“No time,” Finn said tersely. He handed Mike the hissing kitty, grabbed them both by the arms and marched them to the stairs. In passing, he hit the fire alarm and it wailed, deafening, as they ran down the steps.
“Shades?” Mike tried to see Ella’s face behind Finn’s back.
“Worse.”
They ran out into the melting snow, slipping and sliding. Something white streaked across her vision and she turned to follow its path over the building. Flames leaped from the windows of her apartment. Fucking hell. She’d have been roasted alive.
A dragon. Shit.
Finn was pulling her and she had no choice but to move. “The car?” he said and she pointed. He led them toward the side street where she’d parked that afternoon. It felt like years.
“Ella, what is that thing?” Mike’s voice had risen an octave. “It’s burning the building, and it looks like a...” He panted as Finn increased the pace. “Like a...”
“It’s a dragon,” Ella said. Starting to laugh now would probably be a sign of insanity, but, hell, there was a dragon on her building.
She craned her neck to see it. It stood on the roof on four legs, its snake-like neck rising against the clouds. White and shimmering like a crystal, it lowered its head and bellowed, the sound shaking the ground and shattering windows. Glass shards rained down around them, smashing on the street as they raced toward the car.
Screams rang from behind them. In the street, cars had stopped and the drivers had come out to see the dragon crouched on top of the building. Finn was muttering something unfriendly under his breath when Ella’s car came into view. It was, of course, blocked by the curious passersby gawping at the strange creature.
Ella wrenched her arm free of Finn’s grip and was patting her pocket for her badge, determined to get everyone moving as of right now, when a wave of ‘Ooooh’ went through the gathering crowd.
And then screams and panic.
She turned around as if through water. Everything slowed as the dragon swooped down. “Mike, take cover!” She grabbed him, pulled him behind her. Missy growled in his arms. “Where’s Finn?”
“Ella, look.” Mike pointed at a dark-clad figure running full-out toward the dragon.
She shook her head, trying to clear her vision. No, that couldn’t be... Couldn’t be... “Finn, dammit!”
She jumped after him before her brain had grasped the concept of Finn racing — toward — the dragon. Talk about a death wish! Then again...
“Ella, where do you think you’re going?” Mike grabbed her and hung on like an anchor. She’d never thought he was so strong. “Stop it. Handsome there is nuts. You don’t confront a dragon, girl!”
“Let me go!”
Finn’s knives flashed as he ran. His hair flew in all directions; he’d lost his bandana. Boy was he going to be pissed about that.
Ella pushed Mike off. The breath froze in her lungs as the dragon dived toward Finn, a streak of light, and then straightened. Its great feathered wings spread, glowing bright, and the dragon landed in a spray of snow that rose like a mist, obscuring Finn.
Ella’s lungs finally expanded in an explosive breath. “Finn!” And she was running toward him, drawing her gun as she went.
Mike screamed her name but it was swallowed by the booming of her pulse in her ears. Damn, she was too far and everything was lost in a haze. Then the mist of snow crystals fell like a theater curtain, revealing the enormous bulk of the dragon, lizard-like, serpentine.
Finn stood in the creature’s way. The light from a street lamp struck his hair, forming a silver halo. He held his knives out to the sides, the bowed blades catching the reflection from the snow.
She could hear him speak — a prayer? — but couldn’t catch any words. Just as she set off again, hoping to grab him and haul him back, he moved.
The dragon moved, too. Spreading its wings, it snapped at Finn with a cavernous mouth filled with razor teeth. Finn spun on the snow and slipped under the dragon’s neck. He came running out the other side but he didn’t seem to have hurt the dragon whose snake-like neck twisted to follow him. What the hell was Finn doing?
The dragon bellowed, huge claws gouging deep grooves where it stepped, white tail lashing around to follow its movement. Finn skidded, rolled, came up against a building wall and climbed to his feet.
The dragon took a thunderous step forward and blew fire. Ella’s scream died in her throat.
Finn wasn’t there anymore. He’d rolled again, coming up some feet away from the scorched wall.
