Witch's Bell Book One (25 page)

No one liked the top-floor, she'd
remembered that from when she'd been a child. It had a draft, her
father had once grumbled to her, an uncanny draft that always found
a way of chilling the back of your neck even if you were wearing a
scarf.

And now Ebony was expected to work up
there for the rest of her non-magic sentence. Not only would it
take her ages to get there in the morning, but she would have to
work alone all day without the prospect of stolen coffee or
doughnuts.

Or Detective Nate, a little voice said
in her head. But Ebony quickly laughed the little voice into
submission, ignoring the strange kick of disappointment at the idea
she'd hardly see the annoying detective for the next several
weeks.

When they finally reached the
top floor, Frank let out a heavy sigh.
“I like that walk,” he said with a
toothy grin, “it's good for the heart. And,” he pointed behind them
to the giant window that sat at the top of the stairwell, “the view
is the best in the building.”

Ebony stared out the window,
head tilting to the side. It was a good view
– an amazing view, in fact. You
could stand there and watch the rest of Vale go about its business,
with the keen gaze of a hawk from above.

But Frank hardly paused, and Ebony
found herself following after him, legendarily-comfortable shoes
slapping on the dusty marble floor. It seemed as though even the
cleaners didn't come up here anymore. She gave a little shudder at
the thought of all the cobwebs and dead insects she'd probably be
blowing off the files. Ebony would probably come home from work
looking like she'd been crawling through ancient caves every day,
and probably smelling like it too.

The architecture up here was
different. While on the floors below, the central staircase of the
department would lead into long, wide corridors that would span the
length of the building
– rooms branching off them like capillaries off an
artery. Up on the top-floor, everything was open. There were no
offices and rooms – just the one wide, open room that stretched the
length and width of the building. It was huge, or would have been
if it wasn't jam packed with old, rusted shelves which were in turn
jam packed with old, yellowed boxes and files.

But there were windows, which
meant there was light. In fact, there were a great deal more
windows than anywhere else in the police department. And none of
the windows had blinds. Which was odd, considering all of the
sun-bleached files that littered the room. But then again, Ebony
reminded herself, her eyes carefully searching around the room,
these were magical files
– and no matter the amount of sun, dust, age, or
moth attack – they wouldn't deteriorate.

In fact, maybe the light was a
good thing. With all this magical history pressed into one room,
you wouldn't want it to get too dark. Darkness tended to attract
strange things
....

Ebony sighed as she ran a finger over
a dirty, old, brown box that sat close by the stair well. In a way,
Ebony was thoroughly at home. It reminded her of her chaotic store.
In fact, what would probably end up happening would be that Ebony
would work up here with the magical files all day long, only to go
and check on Harry for a couple of hours at night. Even though she
wouldn't need the income from her bookstore, considering she'd be
working full-time for the police, she would still have to run a
careful hand over her bookshelves at least once a day. Harry didn't
like to be alone too long.

“
Your office isn't so much an
office,” Frank confidently wended his way through the shelves,
“it's more of a desk,” he eventually found a squat, old, wooden
desk up against a far wall. It had its back to the files, and faced
out at one of the large windows, a frankly magnificent view of the
mountains beyond.

Gosh, Ebony thought as she patted the
old chair next to the desk, you could see the weather roll in off
those mountains a treat from this window.

“
You might need to give things a
dust,” Frank coughed. “But there's everything you need.” He pulled
open a drawer, the wood grating unpleasantly, and pulled out pens
and a pad of incredibly old paper. “Now I don't know precisely what
Ben wants you to do, but I reckon he just wants you to give the
unsolved cases a once-over. Doesn't matter if you don't find
anything, but you might. Benefit of hindsight and all that. You
might have come across something in the last couple of years that
could put these old files to rest.”

Ebony just nodded, strangely taken by
the silent room with the incredible view of the city.

“
Anyhow, I had better go back
down now, but you let me know if you need anything.”

Ebony smiled. She tried to rack
her brain, wondering if she needed anything else up here. A heater,
a water cooler, a phone, a computer, a pot plant to talk to? But
she couldn't think of anything essential
.... Plus, the place was starting to
have an effect on her. A very curious effect. And it wasn't
magical, Ebony reminded herself, as she looked around slowly,
because Ebony couldn't feel magic any more.

No, this effect was
....

Ebony felt the hair on the back of her
neck prickle. She felt her hands moisten slightly with sweat. She
felt her breath quicken as her mind sharpened to the situation. Was
this anticipation, she thought, or something else?

Was Ebony starting to settle into her
month-long sentence, was she starting to finally feel comfortable
with her lot? No, that wasn't it. It was more than that.

It almost felt like something
was unfolding before Ebony
– like a book that had fallen unbidden off a
bookshelf, only to open at a certain page.

Well, if that was the case, Ebony
would simply have to stoop down, pick it up, and start reading the
new story.

Chapter 11

Ebony almost got to work on time the
following day. That is, she was only late by an hour-and-a-half.
Due to her previous experiences on the bus, Ebony had opted to take
a cab instead. Which had posed even more trouble.

Once again she'd woken up late,
and thrown on whatever her hands could quickly grab from her
wardrobe. Which left her standing in a pair of brilliant white
pants, and a top that looked like it was made out of rubber
straws
–
making it either a blouse for wild dancers in peculiar clubs, or
something to clean the floor with. She'd grabbed at shoes, only to
find her trusty old fake-crocodile-skin granny-loafers. She'd
actually smiled to herself as she'd crammed them onto her
feet.

