Melt: (A TimeBend Novel - Book One)

by Ann Denton

  “I think you're right. But if we can't kiss, we can always do the next best thing.”

  “What's that?”

  “Fight,” he smiled.

  The main platform was empty but for the two of them, practicing in the fading glow of the sun. Lowe taught her a fighting stance, then tested her balance, pushing on one shoulder.

  “Good. Now, I have some strategies I think will work for you. First, given your size, I think you should go for a surprise attack. Second, given the fact that you’re new to hand-to-hand, I think you should go for a surprise attack.”

  “Geez, I don't know. That might be too much for me to remember. It's so complex,” Mala teased.

  “I always say, the best plan is the simplest one.”

  “Alright. So, what do I need to do?”

  “Surprise is going to vary based on the individual you’re facing. But I do think we can come up with some general strategies. Let's start with the easiest: kids.”

  Lowe turned his back for a moment. Before Mala could blink twice, she was facing a six-year-old. He had pudgy cheeks and his hair was just long enough to stick out in every direction.

  Mala covered her mouth with her hand. “You were so … cute!”

  In a high-pitched, lisping voice, Lowe responded, “Yes, I know. But let's stay focused. We've only got a little light left.”

  Mala stifled a giggle. “Yes sir.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Never underestimate a kid. They're fast, they're loud as alarm bells, and they have a better sense of intuition than most adults. They know when something's off.”

  “Okay. How do I surprise them, then?”

  “Shiny things.”

  “You're joking, right?”

  He put his arms on his hips. “Nope. You take an Erlender kid. You bring over some cool trinket that you've captured off a 'stupid Southerner' and they'll be so caught up in it, they won't see what's coming. Typically tech gadgets work best. And you can take them out of the equation fast. Quick knockout so you can get to your real target.”

  Mala balked. “I’m gonna have to punch kids out?”

  “Mala, we do a lot of recon work as kids. Remember the night of the celebration? I sat in a tree and threw a nut at you, and you didn’t even look up.”

  Mala started. He nodded and continued, “Adults don’t notice kids. But other kids do. So yeah, you’re gonna have to suck it up and knock some out.” Bossy Lowe grabbed a walkie-talkie out of a side pocket in his now-oversized navy wetsuit. “Here, use this and practice on me. Just do whatever your instincts tell you. I'll give you corrections in a minute.”

  Mala leaned forward and held out the walkie. “Hey kid. Look what I got off a dead Senebal. Want it?”

  Lowe screamed, “Demon!!!!” and kicked Mala hard in the shins. As she fell, he yanked her hair and pulled her to the ground.

  “Umpfff,” Mala groaned. “I think I might like Verrukter better.”

  “No one offers kids cool stuff. Kids are inherently selfish. No kid offers another kid something awesome. They brag about it. And adults don’t think kids can handle cool stuff. Try again.”

  Mala sighed. “If you pull my hair again, I’m pulling yours back.”

  A devilish grin lit Lowe’s face. “You can try.”

  When the moon had evicted the sun from the sky, the pair made their way to a sub.

  “I’m starving,” Lowe said.

  “Do you have the energy to answer a question?”

  Lowe raised an eyebrow, “Only if it’s an inappropriate one.”

  “Ha! No. I was thinking about what happened. The attack. How do you think the Wildes found us? Do you think it was because of Blut? I was thinking, he might have shown someone his brand, you know? And then anyone in Bara’s guard would have told him everything he wanted to know.”

  Lowe sealed the sub and walked to the controls before answering. “Fell and I agree; Blut probably showed someone his brand. And the Wildes might have lost their heads. Massacres have been accidental before. The blood craze gets to some people. But that doesn’t answer the bigger question. Why did Blut follow you?”

  Ice slid down Mala’s spine. Me? That’s right. He swam after me—not Lowe. Me.

  Lowe continued, “Was he doing recon on me? Did he see us together? You had time to see him, maybe he saw us. Did he think you’d lead him to me? What was his motivation? Why?”

  Mala sucked in a breath. “Maybe he wanted to tie up loose ends? Finish the job?”

