Lockhart's Legacy (Vespari Lockhart Book 1) (11 page)

The cage with the wraith moved forward and dropped down before them. Lockhart watched as Petronila strolled forward and opened the cage. She then raised her hand and gestured with one finger for Gunnilda to come to her. The wraith looked confused, not scared, but given her horrible face, he couldn’t say for certain what she was experiencing in that moment. Regardless, hovering there in her semi-tangible form, the wraith floated forward.

As soon as she exited the cage, the beldam struck. Petronila stretched upward revealing her true height, well over Lockhart’s even suspended from those hooks. Her mouth dropped open like a snake dislocating its jaw, and she reached down, grabbing Gunnilda. The wraith tried to phase out of there, but Petronila managed to raise her to her mouth and bite off more than half of Gunnilda’s body. With no blood in her ghostly body, a transparent sludge slopped out instead. The clear ooze flowed from the lower half of the wraith and squeezed out of Petronila’s mouth with each bite she took.

The other beldams watched this act with some level of disgust, but Estrild and Mabilia soon returned to their meals. Petronila then stuffed the other half of the wraith down her throat and, after chewing, dropped down to her typical hunched over posture. The coven’s leader stepped toward the cages once more and pressed her hand to Lockhart. She spun him around idly on the hooks, twisting his hands over his head once more, and then turned back to face the other beldams.

“You know, girls,” Alviva said, looking down and tapping her fat gut. “I’m still a bit peckish.” She smiled and looked to the other beldams. “Who’s hungry for seconds?”

Wynonna felt gutted. Truly alone for the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to do with herself. All she’d thought about since discovering what happened to her family had been revenge, but the Gentleman had denied her of that. The vespari, Corrigan Lockhart, had even refused to help her - to train her to do it herself. She felt sick, and the disgusting, sweat and blood covered clothes weren’t helping matters. She needed to get clean. She deluded herself into thinking it would make her feel better inside too, but she knew that wouldn’t happen even if she wasn’t willing to admit it.

Having been to Delamar before, she knew they had a bath installed there in the inn, so she left the hallway where she’d been standing frozen ever since being abandoned by Lockhart. After preparing the bath and removing her dirty garments, Wynonna dipped herself into the warm water. She didn’t scrub or try to clean herself. She just sat there in the water, letting it envelop her. Her head sunk lower and lower in the tub until it was entirely under water.

Wynonna stared up at the ceiling, holding her breath. Her face remained still and emotionless. She stayed under until she couldn’t stand it any longer. With a jerk, Wynonna rose up and gasped for air. Continuing to stare into the distance, her mind drifted away, and her body operated of its own volition. She grabbed a bar of soap left beside the tub, and she started cleaning herself, especially the wound that Lockhart had stitched up.

Before she even realized it, Wynonna was finished and getting out of the tub, starting to dry herself off with a towel. She snapped back to reality, as she stared at the bench where she’d left her clothes. She needed to get dressed, but her sweat, blood, and the black substance the revenant had infected her with covered those particular garments. They reminded her of her failure. They reminded her of her family, taken by that dark creature. She needed something else. Anything else.

Wynonna wrapped the towel around her and set out to find something clean to wear within the inn. After all, the residents of Delamar wouldn’t need them now, not after what the revenant had done there. Searching around, she found that the patrons staying in the hotel had left no shortage of various garments behind. Unfortunately, Wynonna wasn’t certain why she was still going on. She’d failed to kill the revenant, the so-called Gentleman that had taken her family from her, and she‘d even failed to get the vespari to help her get her revenge.

She sat there in one of the hotel rooms, staring at an open suitcase of clothes. Her long black hair dripped drops of water to the floor, and the towel slipped further down her body with every passing second. Since she found the scene at her family’s ranch, anger and a desire for revenge were all Wynonna had known. Now though, with that desire left unsatisfied and out of reach, she didn’t know how to go on.

The anger had been a comfort, and now that it had begun to fade, an emptiness sought to consume and overwhelm her. The anger had been her armor, her protection against the pain of what happened to her. Unwilling to let it go, Wynonna resolved herself to finding vengeance for the family she lost, even if Lockhart refused to help her.

