Secret of the Unicorn (Avalon: Web of Magic #4)

by Rachel Roberts

  “Rrrrrowrf!”

  Emily snapped out of her daze as Scooter leaped forward, yanking the leash right out of her hand. “Hey!” she blurted as the little beagle raced toward a tall woman who was just turning away from the nearby hot-dog stand. “Oh no,” she whispered as she recognized the woman.

  Mrs. Beasley Windor let out a shriek as the beagle planted his muddy paws on her spotless beige slacks. “Off!” she yelled. “Get off of me, you mangy beast!”

  “Oops!” Emily gasped, lunging forward and pulling the dog back by his collar. Scooter panted with excitement and struggled to escape again. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Windor,” she exclaimed.

  “Well, little Miss Ravenswood Tour Guide.” The woman glared at Emily over her beak of a nose. “I should have known.”

  Emily felt her cheeks burning. Of all the bad luck! Mrs. Windor was an influential member of the town council. She thought the Ravenswood Wildlife Preserve was a menace and wanted to develop the land into a county club. Emily and her friends had led the winning fight to save Ravenswood and had been appointed official tour guides for the wildlife sanctuary, much to Mrs. Windor’s displeasure.

  “I’m really sorry,” Emily mumbled helplessly.

  Mrs. Windor sniffed and said, “If this is how you watch those animals, it won’t be long until someone gets hurt.” She bent closer, her voice a cold hiss. “I know you and your friends were responsible for letting dangerous animals loose in the town. As soon as I can prove it, we’ll just see how fast Mayor Davies changes his mind about your precious Ravenswood.” She stood and scowled at Emily. “I’m keeping my eye on you.”

  With that, she stormed away toward the bleachers.

  “Great. Just great,” Emily muttered. The last thing she wanted to do was give Mrs. Windor any more ammunition in her campaign against Ravenswood. If the preserve was bulldozed, dozens of magical animals who secretly lived there—quiffles, pegasi, brimbees, and many others—would no longer have a safe haven. Not to mention the fact that Adriane’s grandmother lived there as caretaker, and if Ravenswood was shut down, Adriane and Gran would lose their home.

  Emily shuddered as she remembered the wrath in Mrs. Windor’s beady little eyes when Scooter jumped up on her. Maybe bringing Pet Palace clients to the football game hadn’t been such a hot idea after all.

  Keeping a firm grip on the leashes, she headed into the gap between the two closest sets of bleachers. The marching band was playing again—a normal song, no weird snakelike melodies this time. She shifted her gaze to the faces of the spectators across the field. Where was Kara? A mass of golden hair fluttered. Was that her? Emily strained to look closer. The crowd seemed to fade away as one face crystallized and leaped out—and all the breath left her body in a whoosh.

  Pale skin. Pale as death. Jagged, grotesque cheekbones. Skeletal shoulders draped in black. And the eyes—Emily felt ice course through her veins as she caught a glimpse of two blazing pools of malice and evil. The ghoul suddenly looked straight at her and smiled with a wide, red-rimmed mouth full of crooked yellow teeth.

  Emily squeezed her eyes shut. Her whole body had gone numb. She felt a wave of dizzying nausea sweep over her. She wobbled forward, throwing her hands out just in time to stop herself from falling.

  “Hey!” The teenage boy whose shoulder she’d grabbed was staring at her suspiciously as she opened her eyes. “What’s the deal?”

  “Um, sorry,” Emily blurted, her gaze wandering back toward the ghastly specter.

  But it was gone. She blinked, staring up at the bleachers. All sorts of people were sitting there, watching the game as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The horrid skeletal face was nowhere to be seen.

  Emily shot another cautious glance across the field. Had she really seen that thing, or was her imagination playing tricks on her?

  This was getting really weird. The rainbow jewel on her silver bracelet pulsed a steady warm glow as feelings of dread tickled up and down her back. She had to find Kara and get to Ravenswood fast. She took a step forward when Muffin and Ranger leaped out in front of her, nearly sending her head over heels again.

  “Look who’s here,” a familiar voice said. “It’s Ms. Dolittle, the animal girl.”

  Glancing up, Emily found herself looking straight into the grinning face of Kara’s fourteen-year-old brother, Kyle. Kara’s friends Molly, Heather, Tiffany, Joey, and Marcus were sitting with him.

