Page 37 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

The shocking bray of an alarm siren yanked Diego awake. He sat up in bed, heart hammering, and only had time to wonder whether it was a fire alarm when his door slammed open.

A figure in battle fatigues and a Kevlar vest shot toward the bed and Diego jerked back in dismay before he realized the soldier was Zack. He had a rifle slung over one shoulder and a pair of handcuffs clutched in his fist.

“You’ll be safe here, Mr. S.,” he clipped out, brisk and professional. “I’ve gotta get you secured. I’m sorry, but it’s SOP.”

Before Diego had time to protest, Zack had snapped one cuff around his wrist and the other around the bedrail.

“What’s happening? What the hell’s going on?” Diego shouted above the alarm.

“Don’t know yet. Call to stations. I’ve gotta go report. I’m gonna lock you in, sir. Nothing can get through that door. You stay put and you’ll be safe, okay?”

“But what if it’s a fire?”

“Then I’ll be back double-time and carry you out myself, you hear me?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Diego said, too baffled and anxious for anything more.

Zack was up and out as swiftly as he had entered.

The lock slid home, and he was gone, leaving Diego in his isolation, unable to hear anything over the sirens.

There might have been running footsteps in the hallway.

The lights flickered out and returned once, twice and a third time.

When the sirens cut off abruptly, the utter silence was more frightening than the heart-pounding cacophony had been.

In that terrible, anticipatory stillness, Diego strained to hear some sign of life, an unreasonable dread washing over him of being left alone in this manmade cavern, his imagination turning the white walls into an antiseptic tomb.

Suddenly, he knew something was in the hallway. A presence of frightening strength whispered across his mind, something so powerful the lead shielding failed to damp it entirely. It lurked outside his door, silent, waiting.

The sharp thud against his door tore a cry from his throat. Dios ayudame, go away, go away… A second heavy thud slammed against the door. To Diego’s horror, the steel dented. A third hard blow and the dent bowed inward.

Diego yanked on the bedrail, trying to force it loose from the frame. The last thing he wanted was to face whatever this was shackled and helpless. If he could rip the rail free, the length of metal could double as a weapon.

The door hinges buckled. He worked frantically, crying out in frustration when the rail wouldn’t budge. Another blow and the thing would be in the room. Damn it, damn it…

With a shriek of metal, the door slammed open. A huge figure filled the doorway, backlit from the brighter light of the hall. A step brought the figure into the room to reveal a powerful body covered in shining, silver scales.

“Evening, little man,” a familiar voice spoke as the figure reached up to remove his winged helmet. “Did you miss me?”

“Lugh!” Diego sagged in relief. “You scared the hell out of me. God, yes, I missed you. You don’t even know.”

One black brow lifted. “But you don’t rush into my arms? Oh, I see…let me help you with that.” Lugh strode to the bed and snapped Diego’s handcuff between his fingers, the broken metal falling against the bedrail with a discordant clank.

“Show off,” Diego muttered. “How did you get in here? Are you alone?”

Lugh shook his head, his braids swinging. “I am most assuredly not alone. Come. We mustn’t tarry here.”

“Right.” Diego slid off the bed and limped the two steps to him while Lugh’s dark eyes narrowed in anger.

“They’ve hurt you.”

“It was an accident,” Diego insisted. “Don’t go all Alpha Champion protective on me.”

“Ah. As you wish.” With less effort than should have been possible, Lugh scooped him up and strode out of the broken door. He hesitated in the deserted hallway, looking up and down the corridor.

“How did you find me?” Diego felt compelled to whisper in the oppressive silence.

Lugh nodded down the hall where a soldier lay crumpled on the floor. “That young man was persuaded to show me.”

“ Dios … Did you…?”

“He’s alive, m’dear, don’t fret. He’ll wake with a bit of a headache.” Lugh must have seen the concern still on his face. He smiled. “I have offered him no harm. Merely entered his mind and planted a…suggestion. He believed I was an angel and willingly brought me here. He sleeps.”

“Oh. Good.”

Lugh still scanned the hall. “Now where has that blasted wolf gone?”

Heavy footsteps pounded in the corridor.

With a scrabble of hard nails slipping on linoleum, an enormous figure in black careened around the corner and barreled toward them.

Diego’s heart lurched. The last time he had seen that armor and that horned helmet, Finn had been inside.

He knew better, but still suffered a wave of disappointment when the helmet came off to reveal Faolchú’s lupine head.

“Diego! You’re alive!” Faolchú snatched him out of Lugh’s arms and hugged him tight, nuzzling at his hair.

