by J. Stone
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.”
He hadn’t hardly closed his eyes before sleep crept over him again.
***
Lockhart slept through the night, and with the morning’s arrival, he felt the absence of the fever. He’d sweated it out the night before, it seemed, as the sheets were drenched with it. He had to get out of them and check his wound. Tossing the sheets off, he swung his legs to the side once more and stood. This time, dizziness didn’t overtake him. He didn’t feel great, but he could stand at least.
Dropping his head, he peered down at his wound. The woman had wrapped it well. She’d done that kind of thing before it seemed. Pressing his hand to it, he didn’t feel any pain. A benefit of the vespari tattoos. Killing some of the monsters he’d slew had granted him enough regeneration to speed the recovery of the wound. Unwrapping the bandage, he found that there was very little left of the claw marks that the wraith had left on him. Not knowing what to do with the bloody bandages, he left them on the table where his things set.
Looking through the items on the table, he didn’t see his shirt. Probably for the best he thought, as it had been shredded and bloodied from his wounds. All the same, he needed a new one. Maybe the woman had a husband with a shirt he could have. For the moment, he left his things where they were and decided to go see the woman who’d helped him.
When he opened the door, it creaked at him, announcing to the woman his state. She sat in a rocking chair, looking out a window, but she turned to look at him as he approached her, giving him a disapproving glance. The woman’s eyes drifted down to Lockhart’s stomach.
“Seems it’s true what they say about your lot,” she commented. “Bit unnatural though.”
He gave her a quick nod.
“Well,” she continued with a sigh. “I suppose you’re hungry.”
Not waiting for him to respond, she stood up from the rocking chair and approached her little kitchen. The woman started to get him a bowl and ladle something into it from a large pot.
“I made stew,” she told him. “Always make too much. Used to cooking for more than just me, I suppose.” The woman looked back at him still standing there. “Well, sit down,” she said, pointing to the table.
Lockhart did as ordered, and when he did, she set down
the bowl in front of him. He didn’t wait for polite decorum. He grabbed the spoon and shoveled a heaping mound into his mouth. It tasted pretty good. Better than he’d had in a long time anyway.
“There’s cornbread too, if you want it,” she told him.
Mouth still full, Lockhart looked up at her and nodded.
The woman turned back to the counter, while he continued to shovel the stew into his mouth. When she returned, she sat a plate down on the table with a slice of the cornbread. He picked it up, dipped it into the stew, and took a bite. It was a little stale but still palatable.
“You don’t say much, do you?” she asked, sitting down at the table across from him.
He cut his eyes up at her and then returned them to the food. The woman rested her head on her arms, propped them on the table, and continued to eye him with some disapproval.
“I expect you could use a new shirt too,” she said.
With his mouth full, he just nodded again.
“Well, they’re just going to waste in the closet. Can’t imagine Harold’ll miss ‘em anyway.”
The woman stood from the table with an exhaustive sigh and left, heading back to a bedroom. When he had finished with the stew a few minutes later, she returned, holding it out in front of her.
“Looks about your size,” she said. “Try it on.”
Lockhart stood, pushing his chair back in, and took the shirt from her. It was a tan, long-sleeved button up shirt. It would work as well as anything. Slipping his arms through each hole and beginning to clasp the buttons, the shirt did seem a good fit. Once he’d buttoned it up to just under his neck, he looked up at her.
“Th-th-thank you,” Lockhart said, revealing his stutter to her.
“Mm,” she replied, looking at him differently with two simple words.
They always looked at him differently once he opened his mouth to speak. They thought him weak, timid, or stupid. The fact he was a vespari, hunting and killing monsters, didn’t seem to affect their opinion of him much after he spoke. His stutter and people’s reactions toward it had almost made him a mute in return. He’d been doing it as long as he could remember, despite the vespari that trained him attempting to beat it out of him. That was his master’s response to almost any imperfection. It became simpler to just not say anything. He sought to let his actions speak for him, and as far as he was concerned, they spoke volumes.
Before there was time for any further exchange, a familiar sound began to clang outside. A death knell. No one died of natural causes in those lands. Odds were that the death knell announced a job for Lockhart. Given his current lack of resources, he thought it might be worthwhile to investigate.
“Mr. Brown,” the woman commented, walking to the window and peering out. “Died two nights back.”
Lockhart joined her to see a short procession of people heading toward the church and carrying a casket. “H-h-how did he d-d-die?”
The woman looked back at him with that same pitying expression. She then returned her glance to the window. “They say some monster did it. He was the mortician. Was tending to another dead body in his office. They say the monster crept in there and killed him.” She looked back at him. “Why? You aim to kill it?”
He nodded before turning around to head back to the room to collect his things. The woman didn’t stop him, returning her glance to the window and the events unfolding outside. Lockhart entered the room and made his way to the small table where his gun and other things still set. He strung the belt back around his waist and stowed the revolver there. He slipped his boots on, and placed the knife inside as well in its reserved spot. Last was his duster, which he flung on as well. He checked its pockets for his things, and everything seemed to be in its place, so he returned to the main room where the woman still stood, staring out the window.
