books now, but we got there, and we’re holding it. What I hear is Mallick’s forces sent the PWs running to hell. But there’s a pack of shifters, DUs, giving them some grief.”
He ran through what he knew, and Fallon adjusted her map accordingly. “We’ll send more shifters to Mallick, have the merpeople cut off the PWs’ escape route by water. We’re going to need to take the tunnels, but for now, we can close them off. I still need to go over the old maps. There are landmarks still standing, and we can use them. Taking the city’s more important than preserving specific sites, but whatever we can preserve will matter later. Especially to those who lived through the Doom.”
“It still beats,” he said as he ate. “Not like D.C.”
“Yes, it still beats. And this place mattered,” she added. “Enough to cloak it in protection strong enough to hold back the DUs, the military, the crazies.”
“This may sound a little crazy, but I think this is where Fred and Arlys worked.”
Frowning, she shifted to face him. “Fred and Arlys? Why do you think that?”
“I grew up on the stories. I know you’ve heard them, but probably not as often or in the detail I did. I drew a sketch once, of Arlys at the newscaster’s desk, with the dead guy beside her. You know that story, right?”
“Her last broadcast from New York.”
“Yeah. I was about twelve, and thought it was really cool, so I drew it—the way I saw it in my head. When I showed it to Arlys, I realized, not so cool, not for her. But she said I got it right, and asked if she could keep it to remind her to tell the truth even when it’s scary.”
He took Fallon’s hand. “Come on.”
He led her out of the office, into the place with the desks, the long counter under the lights, in front of the camera.
“Put Arlys and the dead body up there, and that’s my sketch.”
“That’s why,” Fallon acknowledged. “That’s why it’s here for us, why it’s here to serve as the center of command. Fred protected it, Arlys told the world the truth. They held back the dark, and now so will we.”
* * *
For two weeks in the bitter cold, war ripped claws through the already torn city. It rampaged through the boroughs like a wild thing. In the third week, the Light for Life forces lost fifty troops in an ambush when they worked to clear a crosstown tunnel. Fallon led in a hundred more to beat back the alliance of DUs and Raiders in the green glow of faerie light.
She emerged into winter sunlight that struck the huge mounds of snow her troops had cleared from the streets and entryways. The crows still circled, smoke still spewed skyward, but the tide was turning. She felt it in her bones, and with it a hope that drove away the fatigue.
She started to mount Laoch, paused at the call of her name. Starr streaked toward her.
“You need to come. It’s Colin.”
“No, he’s not—”
“Alive, but he’s hurt. He’s hurt bad. You need to come.” She who rarely touched, gripped Fallon’s hand. “He’s with Jonah and Hannah. They got him to the mobile, but—”
With her hand vised on Starr’s, Fallon flashed them both.
Colin lay on a gurney, his face bleached white, his eyes glazed, his body trembling. With horror Fallon saw the tourniquet above the elbow of his left arm, and Hannah holding compresses to the stub beneath.
Jonah submerged that arm, wrapped in gauze, sealed in a bag, in a tub of ice.
“The bleeding’s slowing down. You’re going to be all right, Colin,” Hannah assured him. “We’re going to get you back to New Hope. He’s in shock. Starr got him here fast—and the limb, but…”
Fallon turned, looked directly into Jonah’s eyes. “Will he live?”
“I don’t know.” Jonah laid a hand on Colin, obviously willing the vision of life and death that had once nearly driven him to take his own. “It’s just not clear, it’s not yes or no the way it usually is.”
“Then it’s not no. Can you reattach his arm?”
“Not here, and…” He drew her toward the back of the mobile. He kept his voice low, kept it calm. “We haven’t done anything like this at the clinic. I don’t know if Rachel can or not. She’ll try. Like Hannah said, Starr got him here fast. We’ve cleaned the arm, done the emergency treatment, but this is massive, complicated surgery, Fallon.