With this in mind, Wynonna dropped the towel to the floor and picked out a new set of clothes. Finding most of what she needed in the one suitcase, she slipped on a tan buttoned up shirt along with a fresh pair of light blue jeans. Her old boots would do, so she found them beside the bed she’d recovered on and slid them over her feet. Knowing she needed to hurry after the revenant, she started to leave the hotel to begin the search. On her way out though, Wynonna spotted an old, tattered poncho with a pattern of orange and black diamonds hanging on a hook. She grabbed the garment and threw it over her head, as she headed back to her horse. She found the animal right where she’d tied it up and in good condition. Lockhart must’ve taken care of it while she was out, she realized.

The vespari had left her things there as well. She found her rifle tucked into the saddle along with a canteen and the bag of supplies she’d brought from the ranch. Nearly ready to be on her way, Wynonna untied her horse and walked it to the town’s well. There, she filled her canteen up, took a big swig, and filled it up again. When she had everything she needed, she mounted her horse and started north at a slow trot.

Taking the road out of Delamar, Wynonna followed the tracks the vespari had taken. Interspersed, she found strange boot prints. They were the same ones she’d followed from her family ranch. They belonged to the Gentlemen, of that she had no doubt. The tracks of what Lockhart had called ghouls accompanied him, but there weren’t as many this time. Apparently, she and the vespari had thinned his herd at least a little. It didn’t help to sate the emotions swirling inside her.

When her horse reached the edge of town, Wynonna flapped the reins, increasing their speed. With each bump in the horse’s steps, the pain in her shoulder grew. The wound hadn’t healed yet. She wasn’t a vespari, after all. She’d heard of what they could do, what they were capable of, and she wanted it for herself. Wynonna didn’t know how to kill the revenant, but Lockhart did. She’d put a shot straight in the Gentleman’s chest, but he’d stood right back up. Lockhart could teach her how to survive the encounter, how to put the thing down, and how to avenge her family. She just had to convince him that she was capable.

Her mind considered the possibilities of how to do that. Lockhart seemed hard and tough. He hadn’t seemed interested in her or her need for revenge. He seemed cold. But then, that didn’t quite mesh with what he’d done, she thought. The vespari saved her life. If he hadn’t been there to push her out of the way of both of those diseased bullets, she would’ve died then and there. One would have lodged in her chest rather than her shoulder. Not only that, he took the bullet out of her. He had to care about her, and Wynonna meant to use that somehow. There was just the matter of finding him and doing that.

Raising her head from the tracks to look into the distance, she discovered that her task might not be as difficult as she’d expected. Despite the failing light of day, she saw that a figure sat on the horizon. A horse, by the looks of it. Had she already caught up with the vespari? Why would he have stopped so soon? Wynonna didn’t have the answers to those questions, but the closer she got, the more convinced she was that it was him. Back in Delamar, she hadn’t seen his horse. She now realized that it was one of her family’s. He must’ve visited the ranch and followed the same tracks that she did.

This close, Wynonna also discovered that a body lay on the ground near the horse. She slowed her steed’s pace a bit at seeing this. Something was clearly wrong. He hadn’t stopped to rest; he’d fallen from the horse. She looked around. The sun dipped below the horizon, and her eyes struggled to make anything out, but Wynonna didn’t see any sign of any creatures, monsters or otherwise.

Regardless, she twisted her leg around and slid off the saddle, landing on the dirt with a thud. Slipping her rifle out of its holster amongst the saddle bag, Wynonna gripped the reins and continued pulling the horse forward with her, as she grew closer to the body that she was now certain was Lockhart. She approached him and his horse, finding his foot stuck in one of the stirrups. The horse had dragged him some distance before stopping there to chew on some grass, which had earned him some scrapes and cuts on his exposed skin.

Deciding that there was no danger there, Wynonna stowed the rifle back in the saddle of her horse. Whatever had happened here, no monster had attacked. This was something else. She pulled Lockhart’s foot out of the stirrup and laid his leg down on the ground. Taking the reins of both his horse and her own, she pulled them over to a nearby tree and tied them up. Wynonna then returned to Lockhart and dragged him to the tree as well, careful not to exacerbate his wounds.

Touching his skin, she felt a heat radiating off him. He had a fever, but he didn’t look ill, nor had he stirred at all when she dragged him along the rocky ground. After laying him down at the base of the tree, Wynonna stopped to examine him. Either by the horse dragging him or when she’d done the same, his duster had come part way off him, and a portion of his shoulder exposed. Something black pooled against the fabric of his shirt.

