“It used to piss me off.”

“Yeah, I joined that club. But it works.” He dropped his hands, stepped back once more. “I want the coordinates for the containment facility. Once they realize D.C.’s falling, somebody down there could panic. They’d start killing prisoners. Which,” he added, “you’ve already thought of.”

“I planned to tell the other commanders what I told you. We’ll have a rescue force take the containment center, free and transport prisoners to Arlington. You were already on it.”

He nodded. “I’m going to share this with my key people when I get back today.”

“Pick two for the rescue team.”

“Can do. I’ll also tell the troops when we’re ready to flash to D.C. The rage will pump them up. I have to get back, spend a little more time with the family before I leave.”

He looked around. “You know, I didn’t figure I’d miss the snow. But I do.” His eyes locked with hers. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

When he turned, she scooped up snow, balled it, winged it. The impulse, and his over-the-shoulder grin made her laugh. “Now we’re even.”

“Until next time. I’ll see you on the battlefield.”

When he walked away, she thought: Not just the battlefield of D.C. They would see each other on so many more.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Just before dawn on January second, Fallon stood in front of the barracks. More than two thousand spread out with her. Some mounted horses, others straddled motorcycles. Foot soldiers moved into formation.

Breath expelled in clouds swirling the air in mists.

The dying night hung cold and clear, the waning half-moon sailing low as the stars shimmered out. A fresh snowfall lay like ermine over branches while men and women trampled it underfoot to move into position.

She saw Marichu take hers, quiver on her back, eyes already fierce.

Those who would stay behind had already said their good-byes, embraced their loved ones, and waited now in the shivering dark.

When she felt the sun waking, she mounted Laoch, called Taibhse to her arm, and Faol Ban to her side.

She turned her horse to face the troops.

“What you do today, you do for all. Every blow you strike is a blow against persecution, bigotry, suffering. You are the brave and the true. Today you fight for all who are hunted and caged, tormented and slaughtered, and what you do this day will ring the bells of hope and freedom through the smoking cities, through the forests and over the hills, the seas.

“We are warriors of the light.” She drew her sword, lifted it high as the air rang with cheers. “And today, as surely as day breaks the night, our light strikes back the dark. Solas don Saol!”

Thousands of voices echoed the call. Solas don Saol!

As the sun shimmered, blooming rose over the eastern hills, she enflamed her sword.

And struck the first blow in the heart of D.C.

Within seconds, the air filled with shouts, screams, gunfire, the flame of arrows, the thunder of horses, a roar of engines. Much of the city, already in rubble, smoked from fights waged through the night.

Overhead, the crows circled and cried out in a kind of jubilation. Taibhse shot off her arm, a white missile, tore through the smoke and ripped at the crows with beak and talon.

Fallon rode toward power. She felt it pump, black and vicious, pushed through the oily stream of it toward a woman striking out with bolts of red and black at oncoming troops.

With her shield, Fallon slapped a bolt to the ground, where it burrowed in the rubble. And with one swipe of her sword she ended it as Laoch soared over the fallen body and the charred stones.

A man with a bat studded with nails rushed forward, struck down one of the government militia. “Resist!” he shouted, and behind him poured a dozen more as Fallon rode into the chaos.

Arrows flamed and flew through the dull morning light. Fire burst from the thunder of explosives, quaking the ground as brick and stones avalanched from ruined buildings. Their dust spumed up, another smearing haze so thick soldiers became ghosts.

She pounded through wherever she felt that pulse of dark power, striking down, battling back. As war cries echoed, she thought of nothing but the next foe, the next inch of ground. Sweat and blood rolled through the frigid wind as powers clashed, as steel rang and bullets sliced.

Her forces drove through the barricades, north, south, east, west. Dozens of ugly battles flooding a city that no longer stood for its people, no longer honored the blood spilled, the lives sacrificed for centuries to preserve the rights of its people.

Monuments defaced, parks scorched to ash, the dome of the Capitol broken and blackened.

In that dawn, through the bitter morning, they fought savagely against the government forces, the Dark Uncannys, the cold hands of cruelty that had choked all life, all hope from a once shining city.

She took Laoch up, dived over the base, heaved down fireballs.

From her height she could see holes in the enemy lines, holes in her own defenses. Relayed orders to exploit the first, close up the second.

