General Dennis Urla formally surrendered the city. He, James Hargrove, Dr. Terrance Carter, Commander Lawrence Otts, and other key figures in the city’s rule, along with two thousand enemy troops, were taken as prisoners of war.
With her father, Fallon stood in a vault, stared with some wonder at the stacks of gold bars, of silver, the wink and glint of jewels set in more gold for adornment. Cases of diamonds, cold and white.
“I wanted you to see,” she told him. “We found another, full of art, old masters. I recognized some from books. Duncan recognized more.”
“Hoarding it all. Hargrove’s personal treasure house. He—or somebody—looted the museums. Maybe at first—give them the benefit—to protect, but this? Hoarding, and for what?”
“He—and those like him—would still see this as wealth, and in wealth, power. The metal and stones can be useful, for engineering, building, mechanics, and in magicks. The art should be preserved. One day, it should be housed again, where people can see it, students can study it. It belongs to no one because it belongs to everyone.”
Simon tapped a gold bar with a battle-stained finger. “There are some who’d kill for this. It doesn’t matter you can’t plant it, eat it, keep warm with it.”
“Yeah. White kills for bigotry, for his wrathful god, but still draped Arlington in riches as he saw them. Hargrove kills for power and this. And this.” She gestured around the vault. “Because for him and those like him, those bars of metal can make one man a king, and the lack of them makes others slaves. That time is over.”
* * *
Arlys recorded all of it, with footage of the battle, of the condition of government prisoners and their rescue in her broadcast from the White House. She ended with a shot of the white standard flying through the battle smoke over the ruined city.
With Fallon, she sat with Hargrove in his cell. With her camera on a tripod, she took notes.
Though pale, he’d recovered some of his arrogance. “You’ve committed treason against the United States of America. You will hang for it. Our military and our allies will, I promise you, cut through you and wipe you off the face of this earth.”
“Allies like Jeremiah White and his cult? Allies that stand by while you sign orders to torture, maim, kill? Orders directing children be locked away in the dark and half starved? You kept infants locked away, infants born after you forcibly impregnated women. Six infants in this, once the people’s house. And embryos, fetuses, found in jars in your laboratories here.
“How many more people, children, infants, unborn are locked away by your orders?”
“You’re not people. You’re not human.”
“I bleed, I breathe, I think, I feel. I know right from wrong, light from dark. How many more, and where are their locations?”
“I am the president of the United States! I am the commander in chief.”
“Self-appointed following a military coup on what was left of the government and this city,” Arlys said briskly as she took her notes. “They weren’t much better than you.”
“No,” Fallon agreed, “not much better. If we were like them, like you, like the Dark Uncanny you’ve both used and fought against, I would cut you down with a thought.”
He paled at that, drew back. “White’s right about you. You’re from hell.”
“No, but you? I see the dark in you, the human dark, the dark with no power but force and cruelty. Your time’s done.” She rose. “You don’t have to tell me where you hold prisoners. There are other ways to find them.”
“Torture. Black magicks.”
He believed that, she realized. Believed every word of his own lies. “You’re alive. Your hand’s been given medical attention. You’ll be humanely treated. But you’ll never know freedom again. I don’t want your death. It’s enough to know that you’ll be here, under this dead city, for the rest of your life.”
“I have a couple more questions. Mr. Hargrove,” Arlys began.
“I am the president commander!”
“There is some dispute over that, but as president you’d swear to uphold the Constitution. Isn’t it a violation of the Constitution, of basic human rights, of all decency, to forcibly impregnate females detained and contained for experimental purposes?”
“They’re not human! Freaks! Abominations!”
“You consider the half-starved children I recorded being released from what’s essentially a dungeon abominations?” Arlys crossed her legs, settled in. “Let’s talk about abominations.”
Fallon left him to Arlys—skilled hands, she knew. She left the others who’d followed him, taken his orders, ignored their humanity in the glass cages and walked back into the lab area.
Mallick waited for her.
Her heart lifted. “I’m so glad to see you. Glad to see you unharmed.”
“You have the city. Even the crows have deserted it. It was once a seat of power. Will it be yours?”
“No. Those like Hargrove destroyed its light. It’ll never shine again. Now, it’s a prison. We’ll secure it, hold it, but there’s no center here.”
“I agree.”
“The issue will be feeding, housing, securing, treating medical needs for the prisoners. My last report numbered them at four thousand. We can’t hold that many here, not humanely.”
“I have a thought on that. I should say Duncan and I had a mutual thought.”
“I’d like to hear it. Not here.” She looked around at the remnants of torture. “I want air and movement. Let’s go out to the base. I’m more comfortable with a military base, even if it was the enemy’s.”
As they walked upstairs, through the building, she watched her people securing areas, transferring supplies, taking more up to what would serve as a temporary infirmary for those not seriously wounded.
“I’m told you’ve ordered anything of real historical value to be preserved and secured.”
“We have some with knowledge helping categorize,” she confirmed. “This house, this city, the country, the world? It won’t ever be what it was. Still, we need to value history, and art, and remember.”
“You learned well.”
“You taught well.”
She walked outside with him into the cold, breezy night. Much of the base had joined the rubble—she’d destroyed some of it herself. But it could and would be rebuilt, as needed.
“You’ll station some here.”
“Yeah. Straight shot to New York. Soon, Mallick. We have the momentum. And we’ll have more weapons, more troops. I only heard part of Arlys’s broadcast earlier, but that will bring more to us.”
“And more against you.”
“It’s time to dig them out.”
“You hope for one in particular.”
She looked out into the night. “Two. Not just Petra. Her mother along with her. In my heart, in my belly, I yearn for it.”
He let out a sigh that had his breath expelling in a cloud. “Such yearnings dim the light.”
“Do they?” Didn’t her shield hang on her back to defend, her sword wait at her side to strike? “Inside me I feel they’re the way through to the black, the very absence of light that crouches and watches. Is it because I want it to be, or because it is? I don’t know.”