by Nora Roberts
Some still green, he thought, but the hours of training, the rotations of scouting, scavenging, cooking, drilling had sharpened them up.
Still, some of them were green, and he’d need every one of them seasoned, well seasoned, by January second.
He’d heard that on the wind. She’d probably send word to him, though she had to have felt him just as tangibly as he had her. But Fallon would send word, one way or the other, and he’d prepare those troops for the onslaught on D.C.
Not yet enough of them, and that worried him. Not all they’d freed had stayed. Most, but not all, and the scouting had only gathered in a handful.
He knew there were more, he’d felt that, too. Watching. Waiting for who knew what.
Restless, edgy, mildly pissed off for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint, he got his bike. He’d ride out a few miles, take a little solo time, let the wind and speed blow away the mood.
He went out through a checkpoint, then opened the bike up on the long, flat road. From the first, he appreciated the sights, scents, sounds of the West. The echoing canyons, the fast rivers with their wild rapids tumbling, the sheer brilliance of the stars. But tonight, he yearned for home, the fields and forests, the roll of hills, his family, his friends. All the familiar.
When he’d worked with Mallick, he’d been able to take an hour or two now and again to flash home. But here, fully in charge, he couldn’t afford the luxury.
The agrodome had just begun—ha-ha—to bear fruit. Coyotes and wildcats meant constant vigilance with the livestock. Scavenging alone could equal a full-time job.
He shouldn’t, he knew, even be out like this, but, God, he needed it.
He needed to kick up the hand-to-hand training. D.C. meant street fighting, of the ugly and bloody. He wondered if he could devise a way to conjure the illusion of streets, buildings, rubble. It would help if he had a clear idea what D.C. looked like. It sure as hell wouldn’t look like the old pictures and DVDs.
Brooding, he nearly missed it, that shimmer of power on the air. Instinct kicked in. He slowed the bike, reached out.
Watching, he thought. Waiting.
Well, screw that.
He stopped the bike, got off. Put a hand on the hilt of his sword.
“If you need help, I can offer it. If you want a fight, I can oblige. Either way, grow some balls and come out.”
“I’m not interested in growing balls.” She rode a painted horse out of the dark as if she’d parted a curtain. “I’ve no problem slicing them off a man, if necessary.”
“I think I’ll keep mine.”
Late twenties, he thought, and striking enough he wanted to sketch those sharp cheekbones, the deep eyes, the long black braid that trailed to her waist. She carried a bow and quiver and sat the horse bareback.
“I might let you keep them, and just take the bike.”
“Nope.” He felt the movement behind him, tossed power back, heard the whoosh of stolen breath.
“Good reflexes,” she said. “But small brains to ride out so far alone.”
Another dozen riders walked through the curtain to flank her. In a finger snap he had his sword in his hand, laid down a line of fire between them.
Most of the horses shied, but not hers. Both she and her mount stayed steady.
“Is it worth your life?” she asked.
“Is it worth yours?” He started to scan the faces, stopped on one, a girl of about fifteen. “You were with the PWs. They made you a slave. Kerry—no. Sherry. They hurt you. They hurt her.” He looked back at the leader. “They branded her and . . . worse. Is she one of yours?”
“She rides with us.”
“Then you know we didn’t hurt her, and dealt with those who did. Our medic treated her, but she took a horse, slipped out of camp before morning. We looked for you,” he said to the girl, “to help, to give you supplies if you wanted to go, but we couldn’t find you.”
“Why would she stay? You may have done the same as the others.”
Heated now, Duncan’s gaze whipped back to the leader. “You know better. What kind of bullshit is this? Is this how you treat people who rescue others from PWs?”
She studied him, straight as one of the arrows in her quiver on the horse. “You didn’t kill them all. Why?”
“The ones we didn’t surrendered or were no longer a threat. Now they’re in prison.”
“Where?”
“In the East. They won’t hurt you again,” he said to the girl.
“Why do you care? She’s not one of you.”
