A Plunder of Souls (The Thieftaker Chronicles)

by D. B. Jackson

  “I don’t think I will.”

  All of Ramsey’s men were watching them now. Several of them had come closer. Ethan knew that he was taking a risk, but right now he was helpless, which seemed the greatest risk of all. He could use the mullein he carried, but he didn’t want to alert Ramsey to the fact that he had it. Mullein was valuable, a powerful herb; Ramsey would not scruple to take it from him. So he ignored the captain’s question, knowing that eventually doing so would infuriate the man.

  “What do the dead give you, Ramsey? And what would a dead conjurer do to complicate matters?”

  “Who. Was. It?” Ramsey said, shouting the words. He reared back and hit Ethan in the jaw.

  Ethan sprawled across the deck, tasting blood. It took a few seconds for his vision to clear, and by the time it did, Ramsey was striding toward him.

  “Tegimen ex cruore evocatum,” Ethan said under his breath. Warding, conjured from blood.

  Ramsey faltered in midstep at the pulse of power. “A warding,” he said. “All that to cast a warding?”

  Ethan climbed to his feet, Uncle Reg beside him.

  “You know a warding doesn’t help you if I decide to have my men shoot you and dump your body in the harbor.”

  “Or if you have them cut off my head and hand and carve that symbol into my chest.”

  “Just so.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to do those things,” Ethan said, hoping he sounded confident.

  “Who was the conjurer, Kaille?”

  “Why are you so eager to know?”

  The captain didn’t answer.

  “I’m not going to tell you,” Ethan said, “because I don’t want you desecrating the grave and mutilating the body. I don’t want this person’s family to suffer as other Boston families are suffering.”

  Ramsey slid his knife from its sheath on his belt. “I can make you tell me.”

  “You can try.”

  The captain stilled, like a wolf when it spots prey. “What are you going to do? Even if you could match my conjuring power—which you can’t, not anymore—you would also have to overpower my crew. I think we both know that’s not going to happen.”

  “You’re right,” Ethan said. “But I’m still not going to tell you.”

  “Even knowing that I intend to torture you?”

  “Aye,” Ethan said, his heart starting to labor. “I’ll not trade my safety for the soul of a friend.”

  “You’re scared,” Ramsey said. “I can tell.”

  “That changes nothing.”

  Ramsey regarded him through narrowed eyes. A moment passed, and another. He sheathed his blade once more. “I’ll find out,” he said. “I sense that this person died recently. And you told me that the body isn’t at Copp’s Hill, or the Granary, or King’s Chapel. That was something else that I did just for you, by the way. Only desecrating graves in burying grounds where men like Cotton Mather are buried. I’m glad you noticed; I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t.” He shrugged. “Anyway, that means this conjurer must be in the Common Ground. I’ll find the grave.”

  Realizing that Ramsey wouldn’t torture him after all, Ethan felt something in his chest loosen, even as he cursed himself for revealing as much as he had about Patience.

  “You and I could be great friends, Kaille,” Ramsey said, still watching him. “You’re honest, you have some courage, you’re handy with a spell. From what I gather, you spent a good deal of time at sea as a younger man. What do you say? I could use another mate to help me sail the Muirenn, particularly one who can cast.”

  Ethan almost laughed away the offer. But a quick glance at the captain’s face told him that would be a mistake. Regardless of what had passed between them this day, and in their last encounter, Ethan had a feeling that his proposal was genuine. “It’s been a long time since I took orders from anyone,” he said, choosing his words with care. “Being a thieftaker may not seem like much, but it does allow me to be master of my own fate. I wouldn’t want to give that up.”

  The captain nodded, the smile on his face turning brittle. “I figured you would say as much,” he said. He gave a piercing whistle. Two men scurried over to them. “Prepare the pinnace. Mister Kaille will be returning to Boston now.”

  “Aye, Captain,” said one of the men.

  They moved to the starboard ratlines and swung themselves over the rail.

  “I can’t guarantee your safety once you leave this ship,” Ramsey said, gazing back toward the city. “You don’t want to be part of my crew. I understand that. But you also don’t want to get in my way.” He looked at Ethan. “I’ll kill you if I have to.”

