Read Online Boreal and John Grey Season 1 by Chrystalla Thoma - Free Book Online

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