Boreal and John Grey Season 1 (14 page)

Seeing a parking space at the street side, she threw the car into it and pulled the handbrake. Drawing her knife, she twisted around and barely escaped a blow from a clawed hand.

“Down!” Finn shouted, long knives slashing through the air. She ducked behind the seat as a screech filled the car, threatening to burst her eardrums.

When she peeked around the backrest, there was only Finn kneeling, his knives dripping clear ichor. He looked unharmed, and Ella’s heart settled a little.

“No warning,” she said and he lifted his gaze, focusing on her. “First time I get no warning Shades are coming. No sounds, no wind blowing. Nada.”

He looked down at his knives, then bent to retrieve his pistol from the floor.

“Thanks,” Ella said with sincerity. “I owe you again.”

Hands shaking only a little, she sat back behind the wheel and waited as Finn clambered forward to join her, his movements slow and clumsy. He straightened his leg with a soft groan and cradled his swollen wrist against his chest. Lines of pain had formed around his mouth. Damn, he looked exhausted.

“So,” she said, “how do you know all that stuff about
Aelfheim
?”

Finn glared at the dashboard, lips pressed together.

She leaned over and buckled him in, then looked up to find his clear gaze on her, so close. A flush warmed her cheeks.

Straightening, she belted herself in and took the wheel. “I mean, how do you know
Aelfheim
is cold? And that the elves would send these white animals through?”

Finn shrugged and winced. He turned his glare outside.

Right
. He’d reached his word limit for the day, apparently.

Pulling out into the street, she checked in the rearview mirror, making sure no Shade was lurking on the back seat or the street. It was clear. Heaving a sigh of relief, she drove away, already hearing the police sirens. Let them handle the panicked people. At least nobody had died.

And Finn...
Glancing at him, she saw his head dip forward. Fear seized her chest. “Hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he slurred, blinking blearily. His color was good, she decided, relieved. He was just falling asleep, in spite of the cold air rushing through the broken windows.

He’d probably overdone it; after last night he should be resting, not fighting Shades. She’d take him home, check the wound in his side, make sure it was not bleeding.

Then she remembered the paper with the code in her pocket. “Shit. I need to pass by the library. Won’t be a minute.”

Finn stirred briefly, blinked twice and dozed off again, the lines of his face smoothing out. He slumped against the safety belt.

She smiled, not sure why. “You’re a good partner,” she informed him, knowing he probably couldn’t hear, and forced her attention back on the street. “You really have my back.”

Fighting the Shades with him by her side made her feel light and strong and able to do just about anything. If only Simon was alive...

Spirits dampened, she sped across the city, aware she was following the last route Simon had taken on the day of his death.

Chapter Three

F
+
frildia

Stevenson Library was housed together with a number of real estate companies and lawyers’ offices in an old neoclassical building decorated with pillars and gargoyles. Poplar trees lined the wide sidewalk and a parking lot sign flashed. Full, of course.

She parked in a street side. The moment she opened the car door, Finn came awake with a jerk, hands going to his knives.

“Hey,” Ella said, zipping up her jacket. “How are you feeling?”

He struggled with the seat belt as if he didn’t know what it was. His borrowed shirt and jacket were covered in ichor. He reeked of it, bitter and toxic.

She put a hand on his shoulder, pushed him back. He got that confused look again that stirred emotions inside her chest, the warm fuzzy kind she didn’t know what to do with. “Tell you what. Why don’t you stay here and sleep a bit longer. I’m just going to check out a book and I’ll be right back.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“They won’t let you in like this, so why try?” She glanced outside at the falling snow. “After I’m done here, we go to your place so you can change into clean clothes, all right?”

Before he could protest again, she climbed out and closed the door. He blinked at her from inside the car, still belted in, pale hair catching the light.

Reluctantly she left him and entered the building.

The stucco and pillars of the facade continued inside, at least as far as the lobby where a bored-looking guard gave her half a glance. She passed him and scanned the building map. Escalators led up to the sections of literature, history, politics and law. Other signs pointed to poetry, folklore, women’s studies and medicine. Then she spotted the place she needed to be and headed off. A moment later she was on the elevator heading down to the medieval literature section.

Somehow she always ended up underground.

The librarian’s name was Miss Cobble, according to the tag pinned to her lapel. She glanced at the paper Ella handed her, at the book code penned in Simon’s neat handwriting, and shook her head. She pushed her golden-rimmed glasses up on her tiny nose. They slid down immediately. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have it?” Disappointment swamped Ella.

“Oh, it’s here. But I can’t lend it out.”

“Fine. May I see it?”

“Do you have a membership card?”

Ella’s patience had been thin to start with; it was see-through now. She fished out her badge and shoved it in the woman’s face. “How about this one?”

“Huh.” The librarian gave her a disapproving look. “Not a week ago this young man came and did exactly the same. Flashed his police badge around, trying to impress me.”

Ella swallowed. “This young man... Was his name Simon? Simon Esterhase?”

“Esterhase, yes.” She looked down her nose at Ella.

Ella turned away. Her eyes stung.

