Ebony liked her car, and she liked the added extras. Little blessings here and there that made it easier to park and impossible to crash. She also appreciated the fact she didn’t have to walk today – considering either the wind would flatten her, or the skies would open up and drown her from above.

  Before Ebony could even start the engine, she noticed someone walking up to her store then across to her car. She wouldn’t have thought anything of it had it not been for the very, very nice suit the gentleman was wearing.

  Mr. Aaron Heart.

  He smiled at her, the winter coat he was wearing over his usual suit somehow not being tugged and pulled by the wind.

  He was holding two steaming cups of what looked like coffee. But considering this man was a wizard, Ebony had to remind herself that looks can be deceiving.

  Ebony rolled down the window, suddenly more than aware that she was in track pants and a jolly sweater, and had a scrunchie in her hair. It wasn’t exactly an alluring combination.

  “I thought, if you have time, you might like to see those books of yours.” He offered her the coffee through her window.

  Damn, she thought to herself bitterly. Perhaps she could run inside and change into a ball gown or something. Because it would have to be something excessively formal and glitzy to match Aaron’s impeccable suit. The man looked like he was dressed up to meet the president, the queen, and the ruler of the universe. And Ebony looked like she was dressed up to bake muffins and watch daytime television.

  But then she realized she couldn’t exactly keep blanking this man as she bemoaned her bad luck. “I actually have to get to work,” she bit down on her lip, “sorry.”

  Aaron nodded. “Of course. I was thinking more of tonight, over dinner,” he added as his smile grew.

  Ebony blinked. Wow. Forward. Apparently, to Mr. Perfect here, it didn’t matter that Ebony was dressed up like a grandma on laundry day. “Um, sure,” she said automatically, not really thinking. “That sounds great.”

  She really was responding automatically. A charming, gorgeous, well-dressed man asks you out on a date – only one response, right?

  But then she thought of Nate. There was nothing going on there, she assured herself. In fact, there was nothing going on with Aaron, either. This wasn’t a date; this was an appointment to look at her merchandise while eating.

  “I thought, perhaps, we could have dinner at the Arlington – they have a magical chef, I’m told.” Aaron held his smile while he spoke, which is a relatively hard thing to do.

  Ebony was starting to wonder whether he’d been smiling when the wind had changed one day and was now stuck like that. Not that she was complaining. “Their chef is magical.”

  “Ah, then the rumors are right. I’ll meet you there at seven?” He cocked his head to the side, one eyebrow raised pleasantly.

  “Sure.”

  “The Arlington has a well-appointed drawing room; it should be perfect for looking at those books.”

  Ebony dimpled her chin to stop herself from smiling too much. A well-appointed drawing room? It sounded like a gentleman’s club. But then she frowned. The Arlington practically was a gentleman’s club. It was run by wizards for wizards.

  It was the kind of place that would have Harry threatening to blast it to the ground.

  “I will see you tonight, then.” Aaron dipped his head again, as if in deference, and walked away.

  Well, that had been unexpected. Or had it? She couldn’t put her finger on this Aaron character. Perhaps he was genuinely interested in her, perhaps he wanted to annoy Nate, or perhaps he had something entirely more complex on his mind.

  Ebony would just have to find out.

  Chapter Seven

  By the time Ebony made it to work, she was starting to realize that wearing her comfortable track pants had been exactly the right idea.

  “Eb, we’ve got one accidental cursing at the local butchers, one accidentally summoned demon at the electric company, and two reported ghosts at the cemetery,” Ben said as he shook his head. “How exactly we manage to keep all this stuff from everyday citizens, I have no idea. But the Chief wants these sorted out now.”

  “How are we meant to do all this at once?” She sighed to herself. Then she decided that sighing was a luxury she couldn’t afford. “Fine, well, I’ll take the Electric company, put several of the boys from uniform on the ghosts, and you and Nate can take the butchers.”

  Aside from the fact she’d allocated herself the most dangerous task, she’d also managed to get out of going to the butchers – because that sounded frankly frightful.

  But she didn’t like having to split up like this. She didn’t like having to go out alone.

  Then she remembered. Or rather, the two out-of-place leather-clad bikers who just entered the room jogged her memory. She had wizards to play with now, didn’t she? And she didn’t mean in the sandbox or at the park. As part of their being allowed to come to this city, they had agreed to help the Vale police. Today Ebony was going to use all the help she could get.

  “Alright.” She marched right up to them, not caring that she was in a jolly knitted jumper and they were in their leather vests. “We’ve got a couple of ghosts at the cemetery and something nasty going down at the butcher’s. Are there only two of you? Do you think you can manage either of those?”

  The wizard closest to Ebony, the one who was almost six-foot-six and had arms that were green from aged tattoos which he’d likely got as a wild twelve-year-old, cracked his neck to the side. “We’re from the Enforcement Squad,” the man growled at her. “We’ll take your ghosts, your butchers, and any dragons you’ve got.”

