Witch's Bell Book One

All characters in this publication
are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.

Witch’s Bell

Book One

Copyright © 2010 Odette C. Bell

Cover art stock photos:
portrait of a
beautiful lady warrior, dark-haired girl in a gray © Selenittt,
Fire ring © Trinity, City landmark of Hong Kong © elwynn. Licensed
from Depositphotos.

For free fiction and details of
current and upcoming titles, please visit

www.odettecbell.com

Witch’s Bell

BOOK ONE

Chapter 1

Ebony opened the door, her car keys
banging softly against the chipped wood of the frame. She rubbed
gingerly at the scratched paintwork, hoping to smooth out the
imperfections. Instead, all she managed was a splinter.

“
You need a paint job,” she told
the store as she walked in, dumping her bag on the counter. She bit
her thumb, removing the shard of wood with little effort and
spitting it onto the ground. “And I need manners,” she replied to
herself with a satisfied laugh.

She didn't have much to do today, in
the way of store business that was. She had to stack some shelves,
move some books out from the back, and post a couple of rare tomes
overseas. Apart from that, this would be a quiet day.

Ebony abruptly stopped short, halfway
through flipping the closed-sign to open. This should be a quiet
day, she corrected herself. You should never tell the universe what
to do. Giving it a categorical order only ever made it
tetchy.

Ebony kicked several dusty books out
of her path as she made her way over to the window. She intended to
yank open her ancient blinds and throw some much-needed morning
light over this shemozzle. As the old wooden slats parted with a
creak, perfect stripes of light moved across her face and into the
room behind. It lit up the dust motes drifting through the air,
like seedpods on the wind, and played against the dark mahogany of
her loose hair.

Ebony took a moment to stare through
the windows, fixing her gaze on the blue skies above. It should be
a beautiful, warm summer's day.

Should be, she repeated to herself as
she turned from the view.

Her long hair trickled over her
shoulder as she turned. Though trickle was not usually a word you
associated with dead, lifeless hair, you had to widen your
vocabulary when it came to Ebony. Not only did her curled strands
store up the light like a handful of diamonds glinting in the sun,
but the hair itself had a mind of its own. It sometimes swayed from
side to side, like wind over long grass. It sometimes danced
between her shoulders, like a bird hopping from branch to branch.
And sometimes it just sat there like a storm: eddying, brewing,
each tassel a wild concentrated wave.

No, Ebony's hair was not every day,
normal, humdrum, or ordinary. Nothing about Ebony was ordinary: not
her appearance, not her life, not her store, not her
job.

Ebony Bell was
–

The bell over the front door gave a
light tinkle as someone carefully pushed it open. Ebony cocked her
head to the side, long neck straining until she got a full view of
the door and the two men that cautiously walked in.

One was tallish, the other stout. Both
were dressed in apparently cheap, but well-made gray suits. Both
had the same starched white shirts, their collars so stiff and neat
that they could have been carved out of stone. The tall man wore a
simple black tie, which sat straight all the way down his front.
The short man didn't wear a tie, and his top button had popped all
the way open.

Detectives, Ebony thought
immediately.

How Ebony could deduce who these men
were based simply on the appearance of their clothes was not
important. She had many gifts, many useful, unusual gifts. She also
knew the stout man, which helped.

“
Ben,” she curled her lips into
a smile, flicking her hair over her shoulders as she moved out into
the center of the store, “I thought I told you never to come here
without food?”

Ben, a middle-aged man with a balding
patch so perfectly circular it looked like a mushroom ring,
grinned. His grins were half-cheeky, half-erratic, and mostly chin.
He delved a hand into a pocket and produced a brown paper
bag.

“
Ohh,” Ebony pursed her lips and
cocked an eyebrow, “I have you trained.”

Ben nodded in a humble but thoroughly
fake way, and threw her the packet. Ebony could see the grease
glistening off it as it spiraled through the air. When it came to
Detective Benjamin Tate and food, salt, sugar, and grease were a
dead on guarantee.

She caught the packet without shifting
her eyes. One long, elegant hand simply snatched it out of the air
with a snap.

Ebony let her gaze be drawn to the man
with Ben: the tall, silent, brooding man that looked like he
belonged in a classical painting of a knight. It wasn't just the
way he stood with his chest puffed out, his feet planted, and his
hands rounding into soft fists. It was the way his jaw was set with
an edge of righteous defiance. The way his short, brown hair
lengthened the shadows on his face. The way his dark eyes glinted
out at the world like pinpricks of fire on a moonless
night.

If Ebony smiled, she couldn't help it.
Ben's little friend looked like a barrel of fun: The way he gazed
at, and seemed to note, every single detail of the store. The way
he disparagingly stared at Ebony and Ben's little play, and
especially the way he looked at her.

Irritating was the only word for it.
Ben's little friend found Ebony, her store, and the way she looked
irritating.

And this just made her smile all the
harder.

