Dead Man's Reach

by D. B. Jackson

  “I understand little of this,” he said, “and I believe even less. I should throw you in the gaol and hang you come the morn.”

  Ethan was too weary to argue. “Perhaps you should. And then you can fight Ramsey on your own.”

  “I’m not sure Ramsey—”

  Ethan halted, swaying under Mariz’s weight. “Ramsey is here, in Boston. He is responsible for murders and bloodshed. You can believe that or not, but it’s the truth. I intend to kill him when I find him, and then you’ll know that I wasn’t lying to you. But for now either help me carry this man the rest of the way to Summer Street, or leave me in peace.”

  Greenleaf regarded him for several seconds, his lips pressed in a flat line. “Kill him then. I want to see the body. If you can do that, I’ll not trouble you about Grant. But if you can’t, you’ll swing for his murder. I guarantee it.” He started to say more, but then seemed to think better of it. In the end, he merely turned and stalked back toward the center of the city.

  Ethan watched him go, adjusted his hold on Mariz, and marshaled his strength for what remained of his walk to Summer Street.

  * * *

  The first faint glow of dawn had touched the eastern sky over the harbor when Ethan again rapped on Sephira’s door. He had longer to wait this time, and when the door opened Ethan found himself face-to-face with an African servant he had never before seen. The man was as tall and brawny as Afton and Gordon, but he wore a suit rather than the clothes of a street tough.

  “I have Mariz,” he said, barely getting the words out. He was breathless. His legs shook with the effort of remaining upright. “My name is Kaille.”

  The man bent low to peer up at Mariz’s face. He seemed to recognize him, because he motioned Ethan into the house and shut the door.

  “I’ll wake Miss Pryce,” the man said. He pointed toward the sitting room. “You may set him on the daybed.”

  Ethan carried Mariz to the sitting room, lowered him onto the daybed, and collapsed to the floor. There he sat, with his back cushioned against the sofa as he tried to catch his breath. When he could muster the strength, he pulled off his coat, slipped his knife from his belt, and cut himself. With his first spell, he lit several candles in the room. When he could see well enough, he cut himself a second time, dabbed some blood on the burns that covered Mariz’s neck and jaw, and cast a healing spell.

  He still held his hands over the burns when Sephira entered the room, her eyes bleary with sleep, her hair in tangles. It was, he realized, the first time he had seen her look anything less than perfect. And still she was lovely.

  “What happened to him?” she asked, her voice more of a rasp than its usual purr.

  “A fire spell,” Ethan said. “He has burns on his neck and face.”

  “From Ramsey?”

  Ethan answered with a small shrug. “In a way. Ramsey used a spell to turn Mariz against me, the same way he made Gordon attack Will Pryor. Mariz and I battled with spells, and since Mariz had warded himself, my spells didn’t do much more than knock him back a step or two. But as I cast a fire spell, Ramsey removed Mariz’s warding.”

  “So you did this to him.”

  Ethan met her gaze. “Aye. It wasn’t my intention, but I did it.”

  “And the bruises on his face?”

  “Those I did intend. I didn’t want to use conjurings to subdue him, so I beat him.”

  She nodded. “You don’t appear to be hurt; are your spells that much stronger than Mariz’s?”

  “Not at all. Ramsey didn’t remove my warding; that’s the only reason my spell worked when Mariz’s didn’t. And as for not being hurt, I’m reasonably certain that your friend here broke one or two of my ribs.”

  Sephira smirked. “Remind me to increase his pay.”

  Ethan’s laugh quickly turned to a wince.

  “You haven’t healed yourself?”

  He shook his head. “Mariz’s injuries are worse than mine. And I’m responsible for them.”

  “I don’t pretend to know much about your witchery, Ethan, but from all that I gather, you’re not responsible. Mariz attacked you. Isn’t that right?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And you thought that he was protected when you cast your spell, didn’t you?”

  “Aye, I was sure of it.”

  “Ramsey is terribly clever,” she said. “And as much as I hate him, that’s a difficult admission for me.” She ran a hand through her knotted curls. “Your greatest weakness has always been that you’re too kind, too sentimental.”

