Thieftaker

by D. B. Jackson

  The men escorted Ethan up a cobbled path to the door. Nigel knocked once, and at a faint response from within pushed the door open. Ethan started to enter, but Nigel put out a massive arm to block his way.

  “Yar knife,” he said, holding out his other hand.

  Without his blade, Ethan would be at a distinct disadvantage in any confrontation with Sephira and her men. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then ya’re not goin’ in.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “You have my word, Ethan,” came Sephira’s voice from within the house. “You’ll be safe. Maybe not the next time we meet, but for now, no harm will come to you.”

  He had to admit that he was now curious. He took a breath, handed Nigel the knife, and stepped inside.

  The interior of the house was far more ornate than the exterior, though again Ethan was surprised and a little disappointed to discover that Sephira had refined taste. A small entrance hall with a white tile floor and colorful wall tapestries led into a vast common room that was well furnished and brightly lit with bay-scented candles. The rugs covering the dark wooden floor were colorful without being tawdry, and they matched the tapestries. Ethan thought it likely that the rugs and tapestries came from the Orient. Everywhere he looked he saw paintings and sculptures, and though he didn’t pretend to know much of such things, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the quality of every piece.

  “In here,” she called to him from a chamber to the left of the common room.

  He followed her voice into a study that was similar in size to the Berson library. But where Abner Berson’s room had been filled with volumes, this chamber was filled with blades. Swords of every imaginable shape and size hung from the walls. There were scimitars from the Holy Land, their hilts studded with a galaxy of gems, and austere bastard swords that might well have come from the Scottish Highlands. There were fine long blades that had to have been made on the Iberian Peninsula, and one short sword that appeared to have been forged entirely from solid gold.

  “That one was made by the Turks,” Sephira said, seeing where his gaze lingered. “Would you like to hold it?”

  Ethan shook his head, glancing her way before crossing to a small glass case at the far end of the room. This was filled with a variety of firearms. They were all hand weapons, mostly of the flintlock variety, but there were older pistols as well—wheel locks and at least one matchlock that might also have been from the Orient. Each was as unique as the blades adorning the walls. One had a grip of carved ivory, another of some polished, light-grained wood Ethan didn’t recognize, and still another of what Ethan guessed was solid silver.

  Beside this case stood yet another that held daggers and dirks. As with the swords and pistols, Ethan could scarcely believe the diversity of Sephira’s collection. Forced to guess, he would have said that there were blades and firearms in this room from every continent, and from nearly every country in Europe.

  After gazing at the smaller blades for some time, Ethan turned to Sephira, a thousand questions on his tongue. But seeing how she watched him, the calculation in those cold blue eyes, Ethan swallowed them all and chided himself for allowing her to distract him in this way. He was like a little boy, too easily enthralled with sweets and shiny toys.

  Looking at Sephira—at how she was dressed and how her hair had been styled—he also understood that the blades and pistols hadn’t been the only things meant to entice. Ethan had never seen her in a gown, and he doubted he ever would. But while she was still dressed in the garb of the streets, her clothes this day were more feminine than usual. Instead of breeches, she wore a long black skirt. Her silk blouse, open at the neck, and the black silk waistcoat she wore over it both fit her closely, accentuating the curves of her body. A sapphire pendant hung from a silver necklace, drawing Ethan’s eyes where they already wished to go. Her hair spilled down her back in dark ringlets, and even from across the room, Ethan could smell her perfume.

  She smiled, perhaps seeing more in his gaze than he wished to reveal. “You like my collection?” she said, sauntering over to where he stood.

  “I have to admit I do. That curved blade near the back, the one with the ebony hilt, that’s from India, isn’t it?”

  “Why, Ethan, I had no idea you knew so much about knives.” She sounded genuinely surprised.

  “I once had a small collection myself. Nothing like this, but I spent a number of years as a sailor and a soldier, and I traded for a few keepsakes along the way.”

  “And where is this collection now?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t seen them since I was taken to Barbados nineteen years ago.” He faced her, his eyes locking on hers. “Why am I here, Sephira?”

  “You’re my guest,” she said, laughing and purring at the same time. She took his hand. “What would you like to do?”

  He disentangled his fingers from hers. “I’d like to leave.”

  She offered that same little pout he had seen in his room a few days before. He glanced around quickly, half expecting Nigel to be there, his fist raised.

  “So soon?” she asked. “At least do me the courtesy of supping with me.”

  She left the room before he could refuse. Ethan followed reluctantly, stepping into the common room once more. Seeing no sign of her, he faltered, tensing. He even went so far as to begin speaking an illusion spell, just in case her toughs showed up.

  “In here,” she called from another chamber at the rear of the house.

  Ethan followed Sephira’s voice and found her seated at the head of a long table. Several platters of cheese, bread, fowl, and fruit sat before her, and a place had been set for him at her right hand. Sephira held a flask of red wine, and she poured out two goblets.

  “Sit, Ethan. Join me. There’s plenty for both of us.”

  “I haven’t time for this.”

  She regarded him mildly. “You haven’t time to eat?”

