Lockhart's Legacy (Vespari Lockhart Book 1) (33 page)

***

Angry and numb, Wynonna ventured deeper into the cave to find Petronila. She felt stronger thanks to the energy taken from Lockhart. She could feel some of his regeneration flowing through her. She could feel a strength she hadn’t experienced before. Even her skin felt thicker, but the power flowing through her felt stolen. It didn’t belong to her, and she felt like a thief for having it. She hated herself for what she’d done to her master. It was her fault he was dead, but if it was the last thing she did, she’d ensure Petronila died too. Rage flowing through her, Wynonna gripped the knife so tightly in her hand that her nails were reaching around the other side and digging into her skin. Thanks to the pain suppression given to her by the Gentleman, she didn’t even feel it.

All she focused on was finding the soul eater. Petronila had left a trail that made her easy enough to follow. The shapeshifter, still bleeding from the wound in her gut, left a significant trail of blood along the cave floor. Wynonna walked with purpose through the cave system, passing several other tunnels without even a glance, until she arrived at another larger opening.

Just like with the room of meat and other discarded body parts, several magical torches illuminated this room. Instead of being their repository for food and waste, arcane implements filled this section of the cave. Wynonna didn’t recognize much in there, but the beldams had scrawled writing similar to the runes all over the walls. There was a selection of jars with strange objects stored within, including liquids, small creatures, and assorted plants. Books and tomes lined some poorly built shelves, an oddly out of place full body mirror leaned against a wall, and there was even a table topped with dozens of candles that had melted over and encased the wood.

And then there was the soul eater herself. She stood in the center of the room, staring at Wynonna. The tall and disgusting figure of the beldam was gone, as Petronila had reverted to her true form with her death and subsequent resurrection. Fiery red hair flowed down to her shoulders, and enormous black horns curved up above her head. Through her wicked smile, her sharp canines peaked out, and she glared at the vespari with cat-like slits of yellow eyes. Her reddish skin was covered only by the stretched out and now baggy clothes she’d worn as the much taller beldam, revealing much of her naked body. Her backward bending legs ended in hairy cloven hooves, and a long tail whipped back and forth behind her.

“I thought you might follow me,” Petronila said, that same forked tongue slithering out through her red lips. Her voice was sweeter than it had been as a beldam, but she sounded no less poisonous.

“I’ve come to kill you,” Wynonna replied.

The soul eater shook her head. “You are nothing. Your master couldn’t kill me, and neither shall you. You are weak.”

“He taught me enough to kill a vile thing like you.”

“I orchestrated this whole thing! All the power the beldams had. All the souls your master had taken as his own! Mine. It’s all mine!”

Wynonna scowled. “Not all of it.”

Petronila’s eyes darted around, as though she were searching for something. “He’s… he’s dead?” she finally asked. It sounded more like an accusation than a question. “You killed him!”

Wynonna didn’t reply, gritting her teeth instead.

“You deprived me of your master’s soul,” Petronila spat. “I worked so hard for that! It was mine!”

She stared into Wynonna’s eyes. The vespari felt penetrated by her vision alone.

“No matter,” Petronila said before licking the tips of her canines with that slender, forked tongue. “I see that I will simply have to rip his soul from those marks on your chest. Yours will be a dessert.”

Wynonna shook her head. “You don’t get him. He’s finally at peace. That’s where he’s going to stay.”

“At peace?” Petronila laughed. “You murdered him! What peace is there in that?”

“Shut your mouth!”

The soul eater laughed again. “You are nothing but a child. You know nothing.”

“I know about you,” Wynonna said. “I’ve read about your kind. I know that you’re weak on your own. I know that you need others to make you strong.”

Petronila smiled at the young vespari. “And your master and the rest of my coven have made me very strong indeed.”

“Maybe, but I know you’re still weak after your resurrection. And, I know how to kill you.” Wynonna flashed the blade in her hand.

