Witch's Bell Book One (20 page)

Chapter 9

Ebony woke up slowly. It appeared to
her that she was slowly climbing back up into consciousness, like a
person scrambling out of a deep well. She started to notice the
light on her face, then the feel of the soft sheets underneath her,
and then, finally, the strange, vague fog that set about her body
like mist in a bottle.

“
You're awake,” she heard Ben's
voice from somewhere by her feet.

What was Ben doing in her bedroom, she
wondered sleepily.

“
Finally,” Nate chuckled through
a short cough, “we don't have to listen to you snoring
anymore.”

What was Nate doing in her bedroom,
she thought with rising alarm. But it wasn't until Ebony finally
managed to blink through the awful daze that surrounded her, that
she realized she wasn't even in her room.

Ebony was in hospital.

She tried to sit up, so she could get
a better look at her surroundings, before leaving quickly. Witches,
as a rule, didn't like hospitals. They also never needed to visit
them. There was nothing magic, herbs, tinctures, candles, and a few
blessings couldn't cure. And if the magic didn't work, then you
could be darn sure that ordinary human medicine wouldn't
either.

Her arm would hardly move. So
she just tried harder, until a dull, overpowering ache erupted
through it.
“Owww,” she blinked quickly, trying to summon enough magic
to damp down the hurt. But the magic wouldn't come.

“
Hey,” Nate put a hand on her
arm, “you just got stabbed. You might want to take the time to lie
down. I've had enough experience with heavy blood loss to know that
it's never a good idea to do the marathon afterwards. You're in
hospital for a reason, Ebony.”

Ebony tried again, more
desperate now. She tried to push the magic into her wound, tried to
encompass it, tried to seal it off
– but the magic wouldn't come. It was
useless, like pumping at a bone-dry well.

Ebony Bell didn't have any
magic.

“
What the,” her voice wobbled
like a thin sheet of unsupported metal, “wh–at am I doing
here?”

Ben gave a barely reassuring
smile.
“You
don't remember? You went Rambo on that criminal in the crypt, dealt
with Death, and then ....”

Got sucked into the earth to meet the
Coven, Ebony finished in her mind. Then she jammed her eyes tightly
shut. She didn't want anyone to see her like this. And if she
couldn't hide from them, well at least she could hide behind the
thin wall of her eyelids.

“
You got, um,” Ben's voice was
more uncomfortable than usual, his usual brash joy gone,
“punished.”

Ebony remembered, alright, and blimey
it hurt. She could feel the bracelets around her wrists too, and
the choker about her neck. These things were going to be with her
for the next twenty-eight days, come rain, shine, or magical storm.
No matter what happened to Ebony, they would ensure she couldn't
fall back on her magic. Ebony would have to, as the Coven had told
her, spend the next lunar month just like a non-magical
human.

Oh no, she thought to herself
bitterly, how do they do it? How do humans
–

“
Don't you go beating yourself
up, Eb,” Ben chuckled tenderly. “You're already pretty injured,
kid.”

Ben hardly ever called Ebony
kid. In fact, he'd stopped just after Ebony had started working for
the police department
– just after she'd saved him from a cursed rubbish
bin. Ebony had fancied that, at that point, Ben had realized she
was old enough, and powerful enough, to look after
herself.

But now the word stuck out like a
bloodied sword in a patch of pansies. She was a kid again, in his
eyes, small, vulnerable, and not to be trusted with sharp things
and responsibilities.

She had to change the
subject.
“Do
you have your new witch yet?” she made her voice as strong as
possible, but it just came out harsh and cutting.

“
Yeah. Name's Chalcedony, I
think,” Ben smiled awkwardly, “she's nice, I guess. But Eb, we
don't blame you for what happened. I mean, I don't even understand
it. You didn't do anything wrong. You took that guy down, that lady
was fine—”

“
It doesn't matter,” Ebony said
quickly, sharply, and then simply fell silent.

Chalcedony, why had the Coven
picked her? If Ebony was flamboyant, but likeable, then Chalcedony
was everything but. The woman was direct, efficient, powerful, and
to the point
– like a sacred knife to the throat. She was tall, like
Ebony, and slender to. But her eyes were a brilliant green, and her
hair a shocking blond. Ebony didn't usually feel jealous of other
women's looks because, after all, Ebony knew there was much more to
beauty than attractiveness. But Chalcedony, she was
different.

With a thought that seemed to boil,
unbidden, from her unconscious, Ebony realized that Chalcedony was
just what a certain Nate would like: finally a witch that did her
job, did it quickly, and did it right. The long legs and bright
smile would help too, Ebony finished with a sniff.

“
But, I don't know, Eb – what's
going to happen to you?” Ben patted the end of her hospital bed,
his smile making him look more and more like a comforting teddy
bear.

“
It will only last for a month.
And then, well, I have a contract with the police department. So
unless you terminate it, I'll go back to work,” Ebony kept her
voice even, but it had as much force as a baby punching at a
wall.

She'd go back to work, that was, if
the police didn't realize that Chalcedony was everything Ebony
wasn't: a witch that showed up to work, didn't steal coffee, and
liked to work long, unreasonable hours.

For the first time in her life, she
was starting to feel vulnerable. And not just that fleeting feeling
of displacement she sometimes got when she'd take the long-view of
her life, and look at all the things she thought she should have
achieved by now. No, this was deeper. This was real. This shook up
her insides like an earthquake, leaving her unsure that she'd ever
find her feet again.

Was this what humans felt all the
time? Was this how Ben would react, if the same thing had happened
to him? Not that he would have quite the same worries at being
replaced by a leggy blonde, but would he be feeling just as lost in
the face of this uncertainty?

