Lockhart's Legacy (Vespari Lockhart Book 1) (25 page)

Courtland wasn’t the only city in the desert working a mine. Where Courtland dug for fuels, Columbia had a different purpose. The city they now traveled to had recently opened a new silver mine. That alone meant that it would be a rich city in a few years if the supply of silver was sufficient. The coastal cities always had the desire for more riches, and there were plenty willing to risk the dangers of the desert to try to get ahead.

What interest the beldams would have in such a place, Lockhart couldn’t say, but if that’s where he’d find them, then that’s where he had to go. He and Wynonna left that same day, before the sun had even hit its highest point. The journey would not be quick, however.

There would still be a day or two of travel before they got to the city. And, of course, that was assuming that the fortune teller had been correct in the location she gave Wynonna. Lockhart still didn’t quite trust the prophecies people like that spouted, but given his proclivity for turning to mad lotus for answers, he supposed he could give her the benefit of the doubt.

Given the time they still had, Wynonna had taken the opportunity to prod Lockhart with more questions. And, of course, they were the only questions he truly didn’t want to deal with.

“So,” she began, “I know you’ve taken this oath to be chaste, but surely you’ve made an exception.”

He shook his head. “No. Not s-s-s-since I took the oath.”

Wynonna narrowed her eyes. “Not since? So, Jamie was a woman you were with before you took your oaths?”

He shifted his pack on his shoulder as he walked. “No.”

“Then what? You said you were with this Jamie character.”

“I w-was.”

“Then what?” She paused a moment, slowing down. “I mean, I suppose it’s a bit of an ambiguous unisex name, but it’s not like someone like you was with a man or anything.”

Lockhart didn’t meet her gaze and kept moving.

“That’s it!” she nearly shouted, her eyes growing wide. “Jamie was a man! You’ve been with men?”

“Man,” he corrected. He immediately regretted saying it.

Wynonna laughed and caught back up with him, hitting him on the shoulder. “Oh, Cory! That’s amazing! I never would’ve thought. You have to tell me about it!”

“No, I d-d-d-don’t. It’s m-my business.”

She smirked. “So, it’s your business when it’s you, but when it’s me, it’s perfectly fine to--”

“I apologized f-f-for that. I shouldn’t have said a-anything to begin with.”

“Mmhmm. Fine. Well, back to you then. I can’t imagine that brotherhood of yours looked upon your proclivities too favorably. I hear the coastal cities aren’t exactly beacons of inclusivity about that kind of thing.”

Lockhart looked away. “No.”

Wynonna didn’t let it go. “What did they do?”

“They tried to b-b-beat it out of m-m-me.”

She frowned. “Did it work?”

“No.”

“Then where is he? You still see him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They k-k-killed him.”

Wynonna gulped. “Oh. Because of you?”

He didn’t respond.

She paused for a moment, but he could see she was putting the pieces together in her head. “That’s why you took the oath, isn’t it? Vespari aren’t celibate in general. Just you. They killed the man you loved and made you swear to never do it again.”

He sighed. “That a-about sums it up.”

Wynonna was still putting it all together though. “And your childhood friend. The one you told the story about--”

“Levi,” he said.

“Right, Levi. You loved him too. That’s why you chased after him.”

Another sigh. “Yeah. But, he didn’t f-f-feel that way about me. We were j-just friends.”

“Unrequited? Man, your love life is a tangled mess.”

“I don’t have a l-l-love life.”

“‘Course not,” she told him, hitting his shoulder again. “It’s too messed up. You become a vespari to avenge an unrequited love, and then your bigoted brotherhood kills your new lover. Who can blame you for not trying again?”

“I don’t w-want to--”

“I know. I know.” She folded her arms at her chest and muttered, “Might help you loosen up though.”

“Mm,” he groaned. “Maybe you should just focus on carving your runes.”

Wynonna laughed. “Fine. I’ll give you a bit of respite, but I got more questions. This isn’t over.”

