Fairy Bad Day (8 page)

“Jones, are you okay?” Curtis suddenly asked as he studied her face, a bemused smile tugging at his mouth. “You’re pretty quiet. And you’re still holding my hand.”

“What?” Emma could feel the heat rise up in her cheeks as she looked down and realized that she still had his hand in hers. She immediately let it go and busied herself putting everything away while making a mental note to avoid touching Curtis—it seemed to do strange things to her. “Yes, I’m fine. Anyway, your hand should be okay.”

“Thanks.” He gave it a wave in the air as if to check that the gauze would hold before he awkwardly got to his feet while Emma once again tried to ignore the way his blond curls hung over his eyes.

“Don’t mention it.” She shrugged, then took a deep breath. “And look, sorry I was a little rude. I don’t really like talking about family stuff.”

“I understand.” For a moment the smile left his face and he gave a solemn nod, which caused his blond curls to scatter across his forehead in all directions. “So, do you want to look for the fairies one more time? We still have half an hour before we need to leave, and it might help us learn more about this darkhel of yours.”

For the second time in as many minutes, Emma looked at him in surprise. First he seemed to understand her, and now he seemed eager to help her. Unfortunately, it was too late and she reluctantly shook her head.

“They’ll be long gone, not to mention putting the call out to tell all the other fairies in the area to lie low. They make instant messaging look like ancient history.”

“Oh.” Curtis actually looked disappointed. “So we head back to Burtonwood, then?”

“I guess.” Emma nodded. “I’ll just give Kessler a call and let him know what’s happened.”

“You want to call Kessler?” Curtis’s mood instantly changed as a look of concern appeared on his brow. “Are you really sure you want to tell him about this? I mean, he seemed pretty pissed off when you called him last time.”

“That was before I knew what it was. Now I have proof it’s a fairy called a darkhel—”

“An invisible fairy that no one’s ever seen or heard of before,” Curtis reminded her in an enthusiasm-killing voice.

“That’s not the point.” Emma shook her head in frustration. And to think that a couple of minutes ago she thought they had reached some sort of understanding. Yet now he was acting like the arrogant dragon slayer that she had first thought he was. “You were there. You heard the fairies talk about it, and we already know it was hunting on campus. You do the math.”

“I’m just saying it might be better to wait. Especially since Kessler’s out on a code blue.”

Emma folded her arms and glared at him. Why was he doing this? It was almost like he... oh! She widened her eyes.
It was almost like he didn’t want her to let Kessler know that she hadn’t been making it all up, in case it meant Kessler changed his mind about the dragon designation.
And to think that for one second she had thought Curtis was a nice guy. She narrowed her eyes.

“Really? Because it seems to me you’re worried that he might be impressed with what I’ve found out.”

“Jones, that’s not what I meant,” he said as a flash of annoyance went racing across his face. “Look, if there had been another way, don’t you think I—” He suddenly bit down on his lip.

“Another way?” Emma narrowed her eyes. “Another way for what? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” he quickly backtracked as he studied his freshly bandaged hand. “And look, if you want to call Kessler, it’s your decision.”

“Thank you,” Emma said as she moved a few paces away and made the call. She didn’t care what Curtis said, she was doing the right thing. Her mom would’ve done exactly the same. However, after several rings, the call went to voice mail. She hit redial but again there was no answer, so she left a detailed message explaining exactly what the fairies had told her, even going as far as to spell out the word “darkhel” in case the principal misheard. Then she slipped her cell phone back into her pocket.

She turned around to where Curtis was leaning forward on his crutches, his T-shirt and blue hoodie straining across his broad shoulders. Not that his obvious strength really gave him an edge over her as far as dragon slaying went, since that was as much about speed and stealth as anything else, but still—

Suddenly, he turned to her and she flushed.

She hoped he hadn’t caught her looking at him. Not that she was really looking, she was just observing, and there was a difference.
A big, big, big difference
.

“He’s not answering,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice as she headed for the taxi line and they made the trip back to Burtonwood the same way they had come. In silence.

