Excerpt: Shattered Hearts

Prologue

The FBI agent came storming into the hospital having heard the discovery of an elf on the news. The elf had appeared injured, knife wound of some sort stabbed in the heart but yet he had somehow managed to stay alive. The FBI agent saw the elf laying in the hospital bed clutching a crystal necklace to his chest. The crystal seemed to be radiating a glow through his hands. Sarah was fascinated by the necklace and wondered what could cause the glow, it wasn’t really magic, was it? The elf was breathing heavily but seemed to be in stable condition. She approached the elf and saw that the wound was bandaged up and the elf was fast asleep. He kept muttering a name over and over to himself. “Aidan, Aidan…why?” He had long black hair, almost up to his waist and his bangs were covering a little bit of his eyes. He woke up from his deep sleep as soon as he felt her touch his skin, which seemed to be softer than any human skin and tan, almost as if he’d been out in the sun his whole life. He gazed in her eyes as if observing her before swiping his hand away from her.

“Who are you? Where am I?” The elf demanded to her.

“It’s ok. My name is Sarah. You’re in the hospital of New York City, you’ve been injured.”

“New York City?” He cocked his head in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Sarah thought to herself. He’s an elf. Sarah decided to change the subject and asked for his name.

“My name? I…” The elf looked like he was trying to think too hard because his face scrunched up. “I…don’t recall.” He stuttered out.

“Do you remember anything at all?”

The elf shook his head in frusteration. “No, I don’t. I have flashes of memory, I just can’t place them together though. It’s starting to give me a headache.”

“Well, don’t think too hard on it, your memories will come eventually. In the meantime, why don’t you rest. I’m sure you’ve had a big day. I’ll be back tomorrow to check up on you.”

“Yeah, ok. I don’t want to see any more people in white. They’re scary.”

Sarah laughed. He acted just like a little kid. She wondered how old
he was. She was sure that’d she never find out. But right now that wasn’t the problem. She needed to inform the FBI about the elf. She was only sent here to investigate, not to dilly dally around.

As she headed to towards the headquarters she read the newspaper. The elf was mentioned on the first page. He had been found injured and dying out on the streets with his clothes ripped and torn to shreds as if he had been in a large battle. But by what Sarah had seen from the elf, he was too innocent to have been in any sort of battle. He didn’t even like to be touched, but that might have been because he didn’t know her and was uncomfortable by being around a complete stranger and in an unfamiliar room. She didn’t blame him, anybody would be uncomfortable in a hospital, but you just had to deal with it one way or another even if you didn’t like it. She needed to think up a name to present to the FBI. She couldn’t just say Elf to them…

Chapter 1

The elf’s had a new name and life now. The FBI had named him Seth. They tried to change his appearance by cutting his hair short and placing a hat on his head to cover his ears but it kept growing so they eventually gave up. The public already knew about the elf so they couldn’t have done anything if they wanted to. Months later, Seth worked for them now but that was only because his job was to hunt down the mythological creatures that roamed the streets. The FBI believed that Seth was the cause of this and now they wanted him to take down each and everyone one of them until there was nothing left. Seth was perfectly fine with this but he only thing Seth was upset about was the necklace they had taken away from him after they had brought him out of the cell. The necklace was oval shape and dangled on a pure silver chain. The shell of the necklace seemed to come from a crystal fragment. You could see beautiful colored swirls inside the crystal, almost as if the colors were waves from an ocean. The colors entranced him and he wanted to see more but they wanted to examine it first to make sure the necklace was safe and not a harmful weapon of destruction. They never did give it back, they claimed that they wanted to keep it for safe keepings. Seth knew better than that. He knew that they wanted to keep it all for themselves, well, Seth couldn’t have that. One of these days he was going to get back his necklace whether they liked it or not.

“So, going after the god Loki huh?” The police officer that was driving Seth asked. “I heard he’s been causing a lot of trouble. The god of mischief. At first it started off as practical jokes but then it all kept getting worse and worse. He started scaring people by pretending he was a ghost haunting people’s mansion. Then he drove people’s cars when he wasn’t in the car and nobody else was either, without the keys in the ignition. Last but not least, he was going around stealing money from banks and dropping it into people’s houses thinking that the police will think they are robbers. We did at first, until we figured out who we were dealing with. He made us feel pretty stupid, I bet he was enjoying it.”

