“And you’ll tell him you think he’s being too harsh on the demon-huggers, huh?” Mark asked, mouth curling in disgust.
“I have total respect for Commander Sloan’s leadership,” Nathan said, and at one time that was true. He tried not to look too closely at the way his stomach turned as he said it now. “I believe he’s a good man, and a good man listens to his subordinates.”
“Plenty of his subordinates agree that something has to be done about the traitors.”
“They aren’t traitors,” Nathan said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “They never moved against the guild. They just left. In Luke Morgan’s case, he disappeared after an attempt was made on his life.”
“If you screw a demon, you deserve what you get,” Samson said, and the rest of the table chortled.
“Again,” Nathan’s voice shook with barely repressed fury, “it’s not our place to judge the choices they’ve made.”
Beside him, Nicolas buried his fingers in his curls and stared at the table.
“If not us, then who?” Samson said.
Nathan opened his mouth to snap, fingers clenching into a fist on the table. But before he could speak, the door opened.
Sloan breezed into the room. “That’s enough, captains. Save your frustrations for the training yard, or better yet, for the demons.”
Mark cast Nathan a smug smirk as Sloan took a seat at the head of the table.
“We’re here today for a couple of reasons. First, I’d like your opinions on our next move regarding the halflings,” Sloan said. “The council and I have been in disagreement for a while now, and I think getting some perspective from the field agents themselves might help us come to an agreement. I’ll be meeting with all the other squad captains throughout the day as they come in, but I thought meeting in smaller groups like this would give you all a chance to speak your mind.”
He wanted hungry field agents vying for permission to go after the halflings, Nathan realized. He thought having the captains’ backing would help sway the council’s decision. It wasn’t a surprise, really, but he was disappointed that Sloan was continuing to target the wrong people.
“The halflings are demons,” Mark said, raising his palms up as though it was obvious. “We hunt demons. I confess, I don’t even understand why the council is having a hard time with this.”
“The halflings don’t kill humans,” Nathan said. “I think it would be a waste of our energy and resources to target them when there are actual monsters out there killing people.”
“Oh, whatever,” Mark said disdainfully. “A monster that doesn’t kill is still a monster. It doesn’t stop being a monster just because it knows how to play nice. Haven’t we always dreamed of a time whennodemons walked the Earth? That includes halflings.”
Sloan nodded seriously, gesturing to Mark, who sat back with a smug look.
Nathan shook his head, struggling to stay logical. “We’ve also been known to seek out halflings at In Extremis on rare occasions when we need information about coming threats or local incidents. Targeting them would make it harder to seek out information in times of dire need.”
“You think we couldn’t interrogate a halfling in the future and still get what we want from them?” Mark scoffed. “We know exactly how to hurt them.”
“You’re suggesting we kill indiscriminately andtortureany future halflings for information?” Nathan asked.
“They’re monsters,” Samson said coldly. “It’s not like they even feel pain the way humans do.”
“You don’t know that,” Nathan said.
“They’remonsters,” Samson said again. “Who even cares what they feel?”
“I can think of a few,” Nicolas muttered.
“Traitors, you mean?” Mark said. “Let’s not talk about the ghoulish people who abandoned the cause to…bewith those things.”
“They’re still human beings,” Nathan added. “Just because they made choices you don’t agree with doesn’t mean they deserve to die.” He could only say it in so many ways before he started wanting to pull his hair out in frustration.
Sloan held up a hand for silence, but Mark missed it, barreling on.
“They’re welcome to make whatever choices they want, that’s true, but the moment they chosedemonsthey became no better than the monsters themselves!”
“Quiet, quiet!” Sloan called, and Mark sat back.
Nathan blew out a breath. This was going about as well as he expected.
