Branded Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 3)

by Cari Silverwood

  Which meant he was worth helping.

  He’d said be free, but that in itself said he was a good person.

  Fuck.

  She turned and looked along the paling horizon to one end of this strip of swamp. She took a step, another, feeling the soil sink underfoot. The sea was that way, Ryke had told her, maybe an old city. She’d heard of Scavs digging in places like that. There might be ways to survive there. And if she went without even attempting to look for him? Gio frowned and stared at the now graying land. Nighttime would be bad either direction.

  Still. She looked to Aunt M, a big darkened ball of multi-limbed no-nonsense metal fury when she chose to be. This was an advantage.

  A bug chose to zero in and bite her neck. She slapped it away. Underwear was probably not the best gear for hiking.

  “Any chance you know where the packs fell, Aunt M?”

  “Oh, for sure. I threw them out also. They may have burst but I noted their location. Would you like to dress again?”

  “Yup. Find them, please?”

  “Wait.” The mechling rolled off into the evening gloom.

  Once dressed, and with a pack on her back again, her spare boots, Gio started to walk.

  It’d take a day or two to get back, perhaps, but she’d do it, even if...she swallowed...she had to bury him at the end.

  They dodged sections where the swamp became a body-clutching mire, avoided a pack of horse-sized predators that Aunt M decided she preferred not to mess with – Gio would have been eaten without Aunt M – and took those two days to get close to where he must be.

  Soon she’d see him again. Nobody could survive this long without water, not when bleeding and horribly wounded.

  Then a sniker found them. Slim and fast it zipped up then slowed. She guessed they should’ve walked at the edge of the trees, except that would’ve slowed them down.

  Like an evil giant and fucking nasty bug, it hovered a fair distance away, gun trained on her and Aunt M.

  Gio had her legs a shoulder-width apart, as if ready to leap into action. Her knife-throwing wouldn’t do her much good.

  “What do I do...we do? Aunt?”

  But Aunt M was already spinning away. The sniker pilot tried to turn to keep her in his sights but she launched herself upward, limbs flailing, clutching, as she landed atop the sniker. The craft wobbled and Aunt M tore at it. Engines whining, it rocked. The pilot fired one futile shot that blew a hole in some innocent piece of the swamp.

  Chapter 41

  They’d found her. He and JI had reached a little ridge.

  Ryke had lain down to catch his breath. He’d been having increasing problems with his breathing. Then he’d found her. He stared through JI’s single-eyed magnifier. Gio was heading his way. She was actually returning to him, and that was rather interesting...amazing. His vision swam and he paused to shift his feet, fumbled the magnifier and tried to get it into a position inside his clumsy fingers that didn’t hurt. That only made his elbows sink a little deeper into the dirt.

  JI lay down next to him and said, “Duck,” just as something whined overhead.

  A sniker. It zoomed down and the engines changed to a mumble as it lurched to a stop in mid-air, just before it reached where Gio and Aunt M walked.

  “Fuck. It’s got her. Give me that.” He snatched up the red Scav rifle and had slung it in front of him, was sighting, before JI could grab it back.

  JI’s hand wrapped about the lower and forward body of the gun. “Steady. You want to bring that down? Aim for the vent, left side. My hand on this’ll make it run dead true. Go.”

  He didn’t stop to question that logic, switched his aim to the vent, focused, and fired. The kick of the gun made him grunt as pain rent his hands, his shoulder.

  Eyes watering, he watched the small projectile whizz toward the target, shedding spinning curls of blue.

  Then Aunt M leaped aboard.

  The sniker fell sideways even as the bullet hit, while Aunt M tore pieces of it away. She jumped clear, pouncing to the earth. The craft ripped a ragged path in the ground and tumbled to a sliding halt. Smoke rose then a fire slowly lit, climbed, blossomed in red-orange.

  The bang of the explosion echoed and died.

  Ryke rested his forehead on the rifle, holding down nausea. “Is she okay?”

  “Yes. You did well.”

