Chapter 18
Ebony drew back, breath quick and harsh in her chest. She didn’t like that look in his eye, she really didn’t like that look.
Was it possible the magic the Grimshores were using – whatever it was – was it possible it had turned Nate against her? Made him angry? Violent even?
“Just get out of here,” He didn’t grab her again, but was close enough, his breath beat against her like a wave against a levy. “Get out. Leave. While you still can.”
Ebony fought the urge to protest, to plant her feet and ask just who he thought he was to throw around threats like that. But who did Ebony think she was right now, let alone Nate? The whole world was threatening to pull the rug from under her high-heels, and she was getting hung up on a little threat. Not that the threat was little, or the man who was making it. But still, maybe Ebony should just leave.
“Ebony, go,” Nate’s voice twitched, if a voice could actually twitch. It peaked and dipped like an economic graph after a crash. And his expression went with it.
For the first time, she realized Nate was barely holding onto something, containing something behind that wall of anger like a genie in a lamp.
“Nate?” she questioned, lips dropping open.
“Get out of here,” he rounded on her again.
This time she got the message.
She danced lithely to the side, perhaps even faster than he’d expected she could move, and ran off down the stairs. She didn’t stop running until she was right out the front doors of the police station. Though, she’d slowed to a passable jog whenever she’d passed a uniformed officer – knowing that perennial rule about cops chasing anything that ran.
She jogged to the other side of the road. She wanted to get as far away from the police station as possible. Now she was out of the place, the potential danger of the situation began to dawn on her. Her whole life… her whole life had just changed. She’d thought things had moved quickly last night – with the mugging and the conversation with her mother – but this was insane.
Reality was melting around her like icing left out in the full sun. Her memories, everything she’d once held sacred – now, apparently, all gone.
And yet… not gone. It wasn’t the fact that Vale itself had changed. Here it still was, stretching out around her in its palette of browns, grays, and blacks. The pavement was still solid beneath her feet, the buildings were still standing around her, and the sun was still shining in the sky.
Everything was the same, yet different. But Ebony couldn’t easily point to the out-there to discern the problem, because the source was within her. It was the fact that the reality she was now being forced to play a part in was not the one she remembered from this morning.
The world hadn’t changed, only her world had.
Ebony kept up an even and steady pace, her heels hitting the pavement with regular clicks. She had to get away from here as quickly as she could. It was the look in Nate’s eyes, the timbre of his voice. Nothing fit. And yet she couldn’t help but feel the real anger behind his actions. Was he her friend, or very much her foe? Was he under the same cloud of forgetting everyone else was under? Or was Nate Wall, as usual, just different?
Ebony found herself scratching at her arms, neck, and face. Basically any sensation that arose, she quickly grabbed at, as if checking it wasn’t a spider creeping over her flesh.
Nate. Her mind kept going back to Nate.
Who was he? What did he want from her? Could she trust him? How did he fit into all this?
There was only one place to go: Harry’s.
Whoever had stolen the files from the police station had likely done a very thorough job. But breaking into a magical bookstore to pilfer a couple of history books was a whole other level of crime. Harry wouldn’t like that, and Harry could make the walls fall in on you. He could pull the floorboards out from underneath your feet. He could make the light fittings shatter all over you. He could wrap you up in the blind cords and dong you over the head with a comprehensive encyclopedia the size of a boulder.
They could mess with Ebony, but could they effectively mess with Harry?
It depended on what their magic was and how they were using it. Casting spells over people and changing their memories was one thing – a terrible thing, for sure – but still only a certain kind of magic. You couldn’t cast spells like that on a store like Harry. Harry didn’t keep his memories in his head, or have them attached to objects like so many people did – with treasured rings, photos, or journals bringing up memories like keys in locks. No, Harry’s memories weren’t so much anywhere, as everywhere.
Harry’s memories were in the light bulbs throughout the store. They were in the way the wind whistled past the windows on a stormy day. They were in the way the keys grated in the lock. They were in the way silence wended itself around the bookcases and boxes, like a snake around its eggs.
Harry was intangible, and his memories were intangible. Still, if you found some way of burning down the store, Harry, and his memories would be gone. But short of actually taking an ax to his foundations, you couldn’t cast a forgetting spell on a store. You couldn’t make Harry forget himself for even a second.
As she drew closer and closer to Harry’s – ever careful to keep an eye out for potential attackers, or fireballs from the sky – she realized how smart and how very dumb this was. If someone actually was after Ebony, if they really did want to get her on her own, now was the perfect time. And if they were strong enough to make it through the police’s magical defenses, then Harry’s wouldn’t pose too much of a problem.
Then again, it was where she’d decided to go. Magic or not, the right thing to do, or not – Harry’s would be where Ebony Bell would make her stand.
She could call her mother, or try and get in contact with the Coven, but something told her that was a far worse a plan than it sounded. Her mother would likely already know what was happening to Ebony. If Avery Bell wanted to help – if she could help – she’d already be here.
She couldn’t afford to call her father – he’d just be swept up in the fugue of the Grimshore spell.
