"Artemis Fowl. The Lost Colony" - читать интересную книгу автора (Colfer Eoin)

Chapter 8: SUDDEN IMPACT

INSIDE the chateau paradizo

No.1 was having a lovely dream. In the dream, his mother was holding a surprise party for him, in honour of his graduation from warlock college. The food was scrumptious. The dishes were cooked and most of the meat was already dead.

He was reaching for a beautifully presented basted pheasant in a basket of woven herb bread ropes, just like the one described in Chapter Three of Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow, when suddenly the vision retreated into the far distance, as though reality itself was being stretched.

No.1 tried to follow the feast but it drew further and further away, and now his legs wouldn't work and No.1 couldn't understand why. He looked down and saw to his horror that everything from his armpits down had turned to stone. The stone virus was spreading upwards across his chest and along his neck. No.1 felt the urge to scream. He was suddenly terrified that his mouth would turn to stone before he could scream. To be petrified forever and hold that scream inside would be the ultimate horror.

No.1 opened his mouth and screamed.

Billy Kong, who had been lounging on a chair watching, snapped his fingers at a camera on the ceiling.

'The ugly one is awake,' he said. 'And I think it wants its mother.'

No.1 stopped screaming when his breath ran out. It was a bit of an anticlimax really, starting out with a lusty howl and petering off to a reedy whine.

OK, thought No.1. I am alive and in the land of men. Time to open my eyes andjind out just how deep in the pig dung I actually am.

No.1 cracked his eyes open warily, as though he might see something big and hard heading for his face at high speed. What he did see was that he was in a small bare room. There were rectangular lights on the ceiling that threw out the light of a thousand candles, and most of one wall was taken up by a mirror. There was a human, possibly a child, perhaps a female, with a ridiculous mane of blonde curls and an extra finger on each hand. The creature was wearing a ludicrously impractical toga-type arrangement and spongy-soled shoes, with lightning bolts 170 embossed on the sides. There was another person in the room. A slouching, leering, thin man, who tapped a staccato rhythm on his leg.

No.1 's eyes were drawn to the second human's hair. There were at least half a dozen colours in there. The man was a peacock.

No.1 decided that perhaps he should raise his empty hands, to show that he wasn't carrying a weapon, but it's difficult to do that when you are tied to a chair.

'I'm tied to a chair,' he said apologetically, as though it was his fault.

Unfortunately he said this in Gnommish and in the demon dialect. To the humans it sounded like he was trying to dislodge a particularly annoying blockage from his throat.

No.1 resolved not to talk again. Doubtless he would say the wrong thing and the humans would have to ritually execute him. Thankfully the female seemed eager to chat.

'Hello, I am Minerva Paradizo and this man is Mister Kong,' she said.

'Can you understand me?'

It was all gibberish to No.1. Not a single recognizable word from the text of Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow.

He smiled encouragingly, to show he appreciated the effort.

'Do you speak French?' asked the blonde girl, then switched languages.

'How about English?'

No.1 sat up. That last bit was familiar. Strange inflections, surely, but the words themselves were from the book.

'English?' he repeated.

This was the language of Lady Heatherington Smythe. Learned at her mother's knee. Explored in the lecture halls of Oxford. Used to profess her undying love for Professor Rupert Smythe. No.1 loved the book. He sometimes believed that he was the only one who did. Even Abbot didn't seem to appreciate the romantic bits.

'Yes,' said Minerva. 'English. The last one spoke it well enough. French too.'

Manners must be appreciated somewhere outside a book, No.1 had always thought, so he decided to give them a go.

He growled, which was the polite demon way of asking to speak in front of your betters. This must not be how humans interpreted it because the skinny human jumped to his feet, pulling out a knife.

'No, kind sir,' said No.1, hurriedly cobbling together a couple of sentences from Lady Heatherington. 'Prithee sheath thine weapon. I bring joyous tidings only.'

The skinny human was confounded. He spoke English as well as the next American, but this little runt was spouting some kind of medieval nonsense.

Kong straddled No.1, holding the knife to his throat.

'Talk straight, ugly,' said the man, deciding to give Taiwanese a go.

'I wish I could understand,' said No.1, shaking. Unfortunately he said this in Gnommish. 'What I… eh. . meanest to say is…"

It was no good. Quotes from Lady Heatherington that he could generally shoehorn into any occasion just weren't coming under pressure.

'Talk straight or die!' shrieked the human into his face.

No.1 shrieked right back at him. 'How can I talk straight, you son of a three-legged dog? I don't speak Taiwanese!'

All of this was said in perfect Taiwanese. No.1 was stunned. The gift of tongues was not one demons possessed. Except the warlocks. More proof.

He intended to ponder this development for a few moments, now that the knife-wielding human had backed off, but suddenly the beauty of language exploded inside his brain. Even his own tongue, Gnommish, had been severely culled by the demons. There were thousands of words that had dropped from regular use on the basis that they did not relate to killing things or eating them, and not necessarily in that order.

'Cappuccino!' shouted No.1, surprising everyone.

'Excuse me?' said Minerva.

'What a lovely word. And manoeuvre. And balloon.'

The skinny man pocketed his knife. 'Now he's talking. If he's anything like the videos you showed me of the other one, we'll never get him to shut up.'

'Pink!' exclaimed No.1 delightedly. 'We don't have a word for that colour in the demon commonspeak. Pink is considered undemonlike, so we ignore it. It's such a relief to be able to say pink!'

'Pink,' said Minerva. 'Fabulous.'

'Tell me,' said No.1. 'What is a candyfloss? I know the words, and it sounds. . scrumptious. . but the picture in my head cannot be accurate.'

The girl seemed pleased that No.1 could talk, but slightly miffed that he had forgotten his situation.

'We can talk about candyfloss later, little demon. There are more important things to discuss.'

'Yes,' agreed Kong. 'The demon invasion, for example.'

