The Rise of Magicks (Chronicles of The One) Read online

  “Okay. Yes, we talked. He didn’t have an argument that overcame mine. You don’t, either.”

  “No, I don’t. You’re my mother’s friend. I believe in you. I believed in you before I met you because I saw you through her. You can’t take Chuck.”

  “I understand. He won’t like it, but he knows he’s essential here. I want one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “I want to interview Hargrove after you’ve taken him. I know you want him alive, and if he’s alive at the end of this, I want an interview.”

  “That’s an easy one.”

  When she went out, Fallon stood in the winter sunlight looking at the snowpeople kids had built in front and side yards, at the cheerful wreaths on windows or doors. Handmade menorahs graced a few windows. She could hear shouts—no school—from nearby as people sledded or threw snowballs.

  She spun around when one of those snowballs hit dead center of her back.

  And nearly jolted when she watched Duncan brushing the snow off his hands as he walked down the sidewalk to her.

  “A coward shoots in the back.”

  “Or an opportunist,” he said. “It was too good to miss.”

  “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Just for a couple hours. You look good. It’s been awhile.”

  “Awhile.”

  “I was going to head over to your place, but Hannah said you were in town. Let’s walk.”

  She fell into step with him. He looked . . . tougher, she decided. Honed. “You’ve gotten all the intel?”

  “Yeah, right up to this morning. I’m looking forward to smashing their plans. Ballsy move to bug the White House. Sorry I missed it.”

  “It had to be done.”

  “Sure it did.” Even as she let a little satisfaction in, he continued. “Too bad you didn’t think of it sooner. We’ve been able to recruit off the rumors—we’re caging them as rumors—Hargrove and White are working toward a deal.”

  “If that gets out—”

  “We’re not morons, Fallon. We’re saying we got it from a captured PW.”

  “Your numbers increased with your alliance with the First Tribe, with Meda.”

  “More than numbers. I’ve never seen anyone who can ride or fight on horseback like the First Tribe.” His words might have been briskly delivered, but admiration shone through. “They’re helping train in that skill. We had some troops who could barely sit a horse a month ago. Now it’s, you know, ride ’em, cowboy.”

  “You have four hundred and forty-two troops now.”

  “Five hundred and three. We added in the last few days. I figured to tell you in person.”

  “It’s a good number, and from a remote location.” She stopped to study him. “How?”

  “Meda’s got ways of getting word to more First Tribe. I’ve had scouts, myself included, traveling or flashing to where we’ve heard may be some settlements. I can tell you, since we’ve been able to pass along the rumors, recruits have come in steady. We may have more, some ready and able to fight, before the second.”

  They walked toward the gardens.

  He’d shaved, she thought, for his family visit. And smelled clean, like the snow. The desert sun had given his skin a warm gold color that made his eyes greener.

  “Are you ready to come back? To New Hope?”

  He looked over the snow, the greenhouses, the playground. The memorial tree. And realized he’d stood nearly in this same spot when Petra had killed his closest friend.

  “After D.C. Yeah. I’ve been away long enough.”

  “You helped build the army that’ll take D.C.”

  “That’s right. I’ll help build more from here, and give my family some time. If I need to be somewhere else, I’ll go somewhere else. But it’s time to come back, for now.”

  “Your family misses you.”

  “I miss them. I miss New Hope. The desert—it’s an amazing place. But I miss home. But that’s not all I’ll come back for. I told you when I left, I’d come back for you.”

  She shook her head. She didn’t step away; that was cowardly. “I can’t think about anything but January the second. Ten thousand depend on me to lead them to battle. And you, Duncan, to lead them.”

  “And we will. After, you and me?” He flicked bits of snow off her shoulder. “We have to deal with this.”

  “You make it sound like a chore.”