  Lowe shook his head. “Maybe. I just don’t think so …”

  “Well, do you have any theories?” Mala prompted.

  “I work mostly in intelligence, so I don’t know why he’d target me, unless I have something he thinks is important ... But I’ve been poring over my files and I can’t figure it out. Unless … he was on the water that night and saw you transform.”

  Mala’s heart stopped. It was a minute before she could even process what Lowe had said. “So you think he was hunting me?”

  Lowe turned a serious gaze on her as the water whooshed out of the loading dock. He came forward and gripped her hands. “Mala, if he saw what I’ve seen, I’m sure he was. Klaren was Blut’s mentor, so he knows what that kind of melt looks like. He knows how powerful someone like that is.”

  Mala shivered involuntarily. Lowe ran his hands up and down her arms to comfort her. “Look, you got him—so he failed, right? He didn’t get to sweep you away and brainwash you into being an Erlender foot soldier. He didn’t get to turn you over for some crazed religious sacrifice. But you need to understand how careful you need to be. How serious your training is. Because if you meltdown on a mission … you won’t just be labeled a demon like the rest of us. They’ll hunt you down like they’re hunting the devil himself.”

  Chapter Twenty

  A month later Mala pulled open the door to her hut with a sigh. She was so exhausted it was a fight to shut the door against the chill fall air. After that, all she could do was fall into bed. She’d gotten to a point where her fatigue outweighed even the demands of her empty stomach. Combat practice and lessons with Lowe had worn her to the bone. After her initial victory over Verrukter—and his intense displeasure at the resulting gossip—he’d made sure she’d never won again. She had the bruises to prove it. And while practicing with Lowe was much more pleasant, it wasn’t much easier.

  At this point, Mala didn't think she could control her melts even if she knew how. Ein had nearly pulled out his hair at her zombie-like responses. The second day of his “melt experiment,” he’d had her parade in her underwear for a group of teenage Typicals.

  “I’m not doing that, you dirty mudbreather!” Mala had screamed when he’d proposed it.

  “I don’t think I was tapping into the right kind of fear yesterday,” Ein had smirked and crossed his arms. “I have a feeling this fear might be more potent.”

  She had kicked and screamed and fought so much that it had taken Ein and three assistants to get her stripped down. But it had happened. And he’d shoved her into a room full of fourteen to twenty-year-old teenage boys, locking the door behind him.

  Luckily, Ges had been in the group, and she’d focused all her attention on him. They’d talked and chatted and Ges had acted like nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all. Ein had been livid.

  “Why are you making this harder than it has to be?”

  In response, Mala had slapped him.

  After that, Ein had brought Kreis after Kreis into the lab and had them stage arguments and get in her face to make her angry. No go. He'd tried bringing in crying Typical kids. After he found out how Mala had jumped ship as a kid, he’d wheeled in injured people, but by the time he'd dragged them into the lab, most of them were so confused that all Mala could do was shrug in pity. He’d even brought in Lowe and Tier for additional kisses. Trying to recreate those uncomfortable scenarios had left Mala cold. And in her own skin. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or sad each time Ein’s experiments failed. She loved that
it drove him mad, but she hated that she had to spend another day with him, and another day without understanding her melts. Or lack thereof.

  After each botched experiment, Ein cursed and swore and shoved her against the wall, demanding that she tell him the truth. The entire truth.

  “You’re a damn liar! You’re hiding something. That’s why these experiments are failing!”

  “Maybe you’re the failure,” she’d snapped back at first.

  But lately, she’d adopted a new policy. Mala had noticed Ein’s lab was cluttered with half-built gadgets and unfinished projects. He was often tinkering when she arrived at sunrise, shadows under his eyes, the tell-tale mark of insomnia. If it had been anyone else, Mala might have suggested valerian root tea. But it was Ein.

  He couldn’t seem to take a breath without insulting her. His superiority rankled some deep part of her and made her want to snap back. Tier had taken to casually dropping in on their experiments. This had increased the tension between them both exponentially. Ein barked at her over every tiny thing whenever Tier was around.

