Witch's Bell Book One

going on?
    She had to check the files; Ebony closed her eyes and drove the words into her mind. She had to go and check what she'd written about Cecilia and the crypt.
    Ebony started to take the steps quicker. Magical files could not lie, she repeated to herself. And whatever paperwork Ebony had done regarding the crypt case would be upstairs amongst the files. All she had to do was retrieve it, read it, and then... well... try and convince everyone else they were mad.
    Ebony still shook as she finally reached the top-level. Her lips were dry, her eyes wide, and the beginning of a serious stress headache was forming in her shoulders and temples. But nonetheless, she practically dove towards the most recent files.
    She reached out a hand, spying where they should be on the rack, and finally snatched the right Manila file.
    She opened it.
    It was empty.

Chapter Seventeen
    E bony stared at the file in her hands, not really believing what she was seeing.
    It was empty, completely empty.
    She hastily put it down, reaching instead for the file behind it. She leafed through the contents, hoping that somehow, the crypt file had simply been misplaced. Far from it, she found with a shudder that raced down her back. Not only was the crypt file itself missing, it seemed that every single file relating to magical crime that Ebony had written in the past several weeks, was gone. All of them.
    Ebony blinked hard, as if she'd just stuck her head in a wind-tunnel full of sand. She put down the files and stepped away from the shelf with a jerk of her body.
    This was all some kind of mistake, her rational brain tried to tell her, just someone playing a terrible joke.
    Ebony waited for laughter to erupt from behind her. It didn't. So she just let her mouth pull up into a bare, awful grin. It was the kind of smile a monkey showed in the face of danger – with curled lips, but not a single ounce of mirth or laughter.
    'Oh lord,' she said softly, wiping at her eyes with a sweat-moistened palm. What was she meant to do now?
    This was a desperate situation, utterly desperate. So what should she do? Run through the police station and try and raise the alarm? Hope against hope that there were still people out there that.... that what? That still liked her? That remembered that Ebony hadn't stuffed up all that badly on the crypt case? That remembered that Cecilia Grimshore shouldn't be hanging around with a man that had once kidnapped her?
    While it was certainly alarming in the extreme that Cecilia was acting best buddies with her once vicious attacker, how many people would be moved by Ebony's tale of having stuffed up markedly less on the crypt case than most people thought? It was really a matter of opinion, wasn't it?
    Wasn't it?
    Ebony rubbed at her face again, biting hard into her lips. Hold on girl, she told herself quickly. You're doubting yourself again. And sure enough, she could feel that almost thick pall of self-doubt swirling around her. Though the effect of it was less up here amongst the files, Ebony could still feel this powerful desire to question everything she knew, and not take a single word of her own as fact, let alone gospel.
    She took a breath. She was missing something here. This situation was surely desperate, but Ebony making herself desperate was hardly going to fix it. In fact, it was one of the essential principles of summoning magic – a lesson Ebony would do more than well to remember in her present state. While she may not technically be able to practice magic at the moment, that didn't stop her from remembering, and appreciating, the knowledge of the witches. And any half-baked old hag worth their Hecate statue would tell Ebony one thing right now – if you don't like the situation you are in, become the opposite.
    When faced with a fireball-wielding wizard, wield water. When attacked by a death-calling maniac, call life. And while such lessons were certainly sound principles for summoning witches, surely they could be extended to ordinary life? So, when faced with a desperate situation, simply become everything but desperate. When you find yourself amidst a situation of fierce hate and vicious anger, fill yourself with passionate love and divine grace. If attacked by the rude, become the polite. If waylaid by the confused, call on inspiration.
    When everyone around you lacks control, find your own. When the situation you're in seems to be spiraling down into a bottomless pit of insanity, horrendous