Thieftaker by D. B. Jackson

Author:D. B. Jackson [Jackson, D. B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2012-07-22T15:49:52+00:00

Chapter

THIRTEEN

Sephira and her toughs didn’t come after him right away, though as he made his way back through the South End Ethan looked over his shoulder often, expecting at any moment to see them bearing down on him. Once he was away from her house the pounding of his heart subsided, and he began to wonder what in the name of all that was holy he had been thinking. Casting a spell in Sephira Pryce’s home? Destroying her furniture? Threatening to kill her? He might as well have stolen money from her purse as she watched, or called her a whore in front of her men.

If he needed any more incentive to find Jennifer Berson’s killer and be done with her father and the conjurer, he now had it. Sephira would never stop hating him; as long as he insisted on thieftaking in Boston, she would begrudge every coin he made. But if he could conclude this inquiry perhaps her desire to see him dead would diminish.

He decided to begin by speaking with Cyrus Derne. If Derne had lied to him the first time they spoke, Ethan wanted to know why.

It was midafternoon, and he knew better than to think that Derne would be at his home. Instead, he began the long walk across the city to Derne’s Wharf and Warehouse on Ship Street in the North End. He turned up his coat collar and hunched his shoulders against the rain. He walked at the edge of the road, keeping the iron posts that lined the thoroughfare between himself and the carriages and chaises. Rivulets of rank water ran between the cobblestones, gathering in the shallow trough in the middle of the lane and draining at intervals along the way. Carts and horses splashed him as they passed, chilling him, staining his clothes.

Derne’s Wharf jutted out into the harbor beside others belonging to merchants of similar means. Abner Berson’s wharf was only a short distance down Ship Street. Hancock’s Wharf, the longest in the North End, second in the entire city only to Long Wharf, sat just to the south of them both. All these wharves had large wooden warehouses where the merchants stored diverse goods and prepared them for market.

Two formidable men stood guard at the base of their wharf, and one of them stopped Ethan as he tried to set foot on the dock.

“Who’re you?” he asked, studying Ethan’s bruised face.

“Ethan Kaille. I’m here to see Cyrus Derne.”

The man eyed him dubiously.

“I work for Abner Berson,” he added.

That convinced him. “Aye, all right,” he said, and waved Ethan onto the wharf.

Ethan made his way down the dock past shops and storage buildings, until he came to the largest of the warehouses. A sign over the door read “Fergus Derne and Son, Boston. Established 1715.”

Dockworkers were carrying crates, burlap sacks, and cloth-wrapped parcels into the building. A few rolled barrels, and others worked in tandem to carry timber. Ethan waited until several of the men had entered, and then followed them inside, pausing by the door to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the dim light.

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