Fairy Bad Day

chapter TWENTY-ONE

The next morning Emma scanned the crowded cafeteria until she caught sight of Loni and Tyler in one of the booths in the far corner. The chilly November weather had settled like a polar blanket over the campus, but thanks to all the visitors, the cafeteria was packed to the rafters and the long windows were steamed up with condensation.

“So how did it go last night?” Emma demanded as she slid into the orange upholstered seat and gracefully eased the lid off the coffee cup that Loni pushed into her chilled hands.

“Well,” Loni said as she stifled a yawn, “the good news is that I’m now officially a hacker.”

“Are you serious? You got into the medical records?” Emma felt a wave of relief flood through her, and she reached across the table and grasped Loni and Tyler’s hands so that she could give them a grateful squeeze. “That’s so great. In fact, I don’t know what I would’ve done if my two best friends weren’t an electronic genius and a guy who spends far too much time betting on his five-legged cockroach.”

“For a start you could stop squeezing so hard,” Tyler complained. “I’ve been up all night. You need to be gentle with me.”

“Sorry.” Emma smiled and immediately released her grip. “I’m just so relieved. So where’s the list? Is there anyone on it that we know?”

“Okay, so the thing is,” Loni said as she gave her own hand a shake, “while I managed to get into the system, I didn’t exactly figure out how to get what we wanted right away. In fact, I sort of accidently downloaded all the medical records onto Tyler’s computer.”

“And printed it out,” Tyler added. “I think Miss Zodiac’s going to have to plant about a hundred trees to fix this little carbon-footprint disaster.”

“What?” Emma felt her relief start to sink. “So we don’t have a list?”

“Not yet,” Loni admitted. “But don’t get freaked out because I’ve finally figured out a way to separate the people who have B-negative blood from the rest of the list and now we’re just waiting for it to download.”

“And let’s just say that for a state-of-the-art computer system, not only is it very hackable but it’s also very slow. It might still be a few hours before the list is ready.”

“Okay, so no list yet.” Emma paled before shooting them a hopeful look. “I don’t suppose either of you have heard if Kessler’s back yet.”

“Negative,” Tyler said. “I spoke with Barney this morning. Well, obviously she didn’t know it was me, she actually thought it was Tony Weber, a new and enthusiastic sales rep from Good Knight Swords. But I found out Kessler’s still away and probably won’t be back until tomorrow morning before Induction.”

“Okay. So I guess all we can do is hit the books and figure out a way to banish this thing, since killing doesn’t appear to be an option,” Emma said as she pulled her mom’s pendant out of her pocket and put it on the table, as if hoping it would give her some sort of clue about what to do.

“Actually”—Loni brightened—“last night I suddenly wondered if I could make a ward that would work on the darkhel? After all, we now know that it really hates steel and salt, and remember I used my subsonic blaster on it the first time you fought it. Well, that got me thinking—why not include a subsonic pulse as well, then we can hit it three ways.”

“You can do that?” Emma shot her a blank look.

“In theory.” Loni nodded, then made a face. “Of course there’s the slight problem that no one has ever added a subsonic pulse to wards before but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Besides, the ward I made for ogres had some choppedup seagull feathers, which I just slipped it into the small space below the circuit boards, and it ended up working. Now I just need to go and hunt down some steel. Preferably as high grade as possible. I’ve been doing some research and silver would be better.”

“Definitely.” Emma nodded in agreement. “Because if the little fairies are anything to go by, they hate silver even more than they hate my nail files. That bracelet you gave me for my birthday touched one of them and it dropped to the ground like a dead fly.”

“Unfortunately, time and money aren’t exactly on our side, so I guess steel will have to do,” Loni said.

“It’s a shame you couldn’t just use last night’s fancy cutlery,” Emma said idly while she glanced over to the cutlery tray that some of the kitchen workers had carried out to a large trestle table. For a moment Loni just stared, her mouth hanging open like in the shape of a Life Saver.

“Emma Jones, you’re a genius,” she finally said in astonishment.

“I am?” Emma blinked.

“She is?” Tyler seconded as he wrinkled his nose. “Because I know I zoned out of a few ward-making classes, but I don’t remember cutlery ever being able to fit into something that only has a one-inch diameter.”

