by Amanda Ashby
Emma shook her head. “You know, you three are the worst evil fairies in the world.”
“See, I told you this would happen.” Rupert glared at his fellow fairies before narrowing his tiny eyes and staring at Emma and Curtis. “And for the record, just because we’re helping you doesn’t mean we like you guys. We’re still hard-core bad.”
“You’d rather read gossip blogs and watch movies,” Curtis pointed out, causing Rupert to sigh.
“Okay, fine. The truth is that we’re just regular, extremely stylish, paranormal beings, but if you two know what’s good for you, you’ll keep it to yourself,” Rupert conceded.
“Now,” Trevor said as he nodded toward the other fairies, who were still hovering by the ceiling, looking down on them all with interest. “If you want the three of us to help you, we need to make it look like you are forcing us against our will because if word gets out that we helped you guys . . . well, let’s just say that things might not be so pleasant.”
“Fine.” Emma rose to her feet and held the nail file up before saying in a loud voice so that the other fairies who were looking on from up by the ceiling could hear her. “Okay, try anything funny and it’s a long slow death.”
“Nice.” Rupert nodded in approval and pretended to shudder in fear while Curtis retrieved his crutches. “Now go to the escalators and head down to the food court.”
“The food court?” Emma blinked in surprise. “That’s where I followed you on Saturday and almost got blown up. What’s going on?”
“This is the person who is going to save us from our dark brother?” Trevor didn’t look impressed as he flew around in spirals. “Because I don’t mean to be negative but I think we might be in trouble.”
“Just answer the question,” Emma retorted as she waved the nail file at him.
“I thought you would’ve figured it out by now,” Gilbert said in a low voice as he checked to see if the other fairies were following. They weren’t.
“Figured out what?” Emma asked as they crossed the faux-marble floor of the food court and tried to ignore the competing smells of burgers and fried chicken.
“That the explosion was caused by our dark brother breaking through from the Gate of Linaria. The first time he got through, it was thanks to an earthquake that managed to jolt the gate open, but this time apparently he had a hundred warlocks conjure up a spell to let him come back through. It took years—not to mention a lot of dieting, since the gate is only open for three seconds and let’s just say that our dark brothers aren’t always the slimmest of creatures. Comes from all the bones they insist on eating.”
Emma stopped and stared at them in horror as Curtis narrowed his eyes at the fairies.
“Are you seriously trying to tell me that the Gate of Linaria is down at the food court?” he asked.
“Well, yeah. I mean it moves around a lot but right now that’s where it is. Anyway, you’re here now, so our job is done.”
“Hang on, we still don’t know what the soul box looks like,” Curtis said. “Or if it’s even there.”
“Just wave the key in the air and it will appear. It’s not usually visible to the human eye but the key will reveal it. You do have a key, don’t you?”
“Yes, we have the key,” Emma confirmed, still trying to get her mind around the fact that they were about to go and see the Gate of Linaria.
“Good. Oh, and there’s one more thing. Once you release the darkhel’s soul, it will still take another twenty-four hours before he’s banished back to the other side of the gate.”
“What?” Curtis didn’t look impressed. “Who makes up these ridiculous rules? Why won’t it just be banished right away?”
“Okay, do you really want a lecture on elemental banishing or do you just want to accept that what I’m telling you is true?” Gilbert had lost his worried look as he fluttered his wings in an annoyed fashion and folded his tiny arms in front of him. “Because if you want a lecture, I can give you a lecture.”
“We don’t want the lecture.” Emma quickly put up her hands to stop him from talking any more than was strictly necessary. “Besides, we’ve already fought this creature twice. I’m sure we can contain it for one more day,” she said, but the fairy made a clicking noise with his tongue.
“Slayer-girl,” Gilbert said with dead seriousness, “what you fought was a shadow. A creature that was only at half strength. When his soul returns, he’ll be like nothing you’ve ever fought before. Besides, before he couldn’t fight for very long without having to go off and restore his power, but now, let’s just say that having his soul back is like giving him a turbo-powered booster to work with.”
Emma felt her eyes widen. “Please tell me that you’re joking.”
Rupert and Trevor shook their heads. “Gilbert is a darkhel expert. If he is says our dark brother will come back stronger once it regains its soul, then that’s what will happen.”
“It’s true,” Gilbert acknowledged, puffing out his chest.
Emma tried to contain her panic. Her two meetings with the giant fairy had been the toughest fights of her life, and the thought of having to face it again, when it was supersized with soul-induced über-powers, was hardly something to look forward to. Especially since the creature couldn’t be killed.
However, if the darkhel did manage to find the Pure One in the next twenty-four hours, then it would create a future that wasn’t even worth thinking about, and so she bit back her fear as she and Curtis walked toward the Chinese-food counter, which, since the explosion, was covered in heavy black plastic to hide it from the rest of the food court.
Besides, the darkhel would only be at its full strength for a day. What was some lost sleep and potential fighting compared to saving the world from being overrun by elemental fairies?
“So can we go now?” Trevor wanted to know as he pretended to skateboard across the air.