  “I don’t know what it is.” He took her arm before she turned away. “I don’t know, but it’s been inside me since the first time I dreamed of you. I’m beginning to think that started with my first breath. I want you, and everyone else I’ve ever wanted? They’re like smoke, just easily brushed away. It doesn’t seem right, but that’s how it is. It’s you.”

  She understood that want, because she felt it. “Do you know how much of my life has been laid out not just at my first breath, but hundreds, thousands of years before that breath? Can you understand I might resist having who I want laid out, too?”

  “Sure, because I feel exactly the same. That’s why we deal with it.”

  She didn’t object when he took her shoulders, pulled her in, took her mouth. She wanted it, wanted to feel again what she’d felt the night he’d left. That heat, that rise.

  But when he drew her in, just held her until the heat slid softly down to warmth, it left her shaken long after he stepped away again.

  “So.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got the coordinates for the second. We’ve been drilling with the maps you sent. Since we’re too far away for otherwise, we’ll flash the entire five hundred, and two hundred horses. We’ve already started prepping the NMs and horses.”

  Easier, she thought, less complicated to talk of battles. “You’re confident you can flash that many?”

  “It’s the only way to get there, so yeah, I’m confident. I need a heads-up from you, to me directly, not through an elf. You’re planning to strike at dawn, so we’ll be ready to go two hours before dawn. But I need the go.” His eyes, greener, steady, held her. “Direct from you, Fallon.”

  “You’ll have it. We’re going to win this, Duncan, because we have to.”

  “It’s a good plan. Freaking bold, and that’s what we need. You picked your base commanders well. I include myself in that,” he added with a grin that flashed on, then off. “Every one of them knows how to lead, knows what’s at stake. When we win, because yeah, we have to, who knows how many DUs we take down with that police state they call a government. Who knows how many magickals we’ll free from containment.”

  “They have two hundred in the White House facility.”

  “They— What?”

  “That’s intel from the listening posts. The scientists who work for Hargrove are trying to create a serum that will sterilize them.”

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  “Hargrove gave them a deadline. If they don’t come through, he wants them exterminated.”

  Everything in him hardened and burned. “What’s the deadline? How long ago did this come through?”

  “The day after we planted the bugs. He gave them two months.”

  “You’ve known this for weeks?” His eyes fired as he raged at her. “You knew this goddamn deadline slaps right up against the strike? And you don’t tell me, or any of the commanders? Because I’d have heard if you had. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “The One.”

  “Bullshit on that. Bullshit.” He stormed away, then back again. “You had no right.”

  That rage, that storm, blew over her, blew through her, but she held her ground. “Maybe not. Maybe not the right, but the need. If I’d told you, and the others, what they’re trying to do, if I’d told you we learned just days ago they’re forcibly impregnating magickals to study them through gestation, to study the infants born, that they’ve experimented on newborns, how many would break ranks and push an attack before we’re ready, before we can win?”

  It sickened him—she could read it on
his face—felt her own stomach quiver.

  And he looked at her with contempt. “You’re a fucking cold one, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not.” Her voice broke, and so did the wall of will she’d so effortfully built. “I’m not. Babies. How many? I don’t know. I didn’t know they had them right in the White House, right there where they once had a bowling alley, a movie theater. They have labs and cages now, and I didn’t know. I stood above them that night, and didn’t know.”

  She covered her hands with her face. “If I had, I would have had to leave them. I would have had to because even if I could have saved a few, somehow, the rest would be lost.”

  “Okay. All right.”

  “It’s not okay.” Now she raged. “It’s not all right. But it’s necessary. Now I do know, and I hear babies crying. I hear them in my sleep. So how can I sleep?”

  “Stop.” He took her shoulders again, a firm grip that gentled as he ran his hands down her arms and back again. “Stop, now.”

  “I want to drive my sword through their hearts.” She gripped him in turn, her fingers digging into his arms. “From D.C. to New York, from ocean to ocean, and over the oceans to every corner of the world. And I swear I will, I swear on my life I’ll cut out their hearts and the heart of the beast that uses them like toys.”