As she'd called the cab, Ebony
had almost felt proud that she might just get to work on time.
Thirty minutes later, when the cab finally rolled up at the curb,
Ebony was practically spitting sparks. She'd waited outside the
whole time, umming and ahhing about going inside to call the cab
company up to see where on Earth their man was
– but not wanting to duck
inside just as the cab rolled up, only to have him leave
immediately. So she'd stood there, ignoring the stares from passing
pedestrians and the bin-men who were there to take out the street's
trash and recycling. Unlike the creepy and frankly rude comments
and looks she'd received yesterday, today Ebony seemed to have
crossed over the threshold of funny freak, to weirdo. One
gruff-looking bin man with a limp cigarette hanging out of his
mouth gave Ebony such a confused but intrigued look, that he
obviously thought her top was a spaghetti monster from
Mars.

Ebony had just shook her head.
Tonight, she told herself firmly, she was definitely going to get
into her wardrobe and see what was going on. Where had all her real
clothes gone? And where were all these hideous, peculiar, downright
bizarre clothes coming from? Ebony tried to pat down the rubber
tubing of her rah-rah top, and just sighed.

When the cab had finally rolled up,
Ebony had piled in, a very stiff smile on her lips. Once again she
hadn't had the time to cram on make-up, but once again she doubted
whether anyone was going to take their eyes off her clothes long
enough to look at her face.

The cab driver was chewing gum,
very pungent gum, and almost gassed Ebony as he chuckled in her
face.
“Sorry, love,” he said with a voice that was half a laugh,
half a snarl, “traffic's bad. Been an accident, or somfin,” he gave
another chuckle, as if accidents, or “somfins” where commonly funny
things. “So, where you off to?”

Ebony, who had finally
remembered to take her bag, clutched it to the front of her like a
riot shield.
“The police station,” she said, fingers digging into the
red and yellow leather like someone holding onto a rope in a
blizzard. If her outfit was wild today, then her bag was more so.
Once again, Ebony wasn't quite sure where it had come from – she
didn't remember buying it, or laughing at the person who might have
given it to her. The bag was less of a bag and more of a gag. It
was big – as if Ebony was intending to carry around the kitchen
sink, tissues, her wallet, and a buffet for thirty. It was also
louder than a barrel full of monkeys. The exact hues of the yellow
and red leather clashed so much that they might as well have been
titans in an epic battle for Earth.

“
Police station?” the man's face
squeezed up so tightly it seemed as if his nose was a black hole
that was sucking the rest of his features in with a
slurp.

“
Yes, I work there.”

The man shot Ebony a glance that said
more, and in a more eloquent way, than the man was probably capable
of phrasing. His eyes narrowed, pressing in at the sides as if he
was in pain, or calculating some terrible sum. His bottom teeth
pressed out over his slightly yellowed lips, and his cheeks moved
up a touch. He wasn't smiling though, there wasn't a single bit of
levity to be found anywhere on his expression. It was as dark as
dark could be.

And as a former witch, Ebony knew just
how dark the dark could get.

She turned her head to the front,
wondering whether she could just get out of the cab now. She didn't
particularly want to be stuck with this man for the ten minutes or
so that it would take to get to work. But before she could mutter a
sorry and leave, the cab drew out from the curb with a splatter of
its engine.

Ebony found herself biting
concertedly on her lips. Once again, she was feeling an emotion she
wasn't entirely familiar with
– this strange, erratic, uncontrollable swirl that
seemed to engulf her gut in waves. It was fear, she knew that much.
But it wasn't the kind of fear she'd usually felt as a witch. She'd
always either had enough raw power or knowledge to get herself out
of most situations – or avoid getting into them in the first place.
But now ... well, ah ....

Ebony kept chewing on her lips.
clutching at her bag because she simply had to do something with
the tension building in her hands.

You have combat skills, her
rational brain tried to convince her, your father taught you
everything you need to know about self-defense. Yes, her emotional
mind conceded with a little shudder, but that was no comfort at
all. While, academically, Ebony knew how to flip a man
– how much of the
practicality of that had relied on magic in the past? Her senses,
her intuitions, her gut feelings – how many of them had been
regulated, modulated, and enhanced by magic?

Things were different now, totally
different. And the truth was starting to dawn on her that Ebony
would simply not know how different things were until she learned
firsthand.

“
Where's your uniform, love?”
the driver looked over at her, taking his eyes off the road without
apparently caring about the circumstances.

Ebony just wanted to ignore
him. But with only the two of them in the cab, it was patently
obvious that the man was talking to her
– and she could hardly play deaf now.
“Oh, I don't have one, I'm not an officer ...” she trailed off,
immediately cursing her honesty. She wanted to add that she was,
however, a witch, or would be again in a month. And if the man
tried anything, she'd hex him so bad his teeth would fall out over
his steering wheel.

“
What are you then, love?” the
way he said “love” was reminiscent of a dog growling at intruders
and it had just the same effect on Ebony.

Ebony started to rub at her
bracelets.
“I'm a ... secretary,” it was incredibly far from the
truth, but, ironically, the closest description she could actually
give for her current job.

“
Well,” the man said with a
truly disgusting leer erupting over his face, like a rash, “that's
okay then.”

No, Ebony told herself, it
really, really wasn't.
“How long until we get there?

The man didn't answer straight
away, just found some part of his mouth to chew on
– as if he were
some hideous zombie digesting itself. “Traffic's pretty
bad.”

“
Oh,” was all Ebony could
manage.

Then, unbidden, something came
to the forefront of her mind. It was the strangest sensation
– like being tapped
on the shoulder by a memory, only to turn to find that it has run
away from you.