Burn (TimeBend Book 2)

by Ann Denton

  She climbed out of the waves, backlit by the afternoon sun. Wet curls down her shoulders, the perfect slender silhouette, water dripping down her back as her toned arms pulled her up the swim ladder.

  Lowe’s eyes dilated as her curves emerged. Gorgeous. His heart stumbled. Other parts of his anatomy took off at a gallop. He had to look away to prevent a meltdown. Startled, he reflected, Shit, that girl is dangerous.

  Footsteps sounded beside him. Garon, the arrogant pissant grandson of Bara, stood next to him. “Great view huh? Don’t waste your time though. Mala’s a snotty little mud-breather. I call her the ghost. Sneaks around all silent. Too good to talk to anyone.”

  “Really?” Lowe’s eyes went back to Mala. She stood in her undergarments, efficiently gutting several fish she’d brought on board, oblivious to the show she was putting on for him and Garon. She seemed serene, biting her full lips in concentration. His blood thundered as she bent over to set the cleaned fish out to dry in the sun, and then wandered to a basket of dry herbs.

  Mala plucked out a few strands of rosemary and shredded the leaves from the stalks. I bet I could get her to talk to me. The challenge tempted him. More than it should.

  He forced himself to go below deck and rejoin Bara and Barde, one of her seconds. They stood, arguing over the dead alligator Lowe had brought in. The meat was a boon they hadn’t expected. A big deal to these northern outpost guards.

  “We should save it for the celebration,” Bara declared. A huge, hulking woman, it was easy to see why she was in control of the guard. She had presence.

  “No way we can dry this out and keep it secret that long,” Barde protested. “People have been hard up this year without the normal rations from Das Wort.”

  “The food minister can’t control the weather—”

  “Don’t eat it. I found it near the border,” Lowe interrupted. “Who knows what kind of radiation exposure it’s got? That must’ve been why I could catch it.”

  Lowe didn’t mention that the alligator had been slithering away from him when its entire body had frozen like an icicle near the western border, making the catch more of a matter of bundling it up than anything else. Better to let them think I had something to do with the kill. “Use it for shoes or something. But I wouldn’t go feeding it to anyone.”

  Barde looked heartbroken for a moment. Then the pot-bellied redhead patted the alligator’s nose and said, “Don’t worry old fella. I’m still gonna eat you.”

  He turned to Bara, “I can understand if you don’t want to risk anyone else. So I’ll make the sacrifice and eat this beauty myself.” And he hefted the alligator onto his shoulder—or tried, anyway. The weight dragged him backwards.

  Laughing, Lowe and Bara both helped push Barde upright, draping the alligator’s tail around his neck like a scarf.

  “If you die, I’m telling everyone what a fool you are,” Bara called out.

  “Better to die with a full belly than live with an empty one,” Barde replied jovially.

  Lowe shook his head as he watched the older man struggle to mount the stairs to the deck with his prize. “He’s going to fall in the river and drop it, isn’t he?”

  Bara looked solemnly after her second. “Yes.”

  “Well I wouldn’t if you two would stop staring at my behind and help me out!”

  “No, you’re eating the whole thing alone, you’re carrying it alone,” Bara stated.

  “Maybe I’ll just gut it on your deck.”

  “Do it and your guts will be all over that deck too,” Bara’s last jibe was shouted as Barde stumbled out of sight. She shook her head fondly.

  “I’m gonna have to leave for a few days,” Lowe changed the subject, now that they were alone. “I need to track some rumors down. Are there any runs or upcoming raids I need to know about?”

  Bara turned to him, disappointment evident on her face. “You’ve hardly met any of my guard.”

  “I’m coming back. Consider this your warning to whip them into shape. But I don’t want you telling them who I am. What I am. I need to see their performance as it really is. I don’t want them on eggshells.”

  Bara gave short nod. He could see she desperately wanted to run off the boat and scream that a Recruiter had finally come to their little outpost. But she knew an order when she heard one.

  “I do want to know what you have planned so I don’t miss out on the chance to evaluate someone in action.” The lie slid off his tongue easily. Most of the leaders of the guard clung to his every word, eager to tell him whatever he needed. Recruiter made a great cover for his real assignment.

