Thieftaker (7 page)

Pell retrieved it and brought it to Ethan, setting it beside him so that the glow of the candles illuminated the girl.

Even in the better light, Ethan saw no stab wounds, no dried blood, no obvious bruises. He searched her limbs, checked her clothing for rents or cuts in the fabric. At last he rolled her onto her side to examine her back. Nothing.

He wasn’t surprised; this was why Berson had wanted him and not Sephira Pryce or some other thieftaker. This was why he had been thinking about that pulse of power ever since seeing Berson’s servant in the Dowsing Rod. Even so, he was troubled.

“There are no marks on her,” Ethan said, straightening and meeting the young minister’s gaze.

“What does that mean?” Pell asked.

“Well, it means she wasn’t killed in any of the usual ways. She wasn’t stabbed or shot. Her throat wasn’t slit. Her neck wasn’t broken.”

“Could she have been strangled?”

Ethan looked down at the girl again and shook his head. “That would leave bruising on her neck, whether done with a rope or bare hands.”

“What about poison?”

He considered this for several moments, staring at the girl’s face. Her expression in death was peaceful; she could well have been sleeping rather than dead. It was hardly the face of someone who had died by poisoning.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Ethan said.

“But you don’t believe it.”

“No.”

“Perhaps she wasn’t murdered after all.”

“Perhaps,” Ethan said absently, still regarding the body. “Mister Pell, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind getting me a cup of water?”

“What?”

“Some water. Or better yet, wine. Like you, I’m … I’m troubled by the sight of this poor girl. I need something to drink.”

“You’re lying to me,” Pell said, sounding young and just a bit frightened.

“I assure you—”

“You’re lying,” he said again. “And I want to know why.”

Ethan smiled faintly. “No, you don’t.”

“What do you mean I don’t?” Pell said, frowning deeply. “Of course I do.”

“Do you know my sister, Mister Pell?” Ethan asked. “She’s a member of the congregation.”

“Your sister?”

“You would know her as Bett Brower, the wife of Geoffrey Brower.”

“You’re Missus Brower’s brother?” The minister leaned forward, scrutinizing Ethan’s face. “Yes, I suppose I do see some resemblance. What about her?”

“Has she mentioned me to you?”

“No, why would she?”

It was a fair question, though perhaps not as Pell meant it. Bett was too protective of her status in Boston society to risk calling attention to her rogue of a brother, who also happened to be a conjurer. Thinking about it, Ethan realized that he should have been surprised that she had spoken of him even to dear Geoffrey.

“No reason in particular,” Ethan said at last. “I merely mention her to make you understand that you have no reason to distrust me. If you can simply get me some wine, I would be grateful. I’ll stay with poor Miss Berson—she won’t be alone for even a second.”

Pell said nothing, but he continued to eye Ethan, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“That’s not what you were going to say,” the man said at last. “Is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Pell stared at him. “You do know what killed her, don’t you? You just don’t want to tell me.”

“I don’t know anything,” Ethan said, trying to keep his voice even.

“Not for certain, you mean. But you have some idea. It’s there in your eyes; I can hear it in your voice. What is it you’re not telling me?”

Ethan didn’t answer, but he watched as the minister worked it out for himself.

After a moment, Pell turned back to the corpse. “She wasn’t stabbed or strangled,” he muttered. “She wasn’t shot or poisoned or killed in any of the other, more conventional ways. But she
was
murdered.” He glanced at Ethan again, his brow furrowed in concentration. And then it hit him. Ethan saw it happen. He blinked, his eyes widening. Even in the faint candlelight, Ethan saw the color drain from Mr. Pell’s cheeks.

“Oh,” the minister said. And then again, “Oh.”

“You understand?” Ethan asked gently.

“I believe I do,” Pell whispered.

“Then you understand why I need you to go.”

He squared his shoulders. “What if…?” The young man paused and took a slow breath. “What if I won’t let you do this? What if I call for Mister Troutbeck right now?”

“And tell him what?” Ethan asked.

“That … that you’re … that you’re a witch.”

