by Amanda Ashby
“Um, can we help you?” Emma blinked as she tried to readjust to the world outside the space between her and Curtis. But even when the normal world came into focus, it wasn’t one where Brenda belonged.
“You’d better be able to. I’m looking for Loni. We were supposed to meet half an hour ago to go over some more details on this assignment. I mean, I told her quite clearly that we should meet at eleven thirty. You know I have a good mind to go and speak to Principal Kessler about this. Why should my grades suffer just because Loni’s a total slacker?”
Emma narrowed her eyes and felt her back stiffen. “Loni’s not a slacker. And besides, Principal Kessler has better things to do than listen to you.”
“But it’s okay when you go and waste his time with invisible dragons?” Brenda retorted as she caught sight of the books stacked up on the table and wandered toward them, her curiosity obviously getting the better of her. “I didn’t know the library had a copy of Chelmer’s Alchemy of Demons. In fact, I distinctly remember Gretchen telling me that it’s completely impossible to get. I can’t believe she was holding out on me.”
Emma grabbed the book out of Brenda’s hand. “Yeah, well, it’s from my mom’s private collection, and before you ask, no, you can’t borrow it.” But Brenda didn’t seem to hear as she put her bag down and settled herself at the table.
“Oh my God, your mom also has this?” Brenda picked up a second book and looked impressed. “I mean, I knew she was a great dragon slayer but she must’ve been some kind of scholar too. This stuff is hard-core.”
“If you say so.” Emma shrugged while still never taking her gaze off Curtis’s haunted-looking face. He had been about to tell her something. Something important, and call her crazy, but she would much rather be talking to him than to Brenda right now. “But look, Brenda, this really isn’t a good time, so if you don’t mind, we really need to—”
“Wow, and a key to a soul box. I’ve never seen one of these in real life.” Brenda suddenly picked up the crystal pendant that was sitting on the table where Curtis had left it. She held it up to the light so she could inspect it. Emma felt her mouth drop open.
“What did you just say?” Curtis demanded in a low and compelling voice.
“That I’ve never seen one before?” Brenda dutifully repeated, but Curtis shook his head.
“No, the other part. What did you call it?”
“It’s a key to a soul box. Well, I assume it is. I don’t recognize the language of the engravings but I’m pretty sure that these slits are where it’s supposed to fit in. Why are you both looking at me like that?”
“What’s a soul box?” Emma demanded.
Brenda rolled her eyes. “Well, if you guys listened more in Professor Yemin’s class, you might know.” She reached down to her backpack and pulled out a heavy book. She opened it up and pointed to a photo of an ornate box. “Before the Gate of Linaria was shut, some of the elementals—mainly demons, from what I’ve read—that came through couldn’t survive. They were so corrupted and vile that their bodies literally couldn’t stand the purified air of Earth. However, they discovered that if they took out the heart of their darkness—aka their soul—they could survive, and so they created soul boxes. The elemental would come through the gate, lock their soul in the box, and would then go and cause all sorts of mayhem on Earth. Of course, once the gate was closed, the ones that were stuck here died off, and since no more could come through, soul boxes became obsolete. They’re mainly considered a collectible these days. Now, about that book of your mom’s?”
Emma turned to Curtis and stared at him as Brenda cautiously reached out and pried the textbook from her fingers.
Of course.
The answer to the conundrum of how the darkhel could survive on Earth while the Gate of Linaria was still shut. It must have taken its soul and put it in a box while it went looking for the Pure One. Finally, they were getting somewhere.
“So what does the key do?” Emma demanded.
“It opens the box.” Brenda shrugged. “The demon or whatever is using it needs to keep the box somewhere near the gate. If you have the key, you can release the soul and it will go straight back to your demon. Then presto, they will be banished back to the other side of the gate.”
“Banished?” Emma looked up in disappointment. “Why wouldn’t they just die?”
“Because it says so in the book.” Brenda held it up to them both as proof before reading out the passage. “‘Once the creature’s soul is returned, it is automatically banished back to beyond the gate.’ See, all there in black and white.”
