by Amanda Ashby
“Trust me, you’d know if I’d seen it,” Emma said in a dry voice as she dropped down into the chair farthest away and tried to ignore the bad feeling she had in the pit of her stomach.
“So maybe it means my wards have worked?” Loni said in a hopeful voice.
“Maybe, though the little fairies had said that the darkhel found it hard to maintain its strength while the gate was shut, so maybe’s just taking a breather.” As Emma spoke, she restlessly got to her feet. “Actually, I might go and do a patrol, just to make sure it’s not lurking anywhere.”
“Emma, relax. We were just out there two seconds ago,” Loni reminded her. “And there was no sign of it anywhere.”
“I know, but I don’t want to take any chances. Until three o’clock tomorrow no one on that list is safe.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Curtis started to get to his feet, but before Emma could say yes, Tyler started to cough.
“Actually, buddy, I think our guys are leaving, which means it’s probably our cue to go as well,” Tyler said, and for a moment Curtis paused as if racked by indecision, but Emma gave a slight nod.
“I’ll be okay. You go, but make sure you call me if there is anything unusual.”
“Ditto.” Curtis caught her hand for a second and lowered his mouth to hers. It was just a fleeting kiss, which no one but Loni seemed to notice, but it was enough to help calm Emma’s rising anxiety. “And please, be careful.”
“I will,” she promised as she watched him make his way out of the lounge, his crutches swinging back and forth in a soft rhythm.
“Oh my God,” Loni squealed the minute the guys were out of earshot. “That was the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And weird. I still can’t get over the fact that you two—”
“I know.” Emma allowed herself one short smile before a more somber mood overtook her. “But I really can’t think about it. Not yet. Not until this is over. And speaking of which, I’d better get back out there.”
“Well, I’m coming with you,” Loni said in a firm voice that Emma didn’t dare argue with.
By midnight there was still no sign of the darkhel and Emma felt exhausted, so when Loni finally insisted that she call it a night, she reluctantly agreed.
But it wasn’t until her friend left and she was in her room alone that she let out a sigh. She had a bad feeling that tomorrow was going to be even worse than today. And not just because of the induction ceremony (which had actually been pushed so far down on her “suck list” that it wasn’t funny) but because until they knew the darkhel had been banished, they were going to need to be on full alert.
As her mind continued to churn, she spread her slaying kit out on her bed and methodically started to clean and check everything, just like her mom had taught her. But just as she was putting away her sword there was a loud banging on her door and she jumped in surprise.
“Emma, are you there?”
“Curtis?” Emma put down her sword and hurried over to see Curtis cautiously peering up and down the hallway to check that no warden was around. “What are you doing here?”
“Hoping I don’t get caught. Can I come in?”
“Of course.” She quickly ushered him in and shut the door. Then she frowned as a surge of panic went racing through her. “Has something happened? Are Garry and Glen okay?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say they were okay, since I’m fairly sure they’re demented. Thankfully they’re currently snoring like fifty-year-old men—it’s the only thing they don’t seem to do in tandem. Anyway, Tyler’s camped outside their room and so far the wards all seem to have held. That or the darkhel has decided Earth sucks and has gone back to the other side of the gate of its own accord.”
“I wish,” Emma said quietly as he reached and wove his fingers through hers. “So what are you doing here?”
“I came to see how you were holding up,” he said as his grip tightened, and for a moment Emma felt the stress of the day fade away. Then he glanced over to the small leather book that was lying open on her bed. “Are you still freaked out about your mom being mixed up in all of this?”
“No,” Emma said before letting out a reluctant sigh. “Maybe. I just wish that it didn’t seem so much like a big secret part of her life that I didn’t know about. I want to find out how it all fits together and then I want it to all be over. Plus, I can’t help it, I feel so inadequate. I mean, it probably took my mom two seconds to figure out about the soul box, and if we’d been faster, it would all be over now and we wouldn’t be trying to protect people with cutlery and salt.”
“You can’t know that, so don’t beat yourself up over it. If anyone can figure this out, you can, Emma.”
“I wish I had your faith.” She gulped, but instead of answering, he leaned forward on his crutches and gently kissed her, his mouth soft against hers. Emma felt some of the tension that had been mounting ease as the kiss deepened and his crutches fell to the floor. Finally, he pulled away and blinked as if he’d forgotten where he was for a moment.
“Wow, okay. Well, I guess I’d better go, because if I don’t let you get some sleep soon, Loni will kill me.”
“You’re scared of Loni?” She arched her brow.
“Hell yeah.” He gave an emphatic nod of his head, causing his curls to splay out across his brow. Emma couldn’t help but reach up and push them out of his eyes. He let out a little moan and kissed her again. This time it was Emma who eventually pulled away.
“Actually,” she confessed, “I’m a little scared of her too. Sometimes I think she likes to channel her inner Mrs. Barnes. But, Curtis—” She suddenly felt shy as she wove her fingers through his and peered up into his eyes. “I’m glad you came around.”
“Me too.” He shot her a lopsided grin before he awkwardly bent down to retrieve his crutches and headed for the door. “Good night... Emma.”