  Then JI clapped him on the back and knocked him straight into the black.

  He woke a few times and saw the flames of a small campfire and prayed they were under cover, drifted back into unconsciousness. Though he drank and recalled taking medicine given him, some words surfaced.

  “Leave him be. He needs to heal.”

  “There’s no time!”

  Again he drifted away until there were more words...

  Nearly awake, his eyes closed, hearing winds around him and the battering of tree, of leaves rustling past, of sand pinpricking his cheeks, he was aware enough to want to rise.

  So warm where he was though.

  “I think he’s suffering Factor H deficiency. See how his skin is changing.” That was JI.

  “We need to get him up. If there’s no way for him to get to the swathe in time. He needs to do what he came out here to do. The storms are coming, and you felt that tremor beneath us, JI. Aerthe is stirring. I could give him blood.”

  “Yes, but as you say, the Aerthe has risen.”

  They’d bandaged his wounds a few times, he knew this, but those words...

  Ryke groaned but unglued his eyelids, opened his eyes. Legs, arms, head, he had all those. Though swamped in bedding, he managed to get to one elbow and up onto his side. He needed to pee.

  “You’re awake!” Gio blurted.

  “Be back. Stay there.” He pointed at the ground.

  “What?” She put hands to hips. “Bossy.”

  The girl had grown brat-like while he was out. He gave her a don’t-fuck-with-me look.

  A gap in the tree trunks drew him and he staggered that way, noting that his feet felt much better even if his hands hurt when he pulled out his cock. The wind rolled leaves past him, blasted him with dirt and more leaves, and his pee went sideways.

  If that was land out there, it was lost in the biggest sand and dirt storm. Somewhere a tree cracked and fell, and he glimpsed flurried movement in the forest to his left – dragging at the ground, lashing and whipping.

  Aerthe was in a mood.

  His fault. Days must’ve gone past. The Gathering would’ve ended by now; the swathes would’ve moved on.

  He walked back with leaves pelting him, to find Gio waiting for him, worry scored all over her face. His nails were blueish and his skin seemed numb in places, every breath felt as if he was pulling the air in through rocks. He never seemed to get quite enough of it and had to take another breath then another, forever playing catch-up.

  The surroundings wavered and he had to grab a piece of tree to steady himself.

  Not good. He had been sick for days. Hadn’t taken a dose of Factor H since they staked him down.

  “Gio! You said Factor H deficiency!” The last word wheezed out.

  Another squall rocked him sideways, whistled in his ears, and he barely heard what she replied.

  “JI thinks so too! He’s seen it before. Your...your legs are bleeding, Ryke.”

  So they were. He’d been cut. From numerous small lacerations and punctures, blood was leaking. The howling wind made it dribble and spray across his skin.

  “But this.” He held out his shaking hand. “The weather. It’s time.” He turned. “Do we have any waik crystals? Did you save the pack?”

  “Yes, some of it. Your pack and I found some of mine too. Here.” Her hand unfolded, revealing a blue, spearhead-shaped crystal, half as long as her little finger. “I was thinking of forcing it down your throat but was afraid that would choke you.”

  He grunted. “Yes.” How was he going to swallow that? But he took it from her, rolled it across his palm, this way and that. “Do we hav
e water?”

  “Here.” JI emerged. He’d been hidden by the lashing of leaves, the dust, and small flying debris. “Drink it down before we all die.”

  Well, someone might still die, him.

  “Stay back. Just in case.” He eyed them both then headed to the tree line. Doing something this potentially momentous would seem best done in an open space.

  Except Gio emerged from the trees behind him.

  “I might explode. Or...something. Back.”

  She shrugged. JI joined her, towering over the woman by a head and more, his white hair whipping about, his eyes narrowed.

  “Please get back.”

  “Both of us would rather be watching you. If you explode, so be it.”

  “Hah.” He frowned but it was obvious they weren’t going to budge. “Very well.” He hauled in more air. Crystal in one hand. Water bottle in the other. One last look around then he placed the waik crystal in his mouth followed by a swig of water.

