The overhang helped with the wind a little, but it trapped him. He couldn’t climb out above, and without rappelling gear, he couldn’t descend.
He had a cell phone. When Diego was at last able to tug it out and open it, he of course couldn’t get a signal. He left it on, though, in case they could find him through the GPS inside it.
It looked like the sky was lightening. Diego didn’t remember that much time passing, but the eastern horizon definitely was a little grayer.
No, wait, the sky itself hadn’t lightened. Mist shimmered about six feet away from Diego’s ledge, right in the middle of empty air. And damned if two more Fae—not dead this time—didn’t just raise bows and aim through the mist at him. Not crossbows, longbows, as though Diego had landed in some kind of Renaissance Fair.
Diego brought up his Sig and fired. The Fae ducked aside faster than Diego had ever seen anyone duck, then they stared at him in amazement.
The gun’s kick nearly dislodged him, but Diego held on and shouted, “This is steel. That’s made from iron. Want a piece?”
More staring. Then the Fae shot. One arrow ripped Diego’s cell phone from his hand and sent it spinning away down the cliff. Diego dropped to the ledge, breath snagging in terror as his face looked into nothing.
He felt a sudden, sharp pain and looked down to see an arrow sticking out of his side.
It shocked him more than it hurt, but he knew pain would come. And blood loss, and weakness. Then death when he tumbled over the side from all of that. He brought up his pistol and fired again.
The Fae ducked back but they nocked arrows to their bows again.
“Damn you, I’m not Reid! I sprang the f**king trap by accident.”
Didn’t look like they cared. Who the hell guards a gate for fifty years? And why do they hate Reid so much?
“You’re hoch alfar, right? I’m human.”
They hesitated when he said hoch alfar, but obviously they didn’t understand any of his other words. Probably wouldn’t make any difference if he said it in Spanish. Maybe if he knew Gaelic.
I really should have bought that audio course.
Diego aimed his Sig again. “Stand down or this bullet goes into your chest.”
Fire spread through his side. He was going to die up here.
The second Fae nocked another arrow and shot, his fingers a blur. Diego fired at the same time. The Fae he aimed at went over backward, blood on his mail-shirted chest.
So, they could die. But then, so could Diego.
The arrow that had left the bow glanced across Diego’s hip, missing because the second Fae had jumped when his colleague went down. Diego aimed again and shot.
The second Fae knew enough to duck aside. The air shimmered and the gate closed.
Diego lowered his aching arm, trying to catch his breath. Would it open again? Would they send more to kill the man who’d just shot one of their own?
His side hurt like hell. He knew an artery hadn’t been severed only because he was still alive. Either that or the arrow was holding the blood vessels closed.
Maybe his gunshots had drawn attention. But the wind was hard, blowing sound away. Echoes could come from anywhere. Diego didn’t dare keep firing in case the Fae returned and he needed the ammo. He had half a magazine now in his gun and that was it.
Find me, Cassidy.
She had to be crazy, telling him to stay away from her. For his own protection. Right.
Love didn’t work that way. That’s what for better or for worse meant. You didn’t run off when times got tough. You worked through it. You helped each other with whatever crazy problems happened and celebrated the good stuff on the other side.
You found your lover when he was stuck on the side of a cliff with an arrow in his side.
Dizziness swirled through him. Perfect. Just effing perfect.
He was going to pass out. When he did, there was nothing to say whether he’d lay here quietly or whether the next gust would send him plunging over the side.
The air shimmered again. When the mist cleared, Diego was staring down his gun at five more Fae.
They had rope. They had a grappling hook—not iron. It looked, as it flew toward the ledge and missed, to be hard, carved wood.
They were going to try to pull him into Faerie.
Not a place he wanted to go.
Diego raised his Sig, his hand shaking like holy hell. “Me and my iron,” he said. “It comes with me.”
Another throw, and this time the hook stuck on a nearby rock. Diego reached over and plucked it out.
The Fae on the other side snarled and started talking in their own language, but not to Diego. A technique to show they had the upper hand. Don’t talk directly to the victim or listen when they talked back. Victims were nothing.
The next thing they threw was a net.
Ropes tried to entangle him. Diego fought, pain rippling through him. Finally, he managed to pull the damn thing off him and drop it over the side.
That made the Fae angry. They started shouting among themselves, and then here came the longbows again.
Diego fired at the Fae. They boiled apart, the air shimmered, and the gate closed again.
Diego sighed and slumped to the ledge, waiting for the next round to begin.
Cassidy held on as the truck rocked over the pitted washboard road. Xavier led the way up the hill with a string of sheriffs’ cars behind them, lights flashing. Diego’s GPS signal had vanished, and Cassidy tried to stem her panic.
The signal had come from a place on the Nevada side of the river, Xavier was told, in a section where no roads led. They’d drive as close to the cliffs as they could, then they’d have to search on foot.
In the dark, Xavier said glumly, hours from daylight. He hoped Diego could hang on.
Cassidy didn’t need roads or light. As soon as Xavier reached the end of the road, Cassidy was out of the truck and tugging off her shirt.
The road was literally at an end; a giant rock wall with boulders strewn at its base rose like a monolith in front of them. Red and blue and yellow lights from the patrol cars and construction trucks swirled across its face.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
One of the sheriff’s deputies trained a flashlight on Cassidy as she stood there in her bra, hand on her waistband. Xavier slammed his truck’s door and put himself protectively in front of her.
“Leave her alone. Let her do what she’s good at.”
“Stripping?”
Xavier moved the deputy’s flashlight so Cassidy was no longer in its beam. “She can help. Go on, Cass.”
Cassidy growled, too far gone to reply. The shift was coming upon her, and she had to get out of these damn clothes.