  He started to say that he needed to get on with his inquiry, but he managed to stop himself. He had just asked Berson to help him maintain the fiction that his investigation was at an end, and here he nearly revealed the truth to the most dangerous person in Boston.

  “Come.” She flashed that charming smile. “I promise we’ll only speak of important matters. No more nonsense about my collections or anything like that.”

  “How do I know it’s not poisoned?” he asked, taking the seat beside hers and pointing to his wineglass.

  “You don’t,” she said. “But that makes it all the more exciting.” She lifted her goblet and held it before her. Ethan lifted his as well. “To friendly rivals,” she said, touching her glass to his.

  Ethan had to laugh. He sipped the wine, which was excellent, and not watered at all. After a moment, he took some cheese, bread, and fowl. He left the fruit, though, because she took none. He didn’t really believe that she intended to poison him, but he made a point of eating only the same foods as she.

  She nodded approvingly as he began to eat, and then said, “You’ve been to see Abner Berson.”

  He eyed her for a moment before answering. “I have.”

  “And what did you two discuss?”

  Apparently when Sephira said that they would “speak of important matters” she meant that he would answer her questions about his business.

  “I’m not sure that’s any of your concern, Sephira.”

  “So you’re not going to tell me.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “You keep forgetting that I don’t work for you.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “Not this foolishness again.”

  “I know that you have it in your head that I’m just another man in your employ, but I’m not. I never will be.”

  “We’ll see about that last point,” she said. “But even if we are rivals, don’t you think that when Berson and, say, Fergus Derne sit down together for a meal, they discuss trade?”

  “Maybe,” Ethan conceded. “But I’m pretty certain that Derne never sends
his toughs to Berson’s home to beat the man within an inch of his life.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” she said, waving the comment away. She studied his face briefly. “You’re healing quite nicely. A few more days and no one will ever know it happened.”

  “What did you mean a minute ago? Are you suggesting that I should come and work for you?”

  She smiled again, leaning closer to him. “What do you think I meant?”

  “I think that I must have scared some people while I was working for Abner Berson. Nobody wanted me to find out too much, and now you’ve gone so far as to offer me employment.”

  “I haven’t offered you anything, yet. Tell me what you discussed with Abner Berson.”

  “No.”

  She had started to sip her wine again, but she stopped herself and carefully placed the goblet back on the table. “There are other ways for me to find out, you know.”

  “Are you planning to ask Berson?”

  Sephira smiled thinly, but didn’t answer.

  A part of him enjoyed goading her, perhaps too much. Her kind manners and beguiling smiles notwithstanding, she hated him. The last time they met she had threatened to kill him, and she might well follow through on that threat the next time. Usually, the fact that she wanted information from him was enough to convince Ethan that he ought to keep to himself whatever he knew. In this instance, however, he could help himself by telling her the truth, or at least part of it.

  “I gave him Jennifer’s brooch,” Ethan said at last.

  “Her brooch?” Sephira repeated. “Really?”

  “Yes, and he paid me.” Ethan patted his pocket, making the few coins Berson had given him jingle. “You’re not going to steal these from me, too, are you?”

  She raised an eyebrow and gestured vaguely at their surroundings. “Do you really think I need to? I took those other coins to make a point,” she went on before he could respond.

  “Right. Because the beating wouldn’t have been enough.”

  She ignored that. “So, you’re no longer working for Berson?”

  “Why? Do you have a job for me?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I found the brooch, which is what I was hired to do. And I was paid for my trouble. You may not think much of my business sense, but I know better than to work for free.”

  She laughed, low in her throat. “Very good, Ethan. I didn’t know if you were smart enough to do the right thing. I suppose, I underestimated you.”

  His shrug was meant to reveal little. “Now will you answer a question for me?”

  She picked up her cup and drank a bit of wine, her eyes never leaving his. “Perhaps,” she said, replacing the goblet.

  “Who first told you that I was working for Berson?”

  “As I’ve explained to you before, Ethan, very little happens in this city without my knowledge.”

  “But you knew everything, and quickly. You knew I had been hired, you knew why, and somehow you even knew when I had been to King’s Chapel and when I intended to meet with Berson himself. I’m wondering how you learned all of this.”

  “I have sources,” she said coyly, enjoying herself too much for his taste.

  “I’m sure—” He stopped, still staring at her. I have sources, she had said. And what was it Berson had told him during their first conversation. Ethan asked him why he had been hired instead of Sephira, and Berson said that he had considered Pryce but that she would have admitted herself that she knew little about conjurings. And so we … we asked around, Berson had said. I’ve always known there were spellers in Boston. A person just needed to know where to look. And when I heard that there was a thieftaker who was also a speller …

  Who had he meant when he said “we”? His wife? Ethan couldn’t imagine that he had consulted her in this matter. She had been too distraught to see Ethan that night. Berson wouldn’t have spoken to her about hiring a thieftaker. His younger daughter? That made no sense. William or another servant? Ethan couldn’t imagine Berson asking for their advice, either. Which left Cyrus Derne.

  “Ethan?” Sephira said, her eyes narrowing.

