As Dave had told her not so long ago, who didn’t want John Grey? The answer was, everyone, even the machines.
But all she wanted was Finn.
***
“I received the surveillance videos,” Dave informed her as she climbed back into the car, leaving Sarah and Diane tied up and guarded by the two gorillas.
All she could think of was she couldn’t trust Dave, either. She couldn’t lead him to Finn.
But did she have a choice?
“Anything interesting?”
“I don’t think so.”
“May I see?”
“Sure.” Dave passed her his cell before starting the engine. “It’s also got sound. Special Bureau equipment.”
Ella hit play, her thoughts whirling. Could she waylay Dave? She was in his damn car and he knew where they were supposed to be looking. Shit.
On the cell phone’s small screen, she saw the interview room where Finn sat across from Norma.
Norma. Ella’s heart squeezed. How could she be dead? And Jefferson. Both of them dead, and Finn gone.
Finn was talking to Norma on the video, his voice tinny. Swallowing hard, she brought the cell to her ear, focusing on his words. He was asking her something about his mother.
“She may be alive,” he said, his words suddenly crystal clear. “I need to see her, protect her.”
His mother? His dead mother? Hadn’t they agreed the elven Queen was lying to him to lure him back to Aelfheim? She’d been in his memory, seen the funeral, the glass coffin.
“That’s understandable,” Norma said quietly. “Of course you want to see her.”
“Do mothers...?” He paused. “She left me. Do you think she still wants to see me?”
Left him? She’d watched him fall to his death. It’d been a miracle he’d survived.
“I’m so sorry,” Norma said. “I didn’t know. I can’t tell you how she feels. But mothers often regret giving up their children, so I guess you never know. Not until you talk to her.”
Ella shook her head. This was fucked up.
Then she took the phone off her ear as gunshots rang and on the screen masked men swarmed the room and grabbed Finn, jabbing a needle in his neck.
Numb, she watched the chaos, watched Finn’s struggles cease. His kidnappers shot whoever approached and left, hauling him out between them.
Why the hell hadn’t Finn talked to her about whatever had been on his mind? Why Norma?
Because she’d been a mother to him in this world, she realized, putting the phone in her lap. He thought she might understand.
It still stung. And it hurt in new and ugly ways, because it sounded like... Like Finn was thinking of leaving. And she trusted Finn. Hell, she loved him. Didn’t he trust her?
What she wanted to do was call Mike and tell him about this, ask him his opinion. But Mike was probably so pissed with her he wouldn’t even answer the phone. Besides, there were more pressing matters.
Like saving Finn.
“Talk to me, Ella,” Dave said. “What are we looking for?”
Ella stared without seeing the street outside, the cloudy sky, the lit shop fronts, the other cars, the bright billboards. “A blizzard.”
Dave’s gaze flicked sideways to her. “You expect a Gate.”
“Why, don’t you?”
Dave nodded. “Could be they’re doing us a favor.”
It took her a moment to realize he was talking about the kidnappers. “Really. How’s that?”
“You didn’t want to hurt the aelfr, but if they recreate the conditions of his memory, then maybe he’ll get over the block and regain his magic.”
Ella gripped Dave’s shoulder and got in his face. “His magic is leaking all over the place. Last thing he needs is someone getting him confused in a twilight zone where he can’t control it. Do you know how dangerous that is?”
It was only dawning on her now, in fact, as she watched Dave’s eyes widen, in just how deep shit they were.
“Finn can already open Gates, can’t he?” Dave said quietly, his gaze flicking between her face and the road.
Shit, he was still driving. Reluctantly Ella let him go. “Never said that.”
Dave whistled between his teeth. “Holy fuck.”
Yeah. “Never said he can open Gates, Dave. But he’s stronger, and he can do real damage.”
She wasn’t sure Dave was hearing her. Dammit. She rubbed her eyes and decided to keep her damn mouth shut from now on.
“We’ll find him,” Dave said and drove on.
***
Blizzard, check.
Ella stalked to the entrance of the next building, squinting against the onslaught of snowflakes. They’d split up to cover more area. The place was crawling with agents — so many she had to wonder whether Dave had brought in outside forces.
The kidnappers wouldn’t kill Finn, she repeated to herself for the millionth time. They obviously wanted him alive and at full strength.
Had Sarah been right? Were Dave and the other Guardians working for their own account? Or was she lying her ass off and the Guardians still did the bidding of the Dark Elves?
Did it matter in the end?
Her cell phone rang and she dug it out of her pocket with trembling hands. Fuck, it was cold. “Yeah?”
“We’re seeing something not far from you,” Dave’s voice crackled with the wind. “We’re heading your way. Are you in the street?”
“Yes.” She glanced around. “What are you seeing?”
“Looks like a storm front.” A pause. “It’s huge. It can’t be...”
A Gate.
Ella took a step back, a moan dying in her throat. Had to be a Gate. The rising mirror of rippling light couldn’t be anything else, but hell, she’d never seen one so huge. It was taller than the buildings lining the street, its top lost in the low-hanging clouds.
Her chest was so tight she couldn’t breathe. She was having a goddamn panic attack.