Emma waited until she could no longer hear his crutches swinging back down the corridor to hop into bed and turn off the light.
She touched her lips, which were still tingling from where Curtis’s mouth had been. After everything that had happened in the last six weeks, she didn’t really think that too many things could surprise her anymore, but she had obviously been wro—
She sat up abruptly as she glanced around the room. A low, scraping noise was coming from over by the window and for one crazy minute the grin on her face increased as she wondered if it was Curtis climbing up to her window. Then she realized that he had a broken leg and she was on the third floor. Suddenly, as a familiar static sound hummed in her ear, all the happiness that she had been feeling disappeared in an instant.
She jumped to her feet and instantly reached for her sword. The room was dark except for the faint glow of her digital alarm clock and she cautiously made her way over to the window, clutching the sword as she went. The drapes were closed, and she used the point of her weapon to push one back slightly.
The minute she did, she caught sight of the darkhel’s face pressed up against her window and her heart started to hammer in her chest as she realized that she had never bothered to put up any wards in her own room. Could she be any more stupid? She shuddered as she realized that not only did the darkhel look bigger as the faint moonlight outlined its giant shoulders and wings, but it seemed to have an extra glow around it that sent ice-cold stabs of panic racing around her body. The creature’s red eyes were like two pinpoints in the dark, and then it opened its barbaric, misshapen mouth and bared its teeth.
It focused in on her as she quickly closed the drapes. “What? Did you think your puny wards could stop me from coming in?” it said in a low, guttural voice as its giant wings batted the air and kept it hovering up by her window. “Well, actually, they would have if I hadn’t destroyed them all.”
Emma opened the curtain again and saw that the creature was holding out one of Loni’s modified knives so that she could see that the circuit board was completely crushed. Its hand itself was a hideous mound of weep
ing, blistered skin. “Of course I’m not going to pretend it didn’t hurt. But I was really missing this place. There’s something about it that I just like.”
“I don’t know why you’re acting so smug,” she forced herself to reply. Her mom had taught her long ago that it was one thing to feel afraid; it was another thing to show that fear to your enemy. Suddenly, the advice didn’t seem as easy as it sounded as she gripped the hilt of her sword and returned the beast’s glare. “Since by this time tomorrow you will be long banished.”
“I have enough time.”
“No you don’t. If you knew who the Pure One was, you would’ve already opened the gate by now. Face it, you’re clueless. And you failed. In fact, it must piss you off that first my mom banished you and now I’ve done it as well.”
“Can it be?” For a moment the darkhel paused before a hideous smile spread out across its misshapen mouth. “Oh, how precious. Mommy didn’t tell you.”
Emma instantly felt the blood drain from her face. “Tell me what? Stop talking about my mother as if you know her. You don’t know her. You don’t know anything.”
“Really?” the creature snapped, and she watched in horror as the window started to push open, and too late she realized that the darkhel’s giant talons had been creeping under the aluminum frame and slowly edging it open the whole time they’d been talking. Emma’s heart started to pound.
“Shut up,” she yelled as she thrust her sword and used all of her strength to send it plunging into the creature’s talon. “Just shut up and go away.”
The creature didn’t even flinch and Emma realized that Gilbert had been right when he’d said that the darkhel with a soul was even harder to fight. She was just about to stab it again when she caught sight of Loni’s silver hooped earrings that were lying on the desk. Her friend had taken them off earlier and had obviously forgotten to take them with her.
Silver.
She dove for one just as the darkhel finished lifting the window open so that the glass was no longer separating them. For a moment it looked like it was going to speak again, but before it could open its hideous mouth, Emma stabbed the pointed silver end of an earring into the darkhel’s neck and then watched in relief as the creature instantly fell back into the night sky, its whole body seeming to shake with pain. Then it stared at her for a moment, its red eyes full of hate and agony, and without another word it disappeared into the night. Emma slumped back in relief as the sharp static buzz in her ear abruptly stopped, letting her know the darkhel had left Burtonwood. All she could guess was that despite all of its boasting, the combined efforts of the wards and being stabbed by a silver earring had taken its toll.
So the campus was still safe for now, but she had plenty of other things to worry about.
Like what did it mean about her mom?
What else hadn’t her mom told her? Were there more secrets she needed to know? Emma paced the room, longing for this all to be over so that her life could go back to normal. Even the thought of being stuck hunting tiny fairies for the rest of her life was more appealing than trying to untangle what the darkhel’s words had meant.
She picked up the small leather-bound book again and frantically flipped through the pages looking for something. Anything.
But no matter how many times she read through it, there were no hidden clues buried in its chapters. Just her mom’s loopy writing saying “I know how to banish it” and then, on the final page, “It is done.”
Emma wanted to scream in frustration, but instead she pushed the book away as the curling tension she had been feeling all day threatened to explode in her stomach. Why hadn’t her mom been scared as she waited for the countdown until the darkhel was banished? Did she go around putting pieces of silver cutlery around Burtonwood and slip ball bearings in people’s bags and clothing?
