by J. Stone
Again, Petronila grabbed Alviva. This time, she managed to pry the fat beldam off her meal, but it resulted in an elbow to the face. Petronila stumbled back and Alviva followed her, blood still dripping from her mouth. She kept going until, Petronila hit a wall, and Alviva grabbed her by the neck.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she said. “I lead this coven. I only allowed you to join us because of your knowledge of these spells. Because of the promises you made. Promises you haven’t fulfilled.”
“That’s… why you… need to listen,” Petronila struggled to say, her forked tongue hanging out of her mouth.
“You convinced us to do this to the vespari. Why would you want us to stop now? What are you planning?”
“I’m not… planning anything… The vespari is right… If you… let him die… we don’t get his energy…”
Alviva pointed her bloody hand back at her meal. “And that’s why I was eating what I can. You’re stopping me. Why?”
Petronila tried to shake her head, only managing to wiggle it a little. “It’s for your sake. Too much energy… will kill you.”
Alviva snarled at the slender beldam under her grip. “What are you talking about?”
***
Wynonna pulled the revolver from her belt and fired another shot. The bullet pierced the ghoul’s skull, the same as the former, and the creature fell over Lockhart’s body, spilling its black blood all over his chest.
“Gross,” she muttered, hobbling back to him and kicking the dead ghoul off her master’s body. “Three left,” she said, looking at the revolver.
Having a moment of respite, she thought it best to reload. She had the extra runed bullets she’d carved in her pocket, so she loaded three more into the chamber. Two bullets remained in her pocket. They were dwindling faster than she would’ve liked. Stowing the revolver back under her belt, she leaned down and grabbed Lockhart’s arms again, once more dragging him toward the barbershop.
Wynonna managed to make it the rest of the way there without further incident from any ghouls or the revenant himself. The pain in her gut was the greatest challenge she faced. Getting Lockhart’s limp body up the step to the walkway, however, presented a bit of a problem -- he was heavier than he looked. Through more strain though, she eventually got him up there. He’d likely have a bruise when he woke up. If he woke up. She pushed that thought from her mind. She would protect him. She just had to find a safe place to stow him, so she could deal with the rest of the ghouls and end the Gentleman for good this time.
Pushing open the door and dragging him through the entrance, Wynonna sat Lockhart down next to one of the two barber’s chairs and looked around. Not exactly a fortress, but it would do. The ghouls wouldn’t bother to come into a place like a barbershop if they didn’t see any sign of life within. The revenant would, after all, send the ghouls after treasure, and barbershops weren’t known to be overflowing with such things.
Her bullet wound, however, needed attention. Though the bullet had passed cleanly through, she was still bleeding. Finding a long towel hanging over the back of one of the chairs, Wynonna grabbed it and lifted up her shirt. Wrapping the towel around her midsection, covering both the entry and exit wound, she tied a knot into it, stopping the blood from leaking out anymore. She felt dizzy and lightheaded from the blood loss so far, but she had to keep moving. She had to get back out there and kill the Gentleman.
Before she could, however, she had to take care of her master. That just meant finding a spot to keep Lockhart out of sight. There were windows in the front that granted sight into most everything in the shop, so she was going to need to stow him somewhere for the time being. Spotting a closet off to the side, she suspected it would do the trick well enough. Approaching the closet door, Wynonna swung it open and discovered it wasn’t unoccupied.
***
Alviva loosened her grip on the slender beldam, allowing Petronila to breathe. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
After leaning over, coughing, and finally regaining her breath, she replied. “The energy wasn’t meant to be consumed so quickly. It’s dangerous. It’s combustive.”
Both Estrild and Mabilia stopped eating upon hearing this particular word.
“Combustive?” Alviva asked, wiping the blood from her mouth.
Petronila pointed at the vespari, struggling to breathe in this dreamscape they’d forced him into. “The tattoos. They contain the energy in a way that prevents it from harming him. We don’t have that same protection. We are susceptible to its unstable nature.”
Mabilia stepped forward and joined the conversation. “But we’ve had more than this before.”
“She’s right,” Alviva said. “You’re being overcautious. We should hurry and finish what we’ve started.”
Petronila gestured toward the numerous stacked cages lining the back of their manifested dream, each filled with a monster Lockhart had killed in his time as a vespari. “By all means,” she said. “Have your fill, but be certain, it will be your last meal.”
“I don’t want it to be my last meal!” Estrild shrieked, spitting out chunks of meat with each word. “I want to eat more! Lots more!”
Alviva stared at Petronila, sizing her up. She finally shook her head. “No. You’re planning something. You’re scheming. All this time, you’ve been planning something. I don’t know what it is, but your words have been poison to us all.” Alviva pointed a fat finger at Petronila. “You got Gunnilda killed. Filled her head with false thoughts. Then, you convinced Mabilia it was my fault.”
“It was your fault!” Mabilia shouted.
Alviva growled and kept going. “You’ve kept Estrild frightened. You got us to mark this vespari when we should’ve just killed him and been done with it. No more. We listen to you no more. I’m feasting on this vespari, until he succumbs. Then, I will deal with you.”