  “Oh.” Emily gulped, disentangling herself from the dogs’ leashes. She was suddenly way too aware of her flushed, sweaty face, her messy hair, and the dogs drooling on her shoes. Stay calm, she told herself. “Um, hi, guys.”

  “More comfortable to sit and watch the game,” Marcus commented, sliding over to create a space next to him and Joey.

  “Thanks.” Emily felt herself blush as she sat down on the bench. “Are you okay?” she asked, pointing to the splint on Marcus’s right wrist.

  “Sure. Just a sprain, but enough for Coach Berman to keep me out of play for a week,” Marcus grimaced.

  “Just when Stonehill needs ‘Marcus the Sharkus!’” Kyle slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Emily’s the doc, maybe she can do her magic on you. Whatdaya say, Em?”

  “I’m only good with animals,” she responded, hardly paying attention. She anxiously scanned the field for Kara.

  Joey broke out in a laugh, punching Marcus in the arm. “Exactly.”

  Emily smiled in spite of her worry. They weren’t bad kids, just silly. She leaned forward to pat the shepherd as it sat down by her feet. The other two dogs sprawled on the grass in front of Marcus.

  “Hey, Ranger,” Marcus said, kneeling forward to tickle the shepherd behind the ears. Ranger gave the boy a big, slobbering lick. Kyle and Joey jumped down to play with the other dogs. The dogs barked in pleasure, crowding in for some petting time.

  Marcus was sprawled on the grass with Ranger. “You do a great job at that pet hotel.”

  “Thanks.” Emily smiled, trying to hide the fear building inside.

  “Who brings all their pets to a football game anyway?” Heather asked snidely.

  Emily bit her lip.

  “Where’s Adriane? Is she coming to the game?” Joey asked.

  “She’s over at Ravenswood,” Emily answered.

  Marcus snickered. “Dude, you are way too obvious.” He winked at Emily.

  As the others turned their attention to the game, Emily gazed across the field to where she’d seen that ghastly face. Or had she? After the way she’d spaced out just before Scooter started jumping all over Mrs. Windor, she wasn’t too sure. She snuck a peek at her jewel. The stone now lay quietly on her bracelet. She frowned, remembering the flute and the flying dogs. Had she imagined all that, too? No way.

  “Yeah, but Emily here, could save the day.” Molly’s voice broke into Emily’s thoughts. “She’s got enough animals for five schools.”

  “She’s like a walking zoo,” Heather sniffed.

  “Yeah, smells like one, too,” Tiffany muttered just loud enough for Emily to hear.

  “Huh?” Emily belatedly realized that she had become the topic of conversation again. “Um, what did you say?”

  Tiffany shrugged and examined her perfectly manicured nails. “Keep up, animal girl. We were just saying how lame it is that we don’t have a team mascot,” she explained lazily. “That’s totally got to be why we’re losing this game.”

  A glance at the scoreboard confirmed it. The home team was down by six points, with less than two minutes left on the clock before half-time. She looked at the person in a tiger costume dancing around on the sidelines near the end zone.

  “Wait,” she said. “If Stonehill doesn’t have a mascot, what’s with the guy in the stripes down there?”

  Heather snorted. “That’s the other team’s mascot,” she exclaimed. “They’re the Thornbury Tigers. We’re the Stonehill Sparks. Duh.”

  “Whatever,” Emily muttered, sorry she’d said anything. Still, she could look on the brigh
t side—a couple of weeks earlier, Heather and Tiffany wouldn’t have bothered to speak to her at all. They had been best friends with Kara for years. And now Kara was spending so much of her time hanging out with relatively uncool Emily and Adriane. How would Kara explain it? You see, the three of us are mages destined to save the universe and find the source of all magic. Right. That would go over really well.

  Still, Kara had done an amazing job getting her old friends involved in helping out with the tours. Ravenswood needed all the friends it could get. Emily hid a smile as she glanced out onto the field, where both teams were huddling.

  “How about the Sparky the Stonehill Beagle?” Kyle spoke up. “Go Beagles!” He stood up and howled.

  “Sit down, you goof,” Molly commanded, yanking at the hem of his rugby shirt.

