Lockhart's Legacy (Vespari Lockhart Book 1) (17 page)

“You at least get something new? See where we’re headed?”

He shook his head. “No, but we c-c-c-can’t stay here.”

“Why?”

Lockhart peered out into the darkness. “Something out th-th-there.”

She looked out, trying to find what he spoke of. “What?”

“Don’t know. H-h-h-have to go.”

“You’re a vespari. Can’t you kill it?”

“With what b-b-b-bullets?”

“I still have my rifle, and it’s not like you’re completely out.”

He glared up at her. “H-h-h-help me up. We’re l-l-leaving.”

Wynonna grimaced but did as he said, helping Lockhart get to his feet. They packed the rest of their things as quickly as they could and were soon on their way. The vespari could still hear something out there in the darkness. Stirring. Waiting. Weakened, hexed, and sick from the mad lotus, he had difficulty telling what kind of creature it was. All he knew for sure was that it hadn’t left them be. It was following them, stalking them. The night had just begun too, so there would be no reprieve for many hours yet.

The sound of breathing slowly approached them, but no matter where in the dark Lockhart looked, he saw nothing. Based on the way Wynonna’s head glanced back and side to side, she saw the same as him. The breathing seemed to be all around them. Everywhere and nowhere. As the effects of the mad lotus slowly wore off, the vespari started to piece everything together though. He knew what was surrounding them.

Lockhart hadn’t forgotten about the Gentleman. The dark, undead creature had moved north, but its more recently created ghouls did not move as fast as him. Lockhart and Wynonna seemed to have stumbled upon a group of the ghouls trying to follow the revenant. With only the light of the stars and the moon to illuminate the night, Lockhart finally caught sight of one of the shambling creatures.

A female ghoul walked just to the side of them in a hunched posture, saliva, blood, and other fluids leaking from her grinning maw. Skin sloughed off her body, held on in some places only thanks to the tattered dress she wore. Her hair was greasy strands, and her eyes were cold. Lifeless wet pearls. The creature disgusted Lockhart.

Wynonna had a different reaction. “Mom?” she asked the ghoul.

Another shoddy creature stumbled beside her in the darkness.

Wynonna made a sound like she was choking. “Dad?”

“N-n-not your family,” Lockhart told her. “They’re g-g-g-gone.”

His apprentice wasn’t paying him any attention. She moved past him, toward the ghouls that had once been her parents. Lockhart, meanwhile, retrieved the revolver from his waist and the knife from his boot. He couldn’t guess as to why the revenant would let his ghouls fall this far behind, but he was sure not going to let them find their way back to their master.

Wynonna kept moving toward the dead creatures that had once been her family, and Lockhart could tell that they weren’t alone. More were out there in the dark, struggling to reunite with the Gentleman. The vespari knew he had to act, and he knew it was only going to further drive Wynonna away. He saw no other choice though.

Moving toward the pair of ghouls, Lockhart drove the blade of his knife into the soft tissue and hard bone that made up the skull of Wynonna’s mother.

“No!” his apprentice shouted.

He didn’t stop. Lockhart tugged the knife back, freeing it from Wynonna’s mother and forcing the body to fall limp to the ground. He then repeated the same effort with Wynonna’s father. Neither one put up a fight, presumably because of their distance from their master.

“C-come on,” he told his apprentice, not allowing her any time to grieve her family.

She ignored him, her eyes transfixed on the bodies of her unmoving parents.

“Wynonna!” he shouted.

Still, she remained motionless. He tucked the revolver back in its holster and grabbed her arm. Wynonna resisted, tugging it back and then punching Lockhart square in the jaw, knocking him to the ground out of sheer surprise.

“You bastard!” she shouted. “How could you?”

The vespari rotated his jaw and rubbed at the spot she hit. “Your f-family is gone.”