  Bara let out a sigh and shrugged a massive shoulder. “Same old here. Just some four-man raids near the fields. Next month we plan to try to capture a ship near Sonne Pointe. That’s it. Until the fall.”

  “What happens in the fall?” Lowe asked.

  Smiling mysteriously, the leader of the guard strapped a helmet to her head and grabbed a pair of binoculars. “You’ll have to come back to find out.”

  Lowe left Bara’s docked boat and walked the shoreline. He cast one last hopeful glance at the green boat, but the girl—Mala—was no longer on the deck.

  He trudged into the woods and let the river mud dry into a protective crust on his legs and feet. Then he set off. He had nearly a day’s walk to get to his meeting point and his first contact with the double agent. Bara’s guard had been a bust, but he still had some info from earlier guards he could hand over.

  Lowe kept under cover as he walked, avoiding the sun and curious eyes, following the river north. When a tributary branched off at a narrow point, he crossed, repeating his rivermud procedure and then walked some more.

  The birds twittered overhead and a hawk or two swooped near the banks. He tromped down an old street edged in moss. A row of cookie-cutter houses gaped at him like skulls—their two front windows empty as eye sockets and their missing front doors like gaping nasal cavities. Soon the forest would swallow them whole.

  The haunted scene didn’t bother him. It was mundane. Since the bomb, most Senebals had migrated south. For food and protection.

  Lowe caught himself humming contentedly as he tromped through the ruins. An hour before dusk, he started to make camp. But as he went to break off some pine branches to bed down, he saw the tree had already lost several branches. He looked around at the ground. It was free of dead twigs.

  Someone was here. Or had been recently.

  Carefully, he unsheathed a knife from his waistband. And an acorn hit him square in the forehead.

  “No idea why you got promoted, man,” a kid’s voice floated down from the tree canopy. Verrukter swung down, a ten-year-old, and perched on a low branch. “I could have sniped you easy.”

  “Tired,” Lowe responded. “Was about to make a pallet.”

  “Well, you need to stop before you get tired, then.” Verrukter stripped his shirt, loosened the elastic strap on his sweats, preparing to melt.

  “Okay mom. What are you doing out here?”

  “Solving the case of the missing Kreis,” Verrukter used a mock spooky tone. But a second later he sighed, the seriousness of the situation emerging. “Blut’s been seen in this area the past few days. Mucking wilderness out here with a house of crumbs every few feet for him to hide in. This search is taking forever.” Verrukter swung down and dropped to the ground, melting into his adult form as he did. He misjudged his height, however, and his head smacked into the low-hanging branch.

  Lowe laughed. “At least I’m not the only incompetent one. Someone else can take me out, but you’re gonna end up knocking yourself out.”

  Verrukter grimaced and held his head. “On a much more important note, I think Blut’s hiding from something. Hiding or else … he deserted.”

  Lowe tilted his head. “He’s cracked?”

  Verrukter squinted through the trees as a pair of ducks flew overhead, heading south to the mouth of the Gottermund. He watched them fade to flecks before he responded. His voice was su
bdued. “Never thought I’d say it. But yeah, seems like a definite possibility. He left the last job unfinished. His mark is there. I had to take care of him … he’s never done that. Gone off book, sure. But never. Never …”

  Lowe took a shuddering breath. Memories of Blut besting him in combat practice came to mind. Lowe had eaten a lot of mat anytime they squared off. The bald man had been fierce on the floor. He was slender, but moved like the wind. He’d taught Lowe a lot about fighting techniques.

  Blut had constantly been squeezing things—ancient rusted cans, old jars. He wasn’t a big man, but his combat was legendary. “Hand strength,” he’d preached. His fingers alone had crushed the life out of dozens of Erlenders. Even the best can fall.

  Verrukter toed the dirt. “Sometimes I wonder if crazy attracts crazy.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Klaren recruited Blut. Klaren cracked big-time. Blut recruited Alba. Now Alba’s had a meltdown. She’s stuck as an eighty-year-old.”

  “That’s bad. Hard on you as the boyfriend.”

