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

Chapter 6: Troll Nasty

UNDER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, TWO MILES OFF THE KERRY COAST, IRISH WATERS

Three thousand metres below the surface of the Atlantic, an LEP sub-shuttle was speeding through a minor volcanic trench towards the mouth of a subterranean river.

The river led to an LEP shuttle port, where the sub-shuttle’s passengers could transfer to a regular craft.

Three passengers and a pilot were aboard it. The passengers were a dwarf felon and the two Atlantis marshals who were escorting him. Mulch Diggums, the felon in question, was in high spirits for someone in prison clothes, the reason being, his appeal had finally come through, and his lawyer was optimistic that all charges against his client were about to be quashed on a technicality.

Mulch Diggums was a tunnel dwarf who had abandoned the mines in favour of a life of crime. He removed items of value from Mud People’s houses and sold them on the black market. In the past few years his destiny had become intertwined with those of Artemis Fowl and Holly Short, and he had played a key part in their adventures.

Inevitably, this rollercoaster lifestyle had come crashing down around him as the long arm of the LEP closed in.

Before he had been led away to serve the remainder of his sentence, Mulch

Diggums was permitted to say goodbye to his human friend. Artemis had given him two things. One was a note advising him to check the dates on the original search warrant for his cave. The other was a gold medallion, to be returned to Artemis in two years.

Apparently Artemis had wished to resurrect their partnership at that time. Mulch had studied the medallion a thousand times, searching for its secrets, until his constant rubbing wore down the gold plating, to reveal a computer disk beneath. Obviously,

Artemis had recorded a message to himself. A way to return the memories that the LEP had taken from him.

As soon as he had been transported to the Deeps maximum-security prison outside Atlantis, Mulch had put in a request for a counsel call. When his state-appointed attorney had grudgingly turned up, Mulch advised him to check the dates on the search warrant leading to his original arrest. Somehow, amazingly, the dates were wrong.

According to the LEP computer, Julius Root had searched his cave before obtaining a search warrant. This nullified both this and all later arrests. All that remained was a lengthy processing period and one last interview with the arresting officer, and Mulch would be a free dwarf.

Finally, the day had come. Mulch was being shuttled to Police Plaza for his meeting with Julius Root. Fairy law allowed Root one thirty-minute interview to squeeze some kind of confession from Mulch. All the dwarf had to do was stay quiet, and he would be eating vole curry in his favourite dwarf chop house by dinnertime.

Mulch closed his fist round the medallion. He had no doubt who was pulling the strings here. Somehow Artemis had hacked into the LEP computer and changed his records. The Mud Boy was setting him free.

One of the marshals, a slight elf with Atlantean gills, sucked a slobbery breath in through his neck, letting it out through his mouth.

‘Hey, Mulch,’ he wheezed. ‘What are you going to do when your appeal is turned down? Are you gonna crack up like a little girl? Or are you gonna take it real stoic, like a dwarf should?’

Mulch smiled, exposing his unfeasibly large number of teeth. ‘Don’t worry about me, fishboy. I’ll be eating one of your cousins by tonight.’

Generally the sight of Mulch’s tombstone teeth was enough to freeze any smart alec comments, but the marshal was not used to backchat from an inmate.

‘Keep at it with the big mouth, dwarf. I have plenty of rocks for you to chew, back in the Deeps.’

‘In your dreams, fishboy,’ retorted Mulch, enjoying the banter after months of kowtowing.

The officer rose to his feet. ‘It’s Vishby, the name is Vishby.’

‘Yes, fishboy, that’s what I said.’

The second officer, a water sprite with batlike wings folded behind his back, chuckled. ‘Leave him alone, Vishby. Don’t you know who you’re talking to? This here is Mulch Diggums. The most famous thief under the world.’

Mulch smiled, though fame is not a good thing when you’re a thief.

‘This guy has a whole list of genius moves to his credit.’

Mulch’s smile faded as he realized that he was about to be the butt of more jokes.

‘Yeah, so first he steals the Jules Rimet trophy from the humans and tries to sell it to an undercover LEP fairy.’

Vishby sat, rubbing his hands in glee. ‘You don’t say? What a brain! How does it fit inside that itty-bitty head?’

