A Plunder of Souls (The Thieftaker Chronicles) Page 6

  “I don’t,” Ethan said. “But you have some, don’t you?”

  “O’ course. I always have some. But I don’t like sellin’ it. Don’t like where it comes from.”

  “And where is that?”

  She stared at him briefly before motioning with her head toward the table at which she had been sitting when he came in. Ethan picked up his wine and followed her.

  She lowered herself into her chair and gathered her shawl around her shoulders once more. Ethan sat opposite her.

  “Why are you sudd’nly so interested in bone?”

  “Work,” Ethan said. “I need some information.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much.” Her expression had soured, but her voice remained mild. “You come in here throwin’ money around like that, an’ I knew you’d want knowledge from me. You always do.”

  Ethan said nothing, but watched her, awaiting some sign that he could ask his questions.

  “Well, go on!” she said. “You spent your coin. Might as well make the most of it.”

  He smiled. “Thank you, Janna.”

  She scowled and waved away his gratitude.

  “What did you mean before, when you said that you didn’t like selling bone because of where it comes from?”

  “What do you think I meant? I can make money sellin’ bone. People pay a lot for it. But I don’t like thinkin’ ’bout graves bein’ dug up, and dead people bein’ riled.” She shook her head. “Wrathful dead ain’t good for any of us.”

  “Are there resurrectionists here in Boston?”

  “O’ course there are. Have been for as long as I can remember. We didn’ always call them that. For a while they was just grave robbers, like the rest. But, yeah, they’re here.”

  “Can you tell me who they are?”

  Janna shook her head. “I may not like what they do, but I’ve still got to do business with them. I can’ risk makin’ them angry.”

  “I understand. Tell me this: Are certain bones more powerful than others?”

  “You mean for spells?”

  Ethan nodded.

  Janna sipped her wine. “I suppose. Skulls are the most powerful. No doubt about that. Ribs are said to be powerful, too. I’m not sure I believe it. Most of what I sell is ground anyway, and there’s no tellin’ what’s in that. I know it’s human,” she added, anticipating his next question, “because if it wasn’ the spells wouldn’ be as strong.”

  “What about a foot?” Ethan asked.

  “A foot?” Janna repeated. She shook her head. “No, there ain’t nothin’ particularly strong about the bone from people’s feet.” She regarded him, her eyes shining in the lamp light. “What’s this about, Kaille?”

  “I’m not sure yet. There have been a series a grave robberies at King’s Chapel. Skulls and hands taken from all of them. And a few other parts as well.”

  “Like feet,” she said, her expression shrewd.

  “That’s right. And from what you’re telling me, I gather that any bone can be used for conjuring.” He regretted mentioning the feet. He didn’t want every conjurer in Boston to know that the dead were being mutilated to look more like him.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Animal bone will work, too. Not as well, o’ course. Human is better, and skulls is best. After that, a foot is probably as good a source for a livin’ spell as anythin’ else. Thing is, though, if it was conjurers stealin’ bone to sell, they’d take everything. Takin’ parts is a lot of trouble for not much goods, if you know what I mean.”

  Ethan gazed down into his cup, mulling what she had said. Conjurers spoke of three types of spells. Elemental spells, the simplest of all conjurings, drew upon one of the elements—earth, water, air, or fire—as the source of “fuel,” for lack of a better word, for the spell. These tended to be weak conjurings, illusions mostly; visions conjured to mislead the unsuspecting. Living spells, those Janna had just mentioned, were more powerful, and therefore demanded more substantive sources. Such castings drew upon blood or bone or flesh, leaves like mullein, the stems of plants, or the bark or wood of a living tree. The resulting conjurings could change the shape of matter. They could break wood or metal, set objects afire, heal wounds, or slice through flesh and shatter bones. Most of the conjurers Ethan knew relied on elemental or living conjurings. These two groupings accounted for every spell Ethan had ever cast save one.