  Crystal and water sloshed down his throat as he swallowed. The hard bulk of the crystal seemed to align itself, bump about, and slide.

  Eyes half closed, he turned his senses inward, then he slowly went to one knee and placed the flat of his palm on the ground, crushing down the leaf mulch, pressing...pressing, until his flesh was as close to the Aerthe as it could be.

  Then he waited, thoughts swirling like the leaves.

  His heart too slowed, lub-dub. Lub-dub.

  A man is only a man. How could he expect a miracle? Dirt lashed him, stung his legs, scratched across his forehead, his eyelids, tore at his throat, his stomach and he felt the subtle swell of something abominable coming.

  A power dragged down his hand. Tension pulled muscles taut. Pulled from his forehead to his hand. Pulled from his heart and lungs. From his belly, from his groin, from his feet, his toes. All on him concentrating down, drawn into that connection point.

  He knew Aerthe, and it knew of him. Then the flow reversed and he bulged, force-fed some energy no man could ever contain, and it threw itself outward through the tiniest pores in his skin, rambling and ravaging into the land, the earth, into the clear and still sky.

  He flung his eyes open and there indeed was a perfect vista. Still. Not a single cloud above. Ryke rose, to stand on the flats of his feet, naked and reborn.

  Toward him marched a small army of men, women, and children, from left to right across the expanse of his vision, filling the lands of this strip of clearing. The last wisps of dust evaporated.

  Chapter 42

  “Well.” JI stepped up to Ryke’s shoulder and smacked him on it. “That was fun. Who are these people?”

  “Deckers. Those are deckers,” he murmured.

  Thousands of them it seemed.

  “You mean more Mekkers.” JI’s face changed as he said that, his mouth sinking.

  The Scav was troubled, which shouldn’t surprise him. He didn’t have time to nurse the man through introductions.

  Gio arrived at his right and gently took his hand. His wounds were still there, but he felt strong, his blood clean, his head perfectly clear. The storm had vanished, the sky had cleared, and the waik crystal had done what his mother had predicted it would.

  If he could pass this on to others, his people had a chance to live on the surface of Aerthe.

  Badh was in the front row, a bandage bulking below his torn open shirt.

  “I think they’ve come for your...blessing,” Gio said. “But first, do you think you could put on some clothes.”

  “Oh.” He looked down. The wind or the effect of the Aerthe had demolished his clothing. “Indeed.”

  A moment later and JI had draped a blanket around him. Birds flew past, to land in the branches above tweeting at him. He studied them suspiciously.

  “This is too perfect.”

  Gio came to his front and took both his hands, peering up at him. “You’re no longer blueish, the storms have gone. How do you feel?”

  The deckers were slowly advancing, as if afraid of him. He pulled in a few blissful and deep breaths. “I feel great. I felt the Aerthe come through me. Which is ridiculous. Who will believe me?”

  “I will, Ryke.” Badh stopped a few steps away. “We all will. We found you in the storm by the light of the Aerthe. Until the storm ceased, there was a bright glow that led us on.”

  “Huh.” He shook his head, struggling to believe in what had happened, and he’d been here, experienced it.

  A miracle. The responsibility was heavy, yet his heart beat steadily. His mother had showed her faith in him through her words. He only wished she could be here with him and with Badh.

  No one else could do this.

  He looked again at his arms, his hands where Gio held them, and at her. He wasn’t sure she’d blinked at all since taking his hands. He leaned down and kissed her once, then raised his head again.

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  “To be sure this was real. You are.” He smiled fleetingly, then said to Badh, “You’ve left the swathe?”

  “Yes. Most of these with me are from the Underdeck. A few are from above. All of us chose to try to find you so that you could...” He frowned. “Do whatever it is –”

  “Bless you would be the best terminology,” Gio interjected. “I think. Going from what little I know.”

  “Uh-huh. Never heard that word before.” His brother pressed his fingers to his bandage, wincing.

  “It’s real. They umm do it where I come from.”