“You could do that,” Ethan said. “You could make your accusations. I’ve done nothing that you could point to as evidence to support your claim. But still, he might believe you. He might have me arrested and burned or hanged. Is that what you wish to see them do to me?”

Pell looked away. “Of course not.”

“A young woman is dead. I believe she died at the hands of a conjurer. I understand that the mere mention of the so-called dark arts is enough to make some who wear those robes fall into a panic, but her family has hired me to learn the truth. And I believe that even Mister Troutbeck would want to see her killer punished.”

The minister glanced at the woman’s corpse. “What is it you want to do to her?”

“I want to find out what kind of spell killed her, and, if possible, who cast it.”

“You can learn those things?”

“Yes, I can.”

“But only by using witchery yourself. Isn’t that so?”

“Aye,” Ethan said.

“What kind?”

“What?”

“What kind of witchcraft would you be using?”

Ethan frowned. “Why would you care about—?”

“What kind of witchcraft?” the minister asked again, his eyes meeting Ethan’s. “Your sister isn’t the only person who came to this chapel with … with strange powers in her blood. I know something of conjuring, and before I risk being banished from the ministry by letting you cast on these sanctified grounds, I would like to know what you intend to do.” When Ethan still hesitated, he said, “This calls for more than an elemental spell, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Ethan told him, surprised to hear that the minister really did know something of conjuring. “It would have to be a living spell.”

“So you’ll need to spill your own blood.”

“Unless you’d like to stay and let me bleed you.”

The minister paled again, but managed a smile. “No, I think not. But a living spell could draw the attention of other conjurers.”

“Any spell will,” Ethan said. “There’s nothing to be done about that.”

They stood eyeing each other for several moments, until at last the young minister dropped his gaze to the body. “Very well, Mister Kaille. I’ll trust you not to do any more conjuring than necessary, and you can trust me to say nothing about this to Mister Troutbeck or Mister Caner.”

“Thank you, Mister Pell. I’ll do this as quickly as I can.”

“I’ll be in the sanctuary. Please call for me before leaving the crypt.” Pell glanced at Jennifer Berson once more. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

His gaze lingered briefly on the corpse. Then he left the corridor, his footsteps echoing in the stairwell. When Ethan couldn’t hear him anymore, he removed his waistcoat and pushed up his sleeve, shivering in the cool, still air. He paused over the girl for a mere instant, studying her face once more. Her expression was so serene; she couldn’t have known what was about to happen to her. She hadn’t feared her murderer. This might well have been done by someone she knew, perhaps even someone she trusted.

He pulled out his blade and dragged its edge across his forearm, making a cut long and deep enough to draw what might have been a spoonful of blood. Laying his knife on the table beside Jennifer, he dabbed his forefinger in the welling blood and traced a single dark line across the girl’s brow, and a second one from the bridge of her nose, over her lips and chin, down the length of her throat, to her breastbone.

“
Revela potestatem,
” he murmured in Latin, “
ex cruore evocatam.
” Reveal power, conjured from blood.

The words rang in the dark chamber, as if they had been spoken by several voices at once. The stone beneath his feet hummed with power, and the air around Ethan felt even more charged than it had the previous night, when he conjured the horse. This was a stronger spell; he also wondered if perhaps these grounds held some power that he didn’t fully understand.

The ghost appeared beside him, his glowing eyes fixed on the dead girl, a hungry look on his russet features.

Ethan felt the blood on his arm turn to vapor, as sweat on the brow dries in a cooling wind. He watched the blood he had placed on her face, throat, and chest vanish, as if wiped away by some unseen hand. The candles beside him guttered and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

And then the body of Jennifer Berson began to glow. The light emanated from just to the left of her breastbone and spread slowly, radiating out over her entire body, spreading up over her face and head, out to the very tips of her fingers, and down to the soles of her feet. At first Ethan thought the light had no color, that it simply reflected the hue of the candle fire. But when he moved the sconce away and looked at the girl’s body once more, he saw that the glow was actually pale silver, the color of starlight.