“You don’t look like an idiot,” he shot back, “but that’s a stupid, ignorant question.”
Her eyebrows arched over those intense, dark eyes. “Your ancestors slaughtered mine, stole their land, brought them disease and starvation.”
“Maybe. My mother’s people came from Scotland. The English slaughtered our people, stole their land, burned their homes. But if some English dude’s ready to fight with me against the PWs, the DUs, and the rest of the fuckers, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what his ancestors did to mine. This is now.”
He looked back at the girl. “I’m glad you’re okay, and from the looks of it, you’ll be safe with her.”
“What do you fight for?” the leader demanded. “Who do you fight for?”
Duncan muttered, “Shit,” when he felt the vision fall into him. Resigned, he let it take him.
He raised his sword, shot a bolt of light into the sky before his blade flamed.
This time her horse shied, and she controlled it with a murmur, a squeeze of her knees.
“I am Duncan of the MacLeods, child of the Tuatha de Danann. I am the sword that slashes through the dark, brother to the arrow that pierces it. I am blood to blood with The One, and am pledged to her. I fight with her, I fight for her. My light for life. My life for her, and all who stand with her against the dark.”
Lowering the sword, he passed a hand down its length to extinguish the flame. “Got it?”
She dismounted, walked to the low wall of flame. “Then, Duncan of the MacLeods, you’re the one I’ve been looking for.” She held out a hand. “I’m Meda of the First Tribe. We’ll fight with you. We’ll fight with The One.”
Once again he trusted instinct. He let the flames between them die, shook her hand. “Welcome to the war.”
Fallon had felt him, and it left her unsettled. She felt Duncan’s sorrow for those lost twine with hers. A kind of grieving intimacy she hadn’t been prepared for.
Like him, after the ritual she felt unsettled. She’d hoped, as she’d hoped every year since he’d come to her, her birth father would come to her again. But she knew it wasn’t to be.
Not yet.
She made excuses, slipped away from the festivities in town, the bonfires, the carved pumpkins, the treats made for costumed children, the music in the gardens.
She told herself she needed to go back to her maps, her plans, refine all her battle tactics. But she knew she lied, even to herself.
It was time, she thought, to do more than plan. Time to see, time to be, time to take the next step.
Risky but worth it, she decided. And she’d look into the crystal first, judge if the way was clear.
At home, she lit the candle Mallick had given her when she’d been an infant. In the quiet, with only that light, she laid her hands on the crystal.
“Open now and clear for me. Let me see what I must see.”
Like clouds rolling, then a wind blowing to part them. And now colors, shapes, space.
“More,” she urged, sliding a hand right, watching, watching, before sliding a hand left. Drawing one up, waiting, studying, then drawing it down.
She spent nearly an hour with the crystal, once again sketching a detailed map until, satisfied, she went to her closet.
Inside she kept the Book of Spells, potions, charms, tools. Though on the day she became, every spell in the book lived inside her, she deemed this one important enough to validate.
She passed a
hand over the book so that it opened to the spell in her mind. With the care and precision she’d learned from her mother, from Mallick, she gathered what she needed. Floating a small cauldron over her desk, lighting the fire beneath it, she added ingredients, measured others, said the words.
Here the power ran through her, warm and liquid. Here a pouring into as the spell coalesced with a pulsing beat, as a tower of pale blue smoke rose, thin and straight as a needle.
She put out the fire, cooled the cauldron, placed what she’d created inside it into a pouch.
“It’ll work,” she said aloud, tying the pouch to her belt.
Once again, she checked the crystal. Focused, focused.
Time, she thought again. It was time.
“There I go as powers flow, through you, in you, so I pass through the glass. Through you, in you, beyond the shields both dark and light, beyond the locks I take this flight. Take me where you let me see. As I will, so mote it be.”
As she spoke the last words, as she threw out her power, Tonia and Hannah stepped into her room.
Tonia said, “Holy—”
Then the mad pull Fallon unleashed took all three of them.
