D. Jackson: Thieftaker

Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, August 26, 1765

Ethan Kaille eased his knife from the leather sheath on his belt as he approached Griffin’s Wharf, the words of a warding spell on his lips. He had sweated through his linen shirt, and nearly through his waistcoat, as well. His leg ached and he was breathing hard, gasping greedily at the warm, heavy air hanging over Boston on this August eve. But he had chased Daniel Folter this far-from the Town Dock to Purchase Street, over cobblestone and dirt, past storefronts and homes and pastures empty save for crows and grazing cows-and he wasn’t about to let the pup escape him now.

The western horizon still glowed with the last golden light of day, but the sky over Boston Harbor and the South End shoreline had darkened to a deep indigo. Hulking wooden warehouses, shrouded in a faint mist, cast deep, elongated shadows across the wharves. Clouds of midges danced around Ethan’s head, scattering when he waved a hand at them, only to swarm again as soon as he turned his attention back to his quarry.

Ethan stepped onto the wharf and peered into murky corners, expecting Folter to fly at him at any moment. The boy had shown himself to be a fool; now he was desperate as well, a dangerous combination. Ethan preferred to handle this without casting, but he already knew what spell he would speak if he had to.

“You’re mine now, Daniel!” he called. “Best you come out and face what’s coming to you!”

No answer. He crept forward, wary, his gaze sweeping back and forth between the warehouses that loomed on either side of the pier. He heard small waves lapping at the timbers, and the echoing cries of a lone gull. But Ethan was listening for the man’s breathing, for the scrape of a shoe or the whisper of a blade clearing leather.

After a few more steps, Ethan halted, afraid to stray too far out onto the pier lest the pup sneak past him. If he lost Folter to the tangled streets of the South End, he would have to begin his search anew.

“You shouldn’t have stolen Missus Corbett’s necklaces, Daniel!” Ethan pitched his voice to carry, but his words were swallowed by the hazy twilight air and the sounds of the harbor. “Her husband is angry. He’s paying his hard-earned money to get her jewels back, and to have some justice meted out on her behalf.”

He waited, listening, watching.

“Your only way out is through me, lad. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Still no response. Doubt started to gnaw at Ethan’s mind. Had Folter found some other way off the wharf? Or was he simply smarter and more patient than Ethan had allowed?

Neither, as it turned out.

Ethan heard a footfall to his left and wheeled quickly, his knife held ready. Folter stepped from the darkness, the faint glow of twilight shining in his eyes and glinting off the dagger he carried.

“Corbett can rot fer all I care!” he said. Brave words, but his voice trembled, almost as badly as his blade hand.

Ethan shook his head and approached him slowly. “You know better, lad. Mister Corbett is a man of means. He decides who rots and who doesn’t.”

Folter was bigger than he remembered. He stood a full head taller than Ethan, with long limbs and a thin, bony face. His hair, damp and lank, hung to his stooped shoulders. His breeches were torn at the knees, his waistcoat stained; the sleeves of his shirt barely reached his narrow wrists. His knife had a long, curved blade, and though he passed it from one hand to the other, wiping his sweaty palms on his breeches, the movements were deft. Ethan guessed that he would be a formidable foe in a knife fight if it came to that.

“Tha’s not true,” Folter said. “Not all of it, anyway.”

Ethan stopped, leaving some distance between them. Folter’s gaze met his for a moment before darting away, first to one side, then to the other. He was looking for a way out or past-or through, if need be. Ethan sensed that Folter had already taken his measure and convinced himself that he could prevail in a fight if he had to. He was wrong, but he had no way of knowing that. Ethan didn’t exactly cut an imposing figure. He was of medium height and build, and looked like a competent fighter, but not one to be truly feared. His hair was starting to go gray at the temples, and his face was lined and scarred. Folter would see in him someone too old and too small to be a true threat. Others had made the same mistake.

“I done a bit o’ work fer Pryce-Miss Pryce-back a year or two. If she could see her way clear t’ let this slide…”

“I don’t work for Pryce,” Ethan said.

Folter stared at him. “Then why are ya-?”

“I work on my own.”

The pup actually laughed. “Yar own? Ya think Sephira Pryce will stand by an’ let another thieftaker work anywhere in Boston?”

Ethan shrugged. “She has for the last few years.”

Folter’s smile faded. “Who are ya?” he asked.

Ethan twirled his knife casually between his fingers. “I was hired by Ezra Corbett to retrieve the jewels you’re carrying. My name is Ethan Kaille.”

The pup’s eyes widened at the mention of Ethan’s name. “Kaille,” he repeated. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade. “I’ve heard o’ ya.”

“Good,” Ethan said. “Then you know that you’d best be giving me what I’m after.”

“Ya’ll take them an’ then give me t’ th’ lobst’rbacks. I’ll be fourteen years at hard labor.”

“It doesn’t have to come to that.”

The young man shook his head, panic in his eyes. “I don’ believe ya.” He shifted his weight just slightly toward his right, his knees bending, his shoulders tensing. Subtle changes, but taken together they were all the warning Ethan needed.

By the time Folter lunged at him, leading with his blade, Ethan had already started to spin away. He had every intention of countering over Folter’s off hand, but at the last moment he saw that the boy-more cur now than pup-somehow had drawn a second knife. Only another spin saved Ethan from being skewered.

But in evading Folter’s attacks, Ethan had opened a path of escape. Folter looked at the thieftaker once, perhaps weighing another assault. Instead, he ran up the wharf back toward Purchase Street.

With the harbor at his back and the air heavy with moisture, Ethan had enough water at hand to cast an elemental spell. He spoke it quickly under his breath-“ Imago ex aqua evocata ”; illusion, conjured from water-and at the same time made a small flicking gesture with his hands, directing the charm so that the image formed directly in front of Folter.

Instantly the air around him felt charged, as it did when a storm came upon a ship at sea; as it did any time he conjured. Ethan felt the hairs on his neck and arms stand on end.

The old ghost appeared at Ethan’s side, glowing a rich reddish brown like the moon when it hangs low in the night. His eyes gleamed like brands, and they held a hint of annoyance, as if Ethan had torn him away from something too important to be interrupted for a mere illusion spell. Not that the ghost could refuse him. He was Ethan’s guide, a spectral guardian of the power-laden realm between the living world and the domain of the dead. Folter wouldn’t be able to see the specter; no one who wasn’t a conjurer could. But he would see the conjuring that Ethan’s ghost made possible.

For this illusion, Ethan summoned the first image that came to mind: a great white horse with a flowing mane, like the one he had seen earlier that day leading a chaise through the streets near the Common. Ethan cast the spell quickly, with little preparation; at midday, the creature might have looked insubstantial, but in the gloaming it appeared solid and huge and wild. It bore down on Folter as if intent on trampling him, and the pup did exactly what Ethan had hoped. He halted, dove to one side, and wrapped his hands over his head to shield himself. He gave no sign of noticing that though the beast looked real enough, its hooves made no sound on the wharf.