No.1 rolled the sentence round in his head. 'Sorry, my gifts must not be fully developed. The only meaning I have for invasion is a hostile entry of an armed force into a territory.'

'That's the one I mean, you little toad.'

'Again, I'm a little confused. My new vocabulary is telling me that a toad is a froglike creature. .' No.1 's face fell. 'Oh, I see — you're insulting me.'

Kong scowled at Minerva. 'I think I preferred him when he spoke like an old movie.'

'I was quoting scripture,' explained No.1, enjoying the shape of these new words in his mouth. 'From the sacred book: Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow.'

Minerva frowned, looking at the ceiling as she thought back in time.

'Lady Heatherington Smythe. Why is that familiar?'

'Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow is the source of all our human knowledge. Lord Abbot brought it back to us.' No.1 bit his lip, shutting off his own babbling. He had said too much already. These humans were the enemy, and he had given them the blueprint to Abbot's plans.

Blueprint. Nice word.

Minerva clapped her hands once, sharply. She had found the memory she was looking for.

'Lady Heatherington Smythe. My goodness, that ridiculous romance!

Remember, Mister Kong?'

Kong shrugged. 'I don't read fiction. Manuals, mostly.'

'No, remember the video footage of the other demon. We let him have a book, he carried it around like a security blanket.'

'Ah, yes. I remember that. Stupid little goat. Always toting around that stupid book.'

'You know, you're repeating yourself,' said No.1, wittering nervously.

'There are other words for stupid. Dim, dense, slow, thick. Just to name a few. I can do Taiwanese if you prefer.'

A knife appeared in Kong's hand as if from nowhere.

'Wow,' said No.1. 'That's a real talent. A bravura in fact.'

Kong ignored the compliment, flipping the knife so he was holding the blade.

'Just shut up, creature. Or this goes between your eyes. I don't care how valuable you are to Miss Paradizo. To me, you and your kind are simply something to be wiped off the face of the Earth.'

Minerva folded her arms.

'I will thank you, Mister Kong, not to threaten our guest.

You work for my father, and you will do what my father tells you to do.

And I am pretty sure my father told you to keep a civil tongue in your head.'

Minerva Paradizo may have been a precocious talent in many areas, but because of her age, she had limited experience. From her studies, she knew how to read body language, but she did not know that a skilled martial artist can train himself to control his body, so that his real feelings are hidden. A true disciple of the discipline would have noted the subtle tightening of the tendons in Billy Kong's neck. This was a man holding himself in check.

Not yet, his stance said. Not yet.

Minerva returned her attention to No.1.

'Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow, you say?'

No.1 nodded. He was afraid to speak in case his runaway mouth leaked any more information than it already had.

Minerva spoke now to the large mirror. 'You remember that one, Papa?

The most ridiculous fluffy romance you are ever likely to avoid like the plague. I loved it when I was six. It's all about a nineteenth-century

English aristocrat. Oh, who's the author. . Carter Cooper Harbison.

The Canadian girl. She was eighteen when she wrote it. Did absolutely no research. She had nineteenth-century nobles speaking like they were from the fifteen hundreds. Absolute tosh, so obviously a worldwide hit.

Well, it seems our old friend Abbot brought it home with him. The cheeky devil has managed to sell it as gospel truth. It seems he has the rest of the demons spouting Cooper Harbison as though she were an evangelist.'

No.1 broke his no-speaking vow. 'Abbot? Abbot was here?'

'Mais oui,' said Minerva. 'How do you think we knew where to find you.

Abbot told us everything.'

A voice boomed through a wall-mounted speaker. 'Not everything. His figures were flawed. But my young genius Minerva figured it out. I'll get you a pony for this, darling. Whatever colour you like.'

Minerva waved at the mirror. 'Thank you, Papa. You should know by now that I don't like ponies. Or ballet.'

The speaker laughed. 'That's my little girl. What about a trip to

Disneyland, Paris? You could dress as a princess.'

'Perhaps after the selection committee,' said Minerva with a smile. The smile was slightly forced, though. She did not have time for Disney dreams at the moment. 'After I am sure of the Nobel nomination. We have less than a week to question our subjects and organize secure travel to the Royal Academy in Stockholm.'

No.1 had another important question. 'And Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow? It's not true?'

Minerva laughed delightedly. 'True? My dear little fellow. Nothing could be further from the truth. That book is a cringeworthy testament to teenage hormonal fabrication.'

No.1 was stunned. 'But I studied that book. For hours.

I acted out scenes. I made costumes. Are you telling me that there is no Heatherington Hall?'

'No Heatherington Hall.'

'And no evil Prince Karloz?'

'Fiction.'

No.1 remembered something. 'But Abbot came back with a crossbow, just like in the book. That's evidence.'

Kong joined the discussion; after all, this was his area of expertise.

'Crossbows? Ancient history, toad. We use things like these now.' Billy

Kong drew a black ceramic handgun from a holster tucked in his armpit.

'This little beauty shoots fire and death. We've got much bigger ones too. We fly round the world in our metal birds and rain down exploding eggs on our enemies.'

No.1 snorted. 'That little thing shoots fire and death? Flying metal birds?

And I suppose you eat lead and blow golden bubbles too.'

Kong did not respond well to cynicism, especially from a little reptilian creature. In one fluid motion, he flicked the safety off his weapon and fired three shots, blowing apart the headrest of No.1 's seat. The imp's face was showered with sparks and splinters, and the sound of the shots echoed like thunder in the confined space.

Minerva was furious. She began screaming long before anyone could hear her.

'Get out of here, Kong. Out!'

She kept screaming this, or words to that effect, until their ears stopped ringing. When Minerva realized that Billy Kong was ignoring her commands, she switched to Taiwanese.

