Boreal and John Grey
Complete Season One
Centuries ago, they nearly conquered humankind. But their Gate to our world was closed, and they were defeated. Now the elves have found a way to open it, and they’re back.
Table of Contents
Episode 1: The Encounter
Episode 2: The Gate
Episode 3: The Dragon
Episode 4: The Dream
Episode 5: The Truth
Author’s Note
Boreal and John Grey (Complete Season One) © Copyright 2013 by Chrystalla Thoma
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, events, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by Chrystalla Thoma and Nathalie Hamidi
Acknowledgments
Heartfelt thanks to Harlow Fallon, Claire Bugler Hewitt, Randall Bird, Krista D. Ball, J.A. Beard and Arlene Webb for beta reading (in part or entirety) Boreal and John Grey.
Special thanks to authors Tim Stevens and J.A. Beard for their help with questions about guns, gunshot wounds and the military.
Also, a big thank you to all the people in my two critique groups for their constant support and great suggestions. Any errors in the story are of course solely mine.
Author’s note:
At the beginning of each episode, there is a short text or poem. Certain lines of those texts and poems were borrowed from the Younger Edda, a medieval Icelandic saga which you can find online on the Gutenberg Project site.
Norse words used in the text:
Dokkaelfar: Dark elves
Ljosaelfar: Light elves
Duergar: dwarves
Aelfr-Aelfar: elf-elves
blod: blood
bein: bone
Vaettir: shades
Adramar: name of the elven queen
drengr: warrior
visi: commander
daudr: death
sar: leader
faen: devil
lydr: leaders
mogr: boy
fadhir: father
aesir: gods
The Encounter
Episode 1
Nine worlds hang on the divine tree, whose roots feed in the river of Grey. The Gates between the worlds are gone. The guardians keep watch, honing their blades and biding their time. The day of reckoning will come. Beware of John Grey.
Chapter One
Vaettir
Although it was early September, the cold bit to the bone and the air smelled like snow. Snow and piss and trash. The alley stretched ahead, empty of life and strewn with crushed cans and paper.
Ella didn’t move. Faint humming filled her ears, and clicking noises sounded. The clouds above shifted, though no wind blew. The Veil was thinning. Shades would be lurking, waiting to pounce. In the past, faint, frail faeries came through; these had recently turned into more malevolent creatures — kobolds and goblins with a taste for blood.
Nothing moved. Her cheeks ached with the cold. Swearing under her breath, she shifted her hand on the grip of her gun. She wore her blouse inside out for protection and the patterned letters on the front scraped against her skin and itched. The charms hanging around her neck chimed softly as she turned to check behind her and she clapped a hand over them, the iron ice-cold against her palm. A strand of dark hair fell in her eyes; she blew it off her face.
Night was falling, limiting her vision, and she just wished she knew where the hell Simon, her partner, was. He was supposed to meet her, but there was no sign of him.
No sign of the caller who’d reported being pursued by a Shade, either, and she couldn’t just shout ‘Secret Paranormal Investigation Team of one here to save you’, could she? Not with the Shade lying in waiting. Poor fellow had either escaped or found death. Sooner or later she’d know which it was.
The air thickened, growing opaque with dark fog, and she clasped her cold iron charm against her chest. She drew a deep breath and caught a whiff of blood.
A shift behind her, a current stirring the trash, and three Shades came out of the mist, running at her, claws extended.
Ella spun and slashed with her twin knives, the symbols on them blazing. She caught one Shade under the chin and cut upward, drew the other into the creature’s belly. The Kobold shrieked, clawing at its throat with sharp-nailed fingers, then fizzled and faded, returning to the grey space between the worlds — the river of Grey, where twisted ghosts and shadow creatures nobody knew much about wandered.
Quiet settled around her. She turned in a circle, knives pointing down. They dripped black ichor that burned holes where it dripped into the ground.
Where were the other two Shades? And where had all these come from? The Veil rarely thinned so much as to admit more than one at a time.
A swish in the air behind her and she dropped to the asphalt, rolling away, coming to a crouch. The other two Kobolds leered at her, spindly legs and ugly feet bare to the icy wind that now tore through the city. She rose slowly.
Dave would love this new development. One more thing to worry about, on top of the increased Shade aggressiveness they’d observed over the past days.
Ella barely had time to duck when the Shades attacked, each from either side. She slashed at one and backed away. Simon, damn you, hurry up! Her partner was so going to hear about this. He never stood her up, so what was going on?
No time for speculation. Her boots skidding on loose gravel, she raced toward a construction site. It stood silent in the night, pillars and scaffolds rising like ruins of some ancient temple, silvered by moonlight. She dug her fingers into the chain link fence and climbed up, swung a leg over and dropped on the other side. She ran lightly between pits and pieces of machinery, looking for a good spot to make her stand.
Too late she caught the glint of yellow eyes peering at her from behind a half-built wall. Backing away on broken pieces of concrete and planks, she tried to wrap her mind around this. More Shades? Maybe she should call Dave right now, ask for extraction ASAP.