The soul eater narrowed her eyes. “I’m not afraid of your little knife, girl. You’ve already tried that, and it failed.” Petronila patted her much more attractive new stomach, where the blade’s entry point had once been.

Wynonna shook her head. “This isn’t for you.”

Raising her free hand, the vespari placed the knife to her palm and cut open her own flesh. The vespari didn’t even feel it. She then raised the open wound for Petronila to see.

“You think I’m afraid of your blood?” the soul eater asked with bewildered eyes. “You’re a bigger fool than your master.”

Wynonna had obviously never done this before, but based on the notes in Lockhart’s journal and what he’d told her about it, she believed it would work. Hoped it would work. Slipping the knife through her belt for the moment, she then reached into her pocket. All she could find that she was willing to part with was a silver round. It would do. Pulling the silver round from her pocket, Wynonna placed it into her cut open hand, just above the pooling blood. She dipped the tip of one of her fingers in this pool of blood and started tracing a symbol onto the side of the silver round.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Petronila asked.

“I know the only way to kill you is to starve you,” Wynonna said, finished with the rune and once again grabbing the knife from her belt. “But, that’s going to take too long, so in the meantime I’ll have to make sure you can’t steal anyone else’s soul. I’ll put you somewhere where you’ll wither away in obscurity and isolation.”

“You think to bind me?” the soul eater shouted, nostrils flaring.

“I
will
bind you, and then you’ll slowly starve to death and die.”

“You will try, but you will fail. I have come too far and worked too hard for a sniveling little thing like you to stop me.”

Petronila pushed her hand forward, and a semi-transparent force of metallic light exploded out from it. The soul eater had clearly meant to throw Wynonna backward with her sorcery, but she only skidded about a foot, protected by her spell resistance.

Wynonna laughed and shook her head. “Not going to work on me,” she said.

The soul eater scowled and tried again. This time a bolt of lightning arced out from her palm and connected with Wynonna’s chest. The combination of spell resistance and pain suppression made it so she hardly felt a thing. A bit of static maybe. The small amount of regeneration she inherited from Lockhart also came together and mended the seared mark the lightning caused. The worst part of the attack was the smell from the burning of the rotten meat that stuck to her clothes.

Stepping forward, Wynonna said, “Give it up. You can’t hurt me.”

“Then I will kill you!” Petronila screamed.

The soul eater stretched her clawed fingers out and charged toward Wynonna. Petronila slashed over and over again in a wild streak, but the vespari dodged each blow or deflected it with the blade. When the opportunity presented itself, she even landed a punch of her own, using the hilt of the knife to strengthen the hit.

Petronila grew enraged and tackled Wynonna, throwing the both of them onto the table covered with excess candle wax. The candles poked into her back, causing her to arch awkwardly. The vespari managed to get some leverage, however, and kicked Petronila off her. The soul eater fell backward, while Wynonna stumbled to the side. She caught herself on another table, this one full of glass bottles.

Though Wynonna had no idea what each of them would do, she decided to take advantage of them. The vespari picked up a flask filled with a bubbling green liquid, as Petronila was standing. Before the soul eater could attack her once again, she chucked the bottle at her, breaking the glass and spilling the contents all over Petronila’s chest.

The soul eater shrieked as the apparently caustic liquid began to eat away at her flesh. Enraged, Petronila wove another spell. Wynonna didn’t think anything of it given her resistance, but the soul eater hadn’t aimed this spell at her. The soul eater instead targeted the very table where Wynonna had found the flask of acidic liquid. The table flipped up and over, landing on top of the vespari and splashing some of the contents on her.

The alchemical and magical mixtures had a similar effect on Wynonna. She heard the sizzling of her skin, as they ate away at her. Others had the opposite effect, apparently some being healing and regenerative tonics. One of her pant legs caught on fire from another, and as Wynonna crawled out from under the table and put out the fire, she found herself glad to have those tattoos and the effects they carried.