Then the wolf head lifted to address Lugh in an agitated way.

“It’s nothing but a plague of doors! By the Earth’s bones, how are we to find them?

We can’t take the time to break them all down. ”

“Perhaps our Diego knows,” Lugh suggested.

“Where the others are?” Diego nodded, stroking Faolchú’s muzzle to calm him. “I’m pretty sure I can remember the way. And I’m glad you’re okay.”

Faolchú snorted as Diego directed them to the elevators. “It would take more than a few musket balls to do away with me, little one. I was angry with myself, though, for acting before I could think. A simple earthquake might have ended all this before it started.”

“Push that bottom round thing.” Diego nodded to the ‘down’ button on the wall. “But how did you find this place? And where are all the soldiers?”

“As for the how.” Lugh leaned against the wall while they waited for the elevator.

“I heard your call for help. When I arrived, you were gone, but the blood on the ground and the noxious vapors surrounding your house spoke volumes. I summoned the winds to clear the air and Croi came to me with an odd tale of men without faces who had kidnapped the five of you.”

The doors opened, Diego motioned them inside, and pointed to the button for the seventh floor, which Faolchú pressed carefully with his fore-claw.

Lugh went on as the car descended. “Scath followed the vehicles and since he and Croi cannot lose one another, no matter how far apart, we waited until he knew where you had been taken. This brute”—he nodded to Faolchú—“came back out of the Dreaming howling for blood. Grandmother pleaded for caution—for some reason the wolf listens to her—then we gathered our forces and traveled here by night.”

Faolchú rolled his eyes. “They took my beloved. I was a mite upset. As for where the human warriors are at the moment, our war band keeps them busy.”

“War band?” Diego’s heart sank. “We need to hurry, then. Please. These people are confused, they’re acting on false assumptions, but they’re not evil. I don’t want people to die.”

“We knew you would say so,” Faolchú said on a dry, barking laugh. “And so Balor and Danu have forbidden the killing of humans unless we are given no choice.” The elevator door opened on the seventh floor. “Which way?”

“Down there.” Diego pointed left. “We should come to Angus first.”

“Stupid human caverns,” Faolchú growled as he jogged down the hall. “Burrowing into the rock only to fill it with metal and machines . Makes my skin crawl.”

“This one.” Diego pointed. “The door’s locked, though.”

“So was yours, little man,” Lugh said with a grim smile.

He stepped across the hall, put his head down and charged the door, slamming into it again and again until it buckled and bent just as Diego’s had.

This door, thicker and heavier, took a few more blows but eventually burst open under Lugh’s relentless assault.

“Sometimes it’s good the bull’s so damn stubborn,” Faolchú muttered.

Lugh straightened with a grunt and peered inside the room. “Angus? Oh, dear gods…”

“No, no!” Angus’s cry rasped and cracked, his beautiful, confident voice a ruin. “Don’t tread on the black lines! The lightning will try to devour you!”

“There’s no lightning now,” Diego called out from his perch in Faolchú’s arms. “Angus, can you stand? Can you walk? We have to hurry. We have to get Sionnach.”

“Sionnach?” Blue, half-mad eyes peered out from beneath tangled golden hair. “He no longer lives. His light is gone.”

God, I hope not. Diego tried again. “You can’t hear him because of where we are. Take Lugh’s hand and we’ll go to him. You’ll see.”

Trembling, Angus reached up to grasp the silver-gauntleted hand offered to him. He rose, clinging to Lugh as if he might drown, and stared at the grid of electrical lines on the floor.

“Lugh, pick him up, maybe. Carry him out so he doesn’t have to step on the lines.”

With a nod, Lugh did just that, and though Angus gasped and squeezed his eyes shut, he went without further protest. Lugh set him down in the hallway where he managed to hobble along unassisted on his burned feet. Three doors down, Diego stopped them again.

“This is Sionnach’s. Angus, maybe you shouldn’t loo—”

Too late, Angus had spotted his lover through the window. He pressed his palms and forehead to the glass and wailed like a banshee.

“Storm and thunder!” Lugh lunged for him and clapped a hand over his mouth, pulling Angus into his embrace. “Hush. Quiet. He’s been ill-used, but if Diego says he lives, you mustn’t take on so. We need you strong, Far-seer, to get him safely away.”

Angus’ chest heaved, but he nodded, arms wrapped tight around his ribs. Lugh moved away to repeat his battering-ram performance, only to be halted by a metallic snick down the corridor.

“Thought I asked you to stay put, Mr. S.” Zack’s soft voice held both anger and regret as he stared down the muzzle of his rifle at the little group in the hall.