by Nora Roberts
Calm as a lake, Mallick sipped wine. “You’re angry, and anger clouds judgment.”
“They had pixies in fucking jars on the floor. One of the kids in the cells couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. Damn right I’m angry. You and I could’ve ended it tonight.”
He threw up a hand before Mallick could respond. “I get why we didn’t. Get why we couldn’t. It’s a freaking brilliant plan, and it could net us Arlington. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard to walk away from what we saw there.”
His thoughts as rough as the scruff on his face, Duncan dropped down in a chair. “They’re going to start building the scaffold tomorrow. They might use it before we hit.”
“Think strategically,” Mallick advised.
“I will. There’s no law saying I can’t bitch about it first. I know we can’t save everybody. I learned that early on.”
But it ate at him, always.
Mallick sat, sipped his wine. “Let me know when you’ve finished bitching so we can begin the work needed to save who we can.”
Duncan studied the sorcerer, the white-streaked beard, the dark eyes, the unflappable dignity. “You’re a hard-ass, Mallick. I’ve got to admire that. They’ve got fifty-two troops by my count.”
“Your count’s incorrect. They have fifty-four.”
Duncan might have argued, but he knew Mallick missed nothing. Ever. “Okay, fifty-four. Most of them carry sidearms or long guns. Every one I saw had a knife. I didn’t see any swords.”
“They have three stored in the building they use to house weapons.”
Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“I looked. While you checked the prisoners, I went inside. I have count of their stored weapons.”
“You said no going inside the buildings.”
“I said you weren’t to go inside,” Mallick corrected—unflappably. “I had an opportunity, and took it. And we now know they have three swords, ten more of the long guns, twelve more of the handguns, and ammunition. Not enough ammunition for all the weapons.”
Duncan pushed resentment aside for later. “They’re low on ammo. Good to know.”
“It’s possible they have weapons and ammunition for them in other locations.”
“I would,” Duncan agreed. “I’d have at least one more weapon than the one I carry where I sleep, so there’s that. I might keep one or two in some of the vehicles. But the point is, they’re not particularly well armed and, like you said, not all that well organized as yet.”
“And how would you take the base?”
“Depends. We’re coordinating with the other two attacks. She’ll hit Arlington after dark, but it could still be light in Utah. That matters.”
“She’ll have factored that into her timing. Assume we strike at night.”
Yeah, she’d factor it, Duncan had to agree. Fallon was another who rarely missed a thing. “Okay. We take out the crap sentry—or sentries if they post more. Quick, quiet, so archers or elves with blades. Move in from the west and east, cover the prison, slave quarters, and armory first. Secure the prisoners—get them out. Secure the weapons and vehicles. Neutralize any enemy forces necessary to achieve that.”
“Do you wish the enemy dead, or the prisoners freed?”
“Trick question?”
At Mallick’s arched brows, his silence, Duncan huffed out a breath. “Okay, all right. They’ve got no DUs, not unless they have any passing as civilians. So we can overwhelm them with power, neutralize them that way, and cut down on body count. Take out the sentry or sentries with a power punch. Give them a zap, secure them, move in. Fallon wants us to give them time to send out an SOS, and that’s part of the smart here. We let them do that, then take down the comms.”
He took another swig of beer. “But I’m not risking anyone to spare that enemy body count. If it comes to it, we take them out.”
“Then we’re agreed. Make your map. We’ll plot out the strategy, select our troops. We’ll take the map and the plan to Fallon in the morning.”
Now Duncan studied his beer. “She doesn’t need both of us. You take the meeting. I’ll stay here and work with the team we put together.”
“That might be wise.”
Mallick might have been too dignified to smirk, but Duncan heard it in the tone. “There’ll come a time, old man. It’s just not now. I’ll fight for her, fight with her. I’ll fight for the light with my last goddamn breath. But I’m damned if I’ll hook up with a woman because the gods freaking deem it. I choose who and when and where.”
“It’s all a choice, boy.”
“Is it?” Pushing up, he paced. “Who puts these dreams of her in my head, these feelings for her in me?”
“How is it you don’t know the answer?”
He gestured with the beer. “You’re saying I do it to myself. That’s bullshit. My mom says I got worked up and happy when Lana came around, before Fallon was born. And the bitch of it is, I half remember.”
“Recognition. Light to light, blood to blood. The rest, if the rest is to be, is for you, for her.”
“Yeah? And what if I decide, hey, you know, I’m more into that blonde or that redhead than The One? Do we lose that connection? Because the connection matters, it’s a key to ending this. I know it. She knows it. And I’m pretty damn sure it pisses her off as much as it does me.”
“Then she’d be as foolish and shortsighted as you.”
So much to learn yet, Mallick thought. Still so much.
“Your connection is your blood, your light, your ancestry, and it isn’t sex that joins you together. Or do you perceive Tonia and Fallon must be fated to join in that way as well? Or the three of you—”
“Whoa.” Sincerely appalled, Duncan shoved out a hand like a stop sign. Snaps of light shimmered from the fingertips. “That’s my sister.”
