Ghosts, Gears, and Grimoires

by Unknown

  The strike wasn’t strong enough to completely sever the hands from its wrists, but they hung limply off the bone. Split arteries splashed dark blood onto my chest, and I swung the blade again. It sliced through the creature’s pale neck, nearly decapitating it.

  A sharp scream pierced the air behind me. I spun around. Another Hellion had bolted out of the shadowed streets and pinned Gemma to the ground. I wondered where Nash was, since he wasn’t trying to help her—then I spotted him grappling and punching at a third Hellion, his brass knuckles gleaming under the waxy moonlight.

  I glanced between them, racking my brain about who to run to first. Gemma was in a vulnerable position and I knew Nash would slip up if she got so much as a scratch. Though if I helped Nash, Gemma’s defenses could break and her throat would be torn out. Nash would never forgive me if that happened.

  Deciding my best option would be to wing it and draw the attention of both Hellions, I gripped my sword and started forward—

  Then stopped.

  It wasn’t that I changed my mind. It was what I saw lurching out of the front door of the cobbler’s shop. It was a man... Made of metal?

  Pain exploded through my right calf. I grimaced at the piercing stabs, nearly losing my balance as I turned and looked down. The Hellion I’d sliced with the cutlass had dragged itself toward me, still bleeding from throat and wrists, and sunk its teeth into the back of my leg.

  That’s what I get for hesitating.

  I stabbed my sword downward, punching it through the Hellion’s blood-red eye. It twitched, unlatching its fangs from my leg, which thankfully wasn’t missing a chunk of flesh, though it bled steadily.

  “Sawyer!”

  I jerked up at the urgency in Nash’s voice, seeing both Hellions suddenly charging me. They weren’t getting anywhere with their current prey, and the scent of fresh blood drew them in like sharks.

  They were too fast for me. I centered my weight and pushed my sword through the chest of the closest one, but the second Hellion tackled me from the side and took me down in a heap. I lost my grip on the sword and grabbed the Hellion’s throat, holding its snapping jaws away from my face. I punched at it, hoping that it would be too dazed to sink its claws in, but I was just biding time.

  I heard Nash and Gemma shouting my name, but I also heard metal clanking and grinding together. Those metallic sounds quickly drowned out the voices of my crew.

  The Hellion didn’t notice. It pushed forward, and I had to turn my head to keep it from biting into my face. Cold, dry lips and slick fangs scraped across my cheek.

  Then the Hellion was gone, pushed off me in a rush of air. I flipped onto my side to grab for my sword, freezing when I saw a set of metallic boots in front of me. My eyes trailed up, and I learned that I hadn’t been going crazy earlier. There really was a metallic man standing in front of me.

  He stood around six feet tall, the same height as me. A tattered jumpsuit covered his body, the same tar-black and crimson buttoned jumpsuit the Sky Guards used to wear. Covering his limbs was an iron exoskeleton with rounded joints. Thick iron plates were bolted together around his forearms, shoulders, and legs below the knee. A metal plate adorned his chest and seemed to stretch around to his back. There was no mask to cover his face or hair. He looked like a knight stripped to the barest armor.

  Not that I was going to complain. He’d punted the Hellion off me and was now running around me to chase it. The monster flipped onto four feet and leaped at the metallic man’s throat with a snarl. The metallic man threw a sharp punch into the Hellion’s jaw.

  I didn’t hear the crack, but I saw its neck twist violently to the side. The Hellion dropped heavily onto the cobblestones, and didn’t move again. The armored stranger stared at the body, as if he expected it to rise.

  I picked up my sword, glancing at Nash and Gemma to make sure they were all right.

  The broad, dark-skinned man had his arm around his lover’s slender back, and was brushing strands of her thick brown hair away from her eyes, though she insisted she wasn’t hurt. Both of them turned to me, their eyes lifting to the metallic man.

  “Oh, no,” the stranger said. “Oh no, no, no!”