No, considering how much Ebony had been punished for her past and continuing advances against the Grimshores – she was going to do this alone. Well, with no one but Harry, at least. She had no qualms about bringing him in on this. The cantankerous old fool would likely pull up his foundations like a skirt and trundle after Ebony if she tried to leave this city or fight against unknown powers on her own.
Harry loved a fight, almost as much as he loved a book. He’d been a powerful wizard in his time, who’d loved to seek out evil and danger to wallop it on the head.
As she neared her shop, her feet started to move faster and faster until she broke into a run. Her hair slapped against her back, her hands gripped into fists at her side, and her skirt flared around her like a cape.
If there was someone in her way – if there was a witch, a wizard, a demon, or even a Grimshore – in her current state she’d run right past them, or through them.
Just as she crossed the pavement, heading for Harry’s with the most direct route possible, she spied the police cars. And the wizards.
Yes, wizards.
There were wizards standing around outside her store, all dressed up in their leather, with their numerous tattoos glinting in the sun. That was the thing about wizards – they definitely weren’t a bunch of old men with prodigious beards and blue robes. No, the closest analogy to any human group would be bikies. Wizards were mostly large, hairy men with tattoos and an attitude to match. It had to do with the type of magic they practiced – it wasn’t the light-handed feints of the magicians – real wizard magic required a lot of strength, of both mind and body. The tattoos were as much to impress girls as they were to adorn themselves with empowering symbols of magic. And the hair, well… there was something about men, power, and beards Ebony had never really figured out.
She drew up so sharply, she practically fell out
of her shoes.
She ducked into the shop next to her. Thankfully she didn’t draw the attention of the horde down the street. They were all looking the other way, or congregating in front of the shop, trying to get in.
Harry was obviously not being helpful. The door was closed and every single blind was drawn. In fact, there were now blinds on the front windows – even though there hadn’t been any this morning. Harry was obviously hunkering down.
Were they after her, or were they after Harry?
The mugging last night…. The man had been after her bag, hadn’t he? Had he been after the keys to the store? Or had he really only been after her?
Ebony, throat so dry and narrow it felt like she was breathing through a sand-encrusted straw, walked further into the Turkish takeout she’d automatically ducked into, staring out the windows, but at the same time trying her hardest not to be seen through the glass.
“Ebony!” the owner announced happily from behind her, his hands outstretched.
She turned and blinked quickly at him. She was blinking way too much today. It appeared to be her go-to reaction for finding out her life was being destroyed and rewritten by someone who didn’t have her best interests at heart.
“Ebony! I haven’t seen you in days! And may I say,” he nodded appreciatively, “You are looking so nice!”
“Ah, I am, Mohammad?” she asked carefully, giving him plenty of time to change his mind and throw his shoe at her.
He didn’t, but he did pick up on her alarmed/fatigued/befuddled state, and nodded with obvious tenderness. “Bad day?”
She nodded.
“Hey, why are the police outside your store, anyway? Are they waiting for you? You work for them,” he shrugged, “And they look impatient – maybe they are here to pick you up for some case or something?”
“Yes,” she answered dryly, “Here to pick me up.”
“And what’s with the bikers, eh? Why are the bikers and police together? Is this Co-operation Saturday, or something?” Mohammad laughed heartily at his own joke.
Ebony clenched her teeth together and tried to think.
Why was Mohammad being so nice? Well, he was always nice to Ebony. That was no real shock. But today, when the rest of the world wanted to hunt her down? Why was he immune?
Maybe she just hadn’t mentioned the Grimshores in his presence, or maybe it was something more. Casting a spell over everyone Ebony had ever met, making them all believe she was a terrible, naughty little witch, would take an astounding amount of magic. Not only would you have to blanket the city in a forgetting spell, it would have to be directed specifically at their memories of Ebony.
Now, whatever was going on was big and big with a capital THIS IS BIG. But just how big was it? If she was the center of this mess, wouldn’t it make sense to only cast magic on those directly around her – people who could actually affect her, and whose affected memory would have a big effect on Ebony herself?
The Grimshores were evil, for sure, and they seemed incredibly powerful. But why waste magic? Why seek out and cast a spell on the whole city, when just the police department would do?
Magic, like money, was about maximizing returns. You only ever spent as much magic as you would be sure of reward.
Ebony took a sharp little breath. She was going to try something here. Ebony was going to be honest. “Look Mohammad, I have to be honest with you. I’m having a really, really bad day.”
“Free Turkish delight,” he said automatically, grabbing the glass jar on his counter and selecting the largest piece before tossing it to Ebony.
She smiled. And it was genuine. “I’m afraid I might need something more than that….”
He nodded sagely. “A pastry? Coffee? Both?”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of access to your fire escape.” Ebony bit into the sweet, allowing the sugar to seep in and temporarily raise her mood.
Mohammad didn’t look at her askance and run outside to call the police, though he’d obviously made the connection. “I see. So, the police aren’t here to pick you up – they’re here to pick you up.”
Ebony patted the icing sugar off her fingers and nodded.
Mohammad appeared to think for a moment and then nodded heavily. “The fire escape is just around the back, and the key is on this key chain behind me.”
She sucked down a deep breath.
