"Artemis Fowl. The Opal Deception" - читать интересную книгу автора (Colfer Eoin)

Chapter 5: Meet the Neighbours

E37, THE LOWER ELEMENTS

Foaly could not believe what was happening. His eyes were sending information to his brain, but his brain refused to accept it. Because if he were to accept this information, he would have to believe that his friend Holly Short had just shot her own commander and was now attempting to escape to the surface. This was completely impossible, though not everybody was equally reluctant to accept this.

The centaur’s mobile tech shuttle had been commandeered by Internal Affairs.

This operation now fell under their jurisdiction because an LEP officer was suspected of a crime. All LEP personnel had been ejected from the shuttle, but Foaly was allowed to stay simply because he was the only one able to operate the surveillance equipment.

Commander Ark Sool was an LEP gnome who went after suspect police fairies.

Sool was unusually tall and thin for a gnome, like a giraffe in a baboon’s skin. His dark hair was slicked straight back in a no-nonsense style and his fingers and ears boasted none of the golden adornments generally so beloved of the gnome families. Ark Sool was the highest-ranked gnome officer in Internal Affairs; he believed that the LEP was basically a bunch of loose cannons, presided over by a maverick. And now the maverick was dead, killed apparently by the biggest loose cannon in the bunch. Holly Short may have narrowly avoided criminal charges on two previous occasions. She would not escape this time.

‘Play the video again, centaur,’ he instructed, tapping the worktop with his cane.

Most annoying.

‘We’ve looked at this a dozen times,’ protested Foaly. ‘I don’t see the point.’

Sool silenced him with a glare from his red-rimmed eyes. ‘You don’t see the point? The centaur doesn’t see the point? I don’t see where that’s an important factor in the current equation. You, Mister Foaly, are here to press buttons, not to offer opinions. Commander Root placed far too much value on your opinions, and look where that got him, eh?’

Foaly swallowed the dozen or so acidic responses that were queuing on his tongue. If he were excluded from this operation now, he could do nothing to help Holly.

‘Play the video. Yessir.’

Foaly cued the video from E37. It was damning stuff. Julius and Holly hovered around General Scalene for several moments. They appeared to be quite agitated. Then, for some reason, incredible as it sounded, Holly shot the commander with some kind of incendiary bullet. At this point they lost all video feeds from both helmets.

‘Back the tape up twenty seconds,’ ordered Sool, leaning in close to the monitor.

He poked his cane into the plasma screen. ‘What’s that?’

‘Careful with the cane,’ said Foaly. ‘These screens are expensive. I get them from Atlantis.’

‘Answer the question, centaur. What is that?’ Sool prodded the screen twice, just to show how little he cared about Foaly’s gizmos.

The Internal Affairs commander was pointing to a slight shimmer on Root’s chest.

‘I’m not sure,’ admitted Foaly. ‘It could be heat distortion, or maybe equipment failure. Or perhaps just a glitch. I’ll have to run some tests.’

Sool nodded. ‘Run your tests, though I don’t expect you’ll find anything. Short is a burnout, simple as that. She always was. I nearly had her before, but this time it’s cut and dried.’

Foaly knew he should bite his tongue, but he had to defend his friend. ‘Isn’t this all a bit convenient? First we lose sound, so we don’t know what was said. Then there’s this fuzzy patch that could be anything, and now we’re expected to believe that a decorated officer just up and shot her commander, an elf who was like a father to her.’

‘Yes, I see your point, Foaly,’ said Sool silkily. ‘Very good. Nice to know you’re thinking on some level. But let’s stick to our respective jobs, eh? You build the machinery and I operate it. For example, these new Neutrinos that our field personnel are armed with?’

‘Yes, what about them?’ said Foaly suspiciously.

‘They are personalized to each officer, am I right? Nobody else can fire them. And each shot is registered?’

‘That is correct,’ admitted Foaly, all too aware where this was leading.