'I told my father not to employ you. You are an impulsive and violent man. We are conducting a scientific experiment here. This demon is of no use to me if he is dead; do you understand, you reckless man? I need to communicate with our guest, so you must leave, because you obviously terrify him. Go now, I warn you, or your contract will be terminated.'

Kong rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was taking every shred of patience he had not to dispose of this whingeing infant right now and take his chances with her security. But it would be foolhardy to risk everything because he could not hold his temper for a few more hours.

For now, he would have to content himself with some more insolence.

Kong took a small mirror from his trouser pocket and plucked at the gelled strands of his hair.

'I will go now, little girl, but be careful how you speak to me. You may come to regret it.'

Minerva split the fingers of her right hand into a W.

'Whatever,' she said in English.

Kong pocketed his mirror, winked at No.1 and left. No.1 did not feel comforted by that wink. In the demon world, you winked at your opponent in pitched battle to make clear your intention to kill him next.

No.1 got the distinct impression that this spiky-haired human had that same intention.

Minerva sighed, took a moment to compose herself, then resumed her interview with the prisoner.

'Let's start at the beginning. What is your name?'

No.1 supposed that was a safe question to answer. 'I have no real name, because I never warped. I used to worry about that, but now I seem to have a lot more to worry about.'

Minerva realized that her questions would have to be quite specific.

'What do people call you?'

'You mean human people? Or other demons?'

'Demons.'

'Oh. . right. They call me Number One.'

'Number One?'

'That's right. It's not much of a name, but it's all I have. And I console myself with the fact that it's better than Number Two.'

'I see. Well then, Number One, I suppose you would like to know what's going on here.'

No.1's eyes were wide and pleading. 'Yes, please.'

'OK then,' Minerva began, as she sat facing her prisoner. 'Two years ago one of your pride materialized here. Just popped up in the middle of the night on the statue of D'Artagnan in the courtyard. He was lucky not to be killed actually. D'Artagnan's sword actually pierced one of his arms.

The tip broke off inside.'

'Was the sword silver?' asked No.1.

'Yes. Yes it was. Of course we realized later that the silver anchored him to this dimension, otherwise he would have been attracted to his own space and time. The demon was, of course, Abbot. My parents wanted to call the gendarmes, but I persuaded them to bring the poor half-dead beast inside. Papa has a small surgery here that he uses for his more paranoid patients. He treated Abbot's burns, but we missed the silver tip until a few weeks later when the wound became infected and Papa did an X-ray. Abbot was quite fascinating to observe. Initially, and for many days, he flew into a psychotic rage whenever a human approached him.

He tried to kill us all and vowed that his army was coming to exterminate humankind from the face of the Earth. He conducted long arguments with himself. It was more than split personality. It was as if there were two people in one body. A warrior and a scientist. The warrior would rage and thrash, then the scientist would write calculations on the wall. I knew that I was on to something important here. Something revolutionary. I had discovered a new species, or rather rediscovered an old one. And if Abbot really was to bring a demon army, then it was up to me to save lives. Human and demon.

But of course, I am merely a child so no one would listen to me. But if I could record this and present it to the Nobel Committee in Stockholm, I could win the Physics prize and establish demons as a protected species.

Saving a species would give me a certain satisfaction, and no child has ever won the prize before, not even the great Artemis Fowl.'

Something had been puzzling No.1. 'Aren't you a little young to be studying other species? And you're a girl too. That pony offer made by the magic voice box sounded pretty good.'

Minerva had obviously come across this attitude before. 'Times are changing, demon,' she snapped. 'Children are a lot smarter than they used to be. We're writing books, mastering computers, tearing apart scientific myths. Did you know that most scientists won't even acknowledge the existence of magic? Once you add magic into the energy equation, nearly all the current laws of physics are shown to be seriously flawed.'

'I see,' said No.1, not convincing anyone.

'I am exactly the right age for this project,' added Minerva. 'I am young enough to believe in magic and old enough to understand how it works.

When I present you in Stockholm, and we put forward our thesis on time travel and magic as elemental energy, it will be a historic moment. The world will have to take magic seriously, and make ready for the invasion!'

'There is no invasion,' protested No.1.

Minerva smiled as a kindergarten teacher would at a fibbing child. 'I know all about it. Once Abbot's warrior personality became dominant, he told us about the Battle of Taillte and how the demons would return and wage a terrible war with the Mud Men, as he called us. There was a lot of blood and hacking of limbs involved.'

No.1 nodded. That sounded like Abbot.

'That's what Abbot believed, but things have changed.'

'I explained that to him. I explained that he had been flitting through time and space for ten thousand years, and that we had come a long way since then. There are more of us than there used to be, and we didn't use crossbows any more.'

'You didn't? You don't?'

'You saw Mister Kong's gun. That's only a tiny example of the kind of weaponry we have. Even if your entire pride of demons arrived all together, armed to the teeth, it would take about ten minutes to have you all locked up.'

'Is that what you're going to do? Lock us up?'

'That was the plan, yes,' admitted Minerva. 'As soon as Abbot realized that the demons could never beat us, he changed his tactics. He voluntarily explained the mechanics of the time tunnel to me and in return I gave him books to read and old weapons to examine. After a few days' reading, he asked to be called Abbot, after General Leon Abbot in the book. I knew that once I presented Leon Abbot in Stockholm, it would be easy to get funding for an international task force. Whenever a demon popped up, we could tag him with silver and house him in an artificial demon community for study. Central Park Zoo was my preferred location.'

No.1 ran the word zoo through his new lexicon. 'Aren't zoos for animals?'

Minerva gazed at her feet. 'Yes. I am rethinking that, especially having met you. You seem quite civilized, not like that Abbot creature. He was an animal. When he arrived, we tended his wounds, nursed him back to health, and all he could do was try to eat us. We had no choice but to restrain him.'

'So, you're not going to lock us up in a zoo any more?'

'Actually, I don't have a choice. Judging by my calculations, the time tunnel is unravelling at both ends and deteriorating along the shaft.

