Dead Man's Reach (36 page)

“And you, Mister Kaille? What brought you here? From what I understand, you've shown little interest in casting your lot with the patriot cause.”

“That's true. I was drawn here by something else. I can't say what.”

“Can't or won't?”

Ethan offered a thin smile. “Won't.”

“I see.”

Another memory stirred in Ethan's mind, one that should have come to him sooner.

“Did you feel my finding spell earlier this evening?” he asked.

“Naturally.”

“And you knew it was mine?”

Grant faltered, then forced a smile. “Not until this moment, no.”

“You're lying. You knew I had cast it, and so knew that I could place you here. Perhaps more to the point, you might have guessed that I was on my way to King Street. And you would have had time to communicate that information to someone else.”

“To whom would I communicate it?” Grant's laughter was brittle. “You think quite highly of yourself, Mister Kaille, to assume that your comings and goings are the stuff of my conversations.”

“How long have you been working for him?”

“For whom?”

“Nate Ramsey.”

Grant's mouth twitched.

“He chose poorly in you,” Ethan said. “You don't lie well, and your face gives you away.”

“He chose well enough.
Dormite ex—
”

Before he could finish the sleep spell, Ethan lashed out with his good leg to kick the man in the stomach.

Grant grunted a curse and collapsed to one knee. But moving faster than Ethan had expected, he swung his cane, hitting Ethan solidly in the side of his bad leg. Ethan fell.

Grant got to his feet and fled, moving awkwardly, one hand gripping his gut where Ethan's foot had connected.

Ethan forced himself up and hobbled after the man, who led him off King Street onto Leverett's Lane. As he ran, he bit down on the inside of his cheek.

“
Pugnus ex cruore evocatus,
” he said. Fist, conjured from blood. The conjuring pulsed and abruptly Reg was running alongside him.

He aimed the blow at Grant's back. As he had hoped, the spell was enough to knock the clerk off balance. He sprawled onto the ice, his cane clattering out of reach.

Ethan heard him mutter something and had time to think that it must be a spell. He felt it hum, saw Grant's ghost, the finely dressed woman with the pale orange glow, appear on the narrow lane.

An instant later, a ball of fire crashed into Ethan's chest, pounding him to the frozen ground and setting his greatcoat ablaze.

Ethan rolled right and left until the flames were extinguished. By then, though, Grant was on his feet once more, and but a few strides from the corner of Water Street.

Sitting up, Ethan grabbed his knife and cut the back of his hand.

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

Grant cried out, crumpled in a heap, and grabbed at his broken leg.

Ethan got to his feet and advanced on the man. As he did, he pulled leaves from his pouch of mullein. “
Tegimen ex verbasco evocatum.
” Warding, conjured from mullein.

His spell pulsed, and was followed only an instant later by a second conjuring. This one struck Ethan as a blow, knocking him back on his heels, but doing no more damage. His warding had held against whatever spell Grant had attempted.

The clerk made a sound like a trapped animal. Ethan saw that he had a knife in hand. Before Grant could cut himself to conjure again Ethan covered the remaining distance between them and kicked the blade out of the man's hand. It hit the wall of the nearest building and vanished in a small pile of loose snow.

Grant bit down, probably on his tongue or cheek, as Ethan himself had done while pursuing the man. A spell rang in the street, and once more Ethan was hammered by the power of Grant's conjuring. But as before, the spell had no other effect on him.

He kicked the clerk in the side, making him retch.

“I'm warded,” Ethan said. “And you're not conjurer enough to overcome my spell. Now you're going to answer some questions for me, and then I'll decide whether to give you to the sheriff or kill you myself.”

“Save your breath,” Grant said, panting the words. “I'll tell you nothing.”

“I want an answer to my question: How long have you been working for Nate Ramsey?”

He saw the man's mouth move and knew that he was trying to conjure again. Ethan dug the toe of his boot into the leg he had shattered with his conjuring. Grant howled.

“How long?”

When Grant didn't answer, Ethan kicked him a second time.

