CHAPTER 7
By the time Mulch and Doodah landed outside Tourrettes sur Loup, the dwarf was a nervous wreck.
“He’s crazy,” he gibbered, tumbling from the hatch of a tiny titanium pod, which had been landed expertly on a flat patch not much bigger than a postage stamp. “The pixie is crazy! Give me your gun, Holly. I’m going to shoot him.”
Doodah Day appeared in the hatch and hopped nimbly to the ground. “That ship is fantastic,” he said in Gnommish. “Where can I get one?”
His grin withered and died when he noticed that the thing he had previously believed to be a tree moved and spoke in one of the primitive Mud Man tongues.
“This would be Doodah Day, I presume. He makes a lot of noise, doesn’t he?”
“Arkkkk!” said Doodah. “Big Mud Man.”
“Yes, he is,” said another Mud Man, or maybe a Mud Boy. This one was smaller, but somehow seemed even more dangerous.
“You speak Gnommish?” asked the terrified pixie, in case the big one would eat him for not being polite.
“Yes,” said Artemis. “I do, but Butler is not so fluent. So, English, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Sure thing. Not a problem,” said Doodah, grateful that he still had the tiny spark of magic left in his brain necessary to fuel his gift of tongues.
Doodah and Mulch had flown across the lower peaks of the Alps Maritime in a pod built for riding the magma flares from the earth’s core. These chutes had rudimentary shields, but they were not intended for aboveground travel. Doodah’s instructions had been to ride the hotshots to a small port near Bern, Switzerland, then strap on a pair of wings and low-fly the rest of the way. But once Doodah got behind the pod’s wheel, he decided that it would be much faster if they did the second leg on board the tiny ship.
Holly was impressed. “You fly pretty well for a smuggler. Those pods handle like a three-legged pig.”
Doodah slapped a titanium fin fondly. “She’s a good girl. You just need to treat her right.”
Mulch was still shaking. “We came this close! This close to being incinerated. I lost count after the first dozen times.”
Doodah chortled. “That’s not all you lost, dwarf. Someone is going to have to swab the decks in there.”
Holly looked Doodah in the eyes. Okay, they were making small talk, but there was a little history between them.
“You could have killed me, pixie,” said Holly evenly, giving the little smuggler a chance to explain himself.
“I know. I nearly did. That’s why it’s time for me to get out of the business. Review the situation. Take a long hard look at my priorities.”
“Horse manure,” tutted Holly. “I don’t believe a word.”
“Me neither,” said Doodah. “That’s my parole-board spiel. With the big eyes and the wobbly lip, works every time. But seriously, I’m sorry about the multi-mixer thing, officer. I was desperate. But you were never in danger. These hands are pure magic on a wheel.”
Holly decided to let it go. Nursing a grudge would only make a difficult mission next to impossible. And anyway, now Doodah would have a chance to make it up to her.
Butler lifted Mulch to his feet.
“How are you doing there, Mulch?”
Mulch glowered at Doodah. “I will be doing fine once my head stops spinning. That ship is only built for one, you know. I’ve had that little monkey in my lap for the past few hours. Every time we went over a bump, he butted me under the chin.”
Butler winked at his dwarf friend. “Well, look at it this way. You had to take a ride in his environment, but now he has to take a ride in yours.”
Doodah caught the end of that sentence. “Ride? What ride? Who has to take a ride?”
Mulch rubbed his hairy palms together. “I am going to enjoy this.”
They lay down side by side in a low ditch overlooking the chateau. The land sloped gently downward and was dotted with the twisted forms of ancient olive trees. The surface soil was dry and loose, but reasonably tasty, according to Mulch.
“The Alpine water is pretty good,” he explained, spitting out a mouthful of pebbles. “And the olives give the clay a nice tang.”
“That’s very nice,” said Artemis patiently. “But all I really want to know is can you make it to the septic tank?”
“Septic tank?” said Doodah nervously. “What are we talking about septic tanks for? I ain’t going into no septic tank. Forget the deal.”
“Not into the tank,” corrected Artemis. “Behind it. The tank is the only cover before the chateau itself.”
Holly was scanning the terrain with her visor. “The tank is buried as close to the house as possible. After that it’s just rock. But you have a nice thick vein of soil as far as that point. What you need to do is lure that boy in the cowboy hat in behind the tank with a bar of chocolate, then Doodah takes his place.”
“Then what? That toy car isn’t going anywhere fast.”
“It doesn’t need to, Doodah. All you have to do is drive inside the house and wind this around any video cable you see.”