Soon, any calculations will be unreliable and it will be impossible to predict where or when demons will materialize. I'm afraid, Number

One, that your pride doesn't have long left before it disappears altogether.'

No.1 was stunned. This was more information than anyone could absorb in one day. For some reason the demoness with the red markings flashed into his mind. 'Isn't there any way to help? We are intelligent beings, you know. Not animals.'

Minerva stood and paced, stretching one of her corkscrew curls.

'I have been giving this some thought. There's nothing that can be done without magic, and Abbot told me the warlocks all died in the transition.'

'It's true,' said No.1. He did not mention that he might be a warlock himself. Something told him that this was valuable information and it was not a good idea to reveal too much valuable information to a person who had tied you to a chair. He had said too much already.

'Maybe if Abbot had known about the time spell, he wouldn't have been so eager to get back to Hybras,' mused Minerva. 'Papa told him that there was a silver chip in his arm, and that very night he dug it out with his nails and disappeared. We have the whole thing on tape. I have wondered every day if he managed to make it home.'

'He made it,' said No.1. 'The time spell took him right back to the beginning. He never said anything about this place. Just turned up with the book and the crossbow, claiming to be our saviour. It was all lies.'

'Well then,' sighed Minerva, and she seemed genuinely sorry. 'I don't have a single idea about how to save the pride. Maybe your little friend in the next room can help when she wakes up.'

'What little friend?' asked No.1, puzzled.

'The one who knocked out Bobo, my brother. The little creature we captured trying to rescue you,' explained Minerva. 'Or, more accurately, trying to rescue an empty golf bag. She looks like a magical creature.

Maybe she can help.'

Who would want to rescue a golf bag? wondered No.1.

The door opened a crack, and Juan Soto's head appeared in the gap.

'Minerva?'

'Not now,' snapped Minerva, waving at the man to go away.

'There's a call for you.'

'I'm not available. Take a number.'

The security guard persisted; he stepped into the room, one hand cupped over the mouthpiece of a cordless phone.

'I think you might want to talk to this person. He says his name is Artemis Fowl.'

Minerva gave So to her full attention.

'I'll take it,' she said, reaching for the phone.

The LEP recon field helmet is an amazing piece of equipment. The Section 8 field helmet, on the other hand, is a miracle of modern science. To compare the two would be akin to comparing a flintlock to a laser-sighted sniper rifle.

Foaly had taken full advantage of his almost unlimited budget to indulge his every tech-head fantasy and stuff the helmet with every piece of diagnostic, surveillance, defence and just plain cool equipment he could cram in there.

The centaur was vocally proud of the entire package. But if forced to pick just one add-on to brag about, he would go for the bouncing bags every time.

Bouncing bags in themselves were not a recent addition. Even civilian helmets had gel bags in between their outer and inner shells, which provided a bit of extra buffering in case of a crash. But Foaly had replaced the helmet's rigid outer shell with a more yielding polymer and then swapped the electro-sensitive gel for tiny electro-sensitive beads.

The beads could be controlled with electronic pulses to expand, contract, roll or group, providing the helmet with a simple but highly effective propulsion system.

This little marvel can't fly but it can bounce wherever you want it to,

Foaly had said earlier, when Holly was signing out her equipment. Only commanders get the flying helmets. I wouldn't recommend them though, the engine's field has been known to straighten perms. Not that I'm saying you have a perm. Or need one for that matter.

While No.1 was being interrogated by Minerva, Foaly was flexing his fingers over the remote controls for Holly's Section 8 helmet. At the moment, the helmet was locked in a wire mesh strongbox at the rear of the security office.

Foaly liked to sing a little ditty while he worked. In this instance the song was the Riverbend classic: 'If It Looks Like a Dwarf and Smells Like a Dwarf, Then It's Probably a Dwarf (or a Latrine Wearing Dungarees)'. This was a relatively short title for a Riverbend song, which was the fairy equivalent of human country and western.

Foaly had considerately switched off his mike, so Artemis would not have the chance to object to his singing. In fact he was using an extremely old hard-wired antenna to send his signal, in the hope that no one in Police Plaza would pick up on his transmission. Haven City was in lockdown, and that meant no communications with the surface.

Foaly was knowingly disobeying Commander Ark Sool's orders, and he was quite enjoying himself doing it.

The centaur donned a set of v-goggles through which he could see everything in the helmet's vista. Not only that, but the goggles' PIP facility gave him rear and side views from the helmet's cameras. Foaly already had control of the chateau's security systems; now he wanted to have a little peek through their computer files — something he could not do from Section 8 HQ, especially not with the LEP waiting to pounce on any signal coming out of the city.

The helmet was naturally equipped with wireless omni-sensor capabilities, but the closer he could get to an actual hard drive, the quicker the job could be completed.

Foaly pressed a combination key command on his v-keyboard. To anyone watching, it would have seemed like the centaur was playing an invisible piano, but in fact the v-goggles interpreted the movements as key strokes. A small laser pencil popped out of a hidden compartment just above the right ear-cushion of Holly's helmet.

Foaly targeted the wire mesh box's locking mechanism.

'One second burst. Fire.' Nothing happened, so Foaly swore briefly, turned on his microphone, and tried it again.

'One second burst. Fire.'

This time, a red beam pulsed from the pencil's tip, and the lock melted into metallic mush.

Always good to have the equipment switched on, thought Foaly, glad that no one had witnessed his mistake, especially not Artemis Fowl.

Foaly targeted a desktop computer at the far side of the office with a glare and three blinks.

'Compute bounce,' he ordered the helmet, and almost immediately an animated dotted arrow appeared on the screen, dipping once to the floor and then rising to the computer desk.

'Execute bounce,' said Foaly and smiled as his creation rolled into life.

The helmet hit the floor with a basketball ping then bounced across the room, directly on to the computer desk.