  “No! Stand to the left! Hands up! Can’t you even follow basic instructions? Or did Verrukter beat the little bit of brains left out of you?”

  You didn’t give me half a second to follow your instructions, you sludge head. But Mala bit her tongue. She had to fight to maintain her cool while Ein subjected her to wilder and wilder experiments. He’d plunged her into ice water to elicit a reaction. He’d locked her in the morgue, and forced her to stare at hollow-eyed dead bodies on metallic tables. He’d shocked her with low volts of electricity. Mala put up with all of it solely because Tier stood in the doorway, watching. He hovered like a shadow in the back of her thoughts. Because if Tier decided she’d failed … if he kicked her out of the Center … What will I have left? So she clenched her jaw and glared at Ein. To prove she wouldn’t break. To prove she belonged.

  But Mala got her revenge. She started filching parts from Ein’s constructions. First a gear, a couple bolts—small things. Her skintight wetsuits wouldn’t let her hide much, but her hair was a wild thicket. And she used it to her advantage. She strung small trinkets into her curls when Ein’s back was turned. She’d pull up her hair while Ein picked out her next torture device, and slide a screwdriver into her updo. It gave her a sense of satisfaction that carried her through all the hours she spent locked up with him.

  And it was Mala’s magpie habit that led her to find the clock.

  Buried in the back of a drawer, it was a gorgeous, golden masterwork. The face depicted the phases of the moon. And the intricate golden hands looked like jewelry. Ein was clearly reconstructing the timepiece. But clocks are forbidden. They had been outlawed since the bomb.

  Ges had often complained about the inaccuracy of hourglasses. “We don’t have a glassblower here and so we’ve had to construct them out of whatever we can find. Time isn’t something you can mess around with and those hourglasses are crap.” Most people carried pillar candles that burned down by the hour.

  One such candle had been burning on the table between them in the archive when Mala leaned over diagrams of the Wilde town and asked him, “Why? No one’s ever told me why.”

  He knew what Mala was asking without her having to say the word ‘clock’ and turn heads. Ges always seemed to know. “Senebal law states that they were mechanisms tainted by the explosion. The radiation left behind somehow affects them. I mean, granted, there aren’t that many labs left. And priorities after the bomb were more survival. Testing didn’t happen right away. So skeptics wonder about their equipment, political motivations, all that. In any case, official word is that clocks are inaccurate—but more important, they’re toxic. Highly dangerous. Unofficial versions …” he lowered his voice and glanced around to ensure no one nearby was listening, “talk about how the bomb destroyed our illusion of time. I have the diary of a woman who writes that everyone around her was frozen after the explosion. Just stopped, mid-motion—people jumping in the air, brushing their hair. Like statues. But she’d been fixing her grandfather clock at the very second the bomb hit. She walked away. What’s the truth? Who knows? What’s possible? Well … you cut into yourself with a piece of one. And look at what you think’s possible.”

  Ges had been awed, scolding, and pensive when Mala had told him about her secret ceremony with the hour hand and the fact that she’d felt the burn but never fully melted before that night. He’d researched extensively after that, finally scrounging up a beat-up Erlender diary about blood sacrifice. Cross referencing it with a book he’d found earlier about Kreis and blood sacrifice had cemented his opinion.

  “By the light of the moon, a blood sacrifice must be made. And the intended will be affected so that time will bend to their will.”

  Ges snapped the book shut, his eyes round as saucers. “Well, this guy definitely thinks your ceremony is it. If you don’t automatically write off the Erlender belief system … I’d say it’s possible.”

  “So, what do you think I should do?”

  “Well, as Ein would say …”

  “Do NOT quote that mudbreather at me.” Several heads turned in their direction at Mala’s outburst. She cleared her throat and mouthed, Sorry. The Kreis and their research assistants slowly turned back to their recon assignments.

  “As Ein would say,” Ges began again, grinning and ducking when Mala tossed a scroll at him. “I think we need to test your theory. Who do you know that’s desperate enough to try magic?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mala shut the door to her hut, and Alba let out an excited squeak. “Did you get it?”

