by Amanda Ashby
“Yeah, the little beasts use it all the time. As you know, most civilians are sight-blind, but there are a few out there who have the gift, so the fairies use glamour powder when they’re in the mall. It also has the desired effect of concealing all of the man-made items that they touch. Imagine how freaked out people would be if they could see a bag of potato chips flying along in the air, apparently unconnected to anything. Anyway, it doesn’t affect me, but when Loni came out with me once she went as sight-blind as a bat when it hit her.” Then she perked up. “Oh well, I guess if you can’t see them, then there’s no point trying to slay them. Tomorrow maybe? And in the meantime we could get back to concentrating on the dragon.”
“Jones, I told you, I don’t have the luxury of just ignoring what Kessler tells me to do. You might not care about doing this assignment, but I do.”
“Well, maybe you should’ve thought of that before you got hit with glamour powder,” Emma retorted. “And unless you can see the fairies, there isn’t much point in being here.” For a moment Curtis was silent as he tightened his jaw. Then he muttered something under his breath before reluctantly digging around in his slaying kit.
“There might be one other way,” he finally said as he pulled out what looked like... some white-framed Ray-Ban Wayfarers? She watched as he took a deep breath and slipped them onto his face.
“Um, do you always wear sunglasses at the mall? Not to mention the fact that they look like they’re straight from the eighties. What’s going on?”
“They’re not sunglasses.” He slid them over his nose, and Emma was forced to marvel at how the ugliest pair of glasses in the world still managed to look okay on him.
“Really, because they sure look like sunglasses—and ugly ones at that,” she said, annoyed she’d even noticed how they looked on him.
He was silent, and for a moment Emma didn’t think he was going to answer her, but finally he shrugged. “Kessler gave them to me. They’ve got special lenses. For when I need to fight Unseens.”
“You need Unseen glasses?” she demanded, before narrowing her eyes and studying him as she thought of the giant dragons in question. Despite their name, they weren’t actually invisible, but they did have the chameleon-like talent of blending into the background. “Why didn’t I know about this?”
“Gee, I must’ve forgotten to send you the memo,” he snapped in a sarcastic voice before letting out a sigh. “Look, it’s not a big deal. Plenty of dragon slayers need help with Unseens.”
“I don’t. I was tested last year and have perfect vision,” she retorted in a prim voice. Not that it really made a difference, since Curtis was right. There were plenty of dragon slayers who couldn’t pick out an Unseen dragon when it went into camouflage mode at nighttime. Her mom had been one of them, though instead of using an ugly pair of sunglasses, she had relied on some special binoculars. But still, it was interesting that Perfect Mr. Dragon Slayer wasn’t so perfect after all.
“Aren’t you the lucky one,” he said, his voice laced with bitterness, which if you asked her was overdramatic since it wasn’t like dragon slayers came across Unseens very often. “Anyway, I just wondered if they would help me see the fairies. Despite the glamour powder.” Then he craned his neck toward the roof, and over the top of the frames she could clearly see him raise an eyebrow. It looked like the ugly sunglasses were working.
“Wow, they really are little. Oh, but no pointy ears?”
“Shhh,” Emma warned him. “Don’t let them hear you say that. Or anything about their height. They have a Napoleon complex like you wouldn’t believe. Once Professor Vanderbilt was out grading me on my tracking techniques, and all he did was mention a Danny DeVito movie he’d watched and you should’ve seen all the bite marks he ended up with.”
“Got it. So what now?” he asked as he continued to write in the folder.
“I guess it’s time to join me in some ritual humiliation,” she said, just as another fairy flew in through the open door. As it got closer, it turned away from them and tugged at its tiny pants until they fell away to reveal a small white butt.
“Did that thing just moon me?” Curtis demanded as he readjusted the glasses as if checking to see if they were working correctly.
“Trust me, that’s the least of what they do,” Emma retorted as she flipped open her slaying bag and pulled out two packets of Skittles. She ripped both packets open and handed one to Curtis. “Now, the trick is to try and lure them over to the nonfiction section.”
