“You’re here now.”
“Yes, now, when the tavern’s crowded with people. But staying the night could be dangerous.” He brushed the hair from her forehead. “If something happened to you because of what I’m doing…” He shook his head. “I probably shouldn’t stay until all this is over.”
“Wouldn’t you be safer here?” she asked. “Sephira and her toughs beat you in your home. You said the conjurer found you in the lane not far from Henry’s shop. They know where you live.”
“I’m not worried about me.”
She leaned forward and gently touched her lips to the bump on his temple. “I know,” she whispered. “That’s probably why you look such a mess.”
Ethan cupped her cheek in his hand and they both smiled. He kissed her lips and she returned the kiss hungrily.
Eventually Ethan pulled away. “I want to stay,” he said again. “But I think I have to go. Now. Before you convince me not to.”
Again she smiled. “All right. Come see me tomorrow.”
“Of course.”
Ethan stood and kissed her brow before leaving the table. He raised a hand as he passed Kelf on his way to the door, and pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders, stepped out into the street. The rain was falling harder now, though the air was warmer and the wind had died down.
He walked swiftly through the center of the city toward the South End, passing the prison, the Town House, and the Old Meeting House. Tense, watchful, he started at every sound he heard. The closer he got to his home, the more uneasy he grew, until he felt that every muscle in his body was coiled, ready for a fight. Still walking, he reached for the pouch of mullein leaves Janna had given him. He pulled out three leaves and a few dried flowers, and held them ready.
“Veni ad me.” Come to me.
The air hummed and Uncle Reg appeared beside him, his expression grim, his fists clenched. Not a good sign.
They turned onto Cooper’s Alley, and Ethan froze, the blood draining from his face.
All the windows on his street were dark; with the sky covered over and the rain falling there was precious little light. But Anna stood in the middle of the street, blocking his way, glowing faintly in the darkness, her hair clinging to her forehead as if soaked, a hard look in her pale, overlarge eyes.
Ethan backed away, knowing that he couldn’t fight her. He had the mullein, but that wouldn’t be enough against the conjurer.
But before he could flee, the girl shook her head. “Stay where you are.”
“So you can kill me? No, thank you.”
“I think you will.”
Light flared so brightly that he had to shield his eyes. When he looked again, he saw that a flame hung over the street just behind her, as if suspended by some unseen hand. Beneath it, in the dancing golden glow of the fire, something lay on the rain-soaked cobblestones.
Not something, someone.
Holin.
Chapter
SIXTEEN
Ethan’s first thought was that the boy was dead, murdered just as Jennifer Berson and the Brown child had been. Holin didn’t move. His face was deathly pale, his mouth locked in what Ethan feared was a permanent grimace, his eyes squeezed shut as if he was in pain. Rain ran over his cheeks like tears. His hands were rigid and clawed. One might have thought that he was struggling to move, to break free of whatever spell the conjurer had placed on him.
But Anna—the conjurer—had wanted Ethan to stay. She—he?—was using Holin as bait, to lure Ethan to the wraith so that she could use the full weight of her power to destroy him. It was the only hope Ethan had for the boy; Holin had to be alive.
“You didn’t listen,” Anna said, walking toward him slowly. “You didn’t…” She cocked her head to the side and sniffed the air. A moment later, she laughed. “Mullein!” she said, sounding delighted. “You think that a few leaves of speller’s herb will help you stand against me?” She shook her head, her mirth vanishing as quickly as it had come. “You’re a fool, Kaille.”
“Tegimen!” Ethan barely even breathed the word. “Ex verbasco evocatum!” Warding, conjured from mullein!
The leaves and flowers in his hand melted away, like sand in seawater, and the cobblestones beneath his feet sang with power. He felt the warding coil up his legs like twin snakes, wrapping itself around him, enveloping him.
“A warding,” the girl said, as the protection reached his waist, his midriff, his chest. “How quaint. I could kill you where you stand, despite your spell and your herbs and whatever else you might think to try against me.” She leaned her head to the side, the glow of her skin ghoulish. “But I’ll give you one more chance before I do that.”
