Boreal and John Grey Season 1 (10 page)

She went to the kitchenette, opened her fridge, closed it again. Right, there was no food in the house, and she hadn’t had the time to go shopping.
Great hospitality, Ella. Way to go
. 

She returned to the living room to find Finn drawing on the strings of the sweatpants with his good hand. It trembled. He looked up through his pale hair at her. His filthy clothes lay in a heap on her carpet. She picked them up and went to throw them in the kitchen trash. Ichor had eaten holes in them anyway.

“Hey.” She returned to the living room. “Would you like some water? Or tea?”

He shook his head, fumbling with the t-shirt. His chest and shoulders were very strong and his skin pale and smooth, without stains or moles, as if cut from white stone — apart from the dark bruises and the blood-soaked bandage on his side. A thick scar ran from his heart to his navel, as if someone had tried to carve him open.

She hid a shudder. “Let’s get you to bed.” But he was listing forward where he sat, eyes glazed, and she caught him before he dropped. “Or you could stay here.” She nodded at the cushions. “They’re comfortable and the sofa is soft. I’ve spent lots of nights passed out here, watching TV.”

He eyed the cushions as if they had teeth, but when she gave him a light shove, he turned awkwardly and lay down, swollen wrist held against his chest.

“You really should have a doctor look at that,” she said. “Could be broken.”

“It isn’t,” he muttered.

“And how would you know?”

“I know what broken feels like.”

Wow, an actual conversation with Finn! Would wonders never cease. “Could be a hairline fracture. X-rays are your best friends. Besides, we’ll see how it looks in the morning.” She pulled the blankets up to his chin, patted his chest.

His eyes widened, the pupils so dilated the blue irises looked black in the dim light from the overhead lamp. He seemed oddly vulnerable like that, tucked in like a child, his pale hair fanning around his sharp-angled face. He also looked sad and wistful. It made her want to stroke his face.

She got up before she did anything stupid. With jerky motions, she connected her phone to the charger, and the notification of three missed calls popped immediately on the small screen.
Dave
.

On cue, the phone rang. Finn gasped and she turned to see him fighting the blankets to sit up.

Bringing the phone to her ear, she waved for him to lie back down. “Dave?”

“Where the hell have you been?” His voice was shrill with anger, and maybe concern, but it was as hard to tell with Dave as with Finn.
Men
. “I’ve been calling you.”

“Yeah, I saw. What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Dave growled. What the hell, it wasn’t even full moon yet. “My agents have been vanishing and I couldn’t reach you, what do you think? Wouldn’t hurt to answer the phone, would it?”

“Er, sorry.” Damn, he was right to be angry. “Look, I had to run someplace and my battery died. Wasn’t on purpose, okay?” Then his words sank in. “More have gone missing?”

“Four more. This is getting out of hand.”

That was an understatement. “It’s long gone out of hand, Dave. And you still owe me an explanation. What about the Gates? What about
Aelfheim
? Are the elves returning?”

A choked sound from Finn, but she kept her back to him. Missy growled from the corner of the room.

“We don’t know for sure,” Dave muttered. “My superiors did mention the Gates, but we have no reason to believe any attempt has actually been made to open them. As far as we know, it’s only the Grey expanding and the Veil thinning.”

“The oracle, Sarah, she mentioned guardians—”

“Look, Ella. If anything that bad happens, if the Gates...” He paused. “Then it will be a matter for the government. International security breach. We’ll know soon enough.”

Ella swallowed, staring at her wall without quite seeing it. “By then, it may be too late.”

He hummed. “Without proof that the Gates opened, there’s nothing we can do. The forces are on alert. We wait and watch.”

“You mean, wait until they kill us all.”

“Relax,” Dave said. “We’d know if the Gates opened.”

“Would we? How?”

“Like we did the last time.”

And he hung up before she had a chance to ask what he meant. Looked like she’d have to brush up on medieval Nordic epics.
Joy
.

And now?
Her pulse zinged in her temples. How was she ever going to sleep after such a night?

“What do you know about
Aelfheim
?” Finn rasped.

She turned to find him glaring at her —
again
. Jeez, could the guy never relax? “Not as much as I’d like to. I know what the old texts say. What do you know?”

A slight flush rose to his cheeks. “It’s a cold place.”

“Cold. Huh.” She grabbed a book from her cluttered coffee table, a guide to pagan magic she’d borrowed from the library. She hadn’t had a chance to read it yet. “Can’t remember anything about it being cold.”

Finn grunted and shifted on the sofa, face scrunching up. Dammit, where was her head? She snapped the book closed and got up. “Hold on, I’ve got some painkillers.”

She paused while placing the book on the table. On its spine was a white label with letters and numbers.
Letters and numbers...
With a curse, she pulled the paper she’d found at Simon’s place from her hip pocket. Compared the code.
Bingo
. “I’ll be damned.” It was a library code.
A book!

“Ella?”

She looked up. “Sorry. I’ll get those painkillers for you.”

Missy winding between her legs, she trudged to the bathroom cabinet and took out the strongest pills she had, leftover from the time she’d broken her leg. Grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and returned to Finn.

Thoughts whirled in her head while Finn reached out for the pills, then the water. A book. Might be nothing. Might be important. Library was closed now. Tomorrow she’d go have a look. Just in case. Maybe it’d give her a clue as to what Simon had been doing the day he disappeared, a clue where to find him.

Taking the empty glass, she pushed Finn back against the cushions and covered him again. His skin was icy cold where her fingertips brushed his throat.

