by Nora Roberts
It weighed on him, more stone. “Those friends knew what they risked, and took this place back with courage. You demean that by sucking up all the responsibility. You demean them.”
It sliced at her, the truth of it sliced. “That’s harsh, that’s cold.”
“Maybe, but it’s how I see it. Those men and women didn’t die for you, they died for what you represent. They died for their families, their neighbors, their futures.”
“Mick died because Petra wanted to hurt me.”
“Then let’s go get the bitch and her fucking hag of a mother.” He wanted it, could almost taste the bitter tang of their blood. “We go back to Scotland, close the shield, and we take down that dark bastard in the woods. We draw Petra and Allegra out, and finish it.”
She pressed her face to Laoch’s neck. “It’s not time.”
“Screw that, Fallon. If not now, when?”
“I don’t know!” And that sliced, too. “I just know it’s not time. There’s more to come. I can’t—” She whirled on him, stopped. Drew a breath. “There,” she said, and pointed.
And there where Mick had fallen stood a tree of life, blooming full, branches curving upward.
“Is that my solace?” she asked.
Now he whirled on her. “It’s acknowledgment. It’s gratitude and honor.”
Tears burned the backs of her eyes, and she wanted to scream and shed them. “Yes, yes, you’re right. The fact I can’t feel that, just can’t, is another reason I need to leave.”
“Leave? Go where?”
“I need solitude, I need to restore my faith. I need a couple of weeks, Duncan, just some time alone.”
“Alone?”
“Everything you said is right, but I can’t feel it. I need to feel it again, believe it again. And I can’t lean on you until I’m sure I can stand on my own. She broke something in me, Duncan, and I need some time to heal. When she killed Denzel, you needed to leave.”
“Part of that was distance from you, but okay, yeah.”
“A couple of weeks,” she said again, and though she felt his need, stayed behind the wall she’d built. “Will you stand for me tomorrow, at the memorial?”
“You’re leaving now?”
“If I don’t, I won’t, because I want to lean on you, I want my family, my friends. But I know it won’t be time to end this until I take back what she took from me today.”
“We need to—I need to just sit the hell down with you. Take a minute.”
“I can’t. I just can’t. I have to go.”
“Where?” he demanded. “Where the hell are you going?”
“To the quiet.” She felt his hurt, his need for more from her. But couldn’t give it. She mounted Laoch. “After the quiet comes the fury, and with the fury the end. The end of dark, the end of light—this hangs in the balance. Know the fire, the famine, the rivers of blood should dark tip the scales. Know the song of peace a thousand years if the light shines true. Shine true, Duncan of the MacLeods, and you will know when the time has come.”
She dropped out of the vision, looked at him under the streaming moonlight, the sparkle of stars that spread over the freed city.
“I love you,” she said, and vanished.
“You said no,” he murmured. “For the first time you said no.”
__________
Battles sparked as the Light for Life forces advanced in every direction. Duncan gave himself over to the fighting, joining Flynn’s troops in the green mountains of Georgia, flashing to Meda, the shuttered city of Santa Fe in New Mexico, and on the windswept fields of Nebraska.
He nursed his own wounds when he got them, cleaned his sword, and looked for the next fight.
Fallon might have taken the quiet, but he wanted the fury.
“You need some downtime, brother.”
He drank a beer with Tonia in the community gardens. Shrugged with it. “I’m sitting down right now.”
“You know what I mean. You only came back today to placate Mom. I know you’ve already grilled Chuck on where to find some action next. Maine, right? Vivienne’s troops and ours about to face off on the coast.”
“I’m needed there. I’m not here.”
He heard Eddie’s harmonica join in with someone’s guitar riff. And Rainbow, now a leggy teenager, danced in the air with some faerie friends.
Spring, he thought. Plenty of those signs of spring around him with the greening trees, the young crops, the burst of flowers, the balm of the air as it neared May Day.
Spring bloomed everywhere in New Hope. He wondered if it bloomed wherever Fallon was.
