Page 29 of Beyond the Veil (Endangered Fae #4)

Chapter Eleven

Kelan structures: Most human researchers have adopted the dragon terminology for what may be roughly described as magical DNA.

While kelan, which can be viewed through magical means as attachments to DNA, exist in every living organism, the concentration and distribution of kelan take on unique patterns in every species.

Only in humans are there wide variations in concentration and pattern, resulting in wild variations in human sensitivity to and ability to manipulate magic.

“ H ow do you fare, love?”

Diego opened his eyes to find a tiny black eye staring back at him. The black wren hopped back a step to let him sit up. “Sorry. I must have gone to sleep. I’ll be fine. You?”

Finn hopped up on Diego’s knee. “A mite tired. Perhaps more than a mite. I would shift back, but I don’t want to shock these nice gentlemen.”

“Ah. Very considerate.” Diego cradled Finn in his hand while he climbed to his feet.

Wren-Finn’s eyes were closing when Diego had his prison pajamas gathered off the floor, confirmation that a mite tired translated into completely exhausted .

“I’m so sorry, Tarek, but I do need to let Finn rest a bit.

Is it all right if I come back and tell you what he’s said? ”

“I wouldn’t have believed it, that demons are modest.” Tarek shot him a wry smile, since he had indicated he didn’t believe in demons any more than Diego did. “I’ll wait here. It’s as good a place as any.”

The Canadian boys trailed Diego, as had become their habit, and waited outside the door to the monster cell corridor as they always did.

“It’s just us, mi vida , if you want to shift. You want to go back to your, ah, private room, or would you rather stay out here?”

Finn snorted and half fell, half flew to the floor.

“I’m quite content never to see the inside of my prison again, thank you.

” Wren-Finn glowed blue a moment before he began to gain mass and elongate.

Soon Finn reclined on the floor in the wren’s place, beautiful in his nakedness and grinning at his ability to shift successfully again.

“Mostly, though, I’m grateful to no longer be stuck as a pooka collage. ”

Diego lowered himself to the floor so he could hand Finn his pants. “You weren’t precisely a collage, you know. Just a…hybrid.”

“Mixed media of some sort,” Finn grumbled as he dressed. Then he flung his arms around Diego and pulled him close. “Thank you. So very much, husband of mine, for freeing me. I wish I could do the same for you.”

“We’ll get there, don’t worry.” Diego indulged himself, leaning into the embrace. “With that in mind, what did you see on your flight?”

“Yes, what did you see?”

Diego jerked around to find Nusair standing behind him. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“I didn’t even try for stealthy this time.” Nusair waved a hand in an airy gesture. “You two were just so involved .”

“Come sit and I’ll tell you,” Finn said on a chuckle. “I do wish I had something or other to draw with.”

Nusair tipped his head sideways as if considering. Then he got up and slipped inside Finn’s old cell, returning with the most recent food packet.

“Oh, thank you! Just the thing.” Finn took it from him and spread the leaf out on the floor, his long fingers beginning to push the mash into shapes as he spoke.

“We are, as they say on the picture box, at the ass end of nowhere. There truly is nothing at all interesting for miles, unless you are particularly fond of sand. I’ve never seen a place so frighteningly dry.

The nearest water I could sense is a day’s travel away. ”

Diego had suspected they were in the middle of the desert but he hadn’t considered logistics. “Where does the water come from for the prison?”

“Oh, that.” Finn flicked his fingers in dismissal. “There’s certainly water underground here and there. I expect they’ve done something with machines to reach it.”

“Sorry, mi vida , I’ll stop interrupting.”

Finn planted a swift kiss on Diego’s cheek and continued as he shaped his model.

“The prison is, I must say, a singularly ugly design. Someone certainly could have done better. It’s simply one clumsy block, roughly so…

” He evened out the sides of his roughly rectangular model and began to add a little square on one side.

“With a little protrusion over here on the southern side.”

“Any idea what the protrusion is?” Diego watched in fascination as Finn recreated what appeared to be vents and ductwork on the roof of the prison.

“Seems to be where the only door lies. I thought there might be an entrance on the roof, since someone must stand there to drop these goddess-forsaken packets through the slits. But no. I found only the one door. There are ladders up the outside.” Finn paused to indicate where, one on each side of the prison.

