Lockhart's Confirmation (Vespari Lockhart Book 2)

by J. Stone

  Bowater, meanwhile, backed up behind the table, muttering all the while, Ambrose and Spencer moved over toward the door, and Wynonna stayed by PJ’s side.

  “You can do this,” she told him.

  PJ took a deep breath, and the golden energy exploded out from his hand, colliding with Nicolae’s chest. The portly elder was true to his word, standing still aside from a little involuntary shaking of his extremities. The gold light swarmed over him, and Wynonna looked around the room for any manifestations. When none appeared, she turned to PJ.

  “Rohan should be the first kill you find,” Wynonna said. “Look for that.”

  He nodded, his eyes clenched shut. “They’re… buried. Deep,” he told her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He hasn’t killed anyone… or anything in a long time.”

  “Show me everything he has,” Wynonna told him.

  “I’ll try,” the occultist replied.

  The golden energy illuminated brighter around Nicolae and then, just as it had with Wynonna and Ambrose, creatures began to emerge. Vampires, lycanthropes, beldams, wraiths, nagas, wights, and everything else Wynonna could imagine. It was all there, all surrounding her, but she didn’t see the one figure she wanted to find. Rohan was not amongst these dozens upon dozens of creatures.

  “Where is he?” Wynonna asked, twirling in circles to search the faces of the monsters.

  “I don’t see anything,” PJ told her.

  “He has to be here. Keep looking.”

  “Wynonna, maybe it really is just a series of coincidences,” Ambrose suggested. “There’s nothing here.”

  “It has to be,” she replied. “Nothing else makes sense.”

  “I’ve got to stop, Wynonna,” PJ told her.

  She looked once more at the portly elder in the middle of the room and noticed something. Putting her hand on PJ’s shoulder, she said, “No, wait!”

  Wynonna didn’t know why, but she knew that there was something off about Nicolae. Not all of his body seemed surrounded by the golden energy that PJ’s spell had created. Instead, portions of his body, his arms, and his legs evaded the golden light. His protruding gut, however, was the single largest section of his body not encased by this magical energy.

  “I don’t see anything,” PJ repeated. “I’ve got to stop this before someone gets hurt.”

  “Wait,” she replied, calmly. Unsure what exactly it would do, Wynonna realized the spell needed correction. She moved her hand from the occultist’s shoulder and placed it over PJ’s clenched fist, lowering it a little in the process.

  “What are you doing?” the occultist asked.

  “Adjusting your aim,” Wynonna said, lowering the light so that instead of hitting Nicolae’s chest, it hit that protruding gut, which had absolved him of the accusations for so long.

  In an instant, the room changed. All the creatures that PJ had manifested by the connection to Nicolae disappeared, and a different set of figures replaced them. This set, unlike the last did not include a plethora of monsters, beasts and other dark creatures. No, these were almost entirely human, and there, amongst all the others stood Rohan, the man whose life she’d spared, who she spent a night with, who had proven himself innocent of all that the elders claimed. Nicolae had indeed killed him, but that was not all.

  Behind Rohan, Wynonna saw another man. Hanging from his belt was a seven-pointed star, just like how Corrigan had worn it. She approached this manifested illusion and remembered the sketch Spencer had shown her. She knew this man. It was Kaelan, Corrigan’s master. Nicolae had killed him and framed Corrigan for the crime, resulting in her master’s banishment into the desert. Everything could be traced back to this one man. Nicolae was the cause of it all. Or was it something else?

  The spell suddenly ceased mere seconds after PJ had readjusted it to Nicolae’s gut, and an energy from the elder hurled the occultist back across the room, knocking him into the wall.

  ***

  “PJ!” Wynonna shouted, turning to see the occultist slouch down as he landed, a smear of blood on the stones where his body had fallen.

  A cracking sound emanated from behind her, and when she turned back, she saw Nicolae’s body convulsing and his face stretch into a silent, gaunt scream. Wynonna stepped away from the portly elder, just as Spencer, Ambrose, and Bowater all did the same. Each of them knew something was wrong with Nicolae but none knew the true, gruesome extent of it.