“Your twin. As close to you as any could be. Her light connects with yours, as does her blood. Nothing can sever that. Your light, Fallon’s. Her blood, yours. It’s a bond unbroken. You’ll bed who you choose, as will she.”
Duncan sat again. “It’s not ordained? Because thinking maybe it is bugs the shit out of me.”
“The gods don’t bind you, Duncan.”
“Aren’t you bound?”
“I took an oath. I chose to take it. So the binding is my own. I’ll never break it.”
Duncan contemplated his beer before polishing it off. If he knew one thing, absolutely, about Mallick, it was the man never lied. “Okay then. So when I go back for her, and I will, it’s because it’s what I want.”
“Keep in mind, boy, she also has a choice. Now, keep your blood cool and draw the map. We still have work ahead of us.”
Duncan drew maps, and with Mallick plotted out their plan of attack. Timing, directions, numbers.
They hand-selected the troops, a mix of magickals and NMs, pinpointed a safe zone they’d secure to move the prisoners, any wounded, and a system for transporting them east while leaving a contingent in Utah.
They’d establish their first base in the West.
Long after Mallick went to bed, Duncan couldn’t sleep. Instead he sat at his desk sketching the land he’d seen, that desert sky, those fanciful, to his eye, buttes and mesas.
He didn’t feel the vision take him, but caught in it, his hand chose pencils, moved over the page, drawing, shading, detailing what formed in his mind.
He more than saw those images. He heard, he scented, he felt.
When he came out of it, his fingers cramped, his arm ached. He’d worn one of his precious pencils to a stub, had sharpened and used a second.
The drawing—and he knew he’d never done anything to match it—lay complete. The great towers rising, the rubble, the smoke, the circling crows in air thick with it. Streets, the vehicles jammed over them. The bodies, some torn to pieces, on sidewalks or sprawled out of the broken glass of windows, of doorways.
He’d drawn a dog feasting on what had been a man, its muzzle fi
lthy with blood and gore, as he’d caught it in a snarl.
Something larger, even darker than the crows, winged overhead, and the forks of lightning cracked the sky.
He stood there, his sword drawn, stained with blood. She stood beside him. Fallon Swift, her sword in hand, stained like his.
They stood together in the carnage, in the smoke and the storm. And looked at each other.
“New York City,” he murmured. He only knew because the vision brought him the knowledge. He’d been only one day old when his mother had fled the city with him and his sisters.
But now he knew he would go there, fight there. And he would stand with Fallon there.
He put the sketch away. Suddenly weary to the bone, he sprawled on his bed. He dreamed of her, but the dreams faded with morning.
Considering its space and location, Fallon set up the lower level of her family’s home as the war room. Until she could build or scavenge better, she used a reclaimed sheet of plywood on sawhorses as a table. With Ethan’s help, she hauled in a motley variety of extra chairs.
Since school was out for summer, she borrowed a blackboard, bartered for chalk made from crushed eggshells and flour.
On the board, she wrote the three targets, and under Arlington listed the fighting troops from New Hope, by name and designation, that she, her father, and Will—with some input from Colin—had chosen. Then the support troops—straight rescuers, medicals, transportation.
With them she listed the enemy’s known numbers and resources, the number of magickal prisoners, the number of slaves according to their best intel and estimations.
On the table, she pinned her map of the base, and used chess pieces borrowed from Poe and Kim—black for the enemy, white for her forces—to designate troop positions.
When her father came down, a mug of coffee in each hand, he studied her work. “You’ve been at this awhile, and it’s barely dawn. I’d have helped you with it.”
“It helped me focus. So will that coffee, thanks.”
“It’s a good job.”
“I had good teachers. I got the chess pieces from Kim, but I don’t have enough for three targets. I got these from Bill at Bygones. He wouldn’t take anything for them.”
She showed Simon a container of plastic soldiers and jungle animals. “I figured we’re the soldiers, they’re the animals. Not very dignified, but—”
“It works. Nervous?”
“I thought I would be, but it’s more anxious to get started. They’ll be here soon, Mallick, Thomas, Troy, Mae Pickett, Boris, Charlie from back home, along with the New Hope Originals. It’s the first time all of them will have been in the same place, the same time.”
“And most of them are used to, more or less, running their own show.”
“There’s that.”
“We picked good people to lead, Fallon. Now it’s time for you to use their strengths, balance any weaknesses, and move forward for the whole.”
Will and Arlys arrived first, then others trickled in. She’d wait until leaders from every base came, begin with introductions, she thought. Acknowledgments. Some would fight together for the first time, or send those under their command to fight under another leader.
Acknowledgment mattered.
She stepped outside, thinking to gather herself and prepare for the diplomacy portion. Something her father was so much better at.
As she stood with the voices floating out through the open windows behind her, the first from outside New Hope flashed.
Thomas, Minh, with Sabine and Vick—two of the witches she’d asked to join the elf colony. And one more.
The last time she’d seen Mick he’d stood at the edge of the woods surrounding Mallick’s cottage, his hand lifted in farewell as she’d left for home.
He’d been her first friend away from home, the first elf she’d formed a bond with. He’d been her first kiss.
