Son of the Hero — Rick Shelley

THE BUFFER ZONE
That was what they called the seven kingdoms that stood between the mortals' world of Earth and the realm of the immortal elves. When Gil Tyner planned to celebrate his twenty-first birthday with his parents, he didn't have the faintest idea that he was about to spend not only his birthday but the foreseeable future in the buffer zone. This was a far cry from the future he had planned as a computer programmer in Silicon Valley. What was even worse, Gil found his parents' home deserted, and a note from his mother that would open the way to danger--and a destiny he never could have imagined.