  I got to my feet and faced the unusual man. He was pacing back and forth, shoving his metal covered hands through his hair and pulling small tufts of it out. He didn’t make a sound of pain, his attention totally focused on the Hellion’s body in front of him.

  “Ruined, ruined again!”

  I started stepping backward, thinking maybe we could sneak down another street and—

  The metallic man whirled around, wide brown eyes locking on me.

  He was twice my age, probably in his forties. His unruly brown hair was flecked with grey, and his facial hair was a scraggly mess. Dirt and oil stained his face, and his eyes were bugged out and disturbed.

  At first, I worried he recognized me. I watched him carefully, trying to discern if he saw my father or—knowing my luck—my brother in my face, and what I would do if that was the case.

  But the longer he hesitated, the more I became aware that his mind was shattered, likely by the events of The Storm, and that he could potentially be dangerous.

  “You, come.” His voice shook with anxiety or excitement. I couldn’t tell, and it worried me the more he spoke. “You can help. I have important experiments. Ones that will save us all.”

  Case in point.

  I frowned at him. I seriously doubted any experiment would save us from the Hellions. They changed everything in Aon ten years ago, most of the damage done to the capital city of Westraven.

  A decade ago, Westraven was the core of trade and engineering. The heart of the world and its innovation. We had the best of everything—the best architects, the best electricians and the best military.

  The best pirates.

  Then, after one ill-fated exploration, the Hellions broke through a piece of the sky and rained fire and destruction on us for days, courtesy of a massive airship known as the Behemoth. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  Shortly after the crushing firepower, the Behemoth sent down raiding skiffs filled with blood-drinking monsters—the Hellions. The creatures thrived at night and soon adapted to hunting during the day, kidnapping those they didn’t kill on sight.

  Westraven fell into complete desolation. The Sky Guard—once proud soldiers whose only worry had been how many pirates they could bring to justice—was destroyed. Buildings became uninhabitable, forcing survivors to live in dark, clustered tunnels underground. Electricity was hoarded and savagely fought over by those who needed to cling to power. Food was scarce, many proteins now coming from rabid rats, feral cats, or stray dogs. Assuming the rumored cannibals didn’t find you first.

  Saving Westraven was impossible. I knew that. Gemma and Nash knew that.

  We found each other under volatile circumstances—Nash tried to throw me into a fighting pit filled with people who wanted to rip me limb from limb, and Gemma tricked us both into capture to secure her own freedom—but we forged a new alliance and stuck together because we knew that numbers mattered for survival. We weren’t trying to change the world, or make it better.

  Nobody could do that.

  “Listen,” I told the metallic man, raising one hand, but keeping the cutlass firmly held in the other, “you sound like a busy man. We can be on our way, and you’ll be free to—”

  A batch of lights burst across the dark sky, sweeping back and forth over the main Market District. I grimaced. It was a Hellion raiding skiff. I knew it as well as I knew my bones. Only Hellions had ships in the sky. No one dared raise an airship or skiff into the air since the last one had been shot down.

  That was something I hoped to change, but with the Behemoth lurking in the air like a swollen bruise, that was a dream I had currently set aside for reality.

  The lights drifted closer. Smugglers Turf was an offshoot of the Market District’s central plaza, and it wouldn’t be long before those damn lights shone on us. Helli
ons had incredible sight, especially at night. If we didn’t find a place to hide soon, we would be next on the menu.

  The metal man turned and scampered toward us. I tensed and stepped back, hating his jittery movements.

  “Quickly! The Hellions come here often! It’s not safe! I’ll keep you safe! I will, I will!”

  I scowled at him. The idiot shouldn’t have been shouting. I glanced over his shoulder. The searchlights were getting closer. The Hellions might have heard him.

  “Damn it,” I cursed. “All right.”

  We hurried off the street and into the cobbler’s shop. Once we were inside, we spotted a set of wooden boards propped against the wall. Nash and I hurried to wedge them against the door. I didn’t know if the Hellions could see what we were doing, but I didn’t want to take any chances by leaving the door unprotected.

