to where Curtis was leaning forward on his crutches, his T-shirt and blue hoodie straining across his broad shoulders. Not that his obvious strength really gave him an edge over her as far as dragon slaying went, since that was as much about speed and stealth as anything else, but still—
Suddenly, he turned to her and she flushed.
She hoped he hadn’t caught her looking at him. Not that she was really looking, she was just observing, and there was a difference. A big, big, big difference.
“He’s not answering,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice as she headed for the taxi line and they made the trip back to Burtonwood the same way they had come. In silence.
“So did you have any luck with the fairies?” Mrs. Barnes asked half an hour later as they both handed back their passes and gave her the receipt for the taxi fare since the normal minibus hadn’t been able to drop them off. Emma went to open her mouth when Curtis suddenly lifted his bandaged hand up and cut her off.
“Not so much. I learned the hard way not to use lasers around them. Slaying fairies is harder than I thought,” he confessed.
“Yes, well, I did warn you, but would you listen?” Emma retorted, still annoyed that she had allowed herself to soften toward him, even for a moment.
“Trust me, I won’t make that mistake again,” Curtis assured her.
Emma turned back to Mrs. Barnes. “So what are we supposed to do now if everyone else is out on the code blue?”
“Professor Vanderbilt will supervise you both while you study. He’s in the library. And, Emma, Principal Kessler wants you to come and see him before class tomorrow. Apparently, there are some things he wants to discuss with you.”
“Oh.” Emma gulped as she took in the serious expression on Mrs. Barnes’s face. “W-what about Curtis? Does he need to see him too?” But Mrs. Barnes just shook her head and shot her an apologetic look that told Emma all she needed to know.
Too late she realized Curtis had been right.
She should never have left the message for Kessler.
Emma only just managed to stifle a groan as it sunk in how stupid she had been. And the worst thing was, she had no one to blame but herself.
CHAPTER NINE
. . . And then Loni jumped out on this huge demon and the minute she pressed her stunner into its spiky back, the thing crumpled like a pack of cards. Unbelievable.” Tyler shook his head in wide-eyed excitement as they sat in the crowded, noisy cafeteria the following morning.
Those who had gone on the mission had returned too late for Emma to catch up with what had happened, which was why she had been drilling them for details ever since they’d all met up half an hour earlier. Plus, it was definitely helping to take her mind off her upcoming meeting with Kessler. Even the thought of it made her stomach knot with worry.
“Seriously, Em, Loni was incredible,” Tyler continued before winking. “Our little girl is growing up.”
“Shut up, Tyler. Stop being such an idiot.” Loni blushed before relenting. “But it was totally insane. There must’ve been at least a hundred demons there and we took them all out. Oh, and you should’ve seen the Department guys. They were totally freaked because they couldn’t see the demons that we were fighting. Actually, they looked just like the civilians in that training DVD we had to watch last year. You know the one that was supposed to make us realize why it’s a bad idea to fight elementals in front of sight-blind people.”
For a moment they all grinned, since the DVD in question was a bit of a joke. After all, the main reason slayers didn’t fight elementals in public places wasn’t that they wanted to avoid freaking out civilians (though that was true as well) but that thanks to the many wards that were in place, most fighting tended to occur in unpopulated (and more importantly, unwarded) areas.
“And then when it was over,” Tyler interjected, “the Department guys were all like, ‘Whoa, dudes, you were awesome. That was the best.’”
“Okay, so now he’s exaggerating.” Loni laughed as she gave Tyler a gentle punch in the arm. “Absolutely none of them said the words ‘whoa, dudes.’”
“Fine,” Tyler conceded. “But all the same, not only did we save the Department guys from getting shredded, but the zombie virus got reversed, which meant no one got turned into bone-munching living