“They are the only way up. The guards who walk the walls use them.”

Nusair leaned closer to the model. “How many guards?”

Finn shrugged. “There were six that I could see on the walls. How many more were in the little box room, I can’t say.”

“Why do you think there are more inside?” Diego asked, though he was certain Finn was right.

“I saw one come out of there through the only door. He climbed the ladder and spoke with another guard. That one went down and back inside.”

Diego drummed his fingers on his knee. “Were there any vehicles? Any way for the guards to get to the prison or does it seem they live here?”

“There were no vehicles with wheels. But there was one of those things that flies with the spinning blades. Heliochopper?”

“Helicopter,” Diego corrected, half-distracted.

The reconnaissance was incomplete, but a picture was starting to form.

The prison was so remote that unconscious prisoners were transferred in by helicopter.

None of the human inmates he had asked recalled the trip to the prison, but they all remembered the same experience of waking up and having to leave the intake cell.

Finn didn’t recall his trip, either, but he had woken in his prison cell.

“All right. So we’re in a block with no real windows, no real ventilation system besides small holes in the ceiling and only one door leading in from the outside.

We know where the interior door to the intake cell is and I’d wager that the opposite door leads into this blockhouse at the base of the prison.

With guards coming in and out of there, I’d venture further and say that’s the communications and command center. ”

“But we’ve no notion of how many guards.” Nusair rested his chin on his fist. “Or whether there are more or less at night.”

“Or how they placed you in your cells,” Diego said cautiously.

Nusair narrowed his eyes at Diego. “What are you saying, little sorcerer? Or what are you not saying?”

“That you’re withholding information. You remember being brought to your cell, don’t you?”

Finn looked from one to the other, his eyebrows climbing. “Do you?”

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to this.” Nusair started to get up but Diego grabbed his wrist.

“It’s hard to trust us. We know that. But keeping something back out of habit, because you’ve needed contingency plans before, probably isn’t going to help here. Unless you have a way out of this other entrance, whatever it is, knowing about it won’t help you. And you don’t have a way out.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s a good guess. You’re still here.”

Nusair snorted and sat down again. “Your human’s too smart for his own good, Finn. Bet it gets him in plenty of trouble.”

“From time to time,” Finn murmured, though he was staring down at his model in glum fascination.

“We could have come through the intake door as well, I suppose. Though guards would have needed to carry us to our cells and the human prisoners would have seen that. But they’ve never seen anyone brought to the monster cells, have they? ”

“No. They claim they’ve never seen guards inside for any reason.” Diego let go of Nusair, hoping this wouldn’t escalate into something ugly. “So there has to be a way to get into this corridor directly, without going through the prison.”

Nusair sat back, lips pressed in a hard line. He let out a sudden bark of laughter, one that rang of despair. “It won’t make any difference. Finn says there’s no other way out. The damn door just leads back to the same command post.”

“You know that?”

“No, I—” Nusair broke off with a grimace and went on in a less belligerent tone. “No, I don’t. There’s no way to know that.”

Finn tried to stifle a huge yawn, rubbing at his eyes. “Oh, such little faith. You can show me in a bit. This door. Not just this moment, though.”

“Typical.” Nusair snorted as he stomped off.

Diego would have asked Finn what he had in mind, but his husband had fallen fast asleep with his head cradled on Diego’s thigh. He stroked a hank of snarled black hair back from Finn’s cheek and leaned against the corridor wall, content to watch Finn taking his first real rest in days.

Finn burrowed further into Diego’s arms. There was nothing more lovely than those nights when Diego stopped work early and they could have dinner with a movie in the common room. Others might have been there at the beginning, but they seemed to have drifted out at some point.

The movie, he was nearly certain, had begun as My Neighbor Totoro , but had morphed somewhere in the middle into a strange mix of Alice in Wonderland and The Italian Job , with the Mad Hatter driving a very small car along the stems of monstrous flowers.

Finn was about to ask Diego what was happening, since he had lost the plot entirely, when he realized his husband was missing.

His arm slid through the empty hole in the sofa and he was falling…

“Shh, hey, it’s all right.”

Finn jerked awake with Diego’s voice in his ear. Not home. Not on the sofa. At least he’s actually here and hasn’t vanished. “I dreamt…I don’t recall much now. Something unpleasant.”