  That one spell had been what was called a killing spell. Killing spells were far and away the most powerful conjurings a spellmaker could cast. They could be used to murder at will, to control the minds and actions of others, to wreak havoc and destruction on a scale most people who knew nothing of conjuring could scarcely fathom. They were, to Ethan’s mind, inherently dark, but he knew that some conjurers would argue the point.

  He could perceive spells cast by others, just as he did his own. They felt like the thrumming of a bowstring, or the deep rumble of distant thunder. And he liked to think he would have known if within the past few days someone had cast a killing spell here in Boston. But he couldn’t be certain, and once more he thought back to the conjurings that had disturbed his sleep the previous night.

  The raiding of the King’s Chapel graves and the mutilation of the corpses struck him as too odd, too sinister, to be nothing more than the work of a thief with odd predilections. And yet Janna raised a legitimate question. With other sources for living spells available, why would a conjurer go to such great lengths to steal bone? Perhaps he hadn’t needed to come to Janna after all.

  “You don’t think that these thefts were committed by a sorcerer,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I never said that.”

  Ethan’s apprehension had begun to abate. Now it returned in a rush.

  “I can’t imagine anyone who wasn’t a conjurer stealin’ specific body parts like that,” she said. “But it wasn’t done to sell the bone.”

  He reached for his wine, but thought better of drinking it. “There’s more,” he said. He didn’t want to tell her, but Janna was the one person who might help him judge what sort of threat he faced. “I said that the robbers took feet. That’s not quite right. They took part of the left foot on each body. And that part corresponds to the part I lost when I was a prisoner.”

  Janna gaped at him and pulled her shawl tighter. “I don’t like the sound of that, Kaille. Not one bit.”

  “Also, there was a symbol carved into the chest of each corpse. Do you have something I can use to write?”

  Usually Janna would have told him where he could find a quill, ink, and parchment. Not this time. She got up herself, walked behind the bar, and came back seconds later with what he needed.

  “This was cut into the men,” he said, drawing the triangle with straight lines within. “And this was cut into the women.” He drew the second symbol. “Do those mean anything to you?”

  She shook her head, her jaw muscles tightening.

  “Do you have any idea what kind of conjuring the people behind this might have it in mind to do?”

  “No. I don’t know for sure that it’s for spells. But I don’t like it. It just seems … wrong.”

  Ethan couldn’t argue. He stood.

  “My thanks, Janna.”

  “For what? I didn’t tell you anythin’.”

  His smile was rueful. “No. But you confirmed everything that I was already thinking. There’s something wicked at work here.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “And it’s aimed at you.”

  “I’d prefer that we keep this conversation between us.”

  “All right.”

  Ethan crossed to the door.

  “Who are you workin’ for?” she asked, as he reached for the door handle.

  “King’s Chapel,” Ethan said. “But I’m working for free.”

  She nodded her approval. “You use that mullein, all right? It won’t protect you from everythin’ but it’ll keep you safer than just a regular wardin’.”

  “I will. Again, thank you.”

  He stepped
out of the tavern into blinding daylight and oppressive heat. Remembering what the King’s Chapel sexton had said—that King’s Chapel wasn’t the only place where this was happening—he retraced the path he had taken the night before. Rather than following Orange Street back to the South End and Cornhill, he cut up to the unpaved road that ran along the edge of Boston’s Common.

  Children played tips on the grass, laughing and shouting taunts at one another. A pair of women walked toward him, each carrying an infant. Swallows and swifts swooped and darted overhead, chattering, and high above them a lone hawk circled lazily in the hazy sky. It felt much like any summer day in Boston, save for the shadow that hung over him.

  There weren’t many other conjurers in Boston other than Ethan and Janna, and none of those of whom Ethan was aware would have resorted to robbing graves for spells. Which meant that someone new had come to the city, someone with unholy purpose.

