Angelfire | The Whispering Wall #3

Twenty Three: Ultimatum

The air of good humour was doomed to be short-lived. It was alarming to sit and listen to the group discuss things like kidnap and murder with such cold practicality, as if discussing a shopping trip or what to have for dinner. In a way, it was reassuring to know that he wasn't expected to do anything except what he was told. In another way, his horror mounted at the lengths Arlen was willing to go to. Every time he thought he had worked out where the assassin's limits were, something happened that forced him to re-evaluate. He had never really believed Arlen to be entirely sane, and this discussion wasn't helping.

Jordan caught Darin's eye across the room as Arlen and Jesper argued over the best place to store a potential hostage. Darin looked like he might be sick.

Jordan glanced around, but everyone else had crowded around the table to get their bit in and didn't notice as he slipped away from the outer ring of the circle.

"You alright?" Jordan muttered. "You look like you're about to drop."

"It was different," Darin murmured, "when I knew what he got up to in theory. It was even different seeing it, before all this kicked off." He swallowed, somehow a dry sound. "I don't know who that is."

Jordan glanced over, following Darin's gaze. In the midst of the group Arlen listened intently to something Usk was saying, leant over a map spread out between them. He didn't look like he was enjoying himself.

"If I was challenging Marick, I'd be shitting myself," Jordan replied. Darin's gaze flicked to him. "You think this is bad..." He shuddered. It wasn't even that he'd seen Marick do anything particularly heinous – at least no worse than anything he'd seen Arlen do. The man just left him feeling cold to the bone. Sitting with Arlen felt like sitting with a human, albeit a cruel one; sitting with Marick felt like he was evaluating your right to live on a minute-by-minute basis. "I dunno. Maybe this is just who he has to be to have a chance in hell of winning."

Darin was silent for a moment. "The Angels are cruel. Unimaginably cruel, at least under Lucifer's reign. There's no line they won't cross in war. I heard stories... My parents fled their village during the raids, but some stayed, and when we heard about them later..." He shook his head. "Harkenn is an awful man. And...so is Arlen. Whether he's putting on a front for this or not, you can't argue that he's a good person." He swallowed again. "But this is the lesser of two evils. That's what I tell myself at night. I'm not sure there is a third option."

"Throw yourself at the Wall," Jordan said dully. "It's looking more appealing by the day, I'll tell you that for free."

"Tell me when you reach that point and I'll get us a ladder."

They glanced at each other and snorted at the same time.

"Are we boring you?" Arlen's voice cut across the room. He scowled at them both.

They joined the group at the table, eyes down, though Darin still wore the ghost of a smirk. The map still lay open, though on closer inspection it was far less official than it had looked from a distance; scrawled in blotchy pen, with annotations in what Jordan dimly recollected was Arlen's spidery handwriting.

"Area around the beer hall," Arlen said shortly. "First order of business is to find a few more people willing to back me. I don't want my whole contact list to come from those two wet blankets we met with. Nor do I want to rely on the Runners. For...anything." He sighed. For a moment he looked utterly exhausted. Jordan had met Arlen before the assassin had lost his leg; then the man had been possessed by a kind of frenetic energy, a restlessness. It had made Jordan nervous before he'd even known what Arlen did for a living.

He caught Usk, for a moment, looking as sober as if he was standing at a graveside, and guessed he probably had no idea how much damage the loss had really done.