Seth sighed, “I already know all of this. Listen, just tell me where the god is and I’ll do the rest ok? I don’t have much time.”

“Whatever you say kid, just don’t get yourself killed.”

“I know.” Seth said confidently. “Now where is he?”

“Loki is on top of the Empire State building. How he got in there is beyond me, but right now he is mocking everyone he lays his eyes on.”

“The Empire State building?” Seth asked, moderately interested.

“The Empire State building is one of our cities greatest monuments of all time, not to mention the largest building you have ever seen. Hope you aren’t afraid of heights! You might have to get a helicopter to fly you up there.”

Seth gulped. He hated helicopters. The FBI made him ride on one to get a good feeling of what it felt like. Well, it didn’t feel very good at all. The ride was all bumpy and made him sick to his stomach, making him throw up. That experience wasn’t pleasant at all. He never wanted to ride a helicopter in his life, even if he was forced. There had to be another way on top of the building.

“Listen, there has to be a stairway up to the top, right? I can’t get as high as I can and try to intimidate him to come down. Do you think that could work?” Seth asked.

“He’s on the outside, not the inside. I don’t think that’s going to work, sorry buddy.” The police officer told him.

“Fine, then bring as close to the building as you can. I’ll try and call him down if I can. I really don’t want to go on a helicopter right now. I don’t need anymore problems.

“I’ll get you to the entrance, but you’re on your own after that. My only duty is to transport you.”

Seth nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s go.”

“We’re already here.” The police officer said, grinning. “Now go out there and kick some god’s butt!”

The Empire State building was indeed large. After seeing how small all of the other buildings were compared to its might, Seth was a little intimated. But the sparkling lights that lit up from the building at night was enough to make all his worries disappear. If he could, he’d only go into the helicopter just to touch the point at the top of the building. He stared at the building for a few minutes in awe before finally coming around and remembering that he had a job to do. He looked up but Loki was too far up for him to see. Apparently, Loki had seen him coming because he jumped all the way down to where Seth was standing.

“Howdy elf! Name’s Loki.” He introduced himself cheerfully. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” Seth stared at the god in shock. This god that everyone had been frightened of, that puts the fears into words you can’t describe, was only about 3 inches tall! The little god just barely reached to his waist. He had the wiriest looking beard, the grayest of gray hair, and a hat that curled up at the top of the hat. The eyes weren’t as fierce as everyone said they were, in fact, they were even beadlike! Seth snorted until he couldn’t take it anymore and started laughing his head off. It was just too funny for him to be afraid of. Seth even wandered if he had the guts to even shoot this guy in the head.

“Hey, hey! What’s so funny huh? Did I say something funny or are you making fun of my hat? Let’s hope you aren’t making fun of the hat or I’ll have to kill you right here and now whether you like it or not!

“No, no…it’s not about the hat.” Seth giggled out loud. “It’s definitely isn’t the hat.” The hat was a small part of it, but he wasn’t going to say that out loud.

“Not about the hat? Good, good. Then it’s settle, let’s play a game shall we?”

“A game?” Seth asked.

“Aye, a game.” Loki answered. “It’ll be so fun! I love games, you see. Nobody liked to play games with me at home so now is the perfect time to play!”

“What game do you want to play? And what do I get if I win?” Seth finally managed to get a hold of himself and appeared to be calm, but he was still restraining from laughing again.

This time it was Loki’s turn to laugh out loud. “My dear elf, what makes you honestly think that you can beat me? No, it can’t be done, it won’t be done. Nobody has ever been able to defeat me before and you won’t be the first!”

“How do you know? Have you ever played an elf before? So you haven’t been beaten? Big whoop, well, I hate to break it to you. But I plan on playing you and I plan to win. So bring it on?”

“You aren’t going to see what game that I want to play? Whoohoo! I like you already! Very well, the game goes like this…”

Suddenly the setting changed. Large marbled walls surrounded them with many twists and turns. Seth knew immediately from pictures that he had seen that this was a labyrinth. It was small for one though, making Seth think that Loki had something up his sleeve.

“The game is, hide and seek!” Loki continued to say. “Catch me if you can!”