'Perfect, you genius,' said Foaly, congratulating himself. Sometimes his own achievements brought a tear to his eye.

I wish Caballine could have seen that, he thought. And then, Wow, I must be getting serious about this girl.

Caballine was a centaur he had bumped into at a gallery downtown. She was a researcher with PPTV by day and a sculptor by night. A very smart lady and she knew all about Foaly. Apparently Caballine was a big fan of the mood blanket, a multi-sensor massage and homeopathic garment designed by Foaly specifically for centaurs. So they talked about that for half an hour. One thing led to another, and now he found himself jogging with her every evening. Whenever there wasn't an emergency.

Which there is now! he reminded himself, turning his attention back to work.

The helmet was sitting next to the human computer keyboard, with its omni-sensor pointed directly at the hard drive.

Foaly stared at the hard drive and blinked three times, selecting it on the screen.

'Download all files from this and any networked computers,' instructed the centaur, and the helmet immediately began to suck information from the Apple Mac.

After several seconds, an animated bottle on the v-goggles screen was filled to the brim, and burped. Transfer completed. Now they could find out exactly how much information these humans had, and where they were getting it from. But there was still the matter of back-up files. This group could have burned their information on to' CDs, or even sent it by email or stored it on the Internet.

Foaly used the virtual keyboard to open a data charge folder and send a virus into the human computer. The charge would completely wipe any computers on the network, but before that it would run along any Internet pathways explored by these humans and completely burn the sites. Foaly would like to be a bit more delicate about it and just erase fairy-related files, but he couldn't afford to take chances with this mysterious group. The mere fact that they had avoided detection for so long was proof that they were not to be trifled with.

This was a major virus to lob into a human system. It would probably crash thousands of sites, including Google or Yahoo, but Foaly didn't see that he had a choice.

On Foaly's screen, the data charge appeared as a red flickering flame that chuckled nastily as it dived into the omni-sensor's data stream. In five minutes, the Paradizo's hard drives would be burned beyond repair.

And as an added bonus, the charge would also attach itself to any storage devices within the sensor's range that bore the network's signature. So any information stored on CDs or flashdrives would disintegrate as soon as someone tried to load them. It was potent stuff, and there wasn't a firewall or anti-virus that could stop it.

Artemis's voice issued from two gel speakers in jars on the desk, interrupting his concentration.

'There's a wall safe in the office. It's where Minerva keeps her notes.

You need to burn anything inside it.'

'Wall safe,' replied Foaly. 'Let's see.'

The centaur ran an X-ray scan on the room and found the safe behind a row of shelving. Given the time, he would like to scan all the contents, but he had a rendezvous to keep. He sent a concentrated laser beam the width of a length of fishing line into the belly of the safe, reducing the contents to ash. Hopefully he was destroying more than the family jewels.

The X-ray scan revealed nothing else promising so Foaly sent the helmet beads spinning, toppling Holly's helmet off the desk. In a display of keyboard virtuosity, Foaly used the laser to carve a section from the base of the office door while the helmet was in mid-air. In two choreographed bounces the helmet was through the section and into the corridor outside.

Foaly grinned, satisfied.

'Never even touched the wood,' he said.

The centaur called up a blueprint for the Chateau Paradizo and superimposed it over a grid on his screen. There were two dots on the grid. One was the helmet, and the other was Holly. It was time the two were reunited.

As he worked, Foaly unconsciously sang a verse of the Riverbend dirge.

'When my lucky numbers run out of luck, When I'm stuck in the hole I tumbled into. When my favourite dawg gets squashed by a truck, That's when I think me some thoughts of you.'

On the planet's surface, Artemis winced as the song twanged through his tiny phone and along his thumb.

'Please, Foaly,' he said in pained tones, 'I'm trying to negotiate on the other line.'

Foaly whinnied, surprised. He'd forgotten about Artemis.

'Some people ain't got no Riverbend in their souls,' he said, switching off his microphone.

Billy Kong decided that he'd have a little word with the new prisoner.

The female. If indeed she was female. How was he supposed to know for sure what class of a creature it was? It looked like a girl, but maybe demon girls weren't the same as human ones. So, Billy Kong thought he might ask it what exactly it was, among other things. If the creature decided not to answer, Kong didn't mind. There were ways to persuade people to talk. Asking them nicely was one way. Giving them candy was another. But Billy Kong preferred torture.

Back in the early eighties, when Billy Kong was still plain old Jonah Lee, he lived in the California beach town of Malibu with his mother, Annie, and big brother, Eric.

Annie worked two jobs to keep her boys in sneakers, so Jonah got left with Eric in the evenings. That should have worked out fine. Eric was sixteen and old enough to look after his kid brother. But like most sixteen-year-olds, he had more on his mind than little brothers. In fact, sitting with Jonah was seriously interfering with his social life.

The problem was, as Eric saw it, that Jonah was an outdoorsy kind of boy. As soon as Eric took off to hang out with his friends, Jonah would ignore his big brother's orders and head out into the California evening.

And outdoors in the city was no place for an eight-year-old. So what Eric needed to do was devise a strategy that kept Jonah indoors, and allowed him to roam free.

He came upon the perfect plan quite by accident one night, returning home after a late-night argument with his girlfriend's other boyfriend and brothers.

For once, Jonah had not ventured out and was plonked in front of the TV watching horror shows on hacked cable. Eric, who had always been impulsive and reckless, had taken to sneaking around with the girlfriend of a local gangster. Now word had leaked out and the gang was after him. They had roughed him up a bit already, but he had got away. He was bloody and tired, but still kind of enjoying himself.

'Lock the doors,' he called to his little brother, startling him out of his TV stupor.

Jonah jumped to his feet, eyes widening as he noticed Eric's bloodied nose and lip.

'What happened to you?'

Eric grinned. He was that kind of person — exhausted, battered but buzzing with adrenaline.

