by J. Stone
“Here is the first room,” the young woman said.
“You take this one, Cory,” Wynonna told Lockhart, not taking her eyes off the young woman. “Dorothy can show me to the next one.”
“Fine,” he replied. “W-w-which one w-w-will you be in?”
“She will be around the corner, two doors down,” Dorothy informed him, handing Lockhart his key.
The vespari took it and entered the room. As he did, Wynonna looped her arm through Dorothy’s.
“Now let’s see if we can find this room, huh?” she told the young woman.
Too tired to stay awake much longer, Lockhart closed his bedroom door, dropped his bag to the ground, and shed a few articles of clothing before collapsing on the bed. He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
***
Early the next morning, Lockhart woke to a ray of light shining in through his window. He groaned, opening his eyes and shifting in an attempt to avoid the sun’s glaring light. It wasn’t enough, so he forced himself to sit upright. Yawning and scratching his scalp, he stretched out his legs, which had hung partially off the bed all night. After picking up his hat that had fallen off upon hitting the mattress, Lockhart stood and moved to the door. Plopping his hat on his head, he opened the door and stepped out into the hall.
Ready to leave, he needed to get Wynonna up, so they could get on the move. The mad lotus-induced visions had left him a trail to follow, and he didn’t want to let the beldams slip any further away than they already had. Finding the door that Dorothy had indicated, Lockhart rapped his knuckles against the wood. After a few minutes, there was no response. Maybe she’d got up first and had let him sleep. Either way, she didn’t seem to be there. Walking toward the stairs, he soon looked over the railing to see a few other travelers who were staying in the inn. They were eating breakfast at a series of tables set out on the first floor, and Dorothy served them plates and glasses of water. Maybe the young woman had seen Wynonna, he thought.
Heading down the stairs, the vespari approached her as she left a plate on one of the tables. “You s-s-seen the woman I c-c-came in with?” he asked.
Dorothy looked flustered and rapidly shook her head. “No. Of course not. Why would I have seen her?”
“Uh, I j-j-just thought--”
“I haven’t seen her. Not since last night.” With that, Dorothy turned and left, disappearing into the kitchen.
Wondering what that strange encounter had been about, he shook his head and decided to forget Wynonna for the moment and go check the general store for supplies. With his bullet count dwindling, he really needed to find more. The only problem was that he was now down to four silver rounds after the night at the inn. If the store even had any bullets of his caliber in, hopefully those would be enough.
Leaving the inn behind, Lockhart went outside and headed down the street. Though the sun was out, there was still a chill to the air. The combination of being that far north and the early morning hour stood in stark contrast to the typical desert temperatures, but he wasn’t complaining. He’d had more than enough heat for a lifetime.
Within a few minutes, he arrived at the store and found the owner to be in the process of opening it. The man stood at the door and unlatched the lock before turning around and heading back to his stocks. Lockhart stepped onto the wooden porch in front of the store and twisted the knob, swinging the door open. The general store owner turned around in surprise.
“Oh,” the man said. “Didn’t expect anyone in here so soon.”
“L-l-looking for bullets,” he told him.
The storeowner narrowed his eyes and looked him over. “Bullets? What for?”
“I’m a vespari,” Lockhart said.
The man’s eyes opened wide now. “A vespari, you say? You here cause of the killings?”
Lockhart shook his head. “Didn’t know a-a-about a-a-any killings?”
“But you’re going to investigate, aren’t you?”
“No t-t-time. Heading north.”
The man sighed and moved behind the counter. “Well, we’ve got bullets, but I’m afraid they aren’t for sale.”
“Why not?”
He placed his hands flat on the counter. “Seems the only leverage I got. Our people died. Our town’ll die too if someone doesn’t do something. You take care of our problem, I’ll see that you get a reward and I’ll give you what bullets I have too.”
