Fairy Bad Day(65)
However, if the darkhel did manage to find the Pure One in the next twenty-four hours, then it would create a future that wasn’t even worth thinking about, and so she bit back her fear as she and Curtis walked toward the Chinese-food counter, which, since the explosion, was covered in heavy black plastic to hide it from the rest of the food court.
Besides, the darkhel would only be at its full strength for a day. What was some lost sleep and potential fighting compared to saving the world from being overrun by elemental fairies?
“So can we go now?” Trevor wanted to know as he pretended to skateboard across the air.
“Not yet,” Emma suddenly said. “We have a few more questions. Do you know who the Pure One is? Does the darkhel know? It’s just that if the creature’s going to be superstrong for the next twenty-four hours, knowing who the Pure One was would make our job so much easier.”
“Sorry.” Gilbert shook his head. “Pure Ones don’t tend to come well labeled. Our dark brother has spent most of his time on the other side of the gate researching who it is and now I guess he’s just working through a list. Anyway, can we go now? We’re missing our movie.”
“Fine, go. But seriously, once this is over, if I catch you guys trying to help any more evil elementals sneak into this world through the Gate of Linaria, then so help me, I really will slay you.”
The fairies laughed. “I love how you can keep a sense of humor even when you’re in the middle of a crisis,” Trevor observed as he abandoned his imaginary air skateboard in favor of doing a somersault and flipping Emma the bird. Then, without another word, the three fairies disappeared back in the direction of the movie theater.
“Okay, so it’s not just me, but they’re weird, right?” Curtis double-checked, and Emma nodded.
“Oh yeah. They’re weird. But at least they helped us find the soul box. So let’s go and do this thing. The sooner we find it, the sooner it will all be over.”
“You know I still can’t believe the Gate of Linaria is behind a place called Hong Kong Wong,” Curtis admitted. “I thought it would be somewhere more . . . upscale.”
“And not smell of stale cooking oil,” Emma added as Curtis pulled back a heavy sheet of builders’ plastic that concealed the burned-out kitchen. Then she noticed he was still wearing his glasses. “By the way, I don’t think you’ll be needing those in here. It’s a glamour-powder-free kitchen.”
“Oh, um, right,” he said uncomfortably. He flushed, hesitated for a moment, then with obvious reluctance took off the glasses and put them in his pocket. “I guess I won’t.”
For a moment Emma stared at him, not quite sure what his problem was, but then she remembered they had a job to do. She stepped over a huge pile of chopsticks scattered on the floor. She’d secretly worried that the place might be full of repairmen, but fortunately the damaged kitchen was empty of anything other than the charcoaled remains.
“Wow, that must’ve been some explosion.” Curtis whistled as he leaned forward on his crutches and surveyed the damage.
“Yeah,” Emma agreed as she walked over to one of the stainless-steel benches and put down her kit. “Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Or the right place at the right time. I wonder if the reason you can see the darkhel is because you were here when it came through the gate,” Curtis wondered aloud. He almost sounded wistful as Emma pulled the pendant out of her pocket.
“I have no idea.” She headed to the far end of the kitchen and systematically started to wave it in the air. “But right now, I guess that’s the least of our problems. Just yell out if you can see anything.”
Curtis paused before finally nodding. “Of course.” He started to glance around. “So what happened here last Saturday?”
Emma, who was just in the process of waving the pendant in the burned-out microwave, pointed over to the far wall. “Well, there were about ten fairies all hovering over there, and as I reached into my kit to get my weapon there was an explosion from over by the freezer,” she said as she continued to wave the pendant in the air, desperately searching for anything that might be a soul box.
Curtis headed over to the burned-out freezer and studied it. “Ah, yes. You can see that the door has been blown out, so it must be in here.” He pointed.
“Very CSI,” Emma said, smiling slightly as she stepped past him into the freezer. Despite its being out of order, it was still chillier inside the giant appliance, and she hugged herself as she stepped over a large bag of soggy bean sprouts and went in.
She held the pendant above her head and immediately sucked in a breath.
There, where the back of the freezer wall should’ve been, was now a great black swirling vortex of nothingness. For a moment Emma just stood transfixed, unable to look away from the hideous whirlpool of pulsing black space that silently flashed and flickered.
Her mouth felt dry and her eye throbbed as she forced herself to look away.
So it was true.
This was the Gate of Linaria.
“Are you okay?” Curtis was suddenly at her side with the stealthlike ability that she had come to associate with him, despite the crutches he was still using.
“I’m fine. Just a little freaked out. I mean, we’re sophomores at Burtonwood, and you don’t exactly expect to come face-to-face with the Gate of Linaria.”