by Nora Roberts
The move surprised her, she couldn’t deny it. Travis preferred diplomacy over fists. But at the moment, the glint in his eyes didn’t have a hint of the diplomatic.
“That’s all right, Travis. Being called a whore by a cowardly rapist named Wilber doesn’t bother me. You know these people want to string you up like you’ve strung up the innocent magickals you’ve tortured.”
She cocked her head, smiled in a way that drained the color bravado had put into Wilber’s face. “Maybe I’ll let them. After all, their community, their rules. Or I could try to reason with them if you tell me what I want to know. Where’s your base?”
Though tears leaked from his eyes, blood streamed from his nose, he said nothing.
“California,” Travis supplied. “The northern part, sort of central, he thinks. They called their base Second Eden.”
“Shut your mind down, asshole,” the black-bearded one snapped. “That demon’s pulling thoughts out of your head.”
“Try shutting your own down … Pete,” Travis suggested. “Wilber here’s afraid of the rope.”
“He oughta be.” Enjoying herself, Sal drank more whiskey. “It’s something we’ve got plenty of around here.”
“How many on your base?”
When Travis punched Wilber again, Fallon brushed him back. “Jesus, Travis, enough.”
“You didn’t hear what he was thinking about you and Meda, and these other ladies. Trying to keep his mind off the question. Give me a minute, they’re all thinking at once. Earthquake. Ah, okay, okay.”
Travis shut his eyes. “They had about two hundred. The bald guy—hi, Tom—he and some others made it up there from the L.A. area. Earthquakes there drove them out. Then bang, they get hit with another in their Eden. Leveled the base, killed most. The ones they rode in here with lived through it. They’ve been riding for weeks—lost a few on the way. Haven’t had much luck hunting, mostly because they’re dicks, got good and lost a couple times. Again, dicks. They’ve been out of supplies for days now, then spotted the settlement here.”
Nodding, Fallon rose, circled them again. “I can take it from there, follow the logic. They’d kill everybody they could, rape and enslave the rest, take the food, the horses, cattle. Maybe settle down right here until they figured where to go next.”
“Time to get that rope.” Sal tossed back the rest of the whiskey, winked at Fallon.
Wilber began to blubber, literally blubber, with tears and snot leaking.
Fallon walked over to ease a hip on the corner of the desk. Ann leaned in to whisper in her ear, “She doesn’t mean it.”
“I got that. Would you mind if we talked outside, Sal? And maybe Ann could find Yancy. Travis and Meda can stand guard here.”
“I could use some air. That’s some trick you’ve got, young fella,” she told Travis. “And you got a solid right jab along with it. Ann, I think Yancy went on down to the livery.”
When they stepped outside, into star-struck night, Sal hissed out a breath. “Sam Tripper was a friend of mine, a good friend. I’m not going to tolerate any lynching, but we’re not going to cut those bastards loose, either.”
“I have a solution that should satisfy you and the rest.”
“Is it a dark hole where they’ll never see the light again or have one minute of joy? Because, goddamn it, Sam was a friend of mine.”
“I think it’s close. Tell me this before Yancy comes. How many of the women could be trained to fight, and be willing?”
“All of them.” No hesitation. “Every blessed one.”
“Good. I can send someone to help with that, and with your security. How many would you estimate are battle-ready now?”
“What kind of battle?”
“Major.”
She took off her hat, slapped it over her thigh a few times. “Maybe a dozen here could handle that. Maybe.”
Fallon watched Yancy walk, a lanky stride, from the paddock. People rushed toward him, obviously asking questions. He took the time, she noted, to answer before moving on.
“Would he be one of the twelve?”
“He would. He’s not as placid as he looks. He can ride like a son of a bitch, and shoot the same. Got a level head on his shoulders.”
“That was my impression. And you?”
“Yeah, I can handle myself. Yancy,” she said when he joined them.
“Sal. Ma’am, I want to thank you and those with you for helping dig the graves. We’ll have a memorial in the morning, say some words. I asked Old Eb to say them, Sal.”
“That’s a good choice.”
