by Ann Denton
“It’s a bit high,” Verrukter observed. The branch closest to the ground was a full three meters above them.
“I think you can handle it,” Lowe said, grinning. Verrukter grinned back and stood, uncoiling the rope and approaching the tree. It took him three tries, but he managed to loop the hooked end of the rope over the lowest weight-bearing branch. He gave it a tug—the branch shivered but didn’t break. He nodded to Lowe.
“You’re good to go,” he said, holding out one end of the rope. Lowe stepped forward and slid his foot into the black hook, wrapping his hands around the rope. It was already cold, slick with gathering condensation. He nodded to Verrukter and the bigger man started to pull, hauling Lowe into the sky until his back bumped the branch.
Lowe strained forward, propping his feet on the branch and pushing himself into thin air like an acrobat. He peered down through the branches. The cliff-edge was sheer. It made it easy for him to see. The corrupted lake met the shore twenty meters down.
Six bodies. Lowe swallowed hard. That can’t be right. He counted again.
“What do you see?” Verrukter called.
“Six. Only six of them.”
“They didn’t wash away, did they? Tide’s in, I think.”
Lowe shook his head, scanning the beach as though he expected the bodies to appear magically out of the sand. “No, the beach is too wide. The water wouldn’t have reached them.”
“Are you sure?”
Lowe didn’t respond. He tugged the rope, so Verrukter could pull him back toward the trunk. Verrukter heaved. But the rope slipped.
“Muck!”
That was the last thing Lowe heard as he plunged through the sky.
Fear ripped through him like a chainsaw. Life flashed like sparks before his eyes. Mom. Dad. Stelle. Beza. Mala. He melted down. Into a small shivering, sobbing kid as he plummeted toward the shore.
Yank.
Verrukter hauled him back up slowly. He’d chased the rope as it whipped the tree. “Thank the father-mucking Deadwater you melted into a kid,” he puffed, as he pulled Lowe back over the cliff.
Lowe didn’t speak. His body had momentarily shut down.
The men lay unmoving in the bloodstained dirt for some time.
“You melted down,” Verrukter broke the silence.
“Yeah.” Lowe didn’t want to think about it. The massive pulse of fear. But then he jolted upright. Ein’s face swam through his head. Their last confrontation before Ein had figured out Mala. Before he’d kissed her. Ein had yelled at him. About amygdalas. The conversation replayed in Lowe’s head. He’d been explaining Klaren’s desire to sneak in girls. And Ein had sneered. “That means nothing! All amygdalas are stimulated by external circumstances. Fear, lust, anger, all those intense emotions related to melting, are all stimulated by external influences.”
Lowe turned to Verrukter. “Fear. They’re using fear instead of lust.”
Verrukter shaded his eyes and peered up at Lowe. “Huh?”
“For the initiation test. Attack. Cliff-jumping. Fear.”
Lowe didn’t wait for Verrukter to respond. He grabbed the radio off the other man’s belt.
“Dez? You read me?”
“Loud and clear,” she responded. “What’d you find?”
“We looked over the cliff, there are only six bodies.”
“You’re sure? At least thirty kids went over.”
“Can you look at the video again for me?”
“For what?” Dez asked; Lowe could hear her clicking and typing as she pulled it up.
“The kids,” Lowe replied. “I need you to tell me if they jumped.”
“You saw it yourself, Lowe. You were in here.”
“Just … humor me. Please.”
Dez groaned. Two minutes passed as she rewatched the video. “Yeah. They jumped.”
“You’re sure?” Lowe demanded, but he knew the answer.
“I’m looking right at it, Lowe,” Dez said irritably.
Verrukter whistled. “Maybe the Erlenders got some magic after all,” he chuckled.
“They didn’t fly away,” Lowe said, agitation showing full on his face. Verrukter frowned at him.
“Alright, you got a better explanation, wise guy?”
The radio buzzed on his shoulder. “Lowe … if these kids are missing …” Dez let the sentence hang. They all knew what she was thinking.