“Nonfiction? Skittles?” Curtis ran a hand through his blond curls and frowned. “Did I mention that none of this makes sense?”
Emma sighed. “They’re all crazy about Skittles for some reason. I want them in the nonfiction because it’s not as busy there, and as for why they come here? It’s to read OK! Magazine as people flip through it. I guess they like their celebrity gossip. Now, if you’re finished with the twenty questions, maybe we can continue?”
It looked like Curtis was about to say something, but at that moment one of the fairies spotted the Skittles, and after it let out a piercing whistle, six of them swooped toward Emma and Curtis like a swarm of bees at a honey convention.
“This way,” she commanded as she quickly weaved her way through the tables toward the far end of the store. Behind her she could hear the sound of miniature angry voices.
“It’s not going to work, you know,” her “friend” from Saturday, Rupert, called out. “We’re going to get those Skittles and then we’re going to kick your sorry butts so bad that you’ll be screaming for mercy.”
“Yeah, and don’t try any explosions this time. You know, we really should report you to the Commission of Ethical Treatment of Mortal Enemies,” Trevor added, still wearing the green hoodie that was now charred around the hems from the explosion on Saturday.
“Do they always talk this much?” Curtis demanded as he swung his crutches in a two/two rhythm just behind her.
“More. In fact, they normally never shut up,” Emma replied over her shoulder as she swatted one of the girl fairies out of her hair and turned into the art and biography aisle. “Okay, so when I say ‘now,’ I want you to throw a few Skittles on the ground—though not the red ones—you so don’t want to see fairies after they’ve eaten red ones.”
“That’s right, buddy,” Rupert called out as another fairy, dressed in tiny overalls, lunged at Curtis’s arm and used its small (but very sharp) teeth to bite into his biceps. “Listen to what the useless slayer has to say, and no one will get hurt—too badly.”
“Hey,” Curtis protested as he shook his arm to get rid of the small fairy. It didn’t work, and the thing remained clamped onto his flesh. “Emma, this is ridiculous. I need to get it off me now.” As he spoke he thrust the candy deep into his pocket and instead pulled a slim-line laser gun from his slaying kit.
“No. Put that away and give them the Skittles,” she hissed. However, Curtis—who up until this point had been showing signs of sanity—didn’t seem to hear her as he pointed the laser in the direction of the small creature on his arm.
Emma groaned as she watched the red tip pierce the flesh and the fairy finally stopped biting Curtis’s arm. It grinned in glee as its pale skin turned a glowing orange color and a bright beam raced out from along its fingers straight back toward Curtis’s hand.
“Ouch,” he yelped in pain as the laser fell away and one of his crutches toppled from under him. “What the—”
“You couldn’t just give them the Skittles so that I could show you how to kill them, could you?” Emma demanded as she quickly emptied her packet onto the ground and jumped out of the way as six sugar-starved fairies sped toward them. “You had to do it your way. Make sure you put that in your assignment.”
“Well, if you’d told me that my way would hurt so much, then maybe I would’ve thought twice,” Curtis retorted as he cradled his singed hand. “So what happens now?”
“Now we kick your pathetic body into Timbuktu,” Rupert said as he
flew down and grabbed an orange Skittle straight out of Curtis’s hand. “I mean, hello, you’re even more useless than slayer-girl here, and that’s really—”
“Gotcha,” Emma yelled as she plunged her nail file deep into the fairy’s wing and watched it wriggle on the ground in annoyance. She glanced back up at Curtis. “Lasers make them go all Incredible Hulk, but nail files render them pretty much useless. It’s the steel. Apparently, they hate silver as well, but unfortunately my budget doesn’t really stretch that far.”
“Ha! That’s a good one, calling us useless,” the fairy yelled out as it continued struggling to break free of the file. “I mean, you haven’t exactly had a great scorecard since you became a designated murderer.”
“Well, I’d rather have a bad slaying record than be the one wriggling around on the floor with Skittle drool running down my chin,” Emma retorted. “Now prepare to die, because . . . hey.” Her eyes suddenly honed in on the tiny raglan T-shirt the fairy was wearing. She leaned in closer so that she could see it more clearly.
