Hell's Bell (Lizzie Grace 2)

Chapter One

I woke abruptly, my heart hammering and a scream dying on my lips.

For several seconds, I did nothing more than stare into the darkness of my bedroom, trying to find a reason for the fear that pounded through my veins. Though I’d rather weirdly become prone to prophetic dreams of late, it wasn’t a dream that had woken me. The source of the fear was external, not internal.

Aside from the usual creaks and groans of an old building, the apartment above the café I owned and ran with my best friend and fellow witch, Isabelle—or Belle, as she preferred to be called—was silent. Nor was there any noise coming from the street outside, but that wasn’t really surprising given this part of Castle Rock was mostly retail, and everything here had shut down by nine.

I pulled my phone out from under my pillow and checked the time. 12.25. Which was almost smack bang in the middle of witching hour—a time when those on the spectral edge of the world were thought to gain substance and reality. As a witch—even if a somewhat underpowered one—I knew the truth lay not so much with the time, but rather the position of the moon. Midnight was when she reached her highest point in the sky, and was therefore at her most powerful.

Did that mean some sort of supernatural activity had woken me?

I seriously hoped not. Only a couple of weeks had passed since we’d gotten involved in the hunt for a vampire hell-bent on revenge, and I’d only just recovered from the injuries received in that final bloody battle.

The last thing this reservation—or, indeed, Belle and I—needed was another force of darkness finding its way here.

And yet, Castle Rock was a place filled with wild magic. While such a force was in itself neither good nor bad, without a proper, fully vetted witch here to protect and channel it, it would inevitably draw those who followed the darker paths—or those who coveted such unrestrained power. And the werewolf council was—as far as I could tell—willfully ignoring the danger it represented.

Either that, or they simply didn’t believe in a force they were physically incapable of seeing.

I scrubbed a hand across my eyes, then flicked the bedcovers off and got up. The night was cold despite the fact Christmas was now only three weeks away, and I shivered my way into track pants and a sweater before walking across to the door.

There really wasn’t that much living space up here on the first floor. Belle and I each had our own bedroom, and there was a separate toilet and bathroom. Beyond that, there was a small kitchenette, and a living area that held a two-person sofa and a TV. At the far end of the room were glass sliding doors that led out to a balcony that extended out over the sidewalk. It provided us with much-needed extra space while giving weather protection to café patrons who preferred to use the sidewalk tables.

I glanced to the left, studying the shadows that concealed the stairs leading down to the café. There was no sense of wrongness coming from that area, and the wards and spells I’d placed around the inside perimeter of the building were untouched and untroubled.

I frowned and headed right, silently making my way across to the balcony door. The night air condensed my breath, and my shivering increased. I hugged my arms across my chest and walked to the railing, my gaze drifting over the silent street and the nearby buildings.

Castle Rock was the capital of the Faelan Werewolf Reservation, one of only seven here in Australia. It had initially been the sole province of the O’Connor pack, but some long-ago human government had decided the three Victorian packs held too much land—and therefore too much wealth and power—between them, and had decided all three need to be on the one reservation—this one. Of course, the Marin and Sinclair packs had been as unimpressed with the idea as the O’Connors, and the resulting turmoil was the reason werewolves today were basically self-governing. Witches had been the driving force behind that peace deal, which was perhaps why some packs remained unhappy about a witch’s presence on their land.

But there wasn’t much any of them could do about it—at least when it came to government-assigned witches. Aside from providing magical assistance when needed, reservation witches were also the government’s mouthpieces and rule enforcers.

Which made this reservation’s lack of an assigned witch all the more surprising. Granted, Gabe Watson might have disappeared after apparently murdering his wife, but that didn’t explain why he hadn’t been replaced. No matter how hard the werewolves here might have protested, the High Witch council had the law behind them. And they surely knew—better than anyone—just how dangerous unguarded wild magic could be.

And while I might have been born into a royal witch family, I’d never gone through the vetting system and I certainly didn’t have the power to protect the magic in this place.

Even if the magic here seemed to have a strange affinity with me.

I frowned and glanced up at the moon. Though a cloak of clouds hid her presence, her power nevertheless sang through the deeper recesses of my soul. It was a force often used to bolster the strength of spells, but I had no sense that anyone was using her to perform magic. At least not in the immediate surrounds, anyway.

So what had woken me?

I scanned the silent night for a few more minutes, then cursed softly and pushed away from the railing.

Just as I did, I heard it.

The distant ringing of a church bell.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Then silence.

A silence suddenly filled with an odd edge of malevolence.