“What spell did you use on him?” Ethan demanded.
The little girl smiled. “One of my own, one that you could never do.”
Ethan pushed up his sleeve, intending to cut himself and try to revive the boy with a spell.
“Don’t,” the girl said. She didn’t raise her voice at all, but Ethan stopped with his blade poised over his forearm. “If you try to free him, I’ll kill you both. There’s only one way you can save his life, and you already know what that is.”
Ethan glared at her, finally responding with one curt nod. “You want me to forget about Jennifer Berson.”
“I’ve told you as much before. You should have listened to me. I would be within my rights to kill the boy as punishment for what you’ve done.”
“Punish me. Not the boy. He’s done nothing to you.”
“But what if I can punish you by hurting the boy? That accomplishes much for me. I would like to kill you, Kaille. I’m tempted to kill you right now. But if I do, it will raise suspicions. Berson knows what you’re doing. He’ll wonder if your death has something to do with his daughter.” She shook her head. “No, I need for you to go back and tell him that it was Folter all along, that he was working for Ebenezer Mackintosh. I need you to say that you were wrong, that Folter was a speller after all, that there was no one else who could have done it. And when you’ve done that, I’ll release the boy.”
“No,” Ethan said. “You’ll release him now. Or I swear to God, I’ll find you and I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands.”
Anna laughed, a high tinkling sound, like the laughter of any small girl. “Fool,” she said.
He felt the pulse of the conjuring an instant before it slammed into him.
The next thing he knew he was on the ground, writhing so violently that he could feel his head and hands and arms flailing painfully against the cobblestones. He could do nothing to stop himself. It felt as if someone had sliced him open from sternum to gut and poured molten iron into his body. He heard a scream echoing off the buildings around him, realized it was his own. But there was nothing he could do to stop that, either.
She had laughed at his warding, at the mullein, at his empty threat. Now Ethan understood why. He had never before sensed such power; he had never felt so helpless, so utterly betrayed by his own conjuring abilities.
And then it was over. Ethan lay on the stone, panting, rain washing over his face. In that moment he would have done anything the conjurer asked for a simple promise that he would never endure such blazing agony again. He was sure that was exactly what the bastard wanted.
He forced himself up, staggered, but quickly righted himself. His ghost watched him. Normally Reg would have been laughing at his failure, or shaking his head in disappointment. Not this time. The ghost actually looked scared.
“If you think,” Ethan said to Anna, “that I’m going to let you have him just because you managed to hurt me a little, you’re—”
Gods! Weren’t mullein and a warding worth anything? Ethan was on the ground again, his back arched, his teeth clenched so tight he thought they would shatter. Red-hot iron flowed like blood through his limbs, his body, his head. He wanted to scream again, but couldn’t. He wanted to tear his skin open to get the iron out, to let that rainwater cool him. He could imagine it sizzling, turning instan
tly to vapor. He could—
Breathe. He could breathe, again. He opened his mouth to let in a few drops of rain, coughed, and sat up too quickly. When his head stopped spinning he climbed to his feet once more.
Tegimen, he thought. Ex verbasco evocatum. Warding, conjured from mullein. He used more of the leaves this time, hoping for a more potent casting.
“Another warding won’t help you,” the girl said. “It doesn’t matter how many leaves you use. My power flows too deep for the likes of you.”
More than anything in the world just then, Ethan would have liked to punch this conjurer in the mouth. Obviously he was enormously powerful. But how did he know so much about Ethan’s gift? The conjurer had to be close. The last time Ethan had seen the little girl—far from here at the town gate—the conjurer had barely been able to maintain the illusion. That wasn’t the case tonight. In fact, the conjurer had managed to attack Ethan with one spell while maintaining that image of Anna. Ethan couldn’t have done that; he wouldn’t even have known how to make the attempt.
“Then you’ll have to kill me,” Ethan said, stalling now. “Because I won’t let you have Holin.”