  Before long, Ethan arrived at the Common Burying Ground, the newest of Boston’s cemeteries, and also the largest. Although it had been established just thirteen years before, it was already crowded with gravestones. Ethan entered the grounds and walked a short distance before halting and looking around. Unlike the King’s Chapel Burying Ground, this expanse was not affiliated with any church. Ethan wasn’t certain where to begin his search for someone he could ask about any possible desecrations.

  He resumed his wandering, and for what seemed like an hour he walked up one row of graves and down the next, seeing no sign of disturbed earth. The burying ground was vast, but eventually Ethan realized he had covered all of it without finding any desecrated graves. He should have been relieved; perhaps the sexton had been mistaken, and these incidents were limited to the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. Try as he might, though, he could not convince himself of this.

  His trepidation growing, he left the Common Buying Ground and continued along the edge of the Common to the old Granary Burying Ground, one of the oldest cemeteries in the city; only the grounds at King’s Chapel and at Copp’s Hill, in the North End, were older. Here were buried several men of note, including Peter Faneuil, for whom the marketplace in Cornhill had been named, and Samuel Sewall, the judge who had presided over the witch trials in Salem in 1690, and who had seen the sentence of death carried out for the convicted.

  Ethan followed a narrow stone path into the burying ground and once more searched for a caretaker or gravedigger. There was no church in this burying ground either. The granary located in the middle of the expanse was just that: a building constructed long ago that housed the town’s supply of grain.

  He began to walk the perimeter of the grounds, the sun beating down on him. A few years before, elms had been planted along the road, but they were too small to offer much shade, and the property was otherwise devoid of trees. Still walking, Ethan removed his waistcoat and draped it over his arm, all the while sweeping his gaze over the graves before him, searching for signs of disturbed earth.

  Before long, he found what he sought: a single grave had been dug up much as those at King’s Chapel had been. He faltered in midstep, both relieved that he had managed to find what he sought, and troubled at the thought of more desecrations. Forcing himself into motion once more, he approached the site, but faltered a second time when the stink hit him.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  Pledging to himself that he would never again take on an inquiry that required him to look into grave robberies, he closed the remaining distance between himself and the grave. He looked around the grounds again. Seeing no one—and hoping no one could see him—he lowered himself into the grave and examined the damage done to the coffin. As with those at King’s Chapel, the wood appeared to have been shattered with an axe. The burial cloth had been cut open, and the corpse—that of a woman, judging from the clothing—had been beheaded. The right hand was missing as well, and it appeared that a piece of cloth had been torn from her dress.

  Steeling himself, he pulled down the front of the dress until he could see the rotting flesh over her breastbone. The symbol he had seen on the dead women at King’s Chapel had been carved into this corpse, too. Finally, he worked her left foot free. Or what was left of it.

  “Damn,” he said again.

  He covered up the corpse as well as he could, climbed out of the grave, and resumed his search, now walking with greater urgency. He did not immediately find another desecrated site, but he did spot a man working on a grave, a shovel in his hands. Ethan strode toward him, wiping sweat from his face.

  “Well met, sir!” he called.

  The man glanced up from his work, but said nothing, and soon turned his attention back to the grave at his feet. He looked to be about Ethan’s age. He was short, powerfully built, with small dark eyes and black hair. He wore torn brown breeches and a stained blue linen shirt that was soaked through with sweat.

  “Can I speak to you for a moment?” Ethan asked, stopping a few steps from the man.

  “I suppose,” the laborer said without pausing.

  “Is this a new grave, or one you’ve had to cover up again because of a robbery?”

  At that, the man ceased his labors and turned. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Ethan Kaille. I’ve been asked by the Reverend Henry Caner to inquire into a series of desecrations at the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. I spoke this morning with Mister Thomson, the sexton there.”

  “You know James?” the man said, squinting against the sun.

  “Aye.” Ethan extended a hand. “You are?”

  The man stared at Ethan, his mouth twisting. At last, he wiped his hand on his breeches and gripped Ethan’s for just a second. “Robert Helms.” The name tumbled out of his mouth in a jumble.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Robert.” Ethan surveyed the burying ground. “Have resurrectionists struck here, too?”

