Lockhart's Legacy (Vespari Lockhart Book 1) (3 page)

The shining black ink was still dripping and his flesh was reddened and tender to the touch. Alviva had done a messy job, but he recognized the design. Petronila had called it a consumptive hex, but he knew it by another name. Documented in the Vespari Brotherhood’s Arcane Compendium, the design had earned the name, Caustic Brand.

The Caustic Brand was a death sentence. A curse would strip his body and soul of all power. That didn’t just include his own soul but also every soul of every monster he’d ever killed. Each of them resided inside the tattooed runes on his chest. The beldam would feed on him during the process. The outlook was bleak, but Lockhart wasn’t the type to give in to such feelings. He knew that the curse had a cure. One cure. He had to kill the creatures that had cursed him. This would end the Caustic Brand and restore any siphoned power back to him.

That said, Lockhart thought that this type of magic was out of reach for the sorcery of a beldam. They specialized in more typical magic. They focused mostly on inflicting pain on their targets. How or why a beldam would learn this kind of sorcery he couldn’t say.

That would have to wait though. Needing to do something about his immediate injuries, Lockhart stowed the knife and forced himself to stand. The beldams had made that cave a home for some time by the look of things, and they left in a hurry. There had to be magical reagents there. Maybe there was something he could use to tend to his wounds.

The vespari began searching through a few large, wooden crates and a tall, standing dresser that had seen better days. As he scoured the room, Lockhart picked up his revolver and tucked it back into its holster at his hip. He would have to check his bullet supply and reload later.

In his search, Lockhart found the needle that Alviva had used to tattoo him, some thread, and a variety of herbs that he could combine to make a poultice. Mashing the herbs in a pot he found, he prepared them first. He fought unconsciousness with every step, as he’d lost a lot of blood, and it wore on him. Regardless, Lockhart managed to make the herbs into a paste before long, and he let it sit over the fire the beldams had left behind.

While the poultice heated, he focused on stitching himself back up. Grime and ink still covered the dirty needle, so he poured some whiskey he found among the beldams’ discarded human victims in a glass and threw the needle in to sterilize it. After sloshing it about in the alcohol, he was content with its cleanliness. Threading the needle, he sat down in a creaky old chair and began the process of stitching the skin of his slashed gut back together.

This kind of self-administered healing was nothing new to him. A vespari could expect to deal with countless injuries during their lifetime, especially when working in the enormous but nearly empty desert. It’s not a kind occupation, and not one for those of a weak stomach. Pain was mandatory and constant. Lockhart had learned ways of ignoring it, and he wished he could do that as the needle pierced his tender flesh and tugged it back together. Lockhart needed the pain now though. He focused on it to keep him conscious and working.

Once he passed the needle through the opposite side of the wound from where he had started, Lockhart decided it was good enough. He cut the thread and tossed the needle aside. Now, he needed the poultice. Standing up and moving to the fire, he grabbed the pot and walked it over to a table, sitting it there.

Reaching into the pot, Lockhart grabbed a handful of the hot poultice and slopped it over the wound in his stomach. It burned at his flesh, and he had to grit his teeth and slam his fist into the table to fight the pain. The poultice was necessary though. It would disinfect the wound, fight inflammation, and help the injury heal faster. The grainy sludge sunk into the wound, past the shoddy stitches, and started to cool there. As the poultice cooled, he started to feel relief. He needed to hurry.

Without the pain, he wasn’t going to last much longer. He was going to fade. Picking up another handful of the poultice, he slapped it on his sliced open palm. Again, it burned at his flesh but soon started to cool. Knowing he couldn’t force himself to stay awake any longer, Lockhart sat down in that creaky chair, so he wouldn’t fall and dislodge the poultice. His head fell back, and darkness overcame him.