“But what’s to stop it from sticking its soul right back in the box?” Emma wrinkled her nose.
“About five dark priests and a lunar eclipse,” Brenda said as she held the book out. “Apparently it’s not exactly an easy—or pain-free—ritual to perform.”
“Er, so how do you know the key will work?” Curtis asked, and Brenda, who realized that she wasn’t going to get a chance to study the textbooks just yet, looked up and let out a resigned sigh.
“It’s like a skeleton key. You have heard of one of those, haven’t you?”
“Of course,” Emma assured her in a tone that let her know that her sarcasm wasn’t appreciated. “So you’re saying that if something has come through the gate and put its soul in a box, then all we need to do is get the soul back out and restore it and it will be banished?”
“Er, yes, like I’ve just told you three times.” Brenda looked at them like they were idiots before narrowing her eyes. “Why are you asking, anyway?”
“It’s nothing. Just something extra that Curtis and I are doing.” Emma gave a casual shrug.
“For the assignment?” Brenda suddenly looked concerned. “I didn’t know we could do anything extra. Man, where’s Loni? I really need to discuss this with her stat.” Then without another word she jumped up and hurried toward the front of the library. The minute she’d gone, Emma started to scoop the books away before turning to Curtis.
“So at least we know how my mom got rid of it. I mean, it all makes sense now. She fought it, couldn’t find the kill spot, so she opened up the soul box instead and banished it.”
“Yes, but you’re forgetting that even if the darkhel has put its soul in a box, we don’t have a clue where the box would be. It will be like looking for a needle in an evil-infested haystack.”
“So, what are you saying? You think we should just forget about it altogether?” Emma demanded. “And maybe while we’re at it, we should go and work on our stupid assignment instead?”
“Hey, Jones, where is this coming from? I’m on your side, remember?” Curtis protested, his dark eyes clouding over. “And of course I don’t think we should go and do the assignment. In fact, I’ll be happy if I never see another fairy again, because—”
“That’s it.” Emma turned to him in excitement. “The fairies. We can go and ask them.”
“Go and ask the darkhel to tell us where his soul box is?” Curtis frowned and shook his curls. “You know, I don’t think he’s going to tell us.”
“No, I mean the little fairies. The annoying ones with too much backtalk. And as for telling us or not, well, who said I’m going to give them a choice?”
“But if what Brenda says is true, then the soul box must be somewhere nearby the Gate of Linaria and apparently that changes location all the time. It could be in Siberia for all we know.”
“All the more reason for us to get going. Now come on. Let’s go and see Mrs. Barnes about a pass-out so we can go to the mall. Because the sooner we talk to the fairies, the sooner this thing is over.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
No, absolutely not,” Mrs. Barnes said as Emma stood with Curtis in front of her desk.
“But we haven’t even asked you anything yet,” Emma protested as Mrs. Barnes shook her head and continued to type, her green-framed glasses perched high on her head. “Besides, this has nothing to do with Principal Kessler and trying to find
out when he’ll be back. All we want is a pass-out so we can do a Saturday patrol for our assignment.”
“And the answer is still no. Emma, you’re on detention, and also it’s Induction tomorrow, which means no one is doing any patrolling. Parents don’t like it when their children look all beaten up in the photos. It’s bad for yearbook sales.”
Emma, who was still struggling to catch her breath, just stared at her for a moment and wondered what her chances were of diving for the drawer where the passes were kept. After all, Mrs. Barnes had to be at least fifty; she’d never be able to catch them. Next to her Curtis seemed to stiffen as if reading her mind.
“Please, Mrs. Barnes, it’s really important,” he said in his smoothest voice before unleashing his lopsided grin and brushing his blond curls out of his eyes. “It’s just that I didn’t get to finish taking all my notes on this assignment the other day and it’s worth twenty percent of our final grades.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve already told you that Principal Kessler doesn’t—”
“Principal Kessler doesn’t what?” Professor Vanderbilt poked his head around the corner. Normally when Principal Kessler was away, the weapons teacher was acting principal.