  Ethan had been threatened before, more times than he cared to count, by toughs and overconfident thieves, as well as by Sephira Pryce. But this threat, from this obsessed and unbalanced conjurer, struck him as different, as more chilling. Even Sephira, who was as dangerous a rival as he could imagine, often seemed to admonish him out of pique or wounded pride. But Ramsey spoke of killing him with calm assurance. Ethan heard no boast in the words, and he knew that Ramsey didn’t speak for effect. Whatever his true abilities as a conjurer, he believed he could overpower Ethan at will, and he seemed perfectly willing to do so.

  “I’ve been asked to inquire into the desecrations at King’s Chapel,” Ethan said, “and to recover that which was taken. I have a job to do.”

  “You had a job to do last time as well,” Ramsey said testily. “You were supposed to keep Forrs and Keller alive. You didn’t. You should know better than to make promises you can’t keep.”

  Ethan proffered a hand, rather than continue to argue the point. “Thank you for your hospitality, Captain. Whatever our disagreements, I have always thought the Muirenn a fine ship, with an admirable crew.”

  It was, Ethan knew, as fair a compliment as he could offer to a ship’s captain.

  Ramsey hesitated before responding, but then he shook Ethan’s hand and muttered, “Thank you.”

  Ethan handed him the cup of wine. “Permission to leave the ship.”

  “Granted.”

  Ethan walked to the rail.

  “Kaille.”

  He turned toward the captain again, had time to note the gleaming blade in Ramsey’s hand, and the welling of blood on his forearm.

  “Pugnus ex cruore evocatus,” the captain said. Fist, conjured from blood. Power pulsed; the ship shuddered with it, magnified as it was by the water beneath them. A stooped, glowing figure appeared beside Ramsey.

  And an invisible blow to Ethan’s gut doubled him over, stole his breath.

  “It seems your warding didn’t work after all. Ignis ex cruore evocatus.” Fire, conjured from blood. This conjuring thrummed as the first one had.

  Ethan’s right shirt sleeve burst into flames, searing the skin on his arm, his shoulder, his neck. He dropped to the deck and rolled back and forth until he managed to extinguish the fire. Lying there, panting, he heard Ramsey take a step toward him.

  “From what I’ve heard in recent days,” the captain said, “I gather that some conjurers in Boston are finding it difficult to cast their spells. Or rather, are having trouble making them work. I hadn’t understood all I heard, but now I see that it’s true. How else do we explain the fact that an otherwise competent conjurer, one who I saw ward himself, should be so utterly vulnerable to simple conjurings like these? Discuti ex cruore evocatum.” Shatter, conjured from blood.

  Ethan felt the pulse, heard the snap of bone. Pain exploded in his left arm, tearing a cry from his throat. He cradled his arm to his chest. He still had mullein in his pocket, as well as Janna’s sachet, but he couldn’t be sure the next warding he tried would work any better than his first, and he wasn’t sure what more Ramsey would do to him if he sensed that Ethan was trying to conjure again.

  “Did you recognize that last one?” Ramsey asked. “You used it against me the last time we met. It’s not very pleasant, is it?” The captain squatted beside him. “You can’t fight me, Kaille,” h
e said, in the same tone he might use to discuss cod runs off the New England shores. “And you should know better than to defy me when I ask you a question. I’ve half a mind to kill you where you lie and throw you overboard. But I’m going to enjoy destroying you slowly, and watching your desperate attempts to stop me from following through on my plans. You stopped being my equal as a conjurer long, long ago. Soon, I’ll have rendered you completely defenseless, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do to prevent it.” He started to straighten, but stopped himself. “Oh, and the next time you try to flatter me by complimenting my ship and crew, I’ll snap your neck. You were a navy boy for less than a year, and you weren’t on the Ruby Blade for more than a week before you mutinied. You’re not qualified to judge my ship or her men.”

  Ramsey stood. Ethan saw his blade flash in the torchlight. “Impedi respirationem ex cruore evocatum.” Stop breathing, conjured from blood.

