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.
“Yeah, I see that.”
* * *
The attack meant to level New Hope was routed in under twenty minutes. New Hope suffered no casualties. Not a single building burned. They gained thirty horses, ten trucks, six bikes, a number of weapons, and more than six hundred prisoners.
Including Jeremiah White.
Fallon looked down on him where he sprawled on the road to New Hope.
“I know we need to talk,” she said to Duncan. “But we have to deal with this first.”
“Yeah. To both.” He took a step back when Lana rushed to her.
“Fallon.”
“Warrior Mom,” she murmured, holding tight. “Dad.” Still in Lana’s embrace, she reached for him as he dropped down from the sniper’s nest. “We’ll talk, I promise. Mallick. I’m glad you were here.”
“You timed your return well.”
“I saw—in the fire. We need to check on the other lines, on the houses and farms.”
“Word’s coming in, elf to elf.” Like Simon, Tonia dropped down. “We have some injuries. No casualties reported so far. We’re still chasing down a few. Hi, pal.” She gave Fallon a light punch on the arm. “Nice entrance.” She looked down at White. “And top prize.”
“Let’s get him into town. The gardens I think.” Fallon looked at her mother. “It seems appropriate. Arlys is going to want to report on the attack, the capture. We’re going to broadcast it far and wide.”
“I’ll take him.” Duncan set a boot on the back of White’s neck, flashed them through.
“He’s feeling a little rough,” Tonia said.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Fallon sighed. “I’m sorry. Let’s get this done.”
Lana laid a hand on her arm. “What are you going to do with him?”
“Part of me wants him dead, but that’s not the way. I’m going to question him, here, in front of as many as possible, so any who want to hear can hear. I’m hoping Chuck can find a way to record it so we can send it out. So more can hear and see and know.”
“We’ll get the word out,” Simon told her. “I have a feeling everyone in New Hope wants to hear.”
She kept him sleeping; it seemed best. Under the colorful lights of the gardens, people gathered. She saw Lissandra, with her son at her side, Garrett, who bore the brand White ordered burned into the flesh of captured magickals. Anne and Marla, still grieving for the son lost in New York, stood with their remaining two children. Her mother, who’d fled what had become home to save the child she carried in her.
Before she moved forward to pull White out of sleep, she heard a murmuring through the crowd, one that grew louder.
“God, Jonah.” On a gasp of breath, Rachel gripped his arm. “With Eddie. Is that…”
“Kurt Rove.” Jonah put a hand on his youngest son’s shoulder. “It’s that son of a bitch Rove.”
Eddie, his face hard as granite, dragged the bound man through the crowd. Then shoved him to the ground in front of Fallon.
“This here’s Kurt Rove. Maybe he didn’t kill Max Fallon directly, but he was part of it. He betrayed this town and everybody in it. He killed the good, sweet woman my oldest girl’s named for. Shot her in the back while she used her own body to shield a child. He’d have killed your mama if he could, and you with her. You need to know that, Fallon. You need to see him, and know that.”
“I do know it, Eddie.” She looked down at Rove, at the bitter face scarred by hate, at the eyes radiating it. “I do see him.”
“I wanted to kill him when I saw he was one of the prisoners. Wanted to just put a bullet in him and be done. But I couldn’t kill in cold blood. I couldn’t do that and face my wife and my kids.”
“It’s what makes you the man you are, and not a man like him.”
“I’m gonna ask you for one thing. He doesn’t go to some island to make a life. He doesn’t get that after what he’s done. I’m asking you to lock him up, so he lives locked up, like we’ve done for men like Hargrove, like you’ll do for White. He earned it,