Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (13 page)

Next he knew, they were dropping off the retaining wall and
landing all around him. He backed away firing, but found it hard to space out
his trigger pulls so the weapon could recharge. A makeshift hatchet swung in
and planted itself in the coilgun’s handguard, half an inch from Merrick’s
fingers. The force of it almost tore the weapon from his hands, but he held on
and fell back as the gangers rushed in.

Before he could fire another shot, there was a hissing sound
from within the coilgun. A thin, pressurized stream of smoke shot from the
hatchet gash. An instant later, the side of the gun melted away in a rush of
flame, soaking Merrick’s hands and face in a thick, sopping tar. He heard his
own scream as if it came from elsewhere. Dropping the weapon, he scrubbed at
his face and hands to wipe away the boiling putty, but it stuck to everything
he touched in stringy chemical globs.

The gangers were on him, striking him with blade and bludgeon
to drive him to the ground, still screaming.
I’ll heal
, he told himself.
I’ll heal just as soon as they stop. This isn’t the end. I won’t die. I
can’t die.

Can I?

The pain was so intense Merrick could think of nothing else
until he heard the Unimart’s rear door scrape open. The gangers dispersed like
cockroaches in the daylight, leaving him to groan over his wounds. He could
hear the
click-zip
of a dozen coilguns, see the projectiles chasing the
gangers away, bouncing off the asphalt, burying themselves in flesh.

The Revs crowded around Merrick to subdue the gangers left
behind and cull the ones near death. Here was his deliverance; the superior
numbers sufficient to break their enemies’ resolve. Merrick could feel the
gift’s heat rising in his chest as they hauled him up and retreated toward the
fire station with their prizes in tow.

A burning smell was in his nostrils, and Merrick did not
delude himself about what it was or where it was coming from. It was skin and
hair and flesh;
his
skin and hair and flesh. When he looked down, his
hands were already whole again, the scar tissue twisting like worms across his
knuckles. Surely these were burns from some long-ago accident, and not the one
he’d experienced just now.

After a few blocks, the air took on the tinge of a different
sort of burning. Merrick saw distant flames rising from the Unimart’s windows,
licking its plywood boards with black tongues. Amid the smells of charred wood
and scorched brick lay the faint purple stench of zoom.

The Revenants didn’t stop at the fire station. They continued
on into the blue city morning until they came to the Ministerial History
Museum, the faction’s current headquarters. Hidden watchers atop the building’s
roof gave bird calls to herald their arrival. A columned entrance of rain-eaten
limestone ushered them into a grand lobby connected by corridors to its various
exhibits. Shattered glass cases, toppled statues and empty mounting hooks
adorned the spray-painted hallways, leavings of countless looters spanning
decades of dereliction.

Merrick stopped at an empty display case from whose
demolished panes only a few shards of glass remained. There he crouched to
study his reflection in a single thin, grimy sliver. The burns had healed, same
as his hands, but the face that remained was a less-than-pleasant sight. A
great pink mass of scar tissue crawled from the top of his right cheekbone
across his eye socket and forehead, mangling his hairline and right eyebrow,
which would never grow back.

If people didn’t think I was a mutant before…
he
lamented. Merrick was beginning to feel as though he could’ve died a thousand
times over. Physical pain was now more a trifle than a thing to fear—an
inconvenience in an otherwise uncanny life.

Living against the odds felt like cheating, somehow. Anyone
else might’ve taken it as a sign that they still had something left to
accomplish; some destined purpose yet to fulfill. But Merrick didn’t believe in
the fates. Not anymore. He didn’t believe destiny had a will of its own, or
that certain things were meant to occur and others weren’t. Things just
happened
.
Things just
were
.
And since the moment I discovered it, this gift has
been anything but what it portends to be
.

Out of nowhere, the ganger who’d broken Mellobar’s knee
grunted at Merrick and said, “Hey, porky. You stink like shate. What happened…
you eat so much you shate yourself?”

Merrick didn’t dignify the question with a response.

The ganger didn’t let up. When he sneered, the piercings on
his lips fanned out like a second row of teeth. “How long since you started
goin’ mutie? I know all kind of muties who get by pullin’ stunts for the
Ghosts. That how you get so fat? Selling us down for a warm meal?”