“I’ll make an exception this time,” the librarian said, “but bear in mind that without a membership card you can’t take the book out.” She led the way to the shelves, the paper with the code clutched in a small hand. “What is the sudden interest in this story anyway? We only have a copy because we specialize in Norse literature.”

“What is it about?”

“You want a book and don’t even know what it’s about,” the librarian grumbled. “It’s a saga relating a visit from the
aesir
and the arrival of the
aelfar
.”

Ella’s heart beat faster. “And the title?”

“Here.” Miss Cobble pulled out a thin volume and handed it to Ella. “Grarssaga. The saga of Grey.”

The hell?
“The saga of John Grey?”

“Yes, I believe the name is mentioned.”

Breath caught in her throat, Ella studied the faded green cover of the book. John Grey, the one the Shades couldn’t stop talking about.
Damn it, Simon, why didn’t you tell me what you knew?

She flipped the book open, leafed through it. No note from Simon fell out, no mysterious symbols. It would’ve been too easy. She sighed. Had she made a mistake? Had Simon not meant for her to see it?

It didn’t matter. It was the saga of John Grey. Answers lurked within its pages. “I’m afraid I’ll have to take it with me.”

“I said you can’t—”

“People’s lives depend on it.”

“On an old Norse saga?” The librarian lifted her chin and huffed, clearly not buying it.

Ella held the old woman’s gaze, fury building in her chest. “Yes.”

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“No,” Ella agreed, “you don’t.”

***

Coming out of the library building, Ella squinted, momentarily blind. Thick snow drifts swirled by, obscuring the trees and other buildings.
Crazy weather
. Last she’d checked, it was still September, change of the season into autumn when the leaves turned pretty colors and the sky was a perfect blue.

Not this year, it seemed; winter had entered all at once. She thought of Finn in his thin borrowed clothes and shivered. That had to be rectified.

Her car was covered in snow, the windshield opaque, so she couldn’t see him. Yet, as she trudged to the driver’s side, she thought she saw swarms of white moths fluttering on the air.

But it was just the snow, spinning in eddies. Spirals in spirals, like the afterimages of a dream. Shaking her head, she opened the car and slid into the dim interior, pulling the door closed.

A rustle, and a cold blade pressed against her neck. Her heart jolted and she opened her mouth, but a hand clapped over it.
Scent of spice and honey
.

Sliding her gaze sideways, she found Finn’s face. His eyes were wide and unfocused, as if he was sleepwalking.

Her lips moved against the rough texture of his palm. “Finn?”

Seconds slipped by.

Then the hand lifted and the pressure of the blade left her. Finn blinked, looked around, then tensed again. “Where is this?”

“I was at the library. You must have fallen asleep again.”

“The snow.” He gestured with his knife at the white surrounding them.

“Freak weather. Happens.”

“It’s a Gate opening.”

She gaped at him. “Are you saying...”

“The snow is coming through.” He scowled. “And it won’t be all that passes.”

A Gate
. Should she believe it, believe he was right? He spoke of scaly wolves and Gates, but where was the proof?

It was ice-cold inside the car. She revved the engine and flicked on the heater. The wipers whirred against the windshield, letting in hazy light.

Finn seemed to glow, too, a faint luminescence that rose from his skin like mist. Ella squinted. His hair glimmered as if Christmas lights were caught in them, tiny dots of brilliance, and his face burned. Designs swirled on his hands.

Then he turned away and the glow faded.

What the hell had that been? She’d seen the glowing lines on his hands and forearms before, but never so bright. Her hand had gripped her gun; she let it go and reached toward Finn, to shake the truth out of him.

He made a small noise in the back of his throat and a shudder went through him. His lips looked blue.
Fuck
. Glowing or not, he was freezing his ass off.

Shrugging off her jacket, she threw it over him and cranked up the heating. “Do you have warm clothes at home?”

Finn scowled, although he made no movement to push off the jacket covering him. “I’m fine.”

“It’s freaking snowing.” She gave the thick flurries outside a pointed look. “How about a jacket, mittens, a scarf? Thick pants?”
Or how about you tell me why you were glowing like a goddamn firefly a moment ago?

Finn said nothing. She thought back at his dirty clothes; they’d looked like he’d slept in them for days. “Do you have a place to stay?”

He shook his head. “I’m fine,” he repeated.

They really had to work on Finn’s definition of
‘fine’
. “You were sleeping outside, weren’t you?”

Finn shrugged.

“What happened to you?” She looked at his hands which shook against his legs. “What about your family?”

He snorted. “Family,” he spat.

Oh, that good
. Well, she could relate; her family was as dysfunctional as it went. She pressed her lips together, swallowing the questions she really wanted to ask. The snow swirled outside. It was going to get much chillier. And snow or not, no way was she leaving Finn out in the cold.

“You’re coming home with me.”

Finn didn’t look at her. “No need.”

“You’ll freeze to death.” She bit back a groan of frustration.
Too stubborn or too proud?
“Come on, Finn. For my sake.”

“No.” The word was pushed through chattering teeth.

“Listen.” She pulled out of the parking space, the wipers swishing against the glass. “You’re doing your part. Helping me, keeping me alive, giving me information.” She licked her dry lips. “This is the least I can do.”

When he didn’t protest again, she smiled.

***