Lockhart now took his turn to sigh. He could use more bullets, and he certainly needed more silver rounds, but his time might very well be running short. There was no telling when the beldams would extract their next batch of energy from him. Nor did he have any idea how long until they sucked him dry. Regardless, he wouldn’t be able to kill the beldams, let alone the Gentleman, if he didn’t have any bullets when he got there. Besides, he couldn’t stand to take on any more guilt. He knew he had to help those people.
“F-f-fine,” Lockhart eventually replied. “I’ll take the j-j-job. What is it?”
“You may know we have a quarry just outside town,” the man began.
Lockhart nodded.
“Well, a group of workers were killed there about a week back.”
“Where are th-th-the bodies? C-c-can I see them?”
“‘Fraid not. There wasn’t much left, and they already buried what they could find.”
“And y-y-you don’t know what k-k-k-killed ‘em?
He shook his head. “No one saw it, and no one knows what could’ve done those kinds of injuries.”
“Quarries e-e-east of town, right?”
The shop owner nodded. “If you can figure out what killed those men and deal with it, I’ll make sure to get a reward together from the others in town. I know they’ll be grateful.”
“F-f-fine,” Lockhart said. “I’ll look into it, and be back s-s-soon.”
The vespari left the general store and returned to the inn. If they really were going to hunt whatever had killed the miners at the quarry, Wynonna should be there to learn from it. He moved past the others eating on the lower level and scaled the stairs. Going to his apprentice’s door, he knocked on the wood once again. And again, there was no answer from her.
He hadn’t seen her outside, and she wasn’t in the inn’s lobby. She had to be there. He pressed his ear up to the door. He heard something inside, but he couldn’t say what. He just knew she was in there. Lockhart decided he had waited long enough. They had to go, so he tried the knob of Wynonna’s door. She hadn’t locked it. He told himself that she’d relinquished any right to privacy by wasting his time.
“Come o-o-on, Wynonna,” he said, entering. “Time to--”
Lockhart stopped, seeing his apprentice naked on the bed, sitting on top of a young man, and writhing up and down. Upon hearing him, she stopped her movement and twisted her head part way around.
“Bit busy here, Cory,” she said.
“Who’s that?” the young man under her asked.
“Shut up,” she told him. To Lockhart, “I’ll be out when I’m done here.”
Flustered, the vespari backed up and shut the door. He waited out in the hall, pacing back and forth for a few minutes. When his embarrassment subsided, irritation replaced it. He soon stopped pacing and took up a position opposite Wynonna’s room. He leaned against the wall and folded his arms, staring at the door and waiting for her to hurry up.
Another few minutes, and the door swung open. The young man, only partially clothed and looking sheepish, stepped out, refusing to make eye contact with Lockhart. He carried the rest of his clothes in his arms and disappeared down the hall, leaving the door open.
Lockhart pushed himself off the wall and stepped inside Wynonna’s room. His apprentice was only partially dressed as well, but she was finishing throwing her clothes on, when he entered.
“Ever hear of knocking, Cory?” she asked him.
“I told you not to c-call me that.” He shook his head. “And I d-d-did knock. You d-d-didn’t answer.”
> “Oh, yeah?” Wynonna threw the orange and black poncho over her head and combed back her hair with her fingers. “And now you know why… Cory. I was busy.”
“Who was th-th-that?” Lockhart asked, gesturing after the young man.
Wynonna shrugged. “Some guy.”
“You d-d-don’t even know his n-n-name?”
“Didn’t need his name. Not what I was after, not that what I was after is any of your business.”
“It is my b-b-business. Y-y-you’re my apprentice. You’re m-my responsibility now.”
“Thanks,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But, I think I can take care of myself. Your responsibility is to teach me how to kill monsters, not how to live my life and not who to spend my time with.” Wynonna picked up her rifle. “So, if you’re done with whatever this is, how about we keep moving, huh, Cory?”
Lockhart glared at her. He didn’t have the capacity for this. “F-f-fine,” he replied, heading out into the hall. “W-w-we’ve got a j-j-job anyway.”
Following him, Wynonna said, “I thought we were just going to keep going north.”
