Witch's Bell Book One (16 page)

Ebony spluttered out several
deep coughs, running the back of a hand over her mouth.
“We've got to keep
going,” she said through a rasp. “The crypt must be close by.” She
kept her gun at the ready. “So keep your eyes peeled, things are
going to get nasty now.”

As soon as the words were out of her
mouth, a tremendous clap of thunder roared from above. It seemed to
almost shake the ground, as the heavens shouted down in their
powerful voice. Several faint wisps of ghost shot off the roofs or
walls of nearby crypts, spiraling this way and that on their paths
of chaotic destruction. One ate into the side of a roof, spewing
out a mouth-full of roofing tiles onto the ground below. Another
delved deep into the earth, then reappeared, trailing long clods of
dirt up into the sky.

Ebony could see things at the
edges too, both at the corners of the crypts, and at the corners of
her senses. Various beings, attracted by the loose magic and the
powerful storm
– skulking at the edge of reality, waiting for the right
moment to –

Nate slammed into her side, knocking
her to the ground and firing off several rounds as he went. Ebony
landed on the grass with a thud, her breath escaping her lips with
a gasp. Off to the side, she finally caught sight of what Nate was
shooting at. A squat stone gargoyle. It was perched on top of a
crypt gutter, staring down at them with its hideous head tilted to
one side.

Then it swooped again, coming in much
lower this time, its claws stretched out with the intention to rip,
shred, grab, or all three.

Nate looped an arm around Ebony and
pulled her up, pushing her to the side again, just as the gargoyle
made its second dash. He managed to squeeze off another round. The
rest of the team all took up position as well, shooting with
perfect accuracy at the demonic stone-creature. The bullets dashed
into its wings, its face, and the side of its outstretched legs.
Though they ate away at the stone with each impact, they didn't
stop it immediately in its place.

“
Switch rounds!” Ebony screeched
as she ducked to the side, barely missing another swoop. “Use the
magic-sucking bullets!”

Without another word, Andrews
and the two guys from the SWAT team, seamlessly switched ammo,
bringing up their guns quicker than a sapling recovering from a
push. They emptied their rounds into the creature, letting the
bullets eat into the sides of its earthy flesh
– sucking the magic right out
of it. Though the bullets weren't enough to kill it, they were
enough to ground it. Its flight began to slow, its height
deteriorating, until it landed, claws outstretched, onto the
grass.

That's it, Ebony thought to
herself, moving forward quickly, down we go. Ebony tossed the gun
to the side for a moment, letting it fall softly against the grass.
Then, when she was sufficiently close to the creature to see its
lifeless eyes, but far enough away so as not to have her own pulled
out by its sharp talons
– she simply fell to a knee.

With some of the magic sucked
out of the creature, it wouldn't have its usual defenses. Leaving
it open to attack not just from Ebony, but from other creatures
too. She didn't have time right now to take this creature down
herself
–
gargoyles were strong, lapidary creatures, after all. They were
lapidary in the sense that they were layered like the very rock
they were cut from – they had layers and layers of defenses that
had to be whittled down over time.

Time, Ebony repeated to herself, right
now, was a blessing to be used wisely.

With her hands pressed together
in front of her, and one knee pressed down into the wet grass
below, Ebony closed her eyes. Though while nearly anyone sane would
think closing your eyes so close to a vicious creature was as dumb
as wearing a dress made of money at a meeting of poor and desperate
criminals
–
Ebony had a plan.

With a breath that rattled
through her body, she let out a quick prayer. It wasn't something a
witch usually did; after all, praying was something for Believers.
But just because Ebony followed the creed, art, and religion of the
witches, didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the realities that
existed for others. So she said a quick but powerful prayer to the
assembled angels, gods, saints, and whatever other beings looked
over this cemetery. If the Valians buried underneath the grass were
Believers
–
and their families had buried them under the auspices of their
gods, religions and hopes – then those very same gods had a duty to
protect.

There was a chance it wouldn't work,
of course, a chance that whatever passing angel would hear Ebony's
prayer and simply ignore it. They had every right to; they didn't
owe anything to Ebony, after all. But there was still a chance they
would come to the call of their dead.

Ebony snapped her eyes open, just as
the gargoyle made a vicious swipe towards her, its claws actually
catching at her vest. She backed off just in time though, Nate
firing a timely round right into the creature's eyes.

With the tingles of barely avoided
death pumping through her, Ebony scrambled to get back.

“
Are you mad?” she heard Nate
spit. “What the hell were you thinking?”

He used the word, Ebony noted,
even though she'd told him not to! But there was still a chance;
she assured herself, still a chance
–

Suddenly a single feather floated down
from the storm above, its trajectory and speed somehow unaffected
by the violent winds and rain. It touched the ground just in front
of the gargoyle, with the soft touch of a tender kiss. The gargoyle
shifted its head down, staring right at it, even though its eyes
were hollowed out from Nate's bullets.

A circle opened out in the
thick clouds above, a beautiful, clear light shining down with the
strength of a dozen blessed-candles. Even though she didn't
Believe, Ebony couldn't help but let her heart soar with the sight.
In a hushed second, an angel began to float down from above. Angels
weren't quite the creatures that humans envisioned them
– no wings, halos,
and flowing robes. While they had what could be recognized as a
body, in the place of skin they had light. They were solidified,
formed light. Much like the ghost, but solider – stronger. The
light swirled beneath their forms with sudden flashes and bursts,
like gas igniting in the night. You could make out each feature of
the angel – it still had eyes, eyelids, lips, a nose, hands, even
pupils. But instead of skin, it simply glowed.

