“And she’ll be stronger now. You needed to see me?”
“I wanted to talk to you and Hannah about the mobile medicals. It’s a big lift to flash your teams and your equipment to the safe zone at Arlington.”
“Lana’s talked to us already, but we can take this into my office. I want to show you the plans we just got.”
“Plans?”
“For expanding the clinic.” Rachel, a soft cloud of curls around her face, worn sneakers on her feet, led the way. “I know it’s not top of your mind right now, but it’s got to be pretty close to the top of ours.”
“I didn’t realize you wanted to expand.”
“Need to even more than want to. We talked to Roger Unger weeks ago. He was an architect before the Doom—just starting out. He’s been tutoring a few students with an interest.”
“We need people who know how to design and build.”
“Jonah and I like his plans. Maybe we want a few changes, but it hits the right notes. We’re looking—might as well go for the gold—at making this a medical complex, bringing in the dental, the basics we’ve been able to put together on ophthalmology.
“A long way to go there,” she added, tapping the reading glasses hooked to her chest pocket, “but we’ve got a start. The herbalists—and Kim’s on board—the chemists. The healers. Everything in one place,” she continued, “instead of spread around town. We’ll need more equipment, more beds, more staff, but we can’t go there until we have the space.”
“It sounds … ambitious.”
“So does taking Arlington.”
Fallon managed a half laugh. “You’re right. Let’s talk through Arlington, one more time. Then I’d like to see the plans.”
Plans, Fallon thought later as she rode home, spoke of hope, of optimism, and of determination. They’d need all of that to win, to survive, and to build those centers.
She intended to take all of it to Arlington, and beyond.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A half-moon rose over the base as she stood with the men and women she’d lead into battle. With sword, with arrow, with bullet, with tooth and claw and fist, they’d fight with her on a night so hot, so close the air had weight.
In the south on the beach, they’d fight. And more than two thousand miles to the west in the desert, they’d fight.
They’d fight and take the next step on the journey begun centuries before.
“Now,” she murmured, and so the order passed from place to place, to the south, to the west.
Lifting her hands, she thought of the lessons Mallick had taught her at a deserted prison. Patience, quiet, control.
She slid her power along the dark magicks circling the base like a deadly moat. Strong, drenched in blood sacrifice, thriving on the flesh and bone of whatever creature might cross into its open jaws, it floated into her mind’s eye.
Black and bubbling.
“On the blood of the innocents slain I call. Hear their cries, taste their tears.”
She heard them; she tasted them.
Mournful. Bitter.
“I am your sword. We are your justice.”
The black magicks clawed, scraped, snarled as she pushed against them. Bubbling dark, pulsing with heat.
“Let the light of those cut down flicker, shine, rise into flames, and burn bright to break the chains. Bodies sacrificed for ill, let the light into your spirits spill.”
She heard them calling out, felt that rising as her muscles trembled to hold it, embrace it.
And felt her father’s hand on her back, drew from that strength, that faith.
“On this night, at this hour, I call upon the power of those slain. Hear me, join me to wipe away the bloody stain.
“Your light, my light, our light unwinds the spell. And so in silence it falls to hell.”
With sweat running down her back from the effort, she nodded. “It’s down. Troy.”
The witch and her coven bespelled the security cameras. Even those few minutes would add advantage.
“Archers.”
Arrows winged their quiet death to those manning the towers.
“First wave, go.”
As elves swarmed out of the dark to scale the walls, she pushed power against the gates. She felt the locks give, turned to meet her father’s eyes. “Gates down. Second wave, go.”
And she flew up on Laoch, dived toward the base. As her forces poured toward the gates, she called for the third wave. Faeries swooped toward the prison, the slave quarters.
No alarm sounded—not yet—as she touched down. A team of elves surged toward the HQ and communications. Shifters streaked toward the armory. Since she hoped to save the fuel tanks rather