But she never got the chance. The goblin, because that’s what it was, stepped from behind the wall, massive and horned, drooling silver saliva. The Kobolds snickered and chittered, a series of clicks and sighs that chilled her spine. Jesus, how many were there?
She drew her phone, keeping the knife in her other hand, and pressed one, the speed-dial for a distress call.
Then the goblin flew at her, knocked the phone out of her hand and slammed her down to the floor. Her head hit the concrete and the world blacked out for a moment. As her senses returned, the dark fading, she saw the goblin tower over her. She barely registered the burn of something sharp pinching her side, too shocked to feel much of anything. She patted the concrete at her side, seeking her knife in the rubble, then froze when the goblin drew back a massive fist and gave a grin full of sharp teeth.
Somewhere behind her, the kobolds clicked and clapped.
No, she couldn’t end this way. Sitting up, she scraped her fingers along the floor, found something long and cold — a rod? — and swung at the creature’s legs. It was like hitting a brick wall. The goblin merely sniffed, its muzzle wrinkling, then swatted the rod aside. It left her hand and skittered along the floor.
Since when didn’t the Shades flinch at the touch of steel?
The goblin crouched down and drew its huge fist back. Time slowed. She saw it coming at her like a dark wave, about to smash
her face. Damn you, Simon. If I die here, I’ll haunt you forever.
The fist stopped an inch from her face. The goblin groaned. Its yellow eyes widened, the lumbering body shuddered and pitched sideways.
Ella blinked up at the scaffolds and beams, then sat up slowly, her head spinning. Her knife lay a few feet away. She reached for it, her other hand going to her gun, still in its hip holster.
The kobolds advanced over the half-built wall, clawed hands extended, and she cocked the gun, taking aim.
Something pale streaked her vision and she blinked. Hallucinations? She must have hit her head harder than she thought. Because a man was there, blades flashing in the moonlight. He fell on the kobolds, twirling and delivering heavy blows, his blond hair flying under a green bandana. Like a hurricane, he pivoted and kicked, then cut and stabbed, until the Shades fell back, raising spindly hands to cover their faces.
Okay, what the hell?
The man didn’t stop. He spun closer to the kobolds, hacking at them with his blades — bowie knives, long and wicked, covered in symbols — marking one on the arm. The kobold shrieked and flickered in and out of existence. The other one cowered and whimpered. Ella narrowed her eyes. Why did they fear his knives but not hers? The blades were dark. Iron?
A bellow from the left reminded her the goblin was still present. Crap. Her hand felt too heavy, her head too light, filled with sharp pebbles that bounced inside her skull. The goblin pushed itself upright and turned to her.
“Oh no, you don’t,” she whispered and took aim. She fired one, two, three bullets into its chest. The goblin staggered back but didn’t fall. Cursing, she reversed her grip on the knife and threw it at the creature’s head. It hit it smack in the forehead.
The goblin fell and fizzled, its limbs melting away, its torso and head going last, a grizzly Cheshire cat grin on its face — finally returning to the place behind the Veil.
Ella blinked at the empty spot the goblin had occupied, then turned to see the man dispatch the last kobold. Suddenly there was ringing quiet, punctuated by the guy’s hissing breaths. He looked up.
“Are you okay?” he asked. He had a strange accent, a way of drawing out the vowels. Russian, perhaps. He was handsome in a lean and austere sort of way — thin face, high cheekbones, a small mouth, and hooded ice-blue eyes. His chest rose and fell, stretching the black material of his dirty white t-shirt. He wore a green bandana under which his ash-blond hair fluttered down to his shoulders. “Hey, can you hear me?”
“Yeah, sorry. I’m fine.” To prove it, she clicked the safety of her gun on and stood, wobbling only a little. “Thank you. You’re...?”
“You should get out of here. More Vaettir may arrive.”
“Vaettir? You mean Shades?” That had sounded Nordic. Maybe not Russian then.
He nodded, eyes darting around the place, knives held loosely at his sides, ichor dripping steadily to the floor. Silvery designs flashed on his bare forearms — tattoos? Or paint?
“Yes, Shades.” He walked to the half-finished wall and checked behind it, every movement graceful like a panther’s.
Ella shook her head dazedly. What was wrong with her? “I’m Ella, working for the Investigations Bureau.” She didn’t normally recruit people, but he saw Shades, and the way he fought ... “Finding someone with your abilities is rare and we could really use another... Wait!” He was backing away and she didn’t even know his name. She took a step toward him as the police sirens sounded in the distance. “Don’t go!”
But he spun away, ran to the fence and vaulted over it with an ease that had her gaping. What was he, an acrobat? Then he was gone, vanishing in the shadows of the street outside, leaving her to deal with Dave.
With a heart-felt sigh, she turned to face her squad leader.
***
“Why isn’t Simon with you?” Dave rolled his car window down and leaned out to look past her at the empty construction site.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking.” Well, she’d determined nothing bled and nothing was broken. She’d be one giant bruise come tomorrow, but she’d live.
Dave ignored the jab. “Simon’s always been reliable.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, well...”
