Dead Man's Reach

by D. B. Jackson

  Ethan and Mariz made their way back to the cemetery gate as well, making as little noise as possible.

  The sailor had stopped at the gravesite and appeared to be searching the ground. Seeing nothing, he lowered his torch so that it would cast more light on the grave marker.

  “Have you lost something?” Ethan asked.

  The man spun, nearly dropping his torch. “No, I—” He fell silent, his eyes going wide as he recognized Ethan and Mariz. This was one of the crewmen Ramsey had with him the previous summer, when he desecrated graves in all three of Boston’s oldest burying grounds, including this one.

  He drew his knife and lowered himself into a crouch, the blade in one hand, the torch in the other. Mariz had his knife at his arm, ready to cut himself for a conjuring. Ethan held his blade ready as well, but he didn’t wish to conjure. Doing so would only draw Ramsey’s attention.

  “Those won’t do you much good against two conjurers.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” the man said.

  Ethan had to admire his courage, though he knew it would do the sailor no good. A dark and eerie calm had settled over him. Never before had he done what he contemplated now. But never before had he been so desperate.

  “It needn’t come to a fight. I want to see your captain; that’s all. I know he’s been eager to see me as well. Tell me where he is and you’re free to go.”

  “I ain’ tellin’ you nothin’.”

  “Do you carry a pistol, Mariz?” Ethan asked quietly.

  The conjurer glanced his way. “Yes, I do.”

  Ethan held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

  The sailor had started to back away. Ethan feared that he would flee.

  “Now!” he said, his voice carrying across the burying ground.

  Mariz reached into his coat pocket, removed the flintlock, and handed it to Ethan.

  Ethan wasted no time. He raised the weapon, took careful aim, and fired. The report of the pistol was deafening and seemed to echo in every corner of the city. The soldier collapsed, wailing, clutching his bloodied thigh. He had dropped his knife and torch—the latter sputtered and went out when it hit the snow.

  Ethan walked to where the man lay and pocketed the dropped blade.

  “Now,” he said, kneeling next to the man. “Let’s begin with something easy, shall we? What’s your name?”

  “Go to hell,” the sailor said through clenched teeth.

  “You’re unarmed, you’re hurt, you’re cold and tired. I can heal you. I’d be glad to. Or I can kill you, very, very slowly.”

  “Kaille—”

  “Quiet, Mariz.” To the sailor he said again, “Tell me your name.”

  “Go ahead and kill me.”

  “You believe that I won’t. Perhaps Ramsey has convinced you that I’m weak, that even when circumstance calls for ruthlessness, I’m incapable of it. Not long ago, there might have been some truth to that. But after what your captain has done to me these past few days, I assure you, I am willing to do whatever I have to find him.” He flipped Mariz’s pistol in the air and caught it by the barrel. And still holding the sailor’s gaze, he pounded the butt of the flintlock on the bullet wound in the sailor’s leg.

  The man roared his pain, tears springing from his eyes.

  “This is going to get much, much worse if you don’t start answering my questions.”

  When the sailor merely glared back at him, Ethan said, “You don’t wish to tell me your name. That’s fine. Tell me where Ramsey is.”

  Silence.

  He hammered at the wound a second time, drawing a howl from the sailor.

  “Ramsey has been using my power to cast spells. Did you know that? Because of him, I bear some blame for the death of a young boy.” He hit the man again. “For the fracturing of a soldier’s skull.” He struck another blow. “For a tavern brawl that almost killed the woman I love.” Another blow. “And for tonight’s shooting, which killed at least three men and cost my dearest friend his arm.” He hit the soldier four more times.

  By now the soldier was writhing in agony, and whimpering like a beaten cur. Tiny spots of blood dotted the snow near his leg, and the butt of Mariz’s pistol was sticky and red.

  “What would you propose I do?” Ethan asked Ramsey’s man, his voice sounding disturbingly calm to his own ears. When the sailor didn’t answer, he said, “I’m at a loss as well. I can’t allow this to go on. And with you here, I have the opportunity to ascertain where Ramsey can be found. So you see, I have no choice in the matter. I bear you no malice, but I also have no particular reason to spare you. Ramsey hasn’t cared who he hurts or kills in seeking to avenge himself on me. Why should I be any different?”

