Angelfire | The Whispering Wall #3

Eighty: A Blessing

The camp woke to the sound of screams.

Jordan glanced at the tent entrance. He'd not been asleep, but he felt strangely alert despite the terrible night he'd had. Another shriek echoed across the camp in the rising light, and Astra stirred beside him as Ren bounded through tent flap and jumped on them, ears back and eyes wide.

"It's okay," Jordan murmured to the animal, as she started trying to burrow her way inside his cloak.

He gathered her up in one arm, using the other to pull up his hood so she could wriggle inside. She settled around his neck, bristling fur tickling his skin.

Astra pulled her own cloak tighter around her as she sat up, pushing several locks of pale hair back into her hood. She glanced at him, the look loaded, but he pretended he didn't notice as they both crawled out of the tent into the dawn light. There was a fresh note in the breeze, an ominous hint of the impending change of season, and Jordan could tell from the crackle in the air that the wards had been activated overnight by demons. He felt an unpleasant lurch, deep in his gut, as he faced the prospect of returning to the city with the dark season back in full swing.

The Unspoken at their fireside were all standing, Nika and Koen side by side with arms crossed, staring in the direction the screams were coming from. Henrik had a pipe going and had turned to another fireside camp to discuss what was going on. For the number of people here, the place was eerily quiet.

Except for the screaming.

"Some of the luggage handlers," Nika murmured, as Jordan and Astra joined him. "Came out of their tent screaming about dead bodies. Cara and Yddris are both investigating now."

Jordan pursed his lips, mutely helping himself to a bowl of the porridge Nika had left warming over the fire. If he moved too suddenly, he caught a remnant whiff of the awful stuff Silas had given him to distribute, finally understanding the whole morbid illusion Akiva had concocted to spook Marick's spies. By the sound of the screaming, it had more than worked.

"There was a headcount," Koen said. "There's no one missing."

Jordan dug into his bowlful, feeding a few pieces of dried fruit into his hood to calm Ren down. Then he sat down beside the fire and began to roll himself a cigarette with shaking fingers.

He sensed Nika's eyes on the back of his head, and a moment later the Unspoken joined him. They said nothing for a long while, not even when Jordan finally got the cigarette to light and drew in a long breath, feeling tension flood out of his neck and shoulders along with the smoke out of his mouth.

"Is it them?" Nika murmured.

"Is it who?" Jordan replied, blandly.

In the darkness of the man's hood, two bright embers of green narrowed. "You know who I mean, Thorne."

"The ones screaming?" He stuffed another mouthful in, propping the cigarette between two fingers. "They probably drank too much."

He didn't see Nika's scowl, but he certainly felt it. "You do know I'm a physician, Thorne, don't you? Beer is not a known hallucinogen, in my rather extensive experience."

They both looked up as Yddris stalked back into the camp, Nova on his heels. Grace hadn't yet emerged from the tent, it seemed. Jordan could hardly blame her, with all the effort she'd gone to in order to throw him a party. He couldn't quite believe that he'd done what he had last night; after setting up the spies' tents to create a waking nightmare for them, he and Silas had gone back to the celebrations. He'd danced with his sister to the music played by a few of the Varthians. He'd even enjoyed himself. He certainly didn't feel bad about what he'd done.