Holly handed Doodah a cable tie with tiny spikes along its length. “This is loaded with fiber optics. Once it’s in place, we own their surveillance.”
“Can we rewind to the bar of chocolate?” said Mulch. “Does anyone have one?”
“Here,” said Artemis, handing him a flat bar in a green wrapper. “Butler bought this in the village. It’s very low quality, not seventy percent cocoa, or fair trade, for that matter, but it will do.”
“So what about after the kid eats the chocolate?” asked Mulch. “What do I do with a kid?”
“You are not to injure him,” said Holly. “Just entertain him for a minute.”
“Entertain him? How am I supposed to do that?”
“Use your dwarf talents,” suggested Artemis. “Young children are inquisitive. Eat some rocks. Pass wind. Little Beau will be fascinated.”
“Couldn’t I just shoot him?”
“Mulch!” said Holly, horrified.
“I don’t mean kill him. Just knock him out for a few minutes. Kids like naps. I’d be doing him a favor, really.”
“Knocking him out would be ideal,” admitted Holly.
“But I don’t have anything safe, so you’ll have to keep him busy for five minutes tops.”
“I am a charmer, I suppose,” said Mulch. “And if worst comes to worst, I can always eat him.” He grinned widely at Holly’s shocked expression. “I’m kidding. Honest. I’d never eat a Mud Kid, they’re too bony.”
Holly elbowed Artemis, who was beside her on the bank. “Are you sure about this?”
“It was your basic idea,” replied Artemis. “But, yes, I am sure. There are other options, but we don’t have the time. Mulch has always displayed initiative. I feel certain he won’t let us down. As for Mr. Day, his freedom is on the line. A strong incentive to perform.”
“Enough of the chatter,” said Mulch. “I’m starting to burn, here. You know how sensitive dwarf skin is.” He stood and unbuttoned the bum-flap on the seat of his pants. (Where else would a bum-flap be?) “Okay, pixie. Hop on.”
Doodah Day seemed genuinely frightened. “Are you sure?”
Mulch sighed. “Sure I’m sure. What are you afraid of? It’s just a rear end.”
“Yeah, maybe. But it’s smiling at me.”
“Perhaps it’s happy to see you. You don’t want to be there if it gets angry.”
Holly punched Mulch on the shoulder.
“That is a really bad habit,” complained Mulch, rubbing his arm. “You should see someone about your anger issues.”
“Could you please quit the bum talk? We’re on a tight schedule here!”
“Okay. Get on, pixie. I promise it won’t bite.”
Butler lifted the tiny pixie onto Mulch’s back.
“Just don’t look down,” advised the bodyguard. “You’ll be okay.”
“Easy for you to say,”grumbled Doodah.“You’re not the one riding the whirlwind. You never mentioned this in the restaurant, Diggums.”
Artemis pointed at the pixie’s backpack. “Do you really need that, Mr. Day? It’s not very streamlined.”
Doodah held on to the strap. “Tools of the trade, Mud Boy. They go where I go.”
“Very well,” said Artemis. “A word of advice. Get in and out as fast as you can.”
Doodah rolled his eyes. “Wow, that’s great advice. You should write a book.”
Mulch chortled. “Good one.”
“And avoid his family,” continued Artemis. “Especially the girl Minerva.”
“Family. Minerva. Got it. Now let’s go if we’re going, before I lose my nerve.”
The dwarf unhinged his jaw with wince-worthy cracks and dived headfirst into the mound of earth. It was something to see, scythe-like jaws chomping through the dirt, excavating a tunnel for the dwarf and his passenger.
Doodah’s eyes were tightly shut, and his expression was ne of absolute shock.
“Oh, gods,” he said. “Let me off. Let me . . .”
Then they were gone, lost under a blanket of vibrating earth. Holly elbowed her way atop the mound, following their progress through her visor.
“Diggums is fast,” she proclaimed. “I’m surprised we ever caught him.”
Artemis lay beside her. “I hope he’s fast enough. The last thing we need is for Minerva Paradizo to add a dwarf and a pixie to her fairy collection.”
Mulch felt good underground. This was a dwarf’s natural habitat. His fingers absorbed the rhythms of the earth, and they calmed him. His coarse beard hairs, which were actually a series of sensors, dug into the clay, worming into cracks, sending out pings and reporting back to Mulch’s brain. He could feel rabbits digging half a mile to his left. Maybe he could snag one on the way back, for a snack.