No bodies, no closure. In the absence of closure, people want hope. And vengeance. Senebal parents wouldn’t be appeased by promises of an assassination. They would want all-out war.
Lowe shook his head, in confusion rather than in answer. “Shit.”
“Shit what?” asked Verrukter.
Lowe put one hand against the tree, leaning on it. “The Erlenders must have had something at the bottom to catch them. A net or something.”
“Catch them?” repeated Verrukter. “If they were just going to take them back anyway, why bother making them jump off a cliff?”
Lowe looked to the trees where the security camera was hidden. “So we’d think they were dead,” he said, pushing himself off the tree. “So we wouldn’t go looking for them.”
Verrukter’s brow furrowed. “They’ve never cared before.”
Lowe didn’t answer, and instead turned to his radio. “Dez, have you watched the video to the end?”
“It’s security footage, Lowe, it doesn’t end.”
“How far have you seen, then?”
“Fifteen minutes. Two minutes after the last kid goes over.”
Lowe cringed inwardly at the mental picture. “Do me a favor, fast forward.”
“To what?”
“Just … until something else happens.”
“Okay,” Dez said uncertainly. She clicked her tongue as she wound the video forward. “Wait.”
“Wait? What wait?”
“Video’s … corrupted,” said Dez. “There’s a blip eighteen … no, twenty minutes after the Erlenders left.”
“A blip?” asked Verrukter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that it cuts off. At the twenty-minute mark there’s a … like, a jitter or something, and then it’s two hours later. It skipped.”
“Skipped,” Lowe shook his head. “Dez, it was deleted. They came back for the kids at the bottom of the cliff. They wanted us to see them go over but they couldn’t let us see them going back.”
“Why would they do that?” asked Verrukter, looking more puzzled by the minute.
Lowe took a deep breath. “They passed the test,” he said quietly. He shook his head, trying not to think what this implied for Beza. If he wasn’t among the dead here … “The Kreis test,” Lowe continued slowly. “I think Blut told them about us and now they want super-soldiers for themselves.” He looked out at the water again, staring at the white reflection of the sun until his eyes hurt. “And they don’t want us to know about it.”
Verrukter gave Lowe a dubious look. “They want a Kreis army?”
“No,” said Lowe. “They have one.”
Chapter Forty
Lowe stood with Verrukter on the muddy banks of the Gottermund, watching him untie his boat from the short, leafless trees hanging over the water.
“Damn Erlenders,” Verrukter muttered. He’d been saying it for the past half hour. He’d spit into the mud more times than Lowe cared to count.
Lowe looked into the forest. Beza was out there somewhere. He had to believe it. If he believed that, at least there was still hope.
A flash in the trees caught Lowe’s eye, pulling him from his thoughts. He squinted and saw it again—a flash of red between the trees. His throat closed. Anyone else might have thought it was a deer or a fox, but Lowe would know that red anywhere.
“Verrukter, I’m going to do a perimeter sweep.” He kept his voice neutral.
“No one’s here,” Verrukter mumbled, a rope between his teeth.
“Just in case.”
Verrukter nodded and took the rope out of his mouth, loopi
ng it around the short metal pole jutting out of the boat’s side—the closest thing they had to an anchor. “Alright. Try and be quick. I’m cold.”
Lowe nodded absently and disappeared into the trees. What is she doing here? Dread scratched at his stomach. Did she have something to do with this?
He started to sprint, trying to reach the spot he’d seen her. Bam! She stepped out from behind a tree and he slammed into her, knocking the breath out of both of them.
“Mucking hell,” she grabbed her shoulder. “I surrender.”
“Stelle,” Lowe stammered. “You’re …”
“I hoped I’d find you here.”
“Hoped to …?” Lowe panted. “Why did you think you’d find me here?” Unless you knew this was going to happen. Dread crept up his stomach, nails scratching at his ribs, edging toward his heart.