  “His name is Scooter—” Emily’s words were cut off as the marching band launched into a loud, rousing fight song. Kara and the other cheerleaders raced onto the field, dancing along with the music, their blue-and-gold pompoms tracing out patterns in the air.

  Emily winced. Was it just her or was the band’s music painfully loud? A hard, sharp high note blared at her, seeming to travel directly from the trombone section to her eardrums. She shook her head as the flutes broke in shrilly, their unrelenting tones piercing through her consciousness until she couldn’t think straight.

  Glancing at the others, Emily saw that they seemed totally unaware of what was happening. Why couldn’t they hear it? She cringed as a cymbal crash reverberated through her bones and made her teeth chatter. Only the dogs seemed to notice that anything was wrong. All three of them were sitting up and whining nervously.

  Emily was vaguely aware of a creeping feeling, pulling at the edges of her mind. Suddenly a saxophone punched out a series of harsh, off-key notes, sounding as if it was wailing directly in her ear, and she gasped.

  “Em? Hey, you okay? You look kind of weird.” Marcus stared at her.

  Emily squeezed her eyes shut. The sounds were too painful for her to answer.

  Everyone except Emily suddenly leaped to their feet. The kids were yelling as the Stonehill team pushed forward to the twenty-yard line.

  The cheers echoed as if in a huge cavern. Emily shook her head again, trying to clear it. “I—I’m okay.” But she knew she wasn’t. Fear trickled up and down her back.

  The others weren’t even listening to her anymore. There was a sudden flurry of movement on the field, and another roar went up from the crowd.

  A wave of pain lanced through her, but her scream was covered in the raucous cheers around her.

  “Score!” Joey crowed, pumping his fist in the air. “Now all we need is a field goal, and we could actually win this thing!”

  “Check it out!” Heather’s voice was shrill with excitement. “Someone’s starting the wave over there.”

  Emily gasped for breath. The band had reached a fever pitch, and the cheerleaders were going crazy with excitement. As if in a dream, she saw Kara bounce into a high kick as some of the other girls started to form a pyramid on the sidelines.

  “Kara,” Emily whispered, doubling forward as sharp cramps wracked her body.

  Kara jumped to a stop, startled. She looked around the stands, her long blond hair flying in the wind.

  “Kara…” It was all Emily could do to keep from screaming out. “Help me.”

  Across the way, the crowd was cheering and hollering as it performed the wave, the people in each section of the bleachers standing and waving their arms in turn. The human wave traveled swiftly from the left end of the bleachers to the right, then jumped across the field to the far end of Emily’s side. She could see it coming . . . closer. . . closer.

  The band was playing faster and louder than ever. Emily clenched her hands into fists, her face wet from sweat and tears. Her heart beat faster and faster as her wrist burned fire. Her jewel was blazing in warning.

  Marcus, Joey, and the others jumped up, shouting and throwing their hands into the air. But Emily couldn’t move, bound by the oppressive weight of overwhelming pain. She swallowed hard, closed her eyes tight, and braced for the impact as the enormous tidal wave of magic energy crashed into her. The rainbow jewel exploded with color, and everything went black.

  THE SOUND RUMBLED across the field like an incoming train. Lightning sparked, even though the day was clear. Three electrical bolts slammed together in an explosion of light and sound. An immense dark cloud swirled out of nothingness as the air split open.

  The portal hovered in the air just above the field at Ravenswood.

  Animals and creatures came tumbling out, falling over one another in a rush as they hit the ground.

  “Warrior, come quickly!” Storm called to Adriane. The mistwolf was already bounding across the field to help the new arrivals move away from the portal before it could close and vanish.

  Wails of pain filled the field. Adriane’s breath caught in her throat as she ran in from the surrounding woods to witness the chaos and confusion. Bodies, furred and feathered, were scorched and covered with a sickly green glow—Black Fire. The dreadful poison of the Dark Sorceress must be spreading. If it wasn’t stopped, the magical world called Aldenmor would be laid to waste.

  Lyra, the large spotted, winged cat bonded to Kara, and Ariel, the snow owl, had been among the first wave of wounded creatures to arrive when the portal first appeared that summer. Since then, no new refugees from Aldenmor had arrived. Today changed all that. Now, dozens of hurt and dying creatures were struggling to reach the safety of Ravenswood.