“Sleep,” she told him. “You need to rest.”

“Are you sure the charms—”

“The charms are in place, and I’m here. I’ll look out for any Shades. I won’t be going to bed any time soon.”

The line of his shoulders relaxed, and he nodded. Warmth rushed through her. He trusted her to protect him. Hell, she’d gotten him out of trouble once already today, hadn’t she?

He closed his eyes and dropped into sleep instantly, head lolling to the side, his hand relaxing its grip on the blanket.

Grabbing a cup of sweet black tea and the pagan magic book, she settled down in the armchair, alternatively leafing through the illustrated pages and gazing at Finn’s relaxed face. A bruise was blooming on his cheek and strands of ash-colored hair fell across the other. That bandana was filthy and greasy, hiding most of his forehead. A hand rested on top of the blanket, the silvery designs she’d seen before all but invisible now. Were they somehow reflective? Well, the lamp light didn’t seem to do the trick; the only thing showing was reddened, chafed skin. One fingernail was broken and encrusted with blood.

Another sip of tea gone cold and she smoothed out the paper with Simon’s drawing. All those images flashing in her mind... Dreaming about spirals. What did that mean?

On tiptoe, she went to her shelves and pulled out a guide to dream symbolism, Simon’s present for her birthday a year back. As if he’d known she’d need it. She found the entry and read the following:
‘Spiral: do you feel that things are spiraling out of your control?’

Ella snorted and smothered the sound with her hand, not to wake Finn. It made perfect sense. The psychologist she’d visited a couple of times at the HQ had said she was still working things out, about her parents’ messy divorce, but also other events she couldn’t quite remember. The first eight years of her life were a dark blur. Sometimes she thought she didn’t want to know what her mind was hiding from her. If it was that bad, it’d better stay hidden.

Putting the book back, she walked to the window and looked out into the dark. Faint lights glowed in the apartments across the street. It was quiet.

Finn gave a soft snore from the sofa. Missy wandered over and rubbed against Ella’s leg, purring. She patted the kitten’s head. Contentment fell over her. She looked down at Missy, then sideways at Finn’s sprawled form, her mug of tea on the table, and it occurred to her that, for the first time since she could remember, her apartment felt like a home.

Crazy, really. She hardly knew Finn, and Missy seemed only interested in food and the occasional scratch behind the ears. But these two persons needed her right now, and she’d take care of them. Odd how that made her smile.

Outside the window, the clouds were a pale grey that muted the light of street lamps and turned it into a milky haze. Snowflakes swirled, larger and larger. Soon the street and benches would be covered in white. A blank slate, ready for a new beginning.  

Missy climbed on the window sill and flicked her ears back and forth, then butted her nose against the glass.

“What do you think, kitty?” Ella whispered. “Will everything turn out all right?” Missy tried to capture a snowflake through the glass and looked confused when it didn’t work. Ella snickered.

Then her phone rang, and she jerked around as Missy jumped off the sill and vanished into the bedroom.

Damn, Finn would wake up. In two strides, Ella was at the table, picking the phone up.

“Dave?” Because what other madman would be up all night, working? The man never slept.

“Bad news.” He sounded grim and out of breath. “Sit down.”

That was worse than bad, that sounded...
No
. “Tell me.”

“Ella...” He muttered something she didn’t catch, then cleared his throat. “We found Simon. He’s dead.”

The room began to tilt sideways. She stumbled into the armchair and slid to her knees on the carpet. “No.”

“I’m sorry. Another two missing agents were found with him. All three are dead.”

“No.” It couldn’t be true. Though, somewhere deep inside, she’d known. Simon wouldn’t have taken off without telling her. The Shades wouldn’t have kept him alive. He wouldn’t... “No, Dave.”

“Ella?” Finn stirred on the sofa. “Are you okay?”

“Look, I understand it’s a shock,” Dave said, his voice vibrating over the phone. “It will—”

 “Shock?” She snorted. It hurt her chest. She couldn’t breathe. The code, the book, the spirals, the brief joy she’d felt — it all meant nothing, it had no use. “Go to hell. You have no idea.”

“Ella!” Finn was struggling to sit up. “What is it?”

“Simon was my best friend,” Ella bit the words out. “I’ll kill the bastards who got him.”

“Yes, we will,” Dave said, “we’ll talk tomorrow, when you come in—”

She hung up. Time had stopped. The phone dropped from her fingers and thudded on the carpet. All warmth had seeped out of her. She shivered.

“Ella.” Hands turned her around, arms enveloped her, pressed her to a hard chest. “You’re crying.”

“I’m not crying.” She never cried. But when she looked up, Finn’s face glimmered through a white haze, so maybe she was. “Damn you, Finn, you shouldn’t be up.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I failed him. Didn’t look close enough, didn’t—” Her voice broke on a sob and she swallowed down the tears. Choked on them.

“Who?”

“Simon.” She drew a shaky breath. “My partner. He’s...” She couldn’t say it.

Finn pulled her closer. He shouldn’t be kneeling there in the cold with his hurt leg and his sprained or broken wrist held awkwardly against her back, rubbing her spine up and down. But nothing mattered. She burrowed against him. She wanted to stop thinking, to forget what she’d just been told, to pretend even for a while that everything was okay.

His chin rested on top of her head, and she closed her eyes against his shirt. He still reeked of blood, but underneath was that smell of spice and sugar that reminded her of lit fireplaces and happy laughter.

She curled, breathing in and out, gripping fistfuls of his shirt as if he might wither away and vanish, too.