As Wynonna stood, ignoring the chemicals, Petronila once again charged her. The two women battered each other repeatedly across the room. Petronila threw Wynonna into the mirror. Wynonna nearly managed to drop Petronila into another chasm. They went back and forth, neither gaining a clear advantage. Both were exhausted, but they came together in one final clash.

In the exchange, Petronila managed to hit Wynonna hard in the face, blood spurting from her nose and mouth. The vespari didn’t allow the blow for nothing though, as it gave Wynonna the opportunity to slash open the soul eater’s gut with the knife. Blood spilled forth, as both women dropped to their knees in exhaustion.

Wynonna, however, smiled at Petronila, telling her, “It’s over.”

She flashed the blood smeared silver round in her hand and then jammed it inside the wound in the soul eater’s gut.

“No!” Petronila screamed, but her wail would stop nothing.

Her body contorted and shook, as Wynonna removed her hand, leaving the bloody round inside. The vespari blood on the round carried with it the same effect that the runes had on the vespari herself. They served to protect Wynonna, but they had the opposite effect on a creature such as Petronila. They became a prison.

Wynonna rolled away, watching the soul eater’s body get sucked into itself. She became smaller and smaller, screaming in agony all the while. The silver round pulled all of Petronila inside it, until there was literally nothing left of her. The bloody round fell to the ground, rattling around for a moment and then came to a stop. The round trapped Petronila within it now, and she would starve to death in there. Given how much she fed before Wynonna bound her, the vespari had no idea how long that would take, but it didn’t matter. The soul eater was gone, and she wouldn’t be coming back.

***

The sun was at its peak when Wynonna left that cave, returning to the piercing winds of the Howling Gorge. Blood covered her nearly head to toe - the discarded animal parts, her own, the beldams’, the soul eater’s, and even Lockhart’s. She wanted to get clean. She wanted to leave it all behind, as much as she realized she couldn’t.

All the same, Wynonna took off her clothes and crawled into the waters of the nearby stream. The waters were cool, but the heat from the sun and her lingering pain suppression made it manageable. She did her best to remove the gore and viscera from her blood soaked skin and then submerged her head in the waters.

Ever since the Gentleman murdered her family, Wynonna had refused to acknowledge the pain the revenant had caused her. Not even after she’d killed the Gentleman could she just stop and think. Not after she betrayed Lockhart and led him to his eventual death. Not after she pierced his heart with his own blade to end his suffering. Now though, her face safely submerged under the water, she allowed the tears to come. She only gave herself a moment though, and then she rose above the water. There were still things she had to do, and she refused to let her emotions sidetrack or distract her.

Wynonna left the waters and put on her jeans, shirt, and boots. Given how covered it was in the filth of the beldam’s lair, she abandoned the poncho entirely, letting the wind catch it and carry it away. Feeling marginally better, she started to gather wood. There weren’t many trees around those parts and much of the fallen branches were wet with the previous night’s snow, but Wynonna made do with what the gorge provided her.

The vespari piled the wood up, and when she’d gathered enough, she returned to the cave. Lockhart’s body was heavy, but she carried him all the same, refusing to drag him an inch. She carried him out and placed him on the sticks she’d collected. Though she was loath to do it, Wynonna decided that she couldn’t let anything he had go to waste. She knew he would agree with her practicality.

Wynonna took Lockhart’s hat, his gun belt, and the silver in his pockets. Without her poncho, she knew she would eventually get cold, and though it was a size or two too large for her, she traded it out for Lockhart’s duster. She left him with everything else. When she was ready, Wynonna lit a match and set fire to Lockhart’s funeral pyre.

The now alone vespari sat there watching the flames consume her master, until the sun dipped below the gorge’s walls. The fire burned for most of the night, until after she succumbed and fell asleep. In the morning, a fresh snow had fallen, and the flames of Lockhart’s pyre had exhausted. The cold of those early hours didn’t affect her, and she still couldn’t get herself to move from that spot. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do next.