  Ebony smiled sweetly. That sounded like a challenge, and she was more than willing to take them up on it. “Okay then. You, son, can take the butchers.” She pointed to the wizard who’d spoken. “And you,” she pointed to the other one, “can take the ghosts. Now, you know the rules: keep the civilians out of this, and make sure no one catches you going to town on some cursed butcher knives. Keep destruction of property to a minimum. And clean the place of any hexes before you leave. And also, don’t scare any old women with your loud motorbikes,” she added for good measure, but with a cheeky grin tugging at her lips.

  The wizards nodded.

  The Enforcement Squad, ha? That was interesting. The wizards must be taking this pact seriously if they were sending members of their own precious policing unit out to help. The Enforcement Squad were there to deal with wayward wizards – and judging by the brawn of these particular examples of that unit, they were there to deal with it by dealing out body blows. They would be well-versed in magic as well. So Ebony had no qualms about sending them out to face the many magical accidents of Vale.

  “Ben, we’ll take the Electric Company together. Where’s Nate, anyway? He’s not back down the sewers, is he?” She crossed her arms tightly over her chest.

  “Nah, he’s got the day off. Said he had some family business to attend to. Said he’ll be back tomorrow.” Ben shrugged and tried to neaten his perpetually messy jacket.

  Family business? Ebony very much doubted that. Knight business, more like it. What would be so urgent as to call Nate away at a time like this? The sewers held a potentially Earth-destroying mystery, so what was Nate doing leaving her alone now?

  Ebony already knew that answer. If Nate suspected – and he probably did – that whatever was down in those sewers had something to do with the mysterious output of the Portal (the real reason Mr. Nathan Wall was in Vale in the first place), then he would be off to update his fellow knights. He was probably also gathering information, knowing him.

  “Okay, well, it looks like it will be just you and me, then.” Ebony patted her scrunchie to ensure it was secure. She didn’t want the wind or summoned creatures to pull her hair loose.

  “Just like old times.” Ben grinned. “I’ll gun the engine; you gun the bad guys.”

  “Gun the bad guys?” She looked disapprovingly at him.

  “Deal with the magical maladies, whatever. Let’s hit the road.”

  The electric company was about a kilometer out of the city, closer to the mountains. It was a large substation with all sorts of electricity-related machines popping behind its high fence. There were several of those giant 11000-volt power lines coming in on large pylons, and all sorts of huge electrical coils for transforming the energy. Ebony didn’t understand any of it, purposefully so. Electricity was the magic of the ordinary, and she much preferred to stick with the magic of the extraordinary. Plus, how humans stored and generated electricity wasn’t something that came up in her day-to-day magical crime fighting.

  “So where’s this hell demon supposed to be?” Ebony looked out of the window as they parked on a gravel incline almost a hundred meters back from the power station. It’d been Ebony’s idea to park so far away. She’d wanted to get a look and a feel for the place first. Demons were notoriously hard to keep track of. Depending on what mischief they’d been contracted to perform – because all demons, like lawyers, came with contracts – the demon could have taken any number of forms.

  “Have the workers been evacuated?” she asked as she opened the door and peered over at the place.

  “Yep. Made up some story about there being a gas leak,” Ben confirmed as he opened his door.

  Ebony snorted. “At an electrical substation? Where exactly is the gas supposed to have come from?”

  Ben shrugged. “Don’t ask me to explain it, Eb, not my area. All we have to do is—”

  “Deal with the demon,” Ebony concluded as she slammed her door vigorously. “I know.”

  Ben drew his gun, closed his door, and locked it.

  “You think the demon’s going to steal the car?”

  “Can’t be too careful. I’ve had demons who have stolen my tie, my jacket, my wallet, my watch, and my gun. Either they are going to steal my car or my wife next. And the wife can look after herself,” Ben conceded with a shrug.

  Ebony snorted with laughter then moved off slowly toward the electrical substation. She could feel the electricity around her: gathering, surging, traveling. It felt a lot like magic, and in a way, it was just a certain kind of magic. The magic of movement.

  Electricity, like every other force in the universe, had its predilection, its own way. Electricity liked to move things. It wasn’t like the wind or water. It didn’t move by virtue of power. Electricity was subtler, finer. That’s why it had taken humans so long to discover and master.

  Ebony stared at the metal boxes and power lines stretching out before her. Then she got down to business. What kind of a demon would be in an electrical power substation? A lightning-bolt apparition? The embodied form of a battery?

  “Hey, Eb,” Ben called, “is that a bear?”

  “Sorry?” She scrunched up her nose and looked at where he was pointing. He was pointing, as he’d verbally indicated, at a bear.

  There was a bear sitting on top of a car in the company parking lot. A very big bear.

  Ebony turned to Ben. “Many bears around these parts?”

  “Not as many as there are demons,” he noted glibly as he raised his gun and leveled it the bear’s way, even though they were still a good 90 meters from it.

  “Yesterday it was mystery sewer adventures; today it’s bear demons.” Ebony sighed heavily and then did what any good witch should do, and ran for the demon sitting on the car.

  The bear didn’t move as they approached, well, not until they were within throwing distance of a car, that was. As soon as Ebony entered the mouth of the car park, the thing lithely jumped from its perch and landed on the gravel without the massive thud that should accompany something of such a force hitting the ground. It turned with all the agility of one of those characters from fighting video games, grabbed up the car, and threw it right at Ebony.