“My Faith’d like to have you all to supper. You’re welcome, Sal. We can get somebody to watch the prisoners.”
“Will you let me take the prisoners?” Fallon asked.
“I’d be happy to give them over.”
“Just hold on,” Sal interrupted. “I’d like more particulars there.”
Yancy puffed out a breath, looked up at the stars. “We can’t keep them here, Sal, and that’s a fact. Somebody’s bound to get their blood up and do them in. Too much of me, I gotta say, wants to let them, and be done with it.”
“We have prisons,” Fallon explained. “Travis and Meda can take them back tonight. They’ll be locked up. They’re murderers. They’ll be locked up for life. We have the means, the system. It’s your place, your people, your decision, but I can promise you if you let us take them, they’ll pay.”
“You talking bars and locks?” Sal demanded.
“I am. We have other facilities for prisoners of war, those who qualify. But these aren’t POWs. They’re killers. Bars and locks.”
“I can live with that. How many you got locked up?”
“Including POWs? Several thousand.”
Sal’s mouth dropped open. Yancy simply stared out of narrowed eyes.
“You don’t have any outside communication,” Fallon decided.
“We get someone comes through now and again,” Yancy said. “Maybe brings some news in. Heard some rumors about fighting back east, about you. We got Carrie—she sees things. She says she’s seen you fighting, an army with you, but she didn’t know where.”
“There’s been more than one fight. You don’t know we’ve taken D.C.”
Sal gripped Fallon’s arm. “Girl, you took those government bastards down?”
“We did.”
“You’re the answer to prayers I’ve been afraid to speak. I’ve got a pile of questions for you.”
“They got Sal’s son, the government did, and my sister.”
“I’ll answer your questions. Let me arrange to have Travis and Meda transport the prisoners. I’ll stay the night. We have a lot to talk about.”
* * *
When she got home, snow fell in fat, soft flakes. And she saw her mother coming from the greenhouse with a basket, moving along a shoveled path.
Her hair bundled up under a red cap that matched her knitted gloves, Lana kept her eyes on the ground to watch for slick spots. On a surge of love, Fallon rushed toward her.
“Mom.”
Lana’s head jerked up. She very nearly lost her balance, then beamed and opened her arms. “You’re home! You’re finally home.”
“Just this minute. Let me get Laoch settled—and I promised Faol Ban one of your biscuits.”
“I’ll get it for him.” She met the wolf’s patient eyes while Taibhse glided—white through white—to one of his favorite perches. “I’m so glad to see you all. This calls for some serious hot chocolate.”
“With whipped cream?”
“It’s not serious without it. Don’t be long. Come on, boy, I’ve got a biscuit with your name on it.”
Home, Fallon thought as she scooped grain for the alicorn, gave a carrot treat to the faithful Grace. Not the farm, but still, home. Stepping out again, she looked through the snowfall toward the barracks. Duncan should be there, she thought.
She sent her mind toward his. I’m home.
Moments later, she heard his voice in
hers. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I missed you.
So smiling, she walked through that snowfall and into a kitchen that smelled of chicken soup, bread, and, gloriously, chocolate.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not since breakfast. I stayed a little longer than I’d planned.”
“Then it’s soup first.”
“I’ll get it, for both of us. Where’s Dad?” she asked as she got bowls, ladled them with soup.
“Hunting party. Ethan’s in town. He’s had this idea to hold a kind of vet clinic. They’d both be here if they’d known you’d be home today for certain.”
“I stayed longer to help with some basic training—combat and magickal. Bright Valley’s an interesting place.”
“So I hear. Travis filled us in. Earthquakes in California?”
“Apparently severe enough to destroy a PW base. I flew over to see for myself. It’s rubble. The prisoners?”
“In the Hatteras facility. It seemed the best choice for now. Hard cases,” Lana said as she turned the hot chocolate to low, sat to eat with her daughter. “Travis said their minds are, at least for now, hardened. Even the young one. He also had a lot to say about the land out west. The mountains, the plains. He enjoyed every minute of the trip—and said you’d managed to recruit over five hundred.”