  A voice in his head—Kannice’s—answered his own question: Because you are. But he ignored this, his eyes fixed on the sailor.

  He held out the pistol for Mariz; the conjurer took it from him. Ethan held up his blade for the sailor to see.

  The man looked away, fresh tears on his face, his breathing ragged.

  “Surely you understand by now how desperate I am. How much are you willing to endure for the sake of Ramsey’s blind vengeance?”

  “He’s my captain,” the man said. He shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I would, actually. I was once a seaman, as you are.”

  The sailor sneered. “You were a mutineer. A traitor. I’m nothin’ like you.”

  Ethan shrugged, and in one swift, brutally quick motion he stabbed down with his blade, burying it in the man’s leg an inch below the bullet wound.

  The sailor screamed. Mariz let out a sharp hiss and grabbed Ethan’s shoulder.

  Ethan shrugged him off before pulling the blade free.

  “Where is Ramsey?” he asked.

  The sailor had fallen back onto the ice. He sobbed softly, his eyes squeezed shut, bloody fingers gripping his mutilated leg.

  “He is not going to tell you,” Mariz said, his voice low but hard.

  “Not yet. I don’t wish to alert Ramsey to our presence here, but you may have to conjure after all.”

  “I won’t.”

  Ethan looked up at him. “You know what Ramsey has done. And you know as well that if Sephira were here, she would be doing exactly as I am.”

  “Yes, Kaille, she would! Does that not tell you how wrong this is? You are not like her. That is one of the reasons I have been pleased to call you my friend.” He gestured at the sailor. “But this … This is precisely what she would do.”

  Ethan turned back to Ramsey’s man, who still lay on his back, his chest rising and falling. Ethan’s hands had started shaking again. His hatred for Ramsey churned in his gut like bile. But Mariz was right. This man lying before him had done nothing to him. “What am I supposed to do?” he whispered, his throat tight.

  “I do not know,” Mariz said. “Not this, though. Surely not this.”

  Ethan exhaled through his teeth, his shoulders slumping. He reached for the sailor’s hands, but the man flinched and tried to crawl away.

  “It’s all right,” Ethan said. “I’m going to heal you.”

  Still the man resisted; why wouldn’t he?

  “Mariz.”

  The other conjurer knelt beside him and removed the sailor’s hands from his leg. Ethan placed his hand over the two wounds and whispered, “Remedium ex cruore evocatum.”

  At the first touch of the healing spell, the sailor tensed and inhaled sharply through his teeth. But after a few seconds his fists unclenched and his breathing eased a little.

  When the wounds had healed over enough to stop bleeding, Ethan sat back on his heels. The sailor was watching him.

  “You’ll need to have a surgeon work on that leg,” Ethan said.

  The man spoke not a word.

  But a voice from behind them said, “What’s the matter with his leg?”

  Ethan had expected this. He stood and faced the illusion Ramsey had conjured. “I shot him. Stabbed him, too. Even now, you inspire great lo
yalty in the men of your crew. He told me nothing.”

  “You tortured him?” the figure asked.

  “Aye.”

  “And then you healed him.”

  “I suppose that makes me weak.”

  “It doesn’t make you weak, but it is symptomatic of your weakness.”

  “If you care to tell me where you are, I’ll bring him to you. Perhaps you have a surgeon among your crew who can tend to his wound.”

  “My thanks, but I’ll send men for him. You’d best not be there when they arrive. There will be many of them, and they’ll all be armed.”

  “I’m going to find you eventually, Ramsey.”

  “Perhaps. You might die first.” The figure grinned.

  Ethan turned and walked away. Mariz followed.

  “Harm one of my men again, and those you love will suffer even more.”

  “Do not answer him,” Mariz said, whispering the words. “Keep walking.”

  “Kaille!”

  Ethan heeded Mariz’s advice.

  “Damn you, Kaille!”

  A spell rang in the icy ground. Reg appeared beside him, a warning in his brilliant eyes. Ethan had little time to wonder what spell Ramsey had cast now using his power.

  Pain exploded on the side of his head, behind his ear.

