Thieftaker (9 page)

“Well, thank you, Ethan. Ya’re welcome in that room for as long as you want it.”

Ethan patted the man’s shoulder. “You’re just saying that because you’ve been paid.”

Henry grinned at him, wide-mouthed and gap-toothed. “Aye,” he said. “In advants, no less.”

The thieftaker laughed as he walked back to the door and pulled it open. “I’ll see you later, Henry.”

The old man was still grinning. But he sounded deadly serious when he said, “Be careful, Ethan. That much money—ya’re bound to attract someone’s eye.”

Ethan glanced back at him. “Aye, thank you, Henry.”

Once outside again, Ethan saw that both dogs were still awake. Pitch was on his feet, his tail raised, his ears pricked. Ethan looked around, but saw nothing. As he started away, he heard the dog growl.

Wary now, he walked around to the back end of Henry’s building, and climbed the wooden stairs to his door. Just as he reached for the door handle, he heard footsteps on the stairs below him. Glancing down, he saw a large man making his way up the stairway. He was dark-haired, young, and when he looked up at Ethan, catching his eye, he leered menacingly. No wonder Pitch had been on edge.

Ethan quickly ducked into the room and locked the door behind him. He had just started to consider what kind of spell he might use on the man when he felt a powerful hand grab his shoulder and spin him around. Ethan found himself face-to-face—or rather, face-to-chest—with another large man, this one yellow-haired with a long, horsey face. Two other pairs of hands grabbed his arms, pulling them wide.

“Get his knife,” a woman’s voice commanded calmly from behind Yellow-hair.

The man in front of him yanked Ethan’s blade from the sheath on his belt. The other two released his arms, but before Ethan could move, Yellow-hair dug a hammerlike fist into his gut, doubling him over and stealing his breath. One of the other men knocked him to the floor with a hard chopping clout high on his cheek.

Before he could clear his vision or remember how to inhale, a pair of hands hoisted him to his feet. Someone pounded him in the gut a second time, and then they set to work on his face. A blow to the jaw, another to the eye, a third to the cheekbone. Ethan felt his knees buckle, felt blood trickling from his mouth and from a burning cut just below his right eye. He was tempted to conjure, but wasn’t sure he could incapacitate more than one man at a time. And before he could think of a spell, a fist to the stomach made him heave, though he managed somehow to keep from throwing up. They straightened him, and Ethan braced himself for another blow.

“Enough.”

One word, but it stopped his attackers cold. It came from Ethan’s bed, as had the demand for his blade. He didn’t have to see Sephira Pryce to recognize her voice, but he would have preferred to look her in the eye.

The hands holding him up released him, and Ethan’s legs gave way. He fully expected to fall to the floor, but someone had placed a chair behind him. He flopped into it.

He heard the door rattle behind him.

“Someone let him in,” the voice said, sounding both bored and amused. “Gordon’s going to be disappointed that he missed all the fun, Ethan. You shouldn’t have locked the door.”

Ethan forced his eyes open, and then concentrated on the face swimming before him.

As it came into focus, he was reminded once again of how dangerous it could be having any dealings with Sephira Pryce. Everything about the woman lent itself to seduction. Her voice was low for a woman’s, and slightly gravelly, so that with every word she sounded like she was purring. Reclining on his bed, her shining black curls cascading over her shoulders, she looked like some lithe, preternaturally intelligent creature from the wilds of North America. Her oval face tapered to a sharp chin, but her other features were soft, womanly. Her cheekbones were high, but her cheeks retained enough roundness to give her a pleasant look—some might even have called it friendly. Her eyes were large and bright blue, the kind of eyes that should have belonged to a child. They could convey innocence, even kindness. God knew they could be alluring, at times brazenly so. But more often than not, they were hard, shrewd, and watchful, as they were now. They were always moving, scanning faces, appraising her surroundings, preparing for a fight even as she purred and charmed her way through another negotiation.

Her nose was lovely, finely upturned and as perfect as it was the day she was born. No one who spent his or her life working Boston’s rougher lanes could avoid scars, and Sephira had plenty: small ones on her cheeks, her brow, her temples, and one long one along her otherwise smooth jaw.