While the clerk sobbed in pain, Ethan retrieved the man's knife from the snowbank. Returning to Grant's side, he squatted beside him, grabbed his collar with one hand, and with the other set the point of the blade at the corner of the clerk's eye.

Grant stiffened.

“Answer me, or I swear I'll take out your eye.”

Tears coursed from the clerk's eyes, and snot ran from his nose, so that he resembled an overgrown boy who had taken a beating. But his expression could have flayed the skin from Ethan's bones.

“I know of no one named Ramsey,” he said.

Ethan increased the pressure of the blade against the man's skin, though he took care not to draw blood.

“It's the truth. But I … I was hired by someone. I don't know who it was.”

“How long ago?”

“Not long. Perhaps a fortnight.”

“This person came to you?”

Grant pressed his lips together.

Ethan tapped the point of the knife against his face. “Did he come to you?”

“I was approached by a man claiming to be the agent of another. He gave no names—not his own, nor that of his employer.”

“He offered you money.”

“That's right.”

“How much?”

The clerk's mouth twisted. “Five pounds. And I've been promised five more.”

It was a sizable amount, but not necessarily beyond Ramsey's means.

“And he told you to seek me out?” Ethan asked.

Grant laughed, though with little mirth. “You do have a mighty high opinion of yourself, don't you? Of course he didn't. Nor did I do any such thing. If you remember, you found me in the Green Dragon.”

“But you were there for him.”

“I was there as a supporter of the Sons of Liberty. His instructions were to watch for conjurers—any conjurers. I didn't have to change my daily routine. Indeed, the man with whom I spoke made it clear to me that I was not to do so.”

Ethan shook his head. None of this was as he had expected. “He merely told you to search for other conjurers?”

“Not even to search for them. To keep watch, to tell him of any spells I felt or spectral guides I happened to see.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“No. But I believed—” He clamped his mouth shut, his gaze sliding away.

“You believed what, Grant?” When the clerk didn't respond, Ethan tightened his hold on the man's cape and shook him. “What did you believe?”

“It might have been foolish of me, but I believed I had been hired by a friend of the patriot cause, someone who suspected that … that loyalists were using spellers to spy on Adams and the others. I suppose that sounds ridiculous.”

Ethan had battled such a conjurer several years before. He shook his head. “Not so ridiculous, no.” He adjusted his grip on the man. “What were you to do if you found anyone? What did you do after our encounter at the Green Dragon?”

“I was to write a missive describing who and what I had seen, and deliver it to a predetermined location.”

At last.
Ethan's pulse quickened. “Where? Where did you take those missives?”

“That's quite enough, I think.”

Ethan sprang to his feet and spun, gripping his knife. At first he saw no one. But then Ramsey—or rather the faintly glowing, conjured illusion of him—appeared from the darkness, like a ship emerging from mist.

The figure did not spare Ethan a look, but stared straight at the clerk. It wore Ramsey's familiar sardonic smile, but its eyes gleamed as would embers in a hearth.

“I'm disappointed in you, Grant.”

Grant appeared more perplexed than frightened. “Who are you?”

“The man who gave you those five pounds you've been telling Kaille about. I would have thought that much money bought not only your cooperation, but also a modicum of discretion.”

With Ramsey's illusion still watching the clerk, Ethan slowly moved his blade hand toward the other. If he could draw blood and cast a finding spell while Ramsey was conjuring, he might locate the captain in spite of whatever precautions he might have—

“Don't do it, Kaille. Whatever spell you're trying to cast will only make matters worse.”

“Worse for whom? For you, Ramsey? Do you think I care?”

“You've outlived your usefulness,” the figure said, addressing Grant again. “Not that you were terribly useful to begin with. But nevertheless…” He smiled again.

A conjuring surged through the ground beneath Ethan's feet. He couldn't keep himself from glancing at Reg. The ghost was already watching him.

Grant let out a strangled cry and clawed at his chest. His mouth was agape, but he did not seem to be able to draw breath.

Ethan knelt next to him. “Grant?” He glared up at Ramsey's illusion. “What are you doing to him?”

“Nothing at all. You're doing it.”