  “Aye, you’ve told me as much.”

  “And Ramsey is using that weakness to his advantage. You’re not responsible for the things he does, even if he uses your magicking to do them. But you’re so racked with guilt, you can’t see that.”

  “Are you trying to help me, Sephira?”

  She scowled. “It’s the hour. If the sun was fully up, I’d be more than glad to see you suffer.”

  Ethan smiled. He removed his hands from Mariz’s burns and leaned closer to see how they had healed.

  “He should be all right,” Ethan said.

  “The burns on his coat are blackening my daybed.”

  “Aye. You can take it out of his increased wage.” He cut himself a third time, and lifting his shirt, rubbed some blood on the skin over his sore ribs. He could feel the broken bone—a clean break. He’d been more fortunate than Diver.

  “Remedium ex cruore evocatum.” Healing, conjured from blood.

  Sephira watched him, her eyes luminous in the candlelight.

  “So what do you suggest?” Ethan asked, avoiding her gaze, feeling oddly uncomfortable with her eyes upon him.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t suffer from this particular malady—guilt and kindness don’t come naturally to me—and so I have little experience with banishing them from my thoughts. But that, it seems to me, is what you need to do. These are Ramsey’s crimes, not yours.”

  Ethan felt the bone knitting beneath his hands. After a few moments more, he was able to move and draw a deep breath without too much pain. He pulled down his shirt and stood.

  “We need to wake him.”

  A frown furrowed Sephira’s brow. “The night Gordon beat that boy, you were afraid to wake him lest he renew his assault.”

  “I remember. But if I’m to defeat Ramsey, I’ll need Mariz’s help, and I can’t afford to wait another day. We’ll wake him, and if I have to, I’ll use a spell to put him to sleep. Ramsey removed his warding; I don’t think he put it back in place.”

  Sephira did not look happy. “I don’t want a conjuring war in my sitting room.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He pushed up his sleeve and cut his forearm, allowing the blood to well from the wound. “Wake him,” he said.

  Sephira eyed his knife and bloody arm the way she might a pistol in the hands of a rival. But she knelt beside the daybed and gave Mariz a gentle shake.

  “Mariz, wake up. I need to speak with you.” He didn’t stir, and she glanced up at Ethan again.

  “Try again,” Ethan said. “Use my name.”

  Her frown deepened. “Mariz, Kaille is here. He wants a word with you. Wake up now. You need to speak with him.”

  Mariz gave a low moan, his eyelids twitching but not opening.

  “Mariz—”

  “Yes, Senhora,” he said, sounding groggy. “I hear you. You say that Kaille is here?”

  Sephira looked at Ethan again. “That’s right.”

  Ethan tightened his gripped on his blade.

  “That is good,” Mariz said. He opened his eyes, squeezed them shut, but only for a second. His eyes found Sephira first, then shifted to Ethan. He sat up and touched the burns on his face.

  “Ramsey set me against you,” he said.

  Ethan nodded and allowed himself to relax. “Aye, he did.”

  “He should not have. I know where he is.”

  Chapter

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ethan ha
rdly dared hope that he had heard the man correctly. “How is that possible?”

  “I sensed his conjuring, as I would if he had cast the spell on his own rather than through you. I do not know why I was able to—perhaps because to control me in that way he had to use both his power and yours. But I believe I can lead you to him.”

  “Where?” Ethan asked. “Where is he?”

  “In New Boston, near the spur of land that juts into the Charles River.”

  “Barton’s Point?” Sephira asked.

  “Yes, near there.”

  “There are shipyards there,” Sephira said to Ethan. “Warehouses. There’s also a rope yard along Wiltshire.”

  “Aye. He and his crew could be in any one of those.”

  She stood. “Nap, Gordon, and the others will be here before long. We’ll go with you.”

  “No,” Ethan said. “I can’t risk taking anyone with me. Ramsey will use my power to control you, and we’ll wind up fighting each other instead of him.”

  “We’ve fought each other before,” Sephira said. “We’re rather good at it.”

  “I’m serious, Sephira.”