***

Lockhart awoke several hours later with a fever in his brow, a scratch in his throat, and a rumbling in his stomach. Taking a quick glance around the cave, he verified that the beldams hadn’t returned while he was out. He was alone. That didn’t mean he’d found his way out of the proverbial woods just yet though. The slashed gut still threatened him, and even if not for that, he now had the Caustic Brand to deal with. He couldn’t worry about any of that yet. He needed to get out of that cave and find somewhere he could rest and recover.

Thinking about how far he’d tracked the wraith and where he had to be now, Lockhart decided that the closest town was Abilene. A tiny little speck of a town like most of those in that dry and cracked desert, but they’d have enough resources to get him on the mend. He had dwindling supplies anyway, so he needed to go into town to restock. The only problem with that was that the vespari also had a dwindling coin purse. He could afford to buy some of what he needed, but unless he managed to get a heavy discount, he’d have to do without a few things.

First, Lockhart needed to get out of that cave. With a groan, he forced himself out of that rickety chair, only to fall forward onto the table in front of him. Some of the dry and crumbling poultice fell out, and the most recent stitches strained against the exertion. All the more reason to keep moving, he told himself. Pushing himself upright once again, he stumbled to the nearest wall. Using it, he scraped his way along the cave back toward the entrance, leaving a trail of blood and poultice crumbs.

When he finally made it outside, a sunrise greeted Lockhart rather than the darkness of the prior evening. The night’s chill still held on to the morning, but it wouldn’t be long before the sun’s rays scorched the desert once more. Not eager to trudge through the day’s heat, the vespari set off east toward Abilene.

Lockhart, once again, used his duster, wrapping it around his body, attempting to keep the poultice in place. Nodding his head down, he used the brim of his cowboy hat to shield his eyes from the rising sun. He had to be careful though. He didn’t want to get too comfortable. Despite the brief nap, he was still exhausted, so occasionally, he would look up at the sun, its warmth heating his face and the brightness flashing his eyes. This ritual kept him from fading too quickly, but he had a long way to go before Abilene.

Slogging through the waste’s dried and cracked dirt, Lockhart eventually saw a shadow pass by, and he heard the nearby flapping of wings. Looking in its direction, he found a vulture landing on a rock not far from him. The bird clacked its beak at him, eyeing him as he moved. Hopeful for a meal, certainly. As if he needed another reason to not pass out, the bird would present a serious threat if he fell asleep. He was near enough dead that the vulture would be more than happy to start on him should he fall.

That wasn’t all either. Vultures were harbingers of a greater threat. Harpies. Vile, bird-like creatures with black feathers that covered their bodies up to their neck where a red, glossy, and smooth skin took over. They took after vultures in that way, so as to keep clean when they ripped and plucked at the corpses that served as their meals. Unlike the smaller birds, however, they were more willing to kill. Granted, they preferred an easy target too, but they had no fear or qualms about finishing something off if it was near enough to death.

Several more vultures soon appeared and clacked their beaks at him before another loud screech from the skies announced the arrival of such a harpy. He wasn’t going to make it back to town without further violence, it seemed. The screech was not a simple caw like that of the vultures. This had more malevolence and ill will behind it. The harpy was not a wild animal driven by instinct and inherent savageness but nor was it a monster of great intelligence. It couldn’t speak, but it had found a way to mimic sounds well enough to trick you into thinking otherwise. This one had stumbled on a particularly unsettling word.

“Corpse!” it shrieked, flying over Lockhart’s head.

The creature sounded as though it was proclaiming him as just that. The vespari was not prone to give into fear though. He still had two bullets in his chamber. It would be enough. One ravenous bird would not cause him too much alarm.

What would, however, create difficulty was the fever growing inside his head. Sweat dripping from his brow, Lockhart raised his eyes up just in time to catch the harpy’s body blot out the sun. It didn’t linger in that spot, continuing to swirl above him, but he had trouble tracking it. Time seemed to slow and skip in all the wrong ways. As he caught sight of the bird, it would vanish and reappear somewhere else, but he knew that harpies had no such magic. This was simply his mind drifting out of consciousness. He’d have to hurry and kill the thing before it realized how weak he was.

