Chapter 2
Ebony stared up at the imposing apartment block, her hands resting uneasily by her sides. It should have been a bright summer’s day, but heavy clouds gathered on the horizon. The building stood stark against the sky like a thick black line on a perfectly white wall.
“I hope Yates hasn’t downed all the coffee yet.” Ben stepped up on the curb beside Ebony and proceeded to clear his throat loudly. “Even though it’s a bright and sunny day, be darned if I’ve gotten myself a chill.” He plucked up the collar of his jacket, punched his hands into his pockets, and walked up the steps to the cop waiting by the door.
“Hmm,” Ebony mumbled to herself, still trying to take in the scene. A good witch never rushed in, her mother always told her. A good witch waited and watched. Watching was mostly what witching was about.
There was a sense of something dark in the air – a residual taste of something menacing that made the hair on the back of Ebony’s neck stand up like pins forced into her skin.
There were no birds perching on the windowsills, gutters, or ledges of the building. In fact, there wasn’t a chirp to be heard. There wouldn’t be any rats either, or mice, or pests of any kind. She fancied there wouldn’t even be an insect left in that place – not a cockroach under the oven, not a mosquito perched on a light, not even a fly buzzing at the window.
All the animals would have high-tailed it out of there. Animals always had the proper sense of things. Humans rarely did.
She was sickened to see gawkers peering past the yellow police-tape. They looked up at the building, over at the police cars, and talked amongst themselves with excited whispers. One of them even called over to one of the cops, “Hey, what’s going on here? There been a murder?”
The cop barely looked up from his cup of coffee. “Use your imagination and stay behind the line.”
Ebony pulled her gaze away from the people, wondering whether the human race would ever grow up. What kind of a creature would be so crass in the face of such violence? What kind of fool would stand in a place so dark, trying to catch a glimpse of something even darker? That’s what these people were after – a glimpse of the hardened plastic of a body bag, or a blood-soaked knife, or even a broken-faced man being led away in handcuffs.
They longed for images of dread; pictures that could be seared into their memories, that they could go home to tell their friends and family about; unusual stories they could whip out at the dinner table: “How was your day, honey? You got cut off changing lanes? Well I saw a murder scene – body bags and all.”
Wouldn’t that make for an exciting story?
Ebony shook her head. Sometimes she doubted ordinary humans had any sense at all.
“You going to stand here shaking your head all day, or are we actually going to go inside?” Nate asked, his deep drawl reverberating and startling her out of her reverie.
She barely managed not to jump. How long had he been standing there? Had she been so lost in the moment that she hadn’t noticed someone walk up and plonk themselves right next to her? “I’m watching,” Ebony said, making her voice sound as even and authoritative as possible, “A large part of what I do is watch.”
“Right, of course you do. But are we actually going to go inside? Ben’s already gone ahead.”
She didn’t move. She jutted out her jaw and patted down the flare in her dress.
She didn’t want to go inside, not that she would ever admit that to anyone, especially not the blustering Detective Nate.
Theft, illegal summoning, family curses – Ebony had experienced, and was comfortable with, most of the witch work she had received from the police department. She’d swan in with her golden earrings glittering in the sun, survey the crime scene, joke with the on-duty officers, steal their coffee, and solve the crime within the day.
Murders were another thing. She’d only seen two before, and both times she’d had to find an excuse to run into the bathroom to throw up.
“You can’t rush into these things,” she eventually offered, staring determinedly up at the building. “You have to be careful,” she was still patting down her skirt, “Pet,” she added as an afterthought.
Nate arched an eyebrow, his expression teetering on the edge of annoyance. “Right, only thing is, the body is in there.” He pointed at the door to the building. “And unless you think the outside of the building committed the crime, we’re really going to have to go inside to get the full story. Oh, and another thing,” he ducked under the police tape and made for the stairs, “I’m not your pet, dear,” he called out over his shoulder.
Ebony bit her lip. Who did this guy think he was? Barely a half-hour ago he’d been staring at her all trout-lipped as her magical bookstore tried to kill him. Now he was all gung-ho to check out his first magical-murder. He should still be whimpering, still shaking in his shiny shoes at the mere thought witches exist.