***
A man cowering in the closet held up his arms to shield himself from her. “Get back!” he demanded in a quivering voice.
More because of the surprise of the moment rather than the man’s assertiveness, Wynonna stumbled backward and fell on her butt. Upon seeing how unthreatening he was, she sighed and stood back up.
“What are you doing in there?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips.
“You’re… you’re not one of them?” the man asked. He peered out past her and surveyed the barbershop. “They didn’t follow you?”
Wynonna shrugged. “Just me… and him,” she said with a nod to Lockhart. “Now, what are you doing in there?”
“This is my shop. What are you doing here?”
Frowning, she turned back to Lockhart. “I need a place to hide my friend. I guess you had the same idea.”
The barber looked at Lockhart’s unmoving body. “Is he… is he… going to turn? Like the others?”
Wynonna shook her head. “No. He’s a vespari. Immune to that. Besides, he hasn’t even been shot. He’s just… he hit his head. He’ll be fine, but I’ve got to go deal with those things before they destroy the whole town.”
“You?”
“I’m a vespari too,” she told him with a certain flair of pride.
“But… you’re a woman.”
She glared at him. “Yeah. And?”
The barber shook his head. “I… uh… nothing. Nothing.”
“That’s right. So sick of people saying that,” she muttered. Then, pointing back to Lockhart, Wynonna told the man, “Help me get him in there. You’re going to look after him.”
“But, I--”
“But nothing. Get up and help me get him in the closet.”
The barber nodded. “Right. Okay.”
He stood up slowly and walked over to Lockhart. She grabbed her mentor’s arms, while the barber picked up his feet. Together, they carried him into the closet, where Wynonna leaned him up against the corner. She then moved back out and nodded toward the closet.
“Get in,” she told the barber.
&nb
sp; He no longer argued, just doing what she told him. “Right.”
Wynonna grabbed the doorknob and started to close it, as the barber sat down across from Lockhart. Standing in the doorway, she said, “If he wakes up before I come back, tell him I went to the smithy.”
The barber nodded, shaking a little and saying nothing more.
Wynonna pointed at Lockhart. “Anything happens to him, I’m coming back for you. Got it?”
He nodded again, this time more vigorously. Wynonna wasn’t sure what all this meek little man might do against ghouls and a revenant, but she felt better leaving Lockhart with someone all the same. She closed the door on the two of them and left the small barbershop. She knew where she had to set up her trap. The smithy. It would be easy enough to burn a place like that down. The trick would be getting the revenant inside and preventing him from switching bodies before the flames consumed him.
The Gentleman’s interests seemed only to be for coin, treasure, and anything that glittered. How could she use that to draw him and his ghouls in? She wasn’t sure yet, but she wasn’t ready for that anyway. First, she needed to set things up in the smithy.
Wynonna almost felt bad for what she was going to do, but not so bad that she wasn’t prepared to do it. For all she knew the blacksmith was dead. She hadn’t seen any sign of him during her last visit there, anyway. She used that as her flimsy reasoning to go ahead with her plan. The smithy would provide the fire she needed. That just left a means of spreading that fire. Thinking back to what she’d seen at the silver mine entrance, she didn’t remember seeing any explosives. She hoped that there had been some though, because that was the best idea she had.
The barbershop wasn’t far from the silver mine, so Wynonna didn’t have far to go. She didn’t see any additional ghouls along the way, and the Gentleman hadn’t shown his face again after she’d burned him inside the office building. That was for the best, but there was no way she was going to let him slink away for good. Burning him once had felt good, but it meant nothing if he was just going to come back. She had to finish it.
With this goal in mind, she arrived at the silver mine entrance. The fire in the office had died down, with only small flames still crackling on the remaining boards. She scoured the ashes and smoke for a sign of the revenant’s discarded body, but the fire she started had destroyed it. She moved on, getting closer to the entrance of the mine. That was when Wynonna spotted a small building, far removed from everything else. On the outside, someone had painted ‘DANGER’ in big, bold, white lettering.
“There we go,” Wynonna said to herself.
Cautiously, she approached the little structure. There were no windows to peer through and no other way to tell what was inside, but it made sense for the miners to store the explosives in such an isolated place. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the doorknob and pried it open.
True to her suspicions, she discovered that the small building was indeed where they stored such things. There were a couple stacks of crates, some barrels, big and small, and some glass jars with some thick orange substance inside. The top crate on one of the stacks had been pried open, and inside, Wynonna found more than a dozen sticks of dynamite. They would certainly do the trick, but that wasn’t what she was looking for. She leaned down to examine the barrels. Just as with the crate, the miners had left one lid open, and inside was exactly what she needed. Black powder. The barrels were small enough that she could carry them, though she was scared just thinking about moving such a quantity of a combustible material around.
All the same, she needed to do it. Wynonna selected a barrel that looked better sealed than the rest, picked it up, and moved it outside. As she did, she spotted a cart at the top of the silver mine. She stopped a moment, thinking again about how to lure the revenant to where she needed him. If he was after treasures, then actual silver had to be of interest to him.