  His gut pushed outward, as if something inside him sought to free itself from his body. The fabric on the sleeves of his arms and down his legs shivered, and something underneath moved toward Nicolae’s stomach. Again, the protruding object in the elder’s gut caught her eyes, as the sound of ripping slowly came to a stop. The thing she saw through the fabric of his shirt, she realized, had a familiarity. It was a face.

  Just as she realized this, Nicolae’s shirt ripped open, and an abhorrent figure emerged. The face was rough like sandpaper, its pale, decaying grey flesh peeling in chunks. No hair grew from its bald head. There were no lips, exposing fang like teeth. Similarly, this face had no nose, having only a disgusting hole surrounded by dead skin sucking in and pushing out with each breath. Its shiny, glossy, grey eyes were open wide and glaring at her.

  With the ripping of fabric, the head dropped down toward the ground, but two extremely thin, elongated arms emerged along with a slender body and slapped the stone tiles to keep this creature from falling. Nails sharpened into points tipped its fingers, and they scratched at the stones like a dog stretching its limbs after a long nap.

  The creature then pushed itself away from Nicolae, its two similarly lithe legs emerging from the fabric as well. The no longer portly elder fell back to the floor, and the monstrous form before Wynonna stood upright on its slender legs. Aside from the creature’s head, no part of its naked body was thicker than her own thigh, and in a sudden realization, she matched this figure up to the second robed figure Rohan had seen in the elders’ chambers.

  In a way, this thing reminded Wynonna of Petronila in her beldam form, with how thin it was and how much it hunched over. This was no beldam though. In fact, she had no idea what exactly she was looking at. She knew that it didn’t matter though. This creature had to be whatever was left of Azus. It had killed Rohan, and it had used Nicolae to hide itself for all those years. She had a responsibility. This thing had to die.

  Wynonna raised her revolver, aiming it at Azus, but he was faster. He lurched forward, slashing its hand along her forearm and slicing her skin to ribbons. With a scream, she dropped the weapon to the ground, and then Azus raised his other hand. A shiny brass light shot out of his palm and knocked Wynonna back, landing near PJ’s body.

  With her out of its way, Azus lurched around toward Bowater. He leaped forward and landed on the circular wooden table in the center of the room, using it as leverage to bound off and collide with the elder. Azus reached out for Bowater’s shoulders and gripped him before hurling his body forward like a ragdoll. Bowater hit the wall of the chamber and lay unmoving on the floor.

  Both Spencer and Ambrose had moved toward the door out, but Azus saw this too. That same brass light shot out from his hands, as he screeched a terrible sound from his lipless mouth. An explosion erupted from above the door, knocking both Spencer and Ambrose away from the chamber entrance and back into the room. The stones above the door collapsed down, sealing the room and preventing anyone from leaving.

  Azus had moved on from them, however. He turned around toward one of the personal chambers and, standing upright, walked toward the door. The monstrous figure opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind him.

  Wynonna, meanwhile, took the opportunity to inspect herself. The wound along her forearm had gushed blood, and she felt a little light headed from the loss of blood. She clutched her other hand over the wound to try to halt the flow of blood, but she needed to wrap it at the very least. Her regeneration wouldn’t kick in fast enough if she didn’t take care of it.r />
  Regardless, she wasn’t concerned about herself as much as she should’ve been. Sliding herself backward, she moved over to PJ’s body to see how the occultist was. He’d regained consciousness when she got to him, and he lifted his head to see her.

  “You okay?” he asked her.

  “I was about to ask you that,” she said.

  PJ looked at her wound. “You’re hurt.”

  “So are you,” she told him, nodding toward the blood streak behind him. “How’s your head?”

  “I’m okay.” He raised his hands toward her. “Come here.”

  Wynonna scooted a little closer, and PJ grabbed her bloody arm. “What are you doing?” she asked him.

  “I’ve got to fix you,” he told her. He clasped both hands around her sliced up forearm, and she felt a heat radiate into her arm. Her chest warmed as well, where the tattoos were. “There,” PJ said, releasing his grip.

  Wynonna looked down at her arm to see that he had managed to heal the wound with his power. “How’d you do that?”

