“No,” he says without looking up from his work. “It'll eventually heal on its own.”
“Why hasn’t it healed already? I mean, the rest of you healed in no time.”
“Angel sword wounds take a long time to heal. If you’re ever going to kill an angel, slice him up with an angel sword.”
“You’re lying. Why would you tell me that?”
“Maybe I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“My sword would never hurt me. And my sword is the only one you can wield.” He gently plucks out another broken feather and lays it on the blanket.
“How’s that?”
“You need permission to use an angel sword. It’ll weigh a ton if you try to lift it without permission.”
“But you never gave me permission.”
“You don’t get permission from the angel. You get it from the sword. And some swords get grouchy just for asking.”
“Yeah, right.”
He runs his hand over the feathers, feeling for broken ones. Why doesn’t he look like he’s kidding?
“I never asked permission and I managed to lift the sword no problem.”
“That’s because you wanted to throw it to me so I could defend myself. Apparently, she took that as permission asked and given.”
“What, it read my mind?”
“Your intentions, at least. She does that sometimes.”
“O-kay. Right.” I let it go. I’ve heard plenty of wacky things in my time and you just have to learn to roll with them without directly challenging the person spewing the weirdness. Challenging weirdness is a pointless and sometimes dangerous exercise. At least, it is with my mom. I must say, though, that Raffe is even more inventive than my mother.
“So...you want me to bandage your back?”
“Why?”
“To try to keep infection out,” I say, rummaging through my pack for the first aid kit.
“Infection shouldn't be a problem.”
“You can't be infected?”
“I should be resistant to your germs.”
The words “should” and “your” catches my attention. We know next to nothing about the angels. Any information might give us an advantage. Once we organize again, that is.
It occurs to me that I might be in the unprecedented position of being able to glean some intelligence on them. Despite what the gang leaders would have the rest of us believe, angel parts are always taken from dead or dying angels, I’m sure of it. What I would do with angel intel, I don’t know. But it can’t hurt to gain a little knowledge.
Tell that to Adam and Eve.
I ignore the cautionary voice in my head. “So…are you immunized or something?” I try to make my voice casual as though the answer means nothing to me.
“It's probably a good idea to bandage me up anyway,” he says, sending me a clear signal that he knows that I'm fishing for information. “I can probably pass for human so long as my wounds are covered.” He pulls out a broken feather, putting it reluctantly into a growing pile.