  “Not alone, Fallon.”

  “No, no, God, I don’t want alone. But if I know myself, and what my own rage, without control, can unleash? I know yours just as well. I swear to you, I swear, we have to strike on the second. Not a day sooner. It’s one circle in many, Duncan. Not the first, not the last, but one in many.”

  “I believe you.” Because she trembled, he laid his hands on her cheeks, kept his eyes on hers. “I believe you. But here’s where you’re wrong. I said before you chose your commanders well, and you did. Every one of us would have argued for an earlier strike. But,” he said before she could speak, “we’d have listened to your reasons against. Jesus, Fallon, do you think I didn’t learn control after all those months with Mallick? He’s the king of control.”

  “It used to piss me off.”

  “Yeah, I joined that club. But it works.” He dropped his hands, stepped back once more. “I want the coordinates for the containment facility. Once they realize D.C.’s falling, somebody down there could panic. They’d start killing prisoners. Which,” he added, “you’ve already thought of.”

  “I planned to tell the other commanders what I told you. We’ll have a rescue force take the containment center, free and transport prisoners to Arlington. You were already on it.”

  He nodded. “I’m going to share this with my key people when I get back today.”

  “Pick two for the rescue team.”

  “Can do. I’ll also tell the troops when we’re ready to flash to D.C. The rage will pump them up. I have to get back, spend a little more time with the family before I leave.”

  He looked around. “You know, I didn’t figure I’d miss the snow. But I do.” His eyes locked with hers. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas.”

  When he turned, she scooped up snow, balled it, winged it. The impulse, and his over-the-shoulder grin made her laugh. “Now we’re even.”

  “Until next time. I’ll see you on the battlefield.”

  When he walked away, she thought: Not just the battlefield of D.C. They would see each other on so many more.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Just before dawn on January second, Fallon stood in front of the barracks. More than two thousand spread out with her. Some mounted horses, others straddled motorcycles. Foot soldiers moved into formation.

  Breath expelled in clouds swirling the air in mists.

  The dying night hung cold and clear, the waning half-moon sailing low as the stars shimmered out. A fresh snowfall lay like ermine over branches while men and women trampled it underfoot to move into position.

  She saw Marichu take hers, quiver on her back, eyes already fierce.

  Those who would stay behind had already said their good-byes, embraced their loved ones, and waited now in the shivering dark.

  When she felt the sun waking, she mounted Laoch, called Taibhse to her arm, and Faol Ban to her side.

  She turned her horse to face the troops.

  “What you do today, you do for all. Every blow you strike is a blow against persecution, bigotry, suffering. You are the brave and the true. Today you fight for all who are hunted and caged, tormented and slaughtered, and what you do this day will ring the bells of hope and freedom through the smoking cities, through the forests and over the hills, the seas.

  “We are warriors of the light.” She drew her sword, lifted it high as the air rang with cheers. “And today, as surely as day breaks the night, our light strikes back the dark. Solas don Saol!”

  Thousands of voices echoed the call. Solas don Saol!

  As the sun shimmered, blooming rose over the eastern hills, she enflamed her sword.

  And struck the first blow in the heart of D.C.

  Within seconds, the air filled with shouts, screams, gunfire, the flame of arrows, the thunder of horses, a roar of engines. Much of the city, already in rubble, smoked from fights waged through the night.

  Overhead, the crows circled and cried out in a kind of jubilation. Taibhse shot off her arm, a white missile, tore through the smoke and ripped at the crows with beak and talon.

  Fallon rode toward power. She felt it pump, black and vicious, pushed through the oily stream of it toward a woman striking out with bolts of red and black at oncoming troops.

  With her shield, Fallon slapped a bolt to the ground, where it burrowed in the rubble. And with one swipe of her sword she ended it as Laoch soared over the fallen body and the charred stones.

