Boreal and John Grey Season 1 (8 page)

Chapter Five

Spiral

Ella slept. Spirals bloomed behind her closed eyelids, growing like flowers, turning into snowflakes that blew on her face, tickling her skin. A large hand cupped her cheek.
‘Ella,’
whispered a man’s voice.
‘Will you come with me?’

Terror seized her limbs. She fought to tear herself away but couldn’t move.
Go away
, she wanted to scream,
not again, I’m not leaving
. The spirals spun faster, black sinkholes, sucking her in. 

The persistent ring of a phone jerked her awake. She drew lungfuls of air, nearly choking on it. She hunted for her backpack by the side of the sofa, located the phone in and flipped it open.

“What?” she snapped.

“Ella?” said a man’s voice and she swayed, still half-caught in the dream. “Ella, it’s Finn.” His voice wheezed like he was panting. “I need your help.” The line fizzed as if strong wind blew on the other end. “Ella?”

That brought her back to her senses like a slap to the face. “Finn? You okay? Where are you?”

“Can’t see... Harlem street...”

A deafening crack and a cry sent her pulse thudding in her ears. “Finn? Finn, dammit!”

But there was no answer.

Cursing, she grabbed her backpack and raced out the door, redialing the number Finn had used. The phone rang as she stepped out in the bitter cold, and then ran back up to grab her gun and ammo. On the way to her car, an automated voice informed her that the number she was calling wasn’t responding. She flipped the phone closed, refusing to acknowledge the dread knotting her insides. He’d be fine. She’d find him.

He hadn’t wanted her help, which meant he was in desperate straits, maybe dying and...

Goddammit, stop the negative thinking!

Driving through the city center, she prepared to call Dave, only to discover her battery had given up the ghost. She flung it at the back seat, too pissed to even care if it broke. Her fault. Not prepared, not organized where it mattered. She’d lost Simon, and now...

She gripped the wheel tighter. Dave would have told her not to go, not alone. She’d have to wait for backup, maybe be taken off this case altogether. Thank god her phone had died. Probably a stroke of fate. She was meant to go and find Finn, dammit.

That made her feel marginally better.

Harlem Avenue was bright with lights, but few people braved the cold. She rolled her window down to clear the condensation on the glass. The promise of snow hung heavy in the air; it smelled fresh and dry, thick with crystals. She cruised along, keeping an eye on every corner she passed.

At the corner with Kennedy Street, she saw a flash of movement but it was only a group of teenagers running, one of them clutching something to his chest.

Not Finn
. Gritting her teeth, she kept at it, passing more crossings, feeling time slip through her fingers. The cold hurt her face, pulled the skin tight over her cheekbones. A clue, just a clue, that’s all I need. The words looped in her mind, repeating over and over again.
Come on, Finn, where are you?
 

Just when she was about to give up hope, toward the end of the avenue, she spotted an old public phone on the corner with Remy Street. The receiver dangled from its cord, and the cabin panes had been smashed.

All the nasty images that had been rolling inside her head, ever since Finn’s call, tangled and merged into a bloody picture. Finn was hurt, she just knew it.

Fighting panic, she turned into the street. The air smelled burned and electric, clicks and whirring noises filling it. The clouds seemed to swirl overhead. The Veil was thinning. She parked, barely avoiding a street lamp, got out and drew her gun.

Trees swayed and whispered in a wind that flowed down the street like a river. It blew back her hair and stung her eyes with dirt. Squinting, she raised her gun and jogged up the sidewalk. The air thickened. Her skin prickled, the spot between her shoulder blades itched. As she walked, she covered the street with her gun.
Give me a sign you’re still here, still alive
.

But only the wind blew, whipping the flaps of her jacket and hurting her eyes, while the clicks became louder. The Veil was parting.

A shout somewhere to her right left her breathless with hope.
Finn?
She sprinted that way, turned into an alley and ran smack into a goblin, large and horned, its greenish skin mottled like a camo suit.

The creature swung a massive fist, but she twisted and received the hit on her upraised arm. Her gun went flying.

The impact threw her backward. She stumbled a few steps but managed to keep her feet. Darting a look around, she drew her knives. Well, no point in keeping silent anymore, was there?

“Finn!” She circled the goblin, her knives glinting in the light of a street lamp. “Finn, where are you?”

The goblin bared yellowed canines and lunged. As she spun, its long claws scored her back and she faltered, knees weakening at the burning pain. Gritting her teeth, sweat trickling down her face, she kept upright and turned to face him once more. A deep breath and she ducked under his reach, stabbing and dragging her iron blades.

The goblin bellowed and swiped at her, knocking her backward. Its form flickered and wavered like a broken TV screen, and its next bellow came out broken. The goblin faded.

