Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles) (2 page)

Charles Short’s wares might not have been the best in the city, but gold watches were enough to entice Sephira no matter who made them. Ethan had known this from the start; from the day Short hired him, he had expected her to be watching his every move, looking for some way to find the watches first. But he had been so careful; he had been sure that this time, at least, he had bested her.

“Show yourself, Kaille,” she said, her voice hardening. “I want to see the look on your face.”

On more than one occasion, Sephira and her men had come close to killing him. She was brilliant and deadly and her toughs were skilled street fighters, as good with blades as with pistols, and skilled with their fists as well. But as long as Ethan could conjure he could protect himself. He hesitated to answer her, but not out of fear: rather because he didn’t care to be mocked.

“There’s no sense in sulking. I’ve beaten you. Again. I would have thought you’d be used to it by now.”

Cursing a second time, Ethan pulled his knife from its sheath on his belt, cut his forearm and whispered in Latin, “
Fini velamentum ex cruore evocatum.
” End concealment, conjured from blood.

Power coursed through his body and hummed in the ground beneath his feet, deep and resonant, like the tone of a pealing church bell. At the same time, a radiant figure appeared beside him: an old man, tall and lean, with a trim beard and the dark expression of a warrior. He wore ancient battle armor and the tabard of a medieval British soldier. He even carried a sword in a scabbard on his belt. He glowed with a deep russet hue, nearly a match for the color of the moon, except for his eyes, which burned bright like brands. This was Ethan’s spectral guide, who allowed him to access the conjuring power that dwelt in the realm between the living world and the domain of the dead. Ethan had long suspected that his guide was also the wraith of one of his ancient ancestors, a link to his family’s conjuring past. He called the ghost Uncle Reg, after his mother’s oldest brother, a waspish, difficult man of whom the shade often reminded him.

The blood that had been flowing from the fresh wound on Ethan’s arm vanished, and he felt the concealment spell begin to fade. Because Sephira wasn’t a conjurer she wouldn’t have felt the spell as Ethan did. But as soon as Ethan took another step on the wharf, she saw him. Her gaze settled on his face, and a broad predatory smile lit her features.

“There you are,” she purred.

Her men, including a hulking, yellow-haired ruffian named Nigel, turned as one and started toward him. Nigel pulled a pistol from his coat pocket.

Ethan raised his knife to his forearm again. The toughs halted.

Ethan wasn’t tall like Yellow-hair or broad in the shoulders and chest like Tanner. Those who had fought him in the past, as Sephira’s men had, knew that he could handle a blade, either short or long, and that he could fight with his fists if he had to. But no one would have been afraid of him because of how he looked. His face bore a few scars, and his long hair had begun to gray at the temples. While serving time as a prisoner on a plantation in Barbados, he had lost three toes on his left foot to gangrene, and ever since, he had walked with a pronounced limp.

It was the threat of his spellmaking that made Yellow-hair and the others falter. They stared at his knife the way a child might gape at a rabid cur on an otherwise deserted lane. Even Tanner regarded him with alarm. Only Sephira appeared unconcerned. Actually, she looked bored.

“Leave him,” she said in a low voice.

Nigel and his friends glanced back at her, all wearing frowns.

“We’re not going to touch him,” she said. “And he’s not going to do anything to us. Isn’t that right, Ethan?”

God knew he wanted to. He could cast a hundred spells, from simple illusions that would scare Yellow-hair into diving off the pier, to complicated, violent conjurings that would kill all of them. With a bit of blood and a few well-chosen words he could have snapped Sephira’s neck or set her men on fire. But Sephira had powerful friends, and as much as he hated her, he wasn’t willing to hang for her murder or return to the horrors of prison.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Ethan said at last, forcing a grin onto his lips. “Just give me what’s mine and I’ll be on my way.”

She laughed. He had to admit that it was a good laugh: throaty, unrestrained. Had it not been directed at him, he might have liked the sound of it.

“Nothing here is yours,” she told him.

He pointed at the sack she held in her hand. “Those watches—”

“Are mine.” She handed the watches to Nigel. “You can try to take them, but I think we both know how that will turn out.”