The sprite strutted along the shuttle’s aisle, delivering his lines like an actor. ‘So then he lifts some of the Artemis Fowl gold, and he lies low in Los Angeles. And do you want to know how he lies low?’

Mulch groaned.

‘Tell me,’ wheezed Vishby, his gills unable to suck in air fast enough.

‘He buys hisself a penthouse apartment, and starts building a collection of stolen Academy Awards.’

Vishby laughed until his gills flapped.

Mulch could take it no longer. He shouldn’t have to put up with this, he was virtually a free fairy, for goodness’ sake. ‘Hisself? Hisself? I think you’ve spent a bit too long underwater. The pressure is squashing your brain.’

‘My brain is squashed?’ said the sprite. ‘I’m not the one who spent a couple of centuries in prison. I’m not the one wearing manacles and a mouth ring.’

It was true. Mulch’s criminal career had not exactly been an unqualified success.

He had been caught more often than he’d escaped. The LEP were just too technologically advanced to evade. Maybe it was time to go straight, while he still had his looks.

Mulch shook the manacles that shackled him to a rail in the holding area. ‘I won’t be wearing these for long.’

Vishby opened his mouth to respond, then he paused. A plasma screen was flashing red on a wall panel. Red was urgent. There was an important message coming through. Vishby hooked an earphone over his ear, turning the screen away from Mulch.

As the message was delivered, his face lost every trace of levity.

Several moments later he tossed the headphones on to the console. ‘It looks like you’ll be wearing those chains for a bit longer than you thought.’

Mulch’s jaw strained against the steel mouth ring. ‘Why? What’s happened?’

Vishby scratched a strip of gill-rot on his neck. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, convict, but Commander Root has been murdered.’

Mulch couldn’t have been more shocked if they had connected him to the underworld grid.

‘Murdered? How?’

‘Explosion,’ said Vishby. ‘Another LEP officer is the prime suspect. Captain Holly Short. She’s missing, presumed dead, on the surface, but that hasn’t been confirmed.’

‘I’m not a bit surprised,’ said the water sprite. ‘Females are too temperamental for police work. They couldn’t even handle a simple transport job like this.’

Mulch was in shock. He felt as though his brain had snapped its moorings and was spinning inside his head. Holly murdered Julius? How could that be possible? It wasn’t possible, simple as that. There must be a mistake. And now Holly was missing, presumed dead. How could this be happening?

‘Anyways,’ continued Vishby, ‘we gotta turn this crate round and head back to Atlantis. Obviously your little hearing is being postponed indefinitely, until this entire mess gets sorted out.’

The water sprite slapped Mulch playfully on the cheek. ‘Tough break, dwarf. Maybe they’ll get the red tape untangled in a couple of years.’

Mulch barely felt the slap, though the words penetrated. A couple of years. Could he take a couple of years in the Deeps? Already his soul was crying out for the tunnels.

He needed to feel soft earth between his fingers. His insides needed real roughage to clear them out. And, of course, there was a chance that Holly was still alive and needed help. A friend. He had no option but to escape.

Julius dead. It couldn’t be true.

Mulch mentally leafed through his dwarf abilities to select the best tool for this escape. He had long since forfeited his magic by breaking most of the fairy Book’s commandments, but dwarfs had extraordinary gifts granted them by evolution. Some of these were common knowledge among the People, but dwarfs were a notoriously secretive race who believed that their survival depended on concealing these talents. It was well known that dwarfs excavated tunnels by ingesting the earth through their unhinged jaws, then ejecting the recycled dirt and air through the other end. Most fairies were aware that dwarfs could drink through their pores, and if they stopped drinking for a while then these pores were transformed into mini suction cups. Fewer People knew that dwarf spit was luminous and hardened when layered. And no one knew that a by-product of dwarf flatulence was a methane-producing bacterium called methanobre-vibacter smithь that prevented decompression sickness in deep-sea divers.

In fairness, dwarfs didn’t know this either. All they knew was that on the rare occasions when they found themselves accidentally burrowing into the open sea, the bends did not seem to affect them.

Mulch thought about it for a moment and realized that there was a way to combine all of his talents and get out of here. He had to put his ‘on the hoof plan into effect immediately before they went into the deep Atlantic trenches. Once the sub-shuttle went too deep, he would never make it.