“Shit,” Tonia finished as the pull released, dropped them. “What—” She broke off, dropped down as Hannah slid bonelessly to the floor.
“Damn it. Be still, be quiet,” Fallon ordered. “I’ll be right back.”
On a snap of wind, she vanished. Ten seconds later, while Tonia tapped Hannah’s pale cheeks, she snapped back again.
“She’s out cold. Jesus. That wasn’t a flash we got caught up in. It was different, and more.”
“We need to bring her around first, then you’re going to get this tonic into her. All of it. Quick.”
Fallon pushed the small bottle at Tonia, then laid a hand on Hannah’s heart, another on her forehead.
When Hannah’s lashes fluttered, when she moaned, Fallon snapped, “Get it into her.”
Hannah swallowed reflexively, choked a little, sputtered, then managed, “What the hell happened?”
“I pulled you through with me, through the crystal. It’s stronger than a flash, and you weren’t prepared.”
And not steady yet, Fallon determined, as Hannah’s pupils turned her eyes to dark moons.
“Stay down for another minute. I couldn’t risk a flash,” Fallon continued. “They’ll have shields either conjured by DUs or magickals they forced or coerced. I needed to get through them without setting off any alerts or leaving any trace.”
She sat back on her heels. “We’re going to have to hope that covers both of you.”
As she helped Hannah sit up, kept an arm cradled around her, Tonia looked around the room. “Jesus. Are we where I think we are?”
“The White House. Oval Office.”
“In the now?”
“In the right now. They lost the Capitol, but they’ve fortified and shielded the White House. They’re running nearly everything out of this location, according to Chuck’s intel.”
“Where’s that pissant bastard Hargrove?”
“In the Residence. They’ve got easily a thousand military and civilian guards in and around the building, from what I’ve seen through the crystal. They’ve built a military base in what I think used to be the Rose Garden. Everything magickally shielded. From the outside.”
Tonia stopped gawking, shifted her gaze to Fallon. “And we’re inside.”
“That’s right.”
“Are we going to take Hargrove?”
“Not this time. No trace,” she repeated before Tonia could argue. “But before we take him, take D.C., we’re going to know their moves, their plans, their numbers, and if the goddess shines, the locations of all their containment centers. I conjured listening devices.”
“Bugs. No, I’m okay.” Hannah patted Tonia aside. “Maybe just feel a little buzzed, but okay. Bugs,” she repeated. “Wouldn’t they sweep for those, routinely?”
“They won’t find these. I’ve picked what I feel are the most strategic locations for them, starting here.”
“The Oval freaking Office,” Hannah said in amazement. “It looks more like a throne room than an office.”
Buzzed or not, Fallon thought, Hannah’s observation hit the mark. She turned, looked at the luxurious gold drapes—enough material to make clothes, blankets for a dozen people—the rug bearing the presidential seal for a man no one had elected. All the furnishings of glossy, polished wood, silky fabrics. The art in ornate frames.
No different in her mind from the hoarding of beauty and luxury she’d found in Arlington. Only more of the same, and for one man’s ego and ambition.
He wouldn’t hold it, she vowed. Not after January second.
“We’re going to move fast, and quiet. If there’s any trouble, any, Tonia, you flash back with Hannah.”
“We don’t leave you,” Hannah said.
“I’ll go back the way we came, through the glass. Take all of us if possible. We don’t risk January second.”
“I see cameras,” Tonia pointed out. “They’ve got security in here.”
“I took care of those,” Fallon told her. “We focus on one area at a time. Plant the device, move to the next.”
She opened her pouch, took out a long, slender leaf.
Tonia eyed it. “Seriously?”
“He keeps two plants, see there? Flanking that door.”
She walked to one, slid the device among the leaves. As she spoke the words, it attached.
“Nice. Very nice. What language was that?”
“Ancient Aramaic. It’s a date palm.” She shrugged. “It fits, and it helps shield it from those sweeps, as it’s unlikely they can break a spell sealed in Aramaic.”
