D. Jackson - Dead Man's reach

He knew the man well.

“Cut yourselves, damn it!” the captain called to his men.

The sailors had been eyeing the flames, but now they cut themselves once more, drawing more blood.

Prepared as he was, Ethan might still have failed to finish his conjuring before Ramsey cast whatever spell he had in mind. But at that moment, another spell whispered in the wood. It was weaker than those Ramsey and Ethan had cast over the past several minutes. But that hardly mattered.

It was an illusion spell: Bright yellow flames erupted from the floor in the middle of the warehouse, near to where Ethan stood. He was certain Ramsey knew that this fire wasn’t real. But with flames burning so close to where he lay, and with his face and body covered with scars from the Drake’s Wharf fire, the captain couldn’t help but be distracted, albeit for only an instant.

That was enough. Ethan cut his arm and spoke the last words of his conjuring. Once more, he cast a blade spell, this time drawing not only upon his own blood, but also on that of Ramsey’s crew. Eleven men in all.

The spell shook the warehouse to its foundations. And when Ethan’s attack struck the aqua dome-the warding that had guarded Ramsey from so much-light flared, forcing him to shield his eyes. When he looked again, the dome was gone.

Ramsey cried out-fury, dismay, terror. Already Ramsey’s men were hacking at their arms with their blades, ready to give more blood to save their captain.

Ethan didn’t wait for them. He cut himself, and, hoping his aim was true, shouted one last time, “ Falx ex cruore evocata! ”

The blade spell thrummed. Ramsey had started to shout out a spell of his own, the Latin ringing high and clear. But his voice was cut off abruptly, the last sound from him sharp, choked.

And then his head rolled off his neck and blood fountained across his pillows and blankets.

Ethan could hardly believe what he had done. He stared at the body, at the head, at the torrent of crimson that stained the blankets and bedding. His hands shook, and he could hear that his breathing was uneven, ragged.

After some time he became aware of Ramsey’s men, who made not a sound, but stared at the bed. Some wore expressions of shock, others revulsion. As he watched, they turned individually and in pairs to look at him.

“Go,” he said, his mouth dry. “I’ve no quarrel with any of you. Stay far away, and you needn’t fear me.”

He didn’t know if they would heed his words. He should have. These men, perhaps more than any others in Boston, understood the power a conjurer could wield. They dared not challenge him. Rather, they filed out of the warehouse through the jagged opening his shatter spell had created.

Ethan cast one spell to remove the warding he had placed before the warehouse wall, and a second to extinguish the flames.

Smoke continued to gather in the building. He knew he should leave, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Not yet.

He stood, and walked toward the captain, his steps stiff. Only when he was within a few strides of the foot of the bed did he remember the last of Ramsey’s men, the one who had been harvesting blood on the captain’s behalf.

The man had been hiding, crouched on the far side of the bed. Now he lunged at Ethan, his blade held high. Ethan raised his uninjured arm to block the blow, felt a searing pain below his elbow. Ramsey’s man pulled the blade from Ethan’s arm and raised it to attack again.

“ Discuti ex cruore evocatum! ” Shatter, conjured from blood!

The blade broke, and the sailor’s eyes widened. Ethan stepped and spun, kicking him in the side with his bad foot. The man let out a grunt, his body seeming to crumple. Before he could do more, Ethan kicked him again in the the side of the head.

“That was nicely done, Ethan! As I’ve said before, you should come and work for me.”

Ethan turned. Sephira stood by the doorway, a pistol in her hand. She strode toward him, her boot heels scraping on the rough floor.

“Is that Ramsey?” she said, pointing at the blood-soaked form in the bed as she halted beside him.

“Aye.”

Her gaze lingered on the corpse and her voice was more subdued as she said, “Once again, nicely done.”

“There’s another man lying beside the bed. Ramsey was harvesting blood from him for spells. He needs healing; I’ll see to his wounds when I return. Otherwise he’s not to be touched.”

“And what about you? You look like you could use a bit of healing as well.”

Ethan wanted to refuse. He didn’t have time even for this. But one arm was bleeding and the other was broken. “I need to find the sheriff and bring him here.”

“That arm looks broken.”

He hesitated. “It is.”

“Then don’t be a fool. Let Mariz heal you and then you can find the sheriff.”

She was right. They went outside, where Ethan was surprised to see that the sun still hung in the eastern sky. It was not yet midday, though his body felt as it might if he had battled Ramsey for hours upon hours.

Upon spotting Ethan and Sephira, Mariz strode toward them, concern on his face.

“He needs healing,” Sephira said. “And he’s in a bit of a hurry.”

“Then I shall work quickly.”

Mariz cast spells to heal both of Ethan’s arms. The break was a clean one-Ethan thought of Diver, and his breath caught in his throat-and the knife wound, though deep, was straight and not overly long. Within a few minutes, much of the pain from both wounds had subsided. The arm that had been broken remained tender, but at least he could use it again.

“Thank you, Mariz.”

“Of course. You have other wounds?”

“None that matter. It’s time I went in search of Greenleaf.” To Sephira he said, “I’ve let Ramsey’s crew go. But they might return for their captain’s body.”

“Should we let them take it?”

Ethan considered this. “They can have the body, but the head remains here. I have to prove to the sheriff that Ramsey is dead.”

To his surprise, Sephira blanched. “All right.”

He started up the lane.

“I’ve never seen you this way before, Ethan. So … cold.”

He faltered in midstride, but then walked on, saying nothing.

At the first corner he reached, he paused, unsure of where he ought to look for Greenleaf. It was a few seconds before he recalled their exchange on King Street during the night. There was to be a town meeting in Faneuil Hall. He hurried back toward Cornhill.

Had he not witnessed it himself, Ethan would never have believed that so many people would fit into Faneuil Hall for any reason, and certainly not for a town meeting. But the previous night’s events had left the citizenry of Boston shaken and angry. Forced to guess, Ethan would have said that there were at least three thousand people in the building and the streets surrounding it. There were soldiers here as well, and tension hummed in the air like a conjuring.

It was no small feat for Ethan to gain entrance to the building, much less to thread his way through the throng to the front of the chamber, where Samuel Adams and others negotiated the wording of a formal message to the lieutenant governor, calling on him to have the British soldiers removed from the city.

Adams, Ethan could see, was in his element. The events of the night before had given him the upper hand in his ongoing battle with Hutchinson over the fate of Boston and, some would argue, all the American colonies. His demeanor remained appropriately somber-only the most partisan of observers could accuse him of gloating, or of taking pleasure in the tragedy that had befallen their city. But neither could they say that he had wilted in the face of a crisis. Ethan had missed much of the discussion, but he could see that Adams and his allies-including Otis, John Hancock, and a man Ethan heard others refer to as William Molineux, whom he recognized as the broad-shouldered gentleman who had kept Ebenezer Richardson from being hanged the day Chris Seider was shot-had convinced the mob to express their rage and grief through political petition rather than additional violence. He wondered if the result would have been different if Ramsey yet lived, and could cast more of his spells.