  A man with a bat studded with nails rushed forward, struck down one of the government militia. “Resist!” he shouted, and behind him poured a dozen more as Fallon rode into the chaos.

  Arrows flamed and flew through the dull morning light. Fire burst from the thunder of explosives, quaking the ground as brick and stones avalanched from ruined buildings. Their dust spumed up, another smearing haze so thick soldiers became ghosts.

  She pounded through wherever she felt that pulse of dark power, striking down, battling back. As war cries echoed, she thought of nothing but the next foe, the next inch of ground. Sweat and blood rolled through the frigid wind as powers clashed, as steel rang and bullets sliced.

  Her forces drove through the barricades, north, south, east, west. Dozens of ugly battles flooding a city that no longer stood for its people, no longer honored the blood spilled, the lives sacrificed for centuries to preserve the rights of its people.

  Monuments defaced, parks scorched to ash, the dome of the Capitol broken and blackened.

  In that dawn, through the bitter morning, they fought savagely against the government forces, the Dark Uncannys, the cold hands of cruelty that had choked all life, all hope from a once shining city.

  She took Laoch up, dived over the base, heaved down fireballs.

  From her height she could see holes in the enemy lines, holes in her own defenses. Relayed orders to exploit the first, close up the second.

  In her mind Duncan shouted, We need to move on the containment center. They could start executing prisoners. We need to move there now.

  Now, she agreed. She shot down on Laoch, leaped from him. “Fight,” she told him, and flashed.

  Men and women scrambled to secure vials, samples, equipment. In what she took to be a holding cell, a boy—no more than sixteen—struggled against his chains. She heard the echoes of shouts beyond the main lab.

  A woman running for a steel door, pushing a wheeled crate, saw her, shrieked.

  “You should fear me. You should be afraid.” Like a backhanded slap, Fallon knocked her to the ground with a wave of power.

  Alarms screamed. One of the men, his black uniform pristine against the flapping white lab coats, drew a sidearm. She melted it in his hand so he
dropped to the floor.

  The rest dropped to their knees, threw their hands in the air. She heard the rescue force battling, knew with all she was they wouldn’t fail.

  “Carter,” she said, and read the fear in one pair of eyes.

  As she stepped toward him, tears leaked from his eyes.

  “Please. I was only following orders. President Commander Hargrove himself—”

  “Torture, rape, mutilation, genocide. Experimentation on infants. These are your orders?”

  “Please. I’m a scientist.”

  “You’re a war criminal.” And because he deserved the insult—and so much more—she rammed her fist into his face.

  Face coated with soot, eyes as fierce as they’d been at that break of dawn, Marichu pushed through. Those eyes and the arrow already nocked made her purpose clear.

  Fallon simply shifted in front of Carter, said, “No.”

  She turned to the holding cage, opened the locks, dropped the chains away. The boy staggered out.

  “Give me a weapon. Let me kill them.”

  “We don’t kill prisoners. We’re not like them.” She turned her gaze to Marichu. “We won’t be like them. Into the cage,” she told the rest, and gestured to Carter. “Drag him with you. Quickly, or I may change my mind and give this boy one of you after all.”

  She turned to the boy. “Can you fight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then fight.” She gave him her knife. “I’ll need that back. Let’s move.” She led him toward the sounds of combat, stopped short when she saw Arlys.

  “You’re supposed to be—”

  “Right here.” In flak jacket and helmet, Arlys recorded. “Right here. Finish this. For God’s sake, finish this and get these people out of here.”

  “It’s done.” Duncan swung his sword left, right, and did what Arlys asked. He finished it.

  “Secure the doors,” Fallon ordered. “You,” she snapped at Marichu, “help secure the doors, and don’t make me regret I gave you your wish.”

  Cells, glass walled, ran at least fifty feet on either side of the space. People crowded into each section, some unconscious, some glassy eyed, others shouting for release. Children, separated from the adults, huddled together. In another, six infants squalled in clear containers with locked lids.