Page 32 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

“Go. Find a way out. Save yourself this time.”

“No! Not without you.”

A huge, misshapen bird with a hooked iron beak landed and tore into Finn’s side, devouring strips of flesh. Finn gasped, but seemed to lack the strength to cry out.

“Shift to something else! Slip the chains, come with me,” Diego pleaded as he tried to shove the monstrous bird away.

A single tear slid from Finn’s eye. “Iron… I cannot. Don’t be a fool, my hero. You are the only hope for the fae. All the fae. You must live this time. If they execute you, the door will fail. Without both halves, the fae die.”

Diego jerked awake, trembling. Dream…it was only a dream, wasn’t it? And why in the world had his dream cast Finn as Prometheus? Drying sweat cooled on his body. He shivered, then cried out when the door to his room opened.

“Just me, Mr. Sandoval.” Sergeant Morrison came in pushing a wheelchair with a pile of cloth on the seat. A frown creased his forehead. “Sorry to wake you up, but you’ve got a meeting I need to get you to.”

“What sort of meeting?” Diego winced at how breathless he sounded.

“Dunno, sir. ‘Get him dressed and wheeled down to the conference room’. That’s what I was told. I know you’re probably not feeling up to it yet, sir, and I’m sorry about that.”

“But orders are orders,” Diego murmured.

The sergeant lowered the bedrail so he could help Diego sit up on the edge of the bed.

Together, they exchanged the hospital gown for a pair of blue scrubs identical to the ones Sergeant Morrison wore, and a pair of disposable slippers.

With more gentleness than expected from such large hands, he eased Diego over into the chair and tucked a blanket around his lower half.

“You ready?”

Shaky from the effort of moving even that little bit, Diego nodded.

“Look, Mr. Sandoval, if you feel like you’re gonna keel over, you need to say so now. I can tell them you’re just not strong enough yet.”

“No.” Diego gulped a breath. “Let’s go. Maybe these people I’m going to see have some answers for me.”

“Might have a lot of questions,” Sergeant Morrison said softly.

“Right. That, too. Zack?” Diego looked up into the worried face of his would-be protector. “It’ll be all right.”

The sergeant said nothing to that, just patted his shoulder and wheeled him out of the room.

The unbroken, uniform gray of institutional corridors dashed Diego’s hopes of finding some clue of his whereabouts.

No windows interrupted the blank walls, no artwork or even printed memos decorated the stark, naked expanses.

They passed door after door, each room identified only by a four-digit number.

Finally, Sergeant Morrison knocked on door 5558.

It opened, he wheeled Diego in, and went to parade rest at his left.

A long conference table took up most of the room, its five occupants sitting on the side opposite the door.

Two were military, in desert camouflage, one wore a black suit and smug expression that screamed government agent, while the remaining two older gentlemen wore lab coats.

The white-haired lab coat in the center looked up briefly from his papers. “Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all.”

“Sir—”

“Dismissed, Sergeant!” the military man on the left barked out.

Sergeant Morrison snapped to attention, saluted and executed a perfect about-face without further argument. The door shut with a sharp click behind him.

For a few uncomfortable minutes, they all sat in silence, the black-suited man staring fixedly at Diego while the others read through their papers.

The intimidation tactics irritated him and struck him as childish.

These people had invaded his home, abducted him without explanation…

but a show of temper would undoubtedly be counterproductive.

Heart pounding, Diego managed a steady tone when he finally asked, “Gentlemen, am I being detained here?”

The central figure lifted his head with a frown, white eyebrows drawn together. “Currently, you are under medical observation.”

“But that, Mr. Sandoval, is subject to change,” Black Suit said with a bland smile.

Diego had to fight against a nervous laugh. The way the man said his name sounded far too much like Hugo Weaving saying ‘ Mister Anderson’. He wondered how many times he had watched The Matrix to get the inflection just right. “And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”

Black Suit laced his hands together atop the table and leaned forward. “You’re Cuban, Mr. Sandoval?”

“My parents emigrated from Cuba. I was born in Miami.”

“Communist sympathizers?”