  “Prophets?” Badh raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, priests.”

  “Okay, well. To bless us then. I can see it worked, Ryke. Something good happened. Please, do this. We have brought a waik crystal each of us, taken from the cores in the Engine Sea. The king gave permission, and we have weapons and supplies because of that.”

  The king had... The entire front row of people was kneeling. It made him nervous. He’d always been a loner, not a leader.

  “He did?” He latched onto Badh’s last point.

  “Yes. I had an audience with him once Ormrad’s treachery was revealed. It seems a mechling owned by Mako, one of the kings-in-waiting, recorded much of the fight with Gyle, and more.”

  “Okay.” But he’d stopped really hearing what Badh was saying.

  There had to be over a thousand here. Even if they all had a crystal, this would take days to accomplish. He should nevertheless get started.

  “Line them up after this, my brother. But you are to be the first, of course.”

  “Here it is.”

  Then Badh kneeled and he placed the crystal in his brother’s mouth and held his shoulder as he swallowed water and the crystal. If this didn’t work...

  Have faith in yourself.

  A blueness obscured vision for a flash of a second.

  Badh stood, shaky but smiling. “Thank you. My stars if we can do this, the Mekkers are saved. We can live here, under this sky!” Tears ran down his cheeks, shining in the sunlight. Badh only sniffed, not bothering to wipe them away. “Let’s do this.”

  “Yes.” Ryke grinned, sure his eyes must look as if he’d been possessed by madness. If he’d been the sort of man to yell and dance, he’d have been dancing. Instead he let the surge of blood roaring through him die a little then he waved forward the first of the waiting deckers.

  But all he had in mind was one blinding thought.

  I’ve done it. Achieved what no one thought possible. This is the answer for us.

  By midday, they had to pause to eat and drink. He sat on a blanket with Gio and Badh, but he questioned only her. JI had vanished. Curious how he’d come to rely on her for opinions on such things, the weirder things.

  “Is this magic or science? I didn’t think magic existed, no matter what we called Drette and his portals.”

  She pursed her lips and eyed him from under her brow, then idly pulled out some grass.

  “I don’t know if we can tell. Your world is odd. Nothing like this happened on my world, except i
n mythology. My opinion? It could easily be science and explainable but we don’t have the right facts or knowledge, yet. However, I’d rather say science.”

  “That’s in line with my thinking. Another question. How are we to bless all these people before another storm arises? The last weather effect was due to me. These...” He gestured at the crowd who were also seated. Some were eating, some waiting for him. “I think they walked for four days to get here? Badh?”

  “No. Five days.”

  “I’m not sure I have time then.”

  “You could try getting Badh and others you’ve blessed to bless others. It might work.”

  “Good idea. Badh?”

  “Sure, we can try that.”

  Except it didn’t work. Badh tried it on one child and nothing at all seemed to change – no blue flash of light.

  Ryke looked to Gio and she thought again. He could almost see her brain ticking over. Why he was asking her, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was those visions.

  “Try giving Badh a second dose? Doubling up?”

  That did work.

  When Badh had a woman kneel and swallow a crystal, he watched as the blueness engulfed her and flashed.

  “Science, see. Double dose, double effect.”

  “We still can’t tell,” he noted. “Not definitely.”

  Gio tsked. “Give it time. You’re the prophet. You can’t be a sceptic. That’s probably blasphemy.”

  “Hmmm. Why do I feel I should be punishing you for that? Spanking you...” He beckoned to one of the Followers he recognized. “You. Find another twenty people I can bless a second time.”

  “Twenty? I’ve lost track of where most of my friends are, but I can find twenty.”

  The mass blessing went much faster once they had over twenty who could perform it. By the end of the day, the crowd had all been blessed and he stood before them, surveying them, amazed at what had been accomplished, and at what might come next.

  “Now, we can search for that lost city,” he said quietly. “I have an ancient map. We have enough supplies. We are large enough to defend ourselves. We are the future of the Mekkers.”