Fairy Bad Day(19)

Curtis handed her the can.

“It doesn’t matter what you do to me.” Rupert folded his tiny arms in a stubborn gesture. “I’m not going to tell you anything about the darkhel. Not a single—”

“Rupert. Zip it.” Gilbert lifted his hand and made a slashing action across his throat, and the injured fairy let out an annoyed groan.

“What’s a darkhel?” Curtis demanded.

“Darkhel?” Rupert fluttered his little fairy eyes in a blank expression. “I didn’t say ‘darkhel.’ What I said was ‘dark hell.’ Dark. Dark. Dark hell. Which is exactly where you’ll both be heading very soon. You know, you should really get your ears checked out.”

“You said ‘darkhel,’” Emma corrected him.

“No, I didn’t.” Rupert shook his head.

“Yes, you did.”

“No, no, no. I most definitely did not.”

Emma, who found it hard enough to put up with Loni and Tyler’s constant bickering, certainly wasn’t going to bother with this for too long, and she finally arched an eyebrow and pointed to the tiny creature’s shirt. “So the fact your T-shirt says ‘Darkhels Rule the World’ is a complete coincidence?”

“Man, Rupert, you had to wear that shirt?” Gilbert growled.

“Darkhel?” Curtis frowned as he turned to Emma. “I’ve never heard of it. I wonder if it’s a new breed of dragon? Or maybe European?”

“Dragons?” Gilbert spat a crushed Skittle out of his mouth in disgust. “You insult us. The darkhels aren’t dragons, they’re fairies.”

“That thing was a fairy?” Emma dropped the hairspray in shock. “But that’s impossible. I mean, it was so big. And evillooking. And the size of its talons was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There’s no way it was a fairy.”

The fairies all puckered in annoyance. “Size isn’t everything, you know,” Trevor growled. “And you should see Gilbert when he’s in the middle of a job. You don’t get more evil than that.”

“Thanks, brother.” Gilbert puffed his chest in pride. “I do like to bring a certain level of dastardliness to my work.”

“I still don’t understand.” Emma scratched her head. “I mean, it looked just like a dragon.”

Rupert growled in disgust, which was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still squirming on the floor with a nail file poked through his wing and his T-shirt covered in Skittle stains. “Darkhels have more grace and evil in their little talon than a dragon has in its entire body. In fact, how dare you even mention them in the same sentence? It’s sacrilege. Still, I guess it doesn’t matter that you know, since there is nothing you can do to stop our glorious dark brother from regaining the Pure One. It has been foreseen.”

“The Pure One?” Emma rolled her eyes. “Oh please, you’ve got to be—”

“Can I help you folks at all?” Someone coughed and Emma and Curtis both swung around to where a salesclerk was now standing with a helpful smile on her face.

“Er, no thanks, we’re good.” Emma jumped to her feet and tried to hide as many of the crushed Skittles as possible. Next to her, Curtis manfully scooped up the hairspray and thrust it behind his back.

“Are you sure?” The woman beamed at them. “We’ve got some great celebrity biographies here, and there’s a special on right now that gives you twenty percent off your second purchase. I know. I know. It’s a steal.”

“Seriously, we’re fine,” Curtis said in a low voice as he did that thing with his eyes.

“It’s just it seems such a shame to miss out on this wonderful offer. You could stock up for the holidays,” the woman persisted, obviously indifferent to Curtis’s low voice and his dark, velvety eyes. Which was a pity because, while Emma didn’t approve of his using his charm when it came to stealing dragon-slayer designations, there was no denying it would’ve come in handy right about now.

“We’re really just browsing,” Emma repeated in a firm voice, and the woman started to deflate a bit.

“Well, if you’re sure,” she said, looking away, “then I guess I’ll just let you get back to your . . . hey, did one of you drop a nail file?”

“Oh.” Emma tried to stand in front of it, while wishing that the captured fairy wasn’t quite so invisible. “That’s mine. I’m just letting it . . . er, dry out. It fell in my coffee before and it got all wet, which of course meant that I couldn’t use it and . . . well, I’ve got a nail emergency, and—”

The woman bent down and pulled it out of Rupert’s wing, much to the delight of the fairy, who paused only long enough to poke his tongue out and straighten his T-shirt before immediately flying up to the ceiling to join his friends. “You can’t just go around leaving nail files in the carpet like that. Someone could get hurt. And what are all these Skittles doing here? Do I need to ask you to leave?”

But before Emma could even open her mouth, she looked up to the ceiling and let out a long groan as she realized the fairies were gone.





CHAPTER EIGHT





I don’t believe it,” Emma said a few minutes later as they leaned over the railing of the top level of the mall and looked down. “We had them right there. All we needed was two more minutes and we could’ve found out exactly what this darkhel thing is.”