Sool waved his cane like an orchestra conductor. ‘Well then, surely all we have to do is check Captain Short’s weapons log to see if she fired a shot at the precise time indicated on the video. If she did, then the film is authentic, and Holly Short did indeed murder her commander, regardless of what we can or cannot hear.’

Foaly ground his horsy teeth. Of course it made perfect sense. He had thought of it half an hour ago, and he already knew what the cross-referencing would reveal. He pulled up Holly’s weapons log, reading out the relevant passage.

‘Weapon registered at zero nine forty, HMT. Six pulses at zero nine fifty-six, and then one level-two pulse fired at zero nine fifty-eight.’

Sool slapped the cane into his palm in triumph. ‘One level-two pulse fired at zero nine fifty-eight. Exactly right. Whatever else happened in that chute, Short fired on her commander.’

Foaly leaped out of his specially tailored office chair. ‘But a level-two pulse couldn’t cause such a big explosion. It practically caved in the entire access tunnel.’

‘Which is why Short isn’t in custody right now,’ said Sool. ‘It will take weeks to clear out that tunnel. I’ve had to send a Retrieval team through El, in Tar a. They will have to travel overground to Paris and pick up her trail from there.’

‘But what about the explosion itself?’

Sool grimaced, as though Foaly’s question was a bitter nugget in an otherwise delicious meal. ‘Oh, I’m sure there’s an explanation, centaur. Combustible gas, or malfunction or just bad luck. We’ll figure that out. For now, my priority, and jours, is to bring Captain Short back here for trial. I want you to liaise with the Retrieval team. Feed them constant updates on Short’s position.’

Foaly nodded without enthusiasm. Holly was still wearing her helmet. And the LEP helmet could verify her identity and relay a constant stream of diagnostic information back to Foaly’s computers. They had no sound or video, but there was plenty of information to track Holly, wherever she might go in the world, or under it. At the moment, Holly was in Germany. Her heart rate was elevated, but otherwise she was OK.

Why did you run, Holly? Foaly asked his absent friend silently. If you’re innocent, why did you run?

‘Tell me where Captain Short is now,’ demanded Sool.

The centaur maximized the live feed from Holly’s helmet on the plasma screen.

‘She’s still in Germany — Munich, to be precise. She’s stopped moving now.

Maybe she will decide to come home.’

Sool frowned. ‘I seriously doubt it, centaur. She’s a bad egg, through and through.’

Foaly ground his teeth. Good manners dictated that only a friend referred to another fairy by species, and Sool was no friend of his. Or anyone’s.

‘We can’t say that for sure,’ said Foaly through his clenched teeth.

Sool leaned even closer to the plasma screen, a slow smile stretching his tight skin.

‘Actually, centaur, you’re wrong there. I think we can safely say for sure that

Captain Short won’t be coming back. Recall the Retrieval team immediately.’

Foaly checked Holly’s screen. The life signs from her helmet were all flatlining.

One second she was stressed but alive, and the next she was gone. No heartbeat, no brain activity, no temperature reading. She couldn’t have simply taken off the helmet, as there was an infrared connection between each LEP officer and helmet. No, Holly was dead, and it hadn’t been natural causes.

Foaly felt the tears brimming on his eyelids. Not Holly too.

‘Recall the Retrieval team? Are you insane, Sool? We have to find Holly. Find out what happened.’

Sool was unaffected by Foaly’s outburst. If anything, he appeared to enjoy it.

‘Short was a traitor and she was obviously in collusion with the goblins. Somehow her nefarious plan backfired and she has been killed. I want you to activate the remote incinerator in her helmet immediately, and we’ll close the book on a rogue officer.’

Foaly was aghast. ‘Activate the remote incinerator! I can’t do that.’

Sool rolled his eyes. ‘Again with the opinions. You don’t have authority here, you just obey it.’

‘But I’ll have a satellite picture in thirty minutes,’ protested the centaur. ‘We can wait that long, surely.’