  “Yup.” Mala reached into her hair and slowly untied a delicate golden arrow. “Ein was busy setting up some suspension torture device for me. Didn’t even notice me digging it out of the drawer.” She tossed it to her roommate.

  Alba caught it in a wrinkled hand. Her blue eyes gleamed with hope and desire. She held the minute hand up in the lantern light.

  Staring at her roommate, Mala felt pity and hope swell simultaneously in her stomach.

  At first, Alba had scoffed and refused Mala’s suggestion to try the ceremony.

  “Please. I’m not some newbie you can pull a prank like that on, Mala,” she’d responded with a wave of her hand.

  When she’d realized Mala was serious, she’d been distraught. “Are you mucked? Are you crazy? This is because of your stupid assistant, isn’t it? He’s a weird one. They all say he’s …”

  The ensuing fight hadn’t helped matters. Alba had stormed off. And days had gone by, the girls hardly acknowledging one another. Until the night Alba had seen Verrukter kissing Neid.

  Alba had been more angry than tearful, throwing things around their hut. Mala had delicately moved over to sit on her knife, glad she still wore her hook necklace, so it couldn’t be turned into a projectile. “That stupid blond nimbo! The one I hate more than anyone? She’s not even a real Kreis, Mala! She’s never passed her final trial. She refuses. Won’t go on a mission! He picked her?”

  Alba had shattered their lantern and Mala had rushed to stomp out the flames. When Mala had turned around, Alba had been sitting woodenly on her bed, tracing the spider veins on the back of her wrinkled hand.

  Her eyes were brimming when she finally glanced at Mala, “Who can blame him, right? Look at me: I can’t melt. I’m worthless.” She shook her head pitifully. Mala had sat down beside her, wrapping an arm around her roommate.

  “Fine. You win. You want me to try magic? I’m in.”

  “What do you think?” Alba asked, glancing surreptitiously from the minute hand to Mala.

  “Tonight’s the night,” Mala replied solemnly. She and Ges had been researching magical rituals. She’d spent more time on that recently than on her assigned project to study the layout of Wilde township. “Full moon’s the best, so they say. And that’s tonight.”

  Alba bit her lip and nodded, turning back to stare at the tiny dagger. “Am I crazy for hoping it works?”
>
  “Not as crazy as I am for thinking it will,” Mala replied, flopping down onto her mattress. “We need full exposure to the moon, but if we get caught …”

  Alba laughed bitterly. “Court martial can’t be worse than this. Mala, I haven’t melted—not even a meltdown—for over two months. But maybe you shouldn’t come with me. In case—”

  Mala shook her head. “I need to know if this works just as much as you do.” She didn’t say, Because I think the alternative might be that the most despised man in history might just be my father. After all of the failed testing, the thought that Klaren might really be her father kept haunting her dreams.

  The girls waited in silence until the pillar candle in the corner indicated it was nearly midnight. Then they stood, dressed in grey wetsuits, and walked slowly out of their hut. The first hints of winter made them shiver. Crisp air bit at their skin, and the lake water that dampened the boards beneath their feet was ice cold. But excitement outweighed the weather.

  Alba stopped in the very center of the hub platform, and Mala stayed back, near one of the sub huts that sheltered her from the wind. The wind began to howl as Alba raised the minute hand. It whipped her white hair out like a flag behind her.

  “Divine Spirit, split me open. Take what you need. In return, protect me. That—”

  “WHAT THE HELL?” The bellow froze Alba in her tracks.

  Ein shoved Mala roughly aside and grabbed the minute hand from Alba’s shocked grasp. “Get out of here now,” he seethed. “Before I get Tier.”

  Alba tried to sneer but Ein stopped her short. “So you want Tier to know you’re performing demonic magic rituals?”

  Alba crouched into a fighting stance and kicked Ein. But her eighty-year-old legs had no power, and he swatted her easily to the ground.

  Mala ran forward and threw herself protectively between the two of them. “Ein, you’ll break her hip! Stop!” She helped Alba upright.