Dead Man's Reach (24 page)

The customs man scowled. “Yes, all right.”

Paxton led him back through to the front of the house, moving far too slowly for Ethan's purposes. It was all Ethan could do not to scream at the man to walk faster.

“I'll return tomorrow, sir,” Ethan said as they reached the door. “Thank you for your time.”

“Wait a minute, Mister Kaille. Do you mean to tell me that visiting this publick house is all you plan to do?”

“No, sir. I plan as well to speak with your servant, and to see if I can find any soldiers or journeymen working at the rope yard who might have lavished their attentions on her. But I intend to start at the tavern, because if I don't, and your property shows up there and is sold, you'll never see any of it again.”

“Yes, but—”

“Mister Paxton, I have been a thieftaker for many years now. I wouldn't visit the Customs House and tell you how to do your job. Please don't presume to tell me how to conduct my inquiry.”

Paxton's face shaded to crimson, but he essayed a thin smile. “Yes, very well. Good day, Mister Kaille.”

“Good day, sir.”

Ethan donned his hat and hurried back out to the street, but by the time he was close enough to the rope yard to see what was happening, events had already begun to turn ugly.

A soldier stood near the first of the ropewalks, trading insults with a journeyman as other workers looked on, laughing at each of the journeyman's barbs. Ethan could not hear all that was said, but he saw that the soldier's hands were clenched in fists, and that his face was bright red. Even as he shouted something back at the workers and took a step toward them, another man, using a nearby building to remain hidden, snuck up behind the regular and knocked his legs out from under him.

The soldier fell hard on his back, drawing uproarious laughter from the other men. Their mirth, however, was short-lived. A cutlass had slipped from within the soldier's coat when he went down. The man who had upended him grabbed the weapon and held it up for his fellow workers to see.

“Looks like I've got a prize,” he said.

The soldier got to his feet, moving stiffly. He glowered at the men, but there were five of them, and he was alone and now unarmed. With a last dark look at the workers, he retreated toward the barracks.

After what he had seen at the Richardson house days before, Ethan knew better than to think that this was the end of the confrontation. He was not at all surprised when he felt another conjuring.

“Did that come from me?” he asked Uncle Reg.

The ghost nodded.

Ethan pursued the soldier, hoping that he might be able to dissuade the man from trying to avenge himself on the workers. But as he drew near, the soldier turned and pointed a trembling finger at him.

“You stay away from me!”

Ethan held up hid hands. “I'm not one of them, and I'm not trying to harm you.”

“It's not me who'll come to harm! I'll have my sword back, and I'll have satisfaction! You'll see!”

“No good can come of this,” Ethan said.

But the soldier dismissed him with a wave of his hand and ran on to the barracks.

Ethan stared after him, and then turned back toward Paxton's mansion and the journeymen. The laborers had returned to their work, though as Ethan reached them, they were still laughing and talking about how foolish the regular had looked as he fell.

“End this now,” Ethan called to the men. “Return his cutlass and have nothing more to do with them.”

The man who had taken the soldier's sword regarded Ethan with scorn, as Ethan had known he would. Why would these men want to end the conflict when they had gotten the better of its first skirmish? Another of the men called to his companions and pointed in the direction of the barracks. The other men gazed that way and fell silent.

Ethan didn't have to look to know what they saw, but still he turned. The soldier was striding down the center of the street, leading nine uniformed men, all of them carrying clubs.

The workers took shelter in the rope yard warehouse. Upon reaching the entrance to Gray's enterprise, the soldiers followed them inside.

“Damn!” Ethan started toward the building, then stopped himself, unsure of how to proceed. “What should I do?” he asked Reg.

The ghost lifted an arm and pointed northward, away from the warehouse.

“I should go to the barracks?”

Reg shook his head and pointed a second time, more emphatically.

“You're saying I should leave.”

Reg nodded.

“But I'm responsible. The spells that started this came from me.”

Again the ghost nodded, lifting his arm once more.