Doodah hung on for dear life. His face was a rictus of desperation. He would have screamed but that would have meant opening his mouth. And that was out of the question.
Just below Doodah’s toes, Mulch’s behind churned out a rapid-fire mixture of dirt and air, driving the pair deeper into the tunnel. Doodah could feel the heat from the reaction spreading up his legs. Every now and then the pixie’s boots dropped too close to the dwarf’s rear exhaust, and Doodah would have to jerk them up or lose a toe.
It only took Mulch a minute to reach the septic tank. He eased himself from the earth, blinking mud from his eyes with thick corkscrew dwarf lashes.
“Spot on,” he mumbled, spitting out a wriggling worm.
Doodah hauled himself over the dwarf’s head, clamping a hand over his own mouth to stop himself from screaming. After several deep breaths he calmed down sufficiently to hiss at Mulch.
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
Mulch rehinged his jaw, then released a final burst of tunnel gas, which popped him out of the earth.
“It’s what I do. Let’s say we’re even for the pod ride.”
Doodah disagreed. “Let’s say I still owe you one for swallowing me.”
The bickering would probably have continued, in spite of the urgency of their mission, had not a little boy in a electric toy car come trundling around the corner of the tank.
“Hello. I am Beau Paradizo,” said the driver. “Are you monsters?”
Doodah and Mulch froze momentarily, then remembered the plan.
“No, little boy,” said Mulch, glad he still had the tiny spark of magic necessary to speak French. He tried to smile endearingly, something he didn’t spend a lot of time practicing in the mirror.“We are the chocolate fairies. And we have a special gift for you.” He waved the chocolate bar, hoping the theatrical presentation would make the cheap candy seem more impressive than it was.
“Chocolate fairies?” said the boy, climbing from his car. “Sugar-free chocolate, I hope. Because I get hyper with sugar, and Daddy says that God knows I’m already hyper enough without it, but he still loves me.”
Mulch glanced at the label. Eighteen percent sugar.
“Yep. Sugar free. Would you like a square?”
Beau took the entire bar and demolished it in less than ten seconds.
“You fairies stink. Especially you, hairy. You stink worse than the blocked toilet in Aunty Morgana’s. Stinky fairy.”
Doodah laughed. “What can I tell you. The kid tells it like it is, Mulch.”
“Do you live in a blocked toilet, Mr. Fatty Chocolate Fairy?”
“Hey,” said Mulch brightly. “How about a nap? Would you like a nap, kid?”
Beau Paradizo punched Mulch in the stomach. “I had a nap, stupid. More chocolate! Now!”
“No punching! I don’t have more chocolate.”
Beau punched him again. “I said more chocolate! Or I’m going to call the guards. And Pierre will reach down your throat and pull out your guts. That’s what he does. He told me.”
Mulch sniggered. “I’d like to see him reach into my insides.”
“Really?” Beau asked brightly. “I’ll get him!” The little boy sprinted for the corner of the tank. He moved with surprising speed, and Mulch’s instincts took over for his brain. The dwarf leaped toward the boy, unhinging as he went.
“Pierre!” shouted Beau once, but not a second time, because Mulch had enclosed him in his mouth. All except the cowboy hat.
“Do not swallow!” hissed Doodah.
Mulch worked the boy around his cheeks for a few seconds, then spat him out. Beau was dripping wet and sound asleep. Mulch wiped the child’s face before the dwarf spittle could harden.
“Sedative in the saliva,” he explained, hooking up his jaw. “It’s a predator thing. You didn’t fall asleep yesterday, because I didn’t do your head. He’ll wake up completely refreshed. I’ll peel this stuff off when it hardens.”
Doodah shrugged. “Hey, do I care? I didn’t like him anyway.”
A voice drifted over the tank. “Beau? Where are you?”
“That must be Pierre. You better get moving, lead him away from here.”
Doodah poked his head above the embankment. A large man was headed their way. Not as large as Butler, true, but plenty big enough to squash the pixie under a single boot. The man wore a black security jumpsuit with a matching hat. A pistol grip poked from between the buttons. The man squinted toward the tank.
“Beau? Is that you?” he said in French.
“Oui. C’est moi,”
replied Doodah, in a warbling falsetto.
Pierre was not convinced. The voice had sounded more like a talking piglet than a child. He kept coming, reaching inside his jumpsuit for the gun.
Doodah bolted for the electric car. On the way he picked up Beau’s cowboy hat and jammed it onto his head. Pierre was barely a dozen steps away now, and quickening his pace.