“General store o-o-owner has some b-b-bullets,” Lockhart explained. “Won’t sell ‘em un-un-unless we deal with something.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“D-d-don’t know yet. N-n-no one saw it.”
“How’re we supposed to figure it out then?”
“They t-t-told me w-w-where it killed last. We’ll ch-ch-check there.”
“Where?” she asked as they started down the stairs.
“Quarry outside t-t-town.”
Wynonna sighed. “Okay. Seems like a waste of time, but whatever.”
They hit the bottom steps and continued toward the door. Lockhart spotted Dorothy once again on the way out, and she gave them both the same embarrassed look as before.
“Bye, Dorothy,” Wynonna told the woman with a wink.
Dorothy blushed and turned away without saying anything.
The two got to the pair of doors, and Lockhart pulled one open, holding it for Wynonna. She didn’t seem to appreciate the gesture. She ignored the door he’d opened and instead pushed through the other, walking past him.
“I can operate a door, thanks,” she told him, as she passed.
Lockhart sighed and joined her outside. “What w-w-was that about?”
“What was what about?” Wynonna replied.
“With the g-girl.”
His apprentice laughed to herself. “That, Cory, is another thing that is none of your business.”
“Did you d-d-do something to her?”
Wynonna laughed. “I wish she’d let me, but she was too shy. Besides, like I already told you, what I do in my own time is my own concern. Let’s just go check out this quarry you’re so worried about.”
***
The air was dry, and the sun glared down at them when they got to the quarry. Despite what he expected they’d find within, Lockhart was eager to get inside those chambers and out of the sun. The closer he got to the tunnels, the more obvious became the smell of metal and blood that permeated the air. The storeowner had been right. People had died there, and even after a week, he could still smell it. The miners had abandoned the whole site, and there was no sign that anyone had been there since the killings. Walking into the main chamber, Lockhart soon found a spatter of blood on one of the rocks just inside the entrance. He pointed it out to Wynonna.
She approached the blood, looking closely at it. “So, you know what did this?”
He shook his head. “Not s-s-sure.”
There wasn’t any additional blood to follow either. Seeing no other clues, Lockhart continued forward through the tunnel, held up by planks of wooden rafters. The light outside soon left them, however, and he couldn’t go any further without risking falling into an open shaft. Searching the area, he spotted a torch with a rag wrapped around its tip. Using a box of matches he had in his pocket, he managed to light the rag and illuminate the tunnel. A little further in, they found another torch, and, handing it to Wynonna, he lit it with his own. Now, at least, they could both see where they were going. They continued forward, eventually coming to a crossroads of tunnels. Holding the torch to each one, he could see nothing but more of the manmade cave.
“Which way?” Wynonna asked.
“Hm.” Lockhart sniffed at the air. The smell of dried blood and rotting meat stuck in his nose.
His apprentice tilted her head to the side, watching him. “What?”
He pointed down a chamber. “Something down th-th-there.”
She stepped ahead of him. “Then, let’s go check it out.”
“W-w-w-wait,” he told her.
Wynonna stopped and sighed. “I’m not a child, you know.”
“This could b-b-be dangerous,” he said, moving to the front.
“Aren’t you supposed to be training me?” she asked, following behind once again.
“Don’t know w-w-w-what this is yet.”
Wynonna sighed louder, causing it to echo through the tunnel, but she remained quiet after that. He didn’t mean to stifle her, but he didn’t want to bring any undue harm to her either. For better or worse and despite what she thought, she was his responsibility now. He had to take care of her.
The pair ventured forward for a couple minutes through a long twisting tunnel until the light of his fire caused a bit of metal to glint in the distance. Lockhart stopped immediately, causing Wynonna to do the same.
“See something?” she asked.
Lockhart pointed at the glinting metal, trying to force his eyes to better examine it despite the darkness.
Wynonna squinted. “What is that?”
Lockhart took a few more steps forward to see that it did not pose a threat. The miners had laid a trap - a large clamped shut set of jaws, and in it laid a long tail covered in yellow and green scales on its bottom and similarly colored feathers on its top.
