“New York’s going to make D.C. look like a scrimmage. The DU forces were strong in D.C., but they’ve dominated in New York for over a decade.”
“I know,” Marichu snapped back. “I was born there.”
Gaze level, Fallon bit into the cookie. “Were you?”
“My parents were resistance. My mother was killed when I was twelve.”
“I’m sorry,” Fallon said.
“She was a soldier.” Pride rang in the girl’s voice. “She died fighting. They found the safe house where we kept the kids. She and the others beat them back, protected all of us. She died fighting. After that, my father wanted to get me out. We argued about it a lot, but he said he was going to get me out, get me to New Hope.”
“Here?”
“Everybody knows about New Hope, but mostly doesn’t believe it. Everybody knows about The One, but mostly doesn’t believe it, either.”
No longer able to resist, she leaned forward for a cookie. “But they fight anyway. My dad made me leave. Sometimes they smuggle out kids or the old or the ones who can’t take it anymore. He made me go with a group, and said he’d find me when he could. But once we were out, everything went wrong. The crows came, and the black lightning. Everybody scattered. Then there were PWs, and they were taking everybody they could or just killing them. I got away. I’m fast, so I got away. But I couldn’t get back into the city.”
“She was hurt,” Starr said.
“It wasn’t that bad. I told you it wasn’t that bad.”
“She was hurt,” Starr repeated, “and got lost in the smoke, couldn’t find the way back in. Some resistance scouts found her, took her to their camp. Then to a small base farther south.”
“They wouldn’t take me back to New York, so I took off when I could. And…”
“And,” Fallon prompted.
“I should’ve stayed with them. I understand that now. But then, I just wanted to get back to my dad. So I took off, and I couldn’t get back to New York. I figured I’d try to come here—Dad drew out a route. It wasn’t exactly right, but I followed it. I ran into more PWs, and…”
“They hurt you,” Fallon finished. “Really hurt you that time. Damaged your wing.”
“They were going to execute me, but I got away. I still got away. Then your scouts found me.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone before, about New York?”
“I didn’t know you.”
“Fair enough.”
“All of it,” Starr encouraged.
“Okay, okay. I figured, at first, I’d learn stuff here, more skills, and I’d take off again, try for New York. But then … I know that’s not the right way. I can’t do it on my own. Nobody does it on their own.”
“A good lesson,” Fallon allowed.
“Do you know Chelsea?” Lana asked her.
“Yeah. Our group stayed mostly on the lower. We had other groups on the upper and the mid.”
“I lived in Chelsea.” Lana held out the plate of cookies.
“I know. There are lots of stories. It’s not like it was—my dad said it’s not, so it’s not. But I know how it is. I know where you can find resistance who’ll fight. I know where the PWs have a stronghold in what was Brooklyn, and where the military bases are in Queens.”
“I’ve got maps in the other room.” Fallon rose. “Show me.”
“I’ll show you if I can go and fight.”
“Show me,” Fallon repeated, “then we’ll decide.”
* * *
It took more than an hour, and when they left, Fallon pored over the maps, the notes, the new markings.
“I need more map paper. I have to redraw—”
“You’re going to let her go.” Lana sat, hands folded on the table. “She’s so young, and still headstrong. You can see the headstrong even though she’s trying not to show it. Maybe not to be it, quite as much.”
“Her father’s in New York, and I’m going to hope she learned her lesson, won’t make the same mistakes. Still, I told her she needed to sharpen her skills with a sword, and she’d need the go from every one of her instructors.”
“You’re going to let her go. I know you,” Lana said.
“All right, yeah. What do you think she’d do if I said she had to sit this out? She’d take off. If I said she needed more discipline, same thing.”
“I know that, too. Just as I know Duncan and Tonia, and most of the others, were already in the fight by her age. But with so many joining, we’ve been able to up the age for combat, give them more time.”
“Her father’s in New York,” Fallon said again. “Everyone she really knows, the world she considers home. I can’t stop her, so I use her, yes, but she goes back with an army. She doesn’t go back alone.”
“And still, it makes me sad. I can know you’re right, that I’d very likely do the same, and still be sad. I’ll get your paper.”
Rising, Lana stepped over, pressed a kiss to the top of Fallon’s head.
