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

  Witch’s Bell

  Book Three

  Second Edition © 2016

  First Edition Copyright © 2012 Odette C. Bell

  Cover art stock photos licensed from Depositphotos.

  www.odettecbell.com

  Witch’s Bell

  BOOK THREE

  An urban fantasy with everything from romance to mystery, The Witch's Bell Series follow a feisty witch, Ebony Bell, as she solves magical malady after magical malady.

  Ebony is in trouble. This time it isn't some strange family curse or a hoard of tattooed wizards. It's her dreams; they've turned on her. Someone or something is trying to get at Ebony through her dreams. And it is powerful, horribly powerful. She might have faced trouble in the past, but she has never faced anything like this. If she can't find a way to stop it, Ebony Bell will die, and the rest of Vale will die with her.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  More by Odette C. Bell

  Chapter One

  Ebony dreamed.

  Her long hair sprawled across the pillow, a mess of red tangles against the clean white cotton. Her arms were tucked in tight, her hands clutched into fists. Even though there was nothing to grab hold of, her fingers were white and bloodless from the sustained, concentrated tension.

  She didn’t twist and turn in her sleep. Her pillows weren’t flung across the room as her body fumbled and fought its own demons in the dark.

  She lay still. Her expression remained calm. Her lips were closed, her eyelids gently pressed together. The only sign of something wrong was the pallid, sickly-white spreading over her knuckles and across her fingers.

  Ebony had dreamed all her life – all witches did. All witches were taught that the realm of unconscious play hid all the secrets of eternity. Within dreams the totality of every lie and every truth can be revealed – everything that may be, that may not be, that never will be, and that will be. Within the swirl of shapes, colors, times, places, and lives lie everything imagined.

  All the good and all the bad. All of it.

  Everything that can happen to you in life can happen to you in a dream, and more, so much more.

  ...

  Ebony’s alarm didn’t wake her up that morning. Instead, she blinked back her sleep to hear a tap-tapping at her window. She rolled over to see a giant, black crow pecking at her windowpane.

  The early morning sun glinted off its shimmering, sleek feathers. It even glinted off its dark, glossy eyes.

  She lay there blinking at it, transfixed. That glint in its eyes....

  “You know, you don’t see that every day.”

  Ebony jumped at the unexpected voice, several of her silk cushions flying off her bed in protest.

  “Harry,” she shouted when she found her breath. “How many times have I told you not to just walk into my room?”

  “You prefer I peddle next time?” Harry was leaning against the door, arms crossed, head angled toward the window, a smile inching across his face.

  “You know what I mean. It’s just not...” she searched for the correct term as she grabbed the dressing gown hung over the back of her bed and pulled it on, “decent.”

  Harry appeared to think, even taking the time to stroke his non-existent beard. “I’m a house, not a peeping tom. Need I remind you that when I was all wall and chimney, you had no problem dancing around the kitchen in your knickers?”

  Despite herself – and despite the fact Harry was right, and he was still (in spirit) a bloody house – her cheeks flushed hot.

  “Oh just get out, you little pest,” Ebony retorted, grabbing a cushion and hurling it at him.

  Harry didn’t bother to bat it away. The cushion soared over and banged right into his head, but he didn’t even blink at the impact.

  “You know something, that crow’s been tapping at that window for almost an hour now,” Harry said, arms still crossed, posture a perfect example of cool-and-he-knows-it.

  Her cheeks threatened to redden again. “You’ve been in my room for an hour?”

  Harry shook his head. “I’ve been your room for longer – does that count? But you’re missing the point here – that crow really wants to get in.”

  Ebony shook her head. She had to admit her life was never going to be sane as long as she lived with a crazy house wizard.

  “We should let him in.” Harry pushed off the wall, straightening his britches and tightening his suspenders as he picked his way across her messy floor to the window.

  “What? Why? It’s just a crow? Maybe it really likes its reflection. Or, considering all that ferocious tapping, wants to peck its own eyeballs out?”

  Harry didn’t answer. He made the window open. He didn’t have to touch it. He was a wizard, after all.

  There was a moment when the crow sat still on the windowsill. At that moment, a kick of anticipation raced through her stomach. Yet the moment passed, and along with it, the crow passed, too.

  It gave the open window a curious, head-tilted look, then flew off without so much as a tap-tap.

  Harry closed the window, but this time he used his hand.

  Even though Harry had only been a human (or, more accurately, had only been in human form) for several months now, Ebony was having trouble adjusting to the change. One, there was a man living in her house. Even if he was still technically living in the foundations, the roof tiles, the chimney bricks, and the books that lined the shelves in the downstairs shop, he still managed to leave the toilet seat up. Two, he – and especially his magic – were a lot harder to ignore in this form. At times, he used his hands to clean the dust off the bookshelves. At others, he used his mind, sending a wind from nowhere sweeping through the shop like a sudden indoor storm.