Enough of this. Ella took aim at the dragon’s head, tightened her finger on the trigger.
The dragon flapped its wings and turned after Finn. Ella cursed, lowering her gun. The target — gone. If they kept moving so fast, she’d have equal chances of hitting the dragon or Finn. Damn again.
Finn ran across the street, raising puffs of snow, the dragon snout following right behind, teeth big as swords snapping on air with a crash and clack. Ella squinted down the barrel, trying to get a fix on something.
In vain. The dragon stomped after Finn, another crystal mist rising to hide both.
Hell.
She ran closer, trying to see through the icy fog. Movement, and then the dragon’s wings erupted from the white mist, iridescent, sending her stumbling backward. He towered over her, big as a house. She fired a shot, but wasn’t sure she’d hit anything. Where was Finn?
The dragon hissed, setting her teeth on edge, and its huge tail swished in the snow, sending a rain of slushy ice over her. She threw an arm up to cover her eyes. Cold water drenched her.
A roar that rattled her bones, and more ice flung her way. She wiped her face on her sleeve and looked up to see Finn climbing on the dragon’s back, between the wings.
Son of a bitch. With a shaky hand, she lifted her gun. What was he doing, goddammit?
Finn raised his knives. Was he going to stab the dragon in the neck? Where the hell did dragons have their hearts? She swallowed, waiting for Finn to do the impossible and kill a dragon single-handed.
Then the dragon squirmed and writhed like a giant frost worm, tossing its head, wings snapping open and closed. A final twist, and Finn went flying. He slammed into a wall and dropped.
“Finn!” Ella opened her mouth to call again, but the dragon stepped in her way. Her voice froze in her throat, and the sounds rushed out of the world, leaving it quiet except for the drumming of her heart.
She looked up and up at the white scales, to the dragon’s head and the slitted yellow eyes. Something shone above the head — a blade. Finn had stuck one of his knives on the crown, right into the dragon’s crest.
Then the dragon flapped its wings, one, two, three times and stomped forward. Ella threw herself out of the way just in time, the clawed feet thrusting inches from her face, as the dragon lumbered down the street, crashing cars in its path, and took to the sky. A bright streak like lightning, and the dragon was gone.
***
After an indeterminable time, the sounds rushed back. The sirens of the fire brigade, arriving to put out the fire and see if there was anyone trapped in the burning building. The voices of panicked people, and a bass woman’s voice telling them to stay away.
Water dripped from a pipe, a crystal noise.
Finn.
She turned as if in a nightmare, raising her gun. Saw him sprawled, a black shape, face down in the snow. Walked over to him, wading through the sticky webs of a dream, and knelt to turn him over, her heart pounding. He groaned, and her fingers tightened on the handle of her gun.
She could see it now, the slender elvish ear poking out of Finn’s loose hair. Leaf-shaped, tapering to a delicate point. Dark designs on it made her look closer. They looked like tattoos.
He blinked and she jerked back, pointing the gun at him. Her aim wavered.
“What did you do?” she asked, her voice thin. “How did you make the dragon go away?”
“Ella?” He blinked again as if he couldn’t focus.<
br />
Concussion, her mind whispered. Possibility of head trauma. She tightened her grip on her gun. “How did you drive the dragon away?”
He shaded his eyes and rolled on his side. Tried to sit up. “It’s a tame animal,” he rasped. “The aelfar ride them. Their crest is sensitive. I scared the dragon into submission.”
“You scared...” She shook her head. “Are you aelfr?” That was what the Nordic people had called them, back when the Gates opened in the north. Baby snatchers. Nightmares. Ella’s mouth trembled. “You are, aren’t you? A goddamn elf.”
Finn stopped his efforts to sit up, fell back into the snow and stared up at her. His eyes finally focused on her gun. “You’ll kill me,” he said, no emotion in his voice. A statement of fact.
Her hand shook on the grip. How could she harm him? He’d just saved her life again, for Christ’s sake — everyone’s life. He’d rushed the dragon on his own, almost died, to give the passersby a chance to escape before the creature attacked them.