Wynonna paid him no attention. She’d dropped to the ground, kneeling beside her mother and father. Lockhart breathed heavy and watched as the ghouls that had surrounded them out there in that darkness passed them by, paying no attention to the pair of vespari. He was grateful that the ghouls had become so separated from their master, because in that moment, they were both weak. Wynonna from seeing her family returned in that nightmarish state; Lockhart from the curse and mad lotus’s sickness.

Suddenly, Wynonna’s head shot up. “Jeremiah?” she asked of the darkness around them.

Lockhart didn’t know who this Jeremiah was, but the vespari refused to let her fall prey to whatever thought was in her head.

Wynonna stood up and stumbled forward a couple steps. “Jeremiah, are you out there?”

“Wynonna!” Lockhart yelled.

He may as well have said nothing for all that Wynonna heeded him. She shot out into the darkness where his eyes could not follow.

“Damnit,” he muttered, fumbling in his pack for his matches.

Upon finding them, he pulled one out and struck it against the side of the box. The light illuminated no ghouls close by. Instead, he saw them at a distance with Wynonna following. She’d left behind the bodies of her dead parents and gone in search of another. He assumed that Jeremiah was one of her brothers. He expected she thought to save him somehow. He knew better, but he knew not how to convince Wynonna of her folly. Since she hadn’t listened to him as of yet, Lockhart had no choice but to trudge along after her.

He was weak from the toxin in the mad lotus, and every time the beldams pulled him into the dreamscape to drain him, he felt closer to the grave. Still, he pushed on. He’d made a promise to Wynonna to help her kill the revenant, and he’d see it done. He couldn’t let the false hope she felt from seeing her family drive her right into the revenant’s sights. It wasn’t even just the promise.

Lockhart saw something in her. Wynonna was prickly, angry, and rude, but he knew there was more to her. They shared a common trait. Both pushed themselves beyond all reasonable expectations. Both focused on whatever drove them. Both were stubborn. Nothing would stop them from accomplishing what they set out to do except their own death.

With each passing day, Lockhart feared the Caustic Brand would kill him, but he believed he could leave a legacy behind in Wynonna. To do that, he needed to get her past this one act of revenge and realize that there were scores of terrible creatures out there doing exactly what was done to her family every day. He needed to show her that killing this one revenant would not bring peace to the world. Not even to her own troubled mind. She would have to see that she could do more if she focused on helping everyone that yet lived rather than worrying about those already gone.

“Wynonna!” he called again.

His voice scratched at his throat, and despite his efforts, she continued forward. He could hear and feel his heart beating in his temples. Sweat poured down his forehead. The toes of his boots scraped along in the dirt with each step. His vision doubled, and his gut swirled. He barely maintained his balance, but still he pressed on. He couldn’t leave her.

***

Somewhere in her mind, Wynonna knew that she was a fool to search for her brother in that horde of ghouls. She knew that there was simply no way he had survived the Gentleman’s attack on their ranch. Their mother and father had both perished and turned into ghouls. She already regretted what she’d said and done to Lockhart. She knew he’d done the right thing, even if she couldn’t consciously admit it. They were gone, and there seemed no chance that her brother yet lived. Despite her own logic screaming at her to turn back and return to Lockhart, Wynonna continued to search through those undead creatures.

“Jeremiah,” she whispered to herself, feeling like the voice somehow gave her the power to persevere.

The youngest of her brothers, Wynonna had often taken up the task of protecting Jeremiah. He was the baby of the family. Her older brothers and her father had taught them all how to take care of themselves and the ranch out in that harsh desert landscape, but Jeremiah had been too young for many of those lessons. As such, Wynonna took it upon herself to pass these lessons on and to protect him when others were too busy with the work required on the ranch.

Not only was Jeremiah the youngest, he also was the smartest of them. What he lacked in physical strength, he made up for with his aptitude for numbers and letters. Their mother had largely taken care of such things on the ranch, but when Jeremiah grew older, he helped her with the books while Wynonna, her older brothers, and her father managed the rest of the work. Jeremiah simply didn’t have what it took for the life of a rancher in the desert wastes.

