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 after 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.”
“He has to be flashing.” Since Travis had already told him what the man had thought about Fallon—and it wasn’t the sort of thing you spoke about at dinner—Duncan moved on. “No way he could get all the way to California otherwise without our getting some word on it.”
“He’s been known to work with DUs before. How does he, how do his followers