  Ethan stumbled and fell to his hands and knees. Mariz kicked him in the gut, flipping Ethan on to his back.

  Ramsey’s illusion laughed.

  Mariz cut the back of his hand.

  “Tegimen ex verbasco evocatum!” Ethan said, blurting the words, and using the mullein he carried to protect himself. He didn’t know if he was still warded, and with Mariz being spell-crazed he wasn’t taking any chances.

  Mariz’s conjuring hit him an instant later, pounding his body like a mighty wave, but doing no further damage. Ethan didn’t know what spell Sephira’s man had cast; he knew only that his warding had held.

  He kicked out, his boot catching Mariz just below the knee. The man lurched back a step but then righted himself.

  Ethan tried to get to his feet, but Mariz directed a second conjuring at him, and he was thrown to the ground once more. His warding protected him from the effects of the spell, but as long as Mariz continued to hammer at him with conjurings Ethan would be unable to get away from the cemetery before Ramsey’s men arrived.

  Unwilling to give the man the chance to conjure again, he sliced the skin on his hand and spoke a sleep spell. The conjuring pulsed, and Mariz reeled, as if kicked by a mule. But the spell did not put him to sleep.

  “You’ll have to do better than that, Kaille. A sleep spell won’t defeat his wardings. You’re going to have to kill him, too.”

  With his next conjuring, Mariz did not attack directly. Rather, he made the torch Ramsey’s man had been carrying fly at Ethan’s head. Dark as it was, Ethan didn’t realize what he had done until it was too late; he only saw the torch at the last moment. It hit his forehead as hard as it would have had the man swung it like a club. Once more Ethan was knocked to the ground. Addled, dizzy, he lay still for several seconds, trying to clear his vision.

  He had no chance to get back up. Mariz loomed over him, the torch in hand. He aimed a blow at Ethan’s face, but Ethan managed to roll out of the way before the torch hit him. As it was, he heard it whistle past and slam into the ground. Shards of ice hit his head and neck.

  Mariz struck at him again, hitting his side. Ethan let out a grunt; he thought he felt ribs crack.

  He bit down on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. He whispered a shatter spell. The wood splintered, slivers of the torch rained down on him. Before Mariz could kick him again, or worse, he rolled away and clambered to his feet.

  Sephira’s man was stalking him now, knife held ready, his eyes blank, passionless.

  “Mariz,” he said. “It’s me. Look me in the eye.”

  Mariz leaped at him, leading with his blade. It was a clumsy assault: too rushed, too reckless. Clearly Sephira had hired the man for his conjuring ability, not his skill as a fighter. Ethan dodged the attack, and struck a blow of his own to the side of Mariz’s head. Mariz reeled. Ethan dove at the man, pressing his advantage even as he sucked his breath at the pain in his side. Grabbing Mariz around the midsection, Ethan drove him to the ground. He punched him once, and a second time. The knife slipped from Mariz’s fingers. Ethan grabbed it and shoved it into his pocket.

  He started to his feet, only to feel the pulse of another conjuring. It struck him squarely in the chest, lifting him off of his feet and slamming him down. He thought it might have been a blade spell, one that would have sliced him in half but for his warding. He realized, though, that the type of conjuring was of little importance. Ramsey wanted to keep them fighting; nothing else mattered.

  “Mariz! Look at me!”

  Sephira’s man was standing once more, searching for his blade or for the torch. Seeing neither, he took a step in Ethan’s direction.

  “He won’t listen to you, Kaille,” said Ramsey’s illusion. “And he won’t stop unless I tell him to.” The figure grinned. “And I won’t.”

  Ethan didn’t wish to hurt his friend, but it seemed he had no other choice. He cut himself and cast a fire spell, knowing that the conjuring would slow Mariz down without penetrating his wardings. Or assuming as much. As his conjuring drummed in the earth, a second spell made the ground tremble as well. And when the fire spell hit Sephira’s man it not only knocked him over, it also engulfed his coat in flames. Ramsey had used Ethan’s power to remove Mariz’s warding.