But the aelfar were the enemy. “Are you an elf?” She wanted to hear it from his lips.
Finn’s lips pressed together. He turned his face away from her, but his words, when he spoke, rang crystal clear: “I’m a Boreal.”
THE END of EPISODE TWO
The Dragon
Episode 3
The Dokkaelfar wrought the Duergar race
From their own bones and the bloody sea, with iron cogs and spiral wheels
In the likeness of men the Duergar were made,
To guard the Gates and fates of men from the Ljosaelfar’s greed for power.
Chapter One
Boreal
Ella Benson watched the elf sleep. Not just an elf, though: a Boreal, according to his own admission, an elite member of the race about to invade her world.
An aelfr.
Finn looked peaceful on the narrow bed, his breathing even. Instead of his customary bandana, he now had a bandage wrapped around his head, from which ash-blond hair fell on the pillow, framing his face.
Elvish ears.
She touched the gun holstered at her hip, her insides clenching with fear and anger. He still looked like Finn — tall and strong, beautiful, vulnerable and in need of her help, but damn, what was she supposed to do now? The way he’d looked at her back at the alley as the dragon flew away, the deadpan way he’d asked if she’d kill him...
Dave had called earlier, checking on them, but she’d avoided talking to him. Hadn’t known what to tell him.
Swallowing hard, she let her hand drop and stretched her legs. For some reason, spending the remainder of the night and most of the morning in a chair hadn’t improved her mood.
Her apartment. Her belongings. All burned. Would she be compensated for her furniture and things? The insurance people still hesitated with a decision. Dragons weren’t listed among fire hazards, go figure, but in the end they’d given her the address of the motel to stay until the paperwork was drawn up. Now she thought about it, they hadn’t promised they’d pay.
Finn made a small noise and she leaned forward, drawing her gun. “Finn?” He had yet to wake up completely. He’d been out for many hours, it was about time he regained consciousness.
Not that she was worried about him. No way. Keeping a clear head was important. She could do this. “Finn. Wake up.”
He blinked blearily, glancing around, and the knots in her stomach twisted in new, interesting ways. What now?
Then Finn’s pale brows drew together and his jaw clenched. “Hospital?” he hissed.
Oh, right. The room was so Spartan it bore a resemblance to a hospital ward, she had to admit — and when Finn had seen the inside of one? “Not a hospital. We’re in a motel.”
Ella held the gun loosely at her side, waiting for him to make the first move. Questions hustled for space in the forefront — why hadn’t he used magic until now? Was it because he was going incognito? Would he use it and blast her to smithereens now his cover was blown?
“Finn?” She waited, her forefinger caressing the trigger, her heart pounding.
He focused on her and relaxed, slumping against the pillows. There was relief in his gaze. “Ella.”
She nodded, torn between happiness that he found her presence comforting and numbing fear. “What do you remember?”
Finn frowned. “Your apartment. Food.” His stomach rumbled right on cue and his cheekbones flushed.
God, how was she supposed to keep a clear head when all she wanted to do was hug him and wipe that look of confusion from his face? “And then?”
“Your neighbor came. Mike?” He shook his head, winced and brought a hand to his bandaged head. He frowned, tugged at the gauze lightly. “No, that was before.”
“Do you remember the dragon?”
Finn stilled for a long moment, his gaze sliding up to her face, then down to her gun. His brows knit.
Her breath froze in her lungs.
In one movement, he threw the covers off and jerked sideways, groping for something — his knives probably — but his face paled, going to green. With a yelp, he tumbled out of the bed.
Dammit! Wincing in sympathy, Ella hurried around the bed. He was obviously dizzy; concussed, most probably. The way the dragon had thrown him against that building, it was no wonder.