Sool elbowed past Foaly to the keyboard. ‘Negative. You know the regulations.

No bodies are left exposed for the humans to find. It’s a tough rule, I know, but necessary.’

‘The helmet could have malfunctioned!’ said Foaly, grasping at straws.

‘Is it likely that all the life-sign readings could have flatlined at the same moment through equipment failure?’

‘No,’ admitted Foaly.

‘And just how unlikely is it?’

‘About one chance in ten million,’ said the technical adviser miserably.

Sool picked his way around the keyboard. ‘If you don’t have the stomach for it, centaur, I’ll do it myself.’ He entered his password and then detonated the incinerator in Holly’s helmet. On a rooftop in Munich, Holly’s helmet dissolved in a pool of acid. And, in theory, so did Holly’s body.

‘There,’ said Sool, satisfied. ‘She’s gone, and now we can all sleep a little easier.’

Not me, thought Foaly, staring forlornly at the screen. It will be a very long time before I sleep easy again.

TEMPLE BAR, DUBLIN, IRELAND

Artemis Fowl woke from a sleep haunted by nightmares. In his dreams, strange, red-eyed creatures had ripped open his chest with scimitar tusks and dined on his heart.

He sat up in an undersized cot, both hands flying to his chest. His shirt was caked in dried blood, but there was no wound. Artemis took several deep, shuddering breaths, pumping oxygen through his brain. ‘Assess the situation,’ Butler always told him. ‘If you find yourself in unfamiliar territory, become familiar with it before opening your mouth.

Ten seconds of observation could save your life.’

Artemis looked around, his eyelids fluttering like camera shutters. Absorbing every detail. He was in a small boxroom, about three metres square. One wall was completely transparent and appeared to look out over the Dublin quays. From the position of the Millennium Bridge, the room had to be somewhere in the Temple Bar area. The chamber itself was constructed from a strange material: some kind of silver-grey fabric — rigid, but malleable — with several plasma screens on the opaque walls. It was all extremely high-tech but seemed to be years old, and almost abandoned.

In the corner, a girl sat, hunched, on a folding chair. She cradled her head in both hands, her shoulders twitching gently with sobs.

Artemis cleared his throat. ‘Why are you crying, girl?’

The girl jerked upright, and it became immediately obvious that this was no normal girl. In fact, she appeared to belong to a totally different species.

‘Pointed ears,’ Artemis noted, with surprising composure. ‘Prosthetic or real?’

Holly almost smiled through her tears. ‘Typical Artemis Fowl. Always looking for options. My ears are very real, as you well know… knew.’

Artemis was silent for several moments, processing the wealth of information in those few sentences.

‘Real pointed ears? Then you are of another species, not human. Possibly a fairy?’

Holly nodded. ‘I am a fairy. Actually an elf. I’m what you would call a leprechaun too, but that’s just a job.’

‘And fairies speak English, do they?’

‘We speak all languages. The gift of tongues, it is part of our magic’

Artemis knew that these revelations should send his world spinning on its axis, but he found himself accepting her every word. It was as though he had always suspected the existence of fairies, and this was simply confirmation. Although, strangely, he could not remember ever having even thought about fairies before this day.

‘And you claim to know me? Personally, or from some kind of surveillance? You certainly seem to have the technology.’

‘We’ve known you for a few years now, Artemis. You made first contact, and we’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since.’

Artemis was slightly startled, ‘I made first contact?’

‘Yes. December, two years ago. You kidnapped me.’

‘Is this your revenge? That explosive device? My ribs?’ A horrible thought struck the Irish boy. ‘And what about Butler? Is he dead?’

Holly did her best to answer all these questions. ‘It is revenge, but not mine. And Butler is alive. I just had to get you out of there before another attempt was made on your life.’

‘So we’re friends now?’

Holly shrugged. ‘Maybe. We’ll see.’

All this was slightly confusing. Even for a genius. Artemis crossed his legs in the lotus position, resting his temples against pointed fingers.

