A Plunder of Souls (The Thieftaker Chronicles)

by D. B. Jackson

“Gladly,” she said. She put her fingers in her mouth, whistled sharply, and made a small crisp motion with her hand.

  Nap barked an order that Ethan couldn’t make out, and Sephira’s men leapt forward, dodging the shades, and throwing themselves at Ramsey’s crew.

  Abruptly all was tumult. Sailors confronted toughs. Knife blades flashed; fists connected with flesh and bone with raw, echoing cracks.

  Ethan and Mariz helped Janna to her feet; Ethan held on to her so that she wouldn’t fall again.

  “A binding spell,” Mariz whispered. “Now.”

  He and Ethan cut themselves again; Janna’s wound was still oozing blood, so she didn’t bother.

  “Corpus alligare ex cruore evocatum.” Bind body, conjured from blood.

  Ramsey frowned at the thrum of power, but once it had passed, he raised a hand and wriggled his fingers. “I don’t think that worked. You should try something more like this.”

  He swiped his blade across his arm. “Vola ex cruore evocatum.” Fly, conjured from blood.

  One of the wooden barrels surged toward them. Ethan and Mariz dropped to the floor, dragging Janna down with them. The barrel soared over their heads with an audible whoosh, crashed into the far wall, and shattered.

  Already, Ramsey had more blood on his arm. He cast the same spell a second time, and several crates leaped from their piles, arced across the warehouse, and rained down on them. Ethan and Mariz shielded Janna with their bodies, and so were battered by the containers.

  His back and shoulders aching, Ethan could see that the shades were converging on where they lay. And he knew that Ramsey would have no trouble keeping them occupied until the ghosts reached them.

  He heard a low moan. Gavin was waking up. The old man struggled to his feet and lurched to where his blade had fallen.

  “Ah, Gavin,” Ramsey said. “Care to finish what you started?”

  Gavin bent and picked up the knife, reeling as he straightened once more. But instead of attacking Ethan and the others, he advanced on Ramsey, his blade raised.

  “Gavin, no!”

  “You used a control spell on me, you whelp!” Gavin said, ignoring Ethan’s plea.

  “Yes, I did. It was as easy as this.”

  He cut himself again. “Obsequere meae voluntati ex cruore evocatum.” Submit to my will, conjured from blood.

  Control conjurings usually demanded stronger sources; years before, Ethan had fought a conjurer who used killing spells to cast them. But Ramsey had deepened his power to the point where he could cast them with blood.

  On the other hand, the warding Ethan had cast still offered Gavin some protection. If not for the earlier control spell, that might have been enough to protect him. But Gavin remained partially under the captain’s thrall, and so this new spell ensnared him again.

  “Put down your knife,” Ramsey said.

  Gavin hesitated, his blade hand trembling.

  “I said put it down!”

  Beads of sweat broke out on the old man’s brow, but the knife slipped from his fingers.

  “Now…” Ramsey glanced around and pointed to a shade just a few strides from where Gavin stood. She was hideous; the skin on her face was putrified and pitted. Her dress was stained through from her rotting body. “Embrace her.”

  “No!” Ethan shouted.

  Ramsey’s blade flashed. “Vola ex cruore evocatum.”

  More crates soared toward them. Ethan had no choice but to protect Janna and shield his head and neck from the containers.

  Peering out at Gavin as the crates rained down on him, Ethan saw the man face the shade. His entire body appeared to be quaking; Ethan thought that he was fighting Ramsey’s control spell. He didn’t take a step forward, but the ghostly form continued to drift toward him. She held her arms open, a leering grin on her gruesome visage.

  “Embrace her!” Ramsey shouted again.

  Gavin’s arms began to open, slowly, as if they were being prised apart. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears coursing down his cheeks.

  The last of the crates tumbled over Ethan’s back, and he jumped to his feet.

  But by then the shade had reached Gavin. At her first touch, the old man screamed, his head thrown back, his face a mask of agony. The shade enveloped him in her grasp, cutting short Gavin’s howl. His trembling ceased. The shade seemed to pass through him, and when she had cleared the back of his body, Gavin fell forward, as rigid as an iron post. He made no effort to protect himself as he fell. Ethan guessed that he was dead before he hit the ground.

