Page 6 of Outside the Veil (Endangered Fae #1)

Chapter five

Persuasive Evidence

“ D izziness, GI upset, anemia…” Diego read as he tipped out his pills for the day.

The carbamazepine controlled the seizures when he remembered to take it, but it killed his appetite and forced him to take iron supplements for the anemia.

No cure, his doctor said, and warned him the episodes could become more frequent, perhaps preceded by hallucinations someday. Wonderful.

He recalled nothing about the attack. Nothing about that day. His brain hid the memories from him like bean-size shards of glass in a sand dune. Even if one were to cut one’s foot on a piece, the chances of finding it were slim to none.

Mitch had told him he had approached a homeless man in an alley with an offer of food and the man had proved unstable. A tire iron, several blows to the head and a prolonged hospital stay had left Diego with holes in his memory and a seizure disorder.

“I’d like to ask a favor.” Finn’s soft, deep voice startled him. He’d slept on the air mattress again the night before, declaring it was more like home.

“What sort of favor?”

Finn took his hand and pulled him to the bathroom, where he pointed to the tub. “That large vessel there. I assume it holds water.”

“You want a bath? Just turn the taps on like I showed you for the sink.”

“I thought as much. Now for the favor I’d have of you. Could we fill it with water from the bottles?”

How many gallons in a bathtub? He should have seen this coming since Finn so despised the tap water. They sold those huge jugs of spring water at the supermarket, didn’t they?

“You’ll have to give me a little time on this one. Tell you what—if you can promise to stay here and out of trouble, I’ll go get some. We need groceries anyway and you still need shoes.”

Finn put a hand over his heart. “I won’t stray out the door. I swear.”

This, coming from an admitted liar, was perhaps not the most comforting promise. Diego resolved to stop at Tia Carmen’s door on his way down to ask her to keep an ear out.

“Do you have any of those smooth, shiny books with all the picture leaves?” Finn asked when Diego was on his way out.

Magazines. He never had any lying around.

In a desperate attempt to find something to keep his unpredictable guest occupied, he heaved down the survey of Renaissance Art.

The huge tome connected with the coffee table with a solid thud.

Finn eased the cover open and soon sat entranced, giving Diego high hopes that he might come home to both Finn and apartment safe and intact.

At the Goodwill downtown, Diego found a decent pair of leather high-tops, size fourteen, and a respectable selection of clothes that would fit better than Mitch’s castoffs.

At the market, he puzzled over the cooler-sized water bottles and finally decided on six.

Only when he reached home again and parked the car, did he realize he would have to lug them all upstairs.

“Maybe I can do two at a time,” he muttered, as he stared at the sea of bottles in his trunk.

One bottle gripped in his right hand, the other slung on his left shoulder, Diego struggled up the steps. He arrived at his front door gasping and let both bottles down to fumble for his keys. “That’s not happening twice.” Maybe Finn could manage one or two if he went slowly.

A low growl greeted him when he opened the door. The art book lay abandoned on the table.

“You’d best bloody well come out of there!” Finn yelled from the kitchen.

Diego froze in the doorway before realizing he must have been speaking to someone else.

“Finn! Who’s in there?”

His pulse in his throat, he raced in and stopped, speechless. Finn stood alone in the kitchen, glowering at the answering machine, threatening it with the wooden meat tenderizer in his upraised fist.

“I don’t know how he’s done it.” He turned his head. “But your nasty erstwhile lover has spelled himself inside your little box here and I’ve been unable to dislodge him. You didn’t tell me he’s a sorcerer.”

Mitch. The answering machine. Mitch had left a message.

“He’s not in the box,” Diego explained, while he pried Finn’s fingers from his improvised club. “It’s just his voice.”

“The boy can cast his voice? Into far away objects? By your expression, this news is meant to reassure me. I am by no means reassured.”

Telephones took some explaining, but Finn finally dismissed the device with a disgusted snort as “simply another machine”.

With a slow, painful breath, Diego pushed the play button.

“Diego…it’s me. Look, I’m… I just wanted…”

Why did that voice still send a jolt through him? Why was he even listening to this?

“I saw what was in the apartment. I overreacted. I didn’t mean those things. Hell, I don’t know what I mean some days.”

Mitch sounded tired, out of reserves. It was a familiar pattern, Mitch losing his temper and going away to brood, only to return to him later depressed and exhausted. And Diego was always the one who apologized.

