But this was the core, she reminded herself. The first of the town structure—the council, the laws and rules and communications. She needed them all, as well as those who came from them.
Rachel and Jonah—medicals—and their oldest son with his mother’s eyes, his father’s build, struck her as prime for training.
Poe and Kim—scavenging and scouting—and their oldest daughter seemed sensible and solid.
Of course Eddie and Fred, and some of their brood carried magicks.
Flynn, an elf with no mate or children, as yet anyway. Scouting, scavenging, security.
Bill Anderson, supplies and wisdom.
Arlys and Will, communications, security. A son and a daughter, but she didn’t know them or their potential as yet.
Chuck—no children or mate. Communications and technology.
Katie—organizer, town mayor. Her daughter Hannah another medical who gave off a calm, steady air, and a … goodness that reminded Fallon of Ethan.
Antonia—witch, archer, soldier. Already instructing, so that would be of use.
Then there was Duncan. She’d considered ignoring him, since he made her edgy, but that would make her reaction to him too important.
Instead, she acknowledged him with a kind of nod and shrug, and spoke to his sister. “You’re Hannah, you’re a healer.”
“I try. I’m apprenticing with Rachel at the clinic.”
“The building across the street. I need to see it.”
“Anytime. I’ll give you a tour. It’s really great to meet you. My mom’s so happy your mom’s here. We all are. Do you like the house? It’s really pretty, and you’ve got such good neighbors with Fred and Eddie and the kids.”
“It’s a good location, and the land will be useful.”
“It has a home theater, doesn’t it?” Duncan gestured with a beer. “And a house entertainment and security system. Too bad Chuck stripped all the goodies out.”
“He’ll make use of them. And my mother and I already added security. How many healers do you have?” Fallon asked Hannah.
“Rachel’s accredited twenty-three. That’s clinic and revolving staff, and field medics.”
“That’s a good number.” For now. “How many do you train in archery?” she asked Tonia.
“Varies. We do practice courses and instructional. Adult and children—under sixteen.” She bit into a little round of bread topped with a layer of thin meat, gestured with the rest of it while she spoke. “Instructional’s usually kids, unless we have a newcomer, and those are limited to groups of twelve. During the school year, I head two classes, three times a week. Summer, it’s less, but we have summer programs.”
“Why less in summer?”
“Two months off school,” Duncan told her. “For one thing, it’s too damn hot inside the academy or the civilian school for classes.”
“You could cool the air.”
He shrugged. “Kids need a break.”
“But two months without training or structure—”
He shrugged again. “It’s how we roll.”
They’d have to roll differently.
“We should show you around,” Tonia suggested. “The town, the academy, the armory, the clinic.”
“Yes, I’d like to see how it’s organized. I need to talk to Will.”
“About what?”
She looked at Duncan. “About what’s coming.”
“You think we don’t know?”
He did—she could see it on him, in him, but she eased back from that. From him. “I don’t know what you know. I’m only sure of what I do.”
She turned and walked toward Will.
“She’s—what’s the word?” Hannah wondered. “Formidable.”
“She’d better be,” Duncan muttered.
“She has to be,” Tonia corrected.
Will glanced up as she stepped in front of him, and something in her eyes made him get to his feet.
“I’m sorry, I know this is a kind of celebration, but there are things I need to tell you, plans that have to be put in place.”
“Okay. What do you say, Mayor?”
“I’d say we’re calling this meeting to order, and Fallon has the floor.”
She’d expected to talk to Will, not address the whole group at once.
“I … know that all of you are the reason New Hope exists. That it’s grown and has structure. I know you’re the reason so many have been saved from capture, from death. From all my mother’s told me, and from what I’ve seen here, I know all of you not only fought to survive, but to build something strong and safe, a place where magickals and non-magickals live and work together. It’s why, I think, this is the center.
“There are other places like this, many not like this because they lack leadership and structure. And vision. Because they’re afraid to look and to see. There’s a reason all of you came here, why my mother and birth father came here, why he died here. A reason why I knew when the time came, I’d come here, with everyone who matters to me.”
“The center of what?”
She turned to Jonah.
“Of war and peace, light and dark. Every choice you made brought you here. If you’d reached for the gun in your pocket instead of finding the strength and courage to help a woman who needed you, you wouldn’t be here. And neither would the woman you love, your children, Katie, and hers. So, that one choice, light instead of dark. The same, the very same can be said of everyone here. This is the center and another shield.”
These faces, Fallon thought, these people, her birth father had once looked at them, and trusted them.
“You’re strong, all of you, strong. You’ll need to be. Your children will need to be.”
“I’m not going to dispute you’ve got something … extraordinary,” Will began. “That extraordinary saved lives in this room twice. I was with your mom once when she had a vision, and that’s stuck with me, so I’m not going to dispute you see things some of us don’t. We’ve worked hard to make New Hope something solid and secure. We’re willing to risk our lives to save others, and fight back against the ones who for whatever damn reason want to see us in the ground or in prisons or enslaved. But the fact is, there are only so many of us, we’ve only got so many resources. We can’t take on the whole dark side of what’s left of the world.”
“And there’s a lot of it.” Chuck tugged on the short, pointed beard he sported. “Every time I turn around I dig up a little more. I’ve dug up some of those other places you were talking about. People trying to get their shit together. But some of it’s hundreds of miles away, even thousands. We’ve got no way to get there to help or to fight.”
“Then your magickals haven’t plumbed deep enough, your technicians and mechanics haven’t, either. Your leaders haven’t fully considered that New Hope can still be swallowed by the dark.”
“You just got here.” Duncan moved forward. “You don’t know what we’ve plumbed or done or think.”
“You learned to flash,” she retorted. “Have you learned to take someone with you? To take your bike or a horse? To take an army?”
She turned to her mother. “You left your friends, your security because you knew the ones who killed here would come back. For you, for me. You didn’t consider they’d come back anyway. And they will.”
“Eric and Allegra?”
“Them or others like them. They wait, too. Our coming here starts the clock again. But … From inside and out,” she said as it swept through her, “the attack will come. From those boiled in the dark it will strike. The fruit and the flower,” she said to Duncan. “The poison and the serpent. You are as I am, and the dark wants your blood, my blood, the blood of your sister. It will not have it! I have not come to see the blood of the Tuatha de Danann shed and another shield broken.
“I am an army.” She stunned Duncan by gripping his hand, sending shock waves through him. “You are a sword shining. You an arrow in flight,” she said as she gripped Tonia’s. “We are the blood and the bone. We stand together for all who came before us, all who come after. Choose, you said to me, Duncan of the MacLeods, and I did. Now I say to you, choose.”
She let them go, took a step back though her eyes still swam with visions. “We rise and fall on your choice.”