The craft swung in a long arc until it was heading back the way it had come. The pilot would punch the engines as soon as they were outside Irish fishing waters. Mulch began to lick his palms, smoothing the spittle through his halo of wild hair.

Vishby laughed. ‘What are you doing, Diggums? Cleaning up for your cellmate?’

Mulch would have dearly loved to unhinge his jaw and take a bite out of Vishby, but the mouth ring prevented him from opening his mouth far enough to unhinge. He had to content himself with an insult.

‘I may be a prisoner, fishboy, but in ten years I’ll be free. You, on the other hand, will be an ugly bottom-feeder for the rest of your life.’

Vishby scratched his gill-rot furiously. ‘You just bought yourself six weeks in solitary, mister.’

Mulch slathered his fingers with spittle, spreading it around the crown of his head, reaching as far back as the manacles would allow. He could feel it hardening, clamping on to his head like a helmet. Exactly like a helmet. As he licked, Mulch drew great breaths of air through his nose, storing the air in his intestines. Each breath sucked air out of the pressurized space faster than the pumps could push it back in.

The marshals did not notice this unusual behaviour, and even if they had, the pair would doubtless have put it down to nerves. Deep breathing and grooming: classic nervous traits. Who could blame Mulch for being nervous — after all, he was heading back to the very place criminals had nightmares about.

Mulch licked and breathed, his chest blowing up like a bellows. He felt the pressure fluttering down below, anxious to be released.

Hold on, he told himself. You will need every bubble of that air.

The shell on his head crackled audibly now, and if the lights were dimmed, it would glow brightly. The air was growing thin, and Vishby’s gills noticed even if he didn’t. They rippled and flapped, boosting their oxygen intake. Mulch sucked again, a huge gulp of air. A bow plate clanged as the pressure differential grew.

The sprite noticed the change first. ‘Hey, fishboy.’

Vishby’s pained expression spoke of years enduring this nickname. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’

‘OK, Vishby, keep your scales on. Is it getting hard to breathe in here? I can’t keep my wings up.’

Vishby touched his gills; they were flapping like bunting in the wind. ‘Wow. My gills are going crazy. What’s happening here?’ He pressed the cabin intercom panel.

‘Everything all right? Maybe we could boost the air pumps?’

The voice that came back was calm and professional, but with an anxious undertone that was unmistakable. ‘We’re losing pressure in the holding area. I’m trying to nail down the leak now.’

‘Leak?’ squeaked Vishby. ‘If we depressurize at this depth, the shuttle will crumple like a paper cup.’

Mulch took another huge breath.

‘Get everyone into the cockpit. Come through the airlock, right now.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Vishby. ‘We’re not supposed to untie the prisoner. He’s a slippery one.’

The slippery one took another breath. And this time a stern plate actually buckled with a crack like thunder.

‘OK, OK. We’re coming.’

Mulch held out his hands. ‘Hurry up, fishboy. We don’t all have gills.’

Vishby swiped his security card along the magnetic strip on Mulch’s manacles.

The manacles popped open. Mulch was free… as free as you can be in a prison sub with three thousand crushing metres of water overhead. He stood, taking one last gulp of air.

Vishby noticed the act.

‘Hey, convict, what are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Are you sucking in all the air?’

Mulch burped. ‘Who, me? That’s ridiculous.’

The sprite was equally suspicious. ‘He’s up to something. Look, his hair is all shiny. I bet this is one of those secret dwarf arts.’

Mulch tried to look sceptical. ‘What? Air sucking and shiny hair? I’m not surprised we kept it a secret.’

Vishby squinted at him. The marshal’s eyes were red-rimmed, and his speech was slurred from oxygen deprivation. ‘You’re up to something. Put out your hands.’

Getting shackled again now was not part of the plan. Mulch feigned weakness. ‘I can’t breathe,’ he said, leaning against the wall. ‘I hope I don’t die in your custody.’

This statement caused enough distraction for Mulch to heave one more mighty breath. The stern plate creased inwardly, a silver stress-line cracking through the paint.

All over the compartment red pressure lights flared on.

The pilot’s voice blared through the speaker. ‘Get in here!’ he shouted, all traces of composure gone. ‘She’s gonna fold.’

Vishby grabbed Mulch by the lapels. ‘What did you do, dwarf?’