Lockhart sighed and kept moving.

***

They decided to camp that night, so that they could arrive in Columbia in the early morning hours of the next day. The closer they got, the more Wynonna was visibly nervous, and Lockhart felt much the same. Setting up their temporary camp, they both wanted to press forward, but both also knew they needed their rest for what they would soon face.

Wynonna took the time that night to finish carving her five bullets from their haul in Courtland, while Lockhart had already finished his. Her efforts put their entire collection of runed bullets at ten. Lockhart wasn’t sure that ten would be enough for four beldams, plus the revenant and its ghouls, but he suspected ten was all he was going to get.

As for his own worries, the Caustic Brand on his chest throbbed more than it had in recent days, but the beldams left him be all the same. He wasn’t sure what game they were playing at, but the notion that they would soon be dead and the mark erased from his skin was a satisfying thought.

He bided his time that night by updating a few things in his journal. They weren’t so much for his benefit, as they were for Wynonna. In the event that he didn’t survive the encounter, he wanted her to have everything she needed. With that in mind, he made notes directly to her about what she should do and where she needed to go if he didn’t make it. He hoped they wouldn’t be necessary, but he wanted her to be prepared regardless.

When the sun dipped well below the horizon, and all but their own campfire and the stars abandoned them to the night, both vespari turned in. The next morning, both Lockhart and Wynonna were eager to get started. They made a quick breakfast from their dwindling supplies and ate in a hurry. After packing up, they headed out in the early morning light, what they had to do on their mind.

Neither one spoke as they made their way toward Columbia. Lockhart focused on the task at hand, and he presumed Wynonna to be doing the same. After a couple hours, their quiet march granted them the city’s silhouette on the horizon. From that distance, everything looked calm and peaceful. Lockhart worried it wasn’t. If the beldams were there, they would only sow chaos and violence in such a place. He half hoped they wouldn’t find the sorcerous creatures there, just so the people of Columbia would be alright.

But no matter what he wanted, he knew danger lurked ahead. Shots rang out in the distance, causing both vespari to come to a stop just before arriving in the silver mining city.

“Gunfire?” Lockhart asked, looking at his apprentice. “Is s-s-someone really t-trying to kill them?”

Wynonna just shrugged, not meeting his gaze.

“Come on,” he continued. “W-we can’t let them. It w-will only make things harder for us. I don’t w-want to fight a wraith again.”

Lockhart continued forward, entering the town with Wynonna right on his heels. Several people fled from the direction of the gunfire, but most seemed to have already hidden inside their homes. The streets were largely free of people, but that didn’t mean they were absent entirely.

They passed a general store and turned, hearing another exchange of gunfire, but Lockhart came to a sudden stop when he saw that two bodies laid in the street, bloody bullet holes in their chests. A woman kneeled over one man, weeping softly. The scene didn’t make sense. He’d expected a particularly brave but foolhardy individual had taken it upon themselves to kill the beldams. Why then were people dying to gunfire?

Everything came into focus when he approached the bodies and saw that it wasn’t simply blood leaking from these wounds. Black ooze seeped out as well. This black ooze had come from the Gentleman’s bullets. Lockhart looked at Wynonna who just stared back with still, unmoving eyes. The beldams weren’t there. His apprentice had lied to him.

“I--” she began, shifting on the spot.

“We’ll d-deal with this later,” he told her, shaking his head. “N-now we’ve got to take c-care of the revenant and his ghouls.” Lockhart pulled out his silver and pearl revolver, eyed it carefully for a moment and then handed it to Wynonna. “Here. You’ll n-need this.”

She wasted no time in taking it, but then she looked up at him in realization. “What about you?”

Lockhart retrieved his knife. “I’ll h-handle the ghouls. Y-you’re on the r-revenant.”

Wynonna nodded. “Right.”

“Remember. D-don’t kill him without burning his body. H-he’ll just jump to a ghoul’s b-body.”

“What about these two? They’ll turn, won’t they?”

