A Plunder of Souls (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (16 page)

“Did Adams himself send you?” Ethan asked.

The man started down the stairs without looking back. “All you need to know is in the message.”

Ethan watched the messenger leave before unfolding the parchment.

Mr. Kaille,

We would very much like to speak with you regarding a matter of mutual interest and benefit. Please meet us at the sign of the Green Dragon at your earliest convenience.

S. Adams

He had last spoken with Mr. Adams the previous fall, as the occupation of Boston began. And they’d had dealings several years before, at the time of the Stamp Act riots, during Ethan’s inquiry into the Berson murder. He couldn’t imagine what he had done this time to earn the man’s attention. His curiosity piqued, he washed himself with the tepid water that had been sitting in his washbasin and dressed.

As he did, he considered the dream from which he had awakened. Most nights, he didn’t put much stock in such visions; even conjurers could dismiss as nonsense most of the images that disturbed their sleep. But something about this one troubled him, something more than just the mutilated cadavers. Why had the color of that fire looked so familiar? What had Sephira been doing there, and why had she seemed to be working with him?

Upon leaving his room, he heard Henry hammering at a barrel in the cooperage below. As he had business with the cooper that couldn’t wait, he went first to the workshop.

Dall’s cooperage had been built in 1712 by Henry’s grandfather, and had withstood more than fifty years of storms and fires. A sign over the door read “Dall’s Barrels and Crates,” and another beside the door said “Open Entr.” Before Ethan could heed this second sign, a gray and white dog bounded up to him, tail wagging, tongue lolling. She ran a tight circle around him and yipped happily before allowing Ethan to scratch her head.

“Well met, Shelly,” he said.

She licked his hand.

Shelly had been a constant companion to Henry for several years now. She once had a mate: Pitch, a black dog who was as sweet as she and as protective of both Ethan and Henry. But several years before Ethan had been attacked by a conjurer who threatened his life as well as that of Holin, the son of the woman who once had been Ethan’s betrothed. The conjurer was far more powerful than Ethan, and had been on the verge of killing him when Pitch appeared. With no other hope of surviving the night and saving Holin, Ethan cast a spell, sourced in the life of the poor dog. The conjuring incapacitated his enemy and allowed Ethan and the boy to escape. It also killed Pitch. To this day, despite knowing with certainty that he’d had no choice, he considered it the darkest deed he had ever committed, the one he regretted above all others, including those that had earned him his conviction. Every time he saw Shelly, he felt he ought to apologize to her.

He patted her head one last time and let himself into Henry’s shop.

The cooper sat on a low bench, his face damp with sweat, his shirt soaked through. But he smiled at Ethan, exposing a gap where his front teeth should have been.

“All right, Ethan?” he said, before taking a sip of water from a metal cup.

“I’m well, Henry. And you?”

The cooper shrugged. “All right, I gueth,” he said, lisping the word as he always did. “Saw Sephira’s men out in the street last night. They wasn’t givin’ you trouble, was they?”

“Not really,” Ethan said. He crossed to the bench, fishing in his pocket for the coins he had gotten from Andrew Ellis. He counted out a pound and handed the coins to Henry. “That should pay for my room through the end of September.”

Henry closed his hand over the coins, a look of concentration on his face. At last he nodded. “That’s how I figure it as well.” He put the money in his pocket. “My thanks, Ethan.”

“Well, you have my thanks for letting me pay you late for June.”

Henry waved away the words. “You pay me in advance more often than you pay me late. It was no matter.” He stood and picked up the cloth-covered mallet he used to hammer hoops in place on his barrels. “You working on something these days?”

“I’m staying busy,” Ethan said, not wishing to say more. Henry didn’t know that Ethan was a conjurer, and when he didn’t see Ethan around the shop for too long, he worried as a father would for his own son. Hearing of the grave desecrations and the ghosts haunting Boston’s families might have scared the man.

“Well, good. Be careful.”

“I will. Thank you, Henry.”

He left the shop, and turned north on Cooper’s Alley toward Water Street, the ring of Henry’s hammer fading as he walked away.

