Bulletproof Witch Read online

  “Wasn’t much to rescue, just some run-of-the-mill bandits. With luck they won’t bother you or your own any further.”

  “Well, ordinary or not, you did the whole valley a service. Give it a day or two and everyone living within a dozen miles of here will want to meet you!”

  Good thing we’ll be long gone by then, Temperance thought. Last thing I need is more people hunting me down for favors while we’ve still got six different kinds of trouble on our trail.

  Out loud, she said, “Is there anything we can do to help, Missus . . . Esther? I’m not the best cook, but I can stir a pot well enough.”

  “Oh, you two just sit yourself down, supper’s almost ready, anyway. Clarabelle, you mind going to the barn and fetching the boys? I’m going to see what we’ve got left in the cellar that I can use to spice up the meal.”

  The moment the two women disappeared through opposite doors, Temperance dropped into a chair like a stone, her breath coming out in an angry hiss. She had done her best to keep a straight face the whole walk to the house, but the last few minutes it felt like her leg was being jabbed repeatedly with knives.

  Beneath her skirt, the cloth strip wrapped around her wound had bled all the way through, and there was a red line trailing its way towards her knee. She wiped it away, then peeled the filthy bandage off.

  “Temperance!” William appeared by her side. “Why did you not tell us you were hurt?”

  She waved the boy off. “It looks worse than it is. Just need to get a fresh bandage on it and I’ll be good as new. You mind finding my bag? I should have a few scraps in there that will do the trick.”

  William didn’t respond. He knelt beside her and withdrew a roll of white linen from his own bag. A bottle of clear liquid followed, for which he poured a liberal amount onto a strip of cloth, then pressed it against her leg. Temperance jumped.

  “Dammit to Hell! Warn a person before you do something like that, will you?” She sucked at her teeth as a thousand tiny pins jabbed into her. Still felt better than the pain from before, at least.

  “Hmm, interesting. I was beginning to wonder if you even felt pain.”

  Temperance considered her companion as he wrapped more of the linen about her leg. “You bring all that with you from Isterial?”

  “Mostly. A few items I traded the ship captain for on the voyage here. Shall I look at that as well?” William pointed to beneath her ribs.

  “Huh?” Temperance looked down and squinted. “I’ll be. That explains a few things.”

  Right near the seam of her jacket were the remains of a bullet. It had been crushed almost flat on impact, and burrowed through most of the leather around it, but hadn’t managed to break her skin. She peeled it off and studied it.

  Suppose it was too much to hope that my coat’s bulletproof powers would last much longer, what with everything else that’s been falling apart. Guess I should be glad they kept this one from getting any closer than it did, or I’d probably be digesting a lead pill right about now, and shopping for a burial suit later tonight.

  She set the bullet on the counter and stared off towards the window. A familiar feeling of resignation settled over her. First my bullets, then Astor, and now my coat. I’m not even a Pistol Warlock anymore, let alone a witch. I’m just . . . me.

  Her guts clenched at the thought.

  “Is everything alright?” William’s voice took a moment to register. Temperance glanced at the boy and gave a weak smile.

  “No, but this is nothing I didn’t expect. My coat has been on the way out for some time now. If it can’t even stop a bullet anymore, I’m afraid that might just be the end of it.”

  “Your coat?” William frowned, then pulled up a chair. He set his bag on the table and turned to face her. “Can you not return to the enchanter who crafted it for repairs?”

  There was that word again. Temperance pushed her curiosity aside. “I’ve got no idea who made my jacket, or what magic they used, or if magic was even used at all. My grandfather . . . Well, I suppose he left it to me, along with everything else. But this coat was a mystery even to him. It doesn’t use any sorcery I’ve ever encountered before.”

  The table was quiet for a minute, other than the sound of Missus Dunpeal humming in a tuneless way from downstairs. After a moment, William spoke, his words slower than normal. “Temperance, I have a question, and I apologize if it is a foolish one.”