“I’ll d-deal with it. Go. I’ll c-c-catch up.”

Wynonna nodded. “Cory, I--”

“Go!” he growled.

His apprentice took one last look at him, and then she turned, running toward the gunshots still echoing throughout the town. Lockhart, meanwhile, turned to the bodies that the revenant had gunned down. They would turn into ghouls any minute. He had to deal with them before that happened.

Lockhart started with the one that would be simpler to handle - the body without a woman mourning over him. He moved to the man’s bullet riddled body and kneeled down. The same black sludge that accompanied the bullet he pulled out of Wynonna was present in these wounds too. If he had any doubt as to where his apprentice had taken him, it was gone now. Without pausing to consider what he had to do, Lockhart gripped the knife and slid its blade into the man’s temple. With the brain destroyed, that would ensure the ghoul wouldn’t be able to rise.

One down, one left to go. This one had the woman mourning over it though. He already feared having to deal with such an encounter, but he had to do it. Lockhart stood up and walked the short distance to the second body. He stopped behind the woman, watching her shoulders heave up and down, but no sound came out. He didn’t even know how to begin to broach the subject.

“Ma’am,” he began.

She didn’t respond.

“Ma’am,” he repeated.

Still, the woman continued to weep in silence.

Feeling bad that he had to do this, but not so bad that he couldn’t do it, Lockhart reached out and put his hand on the woman’s heaving shoulder. Her movement stopped immediately, but still she didn’t turn around. There was something strange about her though. His pinky finger hadn’t landed on the fabric of her dress and rested instead on her skin. Her cold, dead skin.

As soon as Lockhart realized this, it was too late. The woman turned around and lunged at the vespari, knocking him onto his back. As he landed with a thud in the street, the knife slipped from his grip and slid away. The ghoulish woman followed Lockhart to the ground, her teeth chomping down toward his face. As she plummeted down at him, he managed to grab both her wrists, holding her at bay.

Luckily, as a freshly formed ghoul, the woman was not as strong as she could’ve been. He knew that the undead creatures started out weak when first transformed but that they grew in strength and speed over time. He had an advantage for the moment. The woman was so weak, in fact, that Lockhart could push her off him, but as he began to do so, the man that he had thought she was mourning over began to reanimate. The vespari pushed up on the woman, but the man rose and lunged toward him as well, preventing him from accomplishing this goal. Instead, he had to shift himself, so neither the woman or man could sink their teeth into him and tear his flesh.

His left arm pressed into the man’s neck with that hand gripping one of the ghoul’s wrists, its other limp and unmoving. His right arm had moved to the woman’s throat, holding her far enough away from him that she couldn’t claw his face with her fingers. Though he held them off, he couldn’t remain that way forever. His arms both strained against the ghouls, and his exhaustion weighed on him.

Needing to do something, Lockhart raised his knee up and into the woman’s gut, freeing his hand. She didn’t balance there well, so he didn’t have long. He reached his hand to the side, toward his knife. His fingers nearly scraped the handle, but they couldn’t grasp it. The woman was moving too much against his knee, and he had to once more grip her neck.

Above him, the ghouls continued to chomp and claw at him. He had to do something. That’s when he saw yet another of the shambling creatures from the corner of his eye. He turned toward it to see it too approaching him. Three would be too much. He had to deal with these two before it piled on him as well.

Lockhart was not able to toss either of the ghouls off him with his efforts split, and he couldn’t reach the knife without first moving them. He had one thought as to how to escape this situation, and it was terrible. Despite this, he saw no other opportunity. He released his grip on the man and exchanged his right hand with his left. He held the woman in place and allowed the man to be free.

This exchange allowed him to squirm to the right and grab the knife with his free hand. The cost was that the ghoulish man bit into the flesh of his arm. Lockhart gritted his teeth and gripped the handle of the knife. He then lowered the woman to within his reach and plunged the blade into her skull. Her body went limp, and he pushed her off him.