“No, they weren’t. They would hardly have fled to the States then.” The line of questioning aggravated Diego more than the cold-war melodrama. Leave my parents out of this. “What in God’s name is this all about?”

“We have some questions, Mr. Sandoval,” the quieter military man said.

“So do I. Starting with where are we, and why did you drag me here?”

“You’re hardly in a position to make demands.” Black Suit’s soft voice dripped with menace.

“Maybe not, but the last time I checked, I’m still a US citizen, which comes with certain inalienable rights. I haven’t been granted a phone call. My attorney isn’t present. I haven’t been charged with anything. Therefore, I’m under no obligation to answer a damn thing.”

Black Suit gave him a chill smile. “These rights can be set aside, Mr. Sandoval, when it becomes a matter of national security.”

“A matter of… Am I being accused of something or not?”

The younger lab-coated man, stork-thin and balding, cleared his throat. “No one is making accusations. We just have some questions.”

“I respectfully refuse to answer anything until I get some answers myself. You can’t just keep me here, at any rate. If I disappear, my family, my publisher, the public—people will ask questions.”

“Like when you disappeared for over two weeks this past month?” The military man on the left barked out. “Let’s start with that, Sandoval. Where the hell were you?”

Diego fought to unclench his jaw. “I haven’t done anything illegal or unethical. Nor have I jeopardized the safety of my country in any way. I refuse to answer any questions until I’ve been allowed to speak to my attorney.”

“Your attorney?” Black Suit chuckled. “There aren’t any laws to cover what you’re mixed up in. I’m not even certain you understand how serious this is.” He motioned to someone behind Diego. “Don’t worry. You will.”

The wheelchair spun back around to the door. Diego twisted his head to find a uniformed man with a sidearm pushing him back out into the hall. Two more flanked them on either side. Oh, hell, what now?

They escorted him to another featureless door.

This one opened up to a completely empty room, about eight by eight.

Not a room, a cell, mierda . Visions of waterboarding and beatings raced across Diego’s thoughts, the threat of torture more real by the second when his guards yanked him from his chair and stripped him.

“What are you going to do?” He tried to catch one of the guards’ arms but the man pulled away.

Instead of answering or commencing the beating Diego expected, the three guards gathered up his blanket, scrubs and wheelchair and left the room.

The unmistakable sound of a bolt slamming home destroyed any illusions of getting out into the hall to find help.

Diego sat naked in his stark new space, head buried in his hands.

Every muscle ached from one of the worst seizures in months and his ankle stabbed at him every time he moved.

He had no place to lie down but the concrete floor, no place to relieve himself but a small grate in the corner and nowhere to hide from the cameras that certainly monitored him.

Dios, what have I done? Why didn’t I hide them better?

The door still stood open in his backyard.

What if government agents had already gone through and slaughtered countless fae?

He should have been more cautious, thought it through, and kept them better hidden.

Not that they should have hidden. It was their damn world, too—they had every right to be there.

The room gradually grew warm, then uncomfortably hot.

Diego lay down on the cool concrete, sweat prickling his skin, seeking some relief.

Just when he thought he might pass out from the heat, fans kicked on to dry the sweat and revive him.

Wonderful if it had stopped there, but the temperature plummeted until he lay curled in a tight ball, shivering hard enough to rattle his teeth.

When the fog of his breath began to leave ice crystals on the floor, the fans shut off and the cycle repeated, from one extreme to the other, on and on for what might have been several hours.

I deserve everything they throw at me. I’ve probably killed my love and my friends and doomed every magical being to extinction.

He tried again to reach for the flows of magic, for some trickle that might help him summon enough lightning to take out the door, but again he came up against that strange, gray pressure blotting out the magic.

Eventually, exhausted, he tried to drop into a twilight sleep.

As soon as his eyes slid shut, though, a Sousa march blared from hidden speakers, loud enough that the bass notes vibrated through the floor.

The room lights flickered off and on at random intervals, the music came and went, and so it continued, stifling to frigid to stifling again, with the strobe effect of his room light and the cacophonous intrusions from the March King, until Diego’s body finally had enough and seized again.