D. Jackson - A Plunder of Souls

Upon spotting Ethan and Janna, Sephira hesitated for an instant. Lifting her chin, she walked past her men to the street, where she halted, facing Janna.

“Miss Windcatcher,” she said.

Janna looked her up and down. “Pryce.”

“Have you and I had dealings before?”

“Not directly. But once, a long time ago. A man offered me a lot o’ coin to get a girl to like him, and before he could pay me, you did somethin’ to him. I don’t know what. But I know it was you, and I know that I never saw him or his money again.”

“What was his name?”

“Don’t know that either,” Janna said, still sounding guarded. “For today it don’t matter.”

Sephira nodded, glancing at Ethan. “You’re right. It doesn’t. You’re ready?” she asked of Ethan.

“Aye. Let’s be going.”

They set out toward the waterfront, Nap, Gordon, and Afton walking ahead of them, followed by Ethan and Janna, Mariz and Sephira. The rest of Sephira’s toughs followed.

As they neared the center of the South End, and the streets grew more crowded, people stopped to stare at their odd procession. For most people, seeing Sephira was an occasion to be remembered. But the sight of her in such strange company-with all of her men, as well as a wizened African woman-would be something people spoke of for days to come.

“You handled that well,” Ethan said to Janna, keeping his voice low.

“What? Pryce?” She waved a hand, dismissing the compliment. “I’m just bein’ practical. You’ve seen her house. It ain’t smart business to stay mad at a woman who’s livin’ like that.”

Even under these circumstances, Ethan couldn’t help but smile. He wondered if Janna wasn’t being more clever about her animosity for Sephira than Ethan had been over the years.

As they drew near to the wharves, these other thoughts fled his mind. By returning to the wharf with Sephira, Ethan had all but declared himself at war with Ramsey. On the other hand, the captain himself had done as much in their most recent encounter.

Sephira’s men-at least those walking behind him-had been talking among themselves as they walked through the city lanes, but as the wharves loomed before them, the men fell silent. Ethan sensed Sephira’s tension as well.

Mariz glanced back at him, and they drew their blades at the same time. Ethan looked at Janna. She already had her knife in hand.

They reached Tileston’s Wharf and walked toward the spot where the Muirenn had been moored earlier in the day. Halfway out, Ethan halted.

“Where did he go?” Sephira asked. She turned to Ethan. “ Where did he go? ”

Ethan shook his head. He had no idea. All he knew was that Ramsey’s ship had vanished.

“I want answers, Ethan!”

He stared hard at Sephira. “I have none for you. When I left the wharf this morning, he was here. I expected that he still would be, just as you did.”

“Is it possible that he left Boston?” Mariz asked. “He must have known that the senhora would be coming for him, and he might have guessed that you and I would work together to destroy him. Perhaps he fled.”

Ethan shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like Ramsey to me. He wanted to fight me. He believes that he can destroy all of us, and he’s eager to prove to us and to himself that he’s right.”

“One of us can try a findin’ spell,” Janna said. “Or we can do it together if we have to.”

“He will expect that,” Mariz said.

Janna shrugged. “So? He knew that we’d come lookin’ for him; that’s why he ain’t here. He’s already thinkin’ ahead of us. We might as well play his game and find him.”

Mariz turned to Ethan, a question in his eyes.

“I’m afraid she’s right,” Ethan said. “If he’s still in Boston, I want to know where. We’ll give away our position with the spell, but as Janna says, he already knows where we are. On the other hand, I don’t think we have to cast this spell together-I’d rather he didn’t know we’ve mastered that particular skill.”

Ethan cut his arm. “ Locus magi ex cruore evocatus. ” Location of conjurer, conjured from blood.

The spell hummed in the ground, but otherwise Ethan felt nothing. He glanced at Reg, who merely shrugged. Ethan tried the spell twice more, with the same result.

“We may need to conjure together after all,” he said.

“Whatever you intend to do, do it quickly!” Sephira said. “For all we know he’s gone already!”

The way she said it, one might have thought this would be the worst thing that could have happened. Ethan thought otherwise.

Mariz stepped closer to Ethan, as did Janna. They raised their blades.

“Ethan!”

He turned with the others. A gray-haired man strode toward them, a hitch in his step.

“Gavin?”

Janna sidled closer to Ethan. “I thought you said he wasn’t comin’.”

“That’s what he told me.”

The old captain walked to where they waited, his cheeks red, his face damp with sweat. He was breathing hard, leading Ethan to wonder how far he had walked.

“Good day, Janna,” he said.

“Black.”

A frown crossed the man’s face as he glanced at Sephira and her toughs, but he turned his attention back to Ethan.

“I’ve just come from Nate Ramsey’s ship.”

Ethan and Janna shared a look.

“Where?” Ethan asked.

“He’s moored at Drake’s Wharf.”

Drake’s Wharf was located near the top of the North End, between Hunt and White’s Shipyard and the Charlestown Ferry. It was just about as far from their present location as a ship in Boston could be.

“I don’t understand. He’s been here on Tileston’s Wharf for days. Why now would he choose to go to Drake’s Wharf, of all places?”

“I don’t know,” Gavin said.

“The question I have,” Janna said, regarding Gavin with manifest distrust, “is what were you doin’ with him in the first place?”

Gavin’s face turned an even deeper shade of crimson. “After Ethan talked to me, I felt awful-like a coward. So I put my fears aside and I came here.” He looked at Ethan. “This is where you told me he was. And sure enough, there he was on his father’s old ship, looking so much like Nathaniel had as a younger man that it broke my heart.”

“You spoke to him?” Ethan asked.

Gavin nodded. “He welcomed me aboard the Muirenn . His crew looked like they were readying the ship to leave, but I went up to talk to him, to ask him about the things you told me, Ethan. About the graves and my … well, the trouble I’ve been having with my spells. And he said all of it was true. I couldn’t believe it. He just admitted everything.”

“What did he say, Gavin?” Ethan asked. “What were his exact words?”

Gavin screwed up his face, trying to remember. “He said that he needed the ghosts to bring back his father, and also to make the rest of us weak. He said, ‘The weaker you get, the stronger I am. The shades see to that.’ I wasn’t sure what he meant, but it sounded a lot like what you told me he was doing.”

“What else?”

“Well, I tried to talk him out of it, of course. I told him that his father wouldn’t approve of what he was doing, and I tried to remind him of the times he and I had spent together, when he was a lad. But he barely heard me. And before I knew it, Ramsey’s crew had the ship’s sweeps out, and we were leaving the wharf. I got scared and told him that I wanted to go back, and he laughed at me. So, I pulled out my knife, and I tried a spell.”

Ethan narrowed his eyes. “What kind of spell?”

“I wanted to hurt him. I tried to set him on fire. I did it twice and both times the spell failed. Ramsey and his men laughed at me. And then Ramsey cast a spell of his own.” Gavin rubbed his jaw. “It felt like someone punched me right here. I blacked out, and the next thing I knew, we were at Drake’s Wharf, and two of Ramsey’s men were carrying me off the ship.”