“I thought we could meet for lunch. To talk. Like you wanted to. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss you. It could work. It still could. I just need you to work on a couple things for me and everything would be perfect. Shit, Diego…”

Tears filled the disembodied voice. Diego squeezed his eyes shut and thumped his head against the wall. Mitch stretched out, cat-lazy and naked on the bed. Opening his arms and taking Diego in a hard embrace. That beautiful body dusted with fine, golden hair.

“Call me, love. Please.”

Diego scrubbed a hand over his face, the other poised over the phone.

“You’ll go to him?” Finn’s voice yanked him into the present. He leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.

“I don’t know yet. This isn’t really any of your business, you know.” Even as he said it, he felt petty and ridiculous.

Finn shrugged. “Perhaps not. But did you listen to what he said? Truly listen? He wants you to crawl to him and make concessions. He gives you no promises, but expects you to make them. Some men long for another who will control them. Are you one of those?”

No. Yes. Sometimes.

“We have groceries to bring in. You feel up to giving me a hand?”

“His new lover has probably tossed him over the fence and that’s why…”

“Let it go, Finn. If you’re trying to help, it’s not helping.”

“Fair enough.”

He brought up the shoes and the bag of clothes first so Finn wouldn’t go out to the car in nothing but the pajama pants he’d taken to wearing around the apartment.

Finn picked through the clothes and pulled on a pair of tight black jeans and a chamois shirt of deep burgundy which Diego had to help him button.

The transformation astonished him, from half-wild asylum escapee to brooding bohemian.

I could just about take him out to dinner…

He squashed the thought as he watched Finn struggling to shove his feet into the sneakers without socks and without untying the laces.

“Here, wait, you’ll hurt your poor feet.” Diego knelt by him and took the right foot in his lap. The burns had faded to seashell pink. He ran a thumb over a line crossing Finn’s instep. “How do they feel?”

“Quite comfortable at the moment,” Finn answered, a soft husk to his voice.

Diego cleared his throat and shoved on the tube socks. He showed Finn how to open up the laces, and then had to demonstrate how to tie them.

“Bloody nuisance,” Finn muttered, as he stood rocking from heel to toe, staring morosely at his feet.

“Better than stepping on a stray piece of glass, or worse.”

At the car, Finn hefted one of the bottles easily enough but Diego passed him on the stairs once, twice and then a third time when Finn collapsed on the top step, his breaths reduced to short, desperate wheezes.

“And I thought I was out of shape.” Diego crouched by him and nudged his arm. Finn’s constricted breathing took on a whistling note, and Diego feared his asthma attack might deteriorate into a panic attack. “Hey, easy…”

Finn waved a hand, curling the fingers inward from little finger to index as if to snap further discussion off in his fist. Diego helped him back inside to the sofa, put the perishables away and wrestled the bottles into the bathroom.

“Do you want some of this heated?”

“Just as it is will be fine, simply—” Finn called back from the sofa, before a fit of coughing stopped him.

Strange man. Diego would have preferred to put him in a hot bath but it only took four bottles to fill the tub. He had plenty in reserve to boil if necessary.

Shedding his clothes as he came, Finn staggered to the bathroom. He sank into the water in a boneless heap, his hair a thundercloud halo around his head when he submerged completely.

Diego watched from the doorway with anxious visions of nine-one-one calls and ambulance crews assailing him. After a moment, though, Finn resurfaced and flashed that disarming Cheshire-Cat grin.

“No need to hover. I promise I won’t drown. Or did you want to join me?”

“Too cold for me,” Diego mumbled as he retreated, his hand shaking on the doorknob and an undeniable warmth spreading from his groin.

He paused by the phone, picked it up and went to his desk. His fingers dialed Mitch’s cell before he could stop them. Heart speeding, he disconnected. Dialed again. Hung up after half a ring.

“Damn it.”

After staring at the phone as if it might bite him, he called his agent instead.

“Miriam? It’s Diego. How are we doing?”

“Hey, sweetie! Not bad, not bad. Slow going but I’ve had a nibble or two.”

“Nothing, huh?”

A gusty exhalation told him Miriam had plopped down in her chair. “I did warn you, hon. Market’s flooded with dragon books. No one wants to look at one right now.”

“But not from the dragon’s POV. You even said—”