‘You had better tell me everything,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘From the beginning.

And leave nothing out.’

So Holly did. She told Artemis how he had kidnapped her, then released her at the last moment. She told him how they had journeyed to the Arctic to rescue his father, and how they had foiled a goblin rebellion bankrolled by Opal Koboi. She recounted in great detail their mission to Chicago to steal back the C Cube, a supercomputer constructed by Artemis from pirated fairy technology. Finally, in a small, quiet voice, she told of Commander Root’s death and Opal Koboi’s mysterious plot to bring the fairy and human worlds together.

Artemis sat perfectly still, absorbing hundreds of incredible facts. His brow was slightly creased, as if the information were difficult to digest. Finally, when his brain had organized the data, he opened his eyes.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember any of this, but I believe you. I accept that we humans have fairy neighbours below the planet’s surface.’

‘Just like that?’

Artemis’s lip curled. ‘Hardly. I have taken your story and cross-referenced it with the facts as I know them. The only other scenario which could explain everything that has happened, up to and including your own bizarre appearance, is a convoluted conspiracy theory involving the Russian Mafiya and a crack team of plastic surgeons.

Hardly likely. But your fairy story fits, right down to something that you could not know about, Captain Short.’

‘Which is?’

‘After my alleged mind wipe, I discovered mirrored contact lenses in my own eyes and in Butler’s. Investigation revealed that I myself had ordered the lenses, though I had no memory of the fact. I suspect that I ordered them to cheat your mesmer.’

Holly nodded. It made sense. Fairies had the power to mesmerize humans, but eye contact was part of the trick, coupled with a mesmeric voice. Mirrored contact lenses would leave the subject completely in control, while still pretending to be under the mesmer.

‘The only reason for this would be if I had planted a trigger somewhere.

Something that would cause my fairy memories to come rushing back. But what?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Holly. ‘I was hoping that just seeing me would tripper recall.’

Artemis smiled in a very annoying way. As one would to a small child who had just suggested that the moon was made of cheese.

‘No, Captain. I would guess that your Mister Foaly’s mind-wiping technology is an advanced version of the rnemory-suppressant drugs being experimented with by various governments. The brain, you see, is a complex instrument; if it can be convinced that something did not happen, it will invent all kinds of scenarios to maintain that illusion. Nothing can change its mind, so to speak. Even if the conscious accepts something, the mind wipe will have convinced the subconscious otherwise. So, no matter how convincing you are, you cannot convert my altered subconscious. My subconscious probably believes that you are a hallucination or a miniature spy. No, the only way my memories could be returned to me would be if my subconscious could not present a reasonable argument — say if the one person whom I trust completely presented me with irrefutable evidence.’

Holly felt herself growing annoyed. Artemis could get under her skin like nobody else. A child who treated everyone else like children.

‘And who is this one person whom you trust?’

Artemis smiled genuinely for the first time since Munich. ‘Why, myself, of course.’

MUNICH

Butler woke to find blood dripping from the tip of his nose. It was falling on to the white hat of the hotel chef.

The chef stood with a group of hotel kitchen staff in the middle of a destroyed storage shed. The man gripped a cleaver in his hairy fist, just in case this giant on the tattered mattress that was wedged into the rafters was a madman.

‘Excuse me,’ said the chef politely, which is unusual for a chef, ‘are you alive?’

Butler considered the question. Apparently, unlikely as it seemed, he was alive.

The mattress had saved him from the strange missile. Artemis had survived too. He remembered feeling his charge’s heartbeat just before he passed out. It wasn’t there now.

‘I am alive,’ he grunted, a paste of tile dust and blood spilling from his lips.

‘Where is the boy who was with me?’

The crowd assembled in the ruined shed looked at one another.

‘There was no boy,’ said the chef finally. ‘You fell into the roof all on your own.’

Doubtless, this group would like an explanation, or they would inform the police.