Mulch sank to his knees, flicking open the bum-flap at the rear of his prison overalls. He gathered his legs together under him, ready to move.

‘Listen, Vishby,’ he said. ‘You’re a moron, but not a bad guy, so do like the pilot says and get in there.’

Vishby’s gills flapped weakly, searching for air. ‘You’ll be killed, Diggums.’

Mulch winked at him. ‘I’ve been dead before.’

Mulch could hold on to the gas no longer. His digestive tract was stretched like a magician’s animal balloon. He folded his arms across his chest, aimed the coated tip of his head at the weakened plate and let the gas loose.

The resultant emission shook the sub-shuttle to its very rivets, sending Mulch rocketing across the hold. He slammed into the stern plate, smack in the centre of the fault line, punching straight through. His speed popped him out into the ocean, perhaps half a second before the sudden change in pressure flooded the sub’s chamber. Half a second later, the rear chamber was crushed like a ball of used tinfoil. Vishby and his partner had escaped to the pilot’s cockpit just in time.

Mulch sped towards the surface, a stream of released gas bubbles clipping him along at a rate of several knots. His dwarf lungs fed on the trapped air in his digestive tract, and the luminous helmet of spittle sent out a corona of greenish light to illuminate his way.

Of course they came after him. Vishby and the water sprite were both amphibious Atlantis dwellers. As soon as they jettisoned the wreckage of the rear compartment, the marshals cleared the airlock, finning after their fugitive. But they never had a prayer. Mulch was gas-powered; they merely had wings and fins. Whatever pursuit equipment they’d had was at the bottom of the ocean, along with the rear compartment, and the cockpit’s back-up engines could barely outrun a crab.

The Atlantis marshals could only watch as their captive jetted towards the surface, mocking them with every bubble from his behind.

Butler’s mobile phone had been reduced to so many plastic chips and bits of weiring by the jump from the hotel window. This meant that Artemis could not call him if he needed immediate assistance. The bodyguard double-parked the Hummer outside the first Phonetix store he saw, and purchased a tri-band car-phone kit. Butler activated the phone on the way to the airport and punched in Artemis’s number. No good; the phone was switched off. Butler hung up and tried Fowl Manor. Nobody home, and no messages.

Butler breathed deeply, stayed calm and floored the accelerator. The drive to the airport took less than ten minutes. The giant bodyguard did not waste time returning the Hummer to the rental-agency car park, preferring to abandon it in the set-down area. It would be towed, and he would be fined, but he didn’t have time to worry about it now.

The next plane to Ireland was fully booked, so Butler paid a Polish businessman two thousand euro for his first-class ticket, and in forty-five minutes he was on the Aer Lingus shuttle to Dublin Airport. He kept trying Artemis’s number until they started the engines, and switched his phone on again as soon as the wheels touched down.

It was dark by the time he left the Arrivals terminal. Less than half a day had passed since they had broken into the safety deposit box in Munich’s International

Bank. It was incredible that so much could happen in such a short time. Still, when you worked for Artemis Fowl II, the incredible was almost a daily occurrence. Butler had been with Artemis since the day of his birth, just over fourteen years ago, and in that time he had been dragged into more fantastic situations than the average presidential bodyguard.

The Fowl Bentley was parked in the prestige level of the short-stay car park.

Butler slotted his new phone into the car kit and tried Artemis again. No luck. But when he remote accessed the mailbox at Fowl Manor, there was one message. From Artemis.

Butler’s grip tightened on the leather steering wheel. Alive. The boy was alive at least.

The message started well enough, then took a decidedly strange turn. Artemis claimed to be unhurt, but perhaps was suffering from concussion or post-traumatic stress, because Butler’s young charge also claimed that fairies were responsible for the strange missile. A pixie, to be precise. And now he was in the company of an elf, which was apparently a completely different animal from a pixie. Not only that, but the elf was an old friend who they had forgotten. And the pixie was an old enemy who they couldn’t remember. It was all very strange. Butler could only conclude that Artemis was trying to tell him something, and that hidden inside these crazed meanderings was a message. He would have to analyse the tape as soon as he returned to Fowl Manor.

Then the recording became an unfolding drama. More players came within range of Artemis’s microphone. The alleged pixie, Opal, and her bodyguards joined the group.

