D. Jackson - Thieves' Quarry

“You should leave.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I need to know where your father is. I believe he has a friend of mine with him.”

She regarded him, a shrewd look in her eyes. “What friend?”

“Where is he?”

Hester stared at him for another moment before shaking her head. “You should leave now,” she said, her voice wavering. “It’s not safe for you here, and … you should just go. Quickly.”

Ethan stepped closer to the house, and even put one foot on the bottom stair. “He’s here, isn’t he? Your father is inside.”

“Please-”

“Hester?”

The woman turned, and Ethan looked past her. Molly Osborne stood in the doorway, the candlelight within the house shrouding her in shadow.

“It’s all right, Molly. Go back inside.”

“But it’s not all right.”

The two women gazed at each other for several seconds. Ethan couldn’t see either of their faces, but he sensed their tension, their fear.

Hester looked down at him again. “Go, Mister Kaille! Now!”

He shook his head with grim purpose and stepped up onto the front porch of the shack. “I can’t.”

Before he could shoulder his way past her, a knife flashed in her hand and she cut the back of her own wrist.

“ Corpus alligare! Ex cruore evocatum! ” Bind body! Conjured from blood!

The thrum of her conjuring seemed to rattle the house, and the glowing red ghost of a young man appeared beside her. Ethan had warded himself, but hers was a powerful casting. Without the warding it would have incapacitated him; as it was, he had to struggle to move his limbs, as though he had been snared in a heavy net. He lurched forward, but managed not to fall on his face.

“You can’t go in there,” she said.

“What the hell was that?” a man bellowed from the back of the house. He sounded drunk or sleepy, or both.

Ethan glared at Hester before pushing past her again. This time she let him go.

Molly stood just inside the door, her fists clenched, her jaw set in defiance. “You should have listened to her!” she said.

But he stepped around her as well, starting toward the small back room of the ramshackle house.

Before he reached it, though, a man blocked his way. The boyish face and round cheeks were familiar, as were the flecks of gray in his straight brown hair. Unlike the last time Ethan had seen him, though, Caleb Osborne now looked very much alive.

He held a pistol in one hand and in the other he grasped the arm of a second man, whom he had dragged from the back room. Giving this figure a hard yank, he pulled the man into view and then let the slack arm drop to the floor.

Ethan needed no more than a cursory look to know who this second man was. The black curls, the square handsome face, marred now by dark bruises around both eyes, and a good deal of dried blood around his nose and mouth. Diver. There was a deep gash under one of his friend’s eyes and another high on the side of his head. His hair was matted with blood. He appeared still to be alive, but Ethan didn’t know how long he could keep his friend that way.

Osborne laughed at what he saw on Ethan’s face. He shoved the toe of his shoe under Diver’s shoulder and pushed hard, rolling the young man onto his back, so that his head lolled to the side and struck the doorframe with a dull thud.

“This who you’re lookin’ for?” Osborne asked.

Osborne planted his foot on Diver’s chest and aimed his pistol, full-cocked and ready to fire, at the center of the unconscious man’s forehead. Looking over at Ethan, he grinned, revealing a large gap where his bottom front teeth should have been.

“I see by your glowin’ friend there”-he tipped his head in Reg’s direction-“that you know somethin’ of conjurin’. And you obviously care ’bout this one. So I’m gonna keep my flintlock just like this, and you’re gonna answer some questions for me. Get it?”

“What do you want to know?” Ethan asked.

“Let’s start with your name.”

“I’m Ethan Kaille.”

“And what the hell are you doin’ in my house, talkin’ to my girls, and pokin’ your nose in my business?”

Ethan glanced at Hester, who had closed the door and was watching him and her father.

“Don’t look at her!” Osborne said, his voice suddenly so loud that both women started. “It’s me as asked you the question!”

“I’m a thieftaker,” Ethan said.

“Ah,” the man said, nodding. “I figured as much, or somethin’ like it. You’re after what’s mine.”

“I’m not the only one. You’re playing a dangerous game with Sephira Pryce.”

“You let me worry ’bout her. The Empress of the South End don’t scare me.” He looked Ethan up and down, seeming to take stock of what he saw. “You know what you’re chasin’ or are you just lookin’ for the first coin that comes your way?”

“I’m looking for the pearls that you and Simon Gant stole from Sephira.”

Osborne had been grinning all this time, but now the grin faded. He waved the pistol at Diver. “So that’s where this one comes in, eh? He’s workin’ with you, or for you.”

“He’s no one: a lad I hired to do a little work. That’s all. Let him go. You have me now. I’m a lot more important than he is.”

“I don’t think so. He’s important to you , and that makes him valuable to me.” He narrowed his eyes, much as Hester had done. Up until that moment, Ethan hadn’t noticed the resemblance between Osborne and his daughters. But it struck him as obvious now that he was looking for it. “But tell me, Kaille. What makes a thieftaker so important?”

When Ethan didn’t answer, Osborne pressed the barrel of his pistol against Diver’s forehead and looked Ethan’s way.

What could he do but answer? “I’m working for the Crown.”

“The Crown?”

Ethan laughed, breathless and desperate. “You didn’t think you could attack a British ship that way and not attract the notice of the king’s men, did you? Are you that much a fool?”

The muscles in Osborne’s jaw bunched. “Have a care, man,” he said. “I’ll kill him, and then I’ll kill you, and I’ll sleep fine tonight havin’ done it.”

Ethan swallowed the retort that leaped to mind.

“What is it the Crown has you doin’?” he asked, his tone mocking, his pronunciation of the word “Crown” exaggerated.

“Looking for you, as it turns out.”

“Well, that’s too bad for you, Kaille. ’Cause they’ll never know that you found me.” Osborne looked past Ethan. “I want him bound, girls.”

Neither Hester nor Molly moved.

“Now!” their father said, sounding like he was speaking to ten-year-olds.

“He warded himself,” Hester said, her voice shaking. “I tried a spell against him before. It didn’t work.”

Osborne grinned. “Do it the way I taught you. Together.”

Molly made a small sound in her throat, like a trapped animal. Hester laid a hand on her sister’s arm and looked to her father once more.

“Do it!” Osborne’s words seemed to lash at the women.

Hester continued to glare at him. He stared back at her, daring her to defy him. And in the end, she looked away.

“It’s all right, Molly,” she said, her tone gentle. “It’s just a binding.”

Ethan watched them all, looking back and forth between the young women and their father. He knew better than to reach for his knife, but he remembered the two mullein leaves he still carried with him. They weren’t enough for a powerful casting, but perhaps a simpler spell would be enough. He had a feeling that if he could overpower Caleb, the women would let him take Diver and go.