'I got. . There was this bunch of…"

And then he stopped, because the spark of an idea was ricocheting around in his head. He must look pretty beat-up. Maybe he could use this to keep little Jonah indoors while Mom was working.

'I can't tell you,' he said, dragging a smear of blood across his face with one sleeve. 'I've sworn an oath. Just bolt the doors and close the shutters.'

Usually Jonah didn't have time for his brother's theatrics, but tonight there was blood, and horror on the TV, and he could hear footsteps pounding up the driveway.

'Dammit, they've found me,' swore Eric, peeking through a shutter.

Little Jonah grabbed his brother's sleeve.

'Who's found you, Eric? You gotta tell me.'

Eric appeared to consider it.

'OK,' he said finally. 'I belong to a… uh… secret society. We fight a secret enemy.'

'What, like a gang?'

'No,' said Eric. 'We fight demons.'

'Demons?' said little Jonah, half sceptical, half scared out of his wits.

'Yeah. They're all over California. By day, they're normal guys.

Accountants and basketball players, stuff like that. But at night they peel off their skin and go hunting kids. Under tens.'

'Under tens? Like me.'

'Like you. Exactly like you. I found these demons chewing on a couple of twin girls. Maybe eight years old. I killed most of 'em, but a few must've followed me home. We gotta stay real quiet and they'll go away.'

Jonah rushed for the phone. 'We should call Mom.'

'No!' said Eric, snatching the phone. 'You want to get Mom killed? Is that what you want?'

The idea of his mother dying started Jonah crying. 'No. Mom can't die.'

'Exactly,' said Eric gently. 'You gotta leave the demon-slaying to me and my boys. When you're fifteen, then you get to be sworn in, but until then, this is our secret. You stay in the house and let me do my duty. Promise?'

Jonah nodded, blubbering too much to say the word.

And so the brothers sat huddled on the sofa while Eric's girlfriend's boyfriend's brothers battered on the windows and called him out.

This is a cruel trick, Eric thought. Maybe I'll just let it run jot a couple of months. It'll keep the kid out of trouble until everything dies down.

The deception worked well. Jonah didn't set foot outside the house after dusk for weeks. He sat on the settee, with his knees drawn to his chin, waiting for Eric to return with elaborate demon-slaying stories. Every night, he feared that his brother would not return, that the demons would kill him.

One night his fears came to pass. The cops said that Eric had been killed by a notorious gang of brothers who had been gunning for him.

Something about a girl. But Jonah knew different. He knew the demons had done it. They had peeled off their faces and killed his brother.

So Jonah Lee, now known as Billy Kong, was going in to see Holly carrying the weight of his childhood memories. For the sake of his sanity, he had managed to convince himself over the decades that there were no demons, and that his beloved brother had lied to him. This betrayal had messed him up for years, preventing him forming lasting relationships, and making it a lot easier for him to hurt people. And now this crazy Minerva girl was paying him to help her to hunt down actual demons, and it turns out they are real. He had seen them with his own eyes.

At this stage Billy Kong couldn't tell fact from fiction. A part of him believed that he's had a bad accident, and that all of this was coma hallucination. All Billy knew for sure was that if there was the slightest chance that these demons were the same ones who killed Eric, then they were going to pay.

Holly was not too happy playing the victim. She had enough of this in the Academy. Every time the curriculum threw up a role-playing game, Holly, as the only girl in that class, was picked to be the hostage, or the elf walking home alone, or the teller facing a bank robber. She tried to object that this was stereotyping, but the instructor replied that stereotypes were stereotypes for a reason, so get that blonde wig on.

So when Artemis proposed that she allow herself to get caught, Holly took a bit of persuading. Now she was sitting tied to a wooden chair in a dark damp basement room, waiting for some human to come and torture her. The next time Artemis had a plan involving someone being taken hostage, he could play the part himself.

It was ridiculous. She was a captain in her eighties, and Artemis was a fourteen-year-old civilian, and yet he was dishing out the orders and she was taking them.

That's because Artemis is a tactical genius, said her sensible side.

Oh, shut up, responded her irritated side eloquently.

And then Billy Kong came into the room and proceeded to irritate Holly even further. He glided across the floor like a pale, hair-gelled ghost, circling Holly silently several times before speaking.

'Tell me something, demon. Can you peel off your face?'

Holly met his eyes. 'With what? My teeth? Hands tied, moron.'

Billy Kong sighed. Lately everyone under five feet seemed to think it was their prerogative to give him verbal abuse.

'You probably know I'm not supposed to kill you,' said Billy, teasing his hair into spikes. 'But I often do things that I'm not supposed to.'

Holly decided to crack this human's confidence a little.

'I know that, Billy, or should I say, Jonah. You've done a lot of bad things over the years.'

Kong took a step back. 'You know me?'

'We know all about you, Billy. We've been watching you for years.'

This wasn't strictly true, of course. Holly knew no more about Kong than

Foaly had told her. Perhaps she wouldn't have baited him if she'd known about his demon history.

To Billy Kong, this simple statement was confirmation of everything Eric had told him. Suddenly the building blocks of his beliefs and understandings toppled and smashed beyond repair.

It was all true. Eric had not lied. Demons walked the Earth and his brother had tried to protect him and paid with his life.

'You remember my brother?' he asked, his voice shaking.

Holly presumed that this was a test. Foaly had mentioned a brother.

'Yes. I remember. Derek, wasn't it?'

Kong pulled a stiletto from his breast pocket, gripping it so tightly his knuckles whitened.

'Eric!' he shouted, spittle spraying from his mouth. 'It was Eric! Do you remember what happened to him?'

Holly felt suddenly nervous. This Mud Man was unstable. It would only take her a second to escape from these bonds, but maybe a second was too long. Artemis had requested that she remain bound for as long as possible, but from the look on Billy Kong's face it seemed as if staying bound could be a fatal mistake.