“Whatever,” she snapped, “Rookie then.” She ducked under the police tape, ignoring the shiver that shot down her spine. “You won’t be so ballsy when you see it,” she added to herself.
“Hey there, Eb.” the cop at the door nodded to Ebony as she walked up the steps. “How’s that store of yours?”
“Howdy, Jeb.” Ebony sauntered up to the man, gave him a wink, and deftly snatched the Styrofoam cup from his hands. “Store’s fine. How’s the wife?”
“Gees, Eb, you’re such a thief.” Jeb looked at his empty hands, shook his head, and proceeded to open the door for Ebony. “And the wife’s fine.”
She took a quick sip of her stolen brew and winked. “You know, you are meant to arrest thieves, Officer.”
“Oh, I can’t arrest you, Eb. You’d be a bad influence on all the other guys in lock-up.”
Ebony walked in, pretending to look thoughtful. “Good point.”
Nate was waiting for her inside the door and had witnessed the entire exchange, as he was staring at Ebony with mild disgust. “When you’re finished, everyone is waiting for us on the second level.”
She bit into the edge of her cup and smiled. “Don’t rush me, rookie. Remember, it’s your first day. And me,” she patted her chest, “I’ve been here… for ages.”
Nate looked underwhelmed by her reply. “Been here for ages. Wow, I can’t compete with that.”
She narrowed her eyes, staring at him from over the edge of her coffee. “You know, this isn’t a game, Detective Wall. Upstairs is going to be a crime scene unlike anything you’ve ever seen. No amount of training will ever prepare you for it.” Ebony tilted her head to the side in an attempt to get just the right angle so she seemed both deliciously ominous and thoroughly in control.
When the detective stared back at her, expression blank, she harrumphed and pushed past him. “Where did you come from, anyway?”
“Carrington.” Nate somehow appeared at her side, matching her pace easily.
“Oh, the big city.” Ebony took one last sharp sip on her coffee before tossing the cup into a bin.
Nate rolled his dark eyes. “We’ve got a potential homicide – you mind not messing up the crime scene?” He walked over to the bin, fished out Ebony’s discarded cup, and handed it to her. His face looked like the picture of a perfect policeman – his jaw was set, his eyes cold, and his mouth drawn. It was the face of a man who would stand in the path of a charging bull, telling it off for being a public nuisance.
Ebony sneered through a smile, snatching the cup off him when she realized it was going to take too much effort to win this one. “Right. And exactly what did you do in the big smoke, Detective Wall? Did you arrest old ladies for jaywalking?”
“No,” Nate flattened his tie, “I worked in homicide.”
The words fell against Ebony like a tidal wave.
Great. No wonder he was hardly sweating over the idea of walking into a brutal crime scene. It would all be old hat to him.
When she finished swearing at the man in her mind, she realized he was paying close attention to her expression. “W
hat?” she made the word as forthright as possible.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Nate had his head tilted as if he was examining some specimen behind glass, “But you haven’t dealt with many murders, have you?”
Ebony couldn’t stop her eyes from widening. And as they did, she could feel her stature change. If the detective was half as good as he thought he was, he’d notice the change in her posture, the pale hue to her cheeks, the weak angle of her bottom lip. It was one of the hardest things about being a witch – if someone was careful enough, they could read you like a book.
But darn it, this guy was new! He’d only found out what witches were an hour ago, and now he was already sussing her out like a long-time friend. “A magical,” she stressed the word, “Murder is not like your ordinary homicide. There are forces at play that you don’t understand,” she cautioned, turning from him and marching down the corridor.
“You mean more than the usual callus inhumanity of violence, degradation, and desperation?”
Ebony ignored him and walked up to Ben where he stood outside of an open door.
“Where is it?” she whispered, trying to stamp down on the terror raising its ugly head in the pit of her stomach. She had to be in control, she was Ebony Elizabeth Bell, after all.
“Eb.” Ben tried for a smile, but it couldn’t hold. “I was wondering where you’d gotten to. Body’s in the bedroom,” he added carefully.
Ebony swallowed and walked past him.