Rhetton struck the ganger on the head to shut him up.

A mounted sign greeted them at the entrance to the museum’s
east wing. Forging a Path to the Future, it read, its shiny brass letters dark
beneath broken overhead lighting. The exhibit was large, but it was impossible
to tell what artifacts it had once contained without reading the faded text on
the plaques that still hung beneath the ransacked displays.

A few of the Revs corralled the gangers into another room
while Peymer and the others brought Merrick and Mellobar to see Arbal the
medic. It was dark and cool so deep inside the museum. Other Revs whom Merrick
had never met before were standing around talking in small groups, taking a
rest from the heat of the day.

When Arbal examined Mellobar’s leg, he found both the tibia
and the fibula broken below the kneecap. “You won’t walk easy for a long
time,” he said. “Probably won’t ever run like you used to.”

“Where’s that piece of shit who did this to me?” Mellobar
said, flying into a rage. “I swear, I’ll hack his leg off at the knee for this,
see how
he
likes it.”

It took Peymer and Oban a few minutes to calm Mellobar down
and convince him the ganger would be worth more if they sold him to the nomads
unharmed. Meanwhile, Peymer insisted that Merrick allow Arbal to examine his
injuries. Merrick refused at first, but finally relented.

When Arbal had surveyed the scars on Merrick’s face, hands
and chest, the medic sat back in a contemplative pose. “Those scars look like
they’ve been there awhile,” he said, puzzled. “You sure you just got them
today?”

“I’ve been trying to tell Peymer, they
have
been there
awhile.”

Peymer wasn’t fooled this time. “Oh, no. No. Nope. That thing
on your face… I heard you scream. I looked over, and you were burning. He was
burning, Arbal. All on fire, face melting, hands melting. Power cell on his
coilgun ruptured, spewed hot battery goop all over him. Saw it with my own
eyes. Few minutes before that, a ganger got him with his spikes. Nails poking
clear through those circles in his chest. Watched them close up in seconds.
This one’s like some kind of sand-licker, only different.”

“Why don’t you let the man speak for himself?” Arbal
suggested. “Are you being straight with us, Merrick?”

Merrick dug the toe of his boot into the cracked marble
floor, trying to come up with a lie.
There’s nothing I can say to get myself
out of this one
, he knew. He would have to tell them; he’d have to forget
about finding notoriety without the crutch of his gift. There was no choice but
to put his future in the hands of the only friends he had.

Although the Revs weren’t Merrick’s friends, exactly. More
like the only southers who knew he’d been a Scarred man and hadn’t tried to
kill him on principle. Even that wasn’t quite true; Merrick suspected the only
reason Caliber and Leuk had spared his life at first was to get information
about Wax. “I found out pretty recently that my mother was from a place called
Decylum. I never knew her growing up. Turns out there’s something… different
about the people who live there.”

Peymer was incredulous. “The zoom’s gone to your head,
comrade. Decylum is no more. It died when the Ministry did.”

“That’s what everyone thinks. But it’s not true. They have
people there who can… I don’t know… it’s like I can control the temperature
inside me, and somehow… manipulate it.”

“And this just happened to you?” asked Arbal.

“It’s been with me since birth—or so I’m told. I only
discovered it recently.”

“So anytime you get hurt, you just… get better?”

“I can cure people’s ailments with a touch, but only while
I’m warm inside. It hurts, and it doesn’t last long. Saps every bit of energy
I’ve got. The healing, too… it leaves scars behind. Worse than any normal scars
I’ve seen. What happened today, though, that was new. It’s never happened that fast
before.” Merrick realized he was getting tired, as if the mention alone had
brought it about. The zoom high and the adrenaline of the fight were both
wearing off, and his body had done enough self-healing to render him exhausted.
The stimulants in the zoom
, he wondered.
Is that what’s kept me
awake?

“A fitting trick for a former Scarred Comrade,” said Peymer.

“Scars are just reminders,” Merrick said. “In my case,
they’re reminders of this curse I have to live with every day.”

Arbal disagreed. “This is an amazing boon you have, Merrick.
A gift.”

Merrick grunted a scornful laugh. “A gift. That’s what the
Decylumites call it, too. A gift that’s ruined my life. A gift that seems to
have a will of its own—one I can barely control.”

