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
TWENTY
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.
But he would not die by the hangman’s noose.
The crowd at the end of the lane was growing, and a few intrepid souls were edging toward him, perhaps trying to catch a glimpse of his face and to make sense of the scene before them.
Ethan lurched to his feet, driven by cold and fear and the knowledge that he hadn’t the power to undo his own failure, which had cost Grant his life. He dashed out of the lane and across Water Street, keeping his head lowered, hoping that no one abroad at this hour would recognize him by his limp or his clothes or his features.
He needed help, and the last time he had spoken to Sephira Pryce, she had made an uncharacteristically generous offer.
Running as fast as his bad leg would allow, he continued southward until he reached the New South Meeting House, with its soaring spire, which gleamed white in the glow of the moon. The bells in the church still pealed along with those of the city’s other sanctuaries, but here at the southern end of Boston, the tolling drifted across pastureland and fields, incongruously peaceful on such a bloody night.
Ethan turned up Summer Street and soon stood once again at Sephira’s door, breathing hard, his eyes streaming with the cold.
Despite the late hour, Sephira’s windows were alight with candle flame. He knocked, and could not have been