“Grant!” Ethan said again.

The clerk's eyes had gone wide. His hands still clutched his heart. He fell over onto his side, his unbroken leg kicking spasmodically.

Ethan fumbled in his coat pocket for the three pouches of herbs. Removing several leaves from each—he didn't bother to count them—he said, “
Tegimen nobis ambobus ex verbasco et marrubio et betonica evocatum.
” Warding, both of us, conjured from mullein, horehound, and betony.

The conjuring rumbled, an answer to Ramsey's spell. But Grant continued to flail silently.

“No,” said Ramsey's illusion. “I'm afraid that didn't work.”

“Damn you, Ramsey!”

“Damn me?” the illusion said. “Damn me? Thus far, I've done you a favor Kaille. You ought to be thanking me!” He pointed at the clerk. “I can kill him in as many ways as you can conjure. I can slice open his throat or shatter his neck, or do any number of things that will make it seem that he has been killed on this deserted lane by a more powerful man, a man seen with him on King Street only moments before. Or I can let him die as he's dying now, in a manner that will draw little notice. Earlier it was your choice that mattered; now it's mine. Depending upon what I do in the next few moments, you could be gaoled tonight and hanged tomorrow. You shouldn't be damning me; you should be begging.”

Ethan stared back at him, shaking with rage, at Ramsey and at his own impotence.

The illusion cocked its glowing head to the side as if considering options. “What to do. On the one hand, I'm not done with you yet. And when you die, it will be by my hand, not Greenleaf's. Then again, I would so enjoy seeing the great Ethan Kaille brought low.”

Grant's movements were growing feeble.

Ethan pulled more leaves from the pouches.

“Save your herbs, and your breath. He'll be dead in another minute, and one way or another it will have been your power that killed him.”

Ethan held the herbs in his open palm, but he could think of no conjuring that would work against Ramsey's conjuring.

“Time to choose,” the illusion whispered.

And even as the glowing figure spoke the words, another spell rumbled in the lane. Ethan didn't have to ask Reg to know that it was his own power he felt. Blood spurted from a sudden gash on Grant's neck and sprayed in a broad, dark fan across the ice.

Ethan was still on his knees, the leaves in his hand, and he fell back, scrabbling away from the man and his blood. “God have mercy!”

“I think he won't,” Ramsey said.

Ethan stared at the clerk, watching in horror as he gave one last weak kick and moved no more. He felt nauseated and utterly disgusted with himself. Mostly, though, he detested Ramsey as he had no man ever before.

“What do you want of me?” Ethan asked, the words scraped from his throat.

“I want revenge. I want you to suffer and then to die. Haven't I been clear?”

“I mean,” Ethan said, looking up at him, “what do you want to make this stop? You say you want to kill me. Fine. Tell me where to go, and I'll go there. We can fight to the death. And if you prevail, so be it.”

“No, Kaille. No. This is better by far than killing you could ever be. You're weak, desperate, filled with guilt and self-loathing for all that your power has wrought. These past few days have brought me more pleasure than I imagined they would. And I am in no hurry for them to end.” He glanced once more at Grant's body before facing Ethan once more and smiling. But he didn't vanish. Not yet. Instead he turned, facing back toward King Street. “Murder!” he cried. “Murder most foul!”

Ethan saw figures gathering at the mouth of the lane, pointing in his direction.

“Until next we meet,” Ramsey said.

The illusion faded much as it had appeared, withdrawing into the inky darkness, and leaving Ethan alone with the corpse of Jonathan Grant.

 

Chapter

T
WENTY

He remained on his knees for a moment after the conjured figure disappeared. Ramsey was exactly right. He was desperate and filled with self-loathing. In their previous encounter, Ramsey had used spells to burn him, to break his bones, to keep him from drawing breath. Indeed, the spell he had used to choke Grant might well have been one that he used to torture Ethan the previous summer. Yet nothing Ramsey did to him then hurt half as much as what he had made Ethan endure this night. So great was Ethan's anguish that as he watched the clerk die, he had been ready to give up his life to make it end.