They’ve got no DUs, not unless they have any passing as civilians. So we can overwhelm them with power, neutralize them that way, and cut down on body count. Take out the sentry or sentries with a power punch. Give them a zap, secure them, move in. Fallon wants us to give them time to send out an SOS, and that’s part of the smart here. We let them do that, then take down the comms.”
He took another swig of beer. “But I’m not risking anyone to spare that enemy body count. If it comes to it, we take them out.”
“Then we’re agreed. Make your map. We’ll plot out the strategy, select our troops. We’ll take the map and the plan to Fallon in the morning.”
Now Duncan studied his beer. “She doesn’t need both of us. You take the meeting. I’ll stay here and work with the team we put together.”
“That might be wise.”
Mallick might have been too dignified to smirk, but Duncan heard it in the tone. “There’ll come a time, old man. It’s just not now. I’ll fight for her, fight with her. I’ll fight for the light with my last goddamn breath. But I’m damned if I’ll hook up with a woman because the gods freaking deem it. I choose who and when and where.”
“It’s all a choice, boy.”
“Is it?” Pushing up, he paced. “Who puts these dreams of her in my head, these feelings for her in me?”
“How is it you don’t know the answer?”
He gestured with the beer. “You’re saying I do it to myself. That’s bullshit. My mom says I got worked up and happy when Lana came around, before Fallon was born. And the bitch of it is, I half remember.”
“Recognition. Light to light, blood to blood. The rest, if the rest is to be, is for you, for her.”
“Yeah? And what if I decide, hey, you know, I’m more into that blonde or that redhead than The One? Do we lose that connection? Because the connection matters, it’s a key to ending this. I know it. She knows it. And I’m pretty damn sure it pisses her off as much as it does me.”
“Then she’d be as foolish and shortsighted as you.”
So much to learn yet, Mallick thought. Still so much.
“Your connection is your blood, your light, your ancestry, and it isn’t sex that joins you together. Or do you perceive Tonia and Fallon must be fated to join in that way as well? Or the three of you—”
“Whoa.” Sincerely appalled, Duncan shoved out a hand like a stop sign. Snaps of light shimmered from the fingertips. “That’s my sister.”
“Your twin. As close to you as any could be. Her light connects with yours, as does her blood. Nothing can sever that. Your light, Fallon’s. Her blood, yours. It’s a bond unbroken. You’ll bed who you choose, as will she.”
Duncan sat again. “It’s not ordained? Because thinking maybe it is bugs the shit out of me.”
“The gods don’t bind you, Duncan.”
“Aren’t you bound?”
“I took an oath. I chose to take it. So the binding is my own. I’ll never break it.”
Duncan contemplated his beer before polishing it off. If he knew one thing, absolutely, about Mallick, it was the man never lied. “Okay then. So when I go back for her, and I will, it’s because it’s what I want.”
“Keep in mind, boy, she also has a choice. Now, keep your blood cool and draw the map. We still have work ahead of us.”
Duncan drew maps, and with Mallick plotted out their plan of attack. Timing, directions, numbers.
They hand-selected the troops, a mix of magickals and NMs, pinpointed a safe zone they’d secure to move the prisoners, any wounded, and a system for transporting them east while leaving a contingent in Utah.
They’d establish their first base in the West.
Long after Mallick went to bed, Duncan couldn’t sleep. Instead he sat at his desk sketching the land he’d seen, that desert sky, those fanciful, to his eye, buttes and mesas.
He didn’t feel the vision take him, but caught in it, his hand chose pencils, moved over the page, drawing, shading, detailing what formed in his mind.
He more than saw those images. He heard, he scented, he felt.
When he came out of it, his fingers cramped, his arm ached. He’d worn one of his precious pencils to a stub, had sharpened and used a second.
The drawing—and he knew he’d never done anything to match it—lay complete. The great towers rising, the rubble, the smoke,