'Do you remember what happened to my brother?' asked Kong again, waving the knife like a conductor's baton.

'I remember,' said Holly. 'He died. Violently.'

Kong was thunderstruck. Reeling internally. For several moments he circled the room muttering to himself, which didn't encourage Holly any.

'It's true. Eric never betrayed me! My brother loved me. He loved me and they took him!'

Holly took advantage of this lack of focus to escape from the plastic ties binding her wrists. She did this using an old LEP trick taught to her by Commander Vinyaya back in the Academy. She rubbed her wrists against the rough edge, causing two small grazes. When magical sparks erupted from her fingertips to heal the wounds, she siphoned a few off to melt the plastic enough for her to yank her way out.

When Kong faced Holly again, she was untethered, but concealing the fact.

Kong knelt before her so their eyes were level. He was blinking rapidly and his pulse beat in a temple vein. He spoke slowly, in a voice fraught with barely repressed madness and violence. He had switched to Taiwanese, his family's first language.

'I want you to peel off your face. Right now.'

This, reasoned Kong, would be the final proof. If this demon could peel off her face, then he would stab her in the heart and damn the consequences.

'I can't,' said Holly. 'My hands are tied. Why don't you peel it off for me? We have new masks now. Disposable. They come off easily.'

Kong coughed in surprise, rocking back on his hunkers.

Then he steadied himself and reached out shaking hands. His hands did not shake from fear, but from anger and sorrow that he had dishonoured his brother's memory by believing the worst of him.

'At the hairline,' said Holly. 'Just grab and pull, don't worry if you tear it.'

Kong looked up, and they made eye contact. This was all Holly needed to employ the magical fairy mesmer.

'Don't those arms feel heavy?' she asked, her voice layered and irresistible.

Kong's brow suddenly creased, and the creases filled with sweat.

'My arms. What? They're like lead. Like two lead pipes. I can't. .'

Holly pushed the mesmer a little harder. 'Why don't you put them down.

Take it easy. Sit on the floor.'

Kong sat on the concrete. 'I'm just going to sit for a second. We're still doing the face-peeling thing. But in a second. I'm tired.'

'You probably feel like talking.'

'You know what, demon. I feel like talking. What should we talk about?'

'This whole group you're involved with, Billy. The Paradizos. Tell me about them.'

Kong snorted. The Paradizos! You're only dealing with one Paradizo here. And that's the girl, Minerva. Her daddy is just a money man. If Minerva wants it, Gaspard pays for it. He's so proud of his little girl the genius that he does whatever she says. Can you believe that she convinced him to keep the whole demon thing quiet until after the Nobel Committee get a look at her research.'

This was very good news. 'You mean that no one outside this house knows about the demons?'

'Hardly anybody inside the house knows. Minerva is paranoid that some other egghead will get hold of her work. The staff think we're guarding a political prisoner who needs his face redone. Only Juan Soto, the chief of in-house security, and myself were told the truth.'

'Does Minerva keep records?'

'Records? She writes everything down, and I mean everything. We have records of every demon action, right down to toilet breaks. She's got every twitch on video, the only reason that there's no cameras down here is that we weren't expecting anyone.'

'Where does she keep these notes?'

'A little wall safe in the security office. Minerva thinks I don't know the combination, but I do. Bobo's birthday.'

Holly touched a skin-coloured microphone pad glued to her throat. 'A wall safe in the security office,' she said clearly. 'I hope you're getting that.'

There was no reply. Wearing an earpiece had been too risky, so Holly had to make do with the mike pad on her neck, and iris-cam suckered like a contact lens over her right eye.

Kong still felt like talking. 'You know, I'm going to kill all of you demons. I've got a plan. Real clever too. Miss Minerva thinks that she's going to Stockholm, but that's never going to happen. I'm just waiting for the right moment. I know that silver is the only thing keeping you in this dimension. So, I'm going to send you back and give you a little present to take with you.'

Not if I can help it, thought Holly.

Kong half smiled at her. 'Are we doing the face-peeling thing? Can you really do that?'

'Of course I can,' said Holly. 'Are you sure you want to see it?'

Kong nodded, slack-jawed.

'OK, then. Watch carefully.'

Holly raised her hands to her face, and when she took them away, her head had disappeared. Her body and limbs quickly followed suit.

'Not only can I peel off my face,' said Holly's voice from thin air. 'I can do my entire body.'

'It's true,' croaked Kong. 'It's all true.'

Then a tiny invisible fist swished through the air, knocking him into unconsciousness. Billy Kong lay on the concrete floor dreaming that he was Jonah Lee once more, and his brother stood before him saying: I told you so, bio. I told you there were demons. They murdered me back in Malibu. So what are you going to do about it?

And little Jonah answered: I'm working on it, Eric.

Minerva accepted the phone from the security guard.

'Minerva Paradizo speaking.'

'Minerva, this is Artemis Fowl,' said a voice in perfect French. 'We met once across a crowded room in Sicily.'

'I know who you are; we nearly met in Barcelona too. And I know it's really you. I memorized your voice pattern and cadence from a lecture you gave on Balkan politics two years ago at Trinity College.'

'Very good. I find it strange that I haven't heard of you.'

Minerva smiled. 'I am not as careless as you, Artemis. I prefer anonymity, until I have something exceptional to be recognized for.'

'The existence of demons, for instance,' prompted Artemis. 'That would be exceptional.'

Minerva gripped the phone tightly. 'Yes, Master Fowl. It would be exceptional. It is exceptional. So you can keep your Irish paws off my research. The last thing I need is for some bigheaded teenage boy to hijack all my work at the last second. You had your own demon, but that wasn't enough, you had to try and steal mine too. The moment I recognized you in Barcelona, I knew you would be after my research subject. I knew you would try to smoke us out, have someone hide in the car. It was the logical thing to do, so I booby-trapped the vehicle.

