A Plunder of Souls (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (6 page)

As soon as Ethan, Pell, and Gardiner joined him graveside, they were assailed by the smell of decay. Pell gave a soft grunt and turned away, covering his nose and mouth with an open hand. Gardiner retreated in haste, a look of disgust on his fleshy features. Ethan pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it over his face.

“They weren’t gentle about it,” Gardiner said, from a few paces away. “Seemed in a bit of a hurry, if you ask me.”

Ethan had to agree with the warden. Dirt had been hastily shoveled aside, and the coffin had been splintered, most likely by an axe. Through the broken wood, Ethan could see that the linen burial cloth had been cut open and pulled away from the corpse, exposing clothing and part of the neck and chest.

“They didn’t steal the entire body?” Ethan asked of the sexton, who seemed unaffected by the stench.

“No. They took the head, and the right hand off of each. It’s strange, isn’t it?”

“Aye,” Ethan said.

“Not only that, but they also took an article of clothing from each grave, or at least a piece of something.” He pointed down into the grave. “This one was wearing a cravat, and that’s gone.”

“Have you ever heard of other resurrectionists doing that?” Ethan asked.

The sexton shook his head. “No, but then again, I’ve not heard much of anything about their kind. And I would have been content to keep it that way.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Ethan said. “I gather that the family has already been here.”

“No, why would you think that?”

“Well,” Ethan said, “I didn’t expect that you could remember so clearly what the man was wearing when he was buried.”

“He only went in the ground nine or ten days ago.” Thomson swept his arm in a wide arc, encompassing more than half a dozen graves, all of which appeared to have been desecrated. “Every one of these sites was dug in the last four months or so.”

“Do you mean to say that every grave that’s been robbed is a new one?”

“Aye. And that’s not all.”

Thomson climbed down into the grave and unbuttoned the soiled linen shirt in which the corpse had been buried. On the left side of the dead man’s chest, carved into the rotting skin over his heart was an odd symbol: a triangle, its apex pointing toward the man’s chin, with three straight lines cutting across the shape from the left edge to converge at the bottom right corner.

“What is that?” Ethan whispered.

“I was hoping you would know,” the sexton said. “Come with me.”

He covered up the chest of the cadaver and nimbly climbed out of the grave. He straightened and strode to another grave, which lay perhaps twenty yards from the first. Ethan followed, noting as he reached this second site that the gravestone was somewhat thicker than others nearby, and had more ornate carvings around the edges. The family name Rowan was engraved on the stone. Below etched in smaller letters, were the words “Abigail, Devoted Wife and Loving Mother, b. 23 September 1701, d. 28 May 1769.”

“Abigail Rowan,” Ethan whispered. “I remember hearing of her death. Her husband is a man of some repute.”

“Aye,” Thomson said, keeping his voice low, and looking back at Pell and Gardiner, who lingered near the first grave. “Rich men usually are.” He lowered himself into this grave, as well.

Ethan squatted beside the site and peered down at the broken coffin. Again, the wood had been shattered, and the body of poor Abigail Rowan uncovered. As with the last, it seemed the burial cloth had been slit open with a blade. He could see that her body was badly decomposed.

“They took her head and right hand, just like with the last one,” Thomson said. “And they took a shred of clothing, too.”

“What shred?” Ethan asked.

“They cut a square from her dress. That’s not important.” He uncovered her chest. The symbol carved into her leathered skin was similar to the other one. Similar, but not identical. The lines within the triangle were curved, rather than straight—like waves.

“Do you think that was intentional?” Ethan asked.

“I’m sure of it. Because every dead man who was dug up has the other mark, and every dead woman has this one. So tell me, thieftaker, what do you suppose that means?”

Ethan had no answer. “How many graves have been disturbed?” he asked instead.

“Nine of them, all told.”

“And you say all of them were newly dug?”

“Aye.”

“And over how many nights have the desecrations taken place?”

“Three nights. The first graves were dug up on Sunday last. The thieves came back on Tuesday, and again last night.”

“Can you show me more of them?”