He was curled on the floor, arms around his middle, eyes scrunched shut. His breathing came in shallow pants. The old pajama bottom he wore, borrowed from Mike, had torn along one seam. The gashes in his side had reopened with his fall from the dragon’s neck; she hoped the new butterfly bandages would hold. His wrist was wrapped in gauze; sprained. His ribs were bandaged; cracked. A damn miracle he hadn’t also cracked his skull open. Tough bastard.
She chewed on her lower lip as he slowly sat up, peering at her under his pale hair. He leaned back until he was leaning against the wall and stretched out his legs, grimacing.
“I told you,” he murmured, his lips white.
She nodded. “You’re a Boreal,” she whispered.
His gaze went to her gun and his mouth opened and closed. They stayed like that for what felt like ages, their breathing the only sound.
“You lied to me,” she said and anger seeped back like hot poison.
He said nothing.
Well, to be fair, he hadn’t actually denied being aelfr, but he’d had plenty of chances to admit it.
And she’d had plenty of chances to ask. Briefly she wondered if she was more furious at herself than him. Squaring her shoulders, pushing down her worry, she said, “Time to start talking. You’re one of them. Working for them.”
“No.” He shook his head, seemed to think better of it and stilled, closing his eyes.
“Listen.” She crouched to be able to see him better, her gun pointing down. “We’re under invasion. By your kind. You said that the Boreals wouldn’t come through the Gates without sending their animals first — but you were here before they even arrived. So how am I supposed to believe anything you say?” It hurt to speak the words, to see Finn’s face close off, his mouth thin. “Are you their spy, Finn?”
“I swear to you I’m not.” His clear eyes blazed with indignation.
“Then why are you here? Better still, how? If the Gates are supposedly only just opening, how the hell did you cross over before anyone else?” Another thought struck her. “Or are there more elves here? Finn...”
He looked away, his jaw clenching. “I’m the only one.”
“Come now, tell me the truth.” Her fingers tightened around the grip of her gun. “How many—”
“I’m the only one,” he repeated, every word forced through gritted teeth.
“How did you get here?”
“I don’t know.”
Ella sighed. “You can do better than that.”
He drew a deep breath, hissed and pressed a hand to his side. “I’ve been here for more than a year now. I was doing fine. I was hoping...” He swallowed.
“Hoping what?”
He shrug
ged, a gesture of defeat. “Nothing.”
Her curiosity piqued, she stared at his blank face, trying to analyze the tiny flickers of emotion going through his eyes. Goddamn impossible to figure out, this man, and yet she wanted to understand him, to help him.
You’re hopeless, Ella. Hopeless. He’d admitted to belonging with the enemy, had mumbled some half-baked excuse about not knowing how he got there, and she still believed him.
When Dave found out... That gave her a chill. She somehow didn’t think Dave would want to hug Finn and let him go.
Holstering her gun, she scooted until she sat next to him. “You need to talk to me. What are you doing here?”
“Living.” It came out bitter.
“Why did you leave Aelfheim? Does it have to do with the invasion?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t know about that. I didn’t even know the Gates were real.”
“And you just popped through to this world one day and never looked back?”
“Yes.”
“That’s hard to believe, don’t you think?”
Finn didn’t answer. His shoulders tensed.
“How did you cross?” When he didn’t reply, she fairly growled in frustration. “Talk to me.”
A stretch of heavy silence.
“I was running,” he said, gaze firmly locked on the far wall. “They sent us to capture a Dokkaelfar tower, but it was a trap. Wolves came after us.” He rubbed at his chest, up and down, his breathing growing faster. “The trail was ending, destroyed by the advancing glacier.” He reached out a hand, as if to touch something. “A wall of ice. I turned. The wolves were coming at me, a whole pack. I knew I was going to die.” His hand dropped. “And then, suddenly I wasn’t... wasn’t there anymore.”
Ella frowned. “And where were you?”
He jerked, as if he’d forgotten her presence. “I was here.” He licked his cracked lips.
“In the city?”
“No.”
Dreams had called him to the city, she remember him saying before the dragon attack. “Where then?” she asked.
“In a quiet street, lined with trees. A small town.”
Boreal and John Grey Season 1 Page 14