“Not yet,” Emma suddenly said. “We have a few more questions. Do you know who the Pure One is? Does the darkhel know? It’s just that if the creature’s going to be superstrong for the next twenty-four hours, knowing who the Pure One was would make our job so much easier.”
“Sorry.” Gilbert shook his head. “Pure Ones don’t tend to come well labeled. Our dark brother has spent most of his time on the other side of the gate researching who it is and now I guess he’s just working through a list. Anyway, can we go now? We’re missing our movie.”
“Fine, go. But seriously, once this is over, if I catch you guys trying to help any more evil elementals sneak into this world through the Gate of Linaria, then so help me, I really will slay you.”
The fairies laughed. “I love how you can keep a sense of humor even when you’re in the middle of a crisis,” Trevor observed as he abandoned his imaginary air skateboard in favor of doing a somersault and flipping Emma the bird. Then, without another word, the three fairies disappeared back in the direction of the movie theater.
“Okay, so it’s not just me, but they’re weird, right?” Curtis double-checked, and Emma nodded.
“Oh yeah. They’re weird. But at least they helped us find the soul box. So let’s go and do this thing. The sooner we find it, the sooner it will all be over.”
“You know I still can’t believe the Gate of Linaria is behind a place called Hong Kong Wong,” Curtis admitted. “I thought it would be somewhere more . . . upscale.”
“And not smell of stale cooking oil,” Emma added as Curtis pulled back a heavy sheet of builders’ plastic that concealed the burned-out kitchen. Then she noticed he was still wearing his glasses. “By the way, I don’t think you’ll be needing those in here. It’s a glamour-powder-free kitchen.”
“Oh, um, right,” he said uncomfortably. He flushed, hesitated for a moment, then with obvious reluctance took off the glasses and put them in his pocket. “I guess I won’t.”
For a moment Emma stared at him, not quite sure what his problem was, but then she remembered they had a job to do. She stepped over a huge pil
e of chopsticks scattered on the floor. She’d secretly worried that the place might be full of repairmen, but fortunately the damaged kitchen was empty of anything other than the charcoaled remains.
“Wow, that must’ve been some explosion.” Curtis whistled as he leaned forward on his crutches and surveyed the damage.
“Yeah,” Emma agreed as she walked over to one of the stainless-steel benches and put down her kit. “Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Or the right place at the right time. I wonder if the reason you can see the darkhel is because you were here when it came through the gate,” Curtis wondered aloud. He almost sounded wistful as Emma pulled the pendant out of her pocket.
“I have no idea.” She headed to the far end of the kitchen and systematically started to wave it in the air. “But right now, I guess that’s the least of our problems. Just yell out if you can see anything.”
Curtis paused before finally nodding. “Of course.” He started to glance around. “So what happened here last Saturday?”
Emma, who was just in the process of waving the pendant in the burned-out microwave, pointed over to the far wall. “Well, there were about ten fairies all hovering over there, and as I reached into my kit to get my weapon there was an explosion from over by the freezer,” she said as she continued to wave the pendant in the air, desperately searching for anything that might be a soul box.
Curtis headed over to the burned-out freezer and studied it. “Ah, yes. You can see that the door has been blown out, so it must be in here.” He pointed.
“Very CSI,” Emma said, smiling slightly as she stepped past him into the freezer. Despite its being out of order, it was still chillier inside the giant appliance, and she hugged herself as she stepped over a large bag of soggy bean sprouts and went in.
She held the pendant above her head and immediately sucked in a breath.
There, where the back of the freezer wall should’ve been, was now a great black swirling vortex of nothingness. For a moment Emma just stood transfixed, unable to look away from the hideous whirlpool of pulsing black space that silently flashed and flickered.
Her mouth felt dry and her eye throbbed as she forced herself to look away.
So it was true.
This was the Gate of Linaria.
“Are you okay?” Curtis was suddenly at her side with the stealthlike ability that she had come to associate with him, despite the crutches he was still using.
“I’m fine. Just a little freaked out. I mean, we’re sophomores at Burtonwood, and you don’t exactly expect to come face-to-face with the Gate of Linaria.”
“I know,” he agreed in a solemn voice. “Though I’ve started to discover that the more time I spend with you, the more I expect weird things to happen.”
“Thanks . . . I think,” Emma said as she reluctantly stepped away from him and held the pendant up again, still looking for the soul box. It didn’t seem to be there and she was just about to head back out to the kitchen again when she realized that Curtis was heading in the other direction, straight toward the far wall, as if the whole swirling black void of nothingness wasn’t even there.
“Curtis, what are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” He took another step forward and Emma screamed as the void suddenly burst open and hundreds of tendrils of smoke began to slowly reach out and snake and coil their way around his plaster cast like ivy up a wall. Emma rushed toward him and grabbed his arm.
Whatever the smoky vines were, they were strong, and as she tried to pull him away, they continued to writhe and wind their way up his leg. Emma felt herself straining with the effort of fighting the void. But finally, the resistance disappeared and they went tumbling back onto the freezer’s floor. Emma groaned on impact and rolled to the side to see if Curtis was okay. His face was leached of color, his brown eyes filled with confusion.
“Jeez, are you okay? What just happened?” she demanded.
