“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 Vinyáya 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 off a few 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 dishonored 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 council gets 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 ahold of her work. The staff thinks 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-colored 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 had to make do with the mike pad on her neck and an iris-cam suckered like a contact lense 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.
“Okay, 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, bro. 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 favor,” 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 lecture. You’re not even three years older than I am.”
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 Dr. 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 humor, then I construct a perfectly sound pun around 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 similar to him.
“There was a security camera in the compartment 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. Fish-eye 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 to 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 around to face the spot where N
o
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, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “We’re planning a June wedding.”
CHAPTER 9
When Holly Short had opened the door of her makeshift basement cell, she had found her helmet bouncing on the spot in front of her with a 3-D image of Foaly’s face projected onto it.
“That is really creepy,” she said. “Couldn’t you just text me?”
Foaly had included a 3-D help program in Holly’s helmet’s computer. It came as no surprise to Holly that he had given the help module his own features.
“I’ve lost some weight since this model was constructed,” said Foaly’s image. “I’ve been jogging. Every evening.”
“Focus,” Holly ordered.
Holly dipped her chin and Foaly bounced the helmet onto her head. She sealed it tight.
“Where is the demon?”
“Straight up the stairs. Second door on the left,” answered Foaly.
“Good. You’ve wiped our patterns from the security system?”
“Of course. The demon is invisible, and you can’t be picked up, no matter what kind of lens they use.”
Holly jumped up the human-size steps. It would have been easier to fly, but she had left her wings outside, along with her suit computer. There had been no need to risk placing them in human hands, other than Artemis’s. And even that had taken a little thinking about.
She hurried along the corridor, past the first door on the left, and crept through the open doorway of the second, taking in the situation with a quick scan of the room.
The demon was secured on a chair, and the human girl was on the phone facing away from him. There was a large two-way mirror on the wall. Holly used her thermal scan to ascertain that the adjoining room had one occupant, a large male. He appeared to be talking on his cell phone, not facing the demon’s cell.
“Should I stun the girl?” asked Foaly hopefully. “She knocked you out with sleeping gas.” He was quite enjoying playing with his new toy. It was like a first-person computer game.
“I wasn’t actually unconscious,” said Holly, her words contained by the helmet’s seal. “I was holding my breath. Artemis had told me that she would use gas. The first thing I did was vent the vehicle.”
“What about that Mud Man next door?” persisted Foaly. “I can focus the laser through the glass. It’s quite clever, really.”
“Shut up or you will pay for it when I get home,” warned Holly. “We only shoot in an emergency.”
Holly skirted Minerva, careful to avoid brushing against the Mud Girl or treading on a loose board. A single creak now could scupper all their plans. She squatted before the little demon, who did not seem too worried about his plight. What he was actually doing was listing off words, and having a little giggle after every one.
“‘Cornucopia,’ oh, very good,” he said. And then. “‘Sanitary.’ I like that one. Hee-hee.”
Marvelous, thought Holly. This demon obviously lost a few brain cells in the transfer. She used voice command to type a text on her visor.
“Nod if you can read this,” the text read. To the demon, the words appeared floating in space before him.
“‘Nod if you can . . .’” he mouthed, then stopped and began nodding furiously.
“Stop nodding!” sent Holly. “I am an elf. One of the First Family of fairies. I am here to rescue you. Do you understand?”
No response, so Holly sent a command. “Nod once if you understand.”
A single nod from the demon.
“Good. All you need to do is stay very still and quiet.”
Another nod. The little demon was catching on.
Foaly had transferred his image to the inside of Holly’s visor.
“Ready?” asked the centaur.
“Yep. You keep an eye on the Mud Man next door. If he turns around, then you can stun him.”
Holly wiggled her hand up her right sleeve, pincering a sheet of foil between her index and middle fingers. This is not as easy as it sounds, when a fairy is shielded and vibrating at speeds faster than the human eye could follow. It was made easier by the Section 8 suit, which reduced the amount of vibration necessary. Holly pulled out and unfolded a large square of cam-foil that automatically projected a fair approximation of what should be behind it. Each bead on the cam-foil was actually a fairy-made multifaceted diamond that could reflect accurately no matter what the viewing angle was.
She backed up close to N
o
1, then held up the sheet of foil. The foil was equipped with multisensor technology, so it was a simple matter for Foaly to wipe N
o
1 from the projection. To Minerva it would seem that her demon captive had simply vanished. To N
o
1 it would seem like nothing whatsoever was happening, and that this was the lamest rescue in the history of rescues.
Seconds later, Minerva turned quickly to face them.
N
o
1 nodded hello, and was amazed to find that Minerva could not see him.
“Where is he, Artemis?” the girl screamed into her phone. “Where is my prize?”
N
o
1 thought about saying
I’m right here!
but decided against it.
“You tricked me!” squealed Minerva. “You
allowed
me to capture your demon!”
