A Plunder of Souls (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (38 page)

Janna chuckled. “So why are you workin’ with her now?”

“Because I can’t beat Ramsey on my own, and she hates him even more than she hates me.” He took a long breath, his throat tightening. “Ramsey killed one of her men today. She doesn’t know it, but Mariz and I could have killed Ramsey last night. I elected to spare his life, and so Sephira’s man is dead.”

Janna shook her head. “Life don’t always work that way. Sure, if you’d killed Ramsey, he couldn’t have killed Sephira’s boy. But you don’t know what would have happened to him later today or tomorrow or the next day. We can all take blame for one thing or another. Don’t make it harder on yourself than it needs to be. You spared a man’s life. What he does with his life after, that ain’t your responsibility.”

Ethan nodded.

Before either of them could say more, the door to the house opened and Sephira’s men—at least ten of them—filed out, followed by the Empress herself.

Upon spotting Ethan and Janna, Sephira hesitated for an instant. Lifting her chin, she walked past her men to the street, where she halted, facing Janna.

“Miss Windcatcher,” she said.

Janna looked her up and down. “Pryce.”

“Have you and I had dealings before?”

“Not directly. But once, a long time ago. A man offered me a lot o’ coin to get a girl to like him, and before he could pay me, you did somethin’ to him. I don’t know what. But I know it was you, and I know that I never saw him or his money again.”

“What was his name?”

“Don’t know that either,” Janna said, still sounding guarded. “For today it don’t matter.”

Sephira nodded, glancing at Ethan. “You’re right. It doesn’t. You’re ready?” she asked of Ethan.

“Aye. Let’s be going.”

They set out toward the waterfront, Nap, Gordon, and Afton walking ahead of them, followed by Ethan and Janna, Mariz and Sephira. The rest of Sephira’s toughs followed.

As they neared the center of the South End, and the streets grew more crowded, people stopped to stare at their odd procession. For most people, seeing Sephira was an occasion to be remembered. But the sight of her in such strange company—with all of her men, as well as a wizened African woman—would be something people spoke of for days to come.

“You handled that well,” Ethan said to Janna, keeping his voice low.

“What? Pryce?” She waved a hand, dismissing the compliment. “I’m just bein’ practical. You’ve seen her house. It ain’t smart business to stay mad at a woman who’s livin’ like that.”

Even under these circumstances, Ethan couldn’t help but smile. He wondered if Janna wasn’t being more clever about her animosity for Sephira than Ethan had been over the years.

As they drew near to the wharves, these other thoughts fled his mind. By returning to the wharf with Sephira, Ethan had all but declared himself at war with Ramsey. On the other hand, the captain himself had done as much in their most recent encounter.

Sephira’s men—at least those walking behind him—had been talking among themselves as they walked through the city lanes, but as the wharves loomed before them, the men fell silent. Ethan sensed Sephira’s tension as well.

Mariz glanced back at him, and they drew their blades at the same time. Ethan looked at Janna. She already had her knife in hand.

They reached Tileston’s Wharf and walked toward the spot where the
Muirenn
had been moored earlier in the day. Halfway out, Ethan halted.

“Where did he go?” Sephira asked. She turned to Ethan. “
Where did he go?
”

Ethan shook his head. He had no idea. All he knew was that Ramsey’s ship had vanished.

Chapter

T
WENTY
-
ONE

“I want answers, Ethan!”

He stared hard at Sephira. “I have none for you. When I left the wharf this morning, he was here. I expected that he still would be, just as you did.”

“Is it possible that he left Boston?” Mariz asked. “He must have known that the
senhora
would be coming for him, and he might have guessed that you and I would work together to destroy him. Perhaps he fled.”

Ethan shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like Ramsey to me. He wanted to fight me. He believes that he can destroy all of us, and he’s eager to prove to us and to himself that he’s right.”

“One of us can try a findin’ spell,” Janna said. “Or we can do it together if we have to.”

“He will expect that,” Mariz said.

Janna shrugged. “So? He knew that we’d come lookin’ for him; that’s why he ain’t here. He’s already thinkin’ ahead of us. We might as well play his game and find him.”

Mariz turned to Ethan, a question in his eyes.

