D. Jackson - A Plunder of Souls

“You won’t be digging,” Ethan said. “You’ll be standing by the gravesite, making it seem that we’re not doing anything wrong.”

A faint smile curved Pell’s lips. “I see.”

Diver and Pell greeted each other-they had met before on a few occasions-and the three of them marched through the city streets to the Common Burying Ground, and the grave of Patience Walters.

“She was a conjurer?” Pell asked, as they stood over the grave.

Diver toed the fresh dirt, looking pale.

“Aye,” Ethan said. “I don’t know what Ramsey has in mind, but I’m certain that I don’t want him having control over the shade of a spellmaker.”

Pell glanced at the sun, which was already sinking toward the western horizon. “Then I’d suggest you start digging.”

Ethan shared a look with Diver, hoping that it would reassure his friend. They both began to dig.

The air was warm, and what little breeze there was helped not at all. Within a few minutes, Ethan’s hands began to burn. He knew he would have blisters before long; it had been too many years since he had toiled in this way. But despite all this, he felt good. At last he was doing something that Ramsey could neither anticipate nor prevent.

A few people walked past as they worked, but having Pell with them served its purpose. No one questioned them.

Ethan paused to remove his waistcoat and resumed his labors. His shirt was soaked through, as was Diver’s. By the time Diver’s spade struck wood, Ethan was breathing hard. He could almost hear Kannice telling him that he was too old for this sort of thing.

They cleared the dirt away from the coffin and paused to rest. Diver leaned both his arms on the handle of his spade. Ethan gazed down at the coffin, sweat dripping from his brow. The faint stench of rot surrounded them, not yet overpowering, but promising to be once they disturbed the coffin.

“Now what?” Diver asked, wrinkling his nose. “Do you want to take the coffin, or leave it and just take her body?”

“I don’t like the idea of carrying a dead body through the city streets,” Pell said. “Especially one that smells as badly as this one. Even I can’t protect you from the sort of attention that would draw.”

“I could conceal the body with a spell,” Ethan said. “And me along with it. I might even be able to mask the smell. No one would know we had it. Not that I relish the idea, but leaving the empty coffin here for Ramsey to find does have some appeal.”

Diver checked the position of the sun. “If we take the coffin, what will we do with it?”

“That’s a good question,” Pell said. “I don’t think the rector would want it on chapel grounds, and we can’t bury it again just anywhere.”

Ethan nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. It’s one of my own. Perhaps he had been thinking of this the wrong way. Maybe the fact that he knew of no countermanding symbol for the one Ramsey had created didn’t matter at all. Maybe it made his work easier rather than harder.

“What if the symbol isn’t important at all?” he said.

Diver and Pell shared a look.

“But you said the symbol enabled Ramsey to control the shades,” Pell said. He kept his voice low and shrank back as he spoke, seeming to fear Ethan’s reaction.

“Aye, it does. What I mean is, what if the form of the symbol doesn’t matter as much as whatever spell Ramsey casts on it? In other words, it’s possible that the importance of the symbol lies not in how it looks, but rather in what Ramsey has done with it.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Diver said. “I’ve never understood all that you do with your spells and such. And I don’t see how that would make a difference as to where we take the body.”

Ethan wiped a hand across his damp forehead. “It might make no difference at all. Or it might mean that we wouldn’t have to move the body anywhere.”

“I’m lost as well,” Pell said. “Now you’re saying we don’t have to move the body? Does that mean you did all that work for nothing?”

“Not at all. But I have another idea that might protect Patience from Ramsey’s spells, without alerting him to the fact that we’ve been here, or that we’ve taken steps to thwart his plans.”

“And this has to do with the symbols?” Pell asked.

“Aye. Ramsey’s symbol is what enables him to control the shades. From what he told me, I know that the symbol itself has no inherent power, he made it up himself. It’s not an ancient rune that raises the dead or any such thing. He carved it into the corpses as a way of placing his mark, and therefore his power, on the cadavers.”

Pell’s face paled.

Diver, though, still appeared confused. “So…?”

“So, what if I were to do the same thing? I could place a symbol on her, too. Something Ramsey wouldn’t find that would enable me to guard her from his conjurings.”

“Do you know how to do that?” Pell asked, his features sharp in the late afternoon light.

“I’d be inventing the conjuring; I’ve never done this before, or anything remotely like it. But I have an idea of how I might word the spell.” He didn’t mention that he couldn’t be sure if any conjuring he attempted would work, or that he wouldn’t know for certain one way or another until after Ramsey had desecrated the grave and tried to add Patience to his army of shades.

Diver regarded Ethan the way he might a fiend. “You want to open this coffin and carve a mark into her body?”

“I don’t want to do anything of the sort!” Ethan said. “I don’t want to be here, digging up the grave of a friend, and I certainly don’t want to be guilty of the same foul deeds as Ramsey. But neither do I wish to see the shade of my friend being used as a marionette!” Nor do I wish to see her soul lost forever. This he kept to himself. He paused, exhaled. He hadn’t meant to respond with quite so much heat. When he went on, it was in a calmer tone. “I think I can do this, and thus deny him access to the ghost of a conjurer. Despite the horror of what I’m contemplating, I don’t feel that I have much of a choice.”

Ruth had said that they trusted him, and had given him permission to do what was necessary. He hoped that she and Darcy would someday forgive him for this.

A hint of color had returned to Pell’s face. “Ramsey won’t expect it.”

“No, he won’t. And that’s the best reason for doing it.” Ethan looked at Diver. “If you can help me prise the lid off the coffin, I can do the rest.”

His friend nodded. They both placed the tips of their spades under the edge of the lid-Ethan at the head, Diver at the foot-and pushed down on the handles. With a shriek of iron on wood, the lid rose.

Instantly the air around them turned sickeningly foul. Pell spun away from the grave, covering his mouth and nose with both hands. Diver threw his spade onto the grass and scrambled out of the hole.

Ethan’s eyes watered, and he had to clamp his teeth together to keep from being ill.

“You said that you know a spell to mask the smell?” Pell said, his voice muffled.

“Aye.” He pulled out his knife and cut his arm. “ Madesce nidorem ex cruore evocatum. ” Dampen odor, conjured from blood.

Ethan felt the spell hum in the earth, and regretted casting it. Ramsey would feel it. He might even guess its origin. Worse, the spell had no effect. Reg stood beside him, barely visible in the daylight. Ethan looked his way; the ghost wore a scowl, his bright eyes trained on the disturbed grave.

“It didn’t work.”

“Obviously,” Diver said. “Try it again.”

“I can’t. The risk is too great. I’ll get this done and we can put the lid back in place.”

He lifted the lid the rest of the way off the coffin, doing his best to breathe through his mouth. Not that it helped much.