“A lot of the five hundred are green and greener than green. But they can be used as non-combatants. I want to hear about your trip.”
“Well, it cemented I’m an East Coast girl. All that flat land, miles and miles? I like the hills. And my God, Fallon, the wind. It just screams over that flat land. And so much of it empty,” she said. “It brings it home just how desolate the world is now. You can forget, living here in a busy, thriving community, that there are miles and miles of nobody.”
“And Riverbend?”
“Small and segregated, as you said. I tell you, when you see those miles and miles of nobody, it shows how ridiculous it is to live barely a stone’s throw from other people and behave as if they’re not there.”
“Bigotry comes in all levels. It’s never right or smart or productive. You talked to Lucy’s grandmother?”
“The formidable Mrs. Aldi. A very tough nut to crack.”
“Did you?”
“I’d say some cracks opened. She does love Lucy—or Lucia, as she calls her. DUs attacked when Lucy was just a baby, so Mrs. Aldi’s prejudice has its roots there. And Lucy’s mother came into power. A witch.”
As if she just needed to touch, Lana reached out, ran her hand along Fallon’s arm. “Like too many in the beginning, the change drove her mad. She tried to burn down the house, with the baby in it.”
“Oh my God.”
“Mrs. Aldi saved Lucy, and to save her, killed her own child.”
“To have to make a choice like that … It’s no wonder she’s bitter.”
“It’s a terrible burden, Fallon, a terrible price to pay. I had more sympathy for her when she broke enough to tell me. In any case, after we talked, and after she read Lucy’s letter, she gave me one for Lucy in return. She isn’t giving her blessing, but she’s giving her acceptance. That’s the gateway.”
She’s so beautiful, Fallon thought. She’d seen it all her life, knew it went beyond the physical, but in that moment, over soup in the kitchen, it simply struck her hard.
She leaned her head toward Lana’s shoulder.
“She saw something in you. She had to see it.”
“I don’t know about that, but she heard me. Finally.”
“And on the other side of the river?”
“Not as stubborn,” Lana told her. “The sentiment there seemed to run from apathy to resentment for their neighbors. I’ll say you were right to send your family. It gave us weight and status we wouldn’t have had otherwise. And Ethan, along with an injured puppy, helped turn the tide on the NM side.”
“How is that?”
“This poor little pup had been mauled by a larger animal. They were going to put him down, and the little girl who loved him begged and begged her father not to kill him. He was suffering, and they didn’t have the means to help the poor little guy. But Ethan intervened, was able to keep the puppy calm, begin to heal him until I got there. The little girl hadn’t named him yet—the little guy was barely weaned. He’s Ethan now,” she said with a laugh.
“A sweet little mutt named for our boy—who showed them in a very real and simple way that magick can be kind and compassionate.
“The upshot is, we have forty-eight willing to fight. And your dad thinks others will come along.”
“That’s really good news.”
“Oh, I have better.” Lana rose to finish off the chocolate. “We found the other communities you earmarked. Add seventy-three more. And best of all?” She tipped her finger in a bowl of cream to whip it. “We found—or they found us—a band of nomads who’d traveled east from Idaho, down through Colorado, into Kansas, picking up more along the way. This way, Fallon. They were coming east to find you, to fight with you. Nearly seven hundred.”
“Seven hundred?” Fallon’s spoon clattered against her bowl. “That’s more than I ever hoped for.”
“There’s more. Mick sent word he’s added three hundred, bands migrating up from the south—again on their way to find you. Every base is adding more. The light, my baby, it spread, even through those miles and miles of nobody. They’re coming to fight for you.”
She felt the lift, the thrill of light spreading. “We’ll take New York. We’ll take it back from the dark. We’ll take it for the light, and for you, Mom. For you and Max.”
She looked over as Duncan came to the door, pulled it open. “Welcome home. Hi, Lana.”
“Hi yourself. Come in and shut the door. We’re about to have some hot chocolate.”
He stomped snow off his boots. “I could go for some, thanks.”
As she got the mugs, Lana studied the way they looked at each other. Love, she thought with an inward sigh, that came with longing and a healthy dose of lust.
