Angelfire | The Whispering Wall #3

Seventeen: Interventions

"Are they going to try and kill me?" Jordan demanded. "Tell me honestly."

Jeorge watched him warily, gaze travelling between Jordan and the long black feather sitting on the table between them. His expression couldn't have been more repulsed if Jordan had hiked down his breeches and taken a shit in his lap.

"I doubt they would come for you directly any time soon," the Angel finally said, averting his eyes as if looking at the feather was bad luck. "Not so soon after their rather monumental failure." Just as Jordan dared to release his pent breath, Jeorge added, "But if there is a war, it would be foolish not to take the utmost precautions."

"So I should basically consider myself a priority target," Jordan said bitterly.

"You would have been anyway. Lucifer has an eye on the Unspoken and on Harkenn. You are an Unspoken strongly tied to Harkenn." Jeorge made a balancing motion with his hands. "I'm not sure this leaves you as badly off as you imagine, at least not much more so than anyone you work with. Unless they succeed in sufficiently unsettling you to make it easy for themselves."

"So they're trying to terrify me, really?"

Jeorge smirked. "They're managing, as far as I can see."

Jordan scowled and stood up, shoving the feather back into his pocket. Jeorge's white-knuckle grip on the edge of the table eased as it vanished from sight. "I'm not putting up with this shit today."

"We haven't done anything."

Between them, small bowls of herbs and incense sat at the four corners of table, unlit. Jordan had agreed to try again, after the initial fruitless attempt, but sitting here and putting up with Jeorge's insufferable snark seemed a high price to pay for something that was almost certain to fail.

"In a minute you're going to ask me to sit and clear my mind after spending the last ten minutes pissing me off. Intentionally." He clenched his fists. "You only stopped when I got that fucking feather out."

Jeorge gave him a level look. He hadn't moved from his seat and didn't seem to plan on it. "Are you experiencing any tremors?"

"I'm..." Jordan stopped, suddenly realising that that was unusual. "No."

"When was your last one?"

"This morning. We had to go and deal with a juvenile Wight in a dockside warehouse."

In reality, that had been more than a tremor; his knees had threatened to buckle when it had lunged at Yddris from behind a pile of crates. He'd counted himself lucky it hadn't been worse than that, and that he hadn't been alone when it happened.

"Would that normally have caused a seizure?"

Jordan frowned, and slowly sat back down. He could sense Jeorge was hedging at something, but it was taking him a while to put the pieces together. "I don't know. It's been such a quiet season I've only dealt with thralls. Maybe it would have."

Finally Jeorge began lighting the incense bowls one by one, the soft smoke filling the air with sweet and tangy scents in turn. The Angel's eyes were just as intense as before, boring into him through the haze. Jordan's shoulders eased as he breathed in the smoke, feeling the prick and pang of tension easing down his spine as he leaned back in his seat. The hours-long painting session with Astra the night before told all through his back, reprimanding him for crummy posture. He had been apprehensive at first, after the last few strange conversations with her, but it hadn't been awkward. They had spoken little, and even when they did it was only to comment on the work or the paints – if it hadn't been so absorbing Jordan would probably have remembered to stretch his spine at least once.