  The sudden pressure on Ethan’s chest made him forget the agony in his arm. He tried to inhale, but couldn’t. It felt as though the full weight of the Muirenn had fallen on top of him, pinning him to the deck, stilling his lungs.

  Ramsey gazed down at him, a benign smile on his lips. He cut himself again and held out his forearm for Ethan to see. “Here’s blood for you. You can end the spell if you’d like. It’s as simple as speaking the Latin. Or is it? What if your conjuring doesn’t work? I’m not going to cut myself again. You have but one chance to live. Do you trust yourself to cast the spell that would save your life, or do you need me to do it?”

  Ethan’s lungs burned. He knew he was beginning to panic, but he couldn’t help himself. His body had gone rigid; he clawed at the wood of the deck with taloned hands.

  “Aye, I suppose you’re right,” Ramsey said, regarding his bleeding arm. “It’s my responsibility, isn’t it?” He sighed like an impatient child. “Very well. Fini evocationem ex cruore evocatum.” End conjuring, conjured from blood.

  Ethan inhaled deeply, and knew a moment of blessed relief as a breath rushed into his lungs. He closed his eyes, gulping greedily, savoring the cool touch of the harbor air on the back of his throat.

  “Get him off my ship,” Ramsey said. He sounded disgusted.

  Chapter

  FOURTEEN

  Two sailors walked to where Ethan lay and dragged him to his feet, making no effort to be gentle with his broken arm. He gritted his teeth and tried once more to cradle the arm against his body, though this did him little good. One of the men swung himself nimbly over the rail. The other man lifted Ethan and practically tossed him to the first man. Together, the two sailors half carried him down the rope ladder to the pinnace waiting below.

  As they reached the small boat, Ramsey appeared above them at the rail. Ethan flinched at the sight of him, expecting to be attacked with yet another conjuring.

  “Take him wherever he wants to go,” the captain told the men.

  “Aye, Captain.”

  To Ethan, Ramsey said, “Remember what I told you. It begins in earnest now, and I can’t be bothered to worry about any one person.”

  Ethan wanted to ask him what he meant. What was to begin? But he was too weary and in too much pain to speak. Besides, he knew better than to expect an answer.

  Ramsey grinned again, and vanished from view.

  “Where to?” one of the men asked him.

  “The Town Dock,” Ethan said, the words scraped from his throat. It was the shore point closest to the Dowser, and still he wasn’t certain he could walk that short distance.

  He had little notion of the time, but he thought that it must be only a few hours before dawn.

  The water was calm, and the breeze light. Ramsey’s men had him at the dock in less than a quarter hour, though it seemed to take much longer. The men lifted him out of the boat and rolled him onto the wharf, before pushing off and rowing back toward their ship.

  Ethan climbed to his feet, his movements slow and stiff. He staggered with his first few steps, but righted himself and continued on to the Dowser. He didn’t have the strength to go out of his way and so walked right past Murray’s Barracks. There were few soldiers on the street at this hour, but a pair of them stopped him and demanded to know what he was doing walking the city so late. Upon seeing the condition he was in, their bearing changed. One of the men even offered to find the regiment’s surgeon.

  “Thank you,” Ethan said, and meant it. “I’m on my way to see a friend who is a surgeon.”

  They let him go, and Ethan walked the rest of the way to the Dowser without incident. He let himself into the tavern, locked the door, and collapsed into the first chair he found, the leg scraping on the tavern floor.

  He pulled out his knife and having little choice, cut his broken arm. He dabbed the blood onto his skin, just over the break, and said, “Remedium ex cruore evocatum.” Healing, conjured from blood.

  He felt the hum of power in the floor and walls, and was aware of Reg’s glow beside him. But while the blood vanished, the pain in his arm remained unabated. He didn’t feel the bone knitting itself back together, either.

  “Damn it!” he muttered under his breath.

  Footsteps overhead told him that he had awakened Kannice, and he cursed himself for this as well. He cut his arm a second time, spoke the spell again. Nothing.

  “Ethan?”