Too often during these encounters with the girl, Ethan allowed himself to think about the conjurer’s power, and how weak he was by comparison. The time had come to consider what he could do, not what he couldn’t. He had tried a finding spell the second time he saw the girl, and it had failed. But why did he need a finding spell at all? Why not let an attack spell find the conjurer for him?
He still had his knife in hand and now he held it up for the girl to see. She gazed back at him, frowning in confusion. As she watched, Ethan fitted the blade back into its sheath, guiding it in with the other hand. But as the knife slid in, he allowed it to cut the skin between his thumb and forefinger.
Discuti! Shatter! The word echoed in his mind as blood began to flow from the wound on his hand. Ex cruore evocatum! Conjured from blood!
Again, Ethan felt the conjuring, and he knew that the conjurer had as well. But he hoped that the conjurer wouldn’t be expecting an attack when Ethan had yet to try a finding spell, and that watching him through Anna’s eyes, the man hadn’t noticed the blood on his hand and so would be expecting a weaker spell.
For once, fortune was on Ethan’s side. He heard a sound—half cry, half snarl. A man’s voice, beyond doubt, colored in equal measure by rage and shock and pain. At the same time, Anna disappeared, as if snatched away by demons. Ethan sprinted to Holin’s side as quickly as his leg would allow.
The boy yet breathed, though only just, his chest rising and falling in a shallow, irregular rhythm. The rain had soaked through his clothes. His skin felt cold and his lips were a pale shade of blue.
Ethan slid his arms under the lad, knowing that Holin wouldn’t survive much longer without a fire, dry clothes, and warm blankets.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” He knew without looking that Anna was back and standing behind him. She didn’t sound like a child anymore. Her voice was taut and harsh; a little girl’s voice blended with that of a grown man.
In the next instant, Ethan pitched forward over Holin, landed hard on his shoulder, and rolled onto his back. The molten iron seared his entire body from the inside, filling every inch of him, to the very tips of his fingers. He opened his mouth to scream, felt himself vomit instead. But still the anguish continued to build until he feared that his mind would melt or explode or simply cease to function.
He won’t stop until I’m dead. Ethan didn’t need Anna to tell him this. He knew it, and for an instant he welcomed the idea. No more life; no more pain.
As soon as he formed this thought, the agony ceased, and again Ethan wondered if this conjurer could read his mind.
“Fine, Kaille.”
Ethan stared up at the illusion. She still looked like a little girl, even if she sounded like some creature from beyond the living world.
“You leave me no choice but to end this matter. You’ll watch the boy die, and then in the morning you’ll go to the sheriff, and you’ll tell him that you’re the one who killed Jennifer Berson, and that little boy last fall, and this one as well. You’ll admit that you’re a conjurer; you’ll tell him you used your ‘witchery’ to commit these murders so that you could cast control spells. I’m sure he’ll piece together the rest.”
“I’ll go to him tonight! I’ll tell him what’s really happened.”
“You won’t remember what’s really happened. By the time I’m done with my spell, you’ll be passed out in the lane. You’ll wake, find yourself next to the boy’s body, and you’ll know, as you do your own name, that you killed him.”
Ethan reached for his blade, but before his hand even found the hilt, the same burning agony poured into his veins again. His body went rigid; his stomach heaved again. He would have clawed out his own eyes to make it stop.
“I can do this all night, Kaille. I can make you suffer in ways you never imagined, and well before my power is exhausted you’ll beg me to kill the boy and cast my spell. Or you can accept that you’ve lost, and be spared that torment. It’s your choice.”
“Yes!” he rasped. “Just stop! Please!”
As soon as Ethan spoke the words, his pain drained away, leaving him spent and limp, his heart laboring. He forced his eyes open, saw the girl standing over him, tiny, luminescent, a fierce grin on her waiflike face.
“Good, Kaille,” she said. “A wise choice, for once.”
Ethan turned away from her, and doing so caught a glimpse of movement on the other side of the lane. Briefly—the span of a heartbeat; no more—he thought that someone had come to help him. But the form was too small, too dark. It took him a moment to recognize Pitch, his dark eyes shining with the distant glow of Anna’s conjured fire.