  “Aye,” the man said. “Graves have been disturbed each of the last three nights. Six in all.”

  “What was taken?”

  Robert shook his head. “It’s a gruesome business.”

  “I realize that. But I need to know what they took.”

  “Heads off of each one,” he said. “And a hand, too. Damn surgeons and their dissections. I’ll have nothing to do with any of them.”

  “Was that all?” Ethan asked, keeping his voice level. “Just the heads and hands?”

  “I think so. Why? Isn’ that enough?”

  Ethan didn’t answer. “Would it be all right if I took a look at the graves that have been disturbed?”

  “Aye. I can take you around, show you where they are. They’re scattered about, and it’s a large burying ground.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “This was the first one right here,” Robert said, gesturing with his shovel at the grave he had been working on when Ethan found him. “We can’ bury him again until that coffin is repaired. I’ve been clearing away as much dirt as I can so that we can bury him proper a second time.”

  Ethan bent to look at the gravestone, which read, “Emmett Peter George, b. 5 November 1728, d. 26 February 1769.” Glancing down into the grave, Ethan saw a grisly and now-familiar sight: a broken coffin and a burial cloth slit to reveal a decayed corpse, headless, a hand missing.

  He didn’t want to have Robert with him as he examined the corpses to see if each one had been marked and had its left foot mutilated. He felt ghastly enough climbing down into the graves and handling the dead. Having an audience would make it that much worse. But he couldn’t imagine how he might ask the man to keep his distance.

  “Forgive me, Robert, but I need to look at Mister George’s corpse.”

  “What d’you mean? Look at it how?”

  “I need to see his chest, and his left foot.”

  The caretaker’s eyes glinted dangerously in the sunlight. Ethan could see that he had tightened his grip on the shovel. “Why?” he asked.

  Ethan sensed it would be a mistake to mention that he had already looked at one corps
e here in the Granary Burying Ground. “Because every corpse in every disturbed gravesite at King’s Chapel has been … marred in the same ways.”

  Robert paled. “Marred?”

  “Aye. I expect you’ll want to stay right here, so that you can make certain I do nothing to harm this grave or the body therein. But, with your permission, I need to look.”

  The man wet his lips and nodded, his head jerking up and down. “All right.”

  Ethan eased himself down into the grave and reached into the coffin to unbutton Emmett George’s shirt. When he exposed the cadaver’s chest, Robert gave a small gasp.

  “Lord have mercy!”

  “Aye,” Ethan said, the word coming out like a sigh. “I’m not done yet.” He pulled the man’s foot free, drawing another sharp breath from the caretaker.

  “They did that to all of them?” Robert asked.

  “So far.”

  Ethan tucked the corpse’s leg back in place and climbed out of the grave. “Was he wearing a cravat when you buried him?”

  “I don’t remember. Why?”

  Ethan shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Shall we check the others?”

  The caretaker nodded, but didn’t move. “Why would someone do those things?”

  “You’re not the first to ask me,” Ethan said. “I don’t know the answer yet, but I’m going to find out.”

  “I bet it’s witchery,” Robert said, still gazing down into the grave. “Word is there’s witches all through this city, workin’ their mischief, tryin’ to lure regular folk to their devilish ways.” He looked at Ethan. “You should have a care. You spend enough time in a buryin’ ground, you’re bound to run into one of them.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Ethan said. On another day he might have found some humor in the turn their conversation had taken. But with all he had seen this morning, he could not. Henry Caner had allowed Trevor to summon him because he believed these robberies to be the work of witches. Robert had already reached a similar conclusion, and others would do the same. It wouldn’t be long before Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf, and perhaps even Thomas Hutchinson, who in less than a month would assume duties as the acting governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, heard of these incidents. They, too, would blame “witchery,” and since Ethan was the “witch” they knew best, their suspicions would fall on him.