The body was found by some kid, a few minutes after 7 a.m. Now it was covered with a white cloth - too short by a inch or two, the right hand was sticking out and Daniel could see perfectly painted nails and a ring with a ruby. Policemen were already searching through the nearby area, which in fact consisted of two large containers for rubbish and rusty fire exit stairs.

Daniel Skavinsky turned his attention away from the victim's nails and looked for his partner. Raine, dressed as usual in a worn out sweater and dusty jeans, was digging through a pile of rubbish nearby accompanied by a young policeman.

The back alley they were in was rather narrow, squeezed in between two five-storied houses. When Daniel lifted his head he could see only a tiny piece of cloudy sky. Cloudy and stormy sky. Oh, at least it wasn't raining...

'An elf, huh?' Raine lifted up the cloth and Daniel once again saw pale, long-eared woman, her eyes wide open and lips tightened in a thin line. 'I hope she's not from any High House, or we're in a deep shit.'

Thibo, a goblin whose job was dealing out coffee, turned up quite unexpectedly, handling Raine a cup of steaming liquid. For sure he had a real name, but he was so uneducated in the common language that it just never popped up in a conversation. Or maybe it did, but no one understood.

'You haven't seen that very often back home, am I right?' Raine took a sip of coffee and gave Daniel a look.

'You know... Elves visit us for holidays and such...' He tried to smile, but it was a rather wasted effort. 'True, I have mainly seen them breathing.'

Raine shrugged her shoulders.

'It's Borderline. Home of everything, in abundance.'

* * *

Skavinsky was transferred to Borderline four months earlier. He used to be a good detective back home, always got his man, but it was there, in human world, where only occasionally he had to deal with other species than humans. Elves were guests, as well as dwarves, orks, goblins and what not. Human world never was much of a tourist attraction, let alone business market. Humans just lived too short.

Naturally, in Bordeline it was different. Oh, the life span was pretty much the same, but other species (called here races, as 'species' was considered to be a discriminating term) just floated around. The first day left him speechless; feeling like one of the characters of some thriller movies he adored as a child. He found himself among short, grey-skinned goblins (he never fully took a liking to them), massive, not very bright orks (he liked only Ugluck, one of the anti-terrorists), dwarves-businessmen and pretty, gentle elves. It was, after all, Borderline.

Strange thing, that place. Called the Universal Joint, with the stress on 'universal'. The only place where all worlds met, their continuum being a straight line, shooting through space and time. What are the odds of two straight lines meeting somewhere in space? If they are not parallel, they are bound to meet once and then separate. What are the odds of seven lines meeting in one and the same point? Daniel was asking himself that question since he was a child.

Physically, Bordeline was just a large city, still growing. Yet somewhere in the maze of dimensions whole worlds were lining up in a queue to customs office. All roads lead to Bordeline - said an old Earthen proverb and it was absolutely true. Daniel found his own way four months ago and he was finishing his acclimatizing period. He couldn't yet state that he was feeling at home there, but he got used to the noise, the smell and the company - and that was a lot.

* * *

Raine Lasair liked her partner.

Well, it wasn't that kind of liking which may eventually lead to one's bed, but she did considered the boy cute. The boy! Daniel was 33 and was build like an orc after work-out. Plus he had a galaxy of freckles on his face, huge green eyes and a mass of red, eternally messed up hair. And he was from the country.

To humans born in Borderline their rightful world was just a countryside. It wasn't even a bedrock, just a place, very remote and very back stepped. No emotions connected.

Raine was born in Borderline.

Daniel may not have seen a dead elf; it was her sixth. Sad as it was, the most victims of murders in Borderline were still humans - seven to ten killed. Dwarves were second, most of them killed in gang wars. Actually there were only two kinds of dwarves in Borderline: dwarves-yuppies and dwarves-gangsters. At least that were the kinds Raine had met. Dead elves were a rare sight. In practice they were rather tough to be killed. And they scarcely went to such dangerous parts of the city as this one.

Actually an elf in this neighbourhood was as common as cloudless sky above Bordeline - meaning very rare.

That was why she was so shocked seeing one of that kind standing so near the yellow tape with POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS written all over it. The press was common. The crown was common. Kids were a plague. But a dark elf peeping from behind an old dwarvian lady was as if taken from another fairy tale.

His skin was dark, as if cut out of obsidian. When a camera flash went on, it glimmered and glittered. Raine closed her eyes and opened them again...

'...about it, are we not?'

It was Daniel. He was trying to tell her something.

'Yes?' The Elf was gone, naturally. But one of the photographers took a pretty picture of Raine's dreamy face. Great.

'I was saying that it's about it. We're done for now. Lab'll do the rest.'

She nodded in agreement, turning towards the spot where she has seen the elf, just in case. Naturally, there was no sight of him.

to be continued... (I promise... Or threat. The choice is Yours to make!)
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This is a renderition of a short story I'm writing in the moment, in my native language (Polish it is).
I apologize for any dreadful mistakes, but English is not my first language and I still learn how to use it in literature...

If the story interests You, please comment on it.
If it doesn't, please comment too:)

Thanks for bearing with me till this point!