Thomson stood again, and set out in the direction of the nearest open grave. He had started to favor his right leg. “You can see all of them for all I care. There’s not much difference among them.”

He pointed down into this third site. Ethan could see what he meant. The damage to the coffin was much the same; once again the burial cloth had been sliced open. The head was gone, as was the right hand. And the decaying skin over the woman’s heart had been scored just the way Abigail Rowan’s had been.

“Then maybe there’s no need for me to look at the rest,” Ethan said.

“Oh, I think there is,” the sexton said. “I expect you’ll be thinking of them differently once you’ve seen them all.”

“What do you mean?”

Thomson regarded Ethan through narrowed eyes. “Why don’t you walk with me for a time, and look at each grave, and after you can tell me what
you
think I mean.”

“All right,” Ethan said.

For the next quarter hour, Ethan and Thomson walked from gravesite to gravesite, examining the exposed bodies, comparing the marks on their skin and taking stock of what clothing had been taken. Pell and the warden trailed behind them, both of them keeping silent. Pell still grimaced at what he saw in the broken coffins, but like Ethan, he seemed to have become inured to the smell. Gardiner had pulled out a handkerchief of his own, and he held it firmly over his mouth and nose.

After looking at all of the desecrated graves, Ethan circled back to take second looks at a couple of them. At last he halted near the first grave Thomson had shown them. He stared at the ground, trying to make sense of what he had seen.

“I was wrong before,” he said at length. “The warden and I both were. These men weren’t careless. They had a specific purpose in mind. I don’t know what it was, but they made their marks, they took the head and hand from each body, and they took the scrap of clothing as well.”

“Can you think of any reason why someone might do that?”

Ethan turned. Mister Pell stood a short distance off, his skin flushed, a sheen of sweat on his cheeks and brow. He spared not even a glance for the sexton. He had asked his question of Ethan alone, and Ethan could tell that he was asking him to respond not as a thieftaker, but as a conjurer. He thought once more of the spells that had awakened him during the night. Perhaps he hadn’t dreamed them after all. This last, though, he kept to himself.

“I can’t,” Ethan said. “Not yet. But there must be a reason, and a meaning to those symbols.” He thought once more of Janna. If anyone could tell him how a conjurer might use what had been taken from the dead, it was her. “I can speak to some people. One person in particular, who knows more about this sort of thing than I do.”

Pell nodded.

“But you should know, Mister Pell, that there is a chance nothing will come of these conversations. Sometimes—most times, really—a theft is just what it seems to be.” He gestured back at the open graves. “The skull and the bones of the human hand would be of great interest to physicians, and therefore could be quite valuable. The rest…” He shrugged. “It could all be nothing more or less than superstition. I don’t pretend to understand the workings of a resurrectionist’s mind.”

They all fell silent. Pell shifted his gaze to the sexton, who still stood beside Ethan. Gardiner had come closer as well, and it was he who spoke first.

“You haven’t yet told him?” the warden asked, eyeing Thomson.

“No. I wanted him to see what there was to be seen. And I wanted to know first what he thought. As he says, it might all mean nothing.”

“What are you talking about?” Ethan asked the sexton. “What haven’t you told me? Was something else taken?”

“Yes,” Trevor said, his expression pained. He faltered; he appeared not to know how to say what was on his mind. “Ethan,” he went on at last, “every corpse in every one of those desecrated graves has had three toes removed from his or her left foot.”

Chapter

F
OUR

His first response, which an instant later struck him as comical, was to think,
That’s interesting: I’m missing three toes on my left foot, too.
But of course Pell knew this. Ethan could see from the look in the young minister’s eyes that he was all too aware of the implications of what had been done to these bodies. Questions swarmed through his mind. Had this been done to mock him? Or to make it seem that he was responsible? Who knew about the injury he had suffered as a prisoner? Could there be a deeper, darker purpose to this particular indignity done to the cadavers? Could a conjurer use this body part to harm Ethan or bind him to the spellmaker’s will?

Or was he allowing his imagination to get the better of him? Why would the people responsible for these thefts single him out in this way?