  “So am I. Do you honestly believe that you can defeat him on your own? Despite all evidence to the contrary?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m certain that if I have you with me, or Mariz, or Janna, or anyone else, it will be more difficult to fight him rather than less.”

  “There must be some way for you to ward yourself against him,” Mariz said. “All spells can be defeated; our task is to determine how.”

  “I’ve tried different wardings, and to no avail. He knows my conjurings too well.”

  Mariz stared back at him, his eyes widening a bit.

  “He knows my conjurings too well,” Ethan said again, excitement seeping into his voice. “But not yours. What if you were to put a warding on me using the herbs I bought from Janna. The spell would be every bit as strong, but because it wasn’t mine, Ramsey might not find a way past it.”

  “This could work,” Mariz said. “Although, I was warded tonight as well, and he mastered me using your power.”

  “I had forgotten that.” With the memory, came a dampening of Ethan’s initial enthusiasm.

  “Still, Kaille, it might slow him, even if only for a moment. Perhaps that will be enough.”

  It wasn’t much; it was hardly anything. But it was all they had, and Mariz was right. If they could confound Ramsey, even for the briefest instant, it might give them the advantage they needed to destroy him. He pulled the pouches of herbs from his coat pockets, removed three leaves from each, and handed the leaves to Mariz.

  The conjurer placed the leaves in his palm and opened his mouth. But then he closed it again. “I am not sure of the wording,” he said after a few seconds.

  “Your warding on me,” Ethan said. “Sourced in the herbs. That would be simplest. And use my name. The more specific the spell, the more powerful it seems to be.”

  “Yes, all right.” Mariz held out his hand again, the leaves piled in his palm. “Meum tegimen pro Kaille, ex verbasco et marrubio et betonica evocatum.” My warding over Kaille, conjured from mullein, horehound, and betony.

  The spell growled like some beast from hell, seeming to shake the mansion to its foundations. Mariz’s spectral guide, the young man in Renaissance garb, appeared beside him and eyed Ethan with interest.

  “The leaves are gone,” Sephira said in a hushed voice.

  “Aye,” Ethan said. “Let’s hope that means it worked.”

  “Now you’ll take us with you?” she asked.

  He hesitated, but not for long. He would need her help getting past Ramsey’s crew, just as he would need Mariz’s help to overcome the captain’s conjurings. “I’d be grateful,” he said.

  Sephira nodded. “Good. I’m going to dress. When was the last time you ate?”

  Ethan allowed himself a breathless laugh. “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “I assumed as much. I’ll have breakfast prepared. We’ll eat, and then we’ll hunt.”

  * * *

  By the time the sun was up and shining through Sephira’s windows, Nap, Gordon, and Afton had arrived at the mansion. So, too, had several of Sephira’s other toughs, men with whom Ethan had but limited contact. Sephira had returned to the dining room, dressed as usual in black breeches, a white silk shirt, and a waistcoat that fit her with unnerving snugness.

  Nap and the two brutes Ethan knew so well could not mask their surprise at finding him already in the house, supping with Sephira at a table laden with breads, cheeses, eggs, and sweet pastries. Nap and Gordon exchanged a quick look; Nap even raised an eyebrow. Ethan suppressed a grin. Let the men believe what they would. For this day, at least, he and Sephira were allies, as they had been when last Ramsey cast his spells in Boston.

  “We need to locate Ramsey and his men more precisely,” Sephira said, sipping coffee and watching as Ethan filled his plate yet again. “You can find him with your witchery, can’t you?”

  “I can,” Ethan said, “but I won’t.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  Ethan shifted his gaze to Mariz. While Sephira would be more than willing to help Ethan kill Ramsey, she would be less eager to follow Ethan into the coming battle. She trusted in her own leadership, and no one else’s, and Ethan assumed that this was merely the first in what would be a series of questions regarding his decisions. This day would be easier if Mariz would explain at least some of the choices Ethan made.

  Sephira’s man appeared to understand.

  “The conjuring of which you speak, Senhora, is a finding spell. It will allow us to locate Ramsey, but it will also alert Ramsey to the fact that we are coming. He will feel the conjuring and thus prepare himself for our arrival.”