‘Of course there was no boy. Forgive me, the mind tends to wander after a three-storey fall.’

The group nodded as one. Who could blame the giant for being a touch rattled?

‘I was leaning against the railing, sunning myself, when the railing gave way.

Luckily for me, I managed to grab the mattress on the way down.’

This explanation was met with the mass scepticism it thoroughly deserved. The chef voiced the group’s doubts.

‘You managed to grab a mattress?’

Butler had to think quickly, which is not easy when all the blood in your body is concentrated in your forehead.

‘Yes. It was on the balcony. I had been resting in the sun.’

This entire sun business was extremely unlikely. Especially considering that it was the middle of winter. Butler realized that there was only one way to dispel the crowd. It was drastic, but it should work.

He reached inside his jacket, pulling out a small spiral pad.

‘Of course I intend to sue the hotel for damages. Trauma alone should be worth a few million euro. Not to mention injuries. I presume I can count on you good people to be witnesses.’

The chef paled, as did the others. Giving evidence against one’s employers was the first step to unemployment.

‘I… I don’t know, sir,’ he stammered. ‘I didn’t actually see anything.’ He paused to sniff the air. ‘I think I smell my pavlova burning. Dessert will be ruined.’

The chef hopped over the chunks of shattered tile and disappeared back into the hotel. The remaining staff followed his lead, and within seconds Butler was on his own again. He smiled, though the action sent a flare of pain down his neck. The threat of a lawsuit generally scattered witnesses as effectively as any gunfire.

The giant Eurasian disentangled himself from the remains of the rafters. He really had been amazingly lucky not to be impaled on the beams. The mattress had absorbed most of the impact, while the timbers were rotten and had splintered harmlessly.

Butler dropped to the floor, brushing dust from his suit. His priority now was to find Artemis. It seemed likely that whoever had made the attempt on his life had taken the boy. But why would someone try to kill him, and then take him prisoner? Unless it was their unknown enemy who had taken advantage of the situation and decided to look for a ransom.

Butler returned to the hotel room, where everything was as they had left it.

There was absolutely no sign that anything had exploded in here. The only unusual things revealed by Butler’s investigations were small clusters of dead insects and spiders. Curious. It was as though the blue flash of light affected only living things, leaving the buildings unaffected.

A blue rinse, said his subconscious, but his conscious self took no notice.

Butler quickly packed Artemis’s box of tricks and, of course, his own. The weapons and surveillance equipment would be held in a deposit box at the airport. He left the Kronski Hotel without checking out. An early checkout would arouse suspicion, and with any luck this entire matter could be resolved before the school group returned home.

The bodyguard collected the Hummer in the hotel car park, and set off for the airport. If Artemis had been kidnapped, then the kidnappers would contact Fowl Manor with their ransom demand. If Artemis had simply removed himself from danger, he had always been told to head for home. Either way, the trail led to Fowl Manor, so that was where Butler intended to go.

TEMPLE BAR, DUBLN, IRELAND

Artemis had recovered sufficiently for his natural curiosity to surface. He walked around the cramped room, touching the spongy surface of the walls.

‘What is this place? Some form of surveillance hide?’ ‘Exactly,’ said Holly. ‘I was on stakeout here a few months ago. A group of rogue dwarfs was meeting their jewellery fences here. From the outside, this is just another patch of sky on top of a building. It’s a cham pod.’ ‘Cam, camouflage?’

‘No, cham, chameleon. This suit is cam, camouflage.’ ‘You do know, I suppose, that chameleons don’t actually change colour to suit their surroundings. They change according to mood and temperature.’

Holly looked out over Temple Bar. Below them, thousands of tourists, musicians and residents were winding their way through the small artisans’ streets.

‘You’d have to tell Foaly about that. He names all this stuff.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Artemis. ‘Foaly. He is a centaur, is he not?’