Ethan’s eyes flicked toward Yellow-hair, who smirked back at him. If he could have taken the watches from her with a conjuring he would have done so, but the power he wielded didn’t work that way. He could hurt her, make her drop the package. He could make the wharf collapse beneath her. He could even grind the watches to dust, rendering them worthless—this last was quite tempting. But he couldn’t make them leave her hand and appear in his own. If he wanted them, he would have to try to take them from her, and she was right: That might not work out well for him.

Ten pounds wasn’t enough to justify risking his life or his freedom. Diver might have disagreed, but Diver was young, reckless. Ethan lowered his blade.

“Good boy,” Sephira said, sounding like she was speaking to a wayward puppy.

“How did you know?” Ethan asked, his voice thick.

Her smile was luminous. “You know better than to ask me that.”

She motioned for Nigel, and the big man returned to her side, as obedient as a hunting dog. Ethan raised his blade again, making sure both Sephira and Nigel understood that he was ready to conjure at the first sign of a threat.

Sephira handed her man the watches and whispered something that Ethan couldn’t hear.

“How did you know, Sephira?” Ethan asked again.

“Ask your friend,” she said, sparing him a quick glance. “Derrey is it?”

Derrey. Diver. He was known in the streets by both names. Ethan muttered a curse under his breath.

“We’re leaving now, Ethan,” Sephira said, turning away from Nigel to face him once more. “Good work on this one. You made it very easy for us.”

She sauntered his way and then past him, hips swaying. Most of her men followed, including Gordon, a brute of a man, even brawnier than Nigel, and Nap, who was smaller than the others, though no less dangerous with a blade or gun. Ethan still held his knife over his arm, and he racked his brain for some spell that would stop her, allow him to reclaim the watches, and also enable him to make his escape.

But as Sephira walked away, Yellow-hair bent low over Tanner and in one quick motion slashed at the man’s throat with a blade Ethan hadn’t noticed before. Blood gushed from the wound. Tanner’s eyes rolled back into his head and he toppled onto his side. Blood stained the wharf crimson and began to pool at its edge, seeping over the wooden boards to drip into the water below.

Ethan rushed forward, all thoughts of stopping Sephira fleeing his mind. He pushed past Yellow-hair, who merely chuckled. Reaching Tanner, he dropped to his knees.

“
Remedium!
” Ethan said, practically shouting the word. “
Ex cruore evocatum!
” Healing, conjured from blood! Usually a healing spell required that he mark the injured body part with blood. But in this case, blood was everywhere; the air reeked of it.

The wharf beneath him pulsed with power. Uncle Reg appeared again, though he hardly even glanced at Ethan or Tanner. Instead, the wraith stood with his back to them, staring after Sephira. And as the blood disappeared from the wood and dirt, and from Tanner’s neck and shirt, the gaping wound began to close. Ethan couldn’t tell if he had acted soon enough. Tanner had lost a great deal of blood in just those few seconds.

A part of him wasn’t certain why he cared. Tanner meant nothing to him. But if Sephira wanted him dead, Ethan would do all he could to keep him alive.

At first, even after the gash had healed itself, Tanner didn’t move. But leaning close to the man’s face, Ethan felt a slight stirring of breath. He grabbed Tanner’s wrist and felt for a pulse. Also faint, but unmistakable. Ethan sat back on his heels, and took a long breath. After what seemed like years, Tanner’s eyes fluttered open.

Ethan cut himself once more and drew forth a bright light that hovered over them like a tiny sun.

“You’re a … a conjurer!” Tanner said, trying to scramble away from him, although he was too weak to go far.

“Aye, I’m a conjurer. I just saved your life with a spell.”

The man’s hand strayed to his throat, his fingers probing the raw scar left by Nigel’s blade. “Why?” he asked.

Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know. Don’t make me regret it.”

With some effort, Tanner sat up. His arms trembled and his skin looked pasty. “Is she gone?”

“Aye,” Ethan said. “But you need to leave Boston. If she sees you, she’ll try to kill you again, and I might not be around to heal you.”

“But—”

“Short—that’s the man who owned those watches you stole—he wants you transported as far from these shores as possible. Failing that, he wants you dead. He made that clear when he hired me, and I’d wager every shilling I have that he told Sephira the same thing.”