“If you learned to control it, you could be a huge help to
the Revenants,” said Arbal.

“If I knew how to do everything the Decylumites can do, I
wouldn’t stop at the Revenants.”

“Your ability to heal could prove useful on its own. I could
teach you a few things about medicine, if you’re interested.”

“Sorry, Doc. I’m no rear-line nurse. I’m a fighter. I belong
in the front. It’s where I’ve always belonged.”

“You say these Decylumites have the same capabilities as
you?”

“They can do things I can’t, and I can do things they can’t.
They tell me none of them can heal like I can, though.”

“And they’re somewhere in Belmond?”

“Not the important ones. The dways who matter went to Sai
Calgoar with the nomads. That’s why I climb the Armitage Building every day—to
look out for them.”

“And when they return, what will you do?”

“Learn. If I can. Then I’ll carry on toward the dream Caliber
and Leuk set in motion. A free city, from north to south. Open borders. Open
trade. Peace and law and safety for every man and woman, aion and nomad alike.”

Away in the distance, quick footsteps echoed in the museum
lobby. Soon they could hear the sounds of a disturbance down the corridor.
Merrick stopped to listen, fearing the gangers had escaped, or that someone
else was coming to take them unawares. That couldn’t be; the rooftop guards
would’ve alerted Peymer to an intruder.

The Revs raised their coilguns and took up positions behind
the wrecked display cases, waiting for whoever might come around the corner.
When the distant commotion finally materialized into a trio of bodies, Merrick
saw they were only Revs, gray-cloaked and masked. They were frantic, covered in
blood and dragging the body of a screaming man behind them.

Merrick recognized the faces painted on their filtermasks at
once; a hollow-eyed ghoul, an orange-bearded wind gargant, and a spike-toothed
cotterphage. It was Swydiger, Cluspith, and Eldridge, the two brothers and
their cousin. The one in the middle, covered in blood and screaming like a
deldrake, was Cluspith.

“Arbal,” Swydiger yelled. “Arbal, we need you. Clus is… the
rooftop gardens, they’re overrun. Gangers. We don’t know from where. They hit
us before we knew what was happening. He’s hurt bad. Please, you’ve got to do
something.”

Arbal crouched beside Cluspith as they laid him on one of the
benches at the center of the room. When they peeled back the flaps of his
jacket, Merrick couldn’t believe the carnage. Viscera, like pink, knotted
roots, coiled, pulsing, in a lake of red. Arbal was in disbelief, shaking his
head, unsure where to start.
There is no place to start
, Merrick
thought. The others knew it too.

Cluspith had stopped screaming. He stared, unblinking,
repeating himself over and over again. “Don’t stand in the daylight, Clus,” he
said. “Don’t stand in the daylight. You’ll get burned. Don’t stand in the
daylight. You’ll burn. Don’t stand…” He gave a wet belch. Blood trickled from
the corner of his mouth. He was still trying to speak, trying to say the words
that would make him forget.

Merrick put a hand behind Cluspith’s neck, resting the other
on his clavicle, while Arbal tried to determine whether any of the dozen
bleeding abrasions could be closed. Swydiger’s sweat-stained face was streaming
with tears, his hand gripping Cluspith’s palm to palm, his mouth moving without
words. Cluspith convulsed, spine stiffening.

Don’t fail me now
, Merrick pleaded silently, waiting
for the heat to come. But the heat was fading, and the sweet taste of his
drug-induced euphoria with it. Cluspith wasn’t talking anymore. He wasn’t
breathing
anymore. Just seizing up. Dying.

Somewhere in the chaos, Merrick was sure he heard Peymer
talking about him, or talking to him—urging him to do something.

“Hand me your coilgun,” Merrick said.

Peymer gave him a belligerent look. “I didn’t mean that. I
meant use your thing. Heal him like you did yourself.”

Merrick stared at him. “Give me your gun.”

“He ain’t gonna die by your hand, comrade.”

“I’m not going to kill him, now give it here.”

Peymer hesitated, then handed him the gun. Merrick slid his
fingers along the handguard until he found the latch. He removed the hard
rubber grip to reveal the cavity beneath, where the power cells stood round and
shiny within. The first cell came free with a gentle tug. Its metal prongs were
shielded in a hard plastic sheath.