As a witch, Ebony had always
been able to call on rites, blessings, spells, magic. If something
went wrong, or a situation turned out differently to what she'd
planned, Ebony knew ways of righting it
– usually by writing it, or rite-ing
it. But now she didn't have such tools, she felt like a child
floundering in the ocean. How did ordinary people do
it?!

“
What happens now?” she asked
her life, more than the two men in the room.

Nate actually smiled.
“That's up to you,”
he had that curious, unreadable expression on his face – the one
that was starting to make Ebony suspect that there was far more to
him than met the eye.

“
You can stay on, still be a
consultant,” Ben smiled. “But it will have to be in the office. I
mean, I can always use another trained eye looking over the files.
You still know more of the magical criminals than I do.”

Ebony raised her uninjured arm
and looked at the bracelet.
“But you won't let me outside, right?”

“
Eb,” Ben sighed, “look, it's
more for your protection than anything else. I don't want you
getting injured.”

Again, she thought bitterly, trying to
find a way to block the dull pain throbbing in her shoulder. Once
again, she was forced to wonder about how humans did it. How could
someone that seemed so ordinary, so mundane, possibly find a way to
push through pain and keep going with their lives? They didn't all
do it with drugs, she knew that, but what other way was
there?

“
It's just for a month,” Ben
reassured her. “It'll be like a holiday. You'll be in the office,
stealing doughnuts, coffee, and getting on my nerves.”

She couldn't stop herself from
chuckling.
“You have a strange idea of what counts as a
holiday.”

“
Twenty-eight days,” Nate said
from beside her. “The time will fly.”

“
It better not,” she settled
into her pillow. “I'm too injured to chase after it.”

She was surprised to hear Nate give a
chuckle.

Could she do it, could she actually
live for a lunar month without any magic at all? How would she
decide what to wear, for one thing?

But just as Ebony allowed
herself to fantasize about the month that might be, the image of
the cowering woman from the crypt leaped into her mind.
“The woman – the
one from the cemetery ... what happened to her?”

“
She's fine,” Nate shrugged,
receding back from Ebony slightly. “We took her home, and she's
sleeping it off, as far as I can tell.”

“
Will she get counseling,
reparations—” Ebony's voice felt stiffer than usual.

Ben laughed, though it sounded
more like a hiccup.
“Oh, she doesn't need reparations, Eb. That was Cecilia
Grimshore – of the Grimshore legacy – the same family that owns
half of Vale.”

“
Oh, right,” Ebony conceded,
voice quiet. “But, she ... ah ... it would have been stressful for
her,” Ebony said blankly, not able to think of a better way to put
it. Stressful? Being kidnapped while a madman performed a magical
rite on the grave of your dead father? Yeah, traditionally quite
stressful that. Ebony kept trying to search for a way to say what
she had to. “I – look, she would have seen some stuff, she probably
needs to be watched over, or something.”

“
She was debriefed by the
Magical Counseling Unit,” Ben reassured her. “She understands what
has happened to her. And we'll keep an eye on her – it's department
policy after something like this – you know that.”

Yes, Ebony did know standard
procedure, but it didn't matter. She was trying to tell Ben,
without actually telling him, that she had the strangest feeling
about this woman
.... About the whole situation, in fact. It was the way the
woman had screamed just as the book with the lion crest had been
kicked out of the man's hands. The more Ebony thought about it, the
stranger it seemed. That scream – it hadn't been one of fright ...
it had been one of loss, of shock.

Ebony tried to run after the
memory in her mind, tried desperately to recreate the scene from
the crypt so she could remember the exact pitch and timing of that
woman's scream.
“It was strange,” she said in a crackling voice, “really
strange. You need to look into it.”

“
It's all been dealt with, Eb,”
Ben tried for a smile. “The guy's in prison, Cecilia is fine, and
everything is sorted out. The Coven have assured us that it is all
done and dusted.”

Ebony didn't reply to that.

Silence began to stretch
between them. Usually Ebony was skilled enough to read the
different levels of silence
– hearing all the sounds that filtered from the in
between. But now, well, she just heard the lack of conversation, as
if that was all that mattered.

“
When do I get out of here?” she
asked eventually, finally realizing that the only way to break a
silence of voices, was to speak yourself.

“
Depends on how many bench
presses you try and do,” Nate quipped quickly. Though his usual
sarcasm was there, it had a warmer, friendlier, lighter tinge to
it.

It wouldn't last, Ebony assured
herself; she just couldn't see the arrogant Detective leaving her
alone for too long. But for now, Ebony didn't mind so much.
“How about I
promise to do zero bench presses, and only a couple of
sit-ups.”

Nate shrugged.
“Just as long as
you don't take up boxing in the interim, you should be out by
tomorrow morning.”

Ebony glanced at the clock on the wall
behind Ben. She usually instinctively knew the time, but without
her magic, she was finding it hard to know where she was, let alone
when she was. But according to the clock, it was eleven. And
judging by the light filtering in from outside, it meant it was the
morning. Which meant Ebony had been knocked-out most of the
night.

She suddenly put her good hand
up to her head.
“How long was I out?”

“
You lost a lot of blood,” Ben
patted the edge of her bed again.

“
And you were sucked through the
ground, which didn't help,” Nate assured her with a
grin.

“
But, tomorrow morning? I can't
get out till tomorrow morning? I feel fine!” she lied.

“
No you don't,” Nate picked up
on the lie immediately. “You feel terrible and you look
worse.”

“
But what am I meant to do? Just
lie here?” Ebony's mind couldn't begin to adjust to the zero
possibilities that presented themselves to her. Lying in bed all
day without any magic sounded like a death sentence. Well, not
quite a death sentence, Ebony reminded herself quickly.