“So … so you were goin’ to turn me over to the sheriff?”

Ethan made no answer. He didn’t always turn in those he was hired to pursue, and he never killed any man unless left with no choice. He had lost too many years of his life to prison and forced labor to send men away for commission of petty crimes. And he had seen too many lives wasted in battles and in the harsh conditions he had endured in his plantation prison to kill for little cause. But he always insisted, under the threat of a painful spell-induced death, that those he captured leave Boston, never to return. The last thing he needed was for word to get around the city that he didn’t punish the men he was hired to pursue. He would never be hired as a thieftaker again. He saw no reason to trust Tanner with this information.

“Aye, probably,” he finally said. “And Sheriff Greenleaf would have dealt with you harshly. But Sephira took the watches and left me to heal you, so I suppose this is your lucky day.”

Tanner’s dark eyes narrowed. “Well, then—”

“Don’t even think it,” Ethan said. “Just leave Boston on the next ship that sails. If you don’t, she’ll kill you. And if she doesn’t, I will.”

Ethan climbed to his feet, let the light fade out, and started to limp back along the wharf to the city street. He needed an ale, and it seemed he also needed to have a conversation with Diver.

“I suppose I ought to thank you for savin’ me,” Tanner called after him.

“Don’t bother,” Ethan said over his shoulder. “I didn’t do it for you.”

Chapter

T
WO

Ethan followed Ship Street to Fish Street and continued along the edge of the North End, skirting the finer neighborhoods. He walked by warehouses and darkened storefronts, past Paul Revere’s Silver Shop and the Hancock Wharf. The moon cast his shadow, long and haloed, across locked doors and clapboard façades. The air was cool and dry, laden with the smells of brine and fish, burning wood and ships’ tar. After crossing over Mill Creek, he followed Ann Street as it turned away from the harbor and met Union.

Two men of the night watch stood at the far corner, speaking in low voices, one of them chuckling at some jest Ethan didn’t hear. There was no established constabulary in Boston, and for now at least, there were no British regulars patrolling the streets. Men of the watch were expected to guard the citizens of Boston and their property from lawbreakers. And when they failed, which they did with some frequency, one of Boston’s thieftakers—in most cases, Sephira Pryce or Ethan—was hired to recover the stolen items. The sheriff of Suffolk County, Stephen Greenleaf, bore some responsibility for keeping the peace as well, though he was but one man, with no soldiers or guards under his immediate authority.

The long and short of it was that even with several hundred British soldiers aboard ships in the waters off the city’s shores, Boston remained a lawless city. Some of the men who served the watch were honest and competent; others were not. A few worked for Sephira Pryce, and took advantage of their time on the watch by robbing empty homes, so that Sephira could return the stolen items to their rightful owners, for a substantial fee, of course.

He didn’t recognize either of these watchmen. This didn’t mean necessarily that they worked for Sephira, but he would have felt better had he known at least one of the two. He kept his head down and his hands in his pockets as he walked past them.

“It’s late to be abroad in the streets.”

Ethan halted and turned. Both watchmen had stepped forward, their expressions hard. They were young men, one tall and spear-thin, the other shorter and brawnier. Ethan guessed that they both were armed, although they had yet to pull out either pistols or knives.

“Yes, it is,” Ethan said. “I’m just on my way to the Dowsing Rod for an ale or two.” His voice remained steady, and he met the taller man’s gaze, unwilling to let them believe that he feared them.

“I’m less interested in where you’re going than in where you’ve been.”

“I’m a thieftaker,” Ethan told him. “I was down at the wharves looking for a man who robbed a client.”

The tall one continued to regard him like something a dog might drag in off the street, but Ethan could see from the easing of his stance, the slight droop of his shoulders, that this answer had satisfied him. “Find him?”

Ethan shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Well, better huntin’ next time.” The man was already turning away as he said this. The second man continued to watch Ethan, but he made no effort to stop him.

Ethan raised a hand in farewell and continued on toward the tavern, glad to get away with nothing more than a few questions. He cut through Wings Lane, a dark, narrow byway that connected Union and Hanover Streets and turned south toward Sudbury.