  The magic was palpable, and so too was the power. When Harry had been a store, it had been easy to relegate his powers to that of any ordinary, possessed abode. Now he was a man and a store at the same time, Ebony could no longer pretend Harry wasn’t... well... one of the most powerful magical creatures she’d ever come across.

  Also one of the most cantankerous and rude.

  Harry walked over to her, eyes narrowed. “I can see that you are thinking hard – or require immediate morning ablutions – but pay attention, little witch.”

  “It was a crow.” She rolled her eyes and gestured toward the now-closed window. “Who cares?” Ebony knew where Harry was going with this and wanted to cut him off at the knees before she got an ear-full. “It’s simply a myth that we witches use crows as magical symbols. They don’t bring bad luck; you can’t predict the future from them; and you certainly don’t keep them as pets, unless you moonlight as a bird enthusiast or are damn macabre. I know what you are thinking, wizard, but,” Ebony pointed at the window, “that doesn’t mean anything.”

  Harry stood there and chuckled. “You, little witch, don’t get to decide what means something. Only the out there,” he pointed up with a stiff finger, “does.”

  Ebony snorted. She looked over at her alarm. “Oh, dammit. That damn thing has broken again! Now I’m late for work!” She jogged over to her dresser and started to pull out the drawers, throwing random garments behind her until she had something that loosely assembled an outfit. “How could you let the clock break again, Harry? I thought that everything in this house was controlled by you?”

  “You bought that for five dollars at the supermarket.” Harry flicked at his suspenders. “Had it not occurred to you that the price indicated quality? Plus, I take offense at being forced to keep someone else’s time.”

  She rolled her eyes, grabbed her clothes, and ran to the bathroom. “Can you actually do something useful today, Harry? Like, I don’t know, open the shop and actually sell a book to a customer?”

  Ebony knew exactly what Harry would say next, but it was worth a try anyway. She skidded to a stop by the bathroom door and pulled herself in, untying her dressing gown as she did.

  “It isn’t my fault if the customers don’t buy the books they should, the little blighters.” Harry’s tone took on a dusty, memorable quality. Ever since Harry had become human (or mostly human), his tone had changed. The way he spoke, the way he acted – they felt a little more real and a little less haunted-house.

  That being said, he’d always find a good enough time to slip in a “blighter” or “blast.” But they were mostly directed at the pigeons these days.

  Ebony tugged on a red and black sweater, wrestled herself into a slim-fit black skirt, grabbed a pair of peacock-style earrings she found by the bathroom sink and opened the door to find Harry standing right there. “All I’m saying is that you could at least try to sell them the books they actually pick, rather than insisting that they don’t need it and flinging some other book at them instead.”

  “I am a bookshop, Eb; I know books, I collect books. I have to honor those books. So when the wrong person comes in looking for the wrong book, I don’t give it to them. I spend the time to find the right book for the right person instead, because I’m a wizard, and right is what we do.”

  “Well then, yo u and Nate should get together sometime and pat each other on the back.” Ebony fixed her earrings in place and pushed past Harry. “Plus, Harry, you can pretend you match your books to your customers – or whatever – but last week you stopped a retired veteran from buying a book on military history and offered him a crochet guide instead.”

  “To engage his attention of fine detail,” Harry sniffed back. “Also, he could have repaired his jumper.”

  Ebony sighed. “Okay, Harry, whatever. Just have a nice day.” She patted his shoulder as she made for the stairs. “And don’t chase too many pigeons.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it—” Harry began.

  She felt an involuntary cold shiver cross her back.

  “I would blast them from the sky instead,” Harry finished.

  She blinked, shook her head, then smiled. “Of course. I’ll see you later.”

  As she marched down the stairs, she pushed her mind from the tingling sensation that still haunted her body. It wasn’t nerves. It wasn’t anxiety. It wasn’t even her usual intuition playing up. She couldn’t infer from it that today would be a bad one. As far as she could tell, there wasn’t going to be a storm, ghosts weren’t going to fly from the cemetery, and demons weren’t going to flow through the cracks in the pavement. It wasn’t even the first tingles of a tummy ache or the preamble to a nasty flu.

  Ebony had no idea what the sensation was. All she could do was feel it as it shadowed the rest of her body. The only way she could describe it was as residue... though that didn’t even fit. Rather than being the prelude to some future shock, it appeared to be the after effect of a past action.

  Her mind running circles around itself, she hardly paid attention as she made her way through the shop, heading for the front door. She automatically picked up several books strewn over the floor, dusted her hand over a patch of grit on the bench, and twisted the closed sign to open.

  She slid the bolt back and opened the door with a quick move that saw the open sign click and tumble against the glass.

  “Are you serious?” a voice said from behind her.

  Ebony jumped.

  Nate.

  “You in some kind of daydream?” He was leaning against the bookshelf directly opposite the counter.

  She must have walked right past him without noticing he was there. Yet that fact didn’t unsettle her, it was....

  Ebony rubbed her eyes and turned to him.

