Page 23 of Against the Veil (Endangered Fae #3)

Chapter Twelve

Careless Words

Words were originally magic and to this day words have retained much of their ancient magical power. By words one person can make another blissfully happy or drive him to despair… —Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

“ W e’re heading over to the hotel for dinner.

” Diego tucked the cell between his ear and shoulder to free his hands for another autograph.

The crowd outside the concert hall had made Kevin nervous, but Diego knew the value of interacting with the public.

Hearts and minds, as Zack would say. “Everything all right there?”

“Yes sir, sure seems to be.” Marcus’ voice held a smile. “Least from the sounds in the bedroom, I’d say they’re getting things worked out.”

“ Gracias a Dios . It was terrible to see them at odds.”

“Mr. S., we gotta get moving here.” Kevin’s hand on Diego’s elbow was just short of territorial.

“A few minutes won’t hurt anything.” Diego disengaged his grip as gently as possible.

“Can’t you do like a personal force field or something, sir?”

“Relax, please. Fans and well-wishers. They don’t mean any harm.” Diego reached out to shake hands with a middle-aged mother, her two wide-eyed daughters in tow. While Kevin’s instincts were sharp, he tended toward paranoia. Not a bad thing in one’s security, but he needed to ease off sometimes.

“Mr. Sandoval, sir, would you…?”

The young man suddenly in front of him, clutching a copy of Dragon Rites , was arrestingly beautiful. Cerulean eyes regarded him earnestly, a hint of desperation in them.

Diego gave him a reassuring smile. “Of course. To whom should I make it out?”

“To William, sir. Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“William? Kevin, isn’t that your brother’s name?” Diego turned to the man holding his elbow, his smile still firmly in place. “You’re not Kevin.”

The handsome young man who wasn’t Kevin leaned in and spoke close to his ear, his voice deep, and his words impossibly huge despite being whispered. “You’re Very Dizzy. Let Me Help You.”

The words reverberated through Diego’s bones, magic singing in the air in shivering arcs. He had only enough time to panic, to reach for the flows, before the words hit him like a wall falling on him.

He staggered as the ground fell out from under his feet. The hand on his elbow tightened, preventing his tumble into the abyss. A large body offered a shield and an anchor in the sickening lurches the sidewalk described.

“I…don’t feel at all well,” he whispered. He couldn’t think, couldn’t recall where he was or who walked beside him.

“It’ll be all right, Mr. Sandoval.” A strong arm slid around his waist, drawing him close in its protective circle. “Make a path! Get out of the way! Can’t you see the man’s sick?”

A few lurching steps took him forward. A black car waited, door open. He rallied enough to try to look back, but the movement only pitched him further into the heaving torrent of dizziness. “Where’s Kevin?”

“He’s okay, sir, don’t worry.” The voice was softer than the one with the gigantic, bone-shaking words. “Please don’t be afraid.”

Someone held him gently. The Voice returned, saying, “Sleep.”

His eyes slid shut.

“Bran? You okay?” Will reached across the seat to shake Brandon’s shoulder.

“Don’t feel so good right now,” Bran muttered, his head leaned back. “It’ll get better in a couple minutes.”

“At least you didn’t pass out this time,” Nate said from the driver’s seat.

Minky turned in the front seat to look behind her. “Yeah, well, now he has.”

Will sighed and ran a gentle hand over Brandon’s hair. It was a strange sight, Brandon passed out with his head lolling on the back of the seat, Mr. Sandoval unconscious with his head on Brandon’s chest, and Will seeming worried and proud when he should have been jealous.

Maybe not so strange. Brandon had managed to incapacitate Mr. Sandoval’s security, then Mr. Sandoval himself while Will distracted him, and finally put him to sleep, all without the loss of control that usually made him keel over right away. Will did have reason to be proud of him.

“You think he’s okay?” Minky chewed on her thumbnail. “Bran didn’t hurt him, did he?”

Will leaned over. “He just seems to be sleeping.”

“Yeah, well, we’re gonna have to hope we’re all right when he wakes up. He’ll probably be pissed,” Nate said on a sigh.

“We’ll explain things. He’s a very nice man. He won’t do anything to hurt any of us, even if he’s angry.”

Minky was certain Will was right. The face cradled against Brandon’s chest was by no means delicate—a strong, handsome face with thick, dark lashes fanned out on olive skin.

But she had watched him with the crowd, seen his patience with people, his natural empathy for each person to whom he spoke, no matter how simpering or tongue-tied.