‘That’s right.’ Holly turned to face Artemis. ‘You’re taking this very calmly. Most humans completely freak out when they find out about us. Some go into shock.’

Artemis smiled. ‘I am not most humans.’

Holly turned back to the view. She was not going to argue with that statement.

‘So tell me, Captain Short. If all I am to the fairy People is a threat, why did you heal me?’

Holly rested her forehead against the cham pod’s translucent face.

‘It’s our nature,’ she replied. ‘And of course I need you to help me find Opal Koboi. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.’

Artemis stood beside her at the window. ‘So first you mind-wipe me, and now you need me?’

‘Yes, Artemis. Gloat all you like. The mighty LEP needs your help.’

‘Of course there is the matter of my fee,’ said Artemis, buttoning his jacket across the bloodstain on his shirt.

Holly rounded on him. ‘Your fee? Are you serious? After all the fairy People have done for you? Can’t you just do something good for once in your life?’

‘Obviously you elves are an emotional race. Humans are slightly more business-minded. Here are the facts: you are a fugitive from justice, on the run from a murdering pixie genius. You have no funds and few resources. I am the only one who can help you track down this Opal Koboi. I think that’s worth a few bars of anybody’s gold.’

Holly glowered at him. ‘Like you said, Mud Boy. I don’t have any resources.’

Artemis spread his hands magnanimously. ‘I’m prepared to accept your word. If you can guarantee me one metric tonne of gold from your hostage fund, I will devise a plan to defeat this Opal Koboi.’

Holly was in a hole and she knew it. There was no doubt that Artemis could give her the edge over Opal, but it galled her to pay someone who used to be a friend. ‘And what if Koboi defeats us?’

‘If Koboi defeats and presumably murders us both, then you can consider the debt null and void.’

‘Great,’ growled Holly. ‘It would be almost worth it.’

She left the window and began raiding the pod’s medical chest. ‘You know something, Artemis. You’re exactly how you were when we first met: a greedy Mud Boy who doesn’t care about anyone except himself. Is that really how you want to be for the rest of your life?’

Artemis’s features remained static, but below the surface his emotions were in turmoil. Of course he was right to ask for a fee; it would be stupid not to. But even asking had made him feel guilty. It was this idiotic newfound conscience. His mother seemed able to activate it at will, and this fairy creature could do it too. He would have to keep a tighter check on his emotions.

Holly finished raiding the cabinet. ‘Well, Mister Consultant. What’s our first move?’

Artemis did not hesitate. ‘There are only two of us, and we are not very tall. We need reinforcements. As we speak, Butler will be making for Fowl Manor. He may even be there already.’

Artemis turned on his mobile, speed dialling Butler’s phone. A recorded message told him that the customer he was trying to reach was not available. He declined the offer to try again, instead dialling Fowl Manor. An answering machine cut in after the third ring. Obviously his parents had already left for the spa in Westmeath.

‘Butler,’ said Artemis to the recorder. ‘You are well, I hope. I myself am fine. Listen very carefully to what I have to tell you, and believe me, every word is true…’

Artemis proceeded to summarize the day’s events into the phone. ’We will arrive at the manor shortly. I suggest we stock up on essentials and proceed to a safe house…‘

Holly tapped him on the shoulder.

‘We should get out of here. Koboi is no fool. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had some back-up plan in case We survived.’

Artemis covered the mouthpiece with his palm.

‘I agree. That is what I would do. This Koboi person is probably on her way right now.’

As if on cue, one of the pod walls fizzled and dissolved. Opal Koboi was standing in the hole, flanked by Merv and Scant Brill. The pixie twins were armed with transparent plastic handguns. Merv’s gun barrel glowed gently in the aftermath of his wall-melting shot.

‘Murderer!’ shouted Holly, reaching for her gun. Merv casually put a blast close enough to her head to singe her eyebrows. Holly froze, raising her hands in submission.