  “Tapped into your runes,” he said, leaning back against the wall and taking a heavy breath. “You need to find that thing. Kill it.”

  “What about you?” she asked, reaching her hand up to his head. She slid her finger back through his hair, pulling back bloody fingers.

  “Just a bump,” he said. “I need to rest. Go.” With that, he slumped down to the side, falling unconscious.

  “PJ?” Wynonna said, shaking him and trying to get him to sit back up. “PJ!”

  She heard shuffling feet behind her. When she turned, Wynonna saw Spencer standing there, rubbing his own head.

  “I’ll take care of him,” he said. “You should go stop that thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “A profane. A cultist warped and changed into something else entirely by their own magic. Azus must’ve survived as nothing more than a head for all these years.”

  “How am I supposed to stop something like that?”

  “I don’t know, but you have to.”

  Wynonna stood up. “I guess I’ll find a way. I always do.”

  He nodded. “Good luck.”

  Leaving PJ in Spencer’s hands, Wynonna walked to her revolver, picking it up and sliding it back into its holster. From there, she moved toward the center of the room, where Ambrose stood over Nicolae’s body. After Azus separated from him, she hadn’t had the time to examine what had become of the old vespari’s body, but she could now see that it was in poor shape. With his clothes ripped, Wynonna could see where Azus had inserted himself throughout Nicolae’s body.

  There was a large welt-like section at his emaciated stomach, but fresh blood also dripped from open wounds. Azus hadn’t just stuck himself to Nicolae; he’d actually become part of him, draining from the elder and controlling him like a puppet. From this center lesion, Wynonna saw similar markings go up his chest and down his arms as well as some drifting down along his legs. What remained of Nicolae’s arms and legs matched his emaciated stomach. He was nothing but skin and bone, only given the girth she had come to expect from the elder when Azus attached himself to the man. The worst part of it all was that Nicolae’s chest heaved up and down with sporadic, shallow breaths. He was still alive even after the rapid separation he’d just endured.

  Ambrose knelt down over him, and Wynonna walked up behind him. “Is he… okay?” she asked, knowing how ridiculous a question it was.

  The elder shook his head, putting his hand on Nicolae’s shoulder. “I don’t think so.”

  “You think that’s still even Nicolae?”

  “Maybe, but that thing has left him nearly dead. Rohan must’ve seen Nicolae like this that night, that creature by his side.”

  Wynonna looked up to where it had fled. “Spencer said that thing is a profane. Do you think Azus survived all these years?”

  “I don’t know.” He turned around to look at her. “But you were right. You have to finish this.”

  “How?”

  Ambrose stood up. “I don’t know that either, but I’ve got to take care of things here.” He looked to Bowater, to Spencer and PJ, down to Nicolae, and then back toward the door. “And it doesn’t look like we’re getting out of here any time soon. You need to follow him, this Azus, and you need to kill him. Whatever it takes.”

  Wynonna nodded. “I’ll find a way.”

  Leaving Ambrose and Spencer to tend to the wounded, Wynonna approached the door. She held her ear to the wood, listening for movement beyond it. There was something, she was certain, but the door muffled it enough that she couldn’t determine what it was. Taking a deep breath, Wynonna, grabbed her revolver from its holster, prepared herself for what she might find on the other side of that door, and reached for the knob. Locked.

  Unwilling to let such a simple matter stop her, Wynonna aimed her revolver at the lock and fired a shot. The wood cracked and the metal bent from its position. With the lock broken, Wynonna stepped backward and kicked the door into Nicolae’s office.

  The sound she’d previously heard, Wynonna now identified as a swirling sound, almost reminding her of the dust storms that would crop up in the desert. This was different though. Wetter and smaller like it was mixed with water going down a drain. Wynonna stepped forward with her revolver pointed ahead, and she found a setup not unlike Ambrose’s. This, however, made no impact on her, as the portal situated at the far side of the room took all her attention instead.