She dearly wished she had a coat on. It wasn’t just the terrible chill in the air, or the fact the sun was now hidden by slate-gray storm clouds – it was the fact she desperately wanted to hide her hands. The great thing about a coat was you could plunge your hands into the pockets and no one would be able to see you digging your fingernails deep into your palms.
With a breath, she entered the apartment. The usual mix of uniformed officers, be-suited detectives, and forensics officers were milling about the place. Low, respectful mumbling filled the air, with the click, click, clicking of cameras as the forensics team documented the scene.
To say the feeling hit her like a wall wasn’t quite right. The mix of dark, desperate dread drove through Ebony like monsoonal rain. She felt wet, not from water, but from fear-tinged sweat.
“What do we know about the victim?” She heard Nate announce to the room as he entered. “Alone, single? She living with anyone?”
Ebony was slowly tuning-out the bustle around her. Her eyes were drawn to the living-room walls, and she walked toward them, like a sleepwalker in the night. She picked her way past the man taking photos of the underneath of the couch and past the uniformed officer flicking through the post on a dressing table, until she finally touched a hand to the plum-colored wall.
Fingers pressed up against the cold paint, Ebony fancied she could feel the wall pulse erratically, like a heart coming to rest. There were symbols etched deep into its surface. They had been scratched into the plaster with a butter-knife maybe, or a used razor, or even the broken neck of a bottle.
The symbols were wide and irregular, made by the shaky hand of the frightened, or the fitful rage of the frantic. They were dotted around the edge of two large circles. Both circles were painted with what looked like red food-dye, but could easily have been watered-down blood.
A powerful spell, thought Ebony, the coldest of shivers running through her.
A hand latched onto her wrist, suddenly pulling her fingers from the wall. “Haven’t you ever heard of gloves?” Nate asked, releasing her wrist after a moment.
“You have more of a chance herding cats than getting Eb to follow procedure,” one of the forensics officers quipped from across the room.
Nate ignored him, staring at Ebony instead, before meaningfully depositing a pair of white latex gloves in her hand. “This might be a magical murder, or whatever,” he intoned coldly as he surveyed the room. “And I might be the rookie here. But there’s one thing that I have a feeling is germane to all police work,” He snapped his head back to look at her, “Respect the crime scene. Don’t go walking all over your clues before you know what they are. Now, you told me outside you watched, well, watching doesn’t mean touching, does it?”
Ebony’s shock at being pulled from the wall so quickly turned into bristling anger. “Excuse me, are you, or are you not the same man who walked into my store this morning without a single clue witches existed? Are you, or are you not, the man who has just found out about magic? Are you, or are you not, the man who has just walked into a crime scene he knows nothing about and yet thinks he can boss everyone else around?”
Her tone was loud and angry. Everyone else was now looking at her as she publicly dressed down the new guy.
The expression on Nate’s face turned colder than a winter’s night.
Ebony shifted backward. “You want to know everything about this crime scene, hmm? You want to know all the background facts? Well let me take a guess,” Her tone was officious, but underneath, it was all too erratic and peaked in all the wrong places. “Victim is a woman, lives alone, isn’t married, has a cat, likes the color red.”
She played with the latex gloves Nate had given her, without once having the inclination to put them on. “Oh, one other thing, she’s a witch.”
This gem silenced the room.
Ebony heard Ben swear from over near the doorway. “You sure?”
“Oh yes.” She stopped playing with the gloves and put them down on the TV stand.
To Detective Nathan Wall’s credit, he kept the same stance, same expression, and the same righteous glint to his eye. She may have just been totally rude to him, but the man was like a dog after a bone. “She was a witch,” he corrected.
“No, she still is one.”
“The body in the bedroom would like to disagree with you.” He cleared his throat and flattened his tie. “There’s nothing wrong with admitting you’re new to homicide scenes,” he added in a much quieter voice. “But you can’t bluster through them.”
Ebony clenched her teeth. “I’m the one in charge here,” she reminded him, feeling her authority slip all the more. What an infuriating man. Only this morning she’d been playing him, and now somehow he was playing her. Sheesh, she might have to break the Sacred Pact and throw a cursed rock through his window.
“Right, of course you are,” his words were hollow with sarcasm.
