Angelfire | The Whispering Wall #3

Twenty Five: First Move

"Can I push him into the river?"

Arlen glanced sidelong at Jesper. "Which one?"

"The short one who always looks like he's about to cry."

"Tempting." Arlen didn't like their new co-conspirators much, either. "But no."

"Damn." Jes leaned back in his chair and took a swig from his beer.

Arlen snorted. He could certainly sympathise; the more time he spent with Dirk and Kenneth, the more he was convinced that they'd had no idea what they were getting into when they decided on their grand takeover plan. Nict, Arlen was starting to feel like he hadn't, either. He'd seen it coming, and had put it off as long as he'd dared. It had been inevitable from the moment he'd learned that Marick was working with the Caelumese; even if he didn't still have active contracts, which Arlen doubted, the fact that he'd been willing was enough. He didn't escape that fucking camp only to have Angels marching through his front door decades later.

Still, he knew – he suspected everyone in this room knew – that if it hadn't been for that Caelumese contract, Arlen would never have challenged. Perhaps it would have meant his death in the end; perhaps he would've deserved it, for being so blindly faithful. What he hoped they didn't know was that he felt completely out of his depth.

"Where's this meeting again?" Darin asked. He stood at the pot over the fire, tending to a stew that smelled better than anything Arlen or any of the others had cooked in the last decade. If nothing else, his presence had vastly improved dinnertimes.

"I don't know," Arlen said, and intercepted before Darin could speak again. "We're waiting for word."

"Shouldn't you be telling them where to meet?"

"I could. But Callan is better at organising this kind of thing."

He had his own misgivings. Callan had made it as clear as he ever made anything that he would be backing Arlen – from the shadows, never publicly – but the fact remained that he was in regular contact with both Harkenn and Marick.

The fact also remained that Callan was as close to a neutral party as the dead quarter came, so most Devils at least respected him, even if they didn't trust him. He was far more likely to gain Arlen some support than the members of his group, who had built up their own tiffs and grudges over the years, and he knew the dead quarter better than anyone. If Arlen didn't start risking his trust on at least a select few, he would find himself woefully outnumbered and unprepared. He would just have to be vigilant.

He remembered just how vigilant Marick had been during his crusade, what felt like a lifetime ago. Arlen had been with him from the start; though Marick had refused to take an apprentice, Arlen had still learned most of what he knew from him. He had admired his ambition, his willingness to put his money where his mouth was – he never expected anything of his men that he wouldn't do himself. And he had always been so understanding of the skinny, frustrated ex-refugee kid with the horrific scars who woke up screaming most nights— had taught him how to own his past and turn it back on a world that didn't respect him.

Arlen couldn't remember the last time Marick had run a job with his own men. For years, Arlen had directed the Devils from his side, executing his orders without ever questioning them. Perhaps that was why Marick had assumed that setting him aside would be easy. Arlen had never given any impression that it wouldn't.

"You've got that look," Usk grunted, leaning against the far wall near the window. Since he'd started meeting with the fringers and Kenneth's circle, he hadn't spent a single night without someone watching the house. "What now?"

"What look?" Arlen snapped. He dragged Jesper's beer towards him and took a swig. He grimaced. "This tastes like you pissed in it, Jes."

"Maybe I did," the assassin said, nonchalant as anything. "Kiv keeps stealing it."