Threats were exchanged and Artemis tried to talk his way out. It didn’t work. If Artemis had a fault, it was that he tended to be very patronizing, even in crisis situations. The pixie, Opal, or whoever it really was, certainly didn’t take kindly to being spoken down to. It appeared that she considered herself every bit Artemis’s equal, if not his superior.

She ordered Artemis silenced in mid-lecture, and her command was obeyed instantly.

Butler experienced a moment of dread, until the pixie stated that Artemis was not dead, merely stunned. Artemis’s new ally was similarly stunned, but not before she learned of their planned theatrical demise. Something to do with the Eleven Wonders, and trolls.

‘You cannot be serious,’ muttered Butler, pulling off the motorway at the exit for Fowl Manor.

To the average passer-by it would seem as though several rooms in the manor at the end of the avenue were occupied, but Butler knew that the bulbs in these rooms were all on timers and would switch on and off at irregular intervals. There was even a stereo system wired to each room that would pump talk radio into various areas of the house. All measures designed to put off a casual burglar. None of which, Butler knew,

would put off a professional thief.

The bodyguard opened the electronic gates and sped up the pebbled driveway.

He drew up directly in front of the main door, not bothering to park it in the shelter of the double garage. He pulled out his handgun and clip holster from a magnetic strip under the driver’s seat. It was possible that the kidnappers had sent a representative who could already be inside the manor.

Butler knew as soon as he opened the main door that something was wrong. The alarm’s thirty-second warning should have begun its countdown immediately, but it did not. This was because the entire box was covered in a case of some shiny, crackling,

fibreglass-like substance. Butler poked it gingerly. The stuff glowed and seemed almost organic.

Butler proceeded along the lobby, sticking to the walls. He glanced towards the ceilings. Green lights winked in the shadows. At least the CCTV cameras were still working. Even if the manor’s visitors had left, he should get a look at them on the security tapes.

The bodyguard’s foot brushed against something. He glanced down. A large crystal bowl lay on the rug, the remains of a sherry trifle slopping in its base. Beside it lay a wad of gravy-encrusted tinfoil. A hungry kidnapper? A little way on, he found an empty champagne bottle and a stripped chicken carcass. Just how many intruders had been here?

The remnants of food formed a trail that led towards the study. Butler followed it upstairs, stepping over a half-eaten T-bone steak, two chunks of fruit cake and a pavlova shell. A light shone from the study doorway, casting a small shadow into the hall. There was someone in the study. A not very tall someone. Artemis?

Butler’s spirits rose for a second when he heard his employer’s voice, but they sank just as quickly. He recognized those words: he had listened to them himself in the car. The intruder was playing the taped message on the answering machine.

Butler crept into the study, stepping so lightly that his footfalls would not have alerted a deer. Even from the back, this intruder was a strange fellow. He was barely a metre tall, with a stocky torso and thick, muscled limbs. His entire body appeared to be covered with wild wiry hair that seemed to move independently. His head was encased in a helmet of the same glowing substance that had incapacitated the alarm box. The intruder was wearing a blue jumpsuit with a flap in the seat. The flap was half unbuttoned, giving Butler a view of a hairy rear end that seemed unsettlingly familiar.

The taped message was coming to an end.

Artemis’s abductor was describing what lay in store for the Irish boy. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘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.’

‘How nasty?’ asked Artemis’s new ally, Holly.

‘Troll nasty,’ responded Opal.

The Fowl Manor intruder made a loud sucking noise, then discarded the remains of an entire rack of lamb.

‘Not good,’ he said. ‘This is really bad.’

Butler cocked his weapon, aiming it squarely at the intruder.

‘It’s about to get worse,’ he said.

Butler sat the intruder in one of the study’s leather armchairs, then pulled a second chair round to face him. From the front, this little creature looked even stranger.

His face was basically a mass of wire-like hair surrounding eyes and teeth. The eyes occasionally glowed red like a fox’s, and the teeth looked like two rows of picket fencing. This was no hairy child, this was an adult creature of some sort.

‘Don’t tell me,’ sighed Butler. ‘You’re an elf.’

The creature sat up straight. ‘How dare you!’ he cried. ‘I am a dwarf, as you very well know.’