  As we struggled to drag the boards into place, the metallic man appeared behind Nash and clamped a hand on his shoulder.

  Nash is my age, and one of the sturdiest people I’ve ever seen. Years of hard labor and pit-fighting for his former marauder clan had thickened his arms and broadened his chest. He did all the heavy-lifting for my crew (something I teased him about when I reminded him that I was captain), so he knew how to balance his weight.

  Watching him stumble under the weight of that hand sent a nervous shiver down my spine. From the look on his face, Nash was just as startled as I was.

  “Window, window,” the metallic man hissed. “Board the other window.”

  He lifted his hand from Nash’s shoulder and gave him a nudge toward the right window. The nudge sent my big friend staggering.

  The strange man stood beside me, grabbed the majority of the boards, and helped me hold them in place. The last two of them secured the door, but through the cracks, I could see the ghostly searchlights swaying back and forth across the plaza of Smugglers Turf.

  “Not here, not here, not here,” whispered the metallic man.

  I shot him a piercing glare, but kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to risk speaking when the Hellions might hear, and also didn’t want to feel one of those metal hands smacking into my face.

  Other than the metal man’s raspy whispers, we remained silent. Even when the lights faded, we stayed in place. Ten minutes passed before we decided that the Hellions were gone and it was safe to step away from the window.

  “We’ll stay here five more minutes, then we’re gone,” I said.

  “No! No, no!”

  I whirled to face the metallic man, whose eyes still bulged. If he strained them any further, they would pop out of his head.

  “I need your help to finish my experiment!”

  “Not interested,” I shot back.

  His face collapsed. I swear tears started to form in his eyes.

  “Sawyer,” Nash began.

  Great. He was using his reasoning voice. I hated when he tried to reason with me. I usually ended up listening, or feeling guilty if I didn’t.

  “It might be best if we stay the night,” Nash went on. “We can’t risk going all the way back to the ports now.”

  I cringed. We’d left the hanger at the old Westraven ports fairly secure, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t come by and break in, and there was no way to hide what was inside it: the most famous marauder airship in all of Westraven. The most feared.

  My family’s ship.

  “I’m with Nash on this one, Sawyer,” Gemma added unhelpfully.

  Of course she was. Gemma had betrayed us once, but did return and save us from torture and enslavement. I still held a small grudge at that, but she’d worked hard for her keep and adored Nash. Of course, she supported him.

  I had a lot more doubts.

  Glancing between the two of them, I said, “I’m sure Doctor—”

  “Technician,” interrupted the metallic man.

  I looked at him. “What?”

  A huge smile cracked across his face, so big it must have hurt to hold in place. “I’m a technician. Technician Maurice of the 83rd Southern Sky Jumpers.”

  Oh, good.

  He was part of the Sky Guard, the bane of every marauder’s existence. I didn’t think he knew who we were, or more importantly, who I was. The conversation would have taken a very different direction if he did.

  “I’ve created a weapon to use against them. They’ll never, never see it coming.”

  Maurice was confident, and obscenely enthusiastic. I was hesitant to ask what kind of miracle weapon he’d made, since I was certain that anyone thinking of taking on the Behemoth would have to be a combination of desperate and insane.

  Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on who you ask—Maurice was all too happy to show us how his invention worked.

  He spun in a full circle, displaying the iron exoskeleton to us. When he faced us again, he removed the metal hand attached to his left wrist.

  Or rather, the stump of his left wrist.

  “They caught me at first,” Maurice explained feverishly. “They caught me good, ripped and tore, tore and ripped. Didn’t think I’d live to see the sun, but I did, oh I did, and I made it back here. Had a friend who hacked off the bad bits, helped me create the new ones.”

  Maurice’s jowls dropped, and he suddenly reminded me of a kicked puppy. “But Benny died. He died bad, before he could get to the good bits.”

  I blinked at the deranged man in front of me then dragged my eyes to my crew. I quirked an eyebrow and issued a silent challenge:

  Still sure it’s a good idea to stay the night here?

