Witch's Bell Book One

would count for diddly, considering what she was up against. She wiped her free hand under her nose, the other hand firmly pressed against the gun. Usually Ebony, as a witch, was bound not to use her magic in relation to things like guns. The arcane reason was something along the lines of guns, to humans, were a bit like magic, giving whoever wielded them a shot of inhuman power. And a witch, if she was careful, never mixed her magics.
    But this wasn't an ordinary day, and it wasn't an ordinary gun any more. The gloves were off, so to speak, and Ebony now had the blessings of the Coven behind her. Which was going to make her a dead-shot in the graveyard, if you'd pardon the pun.
    The rest of the team quickly assembled around her, the other officers of Vale Police Department set at strategic points around the perimeter wall. Ebony would take point on this one, not because she was the most skilled at combat/weaponry/command – but because if you were running an incursion into a ghost-infested graveyard – you wanted the witch at the lead.
    When she was confident everyone around her was ready, Ebony opened the gates. There was a basic protection spell in place on them, but it wasn't hard to break. Someone had tied a red cloth around the closed gates, weaving it around the metal rods and tying it carefully in the middle. Though it didn't look like much, no ordinary human would be able to break through it. Scissors would somehow lose their ability to cut, when pressed against the fabric; hands would lose their grip; and matches would simply fail to ignite it.
    Ebony just yanked at the damn thing, tossing it to the side with a mumbled curse. While it was an okay spell, it was still basic, which simply served to irk her even more. If whatever maniac had chosen to perform such a dangerous spell didn't have the ability to set up a proper safety perimeter, then it was becoming all the more likely that he was weaker than Ebony had hoped. Weak idiots form soft targets for stronger idiots, she reminded herself with a cocked eyebrow.
    With her gun still in her hand, Ebony pressed a shoulder into the iron gates, muttering a short motion spell that propelled them slowly open. They made a sound like aching metal – groaning open with creaks that could wake the dead – but hopefully wouldn't.
    The graveyard was dark, the growling storm above offering just enough dim evening-light to see the white stone-path that led through the grass. Headstones of varying sizes and styles were laid out either side of the path with such regularity and geometry that they looked lines drawn with rulers. To the back, and interspersed among the gravestones, were ancient trees, gnarled and giant. They were like sprawling, knotty, guards standing silent duty in the most silent of places.
    Just the sight of the trees gave Ebony the jitters. Ordinarily such trees really would function as guards, keeping the graveyard rooted to the ground as it were – standing for the great cycle of life – the symbolic growing of the living among the dead. But now the trees were cast into such darkness from the billowing skies above, they could easily be mistaken as lifeless marks on paper, under this light.
    They took the white path with quick, but careful steps, Ebony always at the lead, her senses feeling out before her in great arcs of concentration. The path led up the softly ascending hill, the interspersed gravestones slowly giving way to the older part of the cemetery. And it wasn't so ordered here, it wasn't so neat and nice. It was like walking back through the past. The gravestones on the perimeter were from more modern times. For, as Vale had changed over the centuries, so had her aesthetic, her ideal. Town planners now liked neat, orderly, countable rows. But the same couldn't be said of the inner section of the cemetery. Things were older here, less maintained, more chaotic. Gravestones were littered about, as if someone had gathered them together and thrown them into the air – not bothering where they landed. The headstones weren't all turned in the same direction either – they were all erratic – with stone angels turned to face winged cherubs, or statues with their backs to each other.
    It came at them suddenly, and from behind a broken, aged headstone. It ran low along the ground, like a cat at full-speed. It was dark, quick, fat, and had a touch of red.
    Before anyone else reacted, Ebony spun to the side, gun at the ready. She deliberately