  “He doesn’t think we have any idea of where he is,” Ethan said. “For the first time since all this began, we have an advantage, however small it might be. I won’t squander it for convenience.”

  Sephira didn’t mask her displeasure at having her suggestion dismissed, but she acquiesced with a curt nod.

  Ethan ate what remained of his breakfast, and pushed back from her table, feeling considerably better for having eaten a decent meal. He could have done with a few hours’ slumber, but he didn’t dare delay their confrontation with Ramsey any longer.

  Sephira stood as well. “Have my carriage brought around to the front of the house,” she said to Afton.

  The big man lumbered toward the back entrance.

  “The two of you will ride with me,” she said to Ethan and Mariz. “The others will follow us.”

  “Aye, all right. But heed me, Sephira. Ramsey’s men are not the enemy. Mariz and I will try first to put them to sleep. Failing that, you and your men will have no choice but to fight them. If some try to escape, let them go. If you can overcome them with blades and fists, do so. Only resort to pistols if nothing else works.”

  “Are you truly trying to instruct me in the art of fighting?” she asked, her voice cold, the look in her eyes as hard as sapphires.

  “I’m telling you not to kill them unless they leave you no other choice.”

  “Do you expect Ramsey’s men to be so gentle? Will he instruct them to spare our lives? Or will he direct them to do murder, and will he do a bit of killing himself, as he did when Nigel died?”

  It was the first time either of them had spoken to the other of Nigel Billings, the man in her employ whom Ramsey had killed with a spell, since the yellow-haired man’s funeral the previous summer. Ethan had no answer for her righteous rage.

  “We go to fight,” she said. “If I tell my men to hold back, I put their lives at risk. Even you should understand that.”

  “We’re better than he is, Sephira. We should fight that way.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said, surprising himself and her. “You’re better than Ramsey. He doesn’t scruple to kill, even if his victims have done nothing wrong other than get
in his way. You’re … different…”

  Her smile was thin, and yet somehow genuine. “Saying it doesn’t make it so. I’m more like Ramsey than either you or I would care to admit. I’m helping you today because I’ve sworn to avenge Nigel’s death. And you’re allowing me to come with you because you need me, and you need Mariz. But let’s not lie to each other. I’ve killed for no more reason than you assigned to Ramsey’s crimes. And I will again. You of all people know this. Tomorrow, when Ramsey is dead, and you and I are no longer allies, you’ll hate me once more, as you did before you knew that Ramsey was back in Boston.”

  “And you’ll hate me.”

  Her smile this time was reflexive and cruel. “No, I won’t, Ethan. You’re not important enough to me to inspire such passion one way or another.”

  Ethan laughed, but his mirth was short-lived; he and Sephira were left eyeing one another.

  “You can try your sleep spell,” she said. “And my men will use pistols as a last resort. But we fight as we always fight, and woe to Ramsey’s men if they dare stand against us.”

  It was more than Ethan had expected from her, and as much as he could reasonably ask. She was right: If her men fought timidly, afraid to strike a killing blow, they would imperil their own lives.

  “Fair enough.”

  They left the mansion a few minutes later, Sephira wearing an elegant black cape over her street clothes. She and Ethan sat in the carriage opposite Mariz and Nap, while Gordon perched on the box and took up the reins. Behind the carriage, Afton stood with ten more men, all of them armed with blades. Ethan had no doubt that they all carried flintlocks as well, but for now they kept them concealed.

  The day had dawned clear and cold, though not as biting as recent mornings had been. The sun on Sephira’s snow-covered gardens was almost blinding, and a flock of jays, their plumage a match for the cloudless sky, scolded from a bare birch tree at the front of the house. It was too fine a morning for what they were about to do.

  They followed Summer Street to Winter, and Winter to the edge of the Common. Here, they turned and skirted the open land, rolling by the Granary Burying Ground and past King’s Chapel onto Treamount Street and then Sudbury, so that they passed in front of Kannice’s tavern. Sephira watched Ethan as they went by the Dowser, curiosity in her cold eyes. Ethan gazed back at her, impassive. But he did wonder what Kannice would have thought had she seen him in such company.