D. Jackson - Thieves' Quarry

“No,” Hester said. “Kill him yourself.”

Blood had started to flow from Osborne’s arm again, replacing the blood Molly had used for her spell.

“ Discuti! ” Ethan muttered. “ Ex verbasc -” The spell would have shattered Osborne’s leg, using the mullein leaves in his pocket as its source. But before he could finish it Osborne kicked him again, once in the head, and a second time in the gut.

Ethan vomited onto the floor.

“So you’ve got mullein in your pocket, do you, Kaille?”

He couldn’t answer and he couldn’t fight back when Osborne knelt beside him and began to fish through his pockets for the small pouch containing his precious leaves.

“Not much,” the man said. “But more than I had b’fore.” He grinned, turned back to the two women. “Like I said, I want him dead now. And his friend, too. No more games. No more of your foolishness, Hes. Do it, and let’s end this.”

Ethan tried to rouse himself, but Osborne placed his foot on Ethan’s throat, pressing down hard enough to cut off his breathing, but not enough to crush his windpipe. Ethan thrashed at the man, but he was too hurt, too addled. He hadn’t the strength to stop them.

Molly pulled out her knife. Hester flinched at the sight of her sister’s blade, but then drew hers as well. Her face was ashen. Molly’s outburst seemed to have snuffed out the fire within her. She cut herself. Molly did the same. Locking their gazes on each other, the women began to chant.

“ Fini pulsum, ” they said in unison. “ Ex cruore evocatum. ” Stop heartbeat, conjured from blood.

Power surged through the floor, the walls, Ethan’s body. He shut his eyes, waiting for the spell to take him. He didn’t realize what the women had done until Osborne made a small strangled noise in his throat. An instant later he gave a faint grunt.

“Father?” Molly’s voice. “ Papa? Hester, what did you do? ”

The pressure on Ethan’s neck eased, and the man fell backward to the floor, landing in a sitting position. Molly screamed again. Osborne looked up at the two women, his eyes bulging, his mouth open. He jerked once, twice, struggling to inhale. His lips had turned blue. He dropped his knife and clawed at his chest, then lifted his gaze to Hester and Molly once more as his hands stilled. Molly reached out to him, but Hester snatched her sister’s hand back, staring hard at her father. Osborne swayed, tipped over onto his side, and lay motionless, his dead eyes fixed on the floor at his daughters’ feet.

Molly dropped to her father’s side, crying “Papa! Papa!” again and again. She struggled to pull him upright, but he was too heavy for her and at last she fell over him, sobbing and clutching at his shirt.

Ethan pushed himself up into a sitting position. His head spun, and his stomach ached where Osborne had kicked him. But all of that was nothing compared to the agony in his broken leg.

At his first movement, though, Molly’s head jerked up. She glared at him for an instant, scrambled to her feet, and huddled by her sister.

“What do we do with him?”

“We let him go,” Hester said, her tone firm. “He’s here because of what we did to the Graystone. None of this is his fault.”

“But Father-”

“Don’t, Molly. You know what kind of man he was. Just as Mother knew. We should never have read that last letter he sent. We should have burned it with the others.”

“I wanted him back,” Molly said in a small voice. “I missed Mama, and I wanted him back.”

“I know.”

Molly began to cry again, and Hester put her arms around her sister and gathered her close.

Watching them, Ethan leaned forward and picked up Osborne’s knife from where it lay on the floor. He cut himself, glancing up at the sisters once more. Seeing that Hester was watching him, he faltered. But she closed her eyes and stroked her sister’s hair. Ethan took this as a sign that she wouldn’t try to stop him.

He put blood on his leg and spoke his spell. “ Remedium ex cruore evocatum. ” Healing, conjured from blood.

Molly started at the hum of power and turned to face him. But her tears still flowed and he could tell that she hadn’t the strength or inclination to stop him. He let his conjuring flow into his leg, sucking his breath through his teeth at the first painful touch of the healing spell, but breathing easier as it began to knit the bone back together.

He had to cut himself twice more to complete the healing, and by the time he had finished, he was sweating and his hands shook. At last he released the spell and struggled to his feet. Once more he turned to Hester, wondering whether she would try to keep him there.

But she was already watching him. “Go, Mister Kaille. Your friend is alive still, but he needs more than we were able to give him. Take the cart if you need it.”

“Thank you,” he said. “For letting us go, and also for saving our lives.”

She flinched at the words.

“You understand-” he began.

“Do what you have to do. You were hired to learn the truth about the Graystone. You and I both know what that means.”

He nodded, holding her gaze. At last he turned away and crossed to where Diver still lay. His skin felt warmer than it had earlier, but his face remained pallid, his breathing shallow.

Ethan lifted the younger man and slung him over his shoulders. Both of his legs ached, and they nearly gave out beneath the added weight. But he staggered to the door and out into the cool, damp night. When he left the Osborne sisters, they had sunk to the floor beside their dead father. But they were still holding each other and seemed as much at peace as Ethan could expect under the circumstances.

The old cart stood near the shack, its wheels both whole, but Ethan saw little advantage to pushing it through the streets of Boston. He kept Diver on his shoulders and made his way from Hull Street back through the North End and on toward the Dowsing Rod. His legs trembled with every step and his back and shoulders soon were screaming with exhaustion and the remembered pain of his stay in the gaol. But he didn’t stop.

When regulars tried to stop him, asking what had happened to his friend, Ethan forced a smile and told them Diver was too drunk to walk on his own. The soldiers found that amusing, said something about Diver being typical of American colonists, and let them go. He used the same story three more times before reaching Kannice’s tavern.

The crowd he found in the Dowser was typical for a Monday night. There were enough people there to keep Kannice and Kelf busy, but there were also a few empty tables. When Ethan staggered inside, the warm air and din of conversations and laughter were like a slap in the face. After his seemingly endless journey through the city streets, his legs buckled beneath him just within the door. He fell to his knees and allowed Diver to slide off his shoulders to the floor.

The conversations of those nearest to him died away, and the silence crept back through the rest of the tavern, like a slow-moving fire.

“I need help,” Ethan panted.

A man called for Kannice. And another.

A moment later she was there by Ethan’s side, also on her knees. Kelf stood over them.

“What happened?” Kannice asked, concern etched in the lines around her eyes and mouth as she looked at Ethan’s bruises, the burn marks on his clothes, the gash at his eye. “Who did this?”

“I haven’t time to explain it all,” Ethan told her. “There’s more I have to do. But Diver was shot.”

She had been examining the wound on Ethan’s temple, but now she pulled back with a start. “Shot!”