“And for the goddess’s sake, kiss the girl.”
“Good idea.” He strode across the kitchen, lifted Fallon off the stool, circled her once. And kissed the girl.
* * *
He couldn’t stay long, but had a little more time with Fallon when she walked back to the barracks with him. She watched the troops train. Battles didn’t wait for fine weather, so they held their mock fights in the snow, taking on Mallick’s ghosts and each other.
Others did the same, she thought. In the West, the Midwest, the South, the North. And more, still more, would come.
* * *
At Lana’s invitation, Duncan and Mallick joined the family for dinner. She put on a hell of a spread—a kind of welcome home, Duncan imagined—with a rack of lamb, potatoes that looked like accordions—which, it turned out, Ethan called them—roasted with butter and herbs. Kale, nowhere on his list of favorites, done in some creamy sauce that made him a convert, a fancy salad crunchy with sprinkles of grain. Bread, wine, and the promise of lemon-berry tarts for dessert.
With all of that, it wasn’t hard to follow Lana’s rule of no war talk during dinner. Instead, they talked of the plans for expanding the clinic, Ethan’s addition of a veterinary clinic, Hannah’s upcoming exams. And the practical joke some of the recruits had tried—and failed—to pull on Mallick.
“They figured they’d catch Mallick in his shower,” Duncan relayed, “and one of the magickals would flip the water to ice-cold.”
“Some objected to training outdoors in the recent ice storm,” Mallick explained.
“Wouldn’t bother you.” Relaxed, Fallon wagged her fork. “Even when I got an actual bathroom—after a year—Mallick still used the stream, which equaled an ice bath from October to May.”
“Refreshing.” Mallick lifted his wine.
“They’d hoped for shouts and curses, got nothing,” Travis said between bites. “But that’s not the best part. When the recruits hit the showers aft
er training, turned on the water, it wasn’t just water that came out.”
“Snakes,” Duncan said with a grin. “You can bet there were shouts then. Screams, shrieks, pandemonium. We ran in there—Travis and I—figuring we were under attack.”
“And holy shit! Wet, naked recruits—from both sides—running around, skinny little snakes slithering all over the place. And this guy?” Travis jerked a thumb at Mallick. “He just sort of glides in, Mr. Dignity, poofs the snakes, then glides out again. Never says a word.”
“I believe they understood without any.”
“I like snakes,” Ethan said cheerfully. “Dad doesn’t.”
“They should have feet like everybody else.” Simon shot a smile at Mallick. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”
“I’d tolerate a great deal in exchange for an invitation to a meal such as this.”
“And we haven’t even gotten to dessert.”
When they did, Lana lifted the ban on war talk.
“I’d like to see the cowboys,” Ethan mused. “And the buffalo, the mustangs.”
“They’re pretty magnificent,” Fallon confirmed. “I asked Meda to go back, to help get them battle-ready. She agreed.”
“That’s a good choice,” Simon decided. “The nomads have people who can work with the communities in the Midwest, but you should think about making an appearance there. Let them see you.”
“All right. In the next few days.”
“I’ve got a tidbit I haven’t had a chance to pass on.” With enthusiasm Travis dug into his tart. “When Meda and I transferred the prisoners to Hatteras, I poked them a little more. Easy reads,” he added. “White was at their base before the quake. Just a couple days before.”
“White, in California?” With a frown, Fallon nudged her tart aside. “We don’t have any intel putting him in California.”
“Now you do. You remember the younger one?”
“Wilber. The one you punched in the face. Twice.”
“Yeah, that one. He’s hoping White will come save him—all of them—lead them to their righteous victory. He kept thinking how it was the biggest day of his life when he heard White, in person, preach at the base in California. The dude’s a true believer. It’s not even so much he sees White as what you’d call a conduit to this asshole god of vengeance and bigotry he worships. More like White is his asshole god. That’s who he’s praying to anyway, to come bust him out so he can kill you personally for White. It’s what he imagines doing to you before he kills you that earned him a punch in the face. Twice.”