Butler thought back to Artemis’s confusing message.

‘Let me guess. I used to know you, but somehow I forgot. Oh yes, the fairy police wiped my mind.’

Mulch burped. ‘Correct. You’re not as slow as you look.’

Butler raised the gun. ‘This is still cocked, so less of the lip, little man.’

‘Pardon me, I didn’t realize we were enemies now.’

Butler leaned forward in his chair. ‘We were friends?’

Mulch thought about it. ‘Not at first, no. But I think you grew to love me for my charm and noble character.’

Butler sniffed. ‘And personal hygiene?’

‘That’s not fair,’ objected Mulch. ‘Do you have any idea what I had to do to get here? I escaped from a sub-shuttle and swam a couple of miles in freezing cold water.

Then I had to break into a blacksmith’s in the west of Ireland — about the only place they still have blacksmiths — and snip off my mouth ring. Don’t ask. Then I burrowed across the entire country to find out the truth about this entire affair. And when I get here, one of the few Mud Men that I don’t feel like taking a bite out of is pointing a gun at me.’

‘Hold on a minute,’ said Butler. ‘I need to get a tissue to wipe my eyes.’

‘You don’t believe any of this, do you?’

‘Do I believe in fairy police and pixie conspiracies and tunnelling dwarfs? No, I don’t.’

Mulch reached slowly inside his jumpsuit, pulling out the gold-plated computer disk.

‘Maybe this will open your mind.’

Butler turned on one of Artemis’s Powerbooks, making sure the laptop was not connected to any other computer by wire or infrared. If this disk did contain a virus, then they would lose only one hard drive. He cleaned the disk off with a cleaner spray and cloth, sliding it into the multi- drive.

The computer asked for a password.

‘This disk is locked,’ said Butler. ‘What’s the password?’

Mulch shrugged, a French stick in each hand. ‘Hey, I don’t know. It’s Artemis’s disk.’

Butler frowned. If this really was Artemis’s disk, then Artemis’s password would open it. He typed in three words. Aurum potestas est. Gold is power. The family motto.

Seconds later the locked disk icon was replaced by a window containing two folders.

One was labelled ‘Artemis’, the other ‘Butler’. Before the bodyguard opened either, he ran a virus check just in case. The check came up clean.

Feeling strangely nervous, Butler opened the folder with his name on it. There were over a hundred files on it. Mostly text files, but some video too. The largest file was labelled ‘view me first’. Butler double-clicked that file.

A small Quicktime player opened on the screen. In the picture, Artemis was seated at the very desk which the laptop rested on. Bizarre. Butler clicked the ‘play’ triangle.

‘Hello, Butler,’ said Artemis’s voice. Either that or a very sophisticated fake. ‘If you are watching this, then our good friend Mister Diggums has come good.’

‘You hear that?’ spat Mulch through a mouthful of bread. ‘ Good friend Mister Diggums.’

‘Quiet!’

‘Everything you think you know about this planet is about to change,’ continued Artemis. ‘Humans are not the only sentient beings on Earth; in fact we are not even the most technologically advanced. Below the surface are several species of fairy. Most are possibly primates, but I have not had an opportunity to conduct medical examinations as yet.’

Butler could not hide his impatience. ‘Please, Artemis. Get to the point.’

‘But more of that at another time,’ said Artemis, as if he had heard. ‘There is a possibility that you are watching this at a time of peril, so I must arm you with all the knowledge that we have gathered during our adventures with the Lower Elements Police.’

Lower Elements Police? thought Butler. This is all a fake. Somehow it’s fake.

Again the video-Artemis seemed to read his thoughts. ‘In order to verify the fantastical facts that I am about to reveal, I will say one word. Just one. A word that I could not possibly know unless you had told me. Something you said as you lay dying, before Holly Short cured you with her magic. What would you tell me if you lay dying, old friend? What would be the single word you would say?’

I would tell you my first name, thought Butler. Something only two other people in the world know. Something completely forbidden by bodyguard etiquette, unless it is too late to matter.

Artemis leaned in to the camera. ‘Your name, my old friend, is Domovoi.’

Butler was reeling mentally. Oh my God, he thought. It’s true, it’s all true.

