Page 21 of Outside the Veil (Endangered Fae #1)

Chapter twelve

Besieged

T he phone shrieked. Eyes still closed, Diego tried to reach over Finn to grab it, and nearly fell out of bed when he rolled into an empty spot.

“Thorpe residence,” Finn said nearby. “Yes. Just a moment, I’ll see if he’s available.”

Diego blinked the room into focus. Finn held the receiver out to him.

“The woman says she wishes to speak with you.”

“Miriam?”

“So she said.”

“Where did you learn to answer the phone like that?”

Finn’s forehead creased in a worried frown. “From the picture box. Was it not the correct way?”

“It was perfect. Much better than most people.” He scooted up to lean against the headboard and took the phone. “Miriam?”

“Is that him, kiddo? Is he back? Is that Finn?” Miriam spat out in a breathless rush.

Finn stretched back out on the bed, his head in Diego’s lap.

“That’s Finn. He came back last night.” Diego couldn’t keep the smile from his voice.

“Holy crap! That’s got to be the sexiest goddamn voice I’ve ever heard!”

Diego held the phone away until her voice returned to a normal pitch.

“No wonder you were so torn up. I was just calling to see if you were okay. Ha! From the sleepy, I-got-me-some sound of your voice, you’re more than okay, hon.”

He stroked Finn’s hair over his shoulder. The gashes on his back had closed while they slept. “I’m better. I did seize last night, but Finn was here.” He couldn’t even imagine telling Miriam the rest. She’d have him institutionalized.

“You tell him from me not to be such a shit and leave you hanging again. He’d better take good care of you to make up for it.”

“He is. Thanks, Miriam.”

“For what?”

“For worrying about me.”

She snorted. “I’ve finally got you to the place where you can make me some money. Damn straight I’m gonna worry about you.”

He laughed and reassured her once again that all was well before he hung up.

The warmth of Finn’s body tempted him back under the blankets, but the latest horrifying twist of reality had to be faced.

“Put something on for me, carino , please, so you’re not quite so distracting.” He stroked Finn’s shoulder, his palm itching for more. “We have to get up and try to figure out what we’re dealing with here.”

Four-fifteen. Not much time before dark. Diego grunted as he swung his legs out of bed, still sore and stiff. Finn’s arms wrapped around him immediately to help him up.

“I can still walk, you know. I’m tired, not crippled.”

Finn backed off a step, hands spread. “Ah, well. I was merely finding excuses to hold you. Now that I’m permitted.”

“Holding me is fine. No, strike that, it’s wonderful.” He raised his face to give Finn a soft kiss. “But you can’t carry me around everywhere like some lost baby bird you found on the ground.”

The smile slipped. “I would carry you for the rest of your life if you had the need.”

Diego gazed into those black eyes and swallowed hard. What could he possibly say to that? “Hopefully, that won’t ever be necessary.” Dios . That was the best he could come up with? He patted Finn’s chest and stepped around him. “Come down to the computer. Let’s see what we can puzzle out.”

When Finn arrived in the study, he’d pulled on his black jeans and a black T-shirt tight enough to outline every hard muscle in his torso. Naked would have been less distracting.

“Okay.” Diego cleared his throat. “You said this thing can’t cross the threshold. How do you know that for sure?”

“If it could, my hero, it would have done so last evening. Instead, it lured you away from the house. With my likeness. And a pretty bloody poor imitation at that, I might add.” Finn slumped into the recliner in the corner.

“Even if it had not done this, it is a magical creature and must abide by certain rules.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. You’ve never had a problem crossing a human-built threshold.”

“Think for a moment. I have always crossed thresholds for the first time with you. With your arm about me, with your hand on my shoulder. With your touch, I have crossed. Though the simple statement ‘come in’ would have sufficed as well.”

Diego opened his mouth to protest and shut it again. He was right. At his own apartment, at the clinic, the museum, this house—every first time across, his hand had been in contact with Finn’s body.

“So if it had stayed by the door and I thought it was you, hurt and sick, I would have…” Diego stopped and closed his eyes, forcing down the nausea.

“But it did not and you did not. No need to burrow into such dreadful thoughts.”

“What about other entrances? Windows? Chimney?”

Finn shook his head. “If it had some powerful magic that would allow such things, it would simply have done so. No, inside we are safe. And trapped.”

“But if it sleeps during the day, we could simply pack up and go. Tomorrow, when I feel up to driving, we’ll go home…”

“It would follow.” Finn slumped further into his chair. “Your vehicle is swift but it cannot outrace the wind.”

“Oh.” The thought of leading that thing to a city full of people, where it could hide in dumpsters and sewers and feed at will on the homeless… He shuddered and turned to the screen to search for man-eating mythical creatures.

“I don’t suppose you know what it’s called? Or if it called itself anything?”

“I have only an impression of a sound. Something whispered in the chill. Witiku? Widigu? Something like it.”

Diego felt the blood drain from his face. “Wendigo.”

“Yes, something very much like that. It— Diego?”

He didn’t answer, fingers flying over the keyboard as he waded through search engine findings, discarding the obviously questionable—B-movies, horror novels, sites written so badly a four-year-old might have posted them.

A couple of university sites, postings from Native American studies departments and an Algonquin Heritage site provided more plausible information.

Even these accounts proved sketchy and contradictory except on two points—the wendigo was a creature of wind and ice, and it was indisputably malevolent.

“Diego?”

The hand on his shoulder made him twitch.

“You’re white as frost.”

“Sorry…sorry… It’s just, if you were going to wake a mythical creature, couldn’t you have disturbed a rabbit spirit or something?”