  “Well, now you’ve got me curious.” Temperance tried to smile reassuringly.

  “It is just . . . when we have spoken of magick before, you have only ever mentioned sorcery. I am confused. Does no one in Korvana practice sigilry?”

  “Huh?” Temperance felt her smile slip away. “You care to ride that trail again? What is sigilry?”

  “Like your jacket. Or your knife. Sigilry.”

  “My—wait a minute, now, are you trying to tell me you know how my coat works?”

  “Not in specific, no, but with enough time to study it, almost certainly.”

  Temperance gaped. After traveling so much of Korvana and never meeting a soul who knew what her grandfather’s coat was, could providence just fall into her lap like this?

  Perhaps she wasn’t cursed after all.

  William reached into his bag, and Temperance nearly jumped out of her skin. The boy pulled out his hammer again, a hammer that was much too long to have fit in a common shoulder-bag. Her mouth flapped open and closed a few times as William continued to pull out more tools. A pile grew on the table, one far too large to have ever fit inside his bag, which still didn’t appear diminished.

  At last she found her voice. “What in the frozen depths of Hell is all this? How are fitting so much inside such a small bag?”

  William frowned, like she’d just asked him to stand up and crow. “It is enchanted with sigilry, of course.” He reached into the bag again.

  “Alright, just stop what you’re doing. Stop!” Temperance pressed a hand to the table. “Start from the beginning. Are you trying to tell me you know some other type of magick? That’s crazy!”

  “I do not understand. Are you saying you do not know what sigilry is?”

  Temperance would have laughed at the incredulous look on the boy’s face if the matter at hand wasn’t so important to her. “That’s right. Never even heard the term before I met you.”

  “But that is—Mister Dunpeal told me of your family’s magickal talents! What about this hexbullet he spoke so highly of? Or the weapon you used against Lucius?”

  “You mean my hex spheres?” Temperance extracted the last sphere from her pocket and handed it to William. He glanced down, his brow furrowing as he studied the small silver ball. “It just has runes carved into the sides. Nothing too complex about it. Hexbullets are the same, except you fire them out of a gun.”

  “I see.” William returned the hex sphere, then shook his head. “I am sorry I did not ask sooner. If I had known, perhaps I could have looked at your coat, and you might never have gotten injured today. This is my fault.”

  Temperance barely heard him. Her mind was already running ahead of the conversation, afire with possibilities. If my coat isn’t made with sorcery, I suppose that explains why I’ve had no luck fixing the dang thing myself. I wonder what else has been under my nose this entire time that I missed?

  An image of Astor flashed through her mind, and she shook her head, returning her attention to William. I’ve been missing quite a few things, apparently.

  “Hey, now, no reason to go blaming yourself. Besides, if you can repair the damage to my coat, I could forgive you just about anything. Care to look at it right now?”

  She shrugged out of the jacket and handed it over. William turned the ancient leather over in his hands. He clucked his tongue a few times, then set the coat down and started digging in his bag again.

  “So?” Temperance asked, trying to keep the urgency—no, desperation—out of her voice. She had gone so long with no hope of ever fixing her jacket, or even keeping it from
growing worse. Now that salvation was here, she could barely stand to wait another minute.

  William continued tossing more items onto the table. To his growing pile he added an old hunting horn banded in silver, a dark traveling cloak, and a large stone that was colored black and white, like two teardrops blending together.

  “Are these all enchanted like my coat?” Temperance asked, picking up the cloak. It had the initials H.P. stitched into the inner lining in gold letters. She puzzled over that for a moment, then set it down as William withdrew an immense sword from his bag, like something from a tale of old Galinor. He set it gently on top of the pile.

  “Yes, they all have enchantments, although not particularly good ones. These were my first attempts at—do not touch that!” William shot a hand out, stopping Temperance as she was about to pick up the sword. “That one is a failed project. It was supposed to be a blade that attacked on its own, but it only attacks whoever is holding it.”