He grinned at her now, those leaf-green eyes alight. He’d grown his bronze-colored hair longer, had trios of thin braids on either side of his head to hold it back. His face had fined down, and he sported a triangle of beard on his chin.
But he looked so much the same.
“Mick!” She leaped forward to throw her arms around him. He swung her, laughing.
Stronger, she realized, and more solid. A soldier now who still wore the braided bracelet with the charms she’d made him as a parting gift.
“Fallon Swift.” He eased her back to study her face. “You look good.”
“You, too,” she said even as she tugged on the beard.
“Thomas, Minh.” She embraced them in turn, shook hands with the others. “You’re well? And everyone?”
“We are,” Thomas told her. “And prepared.”
“Let me take you inside. I want you to meet my parents, and the others.” She gripped Mick’s hand. “We need to catch up.”
Others arrived, and she did her best to greet each personally, to make those introductions. And gauge reactions, moods.
Then Mallick stepped in, alone.
She moved to him.
“Mallick the Sorcerer.”
“Fallon Swift.”
She kissed his cheek, stepped back. “You’re alone.”
“I am. I have the map of the base in Utah, and its surroundings.”
“All right.” She turned, took the map to the table to pin it with her own and the one Thomas had brought.
She looked at those gathered. Elves, faeries, witches, shifters, farmers, teachers, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters.
Soldiers all.
“We begin. Here, we work together to coordinate three simultaneous attacks on enemy bases. We will take those bases, free all prisoners, secure and fortify those bases and all assets within as our own. We will send a message to Jeremiah White and all who follow him that we will end their reign of fear and brutality. And that message will reach all who threaten the light and the lives of others. We stand here today, magickals and non-magickals, together for one purpose. To push back the dark.”
She paused. “Thomas,” she continued. “Will you report the results of your scouting mission?”
She listened to the details, watched as he pointed out areas on the map, gave his estimation on enemy numbers, prisoners.
Nodding, she added the information to the board. “How many troops, and support forces, will you need to take the base?”
To her surprise, Thomas looked at Mick, who took over.
“We can take it with sixty. Seventy would be better because it’s spread out. See, we’d . . .” He moved to the map, picked up one of the toy soldiers—grinned his Mick grin at it. “Cool. They’ve got sentry posts here, here, here.”
She didn’t comment he’d used the soldier toys for the enemy. No doubt Mick preferred to be represented by a lion or tiger.
But his strategy rang clear as he moved pieces.
“They’ve got four boats—two sail powered. We could cut off any escape attempts by water if we had, say, three to five merpeople.”
“We’ll get them,” Fallon told him.
“That cuts them off to the east,” he continued. “They keep the prisoners here—it’s basically a fortified hut on the beach. One guard. Slaves are on this level of the main base.”
“It was a hotel.”
“Lots of rooms,” he agreed. “The top PWs have the top floor.”
“For the views,” Poe put in. “And the status.”
“I guess.”
Mick went over the compound, point by point.
“How do they get power?” Fallon asked.
Sabine answered. “They have three generators, powered by battery and magicks.”
“They have DUs?”
“No.” She had golden skin and deep, dark eyes, wore her hair, black as a raven’s wing, in a straight fall to her waist. “It may be they tortured witches into helping them gain power, or used DUs at one time.”
“We cut the power. Can you do it?”
“I can countermand t
he magicks. I need one other witch to do it. But Minh says if the batteries are charged, they’d still operate. I don’t know how to deactivate them.”
“We’ll get someone who does to work with you.” Fallon wrote it down. “With the power down, after the initial attack, after they have time to send out the alarm, the leaders will have to get to the battle by the stairs.”
When Mick finished the report and plan, she moved back to the board.
“Seventy troops, including four of the mers, twelve support for medical and rescue transport. How many do you have ready for the mission?”
“Fifty,” Thomas told her. “We have the additional twelve, but only fifty seasoned enough for this kind of mission.”
“Another twenty needed. Mallick?”
She listened without comment as he reported. She didn’t allow herself to wonder for more than a moment why Duncan hadn’t come with him.
When he’d finished, she turned to the board. “You need fifty. How many do you have?”
“We have the fifty.”
“And the eight support?”
“We have them.”
“Good.” She drew a breath. “Arlington.”
Now she felt those doubts, a shift in mood from several corners.
“I gotta say.” John Little, a big man she’d recruited largely by kicking him in the balls, cleared his throat. “Hitting those two bases makes sense. One-two punch. And holding them gives us more room to spread out. But Arlington.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to see it, to tell the truth. Nobody’s put a dent in that base. The government’s tried, from what I hear.”
“We’re not the government,” she said over a few murmurs agreeing with Little. “Beyond freeing prisoners, Arlington is the purpose. It may not break the back of the Purity Warriors, but it cuts off an arm.”
“We get our asses killed trying, and lose? It cuts off both our arms. And legs.”
She’d expected objections, half hoped her father would take up the debate. But he remained silent, kept his gaze on hers.
Okay then, she thought.
“As long as Arlington remains in their hands, they hold an advantage. The strategic position, the sheer size of the base and its resources, its training ground. We need it in our hands. And we’ll have it.”