  “First—not a boyfriend. Casual. Okay? Second—tell me about it. Now that she’s stuck as an old lady … I dunno if she’s all there. I mean, what are the chances of all three going nuts?”

  Lowe mulled Verrukter’s theory over. Possible. But the pressure of being Kreis gets most of us in the end. He turned to Verrukter. “Be careful.”

  “You too. Don’t go recruiting another crazy they have to send me after.” They clasped forearms, and each went on his way. Lowe made sure to trek at least five kilometers in the wrong direction before doubling back toward his meeting place.

  He was on high alert now. He had to avoid two Kreis wandering in the vicinity. He shuffled through the brush, checking each dilapidated house he came across. It took hours. He pulled a tiny piece of cloth out of his pocket and consulted the sketch from Tier. Pillars. Not this house. The house I need has pillars.

  Once the light had completely faded, Lowe scrambled into one of the houses he’d searched, perched in a corner behind an open door, and slept with his knife unsheathed in his hand.

  He woke before dawn kissed the sky and was on the move again. Just in case.

  Lowe went by at least four more houses before he found it. The sun had risen, a pink backdrop for the mansion. On a hill, with a view of the river, the exterior of the house was still fighting the onslaught of nature. Moss and trees had not overtaken the entire building yet; the battle was still in progress.

  With a deep breath, Lowe took his first step over the threshold. And here we go. He stopped to listen, but the stones and trees waged a silent war. He didn’t hear anyone. But he also didn’t hear the telltale shuffle of any critters. Which meant that someone had cleared them out.

  Knife in hand, Lowe traipsed down a hall past a broken mirror. He cleared room after room. When he came into the master bedroom, he froze.

  No. Not possible. His feet led him across the room on autopilot. His hand reached for a stack of canvases. He caressed the edge of the top one. His mind reeled. He didn’t believe his eyes. Couldn’t believe them. It looks just like something she would have painted.

  Unbidden, unwanted, the memories washed over him. Lowe remembered the thrill of excitement creeping up his fifteen-year-old spine as he ran through a shuttered store, past shelves as barren as winter trees. He’d skidded to a stop at the back wall to see a hundred sets of eyes gleaming down at him. A hundred portraits, a hundred souls, their happiest expressions captured in charcoal.

  The memory wall. That’s what Lowe had named it when he first found it. The memory wall for his guard. Anyone who had passed in the last ten years had been drawn here. From memory. For memory. He had searched the wall and found his parents. He’d smiled up at them. But they weren’t the reason his heart beat so fast. She was.

  In the corner of the wall, bent at the waist, filling in the last bit of available space, the girl sketched with her back to him. Her hair had gleamed like a penny in the shafts of sunlight that cut through the broken blinds.

  “If you touch me and mess this up, I will kill you,” she’d muttered as a greeting.

  Lowe had just grinned, stalking toward her. “You should know better than to throw out threats like that.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  He’d slunk an arm over her shoulders. “Really?” His hand curled in casually. He waited a beat. Then he’d pounced, tickling her underarms.

  “Sludgebrain!” Her leg had swung out and swept under him, but he’d been ready for her. He’d jumped it. Then he’d tugged her hair and winked. “Gonna have to do better if you wanna kill me, Stelle.”

  She’d growled. He’d laughed. She’d thrown her charcoal stick at him. He’d scooped it up and whooped. Then he’d turned and run through the maze of shelves. She’d followed, laughing and cursing. It had been one of the best days of his life.

  Shaking his head, coming back to the present, Lowe’s fingers drifted over the face sketched on the canvas. The Erlender prince. Scarred, blue tattoos a jumble on his face, a combination of the stripes on his nose and other protective wards that had mutated into swirls when Troe had taken acid to his son’s face. Insane. Lowe shook his head. That’s what we’re fighting. Insanity.

  A soft sound made Lowe whirl around. Someone was in the hall. He backed into a corner, drawing a knife and vial out of his pocket. He uncapped the vial but didn’t pour out the precious Engel powder yet. It was so deadly, it took only moments to kill its victims. Better to wait than to waste the precious poison.