Ebony finally slid her gaze off the
man and onto the greasy packet in her hand. She peered inside to
see some kind of fried biscuit. Why someone would intentionally
deep-fry something that was already essentially fat and sugar
molded into a lump, mystified her. Then again, many human behaviors
bordered on the bizarre.

“
So, Ben, tell me, what brings
you here so early in the morning?”

“
Early?” Ben produced another
packet with the same type of fried biscuit inside, and proceeded to
squeeze it into his mouth between breaths. “It's ten. I've already
been up for four hours.” Crumbs tumbled off his lips and between
his fingers, forming quite a little pile at his feet.

She shrugged her shoulders
expressively, rolling her make-up-clad eyes.
“We appear to have a different
concept of time.” Which was absolutely true. For Ben, time trundled
on like a clock strapped to a packhorse. For Ebony, time spiraled.
“Now, can I actually help you? Or are you here to drop crumbs all
over my precious stock?”

Ben ignored her comment,
instead leaning down to pick up the book by his feet, bits of
biscuit still crumbling in his fingers.
“Precious? You sure? This looks like
a dog-eared Nancy Drew novel.”

This drew a sharp snort of a laugh
from Ben's little friend. Ebony shifted her eyes over to him, like
a cat looking up, mid slumber, to see a mouse frolic across its
path. Who was this man?

“
So, who are you exactly?” Ebony
didn't beat about the bush, didn't soften her tone. She just took
several very confident steps towards the man, and curled up one
ruby-red lip. “I'm not used to men giggling from the
stalls.”

It was a challenge, of
sorts.

The man bristled, his head shifting
back slowly, and his chest punching out even more.

Before Ebony could exact her
reply, Ben ruined the mood with a jovial laugh.
“Leave him alone,” he pleaded,
“the guy's new.”

“
Then why is he in an old suit?”
Ebony's smile was now teeth pressed into lip. She knew she was
being cheeky, but she loved it.

The man's look of affront
peaked and finally plateaued with a gaze that could cut steel.
Making a show of looking around the room he finally found his voice
box:
“strange, I would have thought it was the newest thing in
this store, and certainly the cleanest.”

Ben chortled from behind her, crumbs
spraying out like little waterfalls all over his jacket and
tie.

Ebony had to suppress the
utterly gleeful smile that was threatening to turn her into a
Cheshire cat.
“Ohhh,” she said, lips forming a long and drawn out w,
“aren't you sharp. With a wit like that you should come with a
warning.”

The man didn't falter for a
second.
“I'll send around a police dispatch now, or—” he paused for
a moment, trying to look as if he was concentrating, “I could just
leave and do some real police work. Why are we here again, Ben?”
The man now turned from Ebony, facing Ben with a mildly
disapproving look. “Unless we can fine this woman for violating
OH&S laws,” the man reached out and tested the stability of a
teetering tower of boxes and old magazines, “I think we should
start on the murder from last night.”

Ben finished his final swallow,
giving a hearty cough as some of the crumbs stuck in his
throat.
“Yeah, yeah, rookie. We'll get to the case. Remember, the
way of the mentor isn't always clear to the little new guy,” Ben
patted his hand at about hip height, indicating that the man who
stood a full five inches taller than him was technically a midget
in Ben's eyes. “You've got to relax. This is your first day, and
I'm taking the time to show you the ropes, because around here
ropes are real important.”

“
And food,” Ebony added, resting
her chin on her hand, her fingers drumming lightly against her
cheek. She was almost getting bored with this conversation; she had
a lot to do, after all. But watching Ben's new little friend had a
certain appeal. He was like some righteous Greek god who had been
plucked from Mount Olympus only to be slapped down amongst all
these mundane little people who didn't understand the justice and
order of things.

The man was obviously ignoring
her now, concentrating instead on dragging Ben out of here.
“Look,” he said
with a sharp sigh, “I don't see any ropes around here. And frankly,
this is a used bookstore, Ben, don't you think a dark alley, or a
drug den, or an abandoned warehouse, or practically anywhere but
here would be more relevant to police work?”

Ben trotted over to a half-full
waste-paper basket and threw away his crumpled bag. Wiping his
fingers on his pants, he shrugged.
“Drug den? You been reading cop novels
from the 1920s, or something?”

The man's expression only grew
more exasperated.
“You know what I mean: meth lab, hydroponics unit,
whatever. Point is we're wasting our time. That murder isn't going
to get solved by standing around—”

Ben finally raised a hand, and
Ebony was pleased to note there was an edge of finality to the
movement. For the most part, Detective Ben Tate was a softy. He'd
never say anything without a grin, was sure never to drop by before
ten, and hardly grumbled when Ebony stole his coffee. But when he
wanted to, he could muster the authority of a field general.
“Alright Detective
Wall, that's enough. I brought you here to meet Ebony Bell. Ebony,
this is Nate Wall.”