To which a voice in his mind responded,
I don’t know, but they have.

For how else could he explain what had been done to the corpses? Already these events struck him as bizarre and unsettling. Yet there was also a certain logic to them. Thinking as might a physician or one who aspired to the profession, he could see the value in stealing or buying a skull and a hand. But what possible value could there be in three toes from a left foot? Why would anyone take just part of a foot not from a single cadaver, but from nine of them?

He understood now why Mister Pell had summoned him, and why Reverend Caner had been willing to overlook his abhorrence of Ethan’s conjuring powers.

“Ethan?” Pell said, concern etched on his face.

“I need to see them again,” Ethan said, starting back toward the first gravesite. Thomson fell in step with him, but Pell and Gardiner hesitated.

Pell took a step toward him. “Perhaps you should—”

“It’s all right, Mister Pell,” Ethan said, his tone crisp, despite the roiled state of his emotions. “I’ll meet you back inside the chapel.”

If anything, this served to make the minister appear more worried. Pell, though, was the least of Ethan’s concerns.

He and the sexton moved with grim efficiency from grave to grave. Thomson climbed down into each site and held up the profaned foot for Ethan to see, before leading Ethan to the next one.

Ethan soon realized that every foot looked much the same. The three smallest toes had been removed perhaps half an inch below the joints; the cuts were clean, precise. If the resurrectionists had hoped to mimic his own old injury, they had been both too exact and not exact enough. His wound was not as straight or neat as these cuts; it had been made by plantation physicians who hardly knew what they were doing. Ethan had often remarked to himself and to others that it was a miracle their butchery hadn’t cost him his entire leg. Also, his ordeal had left him with somewhat less of his foot than the cadavers now had.

Still, seeing what had been done to the corpses reaffirmed what he had already deduced: The people who did this knew him and wanted Ethan to understood that.

“What kind of witchery uses bones?” Thomson asked, breaking a silence that had stretched on for many minutes. Ethan wondered if he was trying to make conversation.

“Dark,” Ethan said.

“Isn’t it all dark?” the sexton asked, surprising Ethan with a conspiratorial grin.

Ethan smiled. “No, not all.” He turned a slow circle, his expression growing grim as he surveyed the burying ground. “This is, though. I don’t understand it, but I’m certain there’s some dark purpose here.” He proffered a hand to Thomson. “You have my thanks for showing me all of this. I should speak with Mister Pell before I go.”

“Of course,” the sexton said, shaking his hand.

“If I have more questions—”

“Mister Pell knows where to find me. So do Doctor Gardiner and Reverend Caner.”

Ethan nodded before walking back toward the front of the chapel, more aware than ever of his limp.

“Thieftaker!”

He stopped and turned.

“I have friends who are sextons at other churches, with other burying grounds. I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere, but King’s Chapel isn’t the only place where these robberies are happening.”

Ethan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He raised a hand, acknowledging what Thomson had told him. Turning away, he hurried into the sanctuary.

Pell, Gardiner, and Caner were waiting for him just inside the door.

“James showed you?” Caner asked.

“Aye,” Ethan said. “I’m wondering if there is anything more that links the mutilated corpses beyond their membership in your congregation, and the fact that they all died within the past several months.”

Caner pondered this, his brow knitting. Pell and Gardiner wore similar expressions.

“Some among them share certain traits,” the rector said at last, “just as you would expect. Abigail Rowan and Bertram Flagg were neighbors, and also had in common considerable wealth. John Newell and George Wright both practiced law, but they were the only attorneys among those whose graves were robbed. I can go on, but you see my point. Many of them had certain attributes in common, but I can’t think of anything—beyond the factors you mentioned—that links all of them.” He faced Gardiner and Pell. “Can either of you?”

Both men shook their heads.

“I assumed as much,” Ethan said. “I should be on my way.”

“Where?” Pell asked.

“To start, I need to speak with a friend.” He turned and pulled open the door. “I’ll keep you apprised of what I learn.”

He hadn’t made it two steps down the path leading back to the street before he heard the door open again. He knew without looking who had followed him.