Fairy Bad Day(35)
“But don’t worry,” Loni added, no doubt catching Emma’s look of frustration. “Because I have an idea. It’s been really bugging me all night about how the darkhel even got into Burtonwood. Twice. I mean, this place is warded up to the hilt, so technically it shouldn’t have been here.”
“Hence the conundrum.” Emma tapped the table in frustration. “Since that’s the reason why Kessler doesn’t believe me—well, that and the fact that this thing apparently doesn’t exist. But then again, the little fairies don’t seem to be affected by wards either, which is why they can come and go so freely at the mall.”
“Yes, but we have a lot more wards at Burtonwood than they have at the mall,” Loni pointed out. “The double Windsor alone pumps out so much voltage that it should fry any elemental within a three-mile radius, and we have twenty of them dotted around the boundaries, which is why I’m wondering if the darkhel has managed to interfere with one of them.”
“Is that even possible?” Emma frowned and tried to remember everything she had learned in her Ward Building class. I mean, aren’t the wards designed so that elementals can’t tamper with them?”
“Yes, as a rule,” Loni said, “but since we don’t know anything about the darkhel, we really don’t know what it’s capable of. You said it had talons, but it also sounded like it was pretty dexterous. I don’t suppose you noticed if it had opposable thumbs?”
Emma stared at her blankly.
“No, I didn’t think so,” Loni quickly added. “Anyway, I thought I should go and make sure that everything’s okay with all the wards.”
“You can do that?” Now it was Tyler’s turn to look surprised.
“I can.” Loni grinned as she pulled out a small map of what looked like the entire Burtonwood grounds. “Who knew it would be so handy that I spent all that time tagging after the tech guys watching them do their maintenance. Anyway, all I need to do is slip into the workroom at lunchtime and get my hands on an analyzer. It will tell me if the electromagnetic field is still working and at what voltage it is pumping out the positive electrons. As long as it’s over fifty volts, then the wards are working. Simple.”
“You know, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Loni’s just a bucket of plutonium away from being an evil genius.” Tyler grinned.
“Ignore him,” Loni advised as she gave Tyler a friendly shove. “Because the important thing is that we’re going to get to the bottom of this. I know we are. We’ve just got to stay positive.”
By the end of the day Emma realized that just because a person wanted to figure something out didn’t mean the person would figure something out. Not that she’d really had much of a chance, since between going to classes and her after-school detention, her time hadn’t exactly been her own. But if she didn’t get some answers soon, there was a strong chance that her head might explode.
Thankfully, after two long and laborious hours, a grimlooking Professor Vanderbilt finally got to her feet and said that everyone in the detention room could go. Emma didn’t need to be told twice, and she hurried over to the library, where Loni had been researching the darkhel. Her friend was waiting outside the entrance idly flipping a tiny ward up and down in the air.
“Tyler’s stuck with Glen Lewis talking about their assignment but he’s going to meet me at the cafeteria in half an hour so he can help me check the wards,” Loni told her as she pocketed the ward. “How are you dealing?”
“I’m fine, aside from the fact that I’m going completely and utterly insane—of course,” Emma added as the light started to fade and the temperature felt cool against her cheeks. “Still, at least I managed to get my homework done. Though why a slayer needs to learn accounting I’ll never know.”
“Yeah, I’ve never seen anyone kill a goblin by knowing how to depreciate an asset over a ten-year period,” Loni agreed as she reached out and gave Emma’s hand a comforting squeeze. “And hang in there. We’ll find something out. I know we will.”
“Will we?” Emma paused for a moment, her frustration descending like the surrounding fog. She thrust her hands into her blazer pockets to keep them warm. “It just makes no sense, Lon. This is my mom we’re talking about. So how does this . . . this . . . thing know anything about her? I can’t bear the thought of her having any sort of secret, separate life. I need to find out what went on.”
“And you will,” Loni insisted before she thoughtfully bit her lower lip. “But you know, there’s something we haven’t considered. I mean, if the darkhel knew your mom, maybe your mom knew the darkhel?”
“Except my mom’s dead, so we can’t exactly ask her,” Emma reminded her friend.
Loni shook her short, spiked hair. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just... remember when you first took me back to your house just after we both started at the Academy?”
Emma nodded. Loni had been homesick like crazy and her parents had both been off on a mission in Africa, trying to hunt down a rogue demon, and so Emma’s dad had invited her to come over on a Saturday. Something that had been repeated many times over the years until Emma’s mom died and Emma had stopped going home herself, preferring to spend most of her weekends and holidays at Burtonwood.