  “Yes,” he said. He forced himself to concentrate. It wouldn’t do for him to lose himself thinking about an inquiry he claimed already to have concluded. “I’m sure you do have sources, Sephira, and they must be the envy of any thieftaker in Boston.”

  If it turned out that Berson had spoken to Derne, how would the young merchant have known that Ethan was a conjurer? Unless Derne had gone to another thieftaker first—Sephira, of course—and she had steered him to Ethan when she realized that Jennifer was killed by a conjuring. After speaking with Derne two nights before, Ethan had assumed that the man knew nothing of his abilities. Perhaps Cyrus Derne was a better liar than Ethan had thought.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Did Berson ask you who was responsible for the murder of his daughter?” Her tone remained light, but she watched him keenly.

  “Of course he did.”

  “And?” Her patience had started to wear thin. “What did you tell him?”

  “What should I have told him?”

  She started to answer, and Ethan would have wagered every coin in his pocket that she was going to name poor Daniel Folter as Jennifer’s killer. But she caught herself in time, smiling once more and inclining her head. “I would like to know how you answered the man,” she said eventually.

  “I told him I didn’t know, that I heard a name mentioned in connection with the crime, but that I couldn’t say for certain that this individual was her killer.”

  She frowned. “And he was satisfied by that?”

  “Satisfied? No. But I told him that I had done what I could.”

  Sephira’s brow remained creased, and she continued to stare at him so intently one might have supposed that she had the power to read his thoughts. “I don’t believe you,” she said after some time.

  Ethan reached for his wine and took a sip, his hand as steady as an offshore wind. “What don’t you believe?”

  “Any of this. Any of what you’ve said.” She shook her head, a small, disbelieving laugh escaping her. “Here I thought I might learn something of value from you, and you’ve been lying to me the whole time!”

  “No, I haven’t.” She started to argue and he lifted a finger, silencing her. “I’ve barely lied to you at all.”

  “But you admit that you have lied.”

  “Of course I have. Just as you’ve lied to me. You and I are never going to be friends, Sephira. This entire encounter has been founded on a lie. And because I’ve proven a match for you in this little game, you’re suddenly indignant.”

  She stared at him.

  Ethan drained his cup and set it down on the table. “I’m disappointed in you.” He stood and sketched a small bow. “My thanks for a lovely supper.”

  He stepped away from the table and started toward the door.

  “You have no intention of leaving this matter alone, do you?”

  Ethan paused momentarily in midstride, but didn’t look back at her. He was reaching for the door handle when she called his name.

  Against his better judgment he stopped and faced her.

  “I don’t have to let you leave,” she said. “My men are just outside that door. At a word from me…” She shrugged. “No one would miss you. No one of consequence.”

  He had been expecting this. He didn’t have his knife, but there were other ways. Pushing up his sleeve, he dragged his fingernails along the underside of his forearm, leaving three raw streaks that quickly began to seep blood.

  Sephira opened her mouth.

  “Don’t!” Ethan said. “I’m leaving. Your men are going to give me my knife and let me go. Or I’m going to burn this magnificent house of yours to the ground.”

  She looked angry enough to kill him with her bare hands.

  “Call in Nigel and tell him to hand over my blade.”

  “This isn’t over, Ethan.”

  “It’s never
over between us, is it?”

  His calm only seemed to goad her further. “This is no longer amusing! I’ve warned you about pursuing the Berson matter, and you’ve ignored those warnings time and again. Well, fine. I’m done talking about it.”

  “How convenient for both of us, because I’m done listening.”

  She shook her head slowly, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes wide with anger. Even now as she was threatening his life, she was as beautiful as any woman he had ever seen.

  “You think your damned witchcraft will keep you safe?”

  “It has in the past.”

  “There are other ways,” she said. “You have a friend—a lovely woman. She owns a small tavern called the Dowsing Rod. It would be a tragedy if something were to happen to her or her establishment.”

  The spell was on his lips before he could consider what he was doing. “Discuti ex cruore evocatum!” Shatter, conjured from blood! Power pulsed through the chamber, making the hairs on his arm prickle. Uncle Reg appeared beside him, glowing bloodred, grinning like a ghoul. In his rage, Ethan aimed the spell at Sephira, but he managed to steer it away from her at the last moment.

  There was a sudden rending of wood, and the small table next to where she was standing exploded as if torn apart from within. Scraps of timber were strewn over the rug on which she stood, and flecks of wood dust coated her skirt. Sephira stared at what he had done, her mouth agape.

  Ethan had already scraped his arm again, lest he need more blood to fight his way out of her house.

  “If you or your men go anywhere near Kannice or the Dowsing Rod, I’ll kill you all. I don’t care if I hang for your murder. I’ll rip you apart just like I did that table. Now call in Nigel. I’m ready to leave.”

  Sephira raised her eyes to his. At last, she called, “Nigel!”

  A moment later, the door opened. Nigel paused on the threshold, noted Ethan’s bloody arm and the mess in the middle of the common room, then entered the house, though he left the door wide open.

  “Give him his knife.”