most sight-blind civilians tended to get freaked out when they saw a slayer with a sharp pointy weapon trying to fight what looked like, well... nothing.
It had actually long been a debate within the slaying community whether they should let the greater public know the truth about the elementals in order to make a slayer’s job easier, but since most people refused to believe something they couldn’t see, the idea had always been vetoed. Besides, most elementals stayed away from heavily populated areas, not by choice but because of the ever-increasing series of complex wards that slayers spent a lot of their time planting and maintaining in urban areas.
According to Loni, all elementals were filled with negative electrons and so the wards simply pulsed out positive electrons that shocked the creatures if they got too close. Apparently each elemental had a different shock point, so each ward was triggered to release a different voltage. While Emma didn’t exactly understand the science behind them, she knew that the tiny nickel-size devices worked like permanent invisible force fields.
But, for whatever reason, the fairies seemed oblivious to all the known wards and instead chose to spend 24/7 at the mall. It was less than ideal.
“Seriously, Emma, what’s going on? Did you kill any of them?” Loni demanded, yelling into the cell phone.
“No. How can such stupid things be so hard to kill?” she groaned in annoyance as she ran after the fairies, making sure not to let them out of her sight. They had an uncanny ability to blend into the background—not that she knew how, since between the bad miniature clothing and the glittery wings, they stood out like a sore thumb to anyone who had the sight. Yet the number of times she had lost track of them during her patrols didn’t bear thinking about.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Loni said in a positive voice.
“I’ve had five weeks,” Emma pointed out as the frustration came bubbling to the surface. “That’s five Saturday patrols, not to mention the extra field days that Professor Vanderbilt has taken me on, and not one kill. Even Tyler’s stopped taking bets on me killing one before Induction, and this is the guy who bets on cockroach races.”
“Maybe you could try using the subsonic blaster I just finished making? I used it today, and the low-level frequency knocked out two goblins before they could even unsheathe their claws. Let me tell you, it made killing them a lot easier. I didn’t even get covered in goblin slime this time.”
“You killed two goblins today?” Emma tried and failed not to be jealous.
“Yes, but that wasn’t my point. I just meant that maybe the blaster would work for you too. It’s not like Sir Francis was very specific in how to kill fairies. It might be worth a try.”
“I guess.” Emma let out a halfhearted sigh as she managed to squeeze her way past two women pushing strollers and hurried after the fairies to the food court, before realizing that she’d once again lost them. “They’re gone again. I think I’m just going to call the school minibus and get them to pick me up early. I might as well come back to Burtonwood and get working on my Plan C.”
“Do I even want to know what Plan C is?” Loni checked in a cautious voice, brought about, no doubt, because Emma’s Plan A (e-mail Principal Kessler every day until he changed his mind) had led to a detention and Plan B (ignore the designation and go dragon slaying anyway) had caused her to singe her eyebrows and get another detention. In fact, over the last five weeks there had been quite a few detentions.
“Plan C is to do something big to make sure Kessler knows how good I am before Induction next Sunday,” Emma informed her, not that she was really sure what “something big” actually entailed, but she was confident she would figure it out. She had to since there was no way she could go through life chasing fairies in the mall.
She was Louisa Jones’s daughter. Dragons were in her blood.
“Emma, are you really sure about all this? I mean, if Kessler was going to change his mind, he would’ve done it by now. And then there’s the whole Curtis Green factor.”
At the mention of Curtis’s name, Emma narrowed her eyes. As it turned out, there were two designations that she’d managed to get wrong. Hers and Curtis Green’s. Up until five weeks ago she