Lockhart pulled his revolver from the holster at his waist and raised it in the air. His arms felt weak. The metal hardly left his hip before his arm dropped back down. He was just lucky his grip remained on the weapon. The harpy, however, saw an opportunity to capitalize on and swooped down toward him.

“Corpse!” the harpy repeated.

Rather than attempting to raise his weapon again and use up his remaining strength, Lockhart decided to wait until the bird was level with him, until the last possible moment. The harpy swooped down, shrieking at him, and when it was only several feet in front of him, the vespari raised the silver and pearl revolver. He fired a single shot, and the harpy tumbled to the ground at his feet.

“Corpse!” it shrieked again from the dirt.

Lockhart’s arm fell down to his side again, as he looked to the harpy. Just raising the revolver to his waist had exhausted him. The wound in his gut tore at him, and sweat continued to pour from every pore. Still, the monstrous bird wasn’t dead yet. He aimed the revolver at the harpy’s head and fired a second shot, silencing its shrieking for good.

Pausing for a moment, Lockhart expected the harpy’s energy to flow into his tattoos and pass on its power. It never came. The harpy should have granted him improved vision, but he didn’t think he was able to see any further than normal. It might’ve allowed him to spot the town of Abilene on the horizon, but he didn’t have time to linger on why the energy didn’t grant him a boon.

He kept moving. Behind him, he heard the vultures descend and begin to feast on the harpy that they themselves had a hand in bringing to him. He ignored their screeching and fighting and focused on making it to the next town.

Time passed at a faster pace than it should have, thanks to his drifting in and out of consciousness again. Though he was grateful to find himself ever closer to Abilene, he worried that he would stumble and fall during one of these blackouts.

After one such waking, he found the outline of the buildings ahead of him. He wasn’t far now. Exhaustion gripped him. Every step he took felt like his last. Trying anything he could to keep himself awake and moving, Lockhart gripped his wounded palm. He pierced through the poultice he’d made, causing blood to squirt out and leak down his wrist to the scorched ground below. The pain gave him a boost, but it was a temporary measure. The vespari took a dozen or so more steps and then his foot faltered. He stumbled and fell to the ground.

***

Lockhart felt lucky to open his eyes once again. Someone in Abilene must’ve found him. He stared up at a wooden ceiling. His head rested on a soft pillow. His torn and bloody shirt was gone. The wound in his hand had a bandage over it, and the one in his gut felt recently tended to. The fever still clutched him, and hunger yelled at him from his stomach, but the scratching in his throat had gone. Someone had given him water in his sleep. Turning his head to the side, he saw a window. The sun was still up but starting to dip behind the horizon.

He’d been out for most of the day. The beldams could’ve been anywhere. They could’ve traveled anywhere, and any clue to where could be gone. He needed to get up and get after them. He needed to hunt them down and kill them before the Caustic Brand consumed him.

Causing the bedframe to creak, Lockhart sat up and rested against the backboard. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d drawn the attention of whoever had helped him. A door in front of him opened, and an older woman stood there, examining him.

“You’re still alive,” she said in a nonchalant tone.

Lockhart took a deep breath and nodded.

The woman stepped into the room and pointed at him. “You a vespari? Saw your tattoos.” She gestured over to a table where his things were. “And your gun.”

Lockhart nodded again, tossing the blanket aside and throwing his legs off the side of the bed.

The woman put her hands on her hips. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

She was right. As soon as Lockhart stood up, he fell back down to the lumpy mattress.

“Lay back down,” she ordered him. “Your injuries haven’t healed yet. Even for a vespari.”

Lockhart caught his breath and then slunk his feet back under the covers before lying down. The woman grabbed the blankets and stretched them back over him.

“Get some rest,” she said. “It’ll all still be here tomorrow.”