  The footsteps drew closer. He held his breath. A hand touched the door and pushed it open, but no one walked in right away.

  “Blackbirds eat dead men’s eyes,” a female voice drifted into the room.

  “They swallow their souls and sip their cries,” Lowe responded, heaving a sigh of relief and capping the Engel powder. His contact was here.

  He looked down and slid his knife back into its duct-tape scabbard. When he looked up his jaw dropped. His heart stilled. And for a moment he thought he’d died. Because he was seeing a ghost.

  His contact had stepped into the room. Gleaming red hair, bright as a penny, light brown eyes, freckles he had counted innumerable times.

  Stelle turned to face him. “You’re late,” she said.

  Chapter Seven

  “I thought …” Lowe couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Stelle stepped forward and took the painting of the prince from his hands. She gazed at it thoughtfully. “You thought I was dead?”

  Lowe nodded. The sunlight washed over her cheek, highlighting her freckles. I’ve kissed every single one. The thought came and went before Lowe could stop it.

  Stelle shrugged. “I thought so too. After they took me. I thought it was over.” Her hand drifted over the canvas. “But then someone realized I could draw.”

  Guilt swung a wrecking ball into Lowe’s stomach, and words came flying out. “I tried to find you. I went to the fields by Prigi township, to see if they put you in the work camp. I tried to get into Troe’s compound once—”

  Stelle held up a hand. “You were just one boy.”

  “Stelle, if I had known, I never would have—”

  “I know.” She slid her hand down his arm, calming him. “I don’t blame you. We all have to survive somehow.” She held his eyes for a minute, and the stillness in her gaze helped ease the ache in his chest.

  He stared at her. I don’t deserve forgiveness.

  “You’re mooning.”

  “I’m not,” he tried to scoff but it came out flat.

  “You’ve gotten better at hiding it.”

  He opened his mouth to apologize again. But she cut him off. “Don’t. It’s not worth talking about.” She squeezed his fingers and then let go. “Now, let’s get to business. I have some paintings to create and you have some details to share.”

  She strolled, canvas still in hand, over to a window. “I hope you have something good. I’ve been getting information from differen
t sources, trying to build up gradually. I’ve started to get the ear of the King’s cousin.” She winked at Lowe as she selected a paintbrush.

  His throat went dry. That wink. Part of him loved it. Part of him hated it. She made him feel fourteen again. “How’d you do that?”

  She shrugged. “Threatened them with some curses. Said some scary words. Did a rain dance when I knew a storm was brewing.”

  Lowe laughed.

  Stelle froze and stared at him. “Seriously. I tried that shit with my first master. He just sold me off, for causing trouble. If your curse doesn’t cause disease, it’s not worth anything. If you can’t steal skins like a demon …” here she paused and raised an eyebrow at Lowe.

  He remained stoic. No one outside the Center was authorized to know about melting. The mutation was sure to set off jealousy and fireworks. So far as Lowe knew, Stelle had the same information as the rest of the population: Kreis were elite soldiers, trained as assassins and spies.

  Stelle sighed and shook her head, correctly interpreting his stonewalling. “They believe, yeah. But they still want some kind of proof.”

  “So, how’d you give it to them?”

  A sly smile lit Stelle’s face. “The idiot used to lock us in the basement every night. Me and two others. We fashioned saws out of what we could. Slowly sawed away the joists and the support beams.”

  “How long did that take?”

  Stelle shrugged. “What’s time when you’re a slave? Couple years maybe. We were just gonna squish the muckhead. End it. Until a Chiara came to visit. Stayed a few days. I watched her draw. Thought—I could do that. So I painted a painting and made a prediction. They helped make it come true.”

  “They …”

  “Finished the job one night, when I was out on an errand.”

  Lowe felt a tingle of pride. Most slaves were broken in under a year. He had no doubt Stelle was the reason these Senebals had stayed motivated. Had sacrificed.

  Stelle cleared her throat. “Anyway. What’s important is I’ve finally got enough traction that they don’t have a dumb lackey follow me—not all the time, anyway. That was difficult. Trying to get information and set things up with a half-wit tripping over my heels.”