She just hoped all that kindness and patience translated into helping them.

Diego woke from a strange dream of searching, frantically searching for something he couldn’t name. He surged upright with a cry of dismay, disoriented and frightened.

Seizure? No. Nothing hurts. Everything feels too focused. But where the hell am I?

“Mr. Sandoval?” A gentle touch on his arm brought him face to face with the beautiful boy from outside the concert hall. William, that was his name. “It’s all right, sir. You’re safe.”

“Did I faint?” He glanced around the shabby apartment. “Where’s Kevin?”

A deeper voice answered, “He’s fine, Mr. Sandoval.”

Diego turned his head to find the much larger youngster who had spoken in his ear before. The young man had an ice pack pressed to the side of his head.

“Is he? Why isn’t he here?”

A smile quirked at the young man’s lips. “He’s right where we left him. I told him not to move.”

That voice—the Voice that had suddenly loomed over his mind—shut out all his own thoughts, and enveloped him in its brief commands.

Diego pulled back out of reach, not at all reassured.

“I’m not sure I want to talk to you. I believe I was speaking to William.

” Diego turned back to the blond. “I hope there’s a good explanation, preferably one that doesn’t involve bodily harm or ransom notes. ”

William dropped his gaze, a scarlet flush blooming on his cheeks.

“We’re sorry, sir, about all this. We just needed your undivided attention and couldn’t seem to get it any other way.

” He pointed to the other occupants in the room.

“This is Brandon. That’s Nate over by the doorway.

This is Kara. And if you squint and turn your head a bit, you should be able to see Minky by the wall—”

“Wait.” Diego rubbed both hands over his face. “Minky? Ay, Dios. You’re the Silver Adepts. Zack warned me this would happen.”

“What would happen?” the more visible girl, Kara, asked.

“That one of the groups trying to contact me would try a kidnapping.”

“This is not a kidnapping,” Brandon growled. He flung away the ice pack and got up to pace. “You ignored our pleas for help, our emails, our phone calls. We have a serious situation developing. We need help. Your help.”

The way Brandon assumed everyone should yield to him irritated Diego. He’d seen this type of young man far too often not to recognize the arrogance, the sense of entitlement. “Might just need something more specific than that,” he said in a dry tone. “William, maybe someone could explain.”

In halting, anxious tones, William began to tell him about the magic, how they had found their own abilities, and how they had been tracking a sudden outbreak of magical occurrences.

Of particular interest to them were all the reports of magic used for harm and stories of what William described as ‘creatures of darkness’.

His voice shook as he went on to describe his dreams.

“I’ll tell him, Will,” Brandon interrupted. “It’s too hard for you.”

“Shut it, Bran!” the older girl, Kara, snapped. “They’re his dreams, let him do it!”

Though his eyes looked like they held thunderstorms, Brandon snapped his mouth shut.

Will made a placating gesture in his direction and went on in a trembling voice to describe the dreams. They had started as simple precognitive episodes, small incidents that had then happened the next day.

A broken dish, the loss of a book, inconsequential things, until he began to dream of magical disasters.

He had dreamed about the girl who had spontaneously combusted in the middle of a Chicago street.

He had known her hair color, what she had been wearing and the nickname her friend had cried in horror as she went up in flames, all hours before the event appeared on the news.

The dreams grew worse, from isolated incidents to dreams of a malevolent, powerful being who directed chaos and destruction, who seemed bent on gathering dark magic to him.

“So we know he’s out there, sir,” Will finished in a hoarse whisper.

“We know it can’t be long before he starts his campaign.

It’ll be a war, Mr. Sandoval. Any good magic users will have to stand up to him.

And we’re not strong enough, sir. We need you.

We need you to believe, and we need you to teach us. To train us.”

Diego heaved a weary sigh, fingers buried in his hair.

“ Bueno . I understand why you’re concerned.

I even understand why this would drive you to such extreme measures.

But the fact is that most of the magical accidents and incidents you’re talking about are a result of the way being reopened between the worlds.

The magic can flow again. It creates little storms and magical earthquakes as it comes into contact with isolated pockets of earth-bound magic. Nothing more.”

“But the dark mage.” Will’s lower lip quivered. “He’s real. I know it.”

“Most likely he will be some day, nino . But if there was an evil being of such power running loose in the world, don’t you think the fae would have felt him by now? Or perhaps I might have?”