“Curtis and Emma want a pass-out so they can do a Saturday-afternoon patrol at the mall,” Mrs. Barnes informed him in a foreboding voice. Ironic that when Emma didn’t want to go to the mall with Curtis, Principal Kessler couldn’t send her there fast enough. She paused and considered what would happen if she simply repeated this behavior.
“Hey, I never said I wanted to go,” she suddenly piped up as she winked at Curtis, hoping he would realize what she was doing. “I hate fairies. They are stupid and dumb, and if you think there is any chance I’m going to show Curtis how to slay them, you’re very much mistaken,” she said in a firm voice while shooting Curtis a disdainful glance. “In fact, I might call Principal Kessler right now and—”
Curtis looked at her and tried to hide a smile.
“Mrs. Barnes.” Professor Vanderbilt cut her off and turned to the secretary. “Give Emma Jones and Curtis Green a pass-out and make sure that the minibus takes them. They have two hours maximum.” Then he turned back to Emma and folded his arms. “And no more arguments.”
“Yes, Professor Vanderbilt.” Emma obediently dropped her head and studied her shoes as Mrs. Barnes slowly shook her head in disagreement and pulled two passes out of her drawer. She then called the driver to arrange for him to meet Emma and Curtis at the front gates in fifteen minutes.
“So?” Loni was waiting for them in the quad, as arranged. Emma had sent her friend a text the minute she and Curtis had left the library to let her know what Brenda had unwittingly told them about the soul box. “Did you get them? Tyler tried to bet that you wouldn’t.”
“Oh really. Well, I hope you got good odds on it,” Emma said as she pulled out the pass-outs and grinned. “So how did you guys do? Did the computer program narrow down the list?”
“Not yet,” Tyler said. “I’m pretty sure that the dinosaurs became extinct quicker than this thing is taking to download. But hey, hopefully by the time you come back here, the darkhel will be banished and we’ll just be able to use the extra paper to make airplanes to throw at Brenda when she tries to make an induction speech tomorrow.”
“Not that I don’t have complete faith in us, but I really don’t think we should be doing the chicken-counting thing just yet,” Emma said before glancing at her watch. “Anyway, we only have two hours before we’ve got to be back, so we’d better hurry.”
“So where do you find fairies at two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon?” Curtis asked after the minibus dropped them off at the mall and the driver made arrangements to pick them up at four o’clock.
“They’ll be at the movie theater. Let’s see. What’s playing?” Emma rubbed her chin as she studied the list of movies that were showing before finally settling on the new James Bond flick.
The movie had already started, so it was dark as they made their way down the aisle of the half-empty theater. A couple of heads turned around and scowled at the sound of Curtis’s crutches. At that moment Emma’s phone started to beep and there were a few more angry hisses. Not exactly the stealthy approach she had been hoping for.
Emma paused for a moment to check the cell-phone screen. An e-mail from Nurse Reynes wanting to know why Emma hadn’t called to arrange a new appointment. Because she wasn’t a masochist. Delete. The second was from her dad, wanting to make sure everything was okay. Oh yeah, never been better. Except for killer invisible fairies and soul boxes and having to talk to annoying ten-inch fairies in the middle of a movie theater. She switched off her phone and scanned the theater; it took a while but she finally saw about eight fairies right up in front, sharing a giant Diet Coke.
“Gouge out his eyes,” yelled Rupert, who was wearing a tiny David Bowie T-shirt and some skinny-legged emo jeans. “That’s right, James, you’re a tough guy, show them who’s the man . . . hey, these seats are . . . oh, it’s you.” He folded his tiny arms and glared at Emma. “Are you here to violate my other wing?”
“Not if you tell me what I need to know,” Emma whispered as she sat down next to him and held the nail file up to his little neck. The other fairies started to head for the ceiling just as Curtis appeared, also holding a nail file in his hand, the ugly white glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose in case the fairies hit him with more glamour powder.
“Not so fast.” He grinned and Trevor and Gilbert muttered a string of expletives before joining their fellow fairy on the seat. Curtis put down his crutches and settled into the chair on the other side of them, nail file still at the ready.