Hannah peered closer. “It’s organic.”
“That helps, too. It’ll pick up whatever’s said in this room. If I did everything right, Chuck can listen in.”
“He’s going to have an orgasm,” Tonia decided. “Where next?”
“It used to be called the Situation Room. They call it the War Room.” She took out a piece of carved wood painted gold. “There’s a portrait of Hargrove on the back wall, framed.”
“What language for this?” Hannah wondered.
“Hargrove’s an Old English place name, so—”
“Channel Chaucer.”
“That’s the idea. If we manage only those two, it’s a big one. I have another, for the office of his chief of staff, something for the Residence, if possible, another for the kitchen.”
“The kitchen?”
“Staff gossip. They hear things, and gossip.” Taking too much time, Fallon thought. Already taking too much time. “You should flash back, and I’ll get this done.”
“Not only aren’t we leaving you, but you don’t get to have all the fun. Hannah?”
The potion had put color back in her cheeks. Now her eyes glittered. “All in.”
“Arguing wastes time, so we move, and we move by priority.”
“If you taught me the spell, we could split up, cover more ground in less time.”
“No, we stick together, get planted what we can with as little movement as possible. The more movement, the more chance of hitting some alarm I didn’t see, or running into a guard. So we flash, flash. It’ll be a little rough on you, Hannah, but I can’t risk leaving you here.”
“I can deal.”
“Going to have to.” She took Hannah’s hand, nodded.
Twenty minutes later, Hannah sat down heavily on Fallon’s bed. Then she gave up, lay back on it. “I’m okay. A little shaky. And that was amazing. All of it. I’ve been inside the White House and helped plant magickal bugs. Can we have a whole bunch of wine now?”
“Which is why we came over in the first place,” Tonia remembered. “Look, Fallon, I know you probably want to get all this to Chuck, but the fact is, Hargrove and whoever’s sharing his bed were tucked in for the night, the rest of the rooms we hit were empty and locked up. They even secure the kitche
n at night. Let’s have a drink to stealthy girls who just infiltrated the freaking White House.”
All good points, Fallon conceded. “Okay. First thing in the morning’s soon enough.” She led the way out to her own war room, got a bottle of wine from storage, some glasses. “It doesn’t feel as if anyone’s home yet.”
“They wouldn’t be,” Hannah told her. “Your parents were going over to our place, a bunch of them were. Your mom said we should come over here, talk you out of working tonight.”
On a laugh, Tonia took the bottle, poured liberally. “Didn’t manage that, did we? Is it always like that when you go somewhere through the crystal?”
“No. It’s usually more like sliding into a pool—a really deep pool. But with this, I needed a big punch to get through the barriers there.”
“Definitely a big punch.” Hannah drank deep.
“Your eyes rolled back, then . . .” Grinning, Tonia drew her hand down in a slow curve. “Actually, you even faint gracefully. It’s annoying.”
“It’s class. All class.” Dropping down in a chair, Hannah sighed, drank again. “I’ve never been a part of anything like what we did tonight. It’s exciting.”
“You’ve been in battle,” Fallon pointed out. “Treating wounded. And kicking PWs in the balls.”
“It’s different. You don’t think, you just act. You do what you’ve trained to do. But this? You have to think, every second, about what you’re doing, what’s around you instead of how to stop the bleeding or set a bone. And the magicks. I’m around it all the time, obviously, but I’ve never been in it, not so, you know, intimately. It’s the only time, other than now and then when I watch what the healers can do, I’ve wished I had some of that.”
“You’re a doctor,” Tonia said. “Saving lives, easing pain, that’s your magick. And it’s awesome.”
“I saw you.” Fallon spoke quietly. “On the night Petra attacked, when her twisted parents attacked. I saw you below, covering someone with your own body. You’re a doctor, and a warrior.”
“Ball-kicking warrior.”
“I didn’t have a sword on me at the time. Thanks. Anyway, I didn’t mean it to sound like I’m jealous. Maybe I had some moments when we were kids—”