Stelle shrugged. “I had a feeling. I told you, sometimes I can—”
Lowe scowled. “You had a feeling.” She was bringing it up again. This delusion that she could actually see things. He ran his hands through his hair. “Not now.” He didn’t want to argue. Didn’t want to deal with this.
Stelle nodded, not pushing him.
Lowe took a deep breath. He feared the answer, but he had to ask. “Did you have anything to do with this attack?”
“I told Keptiker exactly what you told me,” she said. She walked forward and hopped off the ridge, landing five steps from him. “What he did with that information is anyone’s guess.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
She avoided his eyes.
And he knew.
“Why?” Lowe’s question hovered in the air, unanswered. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists. “Did the President authorize this?” He failed to keep the disgust out of his voice. The bile rose in his throat. He thought of daisies. Blue, African, Shasta, Gloriosa. It was an old technique his mother used to use when he’d had tantrums. He felt like having one now. There was a whirlwind in his head. Everything was out of place.
“I told you before, everything isn’t black and white.”
“They’re kids!”
“I know!” Her voice broke and she swallowed a sob.
“You disgust me.”
“Disgust is a luxury I don’t get to have.”
“What did they do to you?”
She turned to him then, brown eyes big and stern beneath unshed tears. “Nothing. I chose this. I can see what happens if I take a different path. Believe me, this is the lesser evil.”
Lowe wanted to hit her. Killing kids. Stealing kids. The lesser evil? They must have held her near the border. Her brain must have melted from all the radiation. I told Tier we shouldn’t work with her.
Lowe opened his mouth to argue, to rant, to rage. But Stelle held up a hand. “Don’t … I have news. Troe wants to meet me.”
Lowe’s jaw dropped. “What? When?” Already? The quadruple attack …
“I’ve made an impression.” Stelle silently acknowledged Lowe’s train of thought. “He wants to meet soon. But …” she screwed her mouth to one side.
“But?” said Lowe.
“There’s a catch.”
Lowe felt sick to his stomach. They were so close to their goal. But at what cost? His mind drifted back to Beza. Back to the hundreds of families that had been ripped apart. He couldn’t turn back time. The best he could hope to do would be to send a rescue party after the kids and set Stelle up for the assassination. So that Troe could never attack Senebal kids again.
He glared at Stelle. Right now, he’d rather slit her throat than work with her. And she knew it. But she’d gotten the one thing they needed. An invitation to meet a madman.
“What do you need to know?”
Stelle shook her head. “You’ve heard he’s searching for a new queen? Disease has been rampant. The birth and mortality rates so low … he’s trying … anyway … it’s gonna be a competition,” Stelle said.
“And what does he want from you?” Lowe asked.
Stelle’s expression was grim. “He wants me to predict the winner.”
Lowe stared at her.
“I need you to get me a name.”
Chapter Forty-One
President Stahl was apoplectic, to say the least. To find out that Blut had gone rogue, that the Kreis secret was out, that Troe now had at least fifteen Kreis in training and six or more missing Kreis soldiers to train them. Lowe was surprised Tier was in the room and not in the brig. It sounded like he’d kept the President in the dark for months.
Stahl stormed around the meeting room; his feet hammered the floor, he made the whole space vibrate. His eyes glowed like embers. “Town criers are calling for my mucking resignation! I thought you were competent. I’ve trusted you,” he gestured in disgust at the board of Ancients. His gaze burned each of them, until they lowered their eyes in submission. And then that fiery stare found Lowe.
President Stahl froze. “You …” He pointed at Lowe, whose eyes widened in alarm. But Stahl didn’t finish he thought. He whirled back to the Ancients. “Was Blut working alone? Did you follow through on that?”
“We haven’t been able to tie him to anyone,” Tier responded cautiously.
The President gave a terse nod and stopped pacing. He took a deep breath, and his face looked a little less red. “I’ve sent a messenger to Troe. About the kids. Hopefully the savages need boats and food stores more than a couple of sick kids.” He put his hands on the table and examined the map before him. “If we can get the kids out, we can take them down to Das Wort and get people to calm the muck down so we can come up with a real plan.”