  “Explains why you didn’t use it on Lucius, I suppose.” Temperance slid her chair back from the sword for good measure.

  “Unfortunately, none of my enchantments are designed for combat. The upyr tended to discourage any attempts to create weapons of our own. Usually by killing anyone they caught doing so as an example. Ah, here we are!”

  William deposited several small objects on the table, and Temperance had her second surprise in as many minutes. The boy didn’t appear to notice, and returned to studying her jacket.

  “I cannot do much to fix the physical damage. That will likely take weeks of studying the sigils, but if I am correct, some of the problems are almost certainly caused by . . . . Temperance? What is wrong?”

  Temperance wasn’t listening. She held up one of the stones that William had placed on the table, turning it over in her hands. It was clear as glass and had a red gem in its center. A memory flashed through her mind of a similar stone held aloft, the world around it filled with smoke and gunfire and the sound of screams.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “F . . . From Isterial?” William stared at her, a sudden nervous look in his eyes.

  Temperance realized she had been squeezing the stone until it left marks in her hands. She forced herself to calm down, and returned the stone to the table. “Sorry, just some bad history, is all. My Grandpa had a couple stones like this. What are they for?”

  “They’re called source stones. We use them to power enchantments. Much in the same way your primitive—ah, your sorcery uses reagents.”

  William flipped her jacket over, and cupped one of the buttons. He gave it a squeeze, and the button opened, revealing a similar stone inside. The boy removed the stone and replaced it with one from the table. He glanced up at her. “I assume you have never done this?”

  “Hell, no. I didn’t even know those were in there.”

  “That makes sense, after what you have told me. It appears the stones have been drained. That would explain how you were almost wounded.” He lifted the old stone and held it up to Temperance. It was clear like the others, but inside this one she saw no fleck of red gemstone.

  “So now that you’ve swapped the stones out, will it start working like before?”

  “I believe so, yes.” William handed back her coat. “The damage to the sigils is still quite extensive. From what I can see, if you stress them much further you risk destroying the material beyond repair. Once we are safe in Messanai City, I should be able to restore them to their original form.”

  Temperance nodded, almost giddy with excitement. At last she had a fighting chance against Lucius and the horse-beast, not to mention anything else Korvana saw fit to throw at her. It wasn’t as good as having a bandolier full of hexbullets, but she was a sight better off than she had been at breakfast that morning, and that was something.

  There were so many questions that Temperance had, so many ideas that were only half-formed in her mind but still fighting to reach her lips. While she sorted out where to start, Missus Dunpeal reappeared from the root cellar.

  “Sorry about leaving you alone for so long, I had the darndest time finding where I put my strawberry preserves.” She stopped, seeing the pile of tools and items spread across the table. “Goodness, looks like you two have been busy up here. Go on and clean that up now so I can get supper ready.”

  * * *

  Despite Benjamin’s earlier words, dinner was a feast beyond compare. Esther and her daughter laid out plates heaped with boiled root vegetables, baked squash, cuts of corned rakmeat, and a whole roast bird that Edwin had shot that morning. There were fresh spring greens and loaves of farro smothered in preserves. Jars of pickled eggs passed back and forth around the table, along with clay mugs of beer that Benjamin poured from a large oak barrel he brought up from the cellar. After a second mug of that, William appeared to be keeping himself in his chair with little more than grit and dumb luck.

  Under other circumstances, Temperance would have enjoyed herself beyond measure, especially the opportunity to drink without Astor looming over her shoulder. There was more food on this one table than their scant meals had seen all week.

  The luxury was wasted on her. Instead, her mind churned faster than a runaway wagon going down a mountainside, thoughts tumbling and crashing together, thinking over everything William had told her.

  Another form of magick. I can scarcely believe it, and yet I suppose I should have known. No way my coat could have ever been made with sorcery. But how did I never hear about sigilry before? Did Grandpa know about it?