  Just as the last arrivals were herded off to the side, the portal began to close. Suddenly another creature appeared in the shrinking, swirling hole. It screeched in fear, a wild, jumbled sound. Bright colors shimmered across its body as it darted from the closing portal, bolted into the woods, and vanished.

  “EMILY, ARE YOU all right?”

  “Is she dead?”

  “You doofus. She fainted!”

  Voices reached her from down a long hallway. Emily felt rough dirt and grass against her cheeks. Then she felt hands lifting her up as she opened groggy eyelids. She looked into the concerned faces of Marcus, Joey, and Molly. Kyle, Heather, and Tiffany sat behind them, watching.

  “Are you all right, Emily?” Marcus asked.

  She could see why Kara liked this boy; he had such deep blue eyes, full of compassion.

  “I—uh—fine.” She tried to push away, but her hands didn’t seem to understand her brain’s command. Instead she clung tightly to Marcus’s arm.

  “Move it. Move it. I said out of the way!”

  The sound of Kara’s voice sent Emily’s strange sense of serenity skittering away. The golden-haired girl pushed her way to Emily’s side, taking half her weight from Marcus.

  Emily shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts. That weird, snaky music was still dancing around somewhere in the far corners of her brain, distracting her and making her thoughts difficult to gather. She noticed other kids gawking with curiosity. The noise of the crowd suddenly flooded around her like a dam bursting.

  “Man, you see that?”

  “A girl passed out!”

  “Give her some air.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Fine, fine,” Kara replied to the gathered throng. “Bad hot dog.”

  Kara and Marcus gently settled Emily back on the bleacher seat. Joey handed her a bottle of water.

  “Thank you,” Emily said, taking a sip.

  “What happened?” Kara asked.

  “She just fainted,” Marcus told her.

  Emily winced. A rush of immense suffering washed over her. She recognized the feeling. Her mind raced back to one fateful August afternoon, only a few months ago. Lyra had been so badly burned that Carolyn had thought she would not survive. But Emily had helped Lyra heal, even before she had her rainbow jewel.

  Suddenly everything became clear, the one possible explanation for what was happening: More injured creatures were coming thro
ugh from Aldenmor. Their terror and distress pulsed at her like a beacon—a cry for help, for a healer.

  “We have to get to Ravenswood right now,” Emily told Kara, trying to stay calm in front of the other kids. “Animals are hurt.”

  “Lyra?” Kara asked worriedly.

  “No. New ones.”

  “Healing animals is your thing, I have a game to win.”

  “We need you, too, Kara.”

  Kara looked back and forth between the cheerleaders and Emily’s concerned face.

  Ring, ring!

  Kara whipped out her cell phone. “Hello?”

  She listened for a few seconds, her sparkling blue eyes widening in shock. Then she snapped the phone shut. “Adriane,” she said to Emily. “You’re right.”

  She turned to her friends. “Listen up, you guys. We have a Ravenswood crisis. I have to go.”

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” Molly asked.

  “Tell the others I had to leave.”

  “We’ll take the dogs back to the Pet Palace for you,” Marcus offered Emily.

  “Thanks,” Emily said, handing him the leashes. She gave him a grateful look.

  Marcus smiled at her.

  Emily felt herself pulled away as Kara grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.”

  STORMBRINGER’S KEEN EYES spotted Emily and Kara as they pushed through a patch of woods toward the huge, grassy expanse where the portal had appeared at the Ravenswood Preserve. As they emerged into the meadow, the giant silver mistwolf raced up to them, skidding to a stop in front of Emily. “Healer, come quickly.” Emily heard Storm’s voice clearly in her mind.

  Behind Storm, Lyra padded over to Kara. “A new group of animals came through. They’re in bad shape.”

  Although Lyra was thinking her words at Kara, Emily could hear them, too. Fear gripped her heart. It was always this way when she got close to a creature that needed her. Its pain, fear, and confusion became her own, taking hold inside her and connecting her to the injured one. It was the hardest part of being a healer—having to share all those terrible feelings. Now she stared out over the meadow, her feet rooted to the ground in shock and horror.