‘Opal Koboi, I presume?’ said Artemis, although if Holly had not told him the whole story he never would have guessed that the female before him was anything but a human child. Her black hair was braided down her back, and she wore a checked pinafore of the type worn by a million schoolgirls around the world. Her ears were, of course, rounded.

‘Artemis Fowl, how nice to see you again. I do believe that in different circumstances we could have been allies.’

‘Circumstances change,’ said Artemis. ‘Perhaps we can still be allies.’

Holly chose to give Artemis the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was acting like a traitor to save their skins. Maybe.

Opal fluttered her long, curved eyelashes. ‘Tempting, but no. I feel the world is only large enough for one child genius. And now that I’m pretending to be a child, that genius would be me. Meet Belinda Zito, a girl with big plans.’

Holly reached out a hand towards her weapon but stopped when Merv levelled his transparent handgun at her.

‘I know you,’ she said to the Brill brothers. ‘The pixie twins. You were on TV.’

Scant couldn’t hold back a grin. ‘Yes, on Canto. It was the season’s highest-rated show. We’re thinking of writing a book, aren’t we, Merv? All about how we…’ ‘Finish each other’s sentences,’ completed Merv, though he knew it would cost him.

‘Shut up, you utter imbecile,’ snapped Opal, shooting Merv a poisonous glare.

‘Keep your weapon up and your mouth closed. This is not about you, it is about me.

Remember that, and I may not have to liquidize the pair of you.’

‘Yes, of course, Miss Koboi. It’s all about you.’

Opal almost purred. ‘That’s right. It’s always about me. I am the only important one here.’

Artemis casually slipped one hand into his pocket. The one holding the mobile phone that was still connected to Fowl Manor.

‘If I may, Miss Koboi. This delusion of self-importance is common among those recently awakened from comas. It is known as the Narcissus Syndrome. I wrote a paper on this precise subject for the Psychologists’ Yearbook, under the pseudonym of Sir E. Brum. You have spent so much time in your own company, so to speak, that everyone else has become unreal…’

Opal nodded at Merv. ‘For heaven’s sake, shut him up.’

Merv was glad to oblige, sinking a blue power slug into Artemis’s chest. The Irish boy dropped in mid-lecture.

‘What have you done?’ shouted Holly, dropping to Artemis’s side. She was relieved to find a steady heartbeat under the bloodied shirt.

‘Oh no,’ said Opal. ‘Not dead, merely painfully stunned. He is having quite a day, young Artemis.’

Holly glared at the small pixie, her pretty features distorted by grief and outrage.

‘What do you want from us? What else can you do?’

Opal’s face was the picture of innocence. ‘Don’t blame me. You have brought this on yourself. All I wanted to do was bring down fairy society as we know it, but oh no, you wouldn’t have it. Then I planned a couple of relatively simple assassinations, but you insisted on surviving. Kudos to you for evading the bio-bomb, by the way. I was watching the whole thing from twenty metres up in my stealth shuttle. Containing the solinium with an LEP helmet — good thinking. But now, because you have caused me so much trouble and exasperation, I think I will indulge myself a little.’

Holly swallowed the fear that was crawling up her throat.

‘Indulge yourself?’

‘Oh yes. I had a nasty little scenario planned for Foaly, something theatrical involving the Eleven Wonders. But now I have decided that you are worthy of it.’

Holly tensed herself. She should go for her gun, there was no other option. But she had to ask; it was fairy nature.

‘How nasty?’

Opal smiled, and evil was the only word for that expression.

‘Troll nasty,’ she said. ‘And one more thing. I am telling you this because you are about to die, and I want you to hate me as much as I hate you at the moment of your death.’ Opal paused, allowing the tension to build. ‘Do you remember the sweet spot on the bomb I strapped to Julius?’

Holly felt as though her heart was expanding to fill her chest. ‘I remember.’

Opal’s eyes flared. ‘Well, there wasn’t one.’

Holly went for her gun, and Merv hit her in the chest with a blue charge. She was asleep before she hit the ground.