  Ethan swore and ran to his friend, pulling off his own coat so that he might smother the blaze. Mariz flailed at him with his fists and feet, more intent on fighting Ethan than on saving his own life. But Ethan used his coat to subdue the man and extinguish the fire. And then he hit Mariz again and again until the conjurer lost consciousness.

  He heard a sharp sound and looking up realized that Ramsey’s illusion was applauding, that same mocking grin on the lean face.

  “Well done, Kaille. I had hoped you would have to do more damage, but it was entertaining nevertheless. And next time I’ll turn a more worthy opponent against you.” He looked back northward. Following the line of the figure’s gaze, Ethan saw in the distance many men approaching, several of them carrying torches. “My crew,” Ramsey said, facing Ethan once more. “You might want to be on your way.”

  Breathing hard, the burns on his hands throbbing, Ethan swung his coat back on, though it was still smoking. He lifted Mariz, grunting with the effort, his battered ribs aching, and slung the man over his shoulder.

  “I can make you kill him right now,” Ramsey said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Aye, I know it. What do you expect me to do, Ramsey? Surrender?”

  “No, Kaille! I know you won’t. That is what makes this so delicious. You won’t surrender. I can count on that. But I think killing him sounds like a fine idea. You don’t really want to carry him anyway, do you?” Ramsey’s image laughed.

  “Kaille!”

  They both turned at the sound of the voice. Stephen Greenleaf stood a short distance off, a flintlock pistol in his hand. But that hand had dropped to his side and his eyes were fixed on the glowing figure, his mouth hanging open.

  Ethan saw the sheriff’s lips move and knew that he said the captain’s name. But he heard nothing.

  Ramsey’s illusion laughed again and glanced Ethan’s way. “I suppose your friend has just been given a reprieve. I assure you, it’s only temporary.”

  An instant later he winked out of sight.

  Ethan exhaled. Ramsey’s men were approaching and he didn’t wish to be here when they arrived. But with the sheriff now hurrying toward him, he couldn’t flee. Not yet.

  “That was Ramsey!” Greenleaf said. “Or at least a ghost of him.”

  “Aye,” Ethan said, shifting his grip on Mariz. “It was a vision Ramsey conjured to speak with me.”

  “So, he’s alive!”

  “I tol
d you as much earlier this evening.”

  “I remember. I didn’t believe you.”

  “Of course not.”

  The sheriff looked down at Ramsey’s man, who still lay in the snow, the blood on his leg appearing black in the moonlight. “Who’s this?”

  “One of Ramsey’s crew.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I tortured him.” Greenleaf’s gaze snapped to Ethan’s face, but Ethan didn’t pause. “In an attempt to learn where Ramsey is hiding.”

  “You shot him.”

  “Aye.”

  “That’s what drew me here. I heard the gunshot.” He lifted his chin toward Mariz, who was still slung over Ethan’s shoulder. “And who’s that?”

  “Sephira’s man. Mariz. I beat him senseless after Ramsey used a spell to make him attack me.”

  The sheriff blinked. “Busy night.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Did you also murder a man on Leveret’s Lane?”

  “Jonathan Grant,” Ethan said. “I was there when he died, but it was Ramsey who committed the murder, again with a spell.” He glanced once more toward the approaching men. They were close now. He could hear their voices so clearly they could have been speaking to him.

  “It didn’t look like a spell,” Greenleaf said. “It looked like someone slashed his throat. You carry a knife, don’t you, Kaille?”

  “It was a spell, Sheriff. Ramsey’s spell.”

  “Damn you witches! I don’t care what you call it: conjuring, witchery, black magick. It’s the devil’s work. I should hang the lot of you.” He narrowed his eyes. “How do I know you’re not lying to me? How do I know you didn’t conjure that image of Ramsey to fool me?”

  “You don’t. Can we be moving, Sheriff? Those are Ramsey’s men, and they’re not going to be happy with me after what I’ve done to their friend.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Ethan started away. His back and shoulders already ached, and he had a long walk ahead of him.

  “Tell me about Grant,” Greenleaf said, falling in step beside him.

  Ethan explained to the sheriff what he could, taking great pains to avoid saying anything that Greenleaf could point to as evidence of his conjuring abilities. The resulting narrative served only to deepen the sheriff’s frustration.