Ethan moved among the bodies, searching for anything that might tell him what kind of spell had killed the men, but the soldiers and crewmen below were as unmarked as those on the deck. Looking at them, he was reminded of Jennifer Berson, the young girl whose murder he had investigated three years before. She, too, had died without a mark on her, robbed of her life by a skilled and ruthless conjurer.
Had the powerful pulse of power he and Janna sensed that morning taken every life on this ship? All that Ethan saw, and much of what he had heard from Geoffrey and Senhouse, seemed to point to that conclusion. Why else would so many men still be abed?
He glanced back toward the hatch to make certain that he was still alone in the hold. Choosing the corpse of a young regular, he pulled out his knife and cut himself. He dabbed blood across the young man’s forehead and traced a bloody line down from the bridge of his nose, over his lips and chin to his breastbone. Drawing on the blood that still welled from the wound on his arm, he cast his spell.
“Revela potestatem ex cruore evocatam.” Reveal power, conjured from blood.
Belowdecks, in such a closed space, it seemed to Ethan that he was surrounded by the puissance of his casting. It hummed in the wood of the ship, it seemed to make the dead air of the hold come alive, so that Ethan’s nose and mouth tickled as he inhaled. Too late he remembered that conjurings at sea worked more powerfully than those directed at people or objects on land. It was something he had taken for granted during his time as a sailor, but had forgotten in the intervening years.
Ethan glanced at Uncle Reg, who had appeared beside him, before looking back at the regular.
A spot of light appeared on the young man’s chest, dim at first, but growing brighter by the moment. It was vivid orange and it blossomed like the pleurisy root growing in the Common, spreading over the soldier’s body. In fact, similar glows had suffused the bodies of several of the men lying nearby; Ethan’s spell, amplified because he was out on the harbor, had spread to others.
Regardless, there could be no doubt. A spell had killed the lad and his companions. And though the conjurer who had cast it-who, Ethan assumed, had killed all these men-had to be both powerful and skilled, he or she hadn’t known how to conceal the casting. Or hadn’t bothered.
Ethan heard footsteps on the deck above him. Geoffrey and the lieutenant were walking toward the rear hatch.
“Ethan?” Geoffrey called. The two men started down the ladder.
He cut himself again.
“Vela potestatem!” he said, keeping his voice low. “Ex cruore evocatam!” Conceal power! Conjured from blood!
The spell pulsed like a war drum and began right away to take effect. But the orange glow on the men was bright, and this casting didn’t work instantaneously.
Ethan strode back to the hatch. Hoping that he could keep Senhouse distracted until that orange glow faded.
“Yes!” he said, meeting the men at the base of the ladder.
“We called for you twice before you responded,” Senhouse said, regarding Ethan through narrowed eyes.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t hear you.”
“What exactly…?” The lieutenant broke off, his eyes fixed on the part of the hold where lay the young regular, the glow on his chest and those of the others dimming like the dying embers of a fire. “What in the name of God?”
He started forward, Brower and Ethan following close behind.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” Geoffrey asked.
Senhouse said nothing, but continued to wind his way past bodies to the cluster of dead soldiers on whom Ethan’s spell had acted. “Do you see that?”
Geoffrey glanced sidelong at Ethan, then peered over Senhouse’s shoulder, trying to see what the officer was talking about.
The light from Ethan’s revealing spell had nearly vanished; Ethan wasn’t sure that he would have spotted it had he not known to look for it.
“See what?” Brower asked.
Senhouse stopped amid the soldiers and waved a hand. “These men. They’re…” He narrowed his eyes again, looking from one corpse to the next. A frown had settled on his homely face. “Now that’s damned peculiar. I don’t see it anymore.” He turned to look back at Brower and Ethan. “Did you…?”
The question died on his lips when he saw Geoffrey’s blank expression.
For a long time, neither man spoke. The lieutenant regarded the corpses again. Brower eyed Ethan, a sour look on his face.
“Mister Kaille, I’d like to know what you were doing down here,” Senhouse said. “And I’d like to have an answer to the question I asked you earlier. Why you were so interested to know whether these men died last night or this morning?”
“Sir, I-”
Senhouse raised a hand, silencing him. He turned and looked Ethan in the eye. Despite the dim lighting in the hold, Ethan could see that the lieutenant’s face had gone white save for a bright red spot high on each cheek. There was a hard look in his eyes. Ethan saw fear there as well, but the man was a British naval officer, and for the moment at least he seemed to have mastered his fright.
“There are nearly a hundred men on this ship,” he said quietly, “and every one of them is dead. I see no blood, no bruises or cuts or injuries of any sort. I see no evidence that they took ill. They are dead, for no reason that I can see. I’m at a loss to comprehend what might have happened here. Yet I sense that you’re not. You look and act and sound as though this is nothing new to you. You don’t seem to find it at all unsettling.”
“I assure you, Lieutenant, that’s not the case.”
Senhouse shook his head, his expression pained. “Forgive me. I intended no offense, nor did I mean to imply that you aren’t troubled by what you see here. All but the foulest of demons would be. What I meant was, you don’t seem … surprised that something like this could happen.”
Ethan didn’t like to tell anyone of his ability to conjure. The people who knew held his life in their hands. One word whispered to the wrong person, one loose remark uttered in casual conversation, one opening for Sephira Pryce or another enemy intent on doing him harm, and Ethan could be summarily tried and executed as a witch. But he sensed that Senhouse already knew, that he had reasoned it out for himself. He was waiting for Ethan to put words to his suspicions.
“I’m constantly surprised by the evil I see in my work,” Ethan said, looking around the hold. “This is…” He shook his head. “Like you, I have trouble comprehending why someone would kill so many men, seemingly without cause.” He took a breath. “But you’re not asking me why, so much as how. And that I do understand.”
“Perhaps we should go back above,” Geoffrey said, his voice shaking.
“It’s all right,” Senhouse said. “Go on, Mister Kaille.”
“What do you know of spellmaking, sir?”
He thought the man might laugh or scoff or even grow angry and accuse Ethan of mocking him. But Senhouse merely pondered the question before saying, “Very little, to be honest. I have heard of men and women being hanged or burned as witches. I’ve listened to preachers rail against those who would embrace Satan and his dark arts. But I’ve never encountered witchery myself, at least not that I know.”
“I believe you have now, sir,” Ethan said. “I’ve seen others who were killed by spells, and they look very much as these men do. They bear no wounds, they show no sign that anything ailed them before they died. To those who know nothing of conjuring it seems that one moment they were fine, and the next they were dead.”
Again, Senhouse surprised Ethan with his equanimity. “That is an extraordinary theory,” he said, his voice even. “A spell.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there any way to prove this? It’s remarkable, of course, that so many should die in such a mysterious way. But can you offer me more than simply the lack of evidence for any other cause?”
Ethan wet his lips, knowing that their conversation was headed just where he didn’t wish it to go. “There are ways to prove that a spell was used. But all of those methods would themselves require conjurings.”