“Jump in, I need to talk to you.”
“I’m tired, Dave. Can’t we do this tomorrow?”
“I’m here now. George will drive your car back.”
She glanced over where George stood. He waved at her, a little too cheerfully. Maybe it was because he didn’t have to ride back with Dave. Then again he hadn’t just faced a battalion of Shades and barely pulled through. He had every right to be in good spirits.
“Fine.” She threw George her key and climbed into Dave’s car, gritting her teeth as pain stabbed her back. Her knee creaked when she folded her long legs under the dashboard.
Before she had a chance to buckle in, Dave turned the car around and they were rolling through the lit streets of the commercial district. Many shops were still open and their signs blinked rhythmically in neon colors. Customers slipped in and out, plastic bags clutched in their hands, children crying for candy and toys. Normal people, blissfully unaware of the other side.
“Did you see the caller?” Dave asked. He held the wheel hard, as if he feared it might escape.
“No.”
They usually didn’t. Callers weren’t stupid enough to stick around. If they escaped the Shades, they never looked back.
They drove east, took the tunnel. Graffiti-covered walls streaked by. A guy stood by an emergency exit, his back to them, holding a can of spray. A spiral decorated the back of his black jacket. Ella craned her neck as they sped by.
“What’s the matter?” Dave asked.
“Nothing.” She straightened, frowning. The spiral reminded her of something — images floating in her memory, intermittent flashes of dark and light, a cruel face, a white hand... A nightmare?
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Dave said. “Something I should know?”
“Just haven’t been sleeping too well.”
Dave harrumphed. His cheeks were grey with stubble and he had dark bags under his eyes. He probably wasn’t sleeping too well, either. “So tell me about tonight.”
“God knows how many kobolds, one huge fucking goblin. Loads of fun.” Exhaustion made her snappy, and her limbs felt like they weighed a ton. If she wasn’t pumped full of adrenaline, she’d probably be dozing on the soft leather cushions of Dave’s car. “What’s going on? A month ago we bought a round of drinks when we as much as glimpsed a kobold, let alone a goblin. Most Shades came through half-formed and sickly, and now I get the whole rugby team in one night?”
“I know,” Dave said darkly. “Can’t buy enough rounds for that one, can you?” He shot her a sideways glance. “Joseph spotted a group of them over at Dreambay Wharf, eating something that looked human.”
Ella stiffened. “That’s new.” God. If tonight had turned out differently, she might have been Shade fodder too. “Hey, Dave? My knives and bullets didn’t seem to harm them much tonight.”
Dave hummed a little tune. He did that when he was stressed. “Steel used to stop them.”
“Well, not anymore. I need an alloy higher in iron. Or maybe pure iron.”
“In this weather? It’ll last a week, tops, before it rusts and falls apart.”
“Who cares? You didn’t see them. I...” Ella bit her lip. “I was lucky.” She hesitated to talk about the strange man, the way he’d fought, how he’d saved her in the nick of time. “Do you know of any independent hunters?”
“Here in town?”
She shrugged. Her right shoulder twinged, and sparks of pain ran from her hip to her knee. She’d need to wear a knee band again, dammit, and she’d managed without one for two months. A new record. She’d have a hell of a bruise where she’d hit the floor, too, and her side burned.
“Not that I know of. Why?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
The car turned into
her street. “Get some rest.” Dave stopped at the entrance of her building and tapped his fingers on the wheel. “We’ll see about the weapons.”
“Right. And if you talk to Simon,” she said, getting out, “send him my fucking love.”
“It’s not funny,” Dave said. “Standing up a partner is unacceptable. I’ll have a long talk with him.”
“You do that.” She closed the car door and headed to her building. Damn, she was tired and every inch of her body ached. She had to clean her knives before the ichor ate the blade away, but the thought of sitting with a rag, buffing away, was enough to make her cringe. Her eyelids drooped.
She took the stairs out of habit and half-way up she wished she hadn’t. The key gave her trouble, and she fought with the lock until the door finally opened with a whine.
A pair of small yellow eyes appeared in the gloom, and she went for her gun before her brain connected. Her hand dropped to her side. “Dammit, kitty.”
Miss Meow stared at her, tail standing up, ears flattened, then jerked back when Ella finally entered.
“It’s just me, Missy.” She bent down to stroke the cat’s head and found empty air. Miss Meow trotted off to the kitchen to check if her bowl had miraculously filled with food.
Ella sighed. Typical homecoming. Maybe she should work on getting some human friends, maybe a boyfriend... Someone to open the door for her, have dinner cooked or at least some take away. Someone who’d miss her if she didn’t return.
Boy, talk about depressing thoughts. The fist of the goblin coming at her had probably shocked her more than she cared to admit to herself. Near death experiences tended to do that to you.
Dropping on her couch, she bent over to remove her boots and took a deep, calming breath. This evening had sucked big time, although the image of the stranger fighting, moving like a dancer, had been a nice highlight. And not only that.
She owed him her life. And she didn’t even know his name.
Boreal and John Grey Season 1 Page 1