Too late. She was too late — again.
Slowly she became aware of a voice shouting in her ear.
Dave.
“Ella! Can you hear me?”
“I’m here.” Her mouth was dry as a desert. “Where are you?”
“On our way to you.”
She disconnected and licked her lips; tried to decide what to do next. The damn Gate kept distracting her, its surface swirling like oil on water.
Shit.
She stood in the heart of the snowstorm. The Gate was right in front of her. She had to be close to Finn’s location.
She looked up at the building she’d been about to enter. Come on, focus. She had powers, too. If only she knew how to use them when she needed them.
Anger. It always grounded her, pushed away the fear and helplessness. Whoever had gotten Finn would pay. Ella would make them eat dirt. She’d make them beg for mercy.
Warmth climbed up her throat and she blinked as rage tinted everything red.
Then she blinked again and realized the red was her threads, pulsing around her in time to her racing heartbeat. Crimson filaments spanning space from the earth to the sky, twisting and coiling around her like snakes — and among them Finn’s golden threads, running horizontally, barely moving. Pale and dim as if sleeping.
Yet a glow caught her eye and she turned. A single golden thread burned incandescent, pulsing, a faint hum reaching her ears.
Leading her to the building next door.
***
An old, broken pharmacy sign hung next to the building entrance. Her phone buzzed as she snuck into a dark lobby with a stench of piss and trash. She pulled it out just long enough to turn the damn thing off. Nothing like a phone ringing to kill the element of surprise.
She’d probably need the back-up, but time was a luxury she didn’t have.
Drawing her gun, she climbed the narrow stairs. The building appeared to be abandoned. Garbage littered the steps, open cans and boxes spilling liquid she really didn’t want to take a good look at.
The first landing revealed open doors. Movement caught her eye in the dimness beyond and she stepped inside, her gun ready.
A spindly man with a long beard and dressed in a shabby long coat looked up, his eyes shining. He held a syringe in one hand.
Ella glanced around, looking into the other rooms. Nothing moved. “Have you seen anyone else around?”
The man jerked as if he hadn’t been sure she was really there. “Up,” he said, his voice scratchy. “Up.”
“Upstairs?”
He nodded vigorously.
“Who’s up there?”
“Demons,” he hissed and flapped his hands like wings.
Ella sighed. She wondered what he was high on. “Demons.”
“Screaming,” the man muttered, hunching in on himself. “He was screaming.”
Ella’s blood froze. Without another word, she turned on her heel and rushed up the stairs.
It was quiet. Had the man hallucinated the screaming? Had she imagined the bright thread leading her here?
Her threads bent around her, soaring up into the ceiling. The song was high-pitched and discordant, making the spot between her shoulder blades itch and her teeth ache.
Danger, said the threads.
Good. It meant she was on the right path.
She stopped short of the next landing, glad the steps were concrete and didn’t creak. She peered up, over the rail.
Guards, check. Rifles, check. Shouts and loud voices coming from behind the closed door, check.
Definitely on the right fucking path.
Baring her teeth, she holstered her gun and drew her knives. The threads around her whispered words she couldn’t understand. She imagined the guards falling.
The threads snapped and shook violently, and the guards cried out, tripping and falling. Their rifles clattered to the floor.
Holy Jesus and Mary.
Clamping down on her shock, Ella ran up the last steps and rounded the landing, blades in her hands.
Someone was unlocking the door. She ducked to the side as it swung open with a creak and a man poked his closely shorn head out.
Without a second thought, she hit him on the head with the grip of her knife. He crumbled quietly and she stepped over his body to enter the apartment.
Her blades went flying before she could make out the scene clearly: two men dropped with barely a sound as she strode into the high-ceilinged hall.
Where Finn hung spread-eagled, blood dripping down his sides and from the ends of his hair. He was bare-chested, but still wearing his black pants and boots. The cloth had been cut below knee and his leg was wrapped in a thick bandage, stained crimson.
He glowed, his entire body glimmering as if made of crystal and fire.
Jesus. It was like the memory, like a flashback — all mixed up, the cave, Loki’s web, the fear and panic and pain. They’d known. Dave had reported the details to Sarah, and she’d passed the information on — to help create this nightmare.
A movement to her left and she drew her gun and sighted — automatic movements. She shot the woman and turned her gun on another figure approaching from her right.
Shot after shot, her only goal to reach Finn.
Someone cried out behind her and she spun to see a slender woman with a pistol in her hands trapped in the red threads, a man sprawled on the floor, his whole body jerking. She turned back toward Finn, the threads pushing anyone approaching her, lashing like whip tails. She was the energy core, the center of the fury burning around her.
Maybe she didn’t need back-up after all.
A tall woman came to stand next to Finn’s hanging form. She wore a dark suit and boots, and her blond hair was cut short. Something glittered down her side — a seam of light.
“Guardian,” Ella hissed.
“Stabilizer.” The woman’s eyes flashed, pale and deadly. Ella knew her face. She’d seen her in the meeting of the Council. Here was the mole they’d been looking for.
Too late, too late, the treacherous little voice whispered in her mind.