He shoved that thought away, turned his head to look at Tonia. “Anyway, seems to me you were into it with me when we took on those combined forces in Georgia.”
“I was needed. There’s also plenty of need here. We’re barely keeping up with training. And we’re losing Colin again. He’s taken Pennsylvania and going back to Arlington tomorrow. It’s spring, and that takes Eddie and some of the other serious farmers off rotation for scouting. They broke ground on the clinic expansion.”
“After Maine, I’ll be back.”
“That’s what you said after New Mexico.”
“And I came back.” Annoyance bit through the words. “We’re driving them down, Tonia. But the way they’re combining forces, that’s got to be a concern. We’re seeing more and more DUs fighting alongside PWs. More Raiders grouping together.”
“I can’t argue with that. There’s not even a pretext with the PWs now. It’s not magicks they want to destroy. It’s us. Did Chuck tell you about their latest dispatches, what they’re sending out?”
“Yeah. How the Uncannys who fight with them have been purified and redeemed or whatever. Using their powers for the holy war, blah blah. White’s a lunatic, and he’s an idiot if he actually believes the DUs won’t wipe him and the rest of the PWs out the minute they’re not useful.”
“A lunatic, an idiot, but he’s still managed to keep his cult going for more than two decades.”
“Fear and hate can work.” He drank more beer, brooded over the colored lights strung around the garden.
“I know you miss her. We all miss her.”
“It’s not about—” The hell it wasn’t, he admitted. “She said a couple weeks. It’s been nearly five. I shouldn’t have let her go alone.”
“Let, my ass. You don’t let her any more than I let you go to fricking Maine. You’re worried, I get it. Jesus, Duncan, so am I. So’s everyone. She’s been the prime target since before she was born.”
“Then stop making excuses.”
“Not excuses. Reasons. I think living with being the prime target, with being The freaking One takes a toll. Like losing your oldest friend five feet away from where you’re standing takes a toll. Like training recruits knowing when they’re ready to fight not all of them will come back takes a toll.”
“Sounds like somebody else needs some downtime.”
Tonia heaved out a breath. “Maybe.”
A fiddle joined the guitar, the harmonica. A few people started to sing a song he’d heard a few times about life on the farm.
Maybe Fallon had gone back to the farm. He could go, look. The hell with that, he decided, and chugged beer. He wasn’t a dog who’d belly crawl back to the boot that kicked him.
She hadn’t just left, she’d blocked him so he couldn’t even touch her mind, not even in dreams.
The hell with it.
“How about you come with me to Maine,” he suggested, “then when we drive those bastards into the sea, I’ll come back with you. I’ll take some of the recruits off your hands.”
“I could use the help, Duncan, no lie.”
Hannah came over, plopped down on the grass beside them. “Here you are. I’ve been going over clinic plans with Rachel and Mom, and I am seriously done. Where’s my beer?”
Duncan handed her what was left of his. She sighed at the couple of swallows. “It’ll do. Mom says she’s making French toast for bre
akfast—with pig bacon.”
While Hannah couldn’t read minds, she knew her siblings. “Oh, come on. You just got back.” She swallowed the last of the beer, poked the bottle at Tonia. “You, too?”
“We made a pact. I go shoot a few arrows with Duncan, and he comes back to take some of the training hours off my plate.”
Hannah let out a sigh. “A deal’s a deal. It’s fairly quiet at the clinic. Need a doctor in Maine?”
“You’re volunteering to take some of the heat off us,” Tonia decided.
“The three of us go, the three of us come back—and stay,” Hannah added, “for at least a full week. Mom’ll take it better if it’s all of us.”
“Best sister ever.” Duncan wrapped an arm around Hannah’s shoulders.
“Hey!”
He grinned at Tonia, laid his arm over hers. “Plural.”
The vocalists shouted out: “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.” Eddie added a “Yee-haw.”
And Garrett, a shifter once nearly hanged by the PWs, came on the run.