“So did you have any luck with the fairies?” Mrs. Barnes asked half an hour later as they both handed back their passes and gave her the receipt for the taxi fare since the normal minibus hadn’t been able to drop them off. Emma went to open her mouth when Curtis suddenly lifted his bandaged hand up and cut her off.

“Not so much. I learned the hard way not to use lasers around them. Slaying fairies is harder than I thought,” he confessed.

“Yes, well, I did warn you, but would you listen?” Emma retorted, still annoyed that she had allowed herself to soften toward him, even for a moment.

“Trust me, I won’t make that mistake again,” Curtis assured her.

Emma turned back to Mrs. Barnes. “So what are we supposed to do now if everyone else is out on the code blue?”

“Professor Vanderbilt will supervise you both while you study. He’s in the library.
And, Emma, Principal Kessler wants you to come and see him before class tomorrow. Apparently, there are some things he wants to discuss with you.
”

“Oh.” Emma gulped as she took in the serious expression on Mrs. Barnes’s face. “W-what about Curtis? Does he need to see him too?” But Mrs. Barnes just shook her head and shot her an apologetic look that told Emma all she needed to know.

Too late she realized Curtis had been right.

She should never have left the message for Kessler.

Emma only just managed to stifle a groan as it sunk in how stupid she had been. And the worst thing was, she had no one to blame but herself.

CHAPTER NINE

. . . A
nd then Loni jumped out on this huge demon and the minute she pressed her stunner into its spiky back, the thing crumpled like a pack of cards. Unbelievable.” Tyler shook his head in wide-eyed excitement as they sat in the crowded, noisy cafeteria the following morning.

Those who had gone on the mission had returned too late for Emma to catch up with what had happened, which was why she had been drilling them for details ever since they’d all met up half an hour earlier. Plus, it was definitely helping to take her mind off her upcoming meeting with Kessler. Even the thought of it made her stomach knot with worry.

“Seriously, Em, Loni was incredible,” Tyler continued before winking. “Our little girl is growing up.”

“Shut up, Tyler. Stop being such an idiot.” Loni blushed before relenting. “But it was totally insane. There must’ve been at least a hundred demons there and we took them all out. Oh, and you should’ve seen the Department guys. They were totally freaked because they couldn’t see the demons that we were fighting. Actually, they looked just like the civilians in that training DVD we had to watch last year. You know the one that was supposed to make us realize why it’s a bad idea to fight elementals in front of sight-blind people.”

For a moment they all grinned, since the DVD in question was a bit of a joke. After all, the main reason slayers didn’t fight elementals in public places wasn’t that they wanted to avoid freaking out civilians (though that was true as well) but that thanks to the many wards that were in place, most fighting tended to occur in unpopulated (and more importantly, unwarded) areas.

“And then when it was over,” Tyler interjected, “the Department guys were all like,
‘Whoa, dudes, you were awesome. That was the best.’”

“Okay, so now he’s exaggerating.” Loni laughed as she gave Tyler a gentle punch in the arm. “Absolutely none of them said the words ‘whoa, dudes.’”

“Fine,” Tyler conceded. “But all the same, not only did we save the Department guys from getting shredded, but the zombie virus got reversed, which meant no one got turned into bone-munching living dead. All with no injuries. Definitely a good day’s work.”

“Wow.” Emma shook her long dark hair in awe as she soaked in every detail. Then she felt her mood start to plummet as she realized it might be the closest she ever got to some code-blue action. “You guys are so lucky.”

“I know, right.” Tyler reached over and grabbed a piece of Emma’s uneaten bacon. “And did I tell you, three of the hot juniors were all over me in the bus on the way home? Apparently they liked the way I handled myself.”

“You might’ve mentioned it once or twice,” Emma said diplomatically, since not only had he texted her about it, but on his way home in the bus last night, he had proceeded to draw diagrams and repeat the story every five minutes during breakfast.

“Or a hundred million times,” Loni corrected, a lot less diplomatically.

