And all under his command.

He waited, his own eagerness growing, the thirst for vengeance searing his throat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

White heard the first snaps of gunfire, watched the first spear of lightning rip across the dark. The crows swarmed in.

Like music, he thought. Like triumph.

Like power.

Finally, what had risen from the dark would know all he was.

“Now. To the heart, straight to the heart to tear it out.”

But rather than the gardens, as planned, the protective shield held. When power struck power at the checkpoint, the light spread. In the pale green the faeries brought, the troops, the people of New Hope, magickals, NMs, farmers, teachers, soldiers, weavers, potters engaged the enemy.

On the road to town, in the woods, over fields, on outlying farms, they struck back.

Colin and his recruits met the enemy rushing from the south. Flynn sprinted with troops from The Beach through the woods, turning the ambush back on the attackers. At the farm, Travis fought with Eddie while Fred turned the torches and flaming arrows meant to burn down her home to flowers. To the east, Will fought with his son, with Poe and his.

At the checkpoint, Simon fired from his sniper’s nest, blocked out worry for Lana. She’d refused to join the second line of defense, and whipped her power against the dark on the front line.

White had haunted her and hunted her, he understood. And Mallick was with her. He had to trust.

Duncan wove his bike through the oncoming forces, sword slashing in one hand, power in the other. He swung back, the bike another weapon as Tonia loosed arrows from her own sniper’s nest.

A pair of Raiders—and he could admire the chopper under them—barreled toward him. The one riding tandem heaved an axe. Veering to avoid the crash, Duncan flipped power, sent the axe flying back and into the skull of the lead rider. The speed, the sudden loss of control sent the chopper careening off the road, into the tree where Tonia had her nest.

“Watch it!” she snapped out.

“Sorry.”

He spun around, saw a couple more Raiders, some PWs on foot, a couple on horseback pull back to retreat.

“No, not today.”

He started to pursue, then saw White.

“Son of a bitch. Assholes in retreat!” he called out, satisfied when riders on horseback set off after them. He spun around again to confront White.

He looked dazed, Duncan realized. Likely from the crash into the shield. But the two DU’s flanking him didn’t have the same issues.

He threw up a block, and still the force of the power strike spun at him nearly unseated him. He gunned his engine, started to blast out his own.

Fallon dived out of the sky, Laoch’s wings arrowed up. Both the wolf and the owl leaped off to join the battle. And she, as Duncan fought to keep the flood of emotions inside him dammed, 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, so I’m asking.”

“It’s done.”

“Okay then.” Tears swam into his eyes, and his jaw trembled, but he nodded, sharp and firm. “Okay.” He walked back to Fred, to the arms she put around him.

“You ain’t gonna lock me up, lying bitch.” Rove spat at her. “Everybody knows you burn the righteous alive with your hellfire.”

“You’ll be disappointed when you find yourself in prison for the rest of your life. We don’t execute prisoners. We don’t enslave them, torment them.”

“Lying spawn of hell. I should’ve cut the throat of your whore of a mother when I had the chance.”

Fallon clutched the hilt of her sword. “I wish you and your twisted soul a long life in the dark you’ve chosen. No, leave him,” she said when Will moved forward to take him away. “Let him hear what the one he follows has to say.”

She walked forward to White. “Wake.”

Still dull from the spell, White’s eyes blinked open. As they cleared, as he struggled to get to his feet, found himself bound, a violence came into them.

Hate, deep and crazed, with fear riding with it.

“Things didn’t go as you planned,” she told him. “New Hope stands. You don’t.”

“More will rise in my place. Legions to strike you down.”

“I don’t think so, but they can try. There are people here tonight we freed from you and your followers. Children you branded and took as slaves, people you raped, magickals you mutilated and tortured.”

She glanced around, saw Garrett, remembered the dream, years before, when she’d watched Duncan, Tonia, others from New Hope rescue him. She gestured him forward.

“What was done to you?”

“His Purity Warriors captured me, they locked me up with other magickals. They branded me. They tortured me, beat me, burned me, raped me. They were taking me to be hanged—they held ritual hangings at midnight on every Sunday, like … worship. The people of New Hope rescued me and the others. I was twelve.”

“Spawn of Satan,” White spat at him. “The Almighty will strike you down, you and all like you.” He managed to push up to his knees.

“You don’t deny imprisoning, torturing, branding, raping, executing children?” Fallon asked.

“They aren’t children! They aren’t human. Demons! Demons spreading their infestation over the earth.”

“Yet he lives here, as do others, causing no harm, while the Dark Uncanny you’re in league with burn and kill. The Raiders who ride with you burn and kill. With Dark Uncannys in your number you attacked the peace of New Hope, trying to end me before I was born. You killed my birth father on this very ground.”