  Reaching Gavin at last, Ethan found him frigid to the touch. He turned him over. The man’s face remained twisted from his final moments of torment. The sweat on his brow had turned to ice.

  “Kaille!” Mariz called.

  He and Janna were standing again, but the other shades continued to converge on them. If Ethan didn’t return to them now, he might not be able to at all. They would be unable to conjure together.

  With a last glance down at Gavin, Ethan hurried back to the other conjurers. Patience’s ghost was but a short distance from them. He stared keenly at her, hoping that he might see some hint of recognition in her gleaming eyes, some sign that Ramsey’s control over her was less than absolute. But she barely noticed him; she gave no sign that she knew him for the friend he had been to her when she lived.

  “What spell do you wanna try now?” Janna asked, her voice low. “Not that it’s gonna work.” Her eyes met Ethan’s. “He’s too strong, Kaille.”

  “Aye, I am,” Ramsey said. “And when all of you are dead, you and Gavin will join Patience among my army of shades. With the ghosts of five conjurers under my control, I’ll be able to do whatever I want. No other conjurers will be able to stand against me, and no spells will be beyond my abilities.” He smiled. “I’d enlist Gavin in my cause now, but as you know, the process is rather involved, and I doubt you’d grant me the opportunity.”

  “What spell?” Janna asked again, with more urgency.

  You should try something like this, Ramsey had said when he threw the first barrel at them. And he was right. Spells aimed at Ramsey wouldn’t work; he was warded. Sephira’s bullet hadn’t harmed him, which meant that barrels and crates might not even work. But something similar to Ramsey’s third detection spell could.

  “The floor,” Ethan mouthed silently.

  Comprehension crept over Janna’s face.

  The three of them cut themselves. “Aperi hiatum ex cruore evocatum.” Open chasm, conjured from blood.

  The rumble of their spell was swallowed by the rending of wood and stone as the floor and ground beneath Ramsey’s feet split open. The captain tried to leap to safety, but this once Ethan, Janna, and Mariz had caught him unawares, and the opening had formed too quickly. He teetered at the edge before falling in.

  The opening was not deep, and the harbor lay beneath the warehouse and the wharf; the fall wouldn’t kill him. But Ethan hoped it would give them time to cast a second spell that would.

  “Now close it!” Mariz said. “We can crush him, or drown him.”

  “No!” Ethan shook his head. “Patience and the others! I don’t want them lost!”

  “They’re lost already!” Janna said. “This is our one chance. He has to die, Kaille. There’s no other way.”

  Ethan stared at her, his heart laboring. Had it been anyone else, he would have argued further. He had sworn that he would do all he could to help those whose graves had been violated. He had promised Ruth and Darcy that he would not allow any harm to come to Patience. But after watching what he had done to Gavin, he knew that there could be no reasoning with the man. Janna was right: This might well be their only chance to finish him.

  “Very well,” he whispered, the words like shards of glass in his mouth.

  They cut themselves again. “Occlude hiatum ex cruore evocatum.” Close chasm, conjured from blood.

  Their spell pulsed, and the gap in the middle of the warehouse began to close, like a wound healing under a spellm
aker’s touch.

  Sephira and her men continued to battle Ramsey’s crew, but Ethan could see that the sailors were falling back. Even the shades had halted their advance. Without Ramsey to guide them—

  Before Ethan could finish the thought, the building’s floor, which had almost mended itself, exploded. Ethan and his companions were tossed back and slammed to the ground. Splintered wood and jagged pieces of fill and rock rained down on them, and a cloud of dust billowed through the warehouse.

  Ethan pushed himself to his feet. Through the haze of debris, he saw a blood-streaked arm emerge from the crater that had formed in the warehouse floor. A moment later a leg hooked itself over the lip of the hole.

  Ethan stumbled to where Janna lay and tried to rouse her. There was a gash on her temple, and the wound on her chest had started to bleed again. She was covered with dust and splinters. He could see that she still breathed, but she didn’t stir. A short distance away, Mariz sat up and felt around for his spectacles. Finding them, he pushed them onto the bridge of his nose and looked around.