“Finn! Dammit, answer me!” Wiping her knives on her cargo pants, she listened. The wind carried a groaning and a howling that grew louder and louder as time passed. Another howl began somewhere farther away, and then — there — another human cry. Heart hammering, she set off in its direction.

Gaze flicking back and forth, she ran, knives pointing out, sweeping in a circle around her. The walkway between houses was dark and wet under the foliage of beeches. Empty benches marked the length of the walkway. Another lamp cast a pool of light farther up.

 Shadows shifted across the path, the air hummed with tension, and she slowed. Her pulse rang in her ears. Something huge lumbered across the path, blocking her way.
Well, would you look at that. A rock troll
.

“Join the party,” she hissed between her teeth as she mentally went through her remaining weapons. “Any more of you around?” Her two daggers, two throwing knives, two shuriken throwing stars — Jeff didn’t have much in way of iron blades. If a troll like this one had gotten Finn, it was no wonder he’d needed help. This time she vowed she’d find out why he kept going after the Shades.

First of course she had to get rid of this troll and find him.
Focus, Ella
. She spun one of the knives to distract the creature, but it kept coming at her. Trolls were supposed to be dimwitted, but with the new mastermind behind them, they seemed to have grown cleverer.

The troll slowed, as if measuring her, and she backed away, sheathing a knife and drawing a shuriken. It was shaped like a four-point star, all sharp edges. Thumb pressed in the center indentation, holding the star loosely, she waited for an opening. Movement beyond the hulking form of the troll drew her eye, but she snapped her attention back when the troll lurched toward her, its examination of her concluded.

“Where’s Finn?” She waited till the last minute, then jumped sideways, out of the way and around the troll’s back. “Where?”

The troll turned, drool running from the corners of its mouth. The protruding tusks looked black in the dim light. It growled low, bunching huge fists at its sides, trunk-like legs tensing. It attacked again.

Ella ran down the path, the troll’s heavy steps pounding behind her. Where was the other Shade she’d seen moving?

The troll was gaining on her. She stepped out of the path under the trees, aimed and rocked back on her heels. She let the shuriken fly.

It hit the troll in the leg, sent it down. The troll howled, but the iron was already working, dispersing the Shade’s essence, sending it back to the Grey. Sparkles danced on the air where the towering form had stood, the sight oddly beautiful and very, very satisfying.

Something rumbled on her left and she spun around, another shuriken in hand. A goat-legged, horned being threw itself at her. She let the shuriken fly without conscious thought. The creature shrieked, limbs jerking, and fizzled into thin smoke.

Panting, Ella bent over, curled an arm around her ribs. They burned. She wiped sweat from her eyes and straightened. Time for the throwing knives.

“Finn!” Her voice echoed between the buildings and the trees, under the heavy sky. She started to walk down the path. A scuffle and a grunt from up ahead had her running before she’d even registered what she was hearing.

A fight?

Her hopes rekindled, she raced into the dark, ducked under a low branch and came out into an alley. A lamp flickered there. At first she didn’t know what her eyes were seeing in the wavering light — a composite form made of black and white, all entwined like a black and white rope. Then the white parts jerked and she caught a glimpse of a face, mouth open, eyes wide—

Finn
. The goblin held him by the neck, keeping him off the ground so that his legs dangled, kicking uselessly at the goblin’s thick limbs.

Son of a bitch
. Pulling back her hand, she threw her first knife, then the second for good measure. Both thudded into the goblin’s bare back. The creature shuddered, turned as if to look at her — and vanished.

Finn dropped to the ground, gasping and coughing, writhing like a stranded fish. He looked like hell warmed over, Ella thought as she knelt next to him and rubbed her hand up and down his back to help him breathe. He looked gaunt, made of sharp angles, his skin stretched too tight across the bones.

“Saw... a butterfly,” Finn gasped.

“It’s okay.” Damn, what was he talking about? Blood dripped from a cut on his brow, glistening crimson over his eye and cheek. He’d probably taken a few hits to the head. And yet the green bandana was still on, keeping his pale hair off his face. On closer inspection, she saw one of his wrists was swollen, and she had to wonder if it was broken.

“My knives.” Finn coughed.

“We need to go. We’ll get you new ones.”

“No.”

As if they had time for this. More Shades could appear any moment. “Where are the damn knives?”

He tried to turn around and she stopped him. “Stay. I’ll get them.”

She went to investigate. One was embedded in the trunk of a beech, and she had to brace herself with her foot on the tree to pull it out. The other knife she found lying in the grass. She returned with her spoils.

“Here. Happy?”

He took them with his good hand, sheathed them at his waist one after the other. He was literally splattered with blood and ichor, so much so that she couldn’t tell if he was hurt elsewhere or if it was all from the cut on his forehead.

But, hell, at least he was alive.

***