D. Jackson - Thieves' Quarry

Ethan rubbed a hand over his face and cursed under his breath. She had done this to him before, swooped in on one of his jobs at the last moment to rob him of the goods he hoped to recover, and thus of his payment. She knew the streets of Boston the way a merchant captain knew the Atlantic coastline. She had cultivated friendships with nearly every useful person in the province, from the king’s commissioners on the Customs Board to Boston’s most successful merchants, from the city’s barkeeps and street peddlers to its most violent criminals. Most often, Ethan’s jobs were too small to draw her notice. But on occasion, one of Boston’s wealthier citizens hired him to recover something of value, arousing Sephira’s interest in his work. It had happened three years before, when Ethan was hired to find the killer of Jennifer Berson, the daughter of Abner Berson, one of the city’s most prosperous merchants, and again sixteen months ago, when Ethan was asked to recover goods stolen from one of the city’s wealthier shopkeepers. And it seemed it had happened once more with this job.

Charles Short’s wares might not have been the best in the city, but gold watches were enough to entice Sephira no matter who made them. Ethan had known this from the start; from the day Short hired him, he had expected her to be watching his every move, looking for some way to find the watches first. But he had been so careful; he had been sure that this time, at least, he had bested her.

“Show yourself, Kaille,” she said, her voice hardening. “I want to see the look on your face.”

On more than one occasion, Sephira and her men had come close to killing him. She was brilliant and deadly and her toughs were skilled street fighters, as good with blades as with pistols, and skilled with their fists as well. But as long as Ethan could conjure he could protect himself. He hesitated to answer her, but not out of fear: rather because he didn’t care to be mocked.

“There’s no sense in sulking. I’ve beaten you. Again. I would have thought you’d be used to it by now.”

Cursing a second time, Ethan pulled his knife from its sheath on his belt, cut his forearm and whispered in Latin, “ Fini velamentum ex cruore evocatum. ” End concealment, conjured from blood.

Power coursed through his body and hummed in the ground beneath his feet, deep and resonant, like the tone of a pealing church bell. At the same time, a radiant figure appeared beside him: an old man, tall and lean, with a trim beard and the dark expression of a warrior. He wore ancient battle armor and the tabard of a medieval British soldier. He even carried a sword in a scabbard on his belt. He glowed with a deep russet hue, nearly a match for the color of the moon, except for his eyes, which burned bright like brands. This was Ethan’s spectral guide, who allowed him to access the conjuring power that dwelt in the realm between the living world and the domain of the dead. Ethan had long suspected that his guide was also the wraith of one of his ancient ancestors, a link to his family’s conjuring past. He called the ghost Uncle Reg, after his mother’s oldest brother, a waspish, difficult man of whom the shade often reminded him.

The blood that had been flowing from the fresh wound on Ethan’s arm vanished, and he felt the concealment spell begin to fade. Because Sephira wasn’t a conjurer she wouldn’t have felt the spell as Ethan did. But as soon as Ethan took another step on the wharf, she saw him. Her gaze settled on his face, and a broad predatory smile lit her features.

“There you are,” she purred.

Her men, including a hulking, yellow-haired ruffian named Nigel, turned as one and started toward him. Nigel pulled a pistol from his coat pocket.

Ethan raised his knife to his forearm again. The toughs halted.

Ethan wasn’t tall like Yellow-hair or broad in the shoulders and chest like Tanner. Those who had fought him in the past, as Sephira’s men had, knew that he could handle a blade, either short or long, and that he could fight with his fists if he had to. But no one would have been afraid of him because of how he looked. His face bore a few scars, and his long hair had begun to gray at the temples. While serving time as a prisoner on a plantation in Barbados, he had lost three toes on his left foot to gangrene, and ever since, he had walked with a pronounced limp.

It was the threat of his spellmaking that made Yellow-hair and the others falter. They stared at his knife the way a child might gape at a rabid cur on an otherwise deserted lane. Even Tanner regarded him with alarm. Only Sephira appeared unconcerned. Actually, she looked bored.

“Leave him,” she said in a low voice.

Nigel and his friends glanced back at her, all wearing frowns.

“We’re not going to touch him,” she said. “And he’s not going to do anything to us. Isn’t that right, Ethan?”

God knew he wanted to. He could cast a hundred spells, from simple illusions that would scare Yellow-hair into diving off the pier, to complicated, violent conjurings that would kill all of them. With a bit of blood and a few well-chosen words he could have snapped Sephira’s neck or set her men on fire. But Sephira had powerful friends, and as much as he hated her, he wasn’t willing to hang for her murder or return to the horrors of prison.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Ethan said at last, forcing a grin onto his lips. “Just give me what’s mine and I’ll be on my way.”

She laughed. He had to admit that it was a good laugh: throaty, unrestrained. Had it not been directed at him, he might have liked the sound of it.

“Nothing here is yours,” she told him.

He pointed at the sack she held in her hand. “Those watches-”

“Are mine.” She handed the watches to Nigel. “You can try to take them, but I think we both know how that will turn out.”

Ethan’s eyes flicked toward Yellow-hair, who smirked back at him. If he could have taken the watches from her with a conjuring he would have done so, but the power he wielded didn’t work that way. He could hurt her, make her drop the package. He could make the wharf collapse beneath her. He could even grind the watches to dust, rendering them worthless-this last was quite tempting. But he couldn’t make them leave her hand and appear in his own. If he wanted them, he would have to try to take them from her, and she was right: That might not work out well for him.

Ten pounds wasn’t enough to justify risking his life or his freedom. Diver might have disagreed, but Diver was young, reckless. Ethan lowered his blade.

“Good boy,” Sephira said, sounding like she was speaking to a wayward puppy.

“How did you know?” Ethan asked, his voice thick.

Her smile was luminous. “You know better than to ask me that.”

She motioned for Nigel, and the big man returned to her side, as obedient as a hunting dog. Ethan raised his blade again, making sure both Sephira and Nigel understood that he was ready to conjure at the first sign of a threat.

Sephira handed her man the watches and whispered something that Ethan couldn’t hear.

“How did you know, Sephira?” Ethan asked again.

“Ask your friend,” she said, sparing him a quick glance. “Derrey is it?”

Derrey. Diver. He was known in the streets by both names. Ethan muttered a curse under his breath.

“We’re leaving now, Ethan,” Sephira said, turning away from Nigel to face him once more. “Good work on this one. You made it very easy for us.”

She sauntered his way and then past him, hips swaying. Most of her men followed, including Gordon, a brute of a man, even brawnier than Nigel, and Nap, who was smaller than the others, though no less dangerous with a blade or gun. Ethan still held his knife over his arm, and he racked his brain for some spell that would stop her, allow him to reclaim the watches, and also enable him to make his escape.