  When he spotted Ethan and Janna, he asked, “Is she dead?”

  “No. But I can’t wake her.”

  A ragged cheer went up from Ramsey’s crew. Ethan knew why before he looked.

  Ramsey stood beside the pit from which he had emerged, his fists clenched, his clothes soaked and ragged. An instant later, the blood vanished from his arm. Fire shot up out of the floor all around Ethan, the blaze building until it towered over his head. Flames licked at Janna as well. He pulled her away from the nearest of them, though in truth, the circle of fire was so tight that he couldn’t do much to protect her. The heat from the flames was almost unbearable.

  “Kaille!” Mariz called.

  “We’re all right. For now at least.”

  “I cannot move,” Mariz said. “There is fire all around me.”

  Of course. If they couldn’t see each other, they couldn’t conjure together and Ramsey would have nothing to fear from them. Ethan had actually allowed himself to believe that they had defeated the captain. He’d been a fool.

  And yet, as bad as circumstances seemed, an instant later they grew far worse.

  He saw movement out of the corner of his eye; a variation in the circle of flame within which he was trapped. An insubstantial hand. Then an arm. And soon the form of a shade had shuffled through the fire, seemingly unaffected by the heat. It advanced on him and on Janna, who still had not woken.

  “Kaille!” Mariz called.

  “I know!”

  He wasn’t sure how to fight the wraith; he knew only that he couldn’t allow it to touch him or Janna, and that they couldn’t avoid the shade for long in this hellish prison.

  Knowing he had no choice, he dropped to one knee and gathered Janna in his arms. Standing again, he pulled her close to him, took a deep breath, and rushed at the wall of fire.

  It was more dense than he had expected. He could feel the blaze searing his skin; he knew that his clothes and hair were burning. But he couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t go back. It took him no more than a second to clear the flames, but it felt like far longer, and upon emerging from the fire, he had to spin away from another shade that loomed just in front of him.

  He stumbled, fell. Janna slipped from his arms. Her dress was on fire; so was his shirt. He batted at the flames on Janna until they were out, and threw himself to the ground and rolled. When at last he was no longer burning, he stopped and lay still on his back, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling, his heart racing.

  “I can do that again any time I choose,” Ramsey said.

  Ethan forced himself up.

  Mariz burst through the wall of fire to Ethan’s left, rolled, and jumped to his feet, his shirt sleeve charred and smoking, but no longer ablaze.

  Moments later a shade slipped through the same fire. Looking behind him, Ethan saw that the ghost that had menaced him had also emerged from within the flames. Other shades were closing on them as well, including that of Patience.

  “How do you wish to die, Kaille?” Ramsey asked. “Burning? Freezing? Something in between?”

  Mariz cut his forearm and looked expectantly at Ethan. Ethan cut himself as well.

  “We’ll die fighting you,” Ethan said.

  “Bravely said. But those are empty words, and we all know it.”

  Ethan had one more weapon at his disposal. He had thought of using it sooner, but had not wanted to enrage Ramsey further and thus place Janna in even more danger. Now, though, he had little choice.

  “A summoning,” Ethan whispered to Mariz, staring hard at him. “Do you understand?”

  Mariz’s eyes widened. “But I don’t know the name.”

  “He’s his namesake.”

  The conjurer nodded.

  Together they said, “Provocamus te, Nathaniel Ramsey, ex regno mortuorum, ex cruore evocatum.” We summon thee, Nathaniel Ramsey, from the realm of the dead, conjured in blood.

  Ethan had always used mullein for such summoning spells, believing that it was safer to use a protective herb than blood in dealing with the dead. They hadn’t that luxury this time, and Ethan could no longer concern himself with what was or wasn’t safe.

  The spell thrummed and Nathaniel Ramsey appeared before them. He glanced at Ethan, but then turned, seeming to know that his son was there.

  The other shades halted. The younger Ramsey paled.

  “I told you never to do this again!” he said, death in his voice.

  “Aye,” Ethan said. “I don’t much care. I won’t release him. If you want to kill me, you’ll have to do it with your father’s spirit watching, knowing that you’re dooming him as well.”