Because of the revenant, his ghouls, and whatever else roamed those deserts, Wynonna knew her brother wasn’t safe. She had to find him. She had to protect him. She discarded any possibility that he hadn’t survived the Gentleman’s attack on their ranch. He had to be fine, but deep down, she knew the truth. She knew he was dead, and that what she searched for was no more alive than the bodies of her parents. Still, she persisted.

The light from Lockhart’s match behind her only barely gave her enough visibility to see the form of a familiar silhouette ahead. It had to be Jeremiah. He wasn’t alone though. Others shambled ahead of him or beside him. Seeing these poor imitations of living things, Wynonna still refused to acknowledge her brother’s death. The group somehow moved faster than her though despite their weakness and their awkward gait. She was losing ground on them, and soon, she had to start running along behind them to try to catch up.

No matter how fast she moved, the things ahead of her moved faster. The faster she moved, the further Lockhart fell behind, and the less light she had to see her brother by. She’d occasionally look back to check on the vespari. These glances were enough to tell her that his curse and the mad lotus’s poison had taken its toll on him. He looked haggard and weak. On the point of collapsing. She could see him try to speak, but no sound came out. She ignored him. Her brother was more important. She pressed on.

Wynonna thought on the rest of her family. They had to be here as well. There was Casper, the younger of her two older brothers, and then there was Roscoe. He’d recently married a sweet young woman, Marcella. They’d wanted children. Now that was gone. The Gentleman took that from them. Her hate toward this undead thing grew, swelling in her gut and burning in her brow.

That’s when the light went out behind Wynonna. She didn’t pay it any attention at first. The moon and starlight would be enough to keep up with Jeremiah and the others. But then, she heard the fall. Lockhart’s body dropped to the ground with a grunt behind her. She kept moving a few more steps, focusing on finding her family. A rush of heat coursed through her body, however, and made her come to a sudden halt. Wynonna stopped there, pulled in two directions and unable to move in either.

Wynonna looked back to Lockhart’s body on the ground. She could just barely make out his crumpled form in the darkness. She looked forward to her brother. Nothing she could lock onto any more. She wondered how long she’d been following Jeremiah. The sun would be up in a matter of hours, she realized.

A voice in her head told her to abandon her master. Maybe Lockhart would be fine. What would be bold enough to attack a vespari anyway, especially with dawn so close to arrival? She took a couple more steps toward Jeremiah’s voice but stopped again, feeling that heat in her gut rise up. Her brow was warm and unrelenting. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t abandon him.

“Damnit,” she said, turning about face and starting the walk back to Lockhart.

The inner voice persisted though. It told her that she would never see her brother again if she didn’t go now. It told her that Lockhart had killed her parents. It told her that she wasn’t a vespari. It told her that death to the Gentleman would be preferable to the agony of living without her family.

Wynonna closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed the thoughts of her brother from her mind. She’d made a promise. She’d vowed to become a vespari like Lockhart. Her brother was dead. Her parents were dead. Everyone she’d ever loved was dead. Lockhart didn’t hurt any of them. It wasn’t his fault they were dead. It was hers. She should’ve been there to protect them. She couldn’t save them now, but she could get revenge on the revenant that stole them from her. She’d become a vespari and put a runed bullet in that thing’s brain and make sure no one ever experienced the pain that she felt in that moment.

Arriving at the vespari, Wynonna leaned down and grabbed his hand. “Come on, old man. Get up. We’ve gotta keep moving.”

“Where?” he asked, using her help to stand. “I d-d-d-didn’t see anything.”

Wynonna pointed toward the direction of the ghouls. “We follow them. They’ll lead us to the Gentleman. We kill it, and that’s one less worry.”

She could see that Lockhart didn’t think much of the idea, but his heavy breaths also told her that he was too tired to resist. He just nodded. For a few minutes, Wynonna had to help Lockhart walk, but after a while, he made do on his own. When the sun finally rose, there was no sign of the revenant’s ghouls, but the trail they’d made was still obvious. She didn’t need to be a vespari to track them.