  She could see that flicker of concern in his gaze. She’d come to recognize that look. In fact, she’d come to recognize all of Nate’s looks.

  When she’d met him, she’d convinced herself Nate was a single-state guy. Detective Nathan Wall had one personality trait, one emotion, and only one way of looking at the world – he wanted to be right. Everything he did, everything he said, and everything he thought was all either in an attempt to be right or to right some perceived wrong.

  He was the embodiment of a knight, in more ways than one.

  Then she’d actually gotten to know him. Now all the side-ways, lip-curling smiles he gave weren’t in aid of his righteousness. The depressed-brow, sunken-mouth grimaces he would offer at the sight of some crime weren’t because he was aching to make it all right again (though there was a little of that). No, it was mostly just Nate being Nate.

  Yeah, she could see the concern on his face. His bottom lip was half-turned in, his eyes were hardened, and he wasn’t standing as easily as he’d been a moment before.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Ebony shrugged. “I just got up on the wrong side of the bed today.”

  He nodded. “Right. Well, you’re also late.”

  She sighed, pressed her lips together, and nodded. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “All right, we’ve had another kidnapping,” Nate said, mirth gone.

  His words hung in the air between them. Even the dust motes tooling around the store stopped out of decency.

  Ebony stiffened, her hands clutching at the air by her side, knuckles hard and white. “Oh, god.”

  Nate nodded. With that small move, he shared her apprehension.

  “Who’s the victim?” She closed her arms around her middle, leaned back against the counter, and stared over at Nate.

  He looked tired. Ever since this spate of kidnappings had begun, all the department were tired – her included.

  She hadn’t been sleeping well for at least three weeks.

  “A little girl,” Nate answered. His expression was grim, his stubble-covered chin stiff, his eyes angled toward the floor.

  Ebony put her head in her hand. The tingle – that damn tingle from before –shadowed her every move. It laced around the pit of her stomach, winding up her back and tracing across the soft skin of her cheeks. It was like water leaking from a hole.

  She pushed it out of her mind. She had work to do. “Okay, I take it your car is out front?”

  He jammed his hands in his pockets and nodded.

  Despite the fact he was tired, Nate always looked great. It wasn’t in a plastic, stiff-faced model way. The more Ebony stopped to actually look at the guy, the more she allowed herself to see. It was the way his skin would crinkle at the edges of his eyes when he smiled, and the way he always angled his head to the side and up. It was the way he could hold your gaze no matter what.

  That being said, Nate was, more often than not, bloody annoying. He knew when and how to irritate Ebony, and did so on a frequent basis.

  Yet sometimes, just sometimes, she allowed herself to see something else shining through the cracks in the detective’s facade.

  “Car’s out front,” Nate replied after putting down the book he’d been reading. “Coffee and doughnut waiting.”

  Despite the scene they’d soon be traveling to, Ebony curled her ruby-red lips and purred. “Oh, it hasn’t taken me long to train you.”

  Nate stared back, unmoved. “Training entails consistency. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll get you a cup of kitchen grease and a slice of fruit cake.”

  Ebony hated fruit cake. If she wanted to eat a brick, she’d start munching on people’s houses. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now let’s go.”

  Nate opened the door for her – once a gentleman, always a gentleman.

  “How did you get in, by the way?” Ebony raised an eyebrow, catching a scent of his cologne as she passed by.

  A mischievous grin curled his lips. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver key. “Harry gave me a key.”

  Ebony blanched. “He did what?”

  Nate shrugged. “What can I say, we get on great.”

  First, they’d bonded over their mutual hate of dragons. Now Harry had grown a pair of legs and a pair of suspenders to keep his pants in place, his relationship with Nate had deepened further. Yes, that’s right – they went to the pub together.

  They were friends.

  Ebony could remember quite fondly when she’d broken into Nate’s house based on Harry’s insistence the detective was bent. She could remember when Harry had – on more than one occasion – tried to behead Nate with a book.

  Now they talked about the best ways to steal dragon hoards over a damned beer at the pub.

  Men.

  “How dare he give you a key to my house—”

  Nate ticked his head to the side. “It’s his house actually. You just live here.”

  “Semantics. Now why on Earth would he give you a key anyway?” Ebony waited until Nate opened the car door for her. “He hiring you as a cleaner?” She snorted at her bad joke.

  “Nope. And before you suggest that he’s trying to encourage my stalker side, the answer is no. And no, he’s not giving me the key for a charm bracelet.” Nate trailed off. “Now what other lame possibilities would you come up with? That he gave me the key so that I could mess up all the clothes in your closet – if they are in any order whatsoever, that is.”

  She stared at him, lips pressing closer together. “You want to be hexed, partner?”

  “I’m just doing some research. He gave me the key so I could get into the shop and read all those dusty books.”

  Ebony jumped into the passenger seat and stared at Nate.

  “Also,” Nate tapped the top of the car before he got in, “he gave me the key on the express condition that I haunt you at night. You know, rattle your shutters until you have horrible dreams—”

 

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