D. Jackson - Thieftaker

Pell looked away. “Of course not.”

“A young woman is dead. I believe she died at the hands of a conjurer. I understand that the mere mention of the so-called dark arts is enough to make some who wear those robes fall into a panic, but her family has hired me to learn the truth. And I believe that even Mister Troutbeck would want to see her killer punished.”

The minister glanced at the woman’s corpse. “What is it you want to do to her?”

“I want to find out what kind of spell killed her, and, if possible, who cast it.”

“You can learn those things?”

“Yes, I can.”

“But only by using witchery yourself. Isn’t that so?”

“Aye,” Ethan said.

“What kind?”

“What?”

“What kind of witchcraft would you be using?”

Ethan frowned. “Why would you care about-?”

“What kind of witchcraft?” the minister asked again, his eyes meeting Ethan’s. “Your sister isn’t the only person who came to this chapel with… with strange powers in her blood. I know something of conjuring, and before I risk being banished from the ministry by letting you cast on these sanctified grounds, I would like to know what you intend to do.” When Ethan still hesitated, he said, “This calls for more than an elemental spell, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Ethan told him, surprised to hear that the minister really did know something of conjuring. “It would have to be a living spell.”

“So you’ll need to spill your own blood.”

“Unless you’d like to stay and let me bleed you.”

The minister paled again, but managed a smile. “No, I think not. But a living spell could draw the attention of other conjurers.”

“Any spell will,” Ethan said. “There’s nothing to be done about that.”

They stood eyeing each other for several moments, until at last the young minister dropped his gaze to the body. “Very well, Mister Kaille. I’ll trust you not to do any more conjuring than necessary, and you can trust me to say nothing about this to Mister Troutbeck or Mister Caner.”

“Thank you, Mister Pell. I’ll do this as quickly as I can.”

“I’ll be in the sanctuary. Please call for me before leaving the crypt.” Pell glanced at Jennifer Berson once more. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

His gaze lingered briefly on the corpse. Then he left the corridor, his footsteps echoing in the stairwell. When Ethan couldn’t hear him anymore, he removed his waistcoat and pushed up his sleeve, shivering in the cool, still air. He paused over the girl for a mere instant, studying her face once more. Her expression was so serene; she couldn’t have known what was about to happen to her. She hadn’t feared her murderer. This might well have been done by someone she knew, perhaps even someone she trusted.

He pulled out his blade and dragged its edge across his forearm, making a cut long and deep enough to draw what might have been a spoonful of blood. Laying his knife on the table beside Jennifer, he dabbed his forefinger in the welling blood and traced a single dark line across the girl’s brow, and a second one from the bridge of her nose, over her lips and chin, down the length of her throat, to her breastbone.

“ Revela potestatem, ” he murmured in Latin, “ ex cruore evocatam. ” Reveal power, conjured from blood.

The words rang in the dark chamber, as if they had been spoken by several voices at once. The stone beneath his feet hummed with power, and the air around Ethan felt even more charged than it had the previous night, when he conjured the horse. This was a stronger spell; he also wondered if perhaps these grounds held some power that he didn’t fully understand.

The ghost appeared beside him, his glowing eyes fixed on the dead girl, a hungry look on his russet features.

Ethan felt the blood on his arm turn to vapor, as sweat on the brow dries in a cooling wind. He watched the blood he had placed on her face, throat, and chest vanish, as if wiped away by some unseen hand. The candles beside him guttered and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

And then the body of Jennifer Berson began to glow. The light emanated from just to the left of her breastbone and spread slowly, radiating out over her entire body, spreading up over her face and head, out to the very tips of her fingers, and down to the soles of her feet. At first Ethan thought the light had no color, that it simply reflected the hue of the candle fire. But when he moved the sconce away and looked at the girl’s body once more, he saw that the glow was actually pale silver, the color of starlight.

Usually the spell Ethan had cast would have concentrated the glow at the point where the murderer’s conjuring had struck her, but the light surrounding Jennifer’s body was as even as moonglow on a snow-covered field. And that shade of silver… Every conjurer’s power had a different hue; the variations were subtle but distinctive. Ethan’s was rust-colored, like the brick facade of the Boston Town House in the late-afternoon sun. His other sister, Susannah, was also a conjurer. Her spells left a residue of greenish blue, the color of the ocean on a clear day. But never had he seen power like this before. It was as if all the color had been sucked out of the conjuring, and this silver was all that remained.

Old Reg’s ghost flashed a mocking grin. Then he vanished again.

Ethan had no doubt that Jennifer had been killed by a conjuring, but he couldn’t imagine what kind of spell had been used against her. It was possible that the way the glow had spread over her body offered some clue. An attack aimed at her heart might have produced such an effect by following the flow of her blood, though in Ethan’s experience such an assault, when revealed by the spell he had cast, should have left a gleaming spot over her chest.

There was another spell he could try, one that could tell him what the murderer had used to fuel his spell. Every conjuring had to draw upon its source, be it one of the elements-fire, water, earth, or air-for the simplest spells, or something drawn from a creature or plant for living spells. The revealing spell Ethan had just tried demanded his own blood. Other living spells could be cast using herbs or tree sap or wood.

Just as every conjurer left his or her color on the residue of a spell, so the source left an imprint as well, if one knew the casting required to reveal it. Ethan did. And perhaps knowing how the spell had been cast would help him learn a bit more about the murderer. He had told Pell that he would speak only the one spell. But this would likely be his only chance to examine the girl’s corpse, and it struck Ethan as foolish not to do everything in his power to learn the identity of her killer.

The wounds he made to conjure began to heal themselves almost as soon as he spoke his spells, which meant that he needed to cut himself again for this second casting. He retrieved his knife from the table, bared his arm, and laid the blade against his skin.

Before he could draw blood, however, he heard a light footfall behind him.

“Don’t you dare!” a voice warned, echoing off the ceiling and stone walls. “Not in this place!”

Ethan turned slowly, holding up the knife and extending his arm to show that he hadn’t cut himself again.

“Hello, Bett.”

His sister frowned at him and then shifted her gaze to Jennifer’s body. “What have you done to her? Why does she look like that?”

“I tried to learn something of the conjurer who killed her.”

“She was killed by witchery?” Bett said. She walked past him, her satin dress and petticoats rustling. “You’re sure?”

“Look at her,” Ethan said.

“You did that.”