-rain to replace it at once. “What you do is you gather the
important objects of whomever you are performing the rite on –
wedding ring, photo, beloved pet, deed to their house, a book they
wrote – whatever gave them incredible meaning in their lives.
Anyhow, you perform the rite on the grave,” Ebony found her stomach
turning at the thought of it. She hated this side of magic, she
really did. It was dark, inhuman, and seemed to violate everything
magic should stand for. She put a hand to her head, before finally
continuing. “Anyhow, you perform the rite and summon up
Death.”

“
So what are the objects for?
Why do you want a guy's favorite watch? Is that to get a lock on
him, or something?”

“
No, that's to threaten his
soul.”

“
Threaten his soul? What are you
talking about?”

“
Okay,” Ebony finally saw a
specially painted truck pull up at the cemetery gates. It would be
carrying the ammo they needed. It wasn't every day the Vale Police
Department would get access to magic bullets because, Ebony
reminded herself with a soulful sigh, it wasn't everyday they
needed them. They were a pest to get hold of, too. It was all a
part of the Pact. Should the need arise for more direct magical
intervention, and before the Police would be forced to call the
Coven, they would get access to a little more heavy-duty weaponry.
They had to request them directly from the Coven though, but once
they were released, the police officers of Vale would get their
hands on blessed, cursed, and magic-sucking bullets. Something for
every occasion. It rarely, rarely happened that they would need
them. It had only happened to Ebony three times. Once when a madman
had somehow gotten hold of a banned book of spells, and was holding
several people hostage. Another time when a very powerful demon had
attached itself to a cursed family ring. And another time when
someone had tried to kill a witch. Ebony shivered at the mere
thought of it, and took a careful sniff.