But even as she thought it Emma knew it was a stupid question. Of course her mom hadn’t done any of those things. Louisa Jones had been a dragon slayer, so dealing with this darkhel was all in a day’s work for her. She probably figured out a way to banish it instantly so that she could go home, cook dinner, and no doubt get up the next day and go back to her real job of killing dragons.
Unlike Emma, who was barely managing to hold it together.
No wonder Principal Kessler hadn’t assigned her dragons. Even though Curtis was sight-blind, he was still a thousand times better than she was. He could kill things that he couldn’t even see. Whereas Emma had seen the darkhel three times and hadn’t even come close to killing it. Hurting it maybe, but not killing it.
As she closed her eyes she willed herself to dream about her mom and then look for the hidden message or meaning that might be buried deep within the book.
But this time there were no dreams, and when Emma woke up two hours later to the sound of the alarm, she didn’t feel relieved at all. She just felt abandoned and not looking forward to what the new day was going to bring.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It did what?” Loni screeched in a high-pitched voice the next morning as she and Emma hurried across the quad to the cafeteria. “Why didn’t you come and get me?”
“Because then we both would be exhausted today,” Emma replied as she glanced around. The whole place was buzzing with the excitement that only an induction ceremony could bring. If only Emma could share the feeling. “And again, I’m really sorry about using one of your favorite earrings as a weapon.”
“I don’t care about the earring. I care about the fact that you stayed up all night and didn’t think to come and talk to me.” Loni was looking seriously annoyed now and Emma winced.
“Sorry, and if it’s any consolation I did get a couple hours of sleep and the good news is that it looks like your ward idea would’ve worked if the darkhel hadn’t destroyed them. Yay you,” she added, but Loni remained unimpressed.
“I still don’t like it and next time an invisible fairy comes and knocks on your window in the middle of the night— and tells you that it’s destroyed all the wards—I want you to promise to come and get me.”
“Except there won’t be a next time,” Emma reminded her, but since Loni still looked mutinous, she raised her hands in surrender. “Fine, next time an invisible fairy comes to visit me at night I will definitely tell you. Happy?”
“Hardly,” Loni assured her before taking a grudging gulp of her coffee. “Anyway, what did it want?”
“What do you mean?” Emma wrinkled her nose. “It’s evil. It wanted to freak me out in a devious and cunning way.”
“Yes, but why? Why would it tell you that it had broken the wards?”
“To show that I hadn’t beaten it? You know what alpha males are like. They can’t bear to lose.” Emma shrugged. “Actually, if you ask me, it was because it was pissed off. It didn’t like when I taunted it about not having the Pure One yet. Maybe it was trying to find out what I knew about it.”
Loni didn’t look convinced, but before she could press the matter further, Curtis appeared and Emma felt herself giving him a shy smile.
“Hey,” she said as he leaned his crutches against the table and lowered himself down onto the chair next to her. “So how did it go last night with the twins?”
“Okay. Tyler’s just waiting for them to come out of the bathroom. But there was no sign of trouble all night. What about you guys?”
“I think I’ll let Emma tell you about her night.” Loni glared.
Emma let out a reluctant sigh. “Fine. Okay, so the thing is that the darkhel turned up at my window last night at about one in the morning. I guess it likes making house calls.”
“What?” Curtis instantly lost his easy smile as his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. “I can’t believe you didn’t come and get us.”
“Thank you.” Loni nodded in appreciation at his agreement.
“Look, guys, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but let’s not forget that I’m the one who can see it, plus I’ve already fought it twice. I’m not exactly helpless when it
comes to this thing.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Curtis’s face was pale. “That thing opened up your window and destroyed Loni’s wards. It could’ve come back at any time and—”
“I’m okay,” she said in a soft voice as she suddenly felt his fingers grip hers under the table and he shot her a look that was so intense she was pretty sure that the temperature in the cafeteria went up by about ten degrees. “Besides, even though Loni’s wards were destroyed, I still get a static buzz in my ear everytime it’s near. That’s how I knew it hadn’t returned.
“I still don’t like it. Until this thing is banished, we can’t take any chances,” Curtis said as he increased the pressure on her fingers. Emma returned it.
“Okay, so here’s the new plan,” Loni suddenly announced as she got to her feet. “There are still six hours until we know for sure that that giant fairy guy has been banished, so I figure that Tyler can keep following Garry and Glen. I’ll go and rebuild the wards, this time setting the subsonic blast so high that the freaking fairy won’t be able to get anywhere near them much less smash them. I should’ve done this in the first place, but I was worried that the pitch might set off some of the other wards. I’m such an idiot. Anyway, while I do that, Emma and Curtis can split up and hunt down everyone on the list and make sure that they’re all still in one piece. Does that work for everyone?”
Emma felt Curtis squeeze her hand one more time as she got to her feet. She certainly hoped it was going to work.
“Okay. I’ve remade twenty-two wards complete with an ultrasonic and a subsonic pulse, not to mention double the salt, and set them to pump out three hundred volts of positive electrons. I don’t even think Superman could get through them now,” Loni announced from the other end of Emma’s cell phone, two hours later. “So how is it going?”