But those whose work found them in the streets of Boston usually had broken their noses at least once. Not Sephira. Actually, this was something she and Ethan shared. At least for the moment. Who knew what this encounter would bring?

She always smelled subtly of lilac and she wore more jewelry than the king’s consort: glittering gemmed earrings, rings of gold and silver on her hands, and bracelets to match. The only concession she made to her profession was in her dress. She wore breeches, a blouse, and a waistcoat, like anyone who worked in the lanes, although her blouse was cut lower than a man’s, and her waistcoat was just a shade tighter. The effect could be distracting for even the most disciplined man. Already this day Ethan had been beaten and kicked, and he couldn’t be certain that Sephira didn’t intend to have him killed in the next moment or two. Yet he couldn’t keep his glance from straying to the gentle swell of her bodice as she reclined before him on the bed.

Noting this, she smiled and sat up. “You’ve missed me,” she said, as if they were old friends.

“No,” Ethan told her. “I can’t say I have.”

She replied with a small pout, stood, and began to pace the room. There was a taut grace to her movements—again Ethan saw something animal in the way she stalked across his floor.

She stood as tall as Ethan, and while she looked at first glance to be as slender as she was fair, the appearance was deceiving. He had seen her fight; once, he had felt the bite of her blade. She was as strong and quick and cunning as any man Ethan had ever battled. But her sex remained her greatest weapon. Her hair, her body, her eyes—she was bewitching. Ethan couldn’t help but watch her as she walked, and, he noticed, neither could the men who worked for her.

And yet, for all her sensual beauty, she seethed with pent-up violence. Sometimes it simmered below the surface. Sometimes it manifested itself in those who traveled with her, like the toughs who had beaten Ethan and still loomed over him, threatening to renew their assault at any moment. On occasion Sephira herself lashed out. Ethan had seen her beat a man senseless in a tavern brawl simply because the poor fool had failed to recognize her and had ordered an ale without waiting for Sephira to be served.

Despite her talents with a blade and a firearm, despite her reputation for ruthless cruelty and the lethal storm that always raged around her—or perhaps because of all these things—Sephira was renowned and respected throughout the city. Rather than hiding in shadows, with other thieves and ruffians, she walked the streets as if she were royalty. She spoke with the confidence of someone who knew beyond doubt that she was the mistress of her own fate and the fates of everyone she met. She was several years younger than Ethan, but she dispensed wisdom—or what she took for wisdom—like a sage. Ethan thought of Sephira as little more than a glorified brigand, lovely to be sure, but wicked in every way. But he took great care in concealing his true feelings. Because everyone else in Boston, including Sephira herself, considered her nearly the equal of no less a man than Thomas Hutchinson, or even the governor of Massachusetts, Francis Bernard.

It wasn’t just that she was the most important thieftaker in Boston, in all of the American colonies. She was also responsible for much of the thieving and violence that made thieftaking necessary. At least half the gems and jewelry and other riches she returned for reward were first stolen by men in her employ. She took with one hand, gave back with the other, and was paid handsomely for doing so.

Those like Ethan, who lived their lives in the streets, saw the woman for what she really was: a charming, clever villain. But to the unsuspecting, particularly the wealthy, she was the person who kept Boston’s streets safe. And by dint of having forged this reputation, she had built an empire for herself. For if she profited from her efforts to keep order in the city and see to it that stolen property was restored to its rightful owner … well, who could begrudge the woman a bit of coin?

She watched Ethan now as she circled him, a half smile on her exquisite face, an appraising look in her cold, pale eyes, as if she was weighing whether or not to have her men beat Ethan a bit more.

“You’ve been hired by Berson,” she said at length.

Ethan would gain nothing by denying it. Little happened in Boston without Sephira knowing of it; chances were she had known Berson was going to hire Ethan before the merchant’s man ever reached the Dowsing Rod. But Ethan saw no reason to confirm her suspicions. He stared back at her as the pain in his gut and his cheek gradually faded.

After several moments, Sephira flicked her gaze up to one of the men standing behind Ethan. One quick glance, that was all it took. Immediately the man behind him—Yellow-hair—grabbed Ethan by the hair, pulled his head back, and laid the edge of a blade against Ethan’s throat, much as Ethan had done to Daniel the night before.