“Argh.” Rupert tried to squirm away from her. “Gilbert, Trevor. Get her off me. She’s trying to put her human cooties all over me. Please, brothers, for the love of evil, get her off. Get her off.”
Emma ignored the squealing as she used the tip of her finger to smooth the tiny T-shirt out, much to Rupert’s horror. Then she let out a gasp of surprise. “That’s the dragon I saw.”
“What?” Curtis leaned forward, his broad shoulder inadvertently grazing hers, and studied the black muscled beast that was printed on the minuscule shirt. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. That’s the same thing I saw before,” she said as she inched away from him, since there was something disturbing about him when he got too close to her.
“What did you just say, stupid girl?” Gilbert, who had been scooping up Skittles into his pocket, stopped and narrowed its eyes.
“You heard her,” Curtis growled as he glared at the fairy on the ground. “So why don’t you start to tell us what’s going on?”
“Rupert, don’t tell them anything,” the fairy commanded to his fallen comrade, all sense of humor gone.
“Please, Trevor, as if I’m going to spill my guts to a couple of pathetic kids.” The injured fairy looked slightly outraged. “Besides, it’s quite obvious that they don’t have a clue what’s happening.”
“Aha, so there is something going on.” Emma widened her eyes. “Curtis, go to my slaying kit and get the hairspray.”
“I don’t think now is really the time to worry about your hair, Jones. Besides, your hair always looks nice.”
“It’s not for me,” Emma said between gritted teeth. “It’s for Rupert here. He obviously knows something, and I need to find out what it is.” And did he just say her hair looked nice? For a moment she was completely thrown as she stared at him, but Curtis didn’t seem to notice her confusion.
“With hairspray?” he asked in a perplexed voice. “What did they put in your manual?”
Emma took a patient breath. “There is no manual for slaying fairies. Sir Francis’s book only gave about three sentences, one of which basically said, ‘Approach with caution.’ Which is one of the many, many reasons why I want to become a dragon slayer. All of this stuff is what I’ve picked up as I’ve gone along. Hairspray totally screws up the oil in their wings and means they can’t fly for at least a week. Oh, and apparently it makes them look ugly to the opposite sex as well.”
Curtis handed her the can.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me.” Rupert folded his tiny arms in a stubborn gesture. “I’m not going to tell you anything about the darkhel. Not a single—”
“Rupert. Zip it.” Gilbert lifted his hand and made a slashing action across his throat, and the injured fairy let out an annoyed groan.
“What’s a darkhel?” Curtis demanded.
“Darkhel?” Rupert fluttered his little fairy eyes in a blank expression. “I didn’t say ‘darkhel.’ What I said was ‘dark hell.’ Dark. Dark. Dark hell. Which is exactly where you’ll both be heading very soon. You know, you should really get your ears checked out.”
“You said ‘darkhel,’” Emma corrected him.
“No, I didn’t.” Rupert shook his head.
“Yes, you did.”
“No, no, no. I most definitely did not.”
Emma, who found it hard enough to put up with Loni and Tyler’s constant bickering, certainly wasn’t going to bother with this for too long, and she finally arched an eyebrow and pointed to the tiny creature’s shirt. “So the fact your T-shirt says ‘Darkhels Rule the World’ is a complete coincidence?”
“Man, Rupert, you had to wear that shirt?” Gilbert growled.
“Darkhel?” Curtis frowned as he turned to Emma. “I’ve never heard of it. I wonder if it’s a new breed of dragon? Or maybe European?”
“Dragons?” Gilbert spat a crushed Skittle out of his mouth in disgust. “You insult us. The darkhels aren’t dragons, they’re fairies.”
“That thing was a fairy?” Emma dropped the hairspray in shock. “But that’s impossible. I mean, it was so big. And evillooking. And the size of its talons was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There’s no way it was a fairy.”
The fairies all puckered in annoyance. “Size isn’t everything, you know,” Trevor growled. “And you should see Gilbert when he’s in the middle of a job. You don’t get more evil than that.”
