Fairy Bad Day(51)

“Er, Lon.” Tyler coughed as he tapped his watch. “Not that we’re not all interested in how he did it but we’re up against the clock here since we still don’t have any idea how a thing that shouldn’t be here is here.”

“Well, Mr. We’re-Up-Against-the-Clock, I was going to add that from time to time the gate has been temporarily opened but never for more than three seconds,” Loni said. “So even if Emma’s darkhel did manage to temporarily open the Gate of Linaria and get out within three seconds, we still don’t how it is staying alive, or—oh.” Loni’s face turned a pale shade of white as she squinted and moved the book closer to her face. Finally, she pulled it away and looked back up to them. “Well, that can’t be a good thing,” she mumbled.

“What?” Emma demanded. “What does it say?”

“It’s talking about the kill spot,” Loni said in a reluctant voice before she let out a big sigh. “Apparently it doesn’t have one.”

“But that’s impossible.” Curtis shook his head. “All elementals have a kill spot.”

“Not fairies,” Emma amended.

“And especially not this fairy,” Loni said in a hoarse voice. “According to this, the darkhel isn’t just a regular run-of-the-mill garden-variety elemental. It’s the first elemental. It’s also the strongest, rarest, and completely impossible to kill.”

Emma felt her throat tighten as Loni handed her the book so that she could study the page. The blood pounded in her temples and her ears began to throb, and for one terrible moment she thought she was going to faint. It took all of her concentration to push the dark, tingling feeling aside. She had fought some bad elementals before, but nothing like the darkhel, and now to find out that there was no way to kill it?

“Okay.” Tyler started to tick points off his fingers. “So the darkhel is the first of all elementals. We can’t kill it and apparently it is managing to survive on Earth despite the fact that the Gate of Linaria is shut. But the one big question that we still don’t know the answer to is what is it doing here?”

Curtis suddenly looked up. “Actually, yes, we do. Well, I don’t know how it got out or how it’s staying alive, but I do know what it’s doing here. It’s looking for the Pure One.”

“What?” Loni and Tyler both spluttered, but Curtis ignored their disbelief.

“When Emma and I were at the mall the other day, the fairies said that the darkhel was looking for the Pure One,” he explained. “And if you think about it, it makes sense. If it can find the Pure One, it can use his blood to open the Gate of Linaria and let in all the other darkhels.”

“And then it can go looking for Santa Claus to get some free presents.” Loni rolled her eyes. “I mean, please, the Pure One? That’s crazy. It’s a story. I guess I can believe that Sir Francis used five drops of blood from a nameless male child to help seal the gate shut. But the idea that the nameless male child’s descendant still has some magical blood that will reopen the gate is just ridiculous. For a start, the chance of the same blood being passed down from one male to another makes it, well . . . improbable. Not only does it not take into account the fact that there might not be a male heir in any given generation, but what happens to the old Pure One? Does he suddenly lose his Pure One blood once it’s been passed on? I mean, as far as theories go, it’s just a big old mess.”

“Actually,” Emma croaked as she held up her mom’s book and gulped, “I think I can answer that. Listen to this: “ ‘The spell I did to close the Gate of Linaria ensured that the sacred blood of the Pure One shall be passed from the oldest son to the oldest son. If there are no male descendants, it jumps to the oldest son of the second oldest child so that the line is always continued. As long as the Pure One’s blood is safe, the Gate will stay shut.’ ”

“Wow.” Loni blinked. “But even if it’s true that the Pure One is still around, how on earth would the darkhel find him? And more importantly what would it do with him?”

Emma looked grim as she once again held the book up. “I’m afraid I’ve got an answer for that as well. It says here that to reopen the Gate of Linaria, not only does an elemental need the blood of the Pure One, but it also needs a special spell. And, oh—”

“What?” Curtis demanded, his voice tight.

“Sir Francis might’ve only needed five drops of the Pure One’s blood to close the gate, but according to this, the only way to open the gate is to drain the Pure One completely.”

Everyone was silent for a minute before Tyler finally broke the silence.

“Okay, so not only is there some poor, unsuspecting dude walking around with Pure One blood running through his veins, but if the darkhel finds him, he will kill him and open up the Gate of Linaria.”

Emma didn’t want to believe it.

After all, it was bad enough that there was one impossible-to-kill invisible darkhel on the planet—the idea that it could soon be joined by all of its friends made her feel sick to the core.

“Even worse,” Loni added in a subdued voice, “we have no idea how to find the Pure One and stop it from happening.”

“Hang on, I need to think about this.” Emma shut her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose for a moment before finally looking up. “Okay, so when I was fighting the darkhel before, not only did it say that I couldn’t protect ‘him’ forever, but it also said that it knew he was close.” She widened her eyes. “Which would explain why I keep seeing the darkhel here, because it—”