She longed to scream at him to stop saying that! “The witch,” she said clearly and loudly, “Isn’t dead. This wasn’t a murder at all.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up.
“And how do you know that?” Nate crossed his arms. “You’re right, I’m new to magic crimes, but I imagine there’s more to them than snapping your fingers and pulling the bad guy’s name out of a hat.”
“That would be a magician’s crime. Only magicians pull things out of hats,” she corrected him, “And I’m not pulling anything out of anywhere. I’m just reading the writing on the wall.”
“Arcane symbols, right?” one of the forensics guys asked.
“Yep, powerful spell too.” Ebony nodded his way.
She realized with relish that lost look was returning to Detective Nate’s gaze. Finally, he didn’t look like he was riding the wave any more.
“What?” Nate asked dumbly.
“There’s a spell on the wall.” Ben walked up to him and pointed at the etchings in the plum paint. “I thought it was a calling card, or something.”
“No, it’s a love spell.” Ebony tilted her head to the side. “A fairly fiery one, I might add.”
“Okay, I don’t know anything about magic,” Nate conceded through gritted teeth. “But there is still a dead body in that room,” he pointed out with desperation. “Whether there are magic symbols on the wall or not, surely the fact there’s a corpse on the bed is important?”
“I told you,” she found her confidence returning as Nate’s grip on the situation obviously waned, “It’s a love potion.”
r /> “Right, okay…. Dead body, huh? That’s quite a love potion. Real attractive.”
Ebony rolled her eyes, letting her mascara-clad lashes flutter. Now she knew what she was dealing with, the horror had left her. This wasn’t a murder at all. Though there was a heavy evil in the air, it was something Ebony could deal with, now she knew what she was up against.
And what exactly was she up against? A naughty witch, to be precise.
“Is this sanctioned magic?” Ben trotted up beside her.
“Oh no,” she laughed abruptly, “Definitely not. Someone will be getting in trouble with the Coven, I think.”
“How do we find her?” Ben picked up the latex gloves Ebony had abandoned on the TV stand and stuffed them into his pocket. “What exactly are we looking for? And, Eb,” Ben gave a small smile, “What is with the dead body?”
“Finally,” Nate mouthed.
“It’s a husk. The witch, whoever she was, committed a binding spell. I can’t tell you why, they’re fairly nasty, desperate incantations. The woman had obviously lost her mind.” She trotted over to the window and looked up at the clouds above. Was it her imagination, or were they thinning?
“So is it a dead body, or isn’t it?” Ben shot Nate a grin of camaraderie, which Ebony noted with a peeved twitch of her nose.
“For the last time, it’s not a dead body. Well, not really. The witch has swapped her body for that of something else. The actual witch, her soul, is still alive. Whatever is sitting in her bedroom is just an empty casing.”
“Swapped her body,” Nate repeated, his voice vacant. “Right. That’s… kind of heavy. What did she swap it for?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Probably long legs, round lips, and a killer smile. That… or wings and a forked tail.”
“Sorry?” Nate’s voice peaked with alarm.
“The witch has either decided to change herself into whatever she thinks is the most beautiful thing imaginable, or she’s gone and swapped her body for a powerful demon.”
“Most guys – and I think I’m right in making this generalization – usually go for long legs over a forked tail.”
Ebony played with the ends of her long hair. “Oh, it doesn’t really matter. Either the witch has turned herself into an alluring bombshell, hoping to catch her man, or she’s turned herself into a powerful demon, ready to exact its revenge for a love left unrequited.”
“That’s quite a distinction,” the edge of uncertainty and unease was starting to lift from Nate’s voice. “Don’t you think we need to know which one it is? I don’t mean to rush you or anything, but isn’t a demon-witch hunting down some poor man kind of a problem that we, as police officers, should deal with?”
Ebony gave a sharp laugh. “Don’t get excited, rookie. It’s not our problem anymore.”
“Not our prob—” Nate began.
“That’s Coven work,” Ben interjected, the smile returning to his lips. “You sure about this, Eb?”
“Oh yes, I think we can all go home. Well, after someone buys me a doughnut.”
All the other officers in the room started to pack up, the level of conversation moving from its once respectful hush to the ordinary bluster of a room full of hardened police officers.