  A blue light emanated out from the portal, as did a layer of fog that shrouded what lay beyond. What was clear was Azus had opened it and thought to escape through it, though his motives beyond that remained a mystery. Why had Azus latched onto Nicolae all those years? What plan did he have for the vespari? Did the writhing ancients play a role in any of it? Wynonna didn’t have these answers, but she sought to put an end to all of Azus’s scheming. Loading a new bullet in her revolver and stepping forward, Wynonna entered the portal.

  ***

  Wynonna had a bad habit of leaping before she looked. This was a more literal example than usual, and when she passed through the portal, Wynonna collided hard into a floor composed of creaking wooden planks. Her gut swirled, filling her with a nauseous sensation. She’d be perfectly fine never stepping through a portal again as long as she lived if this was typical. Groaning, she lifted herself up to try to get a better look of where she was. Something about the stonework of the walls seemed familiar, and after a minute, she realized that she was still inside the Black Tea Tower. But where?

  Looking up, she saw a series of stairs and ladders, more wooden planks, and eventually, she spotted the inner mechanical workings of the clock at the very top of the tower. She’d never been this far up in the Black Tea Tower. In truth, she didn’t think anyone traveled this far up. From the outside, it looked like the vespari had ignored the top portions of the tower and especially the clock itself. The inside painted the same picture but with better detail.

  By the state of this portion of the tower, Wynonna could tell that no one had kept the clock in working order. The metal of the cogs above had rusted and many pieces were entirely missing. Much of the wood was either absent, broken, or covered in rot, making moving inside there a risky proposition.

  The one thing she didn’t see, however, was Azus. He had to be somewhere nearby though, so Wynonna stood up and looked for where the profane might have gone. Above her, she heard an unidentified noise. Was Azus up there? She didn’t know, but she had a suspicion. Glancing around, she spotted a ladder attached to the wall at one side of the room. She rushed over to it and grabbed a set of rungs, pulling herself up on them and starting to climb.

  Nearing the top of the exceedingly tall ladder, Wynonna slowed her pace and started turning her head this way and that in search of the lithe monster with razor sharp claws. He was fast and quiet, and Wynonna didn’t want another series of gashes in her wrist or anywhere else. She had to get the upper hand on Azus if he was there, and that meant she needed to be entire
ly silent.

  During her brief time with Corrigan, he had often complained about her capacity for sneaking, but she never thought it was as bad as he made it out to be. All the same, Wynonna knew she had shortcomings. Impatience and brashness, certainly, but beyond all that, she still thought herself capable of learning from her mistakes. Sneaking was one area, where she’d sought to improve and given the nature of this particular encounter, she needed to be perfect.

  Wynonna slowed her breathing and placed her feet and hands carefully on each rung. When she reached the top of the ladder, she realized her silence wasn’t entirely necessary. Howling winds ripped through broken portions of the clock tower, the old wooden planks creaked with exhaustion, and leather tarps long since placed over the holes flapped with each gust of wind.

  Light up there, however, was scarce. Night had come, and she found nothing but the faint starlight to guide her. Wynonna looked around while grabbing her revolver. There was no sign of Azus or anything out of the ordinary. What she saw told her that this wasn’t the extent of the tower, however, as she hadn’t yet seen the backside of the clock itself.

  Wynonna crept forward further into that dark room. The wood creaked above her, and when she looked up, she saw a shadow pass overhead. There was one more floor, and Azus was up there. Ignoring the creature above her for a moment, Wynonna moved to find the way up. Another ladder, she found, and just the same as the first, she started up it, still trying to remain as quiet as possible, especially now that she was certain Azus was there with her.

  This time, as Wynonna moved up every rung of the ladder, she caught a closer look at the inner mechanical workings of this out of use clock. Old, rusty cogs, levers, chains and ropes. She didn’t know what all went into a clock, but these looked typical enough and in no way explained why Azus would have gone there.

  When Wynonna climbed up on the wooden planks at the top of the ladder, she’d expected to see Azus, but he was nowhere, and there were few places to hide in such an area. There was something else, however. A machine composed of metal wiring and strange, slimy things sat in the middle of the tower between two enormous cogs hanging parallel to one another. It sat on a narrow plank of wood with nothing but a long fall on either side of it. The object looked to her like a mix between an overgrown pustule and a mechanical contraption.