  “Aye, it’s me.”

  Blood welled from yet another cut. He rubbed it gently on the injury, repeated the spell, and watched it disappear. No relief, no healing.

  Kannice stepped into the great room, holding a candle.

  “Are you—?”

  He slashed at his arm, heedless of the pain. Kannice winced. Blood dripped onto his breeches. “Remedium ex cruore evocatum!” he said, shouting the words. Healing, conjured from blood!

  It was like he was a boy again, new to his power and unable to rely on his conjurings. Except that after a lifetime of casting spells, he had come to depend on them, to regard them as his greatest strength, the one thing that defined who and what he was. He couldn’t give up conjuring now, not with Ramsey poised to strike at the city and at him.

  He raised the blade again.

  “Ethan, no!” Kannice said, leaping forward, and grabbing both his blade arm and the arm he intended to cut.

  He gasped.

  “What?” she said, recoiling. “What did I do?”

  “Nothing. It’s—” He pointed at his left arm with the tip of his blade. “This arm is broken.”

  She covered her mouth with a shaking hand. He saw that there were tears on her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, staring at his wounded arm. “I didn’t know.”

  He shook his head, gazing at her, his chest rising and falling.

  She raised her eyes to his. “What’s happening, Ethan? What is all this?”

  “I can’t conjure, not even to heal myself.”

  “Why not?”

  He started to say that he didn’t know, but that wasn’t true. “Nate Ramsey is back,” he said.

  She frowned. “Ramsey,” she repeated.

  It had been a long time, and his last encounter with the captain had coincided with the very beginning of their love affair. But still, she surprised him.

  “The sea captain. The one who killed those two merchants.”

  “Aye,” Ethan said.

  “He was a conjurer, too. I remember you telling me about him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What does he have to do with your ability to conjure?”

  “It’s not just mine,” Ethan said. “Gavin Black told me that he can’t conjure either. And I expect others are having the same problem.”

  “But why would Ramsey make it impossible to conjure? Wouldn’t he be hurting himself as much as you?”

  “One would think so,” Ethan said. “But he can conjure as well as ever—better actually. It’s the rest of us who are struggling to cast.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.” She looked him over, taking in the burns on
his bared right arm, the bruise on his face from where Ramsey hit him. “He did all of this to you?”

  “Aye.”

  “You should tell Sephira. She’ll be so jealous that she’ll take care of him for you.”

  It was so unexpected that he couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “That’s better than any idea I’ve had.”

  Her smile didn’t linger for long. “If you can’t heal yourself, we’ll have to get you to a surgeon.”

  He nodded, glanced at the knife in his hand. “All right. First, I’m going to try once more.”

  Kannice said nothing, but crossed her arms over her chest. As uncomfortable as she was speaking of his spellmaking, she was, he knew, even more unsettled by watching him conjure. Still, she didn’t turn away as he cut himself and put blood on his wounded arm.

  He took a breath. “Remedium ex cruore evocatum.”

  The conjuring thrummed, and this time the effect was immediate. He sucked air through his teeth as the pain increased at the first touch of his healing power. After a few seconds, though, the pain decreased. He could feel the bone mending.

  “Did it work?” Kannice asked.

  “Aye, it’s working now. It takes some time, but the spell did what it was supposed to.”

  “Why would it not work one moment and then work perfectly the next?”

  It was a good question: one more for which he had no sure answer. “I would presume that whatever Ramsey is doing isn’t complete yet. Before long it will be, but for now he’s still putting the pieces in place.”

  “What pieces?” she asked.

  He looked up from his arm, meeting her gaze again. “I’m trying to work that out. It has to do with ghosts and mutilated corpses.”

  Kannice blanched. “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”

  “I’m sorry.” He ended his healing spell, probed his arm gently with his fingers. “It’s sore still, but the bone is mended.” He looked at the burns on his right arm. “Let’s see if I can heal these, as well.”

  It took two castings before the healing worked, but soon, the pain of the burns had begun to subside.

  “What do ghosts and cadavers have to do with conjuring?” Kannice asked, breaking a brief silence.