“I’m not sure.” He rubbed his eyes and pulled himself into a sitting position. “One minute I was just walking, and the next minute, I felt... I felt like I had just stepped into hell.”
“That’s because you did step into hell.” Emma stared at him, still not quite sure what was going on. “You didn’t see it?”
“See what?” His gorgeous face was etched with alarm. “Jones, what are you talking about?”
“The Gate of Linaria. The evil fingers of death that were trying to grab you and pull you in. How could you not see it?” For a moment Emma just stared at him before she felt a stab of panic go racing through her.
Curtis didn’t answer. Instead he pulled the ugly white sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose and peered over to the far wall. Then, as if he were seeing the gate for the very first time, his face paled and his jaw clenched.
“Seriously, you’re acting very weird.” Emma tried to study his face. “Why did you put your glasses back on? I don’t understand.”
For a moment Curtis was silent; then he pushed the glasses back onto his head and let out a sigh. “You’re so smart. I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out already,” he said, his voice dull and laced with bitterness.
“Figure what out?” she asked, confused.
“That I’m sight-blind.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
What?” Emma stared at him blankly, waiting for the punch line, but when it didn’t come she folded her arms. “Come on, Curtis, stop messing with me and tell me what’s really going on.”
He didn’t look at her as he stated matter-of-factly, “I’m serious. I’m sight-blind. Plain and simple. Without these glasses I can’t see a thing.”
Emma shook her head in confusion. “No,” she insisted as she scrambled to her feet and watched him awkwardly get up and retrieve his crutches. “Those glasses were only to help you see Unseen dragons. And fairies. You told me yourself.”
He shrugged. “I lied to you. Yes, with them I can see dragons—and fairies. But without them, I can’t see anything.”
“I don’t understand. You go to Burtonwood Academy. It’s sort of required to be able to know when there are paranormal creatures around.”
“Oh, I know when they’re around. I can hear them. Smell them. Feel when they’re in the room. I can even fight them. Only problem is, I can’t see them.” As he spoke, his face was a mask that Emma found impossible to read. There was no easy smile, no chocolate eyes. Just planes and angles and grimness.
“So how did you even get into Burtonwood in the first place?”
Curtis sighed. “I told you that my dad isn’t really a fan. Well, this one time I could feel that there was something at the beach. I mean, something really bad, so I tried to tell him not to let my younger brother go surfing. I begged and begged but my dad thought I was just being obnoxious. So he grounded me and let my brother go with his friends to the beach.”
Emma gasped. “An aquafile?” she asked, since that was the most common kraken that hunted surfers.
“Yeah, I later figured out it must’ve been.” His voice was almost devoid of emotion.
“So what happened?” She felt the color drain from her face while hardly daring to listen to the answer.
“I climbed out my bedroom window and rode my bike there, but by the time I arrived it was too late and my brother and two other kids were being dragged under the waves having the life sucked out of them. I couldn’t see it but I just knew the aquafile was there and so I grabbed the scissors that I’d brought with me and jumped into the water. The thing was so bloated from what it had just done that I guess I got lucky and managed to strike a killing blow because suddenly the sense of evil I could feel was gone. I dragged the bodies onto the beach but it was too late.”
“Curtis,” Emma whispered as she instinctively reached out and gently touched his hand. “I had no idea. So is that when you decided to come to Burtonwood?”
He shook his head. “I’d never even heard of Burtonwood but the local newspaper ran a story about
how I’d valiantly tried to save three kids from drowning and I guess it blipped on Kessler’s radar as a possible aquafile attack. Anyway, next thing I knew, he came to visit, and after testing me, he offered me a scholarship. I was ten, so at the time he was confident that my sight would come through, but of course I didn’t really care, I just wanted to get away from my old man.”
“But your sight never did come through.” All Emma could do was shake her head in disbelief as she realized just how different their childhoods had been.
“Nope, and with Induction looming, Kessler was in a bind. He said in every other respect I was the perfect slayer and he didn’t want to lose me. Which is where the glasses came in. We tested them on everything but they only seemed to work on dragons—”
“And fairies,” Emma pointed out.
“Yeah, though we didn’t know it at the time. Anyway, it was because of the glasses that Kessler gave me your dragon designation,” Curtis finished off in a soft voice as the truth started to really sink into Emma’s brain. “I should’ve just said no. I mean, everyone at Burtonwood knew what it meant to you, but I couldn’t bear the idea of going home. Of being helpless to fight elementals. I’m sorry, Jones. I should’ve told you sooner. I’ve been trying to; it’s just... well . . . not easy to admit that you’re a freak.”
She stared at Curtis as he looked down and kicked the ground in embarrassment. She had been right all along.
He did have a secret.
It just wasn’t exactly what she had envisioned.
She had been thinking it was because he was embarrassed to be seen with a fairy slayer or that he didn’t like her, but in fact it was about as far from what she had thought as possible.
“If you hate me, I understand. I mean, it’s my fault you lost your dragon spot. Not to mention the lying and the general ruining-your-life thing.” Curtis still didn’t look at her. For a moment Emma closed her eyes and thought of her mom and how she had longed to follow in her footsteps before finally she looked up at him and forced him to return her gaze.