  “Can’t you fight him?” Ramsey asked his father, desperation in his voice. He pointed at Uncle Reg. “Can’t you do something to his ghost?” He clenched his fists again. “I’m doing this for you!” he shouted. “You’ll be with me soon! Alive again!”

  The shade stared back at his son briefly before turning and walking to where Gavin’s body lay. He stood over the dead man, shaking his head.

  “He betrayed you at the end,” Ramsey said. There was a plea in his voice. “He could have helped you; he could have saved you. But he didn’t.”

  The shade gave no indication that he had heard.

  Ramsey cut his arm. “Interfice eos ex cruore evocatum!” he said. Kill them, conjured from blood!

  The other shades jerked into motion and began to converge on them once more. Mariz sidled closer to him.

  “Another spell, Kaille. Quickly!”

  The shades moved slowly, but they were near enough now that in just a few seconds they could kill the conjurers much as the other wraith had killed Gavin. But that, Ethan realized, was not their purpose. They were converging not only on Ethan and Mariz, but also on Uncle Reg and Mariz’s ghost. If the shades could destroy them, Ethan and Mariz would be robbed of their powers, and the ghost of Nathaniel Ramsey would be released from their summons.

  Ethan said nothing, but turned to Patience’s ghost. She would be one of the first shades to reach them. Ramsey had cast a spell to make them appear, and had cast again just now to order them back into motion. Did the symbol he had carved in the cadavers require a spell in order to work? And if so, was it possible that the spell Ethan had carved into Patience’s body worked the same way?

  “Now, Kaille!” Mariz said, his voice rising.

  What would the wording be? How had he cast that initial spell? The Latin, roughly translated, had said, Protect this corpse and its spirit from magick, keep it free from the influence of others, conjured in herbs and this symbol. So a spell now …

  Ethan slashed at his arm. “There’s no time to teach you,” he said. “We just have to hope that I can conjure on my own this one time.”

  Mariz cut his arm too, and held it out just beside Ethan’s. “I do not know what you are doing, but perhaps this will help.”

  Ethan nodded. “Tega hunc spiritum contra alienam auctoritatem, ex
cruore nostro et signo meo evocatum.” Protect this spirit from the influence of others, conjured from our blood and my symbol.

  The spell pealed like a church bell and wiped the blood from their forearms. But still the shades closed in on them. One reached out a translucent hand and touched Ethan’s neck. He gasped, jerked away.

  “That didn’t seem to help you very much, Kaille!” Ramsey called.

  Ethan cut himself again, thinking that perhaps he had time to try the spell one last time.

  But before he could speak the incantation, the shade of Patience Walters halted. Her eyes changed; they didn’t grow dimmer or brighter, but they seemed to focus once more. She could see him.

  “Patience?” Ethan whispered.

  She hesitated, nodded. She raised a hand, and the other shades halted their advance.

  “What are you doing?” Ramsey demanded. “I told you to kill them!”

  Patience gestured for the other shades to back away, and almost immediately they began to do so.

  Ramsey dragged his blade across his arm and shouted out the same killing command he had given seconds before. The conjuring hummed in the floor and walls, but the shades didn’t obey him.

  “What have you done, Kaille?”

  “They’re not yours to control anymore.”

  “Of course they are! My symbol is on them! They can’t refuse me!”

  “They have a new captain. You said so yourself.”

  “And she’s marked as mine, just like the rest!”

  “I marked her before you did. And my symbol keeps her free.”

  Ramsey’s mouth fell open. “Impossible!” he said, breathing the word. “I would have seen it!”

  “Would you, Ramsey? Did you really look at her, or did you merely defile her grave, mutilate her corpse, and claim her as your own?”

  The captain said nothing.

  Ethan still had blood on his arm. “Ignis ex cruore evocatus!” Fire, conjured from blood!

  Ramsey staggered as from a blow, and nearly toppled back into the hole in the floor from which he had climbed. But his warding still held. He retreated to the other side of the pit, and cut his arm, even as Ethan and Mariz cut theirs again.

  Sephira and her men still fought the crew of the Muirenn. Several men lay on the floor; some of them bled, others appeared to have broken limbs. Several weren’t moving at all; Ethan couldn’t tell if they were dead or unconscious. The fight still seemed to be going Sephira’s way.