D. Jackson - Thieftaker

There were people on the streets here, but they took no notice of him. Apparently his concealment spell was still intact. Not good. He needed help. He lifted his knife again, intending to cut himself and remove the concealment charm.

But before he could draw blood, he felt a pulse of power, sensed it rushing toward him, speeding beneath the stone, seeking him out. An instant later, it found him, coiled around him again. Another finding spell. The conjurer was still to the south, but Ethan could feel him approaching.

A second surge of power followed closely on the heels of the first, and before this one hit Ethan knew it was different. He tried to flee, but he could no more outrun this conjuring than a ship at sea could sail clear of the dawn.

It struck at his legs, like steel barbs ripping through the muscles in his calves. He stumbled, fell forward, crashing heavily on his maimed hand and splitting his lip on the cobble.

The pain in his hand threatened to overwhelm him. He was drowning in it; he felt consciousness slipping away, and a part of him welcomed the darkness.

But not the strongest part. Forcing his eyes open, Ethan willed himself up, onto his side, and to his hand and knees. He staggered to his feet and managed all of three strides before stopping again.

Anna stood just in front of him, murder in her large, pale eyes.

Ethan and Uncle Reg faced her, the ghost’s eyes blazing like cannon fire. People and carriages passed by, oblivious. Ethan opened his mouth to shout for help.

But Anna made a small gesture with her hand and the bone in Ethan’s bad leg gave way. He managed not to fall on his wounded hand again, but he landed awkwardly on the shattered leg, which hurt every bit as much.

The girl loomed over him, shaking her head, fury on her thin face.

Ethan heard footsteps approaching.

Anna looked up at the sound and smiled. Then she bent down and with one finger reached toward the center of Ethan’s brow. He hadn’t even the strength to shy away from her.

“Enough,” she whispered, touching her finger to his forehead.

The blackness took him after all.

Consciousness came to him slowly, like an advancing tide.

At first Ethan retreated from it. There was no pain here, no fear. Only rest. He was sleeping. How long had it been since he had slept this deeply, this comfortably? Just a few more hours, he whispered. Did he really? Did he say it out loud?

“It can’t wait. You have to wake up now.”

Anna’s voice. He was really starting to hate her.

He opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the glare of a fire. Night had fallen; except for the gleaming white full moon above him, he could see little beyond the blaze and the glowing little girl. A warm breeze touched his face, smelling faintly of fish and the low tide.

He was manacled at the wrists and ankles, his back pressed against the bark of a large tree, his arms pulled back, leading him to guess that the chain joining the manacles circled around the trunk. He was also gagged. And yet, though his circumstances were dire, he also realized that he was no longer in pain. Carefully he flexed the hand the conjurer had crushed. Then he wiggled his fingers more boldly. The hand was fully healed.

Both legs also felt whole again, although the chains were tight enough that he could barely move them. Yet another chain led to a metal cuff around his neck, to keep him from moving his head more than a few inches. Predictably, all the manacles-those at his wrists and ankles, as well as the one around his neck-were cushioned, wrapped in cloth, from the look and feel of them. He couldn’t chafe his wrists, ankles, or neck on the metal cuffs. The conjurer had left him with no way to draw blood; even the cloth in his mouth kept him from biting his tongue or his cheek.

His coat, which still bore bloodstains from Nigel’s bullet, was gone. The rest of his clothes had nothing on them that he could use to fuel a spell, except the cloth itself, which was too far from its living form to be suitable for a conjuring. He didn’t have to check to know that his knife had been taken.

The tree itself, on the other hand, offered him plenty of material for a spell. Either the conjurer hadn’t thought of this, or he didn’t think that a spell that drew upon anything less than Ethan’s blood would be strong enough to harm him. Ethan had little doubt as to which of these was the case.

He could feel the conjurer; he was near. The power he used to create the illusion of Anna coursed through the ground and the body of the tree like blood through veins. It seemed the night itself was alive with it. Ethan should have been frightened. Chances were, he would be dead in another few moments. But he felt strangely calm. His battle with this conjurer had gone on long enough. For better or worse it would end here, tonight.

“You’re more than I thought you were, Kaille,” Anna said. “You have some talent with conjuring, and more than a bit of courage. I had hoped to find a way to spare you.”

Unable to speak because of the cloth in his mouth, Ethan raised his eyebrows, feigning surprise.

She cocked her head to the side and smiled. “You don’t believe me.” Even now, a long figure in the firelight, she acted and sounded so much like a child that Ethan had to look away. He could have learned something about spelling from this conjurer had they met under different circumstances.

But if he was going to die here, he wouldn’t do so talking to this illusion of a little girl. He wanted to face the conjurer; he wanted to know who had bested him.

“No response, Kaille?”

He shook his head, still refusing to look at her.

“I can make you answer me. You know I can.”

He shrugged, gazing off into the darkness, trying to figure out where exactly he was. Candles shone in the windows of a few distant houses, but he was far from the crowded lanes of Cornhill or the North End.

Ethan could tell that the girl was staring at him; he could imagine the annoyance on her face.

“I think I understand,” she said. “You want to see… him.”

Ethan nodded. Anna glanced to the side. Then she grinned at Ethan once more.

“All right.” A man’s voice, one Ethan thought he recognized.

An instant later, Anna disappeared. Ethan heard the scrape of a boot on cobblestone, and Peter Darrow stepped into the firelight. He was dressed as he had been earlier that day: a dark blue silk suit, an ivory-colored shirt, a tricorn hat nestled on his perfectly groomed and powdered hair. He looked every bit the country gentleman. Even if Ethan managed to get away, there wasn’t a person in Boston who would believe that this handsome, dapper man was in fact a conjurer and a murderer.

Because they wouldn’t be able to see the ghost walking next to him, the guide who made his conjurings possible. Remarkably, it was a little girl who could have been Anna’s twin, except for the golden yellow glow that suffused her form, and the bright yellow eyes that stared back at him, as if she were some otherworldly owl. Seeing her, the calm Ethan had enjoyed only moments before began to give way to despair.

“You should have listened to us, Mister Kaille,” Darrow said. “Samuel, James, and I tried to tell you that Mackintosh was your man. You should have gone along.”

Ethan stared at him, knowing that he shouldn’t have been so surprised. Darrow had looked terrible that morning. His eyes had been bloodshot, and he had been hobbling much the way Ethan did when his leg bothered him. Were these the results of the spells Ethan had used to attack him the night before? The shattering spell and the blindness casting that had cost Pitch his life?

“Because of you, I’ve had to spill a lot of blood for healing spells. On both of us.” He pointed to a red mark on his arm. “This one proved particularly troublesome. That scalding spell was quite effective. I hadn’t faced it before. Well done. And as for your wounds.” He shook his head. “You were a mess. As I say, it took a lot of blood.”