Her first thought was that it was similar to the black goop that the Gentleman had infected her with. Undoing the top button of his shirt, Wynonna pulled the fabric aside and looked underneath. There was no wound. In addition to the vespari tattoos that stretched all across his chest, there was another design. This one was cruder, and it looked fresh. The shiny black, almost metallic, ink itself was seeping out, staining his shirt. The skin around it looked irritated and spongy. She couldn’t explain what the symbol was, but something about it made her think it malevolent.

Distracting her from her thoughts, a breeze of wind swept through, chilling the air. The heat of the desert day would soon be gone, and they would need a fire to make it through the night, especially if he was ill. Leaving Lockhart there for the moment, Wynonna set out to find enough pieces of wood, weeds, and anything else that would burn, and she started gathering everything up.

After a few minutes of collecting what the desert had to offer, she returned to Lockhart and dumped them beside him. Wynonna intended to go out and find more, but she heard a sound. Then, both of the horses whinnied and shifted as though they wanted to get away from something. Walking over to the horses, she tried to get them to calm down.

“It’s okay,” she told them. “It’s okay.”

Pressing her palm against her horse and petting the fur, she simultaneously pulled her rifle out. She took the time to grab a handful of cartridges from her bag, stuffing them in her jeans pocket. Despite her assurances to the horses, she knew that everything was not alright. Something was stirring out there in the dark. Silence followed her retrieval of the rifle though, and her eyes couldn’t find anything among the shadows. The sun was completely gone now, and the starlight was not a sufficient source of light.

When the silence was finally broken, it did nothing to relieve Wynonna. Laughter. Not human laughter though. This belonged to a hyena. A constant source of frustration for her family back on the ranch, they lived in the wastes, hunting what they could. There though, she had the others with her and fences that would help block the animals. Now, she had nothing but the rifle in her hands. There wasn’t even a lit fire to scare them off nor time to get one started.

Another laugh echoed the first. Wynonna twisted about. This one had come from behind her. They were surrounding her, Lockhart, and the horses. More of them laughed, forcing her to swivel back and forth, unsure which direction they’d come from first. She panicked. This situation sat outside her usual wheelhouse. She’d defended the cattle from similar threats before, but not like this. She couldn’t recall a situation where something had so directly threatened her life. Not knowing what to do or how to combat these things, Wynonna aimed into the darkness and fired. Her shot rang out in the night, followed by a moment of silence, and then a series of cackling laughs.

The hyenas grew louder and closer. All she’d done was waste a bullet. Wynonna cocked back the bolt, exposing the breech and ejecting the spent cartridge. Rifling in her pocket, she retrieved another cartridge and slid it into the breech before closing it with the bolt. She then took a deep breath and waited for what she knew was coming.

Taking a knee, Wynonna ignored her failing sight, choosing instead to focus on the mocking sounds the hyenas made. Despite her previous panic, she now forced herself to stay calm. Raised on the ranch with three brothers, Wynonna had plenty of practice with a rifle. Her father had taught them all, but she’d taken to it better than her brothers. Her father had treated her as a boy ever since she was born, and it shaped her. All that time and energy put into shooting, and she had let the hyenas rattle her. No more. She was in control now.

Wynonna raised the rifle and listened for one of the cackles to stand out from the others. Focusing on it, she heard the footsteps that accompanied it. She swiveled the rifle around and fired again. Once more, the explosion rang out in the night. This time, however, she heard the thud of the bullet collide with a hyena followed by a yelping sound. The laughter ceased, as Wynonna pulled back the bolt and slid another cartridge into her rifle.

“Come on,” she muttered to the beasts.

After a few seconds of the silence, the hyenas started to make noise again. They grew louder than before. They understood that she was dangerous, and she felt them moving in on her. Regardless, Wynonna forced herself to remain calm and focused. The footsteps of one on her left side sounded closest, so she turned and aimed her rifle in its direction.

She fired. Another hard thud followed by a whimper. She couldn’t stop yet though. Another set of footsteps fast approached. She pulled another bullet from her pocket before pulling back the bolt to remove the spent cartridge. Despite how quickly she’d reloaded, it proved to be too slow. The hyena at her side cackled mere feet away, and she heard it leap off the ground. Twisting around to face it, the best she could do was raise her rifle in defense, which was all that saved her. The animal clamped its jaws around the barrel of the gun, slobbering on the wood and metal.

Wynonna stumbled backward and fell to the ground, while the hyena came with her. The beast thrust its head toward her again, but she pushed with the rifle, keeping it from biting her face. The hyena reared back, trying to free its mouth from the weapon, but Wynonna raised her hands too, ensuring the animal couldn’t loose itself from the barrel.