“I’m afraid she’s right,” Ethan said. “If he’s still in Boston, I want to know where. We’ll give away our position with the spell, but as Janna says, he already knows where we are. On the other hand, I don’t think we have to cast this spell together—I’d rather he didn’t know we’ve mastered that particular skill.”

Ethan cut his arm. “
Locus magi ex cruore evocatus.
” Location of conjurer, conjured from blood.

The spell hummed in the ground, but otherwise Ethan felt nothing. He glanced at Reg, who merely shrugged. Ethan tried the spell twice more, with the same result.

“We may need to conjure together after all,” he said.

“Whatever you intend to do, do it quickly!” Sephira said. “For all we know he’s gone already!”

The way she said it, one might have thought this would be the worst thing that could have happened. Ethan thought otherwise.

Mariz stepped closer to Ethan, as did Janna. They raised their blades.

“Ethan!”

He turned with the others. A gray-haired man strode toward them, a hitch in his step.

“Gavin?”

Janna sidled closer to Ethan. “I thought you said he wasn’t comin’.”

“That’s what he told me.”

The old captain walked to where they waited, his cheeks red, his face damp with sweat. He was breathing hard, leading Ethan to wonder how far he had walked.

“Good day, Janna,” he said.

“Black.”

A frown crossed the man’s face as he glanced at Sephira and her toughs, but he turned his attention back to Ethan.

“I’ve just come from Nate Ramsey’s ship.”

Ethan and Janna shared a look.

“Where?” Ethan asked.

“He’s moored at Drake’s Wharf.”

Drake’s Wharf was located near the top of the North End, between Hunt and White’s Shipyard and the Charlestown Ferry. It was just about as far from their present location as a ship in Boston could be.

“I don’t understand. He’s been here on Tileston’s Wharf for days. Why now would he choose to go to Drake’s Wharf, of all places?”

“I don’t know,” Gavin said.

“The question I have,” Janna said, regarding Gavin with manifest distrust, “is what were you doin’ with him in the first place?”

Gavin’s face turned an even deeper shade of crimson. “After Ethan talked to me, I felt awful—like a coward. So I put my fears aside and I came here.” He looked at Ethan. “This is where you told me he was. And sure enough, there he was on his father’s old ship, looking so much like Nathaniel had as a younger man that it broke my heart.”

“You spoke to him?” Ethan asked.

Gavin nodded. “He welcomed me aboard the
Muirenn
. His crew looked like they were readying the ship to leave, but I went up to talk to him, to ask him about the things you told me, Ethan. About the graves and my … well, the trouble I’ve been having with my spells. And he said all of it was true. I couldn’t believe it. He just admitted everything.”

“What did he say, Gavin?” Ethan asked. “What were his exact words?”

Gavin screwed up his face, trying to remember. “He said that he needed the ghosts to bring back his father, and also to make the rest of us weak. He said, ‘The weaker you get, the stronger I am. The shades see to that.’ I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it sounded a lot like what you told me he was doing.”

“What else?”

“Well, I tried to talk him out of it, of course. I told him that his father wouldn’t approve of what he was doing, and I tried to remind him of the times he and I had spent together, when he was a lad. But he barely heard me. And before I knew it, Ramsey’s crew had the ship’s sweeps out, and we were leaving the wharf. I got scared and told him that I wanted to go back, and he laughed at me. So, I pulled out my knife, and I tried a spell.”

Ethan narrowed his eyes. “What kind of spell?”

“I wanted to hurt him. I tried to set him on fire. I did it twice and both times the spell failed. Ramsey and his men laughed at me. And then Ramsey cast a spell of his own.” Gavin rubbed his jaw. “It felt like someone punched me right here. I blacked out, and the next thing I knew, we were at Drake’s Wharf, and two of Ramsey’s men were carrying me off the ship.”

“So all three spells were cast while you were on the water?” Ethan asked.

“Aye.”

“Those were the conjurings we felt,” Mariz said. “They were powerful because they were cast on water.”

“He wants you to go there, Ethan,” Gavin said. “He’s waiting for you. That was the other thing he said: He wants to destroy you and use your shade to complete his mastery of the realm where our power dwells. And he wants to avenge himself upon you for using the shade of his father against him. He said that, too. If you go there, you’ll be helping him. You’ll be walking into an ambush.”

Ethan shrugged. “I never expected to surprise him.”