“Sorry.” Tyler shot them an unrepentant grin as he bit into the bacon. “But it was pretty cool. Anyway, now that we’ve told Emma all about the battle, I want to know what happened with this dragon yesterday? Did you seriously see one flying over—”

“Hey.” Loni suddenly pointed over into the crowd. “Tyler, isn’t that one of the girls from the bus? I think she’s waving at you.”

“Really?” Tyler was instantly distracted as he jumped to his feet and started to scan the room.

“Really,” Loni agreed. “You know I bet that if you went over and asked her out, she would probably say yes. Especially since, according to your horoscope, love is in the air for Leo. You should strike while the iron is hot.”

“Well, I was pretty awesome,” Tyler agreed as he smoothed down his blazer and tried to pat his unruly red hair into some sort of order. “Okay, I’m going to do it. Wish me luck.”

“Luck,” Loni and Emma both chorused, but it wasn’t until he hurried away from them that Emma rubbed her sore eye and frowned.

“I didn’t see anyone waving to him. Where is she?”

“Oh.” Loni shrugged. “I sort of made it up. It’s just Tyler’s on such a high right now from yesterday that I was worried he might ask so many annoying questions and we’d be forced to cut him up into tiny pieces and bury the body parts.”

Emma nodded. They both adored Tyler, but there was no doubt that sometimes his testosterone took over his brain.

“Thanks,” she said as she proceeded to fill her friend in on everything that had happened yesterday, from discovering that the dragon was in fact a fairy right up to her upcoming visit to see Principal Kessler in—
oh, about ten minutes
.

Once she had finished, Loni was looking more exasperated than ever, and her rosebud lips were scrunched together in two thin lines.

“I can’t believe that Curtis just stood there and let you call Kessler and leave that message. And here I was thinking he was a nice guy. He’s a Sagittarius too. You know I did not see that one coming, but you were obviously right about him. He’s evil. One hundred percent, unadulterated evil.” Loni bristled, causing Emma to reluctantly shake her head.

“Actually, Lon, Curtis tried to talk me out of it. In fact, short of tackling me to the ground, he did everything he could to convince me it was a bad idea. I should’ve listened to him.” She groaned before narrowing her eyes in confusion.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because,” Loni informed her in a stunned voice, “I’m trying to figure out if this is the first time you’ve talked about Curtis without scowling or making a face.”

“Okay, fine. You’re right. He’s not that bad.” Emma held up her hands in defeat as she thought of the conversation they’d had while she’d treated his hand. It had been... unexpected.

“Oh, really? Like how?” Loni demanded, raising her eyebrows.

“I don’t know.” Emma flushed, suddenly not quite sure if she should mention that Curtis had dark velvety eyes and seemed to understand her. Instead she shrugged. “He just seems nice, that’s all.”

“I knew it.” Loni clapped her hands in sheer happiness. “You like him. This is so exciting. I always secretly thought he liked you, but now that you like him too, it’s just so perfect. You’re an Aries and he’s a Sagittarius. And then there is the whole granola breakfast cereal thing.”

“What?” Emma’s sore eye started to twitch. “Loni, no. I don’t like him. I mean I don’t
hate
him anymore. But it’s not like I’ve suddenly developed a crush on him. That’s crazy.
And please stop clapping. Everyone’s looking.
”

“Yes, but—” Loni began, but Emma gave a firm shake of her head.

“Seriously, there’s no crush.”

“Oh.” Loni’s face fell. “So you’re not going to invite him down to the practice range? I heard there are some new demons there and I bet Kessler would let you count the practice on your Alternative Slaying assignment.”

“What? No, of course I’m not.” Emma rolled her eyes. The practice range was down behind the second oval, and it was where the school kept a few captive elementals for training purposes. It was heavily warded and guarded except for three back stalls where students often went to make out. Not that Emma had ever been in them, and more to the point, she didn’t intend on going there anytime soon.

“It was just a suggestion,” Loni protested, but Emma ignored her.

“Well, it’s one I can do without. Besides, I have more to worry about right now than that. I still can’t believe I told Kessler that my dragon was an invisible fairy called a darkhel. What was I thinking? Especially since when Curtis and I went to the library yesterday we couldn’t find a single mention of it. It’s like it doesn’t even exist.”