“Most wards are small so that people don’t notice them and so they can be easily placed. While normally I would prefer to melt the steel or silver down and fit it into a smaller casing, there is no reason why a ward can’t be made out of cutlery.” Loni picked up a knife and inspected it. “I mean the two circuit boards could clip onto the blade and I could just glue some salt on. Of course I’m not saying it will win a beauty contest or anything, but as long as it does the job, that’s all that matters. So now I just need to go and pocket some knives and then I can get started.”

“Do you want some help?” Emma asked. “Not that I’m an expert thief or anything but I have been taking extra napkins from this place for years to help clean my sword and I’ve never been caught once.”

“Well, that certainly is a stellar track record,” Loni agreed in a diplomatic voice. “But it’s probably better to try to figure out the best way to banish the darkhel. We managed to get a whole bunch of books together. In addition to your mom’s books, Tyler hit up everyone on his dorm floor. We now have the definitive elemental banishing collection.”

“Thank you,” Emma said before glancing around. “So where are they?”

“Curtis has them. He was going to look at them last night after he left us.” At the mention of his name Emma felt her stomach drop. However, Tyler seemed oblivious as he glanced around the crowded cafeteria. “Actually, he should be here by now. Do you know where he is?”

“Of course not. I mean, it’s not like we’re joined at the hip or anything,” Emma said a bit too quickly as last night’s humiliating experience came flooding back to her. Unfortunately, the memory was accompanied by a vision of the kiss that had happened right before the humiliating experience, and as she felt her cheeks start to burn, she scolded her mutinous mind for even thinking about it.

“Interesting.” Tyler shot her a grin. Emma sighed and Tyler turned to Loni. “You know, me thinketh the lady doth protest too much. Especially since I’ve seen the way her eyes seem to widen when he does that lopsided grin thing. I wonder if he’ll teach me that trick.”

“Hello, sitting right here,” Emma reminded them while resisting the urge to touch her lips and re-create the feel of Curtis’s mouth on hers. “And I do not widen my eyes when he does the lopsided grin thing.” Then she caught sight of Curtis swinging his way toward them on his crutches and lowered her voice. “Okay, you guys can’t leave me alone with him. I mean it. Oh, and Tyler, if you say one thing in front of him, I swear on all that is holy that I will kill you. And not in a nice way either.”

“What’s not in a nice way?” Curtis asked with interest as Emma shot Tyler a telling glare, in response to which he pretended to zip his lips, even going as far as to throw away an invisible key. Great, now Curtis would think they’d been talking about him.

“Nothing,” Emma quickly assured him. “So I heard you’ve got the books on banishment spells for me to look at.”

“Yes,” Curtis agreed as he patted the backpack that was slung over his shoulder with casual ease. “So should I get them out here or are we all going over to the library to look at them?”

“Actually”—Loni slid out of the booth and grabbed Tyler before he could protest—“I’m going to try and make some wards that might work against the darkhel and Tyler’s going to check to see if that program’s finished running yet. So it’s just going to be you and Emma on study duty.”

Then without another word Loni and Tyler disappeared toward the exit. Emma glared at their retreating backs before turning to Curtis and studiously ignoring his face, since she definitely didn’t want to have an encore performance of last night.

“It’s okay. You don’t need to help. I’ve got it covered,” Emma quickly assured him. Curtis tightened his jaw for a moment and looked frustrated.

“Of course I want to help.”

“I said it’s fine,” she repeated in a tight voice.

“Look,” he finally said. “I know you’re probably pissed at me for last night, and I’m sorry. I should never have let things get that far. I screwed up.”

However, Emma, through lack of sleep and stress, suddenly felt something inside her snap as the events of the last week started to catch up with her.

“Oh, right. The big secret thing that you can’t tell me about.” She sniffed as she grabbed her slaying kit and slid out of the booth, careful not to touch him as he moved out of her way.

“Jones—” he started to say, but Emma cut him off.

“No, you know what, Curtis? I’m sick of everyone having secrets. My mom, the darkhel, and now you? It’s too much. So whatever your stupid secret is, I don’t care. Keep it to yourself because I’ve got bigger things to worry about.” Then without another word she hurried toward the exit before he could see that her cheeks were burning like they were on fire.