  Nash frowned, but Gemma voiced her opinion. “If you try to chop off my hands, I’m going to chop off your balls.”

  Gemma was the queen of eloquence.

  Maurice didn’t flinch, but he shook his head rapidly. “No, no, no—no chopping. Just want company. Stay the night? Give me company?”

  “I really don’t—”

  “One night,” Nash cut me off.

  My head snapped in his direction, and my eyes narrowed to dagger points. Nash didn’t look at me, but I know he saw me peripherally. He had to, because Gemma was giving him the same uneasy look.

  “Can we have a minute to get settled?” he asked Maurice with an amicable grin.

  Maurice nodded so hard I thought he would snap his neck. He jammed his metallic hand back onto its stump. “Yes, yes; have many minutes. I’ll bring you goodies when your minutes are over.”

  He took off deeper into the cobbler’s shop. Once he was out of earshot, I turned to face Nash, folding my arms over my chest.

  “Remind me again, Nash,” I growled, “which one of us is captain?”

  To his credit, Nash looked a bit sheepish. “Come on, Sawyer. We’re already here, and it’s obvious that the man hasn’t been around people in a long time. We can use the rest.”

  “You honestly think he’s not going to run off on a tangent again and consider chopping our hands off? Because he strikes me as the type.”

  “Don’t be like that. You know what the Hellions can do to a person’s mind.”

  My eyes pierced him. Of course I knew.

  Shortly after the worst of The Storm had passed, I had begun recruiting various men and women to help me find my ship and form a new crew. I knew that forming an effective group was the only way to survive, and years of watching my father command the Dauntless Wanderer had taught me how to run a ship. It was my dream to follow in my father’s footsteps and run an adventurous crew of brigands as effectively as he did.

  Without the torturous punishments and random murders, of course. Bloodshed was my older brother’s thing.

  For two years, I scoured every corner of Westraven, avoiding old marauder hideouts and safe-houses in case one of my father’s rivals or my brother’s enemies saw me and felt the need for retribution. It took work, because of my age and my family legacy, but I managed to convince some survivors to join my ramshackle crew, and we tried to carve out a new clan life with each other.

  Most of them died�
��by Hellion fangs, marauder blade, or simple accident. The rest deserted, their fragile minds completely shattered by the chaos of our new reality.

  I didn’t blame them, and never sought to bring them back. After all, I hadn’t had much to convince them with in the first place. Though I had to wonder sometimes at Gemma and Nash’s mental states for them to stay with me. I wondered how many adventures we would have before they finally decided that enough was enough.

  Both my crewmates waited expectantly for me, and I could see the exhaustion drawing heavily on their eyelids. I couldn’t deny them a chance to rest.

  “Fine,” I grumbled, pretending not to feel better when I saw their eyes brighten. “But we’re keeping watch. I don’t know what our pal Maurice is up to, but I don’t trust it.”

  “Not a problem,” Gemma said, weaving her arm through Nash’s and nestling her head on his broad shoulder. He smiled and pressed his head against the top of hers. “You can count on us.”

  * * *

  Nash and Gemma were asleep the moment they lay down on the hardwood floor. Nash sprawled on his back, arms wrapped around Gemma as she lay on his chest. A human mattress and a human blanket, both slumbering peacefully and keeping each other warm.

  I wasn’t sure if I envied them, or was annoyed that they’d forced me to stay awake.

  Not to mention how awkward it was. They were not subtle when displaying their affections.

  I lay on my back and gazed at the water-stained ceiling. Despite my best efforts, I felt my eyes drifting shut, wondering if I could get away with a couple of minutes of—

  Creak.

  I heard the floorboards groan almost as soon as I felt eyes zero in on me. Tension coiled in my muscles, and though instinct screamed at me to open my eyes and see what was going on, I remained still. I wanted to hang onto the element of surprise.

  Creak.

  The floorboards dipped slightly. I heard the heavy tap of metal on them. Gears and iron joints groaned as they were bent. A presence hovered over me. My hand shot to the hilt of my sword, and my eyes snapped open.