“What do you want?” a sulky Gilbert demanded. “Because whatever it is, make it snappy. We’ve had a very bad week and we’ve been looking forward to this movie for a long time.”
“You’ve had a bad week?” Emma dug the nail file into Rupert’s jugular and felt her voice raise an octave. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I heard you right, because how could your week possibly have been worse than mine?”
“Keep it down,” someone from behind them yelled out, but Emma ignored them.
“So here’s the deal,” Emma started. “I want to know everything about this darkhel and please don’t leave out the important stuff. Like where it keeps its soul box.”
“Like we’re really going to tell you that.” Trevor lifted up his tiny chin in a stubborn gesture as he elevated several inches off the chair. “What do you think we are? Stupid?”
“Curtis. Get the Skittles for Stupid and his friends.” While Emma was gathering the nail files, Curtis had been in charge of getting ten bags of candy. She was going to feed the little beasts so full of sugar that they would sing like hyperactive canaries.
Curtis pulled out a packet and handed it over.
“I don’t believe it. They’re trying to kill us.” Gilbert suddenly burst into noisy sobs and Emma stared at him. “It’s just too much.”
“I warned you that he was a worrier. Now look what you’ve done.” Trevor shot both Emma and Curtis a venomous look before returning his attention to the other fairy. “Hey, don’t let the emotions of the week get to you. Especially not in front of humans.”
“Um, I’m sorry, but am I missing something here?” Emma demanded as she opened up the packet with her teeth and held it out to the fairies. “Because while it’s great to see you three so caring and sharing, we’re on a bit of a timetable, so just take your Skittles and tell me about the soul box.”
The three fairies shrank away from the packet.
Emma blinked before narrowing her eyes at them. “What? You don’t like Skittles now? Let me guess, after lunch you prefer Tic Tacs?”
“Hey, if you’re trying to throw doubt on our Skittle-eating ability, you can forget it. We can eat those perfect little circles of candy goodness twenty-four/seven. But those . . . abominations . . . that you’re trying to give us are not real Skittles.”
&n
bsp; “Huh?” Curtis lifted up the packet. “Yes, they are. They’re just sour ones.” At the very mention of the word “sour” the fairies shrank even farther back.
“They hate Sour Skittles,” Emma hissed in a low voice.
“You’re seriously not going to eat those just because they’re sour?” Curtis demanded. “It was all they had left in the store.”
“We would never eat those poison things in a million years. Veronica merely sniffed one once and she was dead before she knew it. I tell you, that candy is the work of the devil,” Gilbert informed them. “Besides, if you wanted help with the soul box you just had to ask, you didn’t need to threaten us.”
“Gilbert—” Rupert started to say, but he was cut off by Trevor, who performed an aerial somersault before hovering in front of the other fairy.
“Rupert, we talked about this, remember? We decided.”
“Fine.” Rupert still didn’t look very happy as he settled back into the seat and pushed out his lower lip in a sulky pout. “But I’m not going to be the one to tell them.”
“Tell us what?” Emma turned to Curtis to see if he was following what was going on, but he looked equally baffled.
“Tell you where the soul box is,” Trevor explained while he ignored the daggers that Rupert seemed to be mentally throwing at him. “We want to help you.”
“Okay, so now I’m really confused.” Curtis lifted up his glasses for a second and rubbed his eyes before lowering them back down onto his nose. “I mean, don’t get me wrong: we want you to help us, but we didn’t think that you would roll over quite so easily. What’s going on?”
The small fairies exchanged a look, and then Gilbert fluttered up so he was right in front of their faces.
“Look, here’s the deal,” the fairy said. “When we first heard our dark brother was going to attempt to open the gate again, we were pretty excited. I mean, it’s always nice to see family, but then he told us how much they were looking forward to destroying the whole world and turning it into another dark realm, and, well... the truth is that we like it here. To begin with, the mall is the best invention in the world except for the Internet. And I just don’t think it would as much fun if we couldn’t go to Starbucks or read pinkisthenewblog every day online.”