“I believe Miss Pryce asked ye a question,” Yellow-hair said, giving Ethan’s hair an extra yank.

“Actually, she didn’t,” Ethan said, his voice strained. “She made a statement.”

The man looming over him frowned, then looked to Pryce, apparently unsure of what to make of this.

“Let him go,” she said.

The man released Ethan’s hair, but then smacked him across the top of the head. Ethan winced.

“This is why I choose to let you live, Ethan,” Sephira said, her laugh deep and throaty. Even mocking him, she sounded enticing. “You amuse me. And I’ll admit that you have some courage, as well, though the line between bravery and folly can be a fine one.”

“I didn’t realize that my life was subject to your whim,” Ethan said.

In an instant, her expression changed to a sneer. “Then you’re a greater fool than I thought. The life of every man, woman, and child in this city is subject to my whim.”

Ethan wanted to challenge her on this. Surely Sephira didn’t mean to imply that even officers of the Crown were within her reach. But he held his tongue. If she did wield such power, over even the king’s men, Ethan wasn’t certain he wanted to know about it.

“I’ll ask it as a question this time,” Sephira went on a moment later. “Have you been hired by Abner Berson in the matter of his daughter’s murder?”

“Yes, I have,” Ethan said. “Actually, that reminds me: Can you account for your whereabouts last night?”

Pryce rolled her eyes and nodded to one of the men behind Ethan.

A fist to the temple sent Ethan sprawling to the floor again and knocked over the chair. One of the men kicked him in the stomach; another kicked him in the small of the back. A wave of nausea crashed over him and once more he could barely manage to draw breath.

“Get him up,” Sephira said.

One of the toughs righted his chair, and the others lifted him off the floor and dumped him back into it, none too gently. Ethan hung his head, gasping for air, his elbows resting on his knees. He could feel Pryce watching him.

“Don’t make me do that again,” she said.

“You know he hired me, Sephira,” Ethan managed to say. “You’ve known it all along. What’s all this about?”

“What do you think it’s about?”

“I think you don’t like it when wealthy men come to me. You don’t mind me working for the likes of Ezra Corbett, because he’s hardly worth your time, but when someone like Berson hires me you feel like I’m taking money out of your purse.”

Sephira smiled, and the entire room seemed to get colder. “You see? You can be clever when you want to be.”

“You don’t want this job, Sephira. Believe me you don’t.”

“Because she was killed with witchery?”

Ethan stared back at her.

“Yes,” she said, “I knew that, too.”

“Do you know who killed her?”

She shook her head, reclining on the bed once more, like some woman from a prisoner’s dream. “I’m not sure I’d tell you if I did, but as it happens, I’ve no idea.”

Something occurred to him in that moment, but he kept it to himself. He would have time to satisfy his curiosity later in the day, provided he survived this charming interview.

“I’ve been happy to let you have the jobs involving witchcraft,” she told him, “because until now it hasn’t cost me much to do so. But that changed when Berson hired you.”

“Do you know much about conjuring, Sephira?”

“I know enough to have taken your knife from you as soon as you entered the room. You need blood, or something of the sort, to attack me with anything more than an elemental spell. And I know enough not to be afraid of elemental conjurings. Those are illusion spells. They can’t really hurt me.” Her smile this time was fleeting, though no less icy. “How am I doing so far?”

“Fairly well,” Ethan said. “But you can’t conjure, can you?”

By now, no answer would have surprised him. Still, Ethan knew a moment of profound relief when Sephira shook her head and said, “No, I can’t.”

“Then you know as well as I do, that you can’t hope to find the person who murdered Jennifer Berson without getting yourself killed. That’s the reason her father came to me.”

“Yes, it probably is.”

“So then what are we doing here, Sephira?”

“We’re making sure that you understand just that. Witchcraft is the only reason Berson hired you instead of me. And witchcraft is the only reason I’m allowing you to keep the job. The Ezra Corbetts of the world are yours. The Abner Bersons belong to me.”

Ethan eyed the woman another moment, then shook his head and let out a small laugh.

She sat up abruptly, her expression deadly serious. “You think I’m joking?”