You knocked out my baby brother too. How could you?'

'Apparently I did you a favour,' said Artemis lightly.

'Little Bobo is obnoxious by all accounts.'

'Is that why you called me? To insult my family?' 'No,' replied Artemis.

'I do apologize, that was juvenile. I called you to try and make you see sense. There is much more at stake here than a Nobel Prize, not to belittle the prize of course.'

Minerva smiled knowingly. 'Artemis Fowl, whatever your pretence, you called me because your plan failed. I have your demon and you want her back. But if it makes you feel better, please proceed with your good of humanity speech.'

Outside, on the bluff overlooking Chateau Paradizo, Artemis frowned.

This girl reminded him a lot of himself eighteen months ago, when achievement and acquisition were everything, and family and friends were secondary. Honesty, on this occasion, actually was the best policy.

'Miss Paradizo,' he said gently. 'Minerva. Listen to me for a few moments — you will feel the truth of what I say.'

Minerva tutted. 'Why is that? Because we're connected?'

'Actually we are. We are similar people. Both the most intelligent person in whatever room we happen to be in.

Both constantly underestimated. Both determined to shine brightest in whichever discipline we pursue. Both dogged by scorn and loneliness.'

'Ridiculous,' scoffed Minerva, but her protestations rang hollow. 'I am not lonely. I have my work.'

Artemis persisted. 'I know how it feels, Minerva. And let me tell you, no matter how many prizes you win, no matter how many theorems you prove, it will not be enough to make people like you.'

'Oh, spare me your amateur psychology lectures. You're not even three years older than me.'

Artemis was injured. 'Hardly amateur. And for your information, age is often detrimental to intelligence. I have written a paper on the subject in Psychology Today, under the pseudonym Doctor C. Niall DeMencha.'

Minerva giggled. 'I get it. Senile Dementia. Very good.'

Artemis himself smiled. 'You are the first person to get that.'

'I always am.'

'Me too.'

'Don't you find that tiresome?'

'Incredibly. I mean, what is wrong with people? Everybody says that I have no sense of humour, then I construct a perfectly sound pun round a well-known psychological condition and it is ignored. People should be rolling in the aisles.'

'Absolutely,' agreed Minerva. 'That happens to me all the time.'

'I know. I loved that Murray Gell-Mann kidnapping a quark joke that you did on the train. Very clever analogy.'

The congenial conversation ground to a frosty halt.

'How did you hear that? How long have you been spying on me?'

Artemis was quietly stunned. He had not meant to reveal that fact. It was most unlike him to chatter on about trifles when there were lives at stake. But he liked this Minerva girl. She was so like him.

'There was a security camera in the corridor, on the train. I procured the tape, had it enhanced and read your lips.'

'Hmm,' said Minerva. 'I don't remember a camera.'

'It was there. Inside a red plastic bubble. Fisheye lens. I apologize for the intrusion of your privacy, but it was an emergency.'

Minerva was silent for a moment. 'Artemis. We could have a lot to talk about. I haven't talked this much with a boy in… well, ever. But I have to finish this project. Can you call me again in six weeks?'

'Six weeks will be too late. The world will be a different place and possibly not a better one.'

'Artemis. Stop it. I was just beginning to like you, and now we're back where we started.'

'Just give me one more minute,' Artemis insisted. 'If I can't convince you in a single minute, then I will hang up and leave you to your research.'

'Fifty-nine,' said Minerva. 'Fifty-eight. .'

Artemis wondered if all girls were so emotional. Holly could be this way too. Warm one moment and icy the next.

'You are holding two creatures captive. Both sentient. Neither human. If you expose either one to the wider scientific community, then their kind will be hunted down.

You will be responsible for the extinction of at least one species. Is that what you want?'

'That's what they want,' retorted Minerva. 'The first one we rescued threatened to kill us all, and possibly eat us. He said that the demons would return and wipe out the human scourge.'

'I know all about Abbot,' said Artemis, using what he had learned from

Minerva's own surveillance cameras. 'He was a dinosaur. Demons could never take on humans now. Judging by my temporal calculations, Abbot was whisked ten thousand years into his own future and then sent back again. Declaring war on demons would be like declaring war on monkeys. In fact, monkeys would be a bigger threat. There are more of them. And anyway, the demons can't even fully materialize unless we shoot them full of silver.'

'I am sure they will find a way around that. Or one could get through accidentally, just like Abbot, then open the gates for the rest of them.'

'Highly unlikely. I mean really, Minerva, what are the odds?'

'So, Artemis Fowl wants me to forget all about my Nobel project and turn my demon captives loose.'

'Forget the project certainly,' said Artemis, checking his watch. 'But I don't think there is any need for you to set your captives free.'

'Oh, really? And why is that?'

'Because I imagine they are already gone.'

Minerva spun round to face the spot where No.1 had been sitting. It was empty: her captive demon had disappeared along with his chair. A perfunctory sweep told her the entire room was empty, except for her.

'Where is he, Artemis?' she screamed into the phone. 'Where is my prize?'

'Forget about all of this,' said Artemis softly. 'It's not worth it. Take it from someone who has made your mistakes. I will call you soon.'

Minerva squeezed the phone as though it were Artemis's neck.

'You tricked me!' she said, the truth suddenly dawning on her. 'You allowed me to capture your demon!'

But Artemis did not reply. He had reluctantly closed his fist on the conversation. Generally, outsmarting someone gave him a warm and fuzzy feeling, but hoodwinking Minerva Paradizo just made him feel like a sneak. It was ironic that he felt like a bad guy, now that he was almost a good guy.

Butler glanced across at him from his perch on the knoll.

'How did that go?' he asked. 'Your first lengthy conversation with a girl your own age?'

'Fabulous,' said Artemis, voice dripping with sarcasm. 'We're planning a June wedding.'