With the new information, Fallon huddled with her parents, Duncan and Tonia, Will. She added Katie, Jonah, Rachel, and Fred for their knowledge of old New York.
“Tony and I lived here.” Katie laid a finger on the old map. “My parents here, his here. This is the hospital where you were born.”
“DU Central now,” Duncan said, then immediately looked at Katie. “Sorry, Mom.”
“No, that’s the reality. New Hope’s home, where I raised you and your sister, where we made our life. They’ve twisted and burned what was my home, but that doesn’t mean we can’t and won’t take it back.”
“I lived here, started out here,” Rachel said, “but I wanted my own place, and an easy commute to the hospital. I didn’t grow up there like Katie, and wouldn’t know the area nearly as well as Jonah would, as he drove those streets every day as a paramedic.”
“We were based here, covered this section.” It took him back, those street names. “I imagine some of the buildings are gone, some of the streets destroyed, but the layout’s the layout. We took the boat from here to get out, decided to try for Hoboken.”
“Hell of a night,” Rachel said, and laid her hand over his.
“Yeah, it was.”
“We could get troops into Brooklyn by water. Boats, merpeople.”
Jonah nodded at Fallon. “There were bridges, tunnels.”
“Marichu says the tunnels, for the most part, are for the dead and the lunatics. The bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn, destroyed, leaving Brooklyn essentially cut off. If we come in as you left, by the water, we can retake what they’ve claimed. From the outside in, while we flash more troops into the center. We do the same in Manhattan.”
“Arlys and I worked here, in Midtown. She lived close enough to walk to work. It all happened so fast,” Fred remembered. “People dying, people killing, people running. The magickals—well, there was a lot of confusion at first. I mean, one day you’re an intern, learning the ropes of broadcasting, running around New York with a cool job, a dumpy apartment you love, and the next you’ve got wings. It’s not like being born knowing. It’s a rush, and a little scary at first. Some couldn’t handle it, just went crazy, others went dark.”
“You didn’t,” Eddie reminded her. “Not my Fred.”
“You could have left,” Tonia pointed out. “Why didn’t you?”
“Arlys, the people we worked with. They needed me. After that last broadcast—God, that was awful—Jim, he was in charge then, said that Arlys had to get out, and I just knew I had to go with her.
“We walked down to Thirty-fourth—here.” She showed them on the map. “And walked the PATH tunnel to Hoboken.”
When she pressed her lips together, Eddie laid a hand on her thigh, rubbed.
“We got through it.” She put her hand over his for a quick squeeze. “The thing was, Hoboken was pretty deserted, but it wasn’t destroyed. Not even looted much.”
“PW base now, according to Marichu. We take it out,” Fallon said, “make it ours.”
“We’re fighting on a lot of fronts, Fallon.” With the others, Will studied the maps, old and new. “PWs in New Jersey, DUs and PWs in Brooklyn, military in Queens, and all of that in Manhattan.”
“That’s why we’ll win. Not in a day, not in a week, not in a month, but we’ll win. We’ll drive them out. I was conceived there, like Duncan, Tonia, Hannah. Ross MacLeod traveled back from Scotland to die there. The firsts of New Hope found each other there, and found their way out. Now it’s time to go back.”
She looked at Fred. “You could have escaped when the time came over the water on wing, but you went into the dark because a friend needed you. And you, Jonah, on the edge of despair, chose life because a stranger needed you. Arlys chose truth rather than the safety of lies. Chuck gave Arlys and Fred shelter and a way out. Katie gave a helpless infant a mother and family. Rachel stepped into the unknown because she was needed. My mother left everything she knew and loved, met a stranger and his dog on the road, and helped them. That’s what we take to New York. And that’s a powerful weapon.”
“Can’t argue with it,” Will admitted. “But I’d feel better going into this with a shitload of swords, arrows, bullets, and soldiers.”
“And we will. But we’ll also go with the light, strong and powerful enough to shut down the dark.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It felt a little strange, and altogether amazing, to sit in Fallon’s kitchen while she fixed breakfast. Just the two of them, Duncan thought, in the big house. Her parents and Ethan had left the day before, his mom had steadied up—with the framed picture of her family on the mantel.