Wynonna wasn’t sure how mindless the Gentleman and his ghouls were. They hadn’t shown any signs of intelligence. All the revenant seemed to care for was his treasures. She wasn’t sure if he would follow a trail into such an obvious trap, but she could think of little else to lure him into the smithy.
She set the barrel of black powder down and went to inspect the cart. As she expected, chunks of silver sat in the cart. It was at the very end of its rails though, which meant that she would have to lift it off the tracks if she wanted to use it. Wynonna found a stray metal pipe lying around and used it to pry the cart from the tracks, feeling the wound in her gut tear and shoot pain through her body.
The mine cart wasn’t completely full of silver, which was the only reason she was able to lift it off the rails. Even still, it took a great deal of strain to do so. And once she did, it wasn’t easy to push along the desert ground without a track to follow. With each step forward, the wound in her gut ached, but all the same, she made do. Once she’d pushed the cart back to where she’d found the small barrel of black powder, she picked it up and gently placed it inside with the nuggets of silver.
Having everything from the mine she thought she needed, Wynonna started toward the smithy. She didn’t get far, however, before stopping and turning back to look at that little shed of explosives. Sighing, she left her cart there for the moment and returned to the crates and barrels. Wynonna didn’t know what exactly she might need, so she grabbed two of the sticks of dynamite and returned to her cart, dropping them down inside with the barrel and ore. Satisfied, she started once more toward the smithy.
Pushing her supplies through the town, she paused every few feet to lean into the cart and pull out a chunk of silver. She would then toss it aside, leaving a clear trail for the revenant and his ghouls to follow. She kept going this way until she arrived at the smithy, covered in sweat and near exhausted by pushing the heavy cart. She lifted up her shirt to see blood soaked through the towel covering her wound. Wynonna knew she needed to have someone stitch up the gunshot, but she didn’t have time for that. The revenant came first.
Looking down into her cart, she found that there was still a good deal of silver left in the bottom. She wanted to get it inside the smithy, so she could draw the revenant all the way inside. Luckily, there was a ramp up that the blacksmith must’ve used for a similar purpose, and Wynonna took a deep breath before pushing the cart a little further, getting it up the ramp and then inside the smithy. Once it was in there, she removed the barrel of black powder, placing it on the ground. She took the two sticks of dynamite and placed them in her back pocket, and finally, she pushed the cart so that it was near to the still burning fire.
With the cart in place, Wynonna then focused on the powder. She pried the top off and started to disperse it throughout the smithy. Due to its explosive nature, she was very careful about where to place it, keeping it away from where the fire might naturally flicker. As she was spreading the powder, Wynonna heard the sound of footsteps outside the smithy, so she stifled her breaths as she went to peer out the window.
Not only had the Gentleman followed her trail of silver, but more than a dozen of the revenant’s ghouls accompanied him. She found herself entirely surrounded by them inside a building on the verge of exploding.
“This’ll be fun,” she muttered to herself.
***
“Enough, Alviva,” Petronila said. “I’ve had enough of you.”
Alviva turned around and glared at the slender beldam. “What did you say to me, you little worm?”
Petronila rose up, revealing her full height. She towered over the other beldams, and she stretched her arms out to further show her size. “This is my spellwork! My power! Your ego will not get in the way of my plans! This ends now! You will do what I say!”
The beldam then slapped her hands together, and Lockhart vanished from that dreamscape. Though the slender, scheming beldam had released him, that didn’t mean he was out of danger yet. There was still the concern of the Gentleman and his ghouls. Lockhart jerked up from the dream, expecting to see the creatures all arou
nd him, but instead, darkness enshrouded him. He saw only a small crack of light. More concerning was the breathing he heard. It wasn’t Wynonna’s, and it was close.
“You… you awake?” a timid voice asked him.
Lockhart shifted toward the voice. “Who’s there?”
He heard more movement, and then the sound of metal. More light poured over him, as a door was pushed open to just a crack. It was enough for him to see a scared man with a white apron draped over him. Lockhart could also see out to the room beyond. A barbershop. Why was he in a barbershop?
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Where’s Wynonna?”
“The woman?” the barber asked. “The other vespari?”
Lockhart nodded.
“She left you with me. She… she told me to tell you she went to the smithy.”
“The sm-smithy? Where’s that?”
The barber pointed. “Only a few streets down. Big sign. Can’t miss it.”
Lockhart leaned against the wall, using it to help him stand up. The bite in his arm ached, and his elbow nearly gave out as he used the arm to brace himself.
“What are you going to do?” the man asked.
“G-go after her.”
The barber nodded. “I’ll stay here then.”
“Mm,” Lockhart murmured, leaving the closet.
As the vespari continued toward the door, he heard the latch of the closet behind him. He could understand the man’s fear if the barber had seen the revenant or ghouls. Looking to the street, however, Lockhart saw nothing. Stepping onto the front steps of the barbershop, he still didn’t spot any of the creatures. How long had he been out? The sun looked to have only moved a small amount. Little under an hour, he guessed.
What then had caused such a silence in those streets? No screams, no gunshots. He decided only Wynonna would have the answers he sought, so he turned in the direction the barber had indicated and started toward the smithy.
