Page 35 of Against the Veil (Endangered Fae #3)

Chapter Eighteen

Nate’s Vamp

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect. —Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

A nother airport, another agonized wait watching the flight boards. It wouldn’t have been too bad with some cheerful company, but all Zack had were an unhappy pair of fae and three very uncomfortable, edgy college kids.

Will wasn’t too bad, though he was painfully shy and anxious.

Nate would probably warm up with a little time…

time they didn’t have. But Brandon…that kid was an oversized mound of guilt and resentment, not a good combination when you paired it with a healthy ego.

Either he needed to adjust his attitude, or he’d have to be watched carefully—also not good since the kid was apparently the key to the whole mess. The thought already made Zack tired.

“I’m so sorry about all this, Sergeant,” Will said, his leg bouncing in an agitated rhythm.

“How many times are you gonna apologize, babe?” Brandon muttered.

Will turned on his boyfriend, his voice unusually sharp, “Don’t be a dick, Bran! It’s his lover that’s disappeared. How would you feel if I got snatched up and no one could find me? Or would you even care?”

Brandon stared, open-mouthed, and slumped in his seat, arms crossed tight over his chest. “I’d care, damn it.”

“Settle, guys,” Zack said as calmly as he could. “Will, I know you’re sorry. Brandon, we need you focused. We don’t need extra—”

“Sarge.” Nate actually tugged on his sleeve like a little kid.

“What?” He hadn’t meant to snap, but the beast inside him seemed to make his temper harder and harder to keep a lid on.

Nate’s eyebrows crept up but he didn’t cringe away. “Thought you should see this.” He handed over his phone that currently showed a newsfeed, the new, not-improved Diego Sandoval front and center.

“Good call.”

One of the senators was in the middle of a question, “…the rights of magical citizens and foreign nationals? Is this in any way a concern in your rather high-handed proposal?”

The tone was confrontational and condescending. Their old Diego would have been flustered and irritated, hesitating as he thought carefully about how to respond. This Diego? His expression of reasonable concern never faltered. It never even flickered.

“Senator, I understand your apprehensions. As to foreign nationals, though, the fae community has already voiced its unconditional support. As for our own citizens, the registration process would no more infringe upon rights than registering for a particular party would during voter registration.”

Zack sighed. “Yeah, if he wasn’t so scary smart and didn’t have such a good reputation with the politicos, this wouldn’t be so easy for him. Why am I watching this?”

“Sarge…” Nate poked at the screen. “This is a live feed.”

Zack stared at it a moment longer, then the light dawned. He managed something close to a grin. “Live. So they’ve got him tied up in session. So we’ve got some time to get where we need to go.”

“Half a step ahead.” Sionnach had leaned forward to watch the screen as well. “It’s all we need.”

“God, I hope so.”

“Yeah? Even if we get there ahead of him and even if we do manage to somehow, hell knows how, pin him down, what the hell does everyone expect me to do?” Brandon snarled. “Tell him to be nice?”

Now we get down to it. That’s what’s bothering the kid . “Do you remember exactly what you said to him in the first place? With your Voice?” Zack asked softly, without accusation.

“Mostly.” Brandon slumped down further. He looked so defeated, Zack felt sorry for him, but it wasn’t the time to coddle him.

“Mostly? You need to be able to reverse what you said. Say the opposite. Give him back what you took away. You need to remember, damn it. Word for word.”

“I remember, Bran. Will probably does, too. You know how he is about remembering conversations verbatim,” Nate said with an elbow nudge to his friend’s ribs.

Brandon’s laugh wasn’t a happy one, but at least he’d stopped trying to break his own teeth.

“Throws your words back in your face, does he?” Angus said with a rueful smile. “My sympathies. A certain fox does the same to me.”

“Never,” Sionnach breathed out, his eyes wide in pretended shock. “I would never dare to engage in word battles with the great Angus Farseer.”

Even Brandon managed a real chuckle at that, since they all knew it was a huge honking fib. Tension broken, the flight beginning to board, Zack suddenly felt a little more optimistic. Maybe they could do this after all.

Minky broke into a run as they hurried out to the car, trying to keep her great-whatever-granddad’s pace.

“Hey, daddy longlegs!” Kara shouted after him. “Slow down!”

One of the security guys—she thought it was Marcus—caught up to Finn first and hooked an arm through his, forcing him to slow or be yanked off balance.

“We won’t let him get away, ladies, don’t worry,” the bigger guy said in his gruff bear voice. “Besides, he can’t drive.”