Shifted from cougar to teen. “Trouble’s coming. I found Will.” His breath came fast as all three surged to their feet. “He’s mobilizing. He said Eddie was here, and I should—”
“What’s the trouble?” Duncan interrupted.
“PWs, Raiders, and DUs with them. Maybe thirty miles beyond the checkpoint, moving this way.”
“I’ll get Jonah, Rachel, Mom.” Hannah ran from the gardens.
“How many?” Duncan demanded.
“It looked like hundreds. We were just out for a run. We went past the checkpoint. I know that’s against the rules, but—”
“We’ll worry about that later. Thirty miles?” Tonia pressed.
“About. They’re not moving fast, and we did once we spotted them. I told the others to peel off, alert the outlying farms. But the thing is, I think White’s with them. I saw him once when they had me. I think I saw him with them.”
As his blood heated—he’d wanted to take on White all of his life—Duncan shot a look at Tonia. Understanding, she gave him a nod.
“Tell Eddie, Garrett. He’ll get things started on this end of town. We need to scout past the other checkpoints, see if they’re coming in from other directions.”
“I’ll alert the barracks, and pull in who we need on the way.” Duncan swung onto his bike, something else that came out in spring. “Get the Swifts, let Fred know.” He revved the engine. “You take Flynn. I’ll take Mallick in Arlington.”
“Fast,” Tonia said. “Even if they’re moving slow, we don’t have much time.”
She flashed as Duncan roared away.
They’d trained for this, he thought as he all but flew out of New Hope. Every man, woman, and child had their emergency posts and duties. He alerted them along the way, eating up what he knew would be precious time skidding to a halt to call out the alert to the man tossing a ball to his dog, to the old woman rocking on her porch.
He caught some luck at the barracks when he saw Colin and Travis entertaining themselves by putting some troops through night maneuvers.
“Enemy forces spotted heading in from the south—less than thirty miles beyond the checkpoint. Indeterminate numbers, possibly hundreds. White may be with them.”
“Well, hot damn.” Colin managed to bring his two hands together in a clap. “All right, boys and girls, suit the fuck up.”
“We’ve got this,” Travis said. “Get Dad.”
“Next stop.”
He spun the bike in a circle, streaked toward the Swift house. Leaping off, he didn’t bother to knock, but shoved open the door.
Simon and Lana broke off what looked like a pretty serious kiss.
“Sorry. Enemy forces moving in from the south.” Even as he continued with the details he had, Simon rushed to the pantry, came out with a rifle, ammo. Lana darted into the mudroom for jackets.
“Ethan’s with the horses. Simon will need one, so he’ll tell him.” Lana shoved her arms through the sleeves of her jacket, voice steady, eyes showing not a hint of the fear. “Ethan can alert Fred and the kids, I’ll get Mallick. Duncan, you get Poe. Simon.”
She gripped his hand, then let it go and flashed.
Simon clipped a holster onto his belt, met Duncan’s eyes. “Go.”
__________
Ten miles beyond the checkpoint, the enemy halted. Silver hair streaming, eyes ablaze with fervor, Jeremiah White climbed onto the roof of a truck. As planned, one of the DUs at his side illuminated him so all could see. His voice carried, full-throated, through the soft spring night.
“Fellow warriors, friends, patriots, tonight, at long last, we will eradicate the sanctuary of the demons that defile our world. Tonight, at long last, our blessed crusade to purify the land, the seas, the very air we breathe ends. We mark this night as God’s wrath, delivered through his true children. We will strike them down, rip out this beating heart of their evil. Tonight, in our righteous fury, we avenge our fallen brothers. Arlington. Washington. New York. Philadelphia.”
Others in the crowd shouted out names of other battles, other places as White spread his arms, lifted his face to the starstruck heavens.
“And our brothers will cry out from their graves, will rip the air with their gratitude as we wipe these demons and all who truck with them from the face of this earth.”
“Burn the witches!”
