Witch's Bell Book One

you'd see the docks leading down to the bottle-shaped mouth of the river, and the ocean beyond. Though the ocean didn't always glitter or beam at you with the warm azure smile of the tropics, it still invited the eye. It was something to do with the way the bay was shaped, as it seemed to lead the gaze forever out onto the horizon that was simply endless ocean.
    Indeed, if Vale was a knot on a chain of roads, then the Portal was the protrusion around which it had formed. Making the ocean and the mountains the throat around which the chain rested.
    Ebony undid her seat belt as they neared the gates to the cemetery. A line of other police cars were already there, their lights flashing in the forever-dimming day. She gathered her skirt around her, ready to leap out at the soonest opportunity.
    It was no mistake of analogy that had left Ebony thinking Vale resembled a chain around the neck of the land. It was the way the mountains led down, like a backbone, to the narrowed point of Vale, then opened out onto the head of the ocean.
    Also, it was the way the city itself felt. It sometimes gave her the impression of just floating there, sitting above the land, rather than being cut into it. Yet at other times it felt as if the whole city was talking to her, not with the combined words, actions, creations, and aberrations of its citizens – but with something far more mysterious. It was as if the Portal itself was somehow summoning the whole city at once. Enlivening it with the terrible, yet wonderful magic that came from the Other Side.
    None of that mattered at the moment though, Ebony assured herself as Ben finally pulled up alongside another car, barely turning off the engine before he was out the door. Well it mattered, and it didn't matter at the same time. For now she had to concentrate on the fact at hand - some delirious idiot about to use the souls of the recently-dead to contact Death itself. But still, she couldn't entirely forget the mysterious and foreboding architecture and placement of this darned cemetery. The witches of Vale had often wondered who had designed it, or how it had come to be. For witches past had sworn none of them had had such a hand in city planning. No, the placement of Vale Cemetery had all been down to the Valians – another magical accident to chalk up on their board of ignorance.
    Ebony managed to hide a little shiver as she drew up alongside Ben as he got the low-down from a pale-faced uniformed officer, who kept shuddering at the slightest sound that emanated over the dense walls of the cemetery. She hoped for one thing, and she wished for it with all her heart. Because of where the cemetery was, because of the amount of natural magic it seemed to command, Ebony desperately, desperately hoped no other ah... thing, would get involved. Her warning to Flora had been genuine. Practice magic without a direct purpose, and something with a stronger purpose will take it from you. Now that warning rang in Ebony's mind like a church bell over a silent city. Practicing magic in a cemetery was downright dangerous to begin with. No witch would ever do it alone. Cemeteries were places of powerful, powerful emotion and memory – two of the key ingredients to any magical spell. Any magical creature worth its name would know this. As such, you never knew what you'd find lurking behind the warped oaks, musty head stones, and corners of the old, dark crypts of cemeteries.
    Nate drew up beside her in his usual silent fashion. 'I don't see the ghosts,' he said automatically, using his height to peer over the wall beyond. 'Shouldn't they be zipping around the sky in trails of light, listening to loud 80's music, and making ludicrous faces?'
    'This isn't Ghost Busters,' she reminded him, this time with a shiver. What with the fat rain drops and the general atmosphere of doom, she was having trouble keeping warm. Though it certainly wasn't raining as hard as it had been in the city, Ebony could see an even darker set of storm clouds rolling down from the mountains, like opaque mist over a river. Which simply meant she was only likely to get colder.
    She was mildly surprised that Nate seemed to actually see, and note, her little shiver with a bare smile. It wasn't a mean smile, or a triumphant one, it was almost, almost kind. But then he ruined it: 'I bet you're regretting wearing such a tiny little white dress,' he looked down at her feet, his eyebrows dancing around in amusement. 'And where the hell are