The Green Dragon stood near the corner of Union and Hanover streets in what Ethan imagined must have been for Samuel Adams and his allies uncomfortable proximity to the barracks of the Twenty-ninth Regiment. It was a nondescript building, notable only for the cast-iron dragon perched over its main entrance. The tavern itself was located in the basement, down a steep, dimly lit flight of stairs.

So early in the day, most publick houses in Boston would have been nigh to empty. Not the Dragon. The great room was filled with artisans and men of means, many of them gathered at the bar, others crowded around tables. Overlapping conversations blended into an incomprehensible din; Ethan wasn’t sure that he could have made himself heard even to ask one of the men where he might find Samuel Adams.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to. As he stood in the doorway, surveying the crowd, a man near the bar detached himself from a cluster of patrons and approached him. Adams had changed little since their encounter the previous year. His face might have been a bit more careworn; the palsy that had afflicted him all his life might have been somewhat more noticeable. His hair had long since turned gray, though he was but a few years older than Ethan, but his brow remained smooth, his dark blue eyes as clear and keen as Ethan remembered.

“Mister Kaille,” he said, proffering a hand and smiling broadly.

Ethan gripped his hand. “Mister Adams, sir. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“And you. Can I buy you an ale?”

“Thank you, no.”

“Very well. If you’ll follow me, we can join the others and speak without fear of interruption.”

Ethan didn’t know what others he referred to, but he followed Adams through the throng to a small chamber off the rear of the great room. There they found four other men, including Dr. Warren, whom Ethan had encountered just the night before. Adams shut the door against the clamor, before taking his place at the table where the others were already seated.

The four men had fallen silent upon Ethan and Adams’s arrival, and were watching Ethan, who lingered near the door, though there was an empty chair at the table. Eyeing the men, he realized that he recognized all of them; Adams had invited him to an august gathering.

In addition to Warren, Adams’s companions included James Otis, a masterly orator and a man who was nearly as famous for his unpredictable mood changes as for his activities on behalf of the Sons of Liberty; Dr. Benjamin Church, who several years before attended to Ethan’s injuries after a particularly harrowing encounter with Sephira and her men; and Paul Revere, the silversmith, whom Ethan had never met, but knew by reputation.

“Please sit with us, Mister Kaille,” Adams said, indicating the vacant chair with an open hand.

Ethan crossed to the table and took his seat, conscious of the gazes upon him.

“You remember James Otis,” Adams said. “May I also introduce—”

“Doctors Church and Warren I’ve met,” Ethan said. “I’m pleased to see both of you again. And this would be Mister Revere,” he went on, facing the silversmith. “I’m honored to make your acquaintance, sir.”

Revere replied with a solemn nod.

Adams appeared pleased. Otis, on the other hand, eyed Ethan with unconcealed suspicion, his protuberant dark eyes and untamed hair making him look somewhat mad. He and Ethan had clashed when last they met; clearly he remembered.

“Well,” Adams began again, “if introductions are unnecessary, I’ll move on to the business at hand. We wish to thank you, Mister Kaille, and to welcome you at long last to the cause of liberty. We’re hopeful that this marks the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership.”

Ethan stared at him, his forehead furrowing. “Forgive me, Mister Adams, but I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to.”

“Come now, Mister Kaille. There is no need for modesty. We’re all friends here. James and I have long been aware of your … extraordinary talents, and we have taken the liberty of explaining to our colleagues what it is you’ve done.”

“For my part, I’ve known for some time of your magicking abilities,” Church said. “If you recall, you came to me having already mended several of your injuries.”

Ethan said nothing to the doctor, but instead fixed Adams with a hard glare. “You told them I’m a conjurer?” he said. “You had no right.”

“Your secret is safe, Mister Kaille. You have my word.”

“My secret was not yours to share, sir.”

“But surely if we’re going to be allies—”

“We’re not. I have no idea what this is about, but I assure you I have done nothing on behalf of your cause that would warrant a discussion of my ‘talents,’ as you put it.”

“Do you mean to say that you were not responsible for—”

Revere laid a hand on Adams’s arm, silencing him. “You truly have no idea what this is about?” the silversmith asked, his voice a mild baritone.