Lockhart didn’t have much money left, but for what she’d done, she deserved compensation. Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out a pair of silver rounds, the typical currency of the desert, and approached her, holding them out.
She waved them away. “That’s not necessary,” she told him. “Just doing what Harold would’ve.”
He grabbed her wrist and placed the rounds in her palm, clasping her fingers over them. When he released her hand, she shook her head, held the two silver rounds where he could see, kept one for herself and reached forward to tuck the other back in his pocket.
“I think you’ll need it more than I will,” she said.
The vespari turned for the door and reached for the knob to leave.
“You’ll want to talk to Mayor Knox,” she told him. “She might be willing to pay you for killing the thing.”
Lockhart nodded to her in a sign of appreciation, opened the door, and left the woman’s home. As he walked outside, the death knell rang out again. The procession had already made its way inside the little church near the center of town. Assuming that the mayor would be there, Lockhart decided to pay it a visit. If nothing else, attending the funeral might give him some insight into what it was that he might be offering his services to kill.
Looking around, most of the town had assembled for this funeral. He wondered if anyone in the rest of the town had stayed home other than the old woman who’d helped him. The other buildings in town looked vacant. Aside from the church, Abilene had become a ghost town. Proceeding up the steps of the church, Lockhart saw the townspeople gathering. Some sat in the pews, while others conversed with one another before the ceremony began. Stepping inside, he looked around, trying to identify the mayor.
Most of the folks wore simple clothes marking them either as farmers, ranchers, or laborers of some description. Lockhart knew the mayor was a woman, so he narrowed his search to that subgroup. One stood out among the crowd of potentials.
The woman in question was dressed in a formal black suit with a white shirt underneath. She had pressed the whole outfit, making her look very proper and stand apart from the rest of the women and even the men in similar attire. A tie hung low from her neck, tied in a knot, but it wasn’t very tight. A bowler would have topped her head, but she’d taken it off as a sign of respect for the passing of the man in the casket, holding it to her chest, just over her heart. Seeing this, Lockhart mimicked the gesture, grabbing his hat and holding it in his hand to his side. If he were to guess, this woman was the mayor that the old woman had told him about.
As the funeral hadn’t yet started, Lockhart approached her with the intention of finding out more about the deaths. His coming caught her eye, and she swiveled toward him, sticking the thumb on her free hand into her pants pocket.
“Haven’t seen you before,” she declared.
“M-mayor Knox?” he asked.
She nodded and ignored the stutter. “Who are you? And what brings you to Abilene? Especially on a day like this.”
Lockhart brushed his duster aside and showed her the crescent moon etched into the seven-pointed star emblem hanging from his belt, which marked him as a vespari.
Knox nodded. “A vespari? In my town?”
“Yes, m-ma’am,” he replied.
“Your kind smell death or something?”
Lockhart pointed up at the church’s bells. “D-d-death knell.”
“Mmm. Fair enough. So, I take it you’re offering your services?”
He nodded.
“Well, we could use it, but we can’t offer much.”
“F-f-first,” Lockhart began. “I n-n-need to know about the m-monster.”
Knox looked back to where the casket set. “Don’t know what it was, to tell you the truth. Attacked old Mr. Brown in his office, while he prepared a body for a funeral. He was in pieces when we found him.”
Lockhart tried to narrow down the suspects. “At night?”
The mayor nodded. “Yeah, but we didn’t find out about it until the morning. Guess it didn’t make much noise.”
That meant it killed him before dismembering him. Screams would’ve drawn attention, so it was a quick kill. Several
types of monsters that would’ve done that, but the victim being a mortician gave Lockhart a big clue too.
“The b-b-bones?” he asked.
Knox had a knowing look come over her face. “Yeah,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “The thing took ‘em. Going to make clean up pretty difficult. Why? You know what did this?”
Lockhart nodded. “Vishler.”
“A vishler? Never even heard of that before. Can you kill it?”
Another nod, and he pointed at the casket. “I’ll need the b-body.”
Again, Knox looked back at Mr. Brown’s remains. “What for?”
“B-bait. D-d-draw the vishler out.”
“Well, he’s not even in there. We were just gonna bury an empty coffin, mostly for appearances. His remains are still back in his office. Haven’t picked it all up yet. Can take you there now if you want.”
Lockhart nodded.
Knox looped her arm around his. “Come on then,” she said, pulling him toward the church exit. “They can get by without me for a time.”
Uncomfortable though he was with her holding onto him, he allowed the mayor to guide him out of the church, down the steps, and back into the town. They started down one of the streets, when Lockhart could tell that Mayor Knox wanted to ask him something.
“A vespari, huh?” she said.
He shrugged.
“Pretty good luck you coming by like this.”
Lockhart didn’t say anything.
“Strong, silent type, I see,” she said. “That’s fine. It occurs to me I haven’t even asked you your name.”
“Corrigan Lockhart,” he told her. They were about the only two words he could reliably say without the stutter butting in.