“I’ll endeavor to be more selective next time,” Finn murmured as he sank down at Diego’s feet. “What does the writing box tell you?”

“Nothing definite about how to get rid of it, unfortunately.” He tried a search with ‘exorcism’ with no better results. “It’s definitely a shapeshifter, like you—”

“Not like me.” Finn sniffed in offense.

“I was going to say, ‘in a much more limited way’ if you’d let me finish.”

“Your pardon.”

“The stories talk about three types of manifestations. The first is the malevolent presence on the wind you felt. The second is human. Or rather, when it takes possession of a human. Wendigo-psychosis, it’s called sometimes.

And the third is a huge, shambling, hominid form, anywhere from eight to twenty feet high. Accounts are a bit vague.”

Finn rested his head in Diego’s lap. “It was monstrous. Hard to determine when one is hanging head down. But I wouldn’t venture to say it reached treetop height.”

“Small favors, I suppose,” Diego murmured, scanning yet another site.

“There’s an odd way to destroy it mentioned here, pouring hot wax down its throat to melt its ice heart.

I only see that once, though, so I doubt it’s accurate.

Getting close enough to find out, I think, would be suicide.

The only other way…” He stopped to lean back in his chair.

“Tell me, Diego!” Finn rose on his knees to take his face between his hands. “Whatever the price, tell me! I’ll do anything to rid you of this fell beast.”

“You wait until it possesses a human body.” Diego swallowed hard. “Then you strangle the victim and burn the corpse.”

“Ah.” Finn subsided back to the floor. “Almost anything.”

Diego stared at the screen without seeing it. “Finn…” He reached over to squeeze Finn’s shoulder. “If it does manage to…take what it wants, I need you to make me a promise.”

“You can’t ask this of me.”

“I know it’s horrible, but what else can we do? If it possesses me, you have to kill me. You can’t leave me trapped, living in that thing’s head, watching it murder people and devour them.”

“I’ll…” Finn jerked away from him and stalked to the far side of the room.

He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, shoulders hunched.

“If I can find no other way, if I truly have no other choice, I will end your torment. My solemn promise.” He whirled back around, eyes blazing.

“But there is always another way. I will not lose you. Not like that.”

Hands clasped behind his back, he paced the room. “We will listen and watch. It will give something away as it grows more desperate. It will… Diego, where are you going?”

“It’s getting dark. I want to make sure all the doors and windows are locked.”

“I have told you and told you…” Finn turned him and traced a finger along his nose. “It cannot come in.”

“I know. But it’ll make me feel better.”

Finn helped him check the locks without any further protest. They finished in the great room, and Diego pulled the heavy drapes shut for good measure. He was trying to decide if he should suggest they have some dinner when Finn’s head jerked up, nostrils flared.

“It’s here.”

The scratch at the door sent an ice spike through Diego’s heart. He turned on all the outside lights as he had before but there were no retreating footsteps this time. The scratching persisted, followed by a soft whimpering.

“Maybe it’s just a dog.”

“No.” One corner of Finn’s mouth twitched up in a bitter smile. “No, I can feel it. I hear it. It is cold hunger and yearning. Oh, gods…” Finn wrapped his arms around his middle and sank into a crouch. “So empty…the agony of such emptiness…”

“Don’t listen to it.” Diego knelt beside him to hold him tight. “Can’t you shut it out?” The door thumped against the deadbolt as the scratching grew to a scraping of heavy claws on wood. “What if it claws through the door?”

A sudden wind picked up and howled around the house, rattling the windows and thumping against the walls. The temperature inside the house plunged. Diego clutched Finn closer to share his heat.

“For the last time,” Finn spoke through his teeth, as if the effort caused him pain. “It. Can. Not. Come. In.” He took Diego’s upper arms and set him back. Something odd shone in his eyes. “Watch.”

“Finn, what…”

He rose, stalked to the door, and threw it open.

“No! Finn, don’t!”

The wind slammed through the doorway, forcing Finn back a step. He steadied and faced the dark, arms flung wide. “Here I am! You wish to destroy me? All that stands in the way of your triumph? Then do your worst!”

“Finn! Close the damn door!”

The wind subsided. The sudden quiet sent chills up Diego’s spine. From the front of the house, an eerie howl split the air, a sound filled with frustrated rage.

“You see, my love?” Finn turned his head to give Diego a grin. “It ca—”

A ferocious gust smashed into him and slammed him into the far wall.

“Finn!”

The gale howled through the house, toppling chairs and knocking pictures from hooks.

Diego crawled, low to the floor, every breath a ragged gasp against the force of the wind.

By slow degrees, he gained the door, wedged himself between it and the wall, and pushed with everything he had.

Feet braced against the wall, muscles burning from the effort, he gained an inch and then another.

A splintering crash sounded at the back of the house—he hoped a vase and not a window.

His back screamed in agony, but he forged on against the tempest. Another inch, and another.

He felt the door hit the sill, the wind inside the house abruptly cut off.

With a last, desperate effort, he heaved the door shut.

A relieved sob escaped him to hear the latch click and he scrabbled up the door to flip the deadbolt shut as well.

He crawled to Finn, trying to ignore the hurricane fury of the wind outside.

Frost rimmed his hands and he trembled with chill.

Finn slumped against the wall, pale and still.

Diego couldn’t trust himself to feel a pulse, his hands shook too much.

He laid his head on Finn’s chest. The solid thud of a heartbeat let him release the breath he held.

Finn’s eyelids fluttered and soon those dark eyes found him.

“Damn it, Finn, what kind of a stupid, macho stunt was that?”

The pooka gave him a triumphant grin. “It can’t come in.”