  She took a bite of food and shook her head absently. No, if he had, I would have heard him mention it. Martin always claimed nobody knew about my coat or where it came from, so I have to assume it was a mystery to him as well. Might be I have something to surprise him with next time we talk.

  “More roast, dear?” Missus Dunpeal held a plate out to her. Temperance gave a polite smile.

  “Thanks, but I’m fit to bursting. Going to be a challenge to even get out of bed tomorrow, at this rate.”

  “Hmm. Well, if you’re sure. I just don’t want to hear about you two going hungry before you make it to Sweetwater. You’re practically skin and bones as it is.”

  “Don’t you worry about that none, Esther,” Benjamin interjected. “I’ll see that they’ve got supplies to spare. Can’t be sending an honest-to-goodness Whiteoak back into the wilderness unprepared, now can we?”

  Temperance smiled again, but barely registered the exchange. Her mind was already buzzing again with questions.

  How do those source stones work, anyway? Objects like that don’t have an energetik affinity. Could sigilry work on a fundamentally different level from sorcery? I’m not even sure if that’s possible.

  She turned to ask William if he happened to know, but the words never made it past her lips. The poor boy was almost asleep at the table, his head drooping ever closer towards his plate. Temperance gave him a push before he drowned, and William’s eyes snapped open.

  “Sundergotten allas! Smecht gans!” He smiled drunkenly at Clarabelle. The girl blushed and quickly looked away. William’s head dropped back down, and a moment later he began to snore.

  “Your friend isn’t too used to proper Korvana drink, is he?” Benjamin asked with a laugh. Temperance just smiled and shook her head.

  I guess my questions can wait until we’re on the trail tomorrow.

  The shadows about them had grown long by the time the meal was finished, casting menacing shapes into the corners of the small kitchen. Benjamin pushed his chair back and stood with a moan, his spine letting out several loud cracks. “I suppose we best get you two settled for the night, I’m sure you’ll want an early start, assuming you’re still set on that foolish notion to ford the river. Samuel, give me a hand getting the boy upstairs.”

  “Upstairs?” Temperance asked.

  “Well I sure ain’t carrying him all the way to the barn, and he don’t look fit enough to make the trip hisself, now does he? Your friend can bu
nk with Sam and Edwin, and I’m sure my daughter can make room for you in her bed. Afraid our accommodations aren’t what a Whiteoak is due, but I hope you can tolerate them the one night, at least.”

  “That’s right kind of you, Mister Dunpeal. Your home is more than adequate. With all my traveling, I’m not used to anything more than my hat to keep the rain off.” Temperance followed Benjamin and his son upstairs, where they laid William on a prairie-feather mattress. She left the boy snoring peacefully and went back downstairs for a last drink before seeking her own rest.

  * * *

  A scream in the night awoke her. Temperance rolled over and immediately noticed that Clarabelle was no longer in bed. It took a moment of fumbling about in the dark before she managed to light a lantern with one of the nearby lucifers.

  Benjamin was already in the hallway, his rifle in hand. Esther peeked over his shoulder, and their boys peered out from their doorframe. From behind them came the constant drone of William’s snoring.

  “Do you know where Clarabelle is?” Temperance asked them. The farmer shook his head, and her guts twisted in on themselves. She ran down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

  I should have known it wouldn’t be this easy. Only a matter of time until one of the awful things chasing us managed to catch up. A small part of her prayed that it was nothing more than the Gunpowder Gang out for revenge against their fallen members, but something told her she had used up all her luck for the day already.

  She landed at the bottom of the stairs, revolver out, already spinning about to look for a threat. Nothing awaited her, and no hail of bullets struck. At the end of the hallway another light flickered steadily from beneath the door to the kitchen. She straightened and crept towards it.

  Clarabelle stood alone in the center of the room, back rigid, her whole body quivering. Temperance’s eyes swept every dark corner and other shadowy place someone might hide in ambush, so it took a moment to notice what was wrong.

  The farm girl clutched a knife to her own throat. A small trail of blood led to a dark spot on her nightgown.