“You know,” he said as he motioned her around the counter and handed her the key, “You are a good person, Ebony. When good people have bad days, it’s criminal.” He handed her another helping of Turkish delight. “And you know the police, they chase criminals.”
She laughed again, blowing the icing off the top of the sweet she’d just been handed with the puffs of her giggles.
“This, I think, is what has happened in your case.” He nodded sagely at her.
“You mean that if I start having a good day, they’ll stop chasing me?”
He shrugged. “You know the police, they’re like cats – they chase anything that runs. All you need is for them to chase something else.”
She smiled through a sniff. “Yes, I really do.”
“But anyhow, no more chatting. Time for you to start evading the law. And me, I’ll go out and give you a distraction.”
“No, I couldn’t ask you to do that. I really don’t want you to get involved. Please, don’t do anything risky for my sake.” Ebony fixed him with the most genuine, steady gaze she could muster. It was true. She really, really didn’t want to drag anyone else into this mess.
Mohammad shrugged again. “I’m not going to go at them wielding a knife – not that kind of distraction. I’m just going to ask those friendly officers why they haven’t been able to find those kids that keep painting graffiti on my store. They can’t even spell – it’s annoying.”
Ebony bit into her lips, but smiled nonetheless. “I really don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“I won’t. Now go – go!”
“Thank you, Mohammad.” She nodded, then turned and ran out of the back of the store.
All the shops along this side of the street had fire-escapes that went up to their roofs. They were all old buildings, and the fire-escapes would hardly meet safety regulations – hence the ability to lock them. No, the shop owners either used them as a means to clean their back windows or to access the roof. All these shops were built in a certain era, and they all had sloping, interconnected roofs. Sometimes, though rarely, Ebony would drag a chair up onto the nook between the roofing tin of Harry’s and catch the sun. She had a door, you see – an internal door that led up to the roof. It was such an odd feature of the building. From the mezzanine level, you could take a second winding staircase up to a nook that was barely two meters squared, but afforded a brilliant view of more roofs.
It was just the kind of feature the living Harry would have specifically built into his shop – simply because it made no sense. It was kooky, eccentric, and highly unlikely to ever be used, unless you needed archers – or, well, another route in. And Ebony needed the latter, though she fancied the former would be useful at laying down cover fire.
Her plan was to get to the top of Mohammad’s roof, somehow lay low, and make it across the practically joined roofs until she reached her own. Then she’d plead with Harry to open the door, run downstairs and… blow raspberries at the officers outside. Or, at least, come up with a better plan once she was there.
Ebony quickly, but quietly, took to the fire-escape. There were wizards outside her store, and wizards were clever blighters. They had to deal with their fair share of magical insanity, so they knew you always kept an eye out for the strange. And Ebony Bell crouching along the rooftop would be just the kind of strange they were after.
She took each step carefully, ensuring her heels practically kissed the metal grate with their gentleness. The last thing she wanted to do was make a grand old clanging and banging and draw every cop, wizard, and neighborhood dog her way. She gripped the metal
railing and then re-gripped it as she moved along slowly. By the time she reached the ledge that led up to the roof, she was so tense from the carefulness of it all, she was ready to run berserker-style across the roofs, screaming like a wild banshee.
She contained herself and quietly vaulted onto the roof. Though the metal did groan and grate at her sudden weight – it wasn’t the equivalent of a cymbal crash in an orchestra. It would be nothing above the general hum of city life.
For the next part, Ebony finally twigged and took off her damn heels. It was a pity to let them go, considering how pretty they were, but trotting over sloping metal in heels afforded about as much traction as detergent on ice.
She left them there, her beautiful lavender heels, just sitting on the roof of the Turkish Takeaway. Maybe one day she’d be able to go back and get them. Or, more likely, Mohammad would go outside to find it raining shoes.
Ebony continued along barefoot, her toes and heels digging into the metal like hands into dirt. She tried to grip the old metal as best she could, while trying to keep low and crouched. So far, it seemed to be working, but it was also giving her a terrible backache.
By the time she made it to the far side of Mohammad’s roof, she started to get the hang of her awkward roof-gait. She even managed to leap the small distance between his roof and the next with relative ease, though she did let out a grunt worthy of a gymnast – a very quiet gymnast who was doing her best to hide from the judges with guns and wands.
With tremendous care, patience, and the kind of agility no amount of magical punishment could take away – Ebony made it – though the last leg of her journey was dire, indeed. With the risk that any sound she made would carry down to the police below – she finally, painfully, and carefully made it onto the roof of her own shop.
She could feel it move ever so subtly underneath her feet.
“I’m glad to be back too,” she mouthed. Not wanting to let even a whisper escape her lips.
Now she was on his roof, Harry was going to protect her. She walked with relative comfort and ease until she made it onto the nook of flat concrete and finally to the door.
The door swung open without her having to say a word. And finally, finally, Ebony Bell walked back into Harry’s Second-Hand Bookstore.
She wasn’t going to be able to mooch around with her music on full-bore, eating candy and dancing like a loon. No. There was a gaggle of cops and wizards trying to break-in, and she doubted they were after something cheap to read.
Ebony steeled herself with a breath and tried to think of what to do next.