“He should be,” Talon remarked.
Storm’s jaw pulsed.
“For the record, I think this is going to sink like a stone,” he continued, glancing at each of them in turn to gauge their expressions. “But Alex wants to try and play nice, so I’m willing to make an effort until the guild inevitably gives me a reason to go nuclear.”
“The guild may,” Storm allowed, “but he won’t. If something happens, it won’t be because of Nathan.”
“How do you know?” Talon asked coolly. “You barely know this human. You’ve met him, what, twice now?”
Anger flashed through him. “I just do,” he snapped.
Talon cocked his head to one side, studying him intently, and then said succinctly, “Son of a bitch.”
Storm sighed, turning away. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut.
“Play nice, Talon,” Ira said in that knowing way of his. He was the only one apart from Alex who could get Talon to see reason.
“Have you got a hard-on for him?” Talon asked Storm with exasperation, and Storm gnashed his teeth. “We can’t keep picking up strays.”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Ira said calmly before Storm could snap. “For as long as the guild continues to mistreat its members and drive them toward us, we’ll keep taking them in. We’ll gather allies and grow our operation.”
“I never wanted this to be anoperation,” Talon said through a groan.
“But it will be,” Wolf said, as calmly as his human counterpart. If Storm and Nathan were half as well-matched as these two, Storm could barely wait to begin. “We all see it coming. Ira has said he wouldn’t be the last human to turn sides. There’ll be others. If the next one happens to be this one, so be it. We could do worse. They all talk about that guy like he’s a brother they haven’t had a chance to visit in a while. He’s a strong warrior who’s trying to do the right thing. Let’s not ruin it before it starts by being unnecessarily distrusting.”
“Unnecessarily?” Talon asked. “Ask Malachi here if he’s unnecessarily distrusting after what they did to Luke.”
Malachi grunted, apparently unwilling to get involved in the conversation. He’d turned his head to one side, listening to the humans talking in one of the back rooms. Their voices filtered, quiet but clear, to the demons’ enhanced hearing. A few moments later, laughter filled the air, and Storm forgot his anger as he picked out Nathan’s unfamiliar laughter, like wind chimes in a breeze.
“Nathan didn’t agree with what they did to Luke,” Ira said. Storm didn’t understand how he maintained his sense of calm all the time. He wanted to break the goddamn table. “But paladins are peons in that guild. They don’t make the decisions, and you’ve seen what happens when they disobey. Give Nate the benefit of the doubt. He’s here. He’s trying, and it’s probably put him at odds with the loud majority of the guild already.”
Talon huffed out a sigh through his nose. “I’ll reserve judgment.”
“That’s all I ask,” Ira said loftily, smug now that he’d won.
The humans returned, and when they passed under the disco ball and the colored lights, Nathan craned his neck back to look at it all, the mirrored ceiling reflecting their images back at him. Storm fought down a laugh as he made himself dizzy, stumbling a bit on the padded mat.
“Y’know, I always wanted to come to a place like this as a kid,” he said. “I can’t believe you bought one and turned it into an actual base of operations, but I’ve got to say, I love it. The outside looks like something out of a horror movie, though. You might want to hang up a sign or something so people know they haven’t stumbled into a slasher.”
Luke snorted, easing through the gap in the partition. “Yeah, we know. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe we’ll get a sign after we figure out what to call ourselves.”
Alex and Luke returned to their places beside Talon and Malachi, and a quiet sense of satisfaction swept through Storm when Nathan rounded the table to stand beside him. Did he even realize he’d done it?
On Nathan’s other side, Ira asked, “How are things at the guild these days?”
Nathan bowed his head with a sigh, bracing his hands on the table. “Not great. The council still isn’t in agreement about how to handle the halflings, and Sloan has started rallying the captains to help sway them. Many believe wholeheartedly that they should be eradicated. Too few of us recognize that they aren’t killing people and that focusing on them would, at the very least, be a waste of resources. And a moral failing, in my opinion.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid that once enough of them start calling for blood, the holdouts on the council will give in to keep the peace. I believe they’re blinded by their pride. Somehow, they’ve internalized the three of you leaving with some sort of personal insult against the guild and everyone in it. They’ve been forcing the captains to check in with their squads and then report any suspicious behavior to Sloan. There’s even talk of phone and bag searches to make sure no one has been in contact with any halflings. I’ve been trying to do my part as a voice of reason, but there aren’t enough of us. We’re drowned out by the hate.”
Grim silence followed, until Alex broke it. “What does that mean for us?”
“Sloan specifically asked me to find out where your base is located. I don’t know why, but I worry he’s planning something.”
“Of course he is,” Talon said. “Prideful men don’t stop until they’ve had their perceived revenge. He’ll keep coming after us until he thinks we’ve paid.”
“Well, I won’t tell them I know where this place is,” Nathan said firmly. “As far as they’re going to be aware, we met in a public location just like Storm and I did when we first met. I’m going to tell them you’re all far too paranoid to let me anywhere near your homes or your place of work. If they don’t know where this place is, they can’t attack it like they did In Extremis.”
“They know where we live, though,” Luke pointed out. “They’ve known for a while. We were being tailed for weeks.”
“They’ve backed off recently,” Alex said. “I haven’t seen any paladins since the attack at the club.”