As that cry rang out, over and over, the Dark Uncanny who stood with them remained stone-faced. No sense of irony leaked through.
“Burn the witches,” White echoed. “Hang the demons. Strike them down as they flee. Root out the false prophet they worship as The One, for she will face our judgment. And with her death, as promised, as decreed, by her own fiery sword, we take back the world, we ride the glory.
“Tonight, New Hope burns!”
He drew his own sword, lifted it high, then sliced it down to point toward the glimmer of lights in the distance.
They spread out, squads to attack outlying farms, homes, families, others to circle or flash to the west and east to strike from those directions. Another handful to surge to the checkpoint, take down security as the main forces followed.
Still agile and fit, White boosted down from the roof of the truck, nodded to the pair of burly DUs who served as his personal guard.
“Let them burn, let them bleed, let them litter the ground of this cursed place with bodies. Through the flames and the blood we’ll take her at last. When I strike the bitch down, we’ll have all.”
Troops swept by in a flood, eager for that blood. Others, according to plan, pushed in from the north, with advance teams striking at the checkpoints.
Seasoned, experienced warriors, White thought, some of whom had been with him since the earliest days. Raiders who killed and maimed for the thrill of it. Dark Uncannys who sought the end of Fallon Swift as much as the most fanatical Purity Warrior.
And all under his command.
He waited, his own eagerness growing, the thirst for vengeance searing his throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
White heard the first snaps of gunfire, watched the first spear of lightning rip across the dark. The crows swarmed in.
Like music, he thought. Like triumph.
Like power.
Finally, what had risen from the dark would know all he was.
“Now. To the heart, straight to the heart to tear it out.”
But rather than the gardens, as planned, the protective shield held. When power struck power at the checkpoint, the light spread. In the pale green the faeries brought, the troops, the people of New Hope, magickals, NMs, farmers, teachers, soldiers, weavers, potters engaged the enemy.
On the road to town, in the woods, over fields, on outlying farms, they struck back.
Colin and his recruits met the enemy rushing from the south. Flynn sprinted with troops from The Beach through the woods, turning the ambush back on the attackers. At the farm, Travis fought with Eddie while Fred turned the torches an
d flaming arrows meant to burn down her home to flowers. To the east, Will fought with his son, with Poe and his.
At the checkpoint, Simon fired from his sniper’s nest, blocked out worry for Lana. She’d refused to join the second line of defense, and whipped her power against the dark on the front line.
White had haunted her and hunted her, he understood. And Mallick was with her. He had to trust.
Duncan wove his bike through the oncoming forces, sword slashing in one hand, power in the other. He swung back, the bike another weapon as Tonia loosed arrows from her own sniper’s nest.
A pair of Raiders—and he could admire the chopper under them—barreled toward him. The one riding tandem heaved an axe. Veering to avoid the crash, Duncan flipped power, sent the axe flying back and into the skull of the lead rider. The speed, the sudden loss of control sent the chopper careening off the road, into the tree where Tonia had her nest.
“Watch it!” she snapped out.
“Sorry.”
He spun around, saw a couple more Raiders, some PWs on foot, a couple on horseback pull back to retreat.
“No, not today.”
He started to pursue, then saw White.
“Son of a bitch. Assholes in retreat!” he called out, satisfied when riders on horseback set off after them. He spun around again to confront White.
He looked dazed, Duncan realized. Likely from the crash into the shield. But the two DU’s flanking him didn’t have the same issues.
He threw up a block, and still the force of the power strike spun at him nearly unseated him. He gunned his engine, started to blast out his own.
Fallon dived out of the sky, Laoch’s wings arrowed up. Both the wolf and the owl leaped off to join the battle. And she, as Duncan fought to keep the flood of emotions inside him dammed, dropped the left guard with one strike of her sword, took down the one on the right with a bolt of light.
A swipe of her hand through the air blew White to the ground. “Sleep.” With him sprawled, she wheeled Laoch around, looked at Duncan. “I’m back,” she said, and charged into the enemy who remained.