Something began to happen in his brain then. Disjointed images flashed through his subconscious, releasing repressed memories. The false past was swept away by blinding truth. An electric join-the-dots jolted through his cranium, making everything clear. It all made sense now. He felt old, because the healing had aged him. Sometimes he found it difficult to breathe, because Kevlar strands had been woven into the skin over his chest wound. He remembered Holly’s kidnapping, and the B’wa Kell goblin revolution. He remembered Holly and Julius, the centaur Foaly and, of course, Mulch Diggums. There was no need to read the other files; one word had been enough. He remembered everything.

Butler studied the dwarf with fresh eyes. Everything was so familiar now: the vibrating frizz of hair, the bow-legged stance, the smell. He sprang from his chair, striding across to Mulch, who was busy raiding the study’s mini-fridge.

‘Mulch, you old reprobate. Good to see you.’

‘Now he remembers,’ said the dwarf without turning round. ‘Do you have anything to say?’

Butler glanced at the open bum-flap. ‘Yes. Don’t point that thing at me. I’ve seen the damage it can do.’

The bodyguard’s smile froze on his face as he remembered one detail of Artemis’s phone message.

‘Julius? I heard something about a bomb.’

Mulch turned from the fridge, his beard laced with a cocktail of dairy products.

‘Yes. Julius is gone. I can’t believe it. He’s been chasing me for so many years.’

Butler felt a terrific weariness weighing on his shoulders. He had lost too many comrades over the years.

‘And what’s more,’ continued Mulch, ‘Holly is accused of murdering him.’

‘That’s just not possible. We have to find them.’

‘Now you’re talking,’ said the dwarf, slamming the fridge door. ‘Do you have a plan?’

‘Yes. Find Holly and Artemis.’

Mulch rolled his eyes. ‘Pure genius. It’s a wonder you need Artemis at all.’

Now that the dwarf had eaten his fill, the two reacquainted friends sat round the conference table and brought each other up to speed.

Butler cleaned his gun as he spoke. He often did this in times of stress. It was a comfort thing.

‘So, Opal Koboi somehow gets out of prison and hatches this complicated plot to avenge herself on everyone who put her in there. Not only that, but she sets Holly up to take the blame.’

‘Remind you of anyone?’ asked the dwarf.

Butler polished the Sig Sauer’s slide. ‘Artemis may be a criminal, but he is not evil.’

‘Who said anything about Artemis?’

‘Well, what about you, Mulch? Why didn’t Opal try to kill you?’

‘Ah well,’ sighed the dwarf, ever the martyr. ‘The LEP didn’t advertise my involvement. It wouldn’t do to have the proud officers of our police force tarnished by association with a known criminal.’

Butler nodded. ‘It makes sense. So, you’re safe for now, and Artemis and Holly are alive. But Opal has something planned for them. Something to do with trolls and the Eleven Wonders. Any ideas?’

‘We both know about trolls, right?’

Butler nodded again. He had fought a troll not so long ago — without a doubt the toughest battle he had ever been involved in. He couldn’t believe the LEP had managed to wipe it from his mind.

‘But what about the Eleven Wonders?’

‘The Eleven Wonders is a theme park in Haven’s Old Town district. Fairies are obsessed with Mud Men, so one bright-spark billionaire thought it would be a great idea to build smaller models of the human wonders of the world and put them all in one place. It did OK for a few years, but I think looking at these buildings made the People remember just how much they missed the surface.’

Butler ran through a list in his head. ‘But there are only seven wonders in the world.’

‘There used to be eleven,’ said Mulch. ‘Trust me, I have photographs. Anyway, the park is closed down now. That whole area of the city has been abandoned for years — the tunnels are not safe. And the whole place is overrun by trolls.’ He stopped suddenly, the horror of what he had just said hitting home. ‘Oh gods. Trolls.’

Butler began to quickly reassemble his weapon. ‘We need to get down there right now.’

‘Impossible,’ said Mulch. ‘I can’t even begin to think how.’

Butler dragged the dwarf to his feet, propelling him towards the door.

‘Maybe not. But you know someone. People in your business always know someone.’

Mulch ground his teeth, thinking about it. ‘You know, there is someone. A sprite who owes Holly his life. But whatever I persuade him to do for us won’t be legal.’

Butler grabbed a bag of weaponry from a cabinet.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Illegal is always faster.’