Angelfire | The Whispering Wall #3

Six: Grudges

Shadow's Reach was a dive compared to Caelum. The streets of the Angel Annexe were always clean, lined with towering buildings of polished, meticulously carved stone. The cobbles were well-set and smoothed, and the people were always neat and polite. The palace presided over all, pale stone gleaming, the crown of the city set in towering spires and panelled domes and elegant balconies.

Jeorge Nerahardt stepped over another mound of abandoned pig shit and cursed as someone shoved past him. He didn't retaliate, like he wanted to. He couldn't afford to draw any undue attention to himself.

The streets of Shadow's Reach were a maze of winding trails through close-packed buildings, some broad, some narrow enough to touch either side without extending one's arms. The state of the cobbles also varied; in some streets they were still set, but worn into divots and potholes. In others, loose cobbles littered the stretch, deadly in the dingy light, and Jeorge had spent enough time over the last weeks hobbling about on crutches to find that intensely agitating. He had only just got his mobility back; he wouldn't lose it again over something as stupid as bad paving.

No, Shadow's Reach didn't have a patch on Caelum...aside from the fact that Nictaven's native despot was a deal tamer than Lucifer. At least Harkenn didn't view his people as little more than fodder for the war machine. Jeorge had thrown his lot in with Harkenn, for better or worse, even though he could barely stand the man. He could respect him, though, and that was more than he had ever been able to say of Lucifer.

He turned another corner. The fact that the street opened out only meant more people could crowd into it, but for now that suited his purposes. He checked the astral tabs he had been keeping on those who were following him, and found them again immediately. If they thought they were being subtle, they didn't have any idea how Angel senses worked. There were two, as far as he could tell, though he hadn't been able to see anyone he could connect to those signatures. Among all these other humans he might have lost them if they hadn't been carrying something – objects or artefacts – that lit them up like beacons.

There had been two more following the demon catcher's apprentice, though the Unspoken had been completely unaware of it, blunted as their senses were. Jeorge was not of a mind to panic yet, not like he would have if he'd sensed Angels, but a deep uneasiness had settled in his gut at the second pair. If it was just him being tailed, he'd have theorised that someone with particularly ill feeling towards the Caelumese had worked out who he was and didn't much care which side he was on. But the demon catcher's boy wouldn't be tailed for that, and that suggested something far more complex than prejudice. They could have been unrelated, only Thorne's pursuers also carried that strange astral marker.

Well, he'd done his rounds and was no better off for them. He patrolled each city quarter as regularly as his legs could manage it – Harkenn's orders, to pick up on any new portal activity as soon as it appeared. So far, he had sensed nothing, and he doubted Caelum would try again so quickly at any rate. All he'd got from these patrols was a pair of stalkers.

With a sigh, he shunted himself past a group of civilians who had decided that the perfect place to stop and have a long-winded chat was smack in the middle of a crowded street, and pushed on back up the hill towards the castle.

He stepped inside the foyer in a distinctly worse mood than he'd been in stepping out of it a couple of hours before. His cloak was imbued with the stink of the Reach; smoke and dust and every kind of animal shit going. He felt greasy just from being out in it.

"Lord Harkenn requests you join the meeting in his study." A guard spoke from one side of the grand staircase leading up to the next floor of the castle. The human wouldn't look him in the face as he spoke, and shuddered visibly as Jeorge removed his cloak and flexed his cramping wings.