Alarm crossed Anna’s face and she glanced quickly in the direction Ethan was looking. Seeing the dog, however, her face relaxed back into that triumphant grin.
“It’s a simple spell, really,” she began, her voice easing back toward the normal tone of a small girl. “You speak it just the way you would any other. Strange, isn’t it? There should be something different about a spell that kills. Don’t you agree?”
Ethan barely listened to her. Pitch stood staring at him, his head canted to the side. Ethan stared back, his heart aching. What could he do to save Holin, to save himself? Nothing on his own. He couldn’t match the conjurer’s power or skill or cunning. Not alone. But he wasn’t alone anymore.
“Pitch.”
He mouthed the word, nothing more. But Pitch raised his ears and gave a tentative wag of his tail. Ethan felt hot tears mingle with the rain on his cheeks.
“Forgive me.”
A different kind of pain clawed at Ethan from within, as potent as that caused by the conjurer’s attacks, and more damning. For if he survived the night, this pain would never go away.
Anna had paused in what she was saying. Ethan sensed that she was watching him. He could imagine the confusion on the girl’s face, but he didn’t look up at her. He kept his eyes locked on Pitch’s. And he spoke the words in his mind.
Caecitas ex vita huiusce canis—ex Pitch—evocata. Blindness, conjured from the life of this dog—from Pitch.
Instantly he felt the power of the spell thrumming along his entire body, like tens of thousands of tiny needle points tickling his skin. The cobblestones trembled with it. The entire city pulsed. Surely every conjurer in Boston felt it. Yet Pitch didn’t shudder or flinch. He didn’t make any sound at all. His legs gave way; he toppled onto his side and lay still.
Ethan realized that he was alone, save for Holin. Anna had vanished once more. He could hear the man—the conjurer—screaming again, fury and pain in the inarticulate cries. Probably he could have tracked him by the sounds, learned who he was. Under the circumstances, he might have prevailed in a battle of spells.
He didn’t make the attempt. Struggling to his knees, he crawled to where Pitch lay, knowing that he ought to do somethin
g to honor the creature; knowing just as surely that he couldn’t. As he ran trembling fingers over the wet fur of Pitch’s head he tried to say again that he was sorry. The words caught in his throat. He climbed to his feet, staggered to Holin’s side, and lifted the boy into his arms. Pausing once more to look at Pitch, he hurried down the lane, past Henry’s shop and his room. At the next corner, he turned northward and bore the boy back into the North End to Elli’s house.
By the time he reached her street he was exhausted and weak. The houses here were as dark as they had been on Cooper’s Alley. All except Elli’s. She would be panicked, unable to sleep or eat, unsure of whether to wait there with Clara or venture into the dark streets in search of her son. Even from down the lane, Ethan could see that candles shone in her windows, so that pale shafts of light cut across the street, making the rain sparkle. He saw her peer out into the night from the nearer of the two.
She must have seen him coming. In the next moment, her door flew open and she ran down the steps, heedless of the rain.
“What’s happened to him?” she asked, her voice high and strained. “Is he hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Ethan told her, breathing hard, his leg aching.
He stepped past her, entered her house, and went immediately to the sitting room, where a fire blazed. He laid Holin on a sofa and began pulling off the boy’s wet clothes.
“He looks half dead!” Elli said, hovering at Ethan’s shoulder. “How did this happen? What mischief did you get him into now?”
He whirled on her so quickly that she fell back several steps. Grief and guilt and the memory of pain flared in his chest like conjured fire. But though a thousand angry replies leaped to mind, he bit them all back. There were tears in Elli’s eyes, and her cheeks were every bit as ashen as her son’s.
“I didn’t do this,” he said, struggling to keep his voice level. He could feel Pitch’s wet fur under his fingertips. His chest burned with guilt, with grief, with the remembered pain of the conjurer’s relentless attacks. “And I just … did something to save him—to save both of us—that I’ll regret for the rest of my days.”
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