“You’re the one who put the transmitter in Finn’s shoulder.”
The woman inclined her head as if accepting a compliment.
Finn had managed to lift his head. He stared at Ella, his eyes dazed. She wondered if he even knew she was there.
“Have you looked outside? See that Gate stretching from the earth to the sky? Know what it means?”
The woman frowned. Could it be she really didn’t know what she’d unleashed?
“You shouldn’t have hurt him,” Ella said. “Now I’ll cut you open and we’ll see what your machinery looks like in broad daylight.”
“I’ve done my job.”
Ella could hardly take her eyes off Finn’s form. Was he even conscious? “Let him down then. What have you injected him with?”
Shrugging, the woman walked to the back of the room. “A mild sedative.” She jabbed at a button.
Ella barely had the time to step forward and grab Finn before he face-planted into the floor. She had to do some creative maneuvering to keep his head from thumping on the wooden planks. He was damn heavy.
He crashed on top of her with a groan. Hell. If her ribs and hipbones survived, they’d be black and blue come tomorrow. She laid him down and rolled him on his side.
Then she saw his back. Oh fuck.
Ella bent over him, feeling sick. Couldn’t even think about removing the blades stuck along his spine, not yet.
By the time she glanced up, the woman was gone.
Chapter Eight
Song
Shaking Finn was probably not a good idea, but Ella needed him awake to close the huge Gate looming outside the window.
She wondered how long those blades were, buried in his back, if they’d damaged any vital organs.
It couldn’t be, right? These people hadn’t wanted him dead, she kept reminding herself — then again, they weren’t careful with him, either. They wanted a functional tool, even if they didn’t much care whether he fared well.
“Finn, come on!” She patted his cheek. “Can you hear me? There’s an open Gate, you’ve got to close it right now.”
He blinked, his eyes unfocused.
Yeah, mild sedative, right. They’d probably injected him with enough sedative to bring down a herd of rabid elephants.
Focus, Ella.
She pulled out her cell phone, turned it on and called Dave.
“Where the hell are you?” he yelled into the phone, making her wince.
“Dilapidated building with a pharmacy sign. You can’t miss it. Right next to the Gate. Second floor.”
Dave cursed. “Sending two men to get you.”
“We need a doctor or a paramedic.”
“I’ll find you one. Wait there.”
She shoved the cell back into her pocket.
Moments trickled by.
“Ella,” Finn mumbled, trying to sit up — but his eyes were glassy and he wasn’t looking at her. Ella wondered what it was he was seeing.
“I’m right here.” She pulled his arm over her shoulders to steady him and he hissed. Blood trickled down his back. “You’ll be okay.”
He had to be numb from the sedative and from hanging like that for so long. Plus his leg was fucked up. Who knew how they’d destroyed or removed the tracker.
“The queen,” he breathed, his face grey with pain. “The web.”
“You’re not there anymore,” Ella said firmly. “Finn, you have to close the damn Gate.”
He leaned against her, his breathing shallow, and said nothing.
Steps sounded outside, and then two agents ran inside. They stopped short at the sight — whether it was the elaborate setting with levers and ropes hanging from the ceiling the knives sticking out of Finn’s back or his black-tipped ears, she couldn’t tell.
“Holy crap,” one of them said. “I thought I’d seen it all.”
“Are you a paramedic?” Ella asked, her voice suddenly wobbly.
/> “Yeah. Never seen anything like this, though. Need to take him to a clinic, I can’t do this here.”
“You have to. We don’t have time. There’s an open Gate out there.” Not that anyone could miss it.
“Don’t worry, agent,” said the other man, peering at Finn’s back. “The army’s on their way. They’ll be here soon.”
Ella shook her head. “I don’t know if it’ll be soon enough.”
A tremor went through the building and she was pretty sure she wasn’t the one causing it.
The paramedic crouched down behind Finn, and Ella cupped Finn’s face and turned it toward her; getting him to focus on her. “Don’t move, okay? Your back’s hurt. They’re going to fix it.”
“Ready?” the man asked, his voice a little shaky.
She pulled Finn flush against her until his chin rested on her shoulder. “Make it quick.”
The agent’s face was tense as he worked, brow creased in concentration. The other man had crouched beside him, holding an open medic kit.
She felt rather than saw the removal of the knives in every jolt of Finn’s body. The scarred energy points were so sensitive she couldn’t imagine how much it hurt to have blades stuck in them.
She didn’t know how to hold him without touching his back, so she settled her hands on the back of his neck, keeping him in place. The metallic scent of blood filled the air.
The building shook again. Finn muffled a groan against her shoulder and she petted the fine hair on his nape.
The agent drew yet another blade out of Finn’s back, his face slightly green. Now Ella could see the knife, it wasn’t long — rather short and squat, like a shaving blade.
“How many are left?” she whispered, rubbing circles between Finn’s shoulder blades.
“Three. Almost done.” The man wiped his sleeve over his forehead. “This is sick.”
And you don’t know half of it. “Hurry up.”
“What about his leg?”
She swallowed down bile. “Later.”
Boreal and John Grey Season 2 Page 41