The gargoyle let out an
ear-splitting howl as the angel descended from above. Ebony turned,
studying the faces of her teammates, watching their expressions as
they saw an actual angel descend from the heavens. Ben's face was
radiant, amazed, his eyes wider than a child who had just found out
that Santa Clause, in fact, is actually real. Andrews sported a
similar look of adulation. But Nate, she realized with a strange
kick of her stomach, just looked on. Yes, she could tell he was
amazed, but not overpowered like the rest of them seemed to be.
Somehow, the irritating Detective was, once again, taking it all in
his stride. It was as if
– and Ebony chased the thought away immediately –
but still, it was as if he'd simply seen it all before.

The angel descended softly,
clamping a hand around the gargoyle's wing. Once it had a firm
grip, it simply leaped back into the air, unaffected by the
gargoyle's lashings, and floated back up beyond the clouds. With a
snap, the light extinguished, and the storm tumbled back in. It
took several minutes of soaking rain, thunder, and cold before the
wonder waned from the rest of the team
s’ eyes.

“
God,” Ben eventually mumbled,
hand on his mouth.

“
No,” she corrected trying to
motion them on, “just a representative. But come on, no time left.
She pointed forward; finally sure she knew which crypt they were
after. “Time to end this.”

It was a curious word to use, she
realized as she blinked back the rain and streaked towards the
darkened crypt. Because endings, when Death was involved, tended to
be final and complete.

Chapter 7

Ebony, sure that everyone was behind
her, ran towards the crypt like, well, like Ebony really. Her wet
hair trailed behind her, somehow managing to sprawl out like a
half-hearted cape, even though the rain drove down in a vertical
stream so strong it felt as if she was standing directly underneath
a waterfall. And it wasn't just her hair, either. Everything about
Ebony, at that moment, screamed Ebony. Her manicured fingernails,
though still sticky from the ectoplasm and covered in heaven knows
what else, weren't broken and somehow still managed to look
fabulous. Her earrings still managed to tinkle like little bells,
despite the orchestra of clashes, thunder and rumblings from the
storm above. There was integrity to her visage, her form. It seemed
for just a moment, that it didn't matter if Ebony was standing at
the counter of her bookstore taunting detectives and laughing
lasciviously with a lollipop sticking out of her mouth, or running
through the drenching rain to a crypt to save the world from Death.
Ebony was Ebony wherever she went.

Though to the careful eye, one might
realize that the more Ebony ran, and the closer she came to her
destination, the more and more she looked like herself. Was it a
trick of the light? Maybe the whirl of the weather, the terror of
the situation, and the dark that was punctuated only by sudden
flashes of lightening, simply made it appear that Ebony was more
solid than usual, more real. But to a witch, a wizard, or any other
truly skilled magical worker, they would have known precisely what
was going on.

Ebony was a second from busting
down the crypt door, and potentially walking in on Death itself.
Which is not something that happens every day. In fact, it happens
with just the right bizarre infrequency to categorize it as an
incredibly unlikely event. The kind of event, in fact, that could
change your world completely. For an ordinary human, a chance
meeting with Death in the form of a near-death experience, was
usually enough to propel them into changing their lives completely.
Fall off a bridge, but somehow survive the icy depths beneath
despite the incredible odds, and humans start to think differently
about their lives. They rightly see the meaning of such incredible
events. Why, they'd probably think to themselves, if it were so
incredibly unlikely that I would survive such a fall
– and yet I did –
then doesn't it make it incredibly meaningful that I'm still alive?
Such thinking tends to push the human into a new direction, a new
meaning, a new story.

Which is precisely what Ebony
did not want happening here today. As she ran from the crypt, hand
now outstretched towards the round, cast metal door-handle
– she put all her
witchly concentration into solidifying her life as it was – the
Ebony she now lived as and the Ebony she intended to keep living
through. The last thing she wanted was to go into that crypt, have
some horribly powerful experience, and then wind up with a
completely different life story. Because unlike a human, who
usually benefited from a hearty dose of a near-death experience, it
didn't work that way for a witch. Witches were expected to know
enough about magic, meaning, and life to never need a kick up the
butt from Death to get it all sorted. In fact, if the horrible
happened, and Ebony did allow her life to get changed, well ... she
would become like Flora – a screaming advertisement for a magical
buffet. Creatures would descend upon Ebony with the glee and hungry
viciousness of a pack of starved wolves. All Ebony's magic, all her
life, would lay open to the highest bidder. And if those birds had
been anything to go by, then chances were there were already
creatures circling this situation, just waiting to
swoop.

Ebony had to play this carefully, she
reminded herself as she amassed the magic in her mind. This
situation was out of control, and unless Ebony found enough control
and purpose, she wouldn't be able to fix it. In fact, she'd
probably make things worse. That's why she had to take the time now
to remind herself of who she was, what she stood for, and where she
wanted to go. With so much magic concentrating on one spot, and
with so many creatures waiting to cash in, it was now up to Ebony
to find a way to deal with it all.

“
You're a witch,” Ebony said to
herself, concentrating half on reminding herself who she was, and
half on searching through the door handle for any magical
protection spells that might have been cast on it. “You want to
know. You want to understand magic, life, and everything. You want
to have fun,” she said with a strong breath, mind finally latching
onto the tail end of a mild protection-spell. She instantly
tightened her grip on the door handle, her skin pressing into the
metal until it almost seemed like she was trying to melt it with
the bare warmth still left in her body. “You want to enjoy this
life,” she could see the spell in her mind's eye – see it spiraling
around like a snake caught in a wind tunnel. She quickly identified
the weak points in it, and drove her mind towards them like a
cattle dog towards the floundering sheep at the edge of the herd.
“You want to be in control of your story; you want to write it at
every moment.”