“You think they'll continue to fight until I'm gone.”

The ghost offered no reply. He simply stared at Ethan, waiting.

Ethan knew that Reg was probably right, although he knew as well that there were spells he could use to keep the men from killing one another. The question was, how many times could he cast a sleep spell or some other sort of protective conjuring in front of others before someone decided to have him hanged for a witch? He had been lucky two days before on Long Wharf, and before that on the night of Chris Seider's funeral. He couldn't expect to be so fortunate forever.

He heard shouts coming from within the warehouse, and he watched as several more journeymen entered the building, all of them carrying woldring sticks, which they used to wind rope, but which would serve as cudgels as well. He had not felt another spell for several minutes, but apparently one wasn't needed; like a fire burning bright, this fight needed no more kindling.

 

Chapter

T
HIRTEEN

With one last glance at the warehouse, Ethan left Hutchinson Street, choosing to circle the base of Fort Hill rather than risk passing too close to Green's Barracks. He scanned the harbor and wharves as he walked, but his search for Nate Ramsey's ship proved as fruitless this morning as it had every time before.

Willing to try anything to keep the unseen conjurer from using him in this way, Ethan stopped on a stretch of empty road between the South Battery and Milk Street and pulled his pouch of mullein from the pocket of his coat.

“
Tegimen ex verbasco evocatum,
” he said. Warding, conjured from mullein. The spell hummed in the street, a declaration to his enemy.

Ethan didn't know if the spell would work as he intended, but he had to make the attempt. If he could protect himself and those around him, he would have a better chance of finding whoever it was who had been casting these spells.

Shielded by his conjuring, Ethan continued on to the North End and what might have been the most disreputable tavern in all of Boston. The Crow's Nest sat at the southern extreme of Paddy's Alley, near the waterfront. Where Kannice did all she could to keep the Dowsing Rod free of fights, whoring, and other questionable behavior, the Crow's Nest seemed to exist for those things. It was run-down and filthy. The ale served there was swill; Ethan had never dared taste the food. He wasn't entirely sure that the place served any. But for those who trafficked in stolen goods—and thus, for thieftakers attempting to recover those items—the Nest might well have been the most important establishment in the city.

In the ten years since Ethan's return to Boston from the plantation in the Caribbean where he labored as a prisoner, the Crow's Nest had seen a succession of ill-starred proprietors. Some had died; others had been transported to the Caribbean for crimes they might or might not have committed. The current owner, Joseph Duncan, was a slight, excitable Scotsman who had barely survived a bout with small pox back in 1764. His face was pitted and scarred from the distemper.

When Ethan entered the tavern, Dunc was standing at the bar, reading a newspaper, and, as always, puffing on a tobacco pipe and sending clouds of sweet smoke into the rafters.

Seeing Ethan, he turned his back on the door and raised the paper so that it hid his face.

Ethan took off his hat and his gloves and stepped to the bar, planting himself beside the man. He slid a half shilling onto the worn wood.

“An ale,” he said to the barkeep.

The man dropped the coin into the till and filled a tankard.

Ethan had no intention of drinking the stuff—it looked and tasted enough like horse piss to make Ethan suspicious of its origins. But he also wasn't going to pay Duncan for the information he sought, so he thought that buying an ale was the least he could do.

Picking up the tankard, he turned and leaned back against the bar, surveying the tavern. The men who sat at tables in pairs and groups of three and four appeared perfectly at home amid the squalor of the Nest, which told Ethan everything he needed to know about them.

Dunc still had not acknowledged him, though the amount of smoke billowing from his pipe seemed to have increased.

“You can't ignore me forever, Dunc.”

“Who says I can't?” he answered from behind the paper.

“
Imago ex cervisia evocata,
” Ethan said, his voice low. Illusion, conjured from ale.

The pulse of this spell was weaker than most of the others Ethan cast because it was an elemental spell. But it did what he had hoped it would: Illusory flames erupted from the pages of the
Gazette
.

