Witch's Bell Book One

protection disappearing from her feet. She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the mess, 'oh dear'.
    Ben crawled out from underneath the banana lounge; his round face drooped like a flower. 'Damn it Ebony, you trying to kill us?'
    'It wasn't me,' she waved him off with a flick of her hand. 'Apparently Harry is in a mood this morning.' Ebony knelt down and started piling books on top of each other, trying to clear a path from the door to the stairs.
    'What's going on, who's Harry,' came the gruff voice of Detective Nate behind her, 'and what just happened?'
    Ebony rolled her eyes, sighed, and stood up. Ebony Bell was tall, slender, had long red hair, and sparkling blue eyes. She was hardly a super model though. Ebony Bell wore her face and body like a trophy wife wears a jacket: one for every occasion. Not to say that Ebony literally pulled off her face and slotted a new one in place. It was her expressions, her stance, her body language. At times Ebony would smile, her hair glinting in the sun, her eyes sparkling and warm – and she would look like the most beautiful creature ever born. At other times she would stalk to and fro, her lips pulled, eyes narrow, fists rolled up – and look like a deadly menace, akin to the most terrifying of hardened criminals. And yet at other times Ebony would be engaged in the most mundane of tasks, and look for all the world like a mundane, ordinary woman.
    It was a simple but careful rule with Ebony: whatever she was doing, she became.
    Why?
    Because Ebony Bell was a Summoner Witch. And the first hallowed rule of summoning is becoming.
    'Listen Detective Nathan Wall, I'm sure you are a little surprised by all of this. So let me start at the beginning. My name is Ebony Elizabeth Bell. I am a witch. I own a magical second-hand bookstore. Harry is the name of the spirit who inhabits the store.' Ebony cast around her feet, as if looking for more thoughts. 'Now let me see, is that it?'
    Detective Nate looked at her askance. 'A magical bookstore called Harry... a witch,' he repeated, voice uneven.
    Ben trundled up to him. 'I told you she was an important one to meet. But no, you didn't believe me,' he let out a stuttering laugh. 'That's the thing with rookies, always think they know best.'
    Ebony put a finger on her lips, and wondered just how much she should tell this man. He was a firecracker, to be sure. Full of determination, idiocy, and a freakish sense of right and wrong. Just the recipe for having something explode in your face.
    But Ebony had what could only be called a special relationship with the police force of this city. As resident Summoner Witch, she had to. The city of Vale, after all, was sitting right on top of a gate between worlds – a Portal. As such, though it already had its fair share of ordinary crime, it also had extraordinary crime. And that's where Ebony came in.
    Vale had truly ancient roots, and somewhere in its dark past a pact had been made between the witches and whatever ragtag bunch had then been equivalent to the police. When they had to, they worked together to keep its citizens safe. No one else had a clue about this pact, or even the existence of witches, for that matter. If Ebony walked up to an ordinary Valian and asked if they knew that there was a witch who did consultancy work for the police department, they'd likely laugh at her and quickly text a friend about the tool fool they'd seen in the street.
    Nevertheless, there was a pact, and it had held right up to this day. Somehow - no matter what happened to the governments, what political parties took hold, what practices were changed, what mayor was elected - the pact held. Even during the two World Wars, the witches of Vale had still kept up their bargain. Come rain, hail, shine, or demon, the Witches honored this sacred agreement.
    And for the most part, the police honored theirs. No witch was ever dragged off by secret government spies for questioning and prodding in a dark room. And no policeman ever had a hex, a love potion, or a curse thrown through their front window. The police knew what they had to do, and so did the witches. Keep to the bargain and somehow this unlikely alliance would last. Break the bargain, as the old witches had warned, and the witches would simply disappear.
    And guns and riot shields weren't entirely effective on a hoard of demons.
    So it was that Ebony had come to know Ben. Ebony had moved to this city when she was a sparkling eyed ten-year-old, and had