Fairy Bad Day(72)

She jumped to her feet and instantly reached for her sword. The room was dark except for the faint glow of her digital alarm clock and she cautiously made her way over to the window, clutching the sword as she went. The drapes were closed, and she used the point of her weapon to push one back slightly.

The minute she did, she caught sight of the darkhel’s face pressed up against her window and her heart started to hammer in her chest as she realized that she had never bothered to put up any wards in her own room. Could she be any more stupid? She shuddered as she realized that not only did the darkhel look bigger as the faint moonlight outlined its giant shoulders and wings, but it seemed to have an extra glow around it that sent ice-cold stabs of panic racing around her body. The creature’s red eyes were like two pinpoints in the dark, and then it opened its barbaric, misshapen mouth and bared its teeth.

It focused in on her as she quickly closed the drapes. “What? Did you think your puny wards could stop me from coming in?” it said in a low, guttural voice as its giant wings batted the air and kept it hovering up by her window. “Well, actually, they would have if I hadn’t destroyed them all.”

Emma opened the curtain again and saw that the creature was holding out one of Loni’s modified knives so that she could see that the circuit board was completely crushed. Its hand itself was a hideous mound of weeping, blistered skin. “Of course I’m not going to pretend it didn’t hurt. But I was really missing this place. There’s something about it that I just like.”

“I don’t know why you’re acting so smug,” she forced herself to reply. Her mom had taught her long ago that it was one thing to feel afraid; it was another thing to show that fear to your enemy. Suddenly, the advice didn’t seem as easy as it sounded as she gripped the hilt of her sword and returned the beast’s glare. “Since by this time tomorrow you will be long banished.”

“I have enough time.”

“No you don’t. If you knew who the Pure One was, you would’ve already opened the gate by now. Face it, you’re clueless. And you failed. In fact, it must piss you off that first my mom banished you and now I’ve done it as well.”

“Can it be?” For a moment the darkhel paused before a hideous smile spread out across its misshapen mouth. “Oh, how precious. Mommy didn’t tell you.”

Emma instantly felt the blood drain from her face. “Tell me what? Stop talking about my mother as if you know her. You don’t know her. You don’t know anything.”

“Really?” the creature snapped, and she watched in horror as the window started to push open, and too late she realized that the darkhel’s giant talons had been creeping under the aluminum frame and slowly edging it open the whole time they’d been talking. Emma’s heart started to pound.

“Shut up,” she yelled as she thrust her sword and used all of her strength to send it plunging into the creature’s talon. “Just shut up and go away.”

The creature didn’t even flinch and Emma realized that Gilbert had been right when he’d said that the darkhel with a soul was even harder to fight. She was just about to stab it again when she caught sight of Loni’s silver hooped earrings that were lying on the desk. Her friend had taken them off earlier and had obviously forgotten to take them with her.

Silver.

She dove for one just as the darkhel finished lifting the window open so that the glass was no longer separating them. For a moment it looked like it was going to speak again, but before it could open its hideous mouth, Emma stabbed the pointed silver end of an earring into the darkhel’s neck and then watched in relief as the creature instantly fell back into the night sky, its whole body seeming to shake with pain. Then it stared at her for a moment, its red eyes full of hate and agony, and without another word it disappeared into the night. Emma slumped back in relief as the sharp static buzz in her ear abruptly stopped, letting her know the darkhel had left Burtonwood. All she could guess was that despite all of its boasting, the combined efforts of the wards and being stabbed by a silver earring had taken its toll.

So the campus was still safe for now, but she had plenty of other things to worry about.

Like what did it mean about her mom?

What else hadn’t her mom told her? Were there more secrets she needed to know? Emma paced the room, longing for this all to be over so that her life could go back to normal. Even the thought of being stuck hunting tiny fairies for the rest of her life was more appealing than trying to untangle what the darkhel’s words had meant.

She picked up the small leather-bound book again and frantically flipped through the pages looking for something. Anything.

But no matter how many times she read through it, there were no hidden clues buried in its chapters. Just her mom’s loopy writing saying “I know how to banish it” and then, on the final page, “It is done.”

Emma wanted to scream in frustration, but instead she pushed the book away as the curling tension she had been feeling all day threatened to explode in her stomach. Why hadn’t her mom been scared as she waited for the countdown until the darkhel was banished? Did she go around putting pieces of silver cutlery around Burtonwood and slip ball bearings in people’s bags and clothing?

But even as she thought it Emma knew it was a stupid question. Of course her mom hadn’t done any of those things. Louisa Jones had been a dragon slayer, so dealing with this darkhel was all in a day’s work for her. She probably figured out a way to banish it instantly so that she could go home, cook dinner, and no doubt get up the next day and go back to her real job of killing dragons.