  With a scream erupting from her throat, Ebony rolled underneath it. Ben, thankfully, was still far enough behind that the car wasn’t an issue.

  Ebony rolled to her feet, so thankful she’d chosen the sweater and track pants, and uncurled her fingers. A witch’s hands, and her fingers especially, were her weapons. Her voice was useful for casting spells, of course, but it was the hands that did things. It was the same with most human activities too – most work was done by, or with the assistance of, the hands. As far as the brain was concerned, when you thought of doing things, you thought of hands.

  Ebony extended herself to the gravel beneath her feet.

  The bear opened its jaw entirely too wide then roared. It wasn’t a real, throaty, bear growl. It had all the pitch and trill of a demon cry. It didn’t matter what form a demon inhabited, its voice was the same – the kind of high-pitched whirring that reminded you of screaming bats and all things evil.

  Just as the bear reared up on its haunches and launched into a run, Ebony pulled at the gravel beneath its feet as if she had both hands on a rug and was yanking it toward her.

  It tripped the bear demon up, sending it tumbling onto its demon bottom.

  Ben caught up, firing several rounds right into the thing’s great big hairy chest. The bullets, with their vials of vacuum dust, erupted over the creature’s fur.

  It tried to swipe at them, to pat off the dust, but the dust wouldn’t move. It was stuck there, soaking up magic like thousands of tiny sponges.

  “You think that’s enough?” Ben glanced Ebony’s way.

  Ebony replied by screaming, “Duck,” and lurching to her knees as the bear threw yet another car their way.

  How there were still cars in the car park considering the plant had been evacuated, Ebony didn’t know. Nor did she have time to question.

  She did the next best thing and decided to use what was at hand. One of the first things a young witch was taught was that to fight in the environment, you had to use the environment. In nature, you used what there was an abundance of. If you were in a river, you fought with water. If you were in a quarry – stone. So at an electrical power substation, you used electricity.

  “Alright, Ben,” Ebony growled, not unlike the bear, as she stood up, “duck and cover!”

  Ebony called on the electricity above her, on the thousands of volts in the wires above as they fed into and out of the substation.

  A great arc of electricity began to build off several of the wires above, possibly against the best designs of the engineers who’d built them.

  With a great spark and a massive thunderclap, the bolt of electricity screeched down from the hanging wires above and right into the bear.

  An ordinary bear would have been fried to a crisp, or at least very deadened by the ordeal. The demon bear was far from ordinary.

  It tried to fight the electricity that pumped into it, but it couldn’t – the energy was too great and ferocious. Also, as any witch knows, magic, like electricity, always seeks to be grounded. It always wishes to go back to where it came from – the Earth, nature, the Mother. Within a magical creature, it was trapped. Concentrated in their form like electricity is in a circuit. Break that circuit with a surge strong enough, however, and that magic must become grounded.

  The bear demon, despite its best efforts, was losing the battle to hold form. The effect of the electricity and vacuum dust from Ben’s well-placed shots took their toll. The creature fell forward, steam erupting from all over its body. Then, like a hot air balloon that has been ripped, the thing began to deflate until it was flat on the ground.

  “Hmmm.” Ebony sighed and put her hands on her hips. She marched over to the creature. “I hope that will be a lesson for you,” she told the pancaked demon on the ground. It wasn’t dead, so much as tired. It’d had its fight literally sucked out of it. “No more mischief around live wires,” she added as an afterthought.

  Ben yawned from behind her, and then he tried for a whistle. “Hey, Eb, that sure was neat.”

  Ebony let her gaze slide to the side as she surveyed the car park. She waited for the “but” she knew was coming.

  “But we’ve got a bit of damage here.” He indicated the two mangled cars. The two high-tension power lines she’d borrowed electricity from were now crackling and sparking, too.

  “Ah,” she said. “I think it’s time to leave with our demon bear, and let whoever makes up magical cover stories in Vale do their best with this one.”

  Ben nodded. “Let’s get out of here. Though how about you carry the floppy demon?”

  Ebony glared at Ben but didn’t argue. Nor did she stoop down and pick up her 2D demon. She traced a quick circle around it with her foot, the toe of her shoe digging into the gravel until a clear pattern was formed. She leaned down and began to etch several more marks with her fingers, displacing stones as she went.

  When she finished, she stood. She placed two hands out toward the circle and closed her eyes with a flutter. As she did, she thought she saw something moving off to the far end of the car park. She said quickly, “Be gone back to where you belong.” She snapped her eyes open again to see if anything was there.

  “What is it?” Ben trotted up beside her.

  A deep purple and black swirl of color opened up under the flattened demon. It began to swirl like a vortex; various indistinct shapes and forms becoming fleetingly visible in its core. Mostly clouds of dark, though with the occasional claw, hoof, and forked tail.

  With a great whip-crack, the demon was sucked down the vortex. It didn’t cry out or screech; Ebony fancied she heard it sigh with relief. Why wouldn’t it? It’d had a hard day at the office, and now it was going home to its demon brethren for much-needed R and R.

 

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