Lowe took a small step forward and cleared his throat. “Sir? If I may?”
Stahl looked like he might say something unpleasant, but he only sighed. “You may,” he said wearily.
Lowe nodded. “I don’t think it will be that easy.”
Stahl laughed. “It never is with these heathens, is it?”
“No, sir, I mean I don’t think they’ll take the food or the boats in exchange for the kids. Would you trade boats and supplies for a contingent of shapeshifters?”
The room fell silent. Stahl stared at him expectantly.
Lowe continued. “If we want those kids back, we’ll have to find something Troe wants more than what he thinks is a demon army.”
The President snorted. “Something he wants more.”
Lowe grimaced. “Exactly.”
“And what would that be?”
“Salvation.”
Stahl barked out a laugh. “Oh, we just have to give him eternal life?” He snapped. “Done.”
“No sir. I think he needs a wife. Just like you, he’s in the middle of a political crisis. He could use a little medical magic, to tamp down on the diseases caused by radiation. The fertility issues. He’s looking for a figurehead. A queen.”
The president raised an eyebrow. “Who recruited you?”
“Fell, sir.”
The president turned to the table of Ancients and Fell stood. “Get this kid a promotion. You’re now in charge of this operation, ma’am.”
Fell simply bobbed her afro, waiting for further instructions.
“Get me a list of female operatives we could set up as candidates. And a list of medical supplies we have to treat radiation poisoning.”
Fell saluted. “Yes sir.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Lowe was dead asleep when Dez burst into his hut.
She shook him with her one hand, hitting his head with the stump of her wrist and practically screaming his name. He shot up, opening his eyes and batting her away, rubbing his head.
“Dez, what the mucking—” he started, his voice slurred with sleep.
“You haven’t heard,” she said. “Mucking shit, Lowe, wake up!”
“I’m up, I’m up,” Lowe sat up. “Dez, I’m up. What’s happening?” Are we under attack? Lowe didn’t hear battle sounds.
“Tier’s after Mala,” Dez said breathlessly. �
�He’s in the council chambers right now, trying to convince the other Ancients that she’s a liability. Lowe, look at me!” Dez grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “He wants to lobotomize her!”
Lobotomize. The word echoed like a scream in a cave. It was done occasionally, when a Kreis couldn’t handle things. But it had been three or four years since the last one. And Mala wasn’t nuts.
“Tier’s gone crazy.” Dez shook her head in disgust.
“No. It’s me. He’s pissed at me.” For going to the Fell about the Kreis kids. Letting Fell tell the President about Blut. About the cover-up of the kidnappings. Like I knew he’s been keeping Stahl in the dark. But he’s gonna try to mucking kill her. To get back at me. Lowe reeled like he’d been punched. Not gonna happen. “Let’s go.”
Dez drove the sub. Lowe’s hands were shaking. Too much adrenaline ran through his system. It was worse than when he’d gone after the boats with Bet. He almost felt like he’d be sick.
As Dez docked the sub, he turned to her without seeing her. Rage coursed through him. “Dez.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let me kill him.”
She nodded briefly as the water whooshed out of the docking station and the doors opened.
They ran full force through the cold halls of the Center, dancing through the thinning crowds. The doors to the council chamber were open. Lowe could hear shouting from inside, garbled curses spilling out into the hall. Dez and Lowe barged in.
“—should have control by now!” Tier was shouting from his high seat at the end of the table. Lowe could barely hear him over the angry chatter of the other Ancients. Tier slammed his fist down on the table and the council went silent, staring at him.
“She’s incompetent,” Tier growled, “and a waste of resources. She’s had months to learn to control her melts!”
“Mala’s ability is unique,” Fell argued. “Rare, damned impossible. Of course, it’s going to be harder to train her, of course it’s going to take longer.” She crossed her arms and glared at Tier. “I move to table this motion until we’ve dealt with the priorities given to us by President Stahl.”