Dunc jumped, dropped the paper to the floor, and stamped on it.

Ethan whispered. “
Fini imaginem ex cervisia evocatam.
” Again, power pulsed, and the illusion vanished.

The other men in the tavern stared at Dunc the way they would at a lunatic.

“You're a bit skittish, aren't you?” Ethan said, grinning.

Dunc pulled the pipe from between his yellow teeth. “That wasn't funny, Kaille.”

“I'd have to disagree.”

Dunc put the pipe back in his mouth with a click of teeth on clay. “What do you want, anyway?”

Ethan raised an eyebrow. “You have to ask?”

“I'm not helping you find anything. You come in here every time you have a new job, and you seem to think it's up to me to find what you were hired to retrieve. Well, I'm through with that.” Dunc gave a nasty smile. “Go talk to Pryce. Maybe she'll help you.”

“You're right, Dunc.”

“Well, you can think whatever you want, but—” He blinked. “What?”

“I said you're right. I shouldn't be asking you to do my work for me. So instead, allow me to help you out.”

He pulled Paxton's list of pilfered goods from his pocket and unfolded it. All the while, Dunc watched him the way a fox would a hound.

“What's that?”

“The list of items I'm looking for.”

“I just told you—”

Ethan held a finger inches in front of the Scot's nose, stopping him. “I heard you, Dunc. These things were stolen from the home of Charles Paxton.”

“You're working for Paxton?” He grinned. “Things that bad then?”

“If any of these items come through the Nest, and word of it gets back to the customs boys, they'll shut you down. Even Greenleaf won't be able to talk them out of it.”

Dunc's smile faded slowly. “Aye, you're probably right.” He took the list from Ethan and perused it.

“Have you seen any of it?” Ethan asked.

“Not yet. When was it pinched?”

“I don't think it's been more than two days.”

Dunc handed him back the parchment. “Have you any idea who cracked the house?”

“I have no proof, but forced to guess, I'd say it was one of the regulars billeted over at Green's Barracks.”

“Well, I'm not going out of my way to tell you when these things show up here, but I'll make it clear to my fences that they're not to buy any of Paxton's stuff in my place.”

“That's all I ask. My thanks, Dunc.” He raised the tankard to his lips but thought better of taking a sip. He set it on the bar. “You really should serve better ale.”

“I've told you before, coves don't come here for the drink.”

“No, I don't imagine they do.”

Dunc frowned. “Get out.”

Ethan pulled on his gloves and picked up his hat off the bar.

As he did, a spell trembled in the walls of the tavern. He looked sharply at Reg, who gave a single nod.

But nothing happened. None of the men in the tavern started arguing or fighting. None of them so much as glanced Ethan's way. His warding had held. Or so he thought.

An instant later, a second spell shook the building, as puissant and clear as the pealing of a church bell. This time, Ethan felt the conjuring within his chest, as if the person who cast it had reached between his ribs and taken hold of his heart.

“Kaille? Are you all right?” Dunc asked, genuine concern on his narrow face.

“I don't know.”

Chair legs scraped on the tavern's wooden floor. Two men who had been sitting at the nearest of the tables were now standing, glaring at Ethan. Seeming to respond to some silent command, both men drew their blades as one and started toward the bar.

Dunc backed away from them. “What the devil are you two doing?”

Ethan slid his knife from its sheath.

“Kaille?”

“Stay back, Dunc.”

The men said not a word. Ethan didn't think that they even shared a look. But they separated, one stepping to Ethan's left, the other to his right. Both were tall, powerfully built. He had no doubt that they were skilled fighters.

Ethan still wore his greatcoat; he didn't think he could take it off before they attacked, and he wasn't sure he could fight them while wearing it. But he managed to pull off his left glove and cut the skin on the back of his hand.

“
Discuti ambo ex cruore evocatum.
” Shatter, both of them, conjured from blood.

Both men's blades broke, shards of metal falling to the floor with a sound like the tinkling of breaking icicles.