“None at all.”

He shared a glance with Adams, and then with Warren.

After a lengthy silence, Adams said, “I fear we may have wasted your time, Mister Kaille.” His face had paled; he appeared shaken.

“What’s happened?” Ethan asked. “What is it you thought I had done?”

Warren caught Adams’s eye and gave a small shake of his head.

“I believe discretion dictates that we not answer,” Adams said.

Ethan smiled thinly. “Of course it does.” He stood. “Gentlemen.”

He started toward the door.

“You haven’t used your magicking to do anything that might draw our interest?” Adams called after him.

“Not that can think of. Not that I did intentionally.”

He stepped back into the warmth and the noise of the tavern’s great room, wended his way through the crowd, and ascended the stairs back to the street. He was breathing hard, and he had his fists balled. How dare Adams speak to others of his conjuring abilities! He had presumed too much, and might well have put Ethan’s life in danger. Janna and Gavin were more open about their conjuring abilities, but Ethan could not be. Not in his line of work, not when he made new enemies every day.

But even as he seethed, Ethan wondered again what it was the Sons of Liberty thought he had done. Was the conjurer who had desecrated the graves acting on behalf of those who sought to resist the Crown and Parliament? Was he trying to make it seem that Ethan was party to whatever actions had drawn the notice of Boston’s Whigs? Or was it mere coincidence that he heard from Adams now, as his inquiry into the grave robberies deepened?

Whatever the answer, he needed to find this new conjurer before men less forgiving of his spellmaking tried to blame him for conjurings he had not cast.

He struck out toward the North End, intending to visit the first of the families whose names Pell had given him the night before. As he walked, though, he felt a conjuring and knew it right away for a finding spell. It seemed that Sephira remained eager to speak with him.

The spell reached him in mere moments, twining about his legs like a vine. It had come from a distance—probably from Sephira’s home on Summer Street—so Ethan knew that he had some time before Mariz, Nigel, and the rest would reach him.

Still he needed to ward himself and he was on a crowded lane, surrounded by people.

He took out his pouch of mullein and removed three leaves. Already he had used a good portion of the leaves Janna had sold him. At this rate he would have to buy more in a matter of days.

Holding the leaves in the curl of his fingers as he continued to walk, he whispered to himself, “
Tegimen ex verbasco evocatum.
” Warding, conjured from mullein.

He felt his own power hum in the street, an answer to Mariz’s finding, and saw Reg gliding beside him. Something in the ghost’s expression made him falter in midstride.

Did the spell work?
he asked.

Reg shrugged, his cheeks looking more drawn than usual.

“You don’t know?”

A woman passing in the other direction stared at him. Only then did it occur to Ethan that he had spoken aloud.
You don’t know?
he asked again.
You can’t tell if the conjurings are doing what they’re supposed to?

The old warrior shook his head.

Ethan considered ducking into an alley to cut himself and try a concealment spell, but at this hour the street was crowded enough to make him reluctant to do so. While he was still pondering what to do next, he heard someone call his name.

Looking up, he spotted an older man walking in his direction, a hitch in his step.

Gavin Black lived not far from here in a small house on Hillier’s Lane, which was not to be confused with Hillier’s Street, where Murray’s men were billeted. After Janna, Ethan, and now Mariz, Black might well have been the most accomplished conjurer living in Boston. He had once captained a merchant ship, and had often used his spells to navigate through the worst of the weather he encountered. He knew conjurings to raise and diminish winds, to calm rough waters, and to heal a breached hull—things Ethan had never learned to do, even during his years as a sailor. But from conversations they’d had since the old captain ceased his voyaging and settled in the city, Ethan gathered that Gavin cast spells infrequently now.

He had white hair and a ruddy, open face that usually bore a grin. His eyes were pale blue, and, as usual, he was dressed plainly in tan breeches, a white linen shirt, and a worn, faded blue coat that might well have accompanied him on every voyage he sailed.

Ethan smiled at the sight of the old man, but Black appeared deadly serious as he halted in front of him.