“Thanks, brother.” Gilbert puffed his chest in pride. “I do like to bring a certain level of dastardliness to my work.”
“I still don’t understand.” Emma scratched her head. “I mean, it looked just like a dragon.”
Rupert growled in disgust, which was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was still squirming on the floor with a nail file poked through his wing and his T-shirt covered in Skittle stains. “Darkhels have more grace and evil in their little talon than a dragon has in its entire body. In fact, how dare you even mention them in the same sentence? It’s sacrilege. Still, I guess it doesn’t matter that you know, since there is nothing you can do to stop our glorious dark brother from regaining the Pure One. It has been foreseen.”
“The Pure One?” Emma rolled her eyes. “Oh please, you’ve got to be—”
“Can I help you folks at all?” Someone coughed and Emma and Curtis both swung around to where a salesclerk was now standing with a helpful smile on her face.
“Er, no thanks, we’re good.” Emma jumped to her feet and tried to hide as many of the crushed Skittles as possible. Next to her, Curtis manfully scooped up the hairspray and thrust it behind his back.
“Are you sure?” The woman beamed at them. “We’ve got some great celebrity biographies here, and there’s a special on right now that gives you twenty percent off your second purchase. I know. I know. It’s a steal.”
“Seriously, we’re fine,” Curtis said in a low voice as he did that thing with his eyes.
“It’s just it seems such a shame to miss out on this wonderful offer. You could stock up for the holidays,” the woman persisted, obviously indifferent to Curtis’s low voice and his dark, velvety eyes. Which was a pity because, while Emma didn’t approve of his using his charm when it came to stealing dragon-slayer designations, there was no denying it would’ve come in handy right about now.
“We’re really just browsing,” Emma repeated in a firm voice, and the woman started to deflate a bit.
“Well, if you’re sure,” she said, looking away, “then I guess I’ll just let you get back to your . . . hey, did one of you drop a nail file?”
“Oh.” Emma tried to stand in front of it, while wishing that the captured fairy wasn’t quite so invisible. “That’s mine. I’m just letting it . . . er, dry out. It fell in my coffee before and it got all wet, which of course meant that I couldn’t use it and . . . well, I’ve got a nail emergency, and—”
The woman bent down and pulled it out of Rupert’s wing, much to the delight of the fair
y, who paused only long enough to poke his tongue out and straighten his T-shirt before immediately flying up to the ceiling to join his friends. “You can’t just go around leaving nail files in the carpet like that. Someone could get hurt. And what are all these Skittles doing here? Do I need to ask you to leave?”
But before Emma could even open her mouth, she looked up to the ceiling and let out a long groan as she realized the fairies were gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I don’t believe it,” Emma said a few minutes later as they leaned over the railing of the top level of the mall and looked down. “We had them right there. All we needed was two more minutes and we could’ve found out exactly what this darkhel thing is.”
“I’m sorry, Jones. Are you okay?” Curtis asked in a surprisingly soft voice, and Emma found the tension that had been building up between her shoulder blades start to ease.
“Yeah.” She let out a sigh and turned to him. “Except for the fact that I can apparently see invisible fairies that are the size of dragons and that no one has ever heard of before. And here I was thinking my life couldn’t get any weirder.”
“Maybe you just haven’t heard of this one before?” Curtis said in a hopeful voice, but Emma shook her head.
“When Kessler stuck me with the fairies, I made sure I read every single book I could find on them—not that there were many—and trust me, there was nothing remotely like a darkhel. Or even a fairy that stands over a foot high, for that matter.” She rubbed her sore eye as her frustration started to mount again. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know,” Curtis agreed, before pushing his ugly glasses up onto his wild curls and frowning. “First they talked about darkhels, and then they said all that mumbo jumbo about the Pure One. I mean, what was that about?”
Emma was immediately diverted as she studied his face in surprise. “You’re kidding, right? You haven’t heard of the Pure One?”
“Um, no.” Curtis looked at her blankly. “What is it?”