“You’re going anyway?”

“Aye. You’ve done us a great service, Gavin. And we owe you our thanks for trying to reason with Ramsey. But we have to face him. He’s not going to leave Boston of his own accord, and none of us is safe so long as he remains here.”

The old man took a long breath. “I should come with you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I know. But if something happens to one of you, and I’m not there, I’ll never forgive myself. I’m not brave. We both know that. But I need to do this.”

Ethan’s gaze strayed to Janna. She nodded, but Ethan saw some reluctance in her dark eyes.

“All right.” He marked the position of the sun, which had already begun its descent across the western sky. “We’ve learned to conjure together, to combine our power. We don’t have time to teach you. I want to face Ramsey during the day, when he can’t call up his army of shades. So you’ll watch us and learn, or you’ll have to conjure on your own and hope that some of your spells work.”

“That’s fine,” Gavin said.

“Does this mean we’re ready to go?” Sephira asked, sounding a bit like a bored child.

“Aye.” Ethan stepped closer to her. “You and your men need to take the fight to Ramsey’s crew. Leave the captain himself to us. You can’t beat him with blades and bullets.”

“Why, Ethan, one might almost think you were worried about me.”

Ethan didn’t so much as quirk a corner of his mouth. “I don’t want him dead, at least not until he has released the shades he controls.”

“That doesn’t matter to me.”

“It matters to me. I’m serious, Sephira.”

She didn’t flinch under his gaze; her eyes were like chips of ice. “So am I.”

“Fight the crew,” he said again. “Let us handle Ramsey.”

Sephira said nothing, but at last she gave a single curt nod.

They returned to the street and began the long march to the North End. Once more, Nap, Gordon, and Afton led the way, followed by Sephira, Ethan and the other conjurers, and the rest of Sephira’s toughs. As they walked, Ethan felt several new conjurings thrum in the cobblestones, one after another.

“What do you suppose he is doing?” Mariz asked after the fourth or fifth pulse.

“If I was in his position, and I knew that we were coming, I would cast detection spells, and I would tie each one to a different sort of attack.”

“I would do something similar. We should ward ourselves, and we should walk at the fore.”

“I agree,” Ethan said. He called for Nap and the others to halt.

“What now?” Sephira demanded.

“Ramsey is casting spells,” Mariz said. “We need to ward ourselves, and then we will lead the rest of you there.”

“Can you ward all of us?” Sephira asked.

“I believe we can.” Sephira’s man turned to Ethan and Janna. “
Tegimen, omnibus nostrum, ex cruore evocatum.
” Warding, all of us, conjured from blood. “That would be the wording, correct?”

Ethan deferred to Janna, who nodded. “Sounds right to me.”

They positioned themselves shoulder-to-shoulder, and waited as their spectral guides joined hands.

“Now,” Ethan said. They cut themselves and chanted the spell. Their power growled in the street, an answer to Ramsey’s conjurings.

“Do you think it worked?” Mariz asked.

“I hope it did. I don’t want to cast it again, lest we make it too clear to Ramsey what we’ve done. Let’s go.” Ethan strode past Sephira, Nap, and the others, and led them on through the streets. Mariz caught up with him a moment later. When Ethan glanced back, he saw that Janna and Gavin were just behind them.

By now they were in the North End; Copp’s Hill loomed before them, the late-afternoon sunlight giving a golden cast to the rooftops of the houses. They walked around the base of the hill on the western side, following Princes Street to Ferry Way, and approaching Drake’s Wharf from the south.

As they came to the ferry dock, Ethan felt the brush of a conjuring on his face.

“Spell!” he had time to say.

He tensed, as did Mariz beside him. But no attack came. Instead, Ethan heard a high-pitched keening, like the cry of some wild beast.

“I guess he knows which direction we’ll be coming from,” Ethan said.

Mariz said nothing. Ethan tightened his grip on his knife.

With his next step, he felt the web of a second detection spell. This time he had no chance to shout a warning. The triggered conjuring slammed into them like a giant hammer, lifting Ethan off his feet so that he flew backward and landed hard on his shoulder. Mariz landed beside him and let out a low groan.

Ethan climbed to his feet and hurried to Janna’s side. She lay on the cobblestone, wincing and gripping her arm.