Ebony was sure she could feel the dark edge of energy lift like a veil in the wind.
Despite the fact everyone else appeared satisfied, Nate stood there, not moving an inch. “So we don’t do anything? There’s a dead body in the other room, and we do jack.”
“You see, there are two sides to magical crime.” Ben clapped a hand on Nate’s shoulders, giving them a shake as if to loosen them up. “There’s our side, and there’s the witches’ side. We get involved when ordinary humans commit crimes, and Eb here is our consultant when it comes to all the magical stuff. She even helps us track down the bad guys. But when a crime is just between witches or whatever, then it isn’t our problem. The Coven or the Wizards deal with those crimes.”
“We’re the police,” Nate said stalwartly. “Isn’t all crime our problem?”
“Not in Vale,” Ben said with a broad smile. “Which is a damn good thing. Less work, see? Plus, let me tell you, you don’t want to get involved in witch crime – can be nasty. We hand it over to the Coven, and they deal with it a treat. It’s all part of the Pact.”
“I see,” Nate said blandly, shaking his head, “Actually, I don’t see. How do we trust this Coven enough to deal with these crimes impartially? Aren’t they likely to be lenient against their own kind?”
Ebony snorted. “The Coven is a counsel of the oldest, most powerful witches. It is their sworn purpose to uphold magical law. If magical law forbids the use of certain spells and a witch breaks the law, it’s up to the Coven to punish her. And if you think they’re lenient, you have another thing coming. You break their rules and they’ll send the first squadron of Hell after you.” She flashed Nate a smile. “And that’s why this is no longer our problem. The Coven can deal with this one. I can go back to the store and clean up; Ben can try and teach your handful of brain cells all the things you’ll need to know about policing in this town; and you, Detective Nathan Wall, can study those books I gave you.”
He really did need to study those books. The detective didn’t stand a chance in this city if he didn’t know about its magical flavor. Vale was an odd place at the best of times. At the worst, it was frankly terrifying. And, much to Ebony’s discomfort, these days, things were only getting worse. While it was true that every generation always thinks the battles they fight are far worse than those that came before, you could be forgiven for putting more faith in that fact in Vale. Ever since Ebony had moved to this city as a child, Vale had only become wilder, more dangerous, and more ferociously magical.
Nate eventually shook his head. “This has been… an unusual morning. I bet it’s going to be a hell of an afternoon, to boot.”
Ebony hissed through clenched teeth. “Don’t ever make statements like that, rookie. You never know what you’ll invite if you go around provoking the universe.”
“Provoking the universe? Or provoking you?” the detective smiled.
She laughed, tipping her head back and letting her tassels play against her shoulders. “Oh too late, you’ve already provoked me, rookie.”
“Alright Eb, when you’re done eating the rookie alive, I’ll drop you back home.” Ben sidled up to her. “As much fun as it’s been, I’ve got a ton of ordinary, everyday, boring crimes to get to.”
“And I have to clean up after this morning. And you,” she poked a red fingernail at Nate, “Better read those books and return them to me sharpish.”
The look on Nate’s face summed up the morning perfectly. His eyebrows peaked with defiance, his jaw jutted with attitude, and his eyes glinted with an insufferable knowing.
…
By the time Ebony made it back to the store, it was well into the afternoon. It would take her the rest of the day to clean up the mess and probably most of tomorrow too. She had bookshelves to coax back into place, magazines to sort, and boxes to fill again.
Despite the epic workload, she found herself smiling. It was one of those smiles that curled your lips until your cheeks pressed into your eyes.
Strange day, she admitted to herself, very strange.
A tsunami of books in the morning; a witch who’d risked it all on a forbidden love spell in the afternoon; and of course… the strange, delightfully irritating Detective Nathan Wall.
Despite being a consultant witch for the police force and owning a magical second-hand bookstore, Ebony’s life was usually boring. She’d pack books on shelves, occasionally deal with customers, and trot down to the police station to remove a curse from a ring.
Normal stuff, boring stuff.
Now the winds of change were blowing, and Ebony could feel them playing against her hair.
Now the only question was what would happen next?