They caught up at the end of the garage where the embassy’s SUV, van and town car crouched, and where Finn had to wait for a human to open the car door.

Marcus did an odd thing first, shaking out a length of black cloth from his pack and handing it to the pooka, who wrapped himself in it before climbing gingerly into the back seat.

Silk. To protect him from the steel .

“Shouldn’t he sit in the front?” Kara asked. “Instead of being folded in half?”

Gruff-bear guy, Kevin, shook his head. “Put him between you. Give him a little distance from some of the frame, at least. And hope he doesn’t get sick. The town car’s silk-lined, but probably not a good idea to take the prince’s diplomatic vehicle into…whatever we’re heading into.”

Hunched in the too-small back seat with the silk pulled up over his head, Finn looked so ominous that Minky hesitated on a superstitious shiver. The helicopter ride and the rush down from the roof had frazzled her enough. Now they want me to sit next to Death on one of his grumpy days…

“Pile in, girls. We’ve gotta move,” Marcus said as he slid behind the wheel, then turned to address Finn. “Where to, boss?”

“Brooklyn,” Finn said, his voice faint and unhappy.

Minky slid in beside him, shocked at herself when she patted Finn’s arm to comfort him.

“You sure he won’t try Manhattan?” Kevin checked and re-holstered an oddly shaped pistol. He’d assured them that it was armed with tranq darts instead of bullets. “Make a bigger news splash here, I bet.”

“No, he will return to the old neighborhood.”

“How do you know?” Kara asked as they eased up the ramp.

“I…” Finn swallowed hard. “I know the workings of his mind.”

“Okay, he’s like your eternal love and stuff. We get that. But that was Good Diego, not Evil Bizarro Diego.”

A low, rattling sound came from the depths of the silk shelter. He’s growling. I wonder if I can growl.

“He’s not evil,” Finn spat out.

“Yeah? How do you figure that?”

“He is still the same, simply with a piece removed.” Finn shifted and dug an elbow into Minky’s side.

“Your pardon. I had always found the human notion of ‘morality’ puzzling until I lived with Diego. His sense of right and wrong is as clear to him as a mountain lake. His sense that he must always be right is perhaps what has caused him the most difficulty over the years. This has not changed. He sees a way through to what he believes is right, what he feels must be done for everyone’s safety, and he will not be moved from it.

It is not so different from his insistence on certain things when we fought to rejoin the worlds.

The difference now is that he engages in morality with compassion removed.

Any action that furthers his goal is right and good in his eyes at the moment. ”

Kevin turned to lean over the bench seat. “The end justifies the means, right? Like that guy said, starts with an ‘M’ or something…”

“Machiavelli,” Finn said softly. “Yes. So he did.”

“What do you know about Machiavelli?” Marcus asked, a smile in his voice.

“I knew him.”

“Right. I call pooka bullshit on that one.”

“Well and fine. Perhaps it was a mite exaggerated. I did know someone who met him once.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that. But how’s all that not evil?”

Finn was silent a moment, his fingers twisting under the silk.

“It seems to me that this, what Diego does now, is wanting to arrive at the right thing but justifying whatever is necessary to get there as needful to the cause. A sort of…fanaticism, in a way. While evil…that would be knowing the difference between right and wrong and not caring, as long as one’s own selfish needs are met? Yes?”

Marcus let out a heavy exhale. “Yeah, I think you got it. Probably better than some humans.” He took a sharp corner, quiet while he concentrated on the road. Then his eyes searched out Finn in the rearview. “We’re gonna get him back. Stop worrying so much.”

“Why does everyone tell me this?” Finn muttered. “I will worry. It can’t be helped.”

Minky took his hand through the silk. For some reason, his fingers closing over hers felt normal and didn’t make her skin crawl.

“It’s okay. We can be worried together,” she whispered.

She…liked him, no matter what Will and Bran said.

So he had ferocious moments, but fierce and aggressive were obviously not a normal day for him.

“Thank you.”

They rode in silence until halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Finn? Should we go see her?” Marcus asked. “That where we’re headed?”

“Yes, please.” Finn’s head picked up as if he looked ahead to familiar sights. “To warn her if nothing else.”

They pulled up near an apartment building, one of those old brick ones with the fire escape on the outside. It looked neat and well kept, but not like anything special.

“So what’s here?” Kara asked, her expression the skeptical one Minky knew was just short of an epic eye roll.

Finn climbed out after her, leaving the silk on the seat. “I used to live here. With Diego,” he said softly.