“So the fairies made it up.” Loni shrugged. “I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve tricked you. Remember on your first patrol what they did with the melted ice cream?”

“Thanks for reminding me.” Emma shuddered as she recalled just how long it had taken to get the ice cream out of her hair. “But I don’t think they were tricking me. They actually seemed pretty annoyed that we found out about it. Ask Curtis, he saw it all.”

“What?” Loni wrinkled her nose in confusion. “Didn’t you tell me that Curtis got hit with some glamour powder? Because I know that when they got me with that stuff, it was like being a sight-blind civilian.”

“Oh, right. I guess I forgot to tell you that he has glasses to fight Unseen dragons. Can you believe it?” For a moment Emma dwelled on the injustice of it all before realizing that Loni was still waiting for an answer. “Anyway, the glasses worked on the fairies as well.”

“What did they look like?” Loni was instantly curious as her violet eyes widened in a geeky way that Emma would never understand.

“They looked like some very ugly, white sunglasses that should’ve been destroyed along with leg warmers and Wham T-shirts back in the eighties. Why? What does it matter what they looked like?”

“I guess it doesn’t.” Loni rubbed her chin. “It’s just I would be curious to see them. I’ve heard of Unseen glasses before, but I didn’t know that their refracting lenses would work on glamour powder as well. It’s intriguing.”

“If you say so.” Emma shrugged as she looked at her watch and reluctantly got to her feet. “Anyway, I better go and face the music with Kessler. I’m already in enough trouble without being late too.”

Loni’s violet eyes filled with worry. “Okay, well, good luck, and remember not to say anything to piss him off. Promise?”

“Don’t piss off the principal. That’s definitely my new motto,” Emma assured her as she hurried toward the door while at the same time trying to smooth down her uniform. She’d had another bad night’s sleep and hadn’t really drifted off until just after her alarm clock started to buzz, which meant she’d been forced to get ready in a hurry, and now her hair was pulled up into a practical ponytail and her tie was more haphazardly knotted than ever.

As she went, she caught sight of Curtis glancing up at her from across the cafeteria. He raised his hand and beckoned for her to wait for him. For a moment she paused and considered it, but as she watched him get to his feet she realized that unlike her own bedraggled appearance, Curtis looked as if he’d slept like a king. His blond curls were gleaming as they lay in a scatter across his forehead, perfectly framing his vivid brown eyes, while his navy blazer fell across his shoulders like it had been fitted by one of the designers from Loni’s fashion magazines.

Suddenly Emma felt self-conscious and scruffy in her own hastily thrown-on uniform, and while half of her knew it was completely ridiculous to even worry about what she looked like, she did. So instead of waiting, she held up her arm and tapped her watch to let him know that she didn’t have time. Then she turned and hurried toward her fate.

“Emma, I’m disappointed. For most of your time at Burtonwood, your behavior has been exemplary,” Principal Kessler said fifteen minutes later as he held up a slim file. Then he picked up a second (not so slim) file and shook his head. “Until five weeks ago when you suddenly started rivaling the Lewis twins as the student most likely to give me a coronary. Disobedience. Detentions. Your mother and I go back a long way, but trust me when I tell you that she would be the first to condemn your behavior.”

Emma wished that she hadn’t been in such a hurry to get to the principal’s office as she clenched her jaw and leaned forward so that her bangs fell into her eyes. She knew this meeting was going to be bad, but it was worse than she ever could’ve imagined.
She would not cry, she would not cry.
Instead she concentrated on the bit of worn carpet near the corner of the desk. Anywhere was better than looking up at the wall behind Principal Kessler’s head, where her mom’s beaming face was still sitting in its frame, just like it always was.

Would she still be smiling if she knew that instead of being a dragon slayer, Emma was a fairy slayer.
A disgraced fairy slayer.

“We all know how unhappy you are about your upcoming Induction,” the principal continued in a grim voice. “However, as a student of this Academy, I expect you to follow whatever orders you are given. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” she forced herself to answer.