In her mind Duncan shouted, We need to move on the containment center. They could start executing prisoners. We need to move there now.

Now, she agreed. She shot down on Laoch, leaped from him. “Fight,” she told him, and flashed.

Men and women scrambled to secure vials, samples, equipment. In what she took to be a holding cell, a boy—no more than sixteen—struggled against his chains. She heard the echoes of shouts beyond the main lab.

A woman running for a steel door, pushing a wheeled crate, saw her, shrieked.

“You should fear me. You should be afraid.” Like a backhanded slap, Fallon knocked her to the ground with a wave of power.

Alarms screamed. One of the men, his black uniform pristine against the flapping white lab coats, drew a sidearm. She melted it in his hand so he dropped to the floor.

The rest dropped to their knees, threw their hands in the air. She heard the rescue force battling, knew with all she was they wouldn’t fail.

“Carter,” she said, and read the fear in one pair of eyes.

As she stepped toward him, tears leaked from his eyes.

“Please. I was only following orders. President Commander Hargrove himself—”

“Torture, rape, mutilation, genocide. Experimentation on infants. These are your orders?”

“Please. I’m a scientist.”

“You’re a war criminal.” And because he deserved the insult—and so much more—she rammed her fist into his face.

Face coated with soot, eyes as fierce as they’d been at that break of dawn, Marichu pushed through. Those eyes and the arrow already nocked made her purpose clear.

Fallon simply shifted in front of Carter, said, “No.”

She turned to the holding cage, opened the locks, dropped the chains away. The boy staggered out.

“Give me a weapon. Let me kill them.”

“We don’t kill prisoners. We’re not like them.” She turned her gaze to Marichu. “We won’t be like them. Into the cage,” she told the rest, and gestured to Carter. “Drag him with you. Quickly, or I may change my mind and give this boy one of you after all.”

She turned to the boy. “Can you fight?”

“Yes.”

“Then fight.” She gave him her knife. “I’ll need that back. Let’s move.” She led him toward the sounds of combat, stopped short when she saw Arlys.

“You’re supposed to be—”

“Right here.” In flak jacket and helmet, Arlys recorded. “Right here. Finish this. For God’s sake, finish this and get these people out of here.”

“It’s done.” Duncan swung his sword left, right, and did what Arlys asked. He finished it.

“Secure the doors,” Fallon ordered. “You,” she snapped at Marichu, “help secure the doors, and don’t make me regret I gave you your wish.”

Cells, glass walled, ran at least fifty feet on either side of the space. People crowded into each section, some unconscious, some glassy eyed, others shouting for release. Children, separated from the adults, huddled together. In another, six infants squalled in clear containers with locked lids.

Like animals, Fallon thought. Even the babies caged like animals.

“We’re going to get you out. Those of you who can fight, move out and to the left when we get the doors opened. We’ll get the others to safety.”

She gripped Duncan’s hand. “Help me.”

They joined, power to power, purpose to purpose.

“Magickally sealed,” he murmured.

“Yes, I feel it. But we have more.”

At her call, Tonia, blood splattered on her thick jacket, joined hands with them.

The glass began to hum, to ripple, to vibrate.

“Open, not break. There the locks, here the key. Turn the key to set them free.”

The glass moved, a fraction, an inch, a foot, section by section, row by row.

People poured out, supporting, even carrying others. Some ran to the children, gathering them up, weeping. Over the clash of voices, languages, Fallon pitched her own.

“Stand together! We have to move quickly!” She noted more than a dozen walked to the left, prepared to fight. “Hold on to the children, the infants, the injured.”

“Where will we go?” someone cried out.

“Arlington. They’re waiting for you. Stay together, trust the light. Take them,” she said to Tonia. “With Greta and Mace, as planned.”

“We’ve got it.” With the two other witches, Tonia focused power. “We’ll be back,” she said, and flashed the rescues.

Fallon walked to her father, laid a hand on his arm to heal a wound. “Give them weapons. Lead them. Take this house.”

“Your standard’s going to fly over it tonight.”

“Secure the prisoners in the cells. We’ll be bringing another.” She looked at Duncan. “It’s time to cut off the head. Are you with me?”

“You know I am.”