“A d-d-d-dracmoloch’s tail,” he told Wynonna.
“A dracmoloch? Those are real?”
“Very,” he told her, leaning down to examine it closer.
“Wild,” she replied, mostly to herself.
The dracmoloch wasn’t a common inhabitant in the desert. A relic of an age gone past, they were dying out, but those that remained had mostly found a niche in which to survive. They typically fed upon the other desert animals and mostly left humanity alone. This one seemed to be the exception, and it was plain to see why. It’s long, feathered tail was where the dracmoloch stored fat from its meals. When its food supply ran low, the lizard could rely on the fat within to supplement its meals. With that source of energy gone, the dracmoloch had resorted to getting food where it could find it. That seemed to be bad news for the residents of Missoula.
In his time in the desert, he’d encountered them on a few occasions, but had only once put down a single one of the ancient lizards. He could already tell that this was going to be a similar experience. Despite their seclusion from the world of humanity, they weren’t at all afraid of people, and they could be terrifying to face given their size.
“So they’re real,” Wynonna said. “Fine. But they’re reclusive, yeah? Why would it kill a bunch of miners?”
Lockhart pointed to the severed tail. “They s-s-store fat in the tail. It’s h-h-hungry. It made the m-miners into its meal.”
“That’s… a disturbing thought.”
“C-c-c-come on,” he said, standing up. “We should--”
Lockhart stopped mid-sentence, dropping his torch to the ground. His head faded like he’d stood too fast, and he lost his balance. The vespari fell to the side, only catching himself on the rocky walls.
“What’s wrong with you?” Wynonna asked, grabbing his arm.
“Curse,” he replied, his vision fading. “G-g-get us out of here.”
Wynonna ducked down, grabbing his arm and throwing it over her shoulder. He leaned his weight on her, as he needed, and she started to backtrack through the tunnel. The beldam
s, and their wicked curse distorted Lockhart’s sense of time, but he managed to stay conscious until they were back outside the mineshafts and in the bright light of day. Only then, did he allow himself to fade into the coven’s nightmare once more.
***
After Wynonna carried Lockhart from the tunnel, his body finally went limp and pulled her down with him. She fell to the ground, scraping her knuckles against a rock as she landed, causing her to drop the torch, and Lockhart hit his head on a plank of wood left out in the sun. Gritting her teeth and examining her wound, she decided it wasn’t too bad. It stung, but she’d be fine. When she checked Lockhart, she saw that he wasn’t bleeding, and the wood was fairly soft. He’d be alright when he woke up - if he woke up. She really didn’t understand the rules of this curse of his, and he hadn’t been overeager to share the details on it. Regardless, she got up and dragged him over to an unused tent the miners had set up.
When she’d finished, she paused to catch her breath and to wipe the sweat from her brow. Wynonna sat there, wondering what she should do next. There was no telling how long the curse would leave him unconscious. And what about the dracmoloch? If it was still around, she didn’t want it sneaking up on her while she waited for Lockhart to recuperate. She had to act. She had to kill the lizard herself.
Wynonna leaned down and took Lockhart’s revolver from his waist, believing that his rune-etched bullets would prove more useful against the dracmoloch than her rifle’s ordinary ones. Besides, Lockhart wouldn’t need his gun in his current state. Despite this, it only seemed fair that she not leave him defenseless should he wake, so she dropped her rifle beside his body, thinking it a fair trade.
Standing up, Wynonna checked the revolver’s ammunition. There was one bullet missing from the chamber. Lockhart had given her two bullets previously to learn the runes though. She hadn’t quite finished carving her blank bullet, but she had the other one still. Wanting to have a full chamber, she loaded the runed bullet, jerked the revolver down, and then up, closing its top break with a metal click.
At least somewhat prepared, Wynonna left the tent and returned to where she’d dropped her torch. Finding it still burning, she grabbed it and once more ventured to the mine entrance. She stood there a moment, breathing heavy and staring into the darkness.