Usually the spell Ethan had cast would have concentrated the glow at the point where the murderer’s conjuring had struck her, but the light surrounding Jennifer’s body was as even as moonglow on a snow-covered field. And that shade of silver … Every conjurer’s power had a different hue; the variations were subtle but distinctive. Ethan’s was rust-colored, like the brick façade of the Boston Town House in the late-afternoon sun. His other sister, Susannah, was also a conjurer. Her spells left a residue of greenish blue, the color of the ocean on a clear day. But never had he seen power like this before. It was as if all the color had been sucked out of the conjuring, and this silver was all that remained.

Old Reg’s ghost flashed a mocking grin. Then he vanished again.

Ethan had no doubt that Jennifer had been killed by a conjuring, but he couldn’t imagine what kind of spell had been used against her. It was possible that the way the glow had spread over her body offered some clue. An attack aimed at her heart might have produced such an effect by following the flow of her blood, though in Ethan’s experience such an assault, when revealed by the spell he had cast, should have left a gleaming spot over her chest.

There was another spell he could try, one that could tell him what the murderer had used to fuel his spell. Every conjuring had to draw upon its source, be it one of the elements—fire, water, earth, or air—for the simplest spells, or something drawn from a creature or plant for living spells. The revealing spell Ethan had just tried demanded his own blood. Other living spells could be cast using herbs or tree sap or wood.

Just as every conjurer left his or her color on the residue of a spell, so the source left an imprint as well, if one knew the casting required to reveal it. Ethan did. And perhaps knowing how the spell had been cast would help him learn a bit more about the murderer. He had told Pell that he would speak only the one spell. But this would likely be his only chance to examine the girl’s corpse, and it struck Ethan as foolish not to do everything in his power to learn the identity of her killer.

The wounds he made to conjure began to heal themselves almost as soon as he spoke his spells, which meant that he needed to cut himself again for this second casting. He retrieved his knife from the table, bared his arm, and laid the blade against his skin.

Before he could draw blood, however, he heard a light footfall behind him.

“Don’t you dare!” a voice warned, echoing off the ceiling and stone walls. “Not in this place!”

Chapter

F
IVE

E
than turned slowly, holding up the knife and extending his arm to show that he hadn’t cut himself again.

“Hello, Bett.”

His sister frowned at him and then shifted her gaze to Jennifer’s body. “What have you done to her? Why does she look like that?”

“I tried to learn something of the conjurer who killed her.”

“She was killed by witchery?” Bett said. She walked past him, her satin dress and petticoats rustling. “You’re sure?”

“Look at her,” Ethan said.

“You did that.”

“I merely made the power reveal itself. Her killer did that.”

Bett stared at the dead girl for a long time, chewing her lip; he remembered that from when she was young. She and Ethan had never gotten along, even as children. He and Susannah, on the other hand, had been inseparable, which probably had made matters worse for their middle sister. Bett had always been so serious, so righteous, far more like their father than their mother. She even looked like Ellis. She had his straight brown hair, his dark blue eyes, his square, handsome face. Susannah was Sarah’s daughter in every respect. Not only did she resemble their mother; she also had Sarah’s sharp wit and hearty laugh. Ethan had always felt a kinship to both of them. But except for the scars he now bore, he looked just like Bett and just like their father. Throughout his life he had thought this ironic, though he couldn’t help thinking that those who knew him best—Kannice, Diver, Henry—wouldn’t have seen the irony. They thought him grave, even ill-tempered at times, and they were right. The years had left him far more like Bett and his father than he had been in his youth.

“It’s an odd color,” Bett finally said, her voice low.

“I was thinking the same thing before you came in.” He regarded her slyly. “Maybe you have a knack for conjuring.”

One might have thought from the smoldering look in her eyes that he had accused her of thievery, or worse. “That’s not funny.”

Susannah would have laughed. So would Mother.
But he kept these thoughts to himself. When they were young, their mother had taught all of them to conjure. But while Ethan and Susannah had quickly shown an aptitude for spellmaking, Bett had not. It was one more reason why Ethan and Susannah had been so close to each other and to their mother. As a boy he had thought Bett difficult; only later did it occur to him that she had probably felt left out, lonely.