Wizardborn (World's First Wizard Book 3) by Aaron Schneider (classic books for 11 year olds .txt) 📗

not accustomed to having people take the initiative. Good thing he hadn’t returned to the hotel room Jorge had rented for him. The general staff would have been left waiting a good long while if that were the case.

“I’m sorry you had to spend time looking for us,” Milo said sincerely. “We went to visit a church.”

The officer, a first lieutenant Milo noted, gave them a wry look and nodded at Ambrose.

“Bloody knuckles are an odd thing to collect at a church service,” he remarked dryly. Ambrose sheepishly ground his fists against the hem of his trousers. “But I was spared the tedium of hunting you down. Colonel Jorge instructed me to wait here and said that you would be along eventually.”

Milo blinked rapidly, and his fingers tightened on the cane.

“Jorge is here?”

The officer nodded evenly, but there was a subtle shift in his stance, a slight forward lean like he was preparing to spring after a skittish creature or a naughty child with a truant streak

“He arrived shortly after the recess,” he said softly as though afraid his tone might spook Milo into flight.

Milo was sure he looked as nervous as he felt at the announcement of Jorge’s arrival, but he couldn’t think of anything to say to break the tension. Thankfully, Ambrose cleared his throat and drew the eyes of the looming trio.

“So, instead of the tedium of stretching your legs in Berlin, you endured the tedium of the lobby for the past few hours?” Ambrose asked, arms tucked behind his back now that he had given up on cleaning his knuckles. “There’s decent coffee, and the scenery isn’t half bad,” he added with the ghost of a smile haunting his lips. At the desk behind him, a buxom administrative assistant was closing up shop at her workspace.

“You came just in time.” He nodded and swept an arm toward the conference room. “Shall we?”

Milo followed, Ambrose at his shoulder.

They made it to the double doors of the conference room, behind which could be heard a general hubbub. The lieutenant stepped forward and spoke to Milo.

“I’m afraid your aide will have to wait here,” he said in the formalized conciliatory tone that made most unpleasant things palatable. “He can stand out here with us if you’d like since we aren’t allowed to enter either.”

Milo met the officer’s gaze levelly.

“He’s not my aide but my bodyguard,” Milo said, his chin rising in challenge.

“I can’t imagine there is anything in that chamber that dangerous,” the lieutenant said with a faint chuckle that ceased as his gaze hardened. “And if there is, it's not something one bodyguard can save you from.”

Ambrose gave an audible grunt, but the wizard knew there was no point. He’d faced the old hawks alone before, and having a dustup with those Reich louts didn’t mean the hierarchy was about to shift.

“I’m sure you’ll find something to amuse yourself and stay out of trouble,” Milo said with a warning look at the big man.

“If you say so, sir,” Ambrose said as he threw himself into an exaggerated salute that looked more like a bout of epilepsy than military decorum.

The lieutenant’s eyes darted between the two of them, but he decided sorting out such things was not his problem. With a nod to Milo, he stepped aside and let the wizard stride into the belly of the beast.

“How good of you to join us, Volkohne,” Jorge remarked over his shoulder with a warmth that made his welcome sound sincere.

The head of Nicht-KAT and the man who’d plunged Milo into a world of darkness, magic, and violence was seated in the same spot the wizard had been in earlier that afternoon. Unlike Milo, the venerable officer seemed perfectly at ease under the gaze of Ludendorff and his cronies, even as the bristle-lipped crowd scowled and murmured as much or more to the colonel as they had to Milo.

“You can have a seat right here,” Jorge said, bobbing his head slowly at a seat at his left. “I don’t imagine this will take much longer.”

There were further signs of irritation from the bearish gathering of military officials, but Jorge acted like a duck in a summer rain. Milo quickly moved to the proffered seat, unsure if Jorge’s ease was a good thing or merely the velvet sheath around a descending blade.

“We are about finished, I think,” Jorge said as he turned to the general staff with an expression that was far more steel than sunshine. “I believe it is a matter of a promise made and some documents signed.”

“The general staff has not decided to accept your perspective on the situation,” Ludendorff pronounced archly, leaning toward Jorge with a deepening scowl. “Even if we do, this business with Russia is—”

“Something I think you’d much rather I handle,” Jorge cut in without raising his voice even a little. “And the general staff knows it would be ridiculous to expect me to do the work it needs while snatching the tools I have out from under my command.”

It took Milo an instant to recognize that he was silently nodding in agreement with the colonel, even as he was being described as a tool. Blithely ignoring the wizard’s mute support, Jorge continued in a mild conversational tone.

“The reality is that I’ve been working on your behalf for years now, and you were very happy to give a crippled soldier something to occupy his time until you realized the value of what I’ve brought to you.”

Jorge placed a hand on Milo’s shoulder. He couldn’t help straightening and trying to look noble. Painfully aware of where his tattoos showed and the scars on his face, Milo held himself tall and proud, even as the staff murmured and growled around them.

Perhaps it was from being in the church, but at that moment, Milo remembered a stylized stained glass panel where an angel hovered, one hand out, over a man at whose feet lions prowled.

“You haven’t dragged this young man in to judge the rightness of