“Mercer?”

“He’s really, really pissed off. This isn’t a sanctioned attack.”

“He’s gone rogue?”

“He was burned, badly, in the explosion that night. He’s been stewing on this ever since. He lost status with Jeremiah White; he’s been demoted. I can’t get it all, and only got that because his hate’s so huge. I didn’t wait to try for more. I just know he has more than a hundred with him, and two squads of Raiders.”

Duncan nodded, coolly calculating. “They’ve been known to hook up. They let the Raiders take some of the magickals for bounty. Dead or alive.”

“They raided the armory—what was left of it—killed some of their own to do it. And they raided other settlements. They have a number of militarized weapons with them, and two tanks.”

“Tanks? We could use a couple of tanks. Hold on, be right back.” He started out, turned back. “Don’t eat my sandwich.”

“It’s burnt.”

“Don’t eat it,” he repeated.

She pushed up, paced. Midnight, she thought, hours past the time she’d aimed for. And now she was stuck in a kitchen that smelled of burned bread instead of talking to the leader.

Well, she could tell her mother they had access to cheese here, and that Katie’s kitchen had walls the same color as the daffodils in a skinny bottle on the table.

And that Katie’s son had very quick reflexes, even if he couldn’t grill a sandwich.

He came back, dark jeans worn to gray at the knees, a black T-shirt, hair that had a touch of his mother’s curl and fell shaggy over the back of the shirt.

He carried a roll of paper, pencils, a couple of hand-drawn maps.

Well drawn, she noted as he spread them on the table. One of New Hope, another of the area around the town proper.

“Okay.” He sat, picked up the sandwich in one hand, bit in. “Show me. Which road are they using?”

She picked up one of the pencils, then stopped, narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you find out who told the Mercer group where you’d scout the day you found the wounded man?”

“No. We’re keeping our eye on a couple of people. There’s a woman who was part of a cult. Crazy bastards. She’s still here—has a baby—but she keeps separate. She won’t wear regular clothes. She might work with the PWs, even though they raided their camp and we saved her ass and plenty of others. Crazy bastards,” he repeated.

“There are a couple of others. This guy who took a place about a mile out of town. Keeps to himself, big-time. He’ll barter, but only with non-magickals. And there’s Loony Lenny. He’s just not right. Will’s had to lock him up a few times since he wandered in. He just loses it. Otherwise he’s quiet and a little spooky. Anyway, we’re working on it. If we’ve got somebody who’s part of the community working with the PWs, we’ll dig them up eventually. Or they left already, and that’s what most figure happened. People do move on.”

“I don’t want you to tell anyone who you don’t trust completely. Who isn’t part of the structure of command. Not friends, not anybody, not some girl you want to impress.”

“You’re a piece of work.” He bit into the sandwich again. “I get you’re going to—sooner or later—lead the forces of light against the forces of dark and all that. I’ll be right there with you if and when, but right now? We’ve got a pretty good ear to the ground between Chuck and Arlys and the communication committee. We haven’t heard anything about this attack you’re talking about. But I figure you’re not here to bullshit. I’m also going to bet my ass and half of yours, since there hasn’t been a lot of talk about some girl warrior raising hell, I’ve clocked a lot more field time than you have.

“And one more? I don’t need to blab and brag to impress girls. So show me where you saw them on the map, tell me what you know. You can even add in what you think.”

She heard him, the cool logic in his words. And still she hesitated another moment. “There’s something or someone under in this place. Something working under. Can’t you feel it?”

He frowned, picked up his glass of milk. “Yeah, I can feel it. Yeah, it pisses me off I can’t find it. I’ve tried. I can’t find it. So you don’t have to worry about me talking about this with anybody I don’t know inside and out.”

Fallon did a quick sketch on the roll of paper to coordinate with the maps. “This road.”

“Straight onto Main Street? Bold.”

“Mercer … He’s angry and not a very smart person. He blames us—magickals—for everything that isn’t the way he wants it to be. He’s not a true believer like the one who sacrificed himself. He’s a bigot, and only rose up the ranks through connections and his own cruelty. He likes to see us suffer. He likes to make anyone who helps or befriends magickals suffer. New Hope’s his … you know about the Holy Grail?”

“Yeah, yeah. I read books, I’ve been to school. I’ve watched Monty Python.”

“Who?”

“Too bad for you on that one,” Duncan said over another bite of sandwich. “How do you know so much about Mercer?”

“I saw it in him. He doesn’t have—what is it? A filter. He just doesn’t. He thinks it, or feels it, it’s his truth. We killed his brother, and years later, we humiliated him, disfigured him.”

She frowned down at what Duncan sketched in the corner of the roll. “How do you know what Mercer looks like now?”

Duncan frowned at the sketch in turn. The thin face, the straggle of beard, the raw, rippled scarring that puckered the left side of his mouth and eye.

“I don’t know. I’m getting it off you. I don’t know how. Is it right?”

“Yes, it’s right. You draw really well.”

“It’s something to do.”

“Is reading people something you do?”

“Not usually like this.” His gaze cut up to hers. “Vibes, you know how it is.”

“One of my brothers reads people, but he understands and respects privacy.”

“What can I say? It was pumping off you when you were talking about him. And I saw his face. How many?”

“More than a hundred. The tanks, about twenty trucks—some of them are the military trucks they sometimes use to transport prisoners. Ten on horseback, armed with swords. The Raiders on motorcycles.”

As she spoke, Duncan scribbled notes.

“Horseback, swords, that’s cleanup. They’ll come in with the tanks first—after they send in a squad to take out our guards. That’s what I’d do.”

“That’s what I’d do,” she agreed. “So you’d want your line here, a mile out.”

“A good mile. We’re not going to let them get into town. Take out the tanks first.”

They huddled over the paper, the maps, the plans for nearly an hour. Fallon figured Will and others would refine it further, but she’d given them all they needed.

“Not tomorrow night, but the night after. I’ll watch,” she told him. “If I’m needed, I’ll come. But I don’t think you’ll need me. The Raiders don’t have any loyalty to the PWs, and these PWs? Mercer’s? They don’t have any loyalty to anybody. They just want blood, and payback.”

“Yeah, we’ll handle it. Appreciate the heads-up. Again.”

“Tell Will and your mother my mother saw them. She wants them to know she saw them.”

“How does she see them? How do you watch?”

She started to smile, and when she did, it moved something inside him. Then the smile faded, and her eyes went dark with vision.

“Don’t trust the fruit, the flowers. The fruit is black inside, the flowers hide the serpent’s bite.”

“What fruit, what flowers?”

“I don’t know. Sorry.” She dragged her hands through her hair because the vision, so short, so full of dark, made her head ache. “I have to go. I’ll come back if you need me to.”

“You went really pale. Do you want—”