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As she looked into his, she saw herself, a shadow in shadows.
“Be my ears.”
She heard all the whispers of the night. A mouse breathing, the crawl of a spider over a leaf, a fox slinking through the grass.
“Taibhse the wise, my spirit joins with yours. Now be my wings.”
She rose up in him, through him, and with the great spread of his wings glided up, up, above the trees. She felt the air swim by her, scented the mouse, the spider, the fox below.
For a moment, the thrill took her, the freedom of flight, the power of sight that picked out a squirrel nesting in a tree, and the union that allowed her to soar.
The sting of fuel, the stench of dark magicks, the smell of man.
She saw the elf to the east, the witch to the west, moving shadows in shadows.
She circled above the houses, the streets connecting them. A garden surrounded by fencing, penned livestock. She noted the guards posted outside of buildings, drew the map in her head.
Four men unloaded the truck Flynn had seen—of prisoners. She caught the smell of fresh blood, watched as they were dragged to a guarded building. Someone drove the truck across the compound. Another guarded area, another gate.
She counted the vehicles inside the fence, and the fuel tanks.
A group of Raiders—four, five, six, seven—sat outside, in the rear of a big house with a peaked roof. Two of them smoked something that clogged the air. The others drank . . . whiskey?
With Taibhse’s ears she heard their voices, rough and drunk. Celebrating a successful raid that day, she realized. Two dead, three slaves to trade to the PWs.
Another pulled a woman on a leash. Fallon saw the mark of a slave on her wrist, the bruises on her naked body. One of the female Raiders got up, walked over, plowed a fist into the slave’s belly that would have doubled her over if the leash hadn’t snapped her back.
“You flirting with my man, bitch.”
That brought on uproarious laughter, calls for a catfight.
The woman punched her again.
“Don’t damage her too much, Sadie,” one of the men warned as he puffed out smoke. “We gotta turn her back in in the morning.”
“She was giving you the eye.” Sadie drew a knife. “Maybe I’ll cut hers out.”
“We only rented her for the night. No point paying for a buy. Come on and bring that hot ass of yours back over here. Who won the first taste?”
One of the others stood up, rubbed his crotch.
“Well, take her on inside, start getting what we paid for.”
Sadie turned the knife in front of the slave’s face, then spat in it before she turned away.
Fallon’s spirit burned. She could help the slave. But in helping her, she risked all the others they could save. Heartsick, she glided away.
She’d remember them, she vowed. Sadie and the others, she’d remember them. And hoped with all she was they remained on the base when she led the attack.
She saw a man in black step out of a building, and felt the power from him, the ugly edge of power. Even as she understood he could feel hers, as he hesitated, began to lift his face to the sky, Taibhse winged away.
She separated from him with the wolves beside her, and Flynn, Tonia standing by.
“You were gone a long time,” Tonia began.
“There was a lot to see. Not here,” Fallon said quickly. “They have at least one powerful DU, and he might have caught a whiff of me. If he did, he’ll push out. We go back now.”
She gripped Flynn’s hand, called Taibhse to her arm, and, with Tonia, flashed home.
CHAPTER FIVE
Duncan had never seen anything like Utah.
He’d flashed west before when he, Tonia, and Fallon had searched out warheads to transform and destroy. But the time they’d spent had been inside, deep inside, those bases and compounds.
He hadn’t seen the strange, endless land, the jagged rise of mountains, the fascinating sculptures of rock or deep canyons with twisting rivers.
He hadn’t felt the breathless, baking heat or witnessed the eerie beauty of the star-drenched desert sky at night.
They’d come, he and Mallick, to scout the enemy base—what there was of it. But he took back so much more than battle plans, logistics. He brought back a kind of wonder.
Even as he asked himself what drove people to settle in a land so inhospitable, he understood it.
Eerie or not, there was beauty, and the sheer scope of space. He wanted to come back in the daylight, see what colors the light teased out of the baked earth, the towers and coils of rock, the rough peaks.
Something had driven and pushed people to leave the green of the east and travel so far, in such hostile conditions, to the browns and burned golds of the West. To build scrubby little desert towns like the one the PWs now used.
With Mallick, he studied the target—a huddle of buildings, half in serious disrepair. Trucks, bikes, a paddock holding half a dozen horses, a single milk cow, a scatter of chickens.
And one sentry, asleep on duty.
They didn’t speak much as they quietly circled the target. Sound carried on the desert air. Duncan heard the echoing calls of coyote, wolf, and the bored conversation of a trio of men sitting out at a picnic table playing cards.
He felt magicks on the air, dim, struggling, from the building behind the card game. Prisoners, he thought, drugged or injured, or both.
Fury eked through the wonder.
“We could take them out tonight, ourselves,” he whispered to Mallick. “They’re idiots.”
Mallick nodded. “No doubt, but it’s not for us, not tonight.”
“I get it, but, man, it’s hard to walk away. I’m going to get a closer look, back of the building where they’ve got the magickals.”
“Be quick, and quiet.”
He could flash, but that wouldn’t give him as many lay-of-the-land details. So he moved swiftly over the hard-baked ground, keeping out of the range of the battery-run security lights.
As he got closer, he realized the building had been—and was—an actual jail, with barred windows, no rear door.
He peeked in, saw a trio of small cells, a locked interior door separating it from the rest of the building.
Twenty-six by his count, including kids, all sprawled out in a stupor. He saw fresh brands on foreheads, fresh bruises, old bruises, dried blood. Bare feet—torn up from being forced to walk Christ kn
ew how far. Hair shorn so close and rough that scalps showed raw gashes.
He spotted two dirty jars on the floor outside one cell, and the weak lights inside it.
He heard the locks on the interior door slide, ducked down from the window.
“Told you they were all out.”
“We got orders to check every four hours, we check every four hours. Now get over and do the same on the slave quarters. And keep your dick in your pants this time.”
“What’s the point having slaves if we can’t have some fun with them?”
“Command put me in charge, and slaves are for work, not recreation. You want to fuck something, you fuck one of the bitches in here before we hang them. Now go do the goddamn check on the slave quarters.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Duncan heard one leave, the other move deeper into the room. “Dream of hell,” the man muttered. “Because you’re going back there soon. We’re going to send every one of you sons and daughters of demons back to hell. We’re going to take back our world.”
He stood there in silence a full minute. “We’re going to start building the scaffold tomorrow—right out there.”
He walked to the window where Duncan crouched below, looked out. “Right out where you can see it every damn day and know what’s coming for you. We’re going to wipe the abomination of you off the face of the earth, one noose at a time.”
He went out, locked the door.
When they finished the mission, flashed back to the cabin, Duncan pulled a beer out of the cold box, poured wine for Mallick.
“I’ll draw it up. If they don’t get reinforcements before we go, we can take them with fifty troops, max.”
“I agree. We close off their access to their weapons. They’re poorly organized as yet, and not yet fortified.”
“They think they’re off the radar—that’s the term, right? They don’t figure we know about them, think they have plenty of time to set up. They’re taking a break, more or less, after the trip out there.”
He took a long drink. “Twenty-six prisoners, drugged, most injured. I couldn’t tell how seriously. At least one of the PWs in charge is a true believer.”
Calm as a lake, Mallick sipped wine. “You’re angry, and anger clouds judgment.”
