D. Jackson - A Plunder of Souls

Ethan knelt beside Janna, whose face was contorted in a grimace.

“I’m all right,” she said, her teeth gritted, a hand pressed to the bloody wound. “Keep your eyes on Ramsey.”

Ethan stood again, the hand holding his knife white-knuckled. “A control spell,” he said.

Ramsey shrugged. “Not very imaginative, I know. But I expected you would be warded against my conjurings, and I thought that if one of you died, it might disrupt your plans just a bit.”

Ethan held his tongue, but Ramsey’s words offered him a ray of hope. If he wanted Janna dead, he must have feared their blended conjurings more than he was willing to admit.

“Did he do everything I told him to?” the captain asked. He glanced at Gavin’s prone form, a faint smile on his lips. “Did he tell you that he tried to use conjurings against me, that we laughed at him, that he told me my da would be so disappointed in me?” He looked up, meeting Ethan’s gaze. “Did he beg you not to come here, because he knew it was a trap?”

“Can we kill him now, please?” Janna asked. “My chest hurts, and I’m sick to death of listenin’ to his nonsense.”

Ethan and Mariz cut themselves; Janna had enough blood on her shoulder for several conjurings. Their ghosts clasped hands.

“ Dormite, ” Ethan said. Slumber. “Now.”

“ Dormite ex cruore evocatum, ” they said together. Slumber, conjured from blood.

The power of their spell seemed to shake the building to its foundations. Ramsey staggered, as from a blow. He squeezed his eyes shut, forced them open again. “How did you…” He staggered a second time, his eyes growing heavy.

And then he laughed. “Sorry. Just having a bit of fun. Admit it, Kaille. For just a instant you thought it had worked.”

Ethan didn’t respond. Janna stared daggers at the captain.

“Enough,” Sephira said. She pulled a pistol from her jacket pocket and in one fluid motion leveled it at Ramsey’s chest and fired, the report deafening within the warehouse walls.

Ramsey didn’t flinch. And by the time the echo of the gunshot had died away, the lead ball from her pistol was on the floor at the captain’s feet. He picked it up, holding it in the palm of his hand.

“It’s still warm,” he said. He fixed Sephira with a murderous glare. “That was a mistake. After watching your man kill my bosun, did you think that I wouldn’t protect myself from your weapons?” He cut his forearm; blood welled from the wound, only to vanish a second later.

Whatever spell he intended for Sephira, he didn’t speak it aloud. She grunted at its impact, tumbled to the floor. But nothing else happened to her, and a moment later she was on her feet again.

“You warded them as well,” Ramsey said, his voice flat. “How clever of you. It seems I need reinforcements.” He cut himself a second time. “ Veni ad me ex regno mortuorum ex cruore evocatum. ” Come to me from the realm of the dead, conjured from blood.

The spell thundered, as powerful as any spell Ethan had ever felt. A shade appeared beside Ramsey and was joined a heartbeat later by two more. Four shades winked into view to Sephira’s left, and another three appeared behind them. In mere seconds, they were surrounded by more than a dozen ghosts, and more continued to join them. All of them looked like the decomposed cadavers Ethan had seen at the burying grounds; he could almost smell the fetor of their decay.

He cast a quick glance over his shoulder toward the open door. The sun had not yet set; there was still plenty of daylight.

“That’s right, Kaille. I can summon them during the day now. Thanks to my new closest friend, I can do just about anything with them that I want.” He gazed past Ethan, triumphant. “Ah, here she is now. The new captain of my army of wraiths.”

Ethan turned and felt his body sag. Standing before him, glowing a sickly shade of green, stood the ghost of Patience Walters.

“Don’t let them get too close if you can help it,” Ethan said in a raised voice. “They are brutally cold to the touch, perhaps even fatally so if they were reach into your chest or your head.”

The shades began to advance on them, their movements slow, unsteady, but inexorable. Now Ethan understood why Ramsey had wanted this confrontation here in the warehouse rather than aboard the Muirenn . With so many shades on the ship, the captain’s crew would have been in as much peril as Ethan and his companions.

“How do we stop them?” Sephira asked.

“I don’t know that we can.”

“Sure we can,” Janna said. “We stop him, we stop them.”

Ramsey chuckled at that.

More shades were still appearing; there had to be close to three dozen of them now. Ethan backed away from one of them and wound up beside Sephira.

“Start with the crew,” he said under his breath. “Ramsey will want to protect them. You and your men will be safe from the shades as long as you’re fighting. Mariz, Janna and I will stay here. We’re the ones Ramsey wants. You go fight.”

“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.