Finally the penny drops, thought Holly. Now go and search the chateau like a good girl.
Minerva obligingly stalked out of the room, yelling for her father. Next door, Papa Paradizo, hearing his daughter’s screams, closed his phone, and began to turn . . .
Foaly activated the helmet laser and shot him in the chest. He tumbled to the floor and lay in a heap, his chest heaving with the slow breaths of the unconscious.
“Sweet,” crowed the centaur. “Did you see that? Not so much as a smudge on the glass.”
“He was heading for the door!” objected Holly, dropping the cam-foil.
“He was coming to the glass. I had to stun him.”
“We will talk about this later, Foaly. I do not like your new gung-ho attitude.”
“Caballine likes me to be masterful. She calls me her stallion.”
“Who? Listen, just stop talking!” hissed Holly, melting N
o
1’s bonds with two sharp laser bursts.
“Free!” exclaimed the imp, jumping to his feet. “Liberated. Unbound. Without restrictions.”
Holly shut off her shield and revealed herself to N
o
1.
“I hope that’s a helmet,” said N
o
1.
Holly touched a button and her visor slid up. “Yes. I am a fairy, just like you. Only from a different family.”
“An elf!” exclaimed N
o
1 delightedly. “An actual elf. I hear you cook your food, and like music. Is that true?”
“Occasionally, when we’re not trying to escape from murderous humans.”
“Oh, they’re not murderous, pugnacious, homicidal, or even bellicose.”
“Maybe not the one you met. But there’s a guy with funny hair in the basement. And believe me, when he wakes up he’s going to be murderous and all those other things you mentioned.”
N
o
1 remembered Billy Kong; he had no desire to meet him again.
“Very well, elf. What next?”
“Call me Holly.”
“I am N
o
1. So what next, Holly?”
“Next, we escape. There are friends waiting for us . . . eh ... N
o
1.”
“Friends?” said N
o
1. He knew the word, of course, but never imagined it could apply to him. It was a warming notion, even in these dire straits.
“What do I do?”
Holly wrapped the cam-foil around him like a shawl.
“Keep this on. It will cover most of you.”
“Amazing,” said N
o
1. “A cloak of invisibility.”
Foaly moaned in Holly’s ear. “A cloak of invisibility? That is a highly sensitive piece of field equipment. What does he think? Some warlock pulled it out of his armpit?”
Holly ignored the centaur, something that was becoming a habit.
“Hold the foil close with one hand. Hang on to my belt with the other. We need to get out of here quickly. I only have enough magic left for a few minutes’ shielding. Ready?”
N
o
1’s anxious features peeped out from the shawl of invisibility.
“Hold the foil. Hang on to the belt. Got it.”
“Good. Foaly, watch our backs. Let’s move out.”
Holly shielded, then hurried out the open door, pulling N
o
1 behind her. The corridor was lined with tall potted plants and lush oil paintings, including a Matisse. Holly could hear the humans shouting in adjacent rooms. There was activity all around them, and it could only be seconds before some Mud Men spilled into this corridor.
N
o
1 struggled to keep up, his little legs stumbling along behind the super-fit elfin captain. It seemed impossible that they could escape. All around was the clatter of approaching footsteps. N
o
1, slightly distracted, snagged his toe on the cam-foil and trampled it underfoot. The foil’s electronics crackled and died. The demon was as visible as a bloodstain on a patch of snow.
“We lost the foil,” said Foaly.
Holly clenched her fingers. She missed her handgun.
“Okay. Nothing to do but make a run for it. Foaly, you have free rein, if you’ll pardon the horse analogy.”
“Finally,” whinnied the centaur. “I added a game-pod joystick to my controls. A bit unorthodox, but very accurate. We’ve got hostiles converging from all sides. My advice is to take the direct route. Go to the end of the corridor and follow our friend Doodah’s path out the window. Butler will cover you once you’re in the open.”
“Okay. Hold on, N
o
1. Whatever happens, don’t let go.”
The first threat came from ahead. Two security guards rounded the corner, guns extended.
Ex-police
, Holly guessed.
Covering the diagonals
.
The men were shocked to see N
o
1. Obviously they were not in the need-to-know loop.
“What the hell?” said one.
The other kept his nerve. “Hold it right there.”
Foaly hit them both in the chest with fat laser bursts. The energy sank through their clothes and they slid down the wall.
“Unconscious,” panted N
o
1. “Comatose, cataleptic, out for the count.” He realized that this vocabulary spouting was a good way to deal with stress.
“Stress. Pressure, strain, and anxiety.”
Holly dragged them both onward, toward the still-open window. More guards came from the side corridors, and Foaly dispatched them efficiently.
“I should get bonus points for this,” he said. “Or at the very least a free life.”
There were two more guards in the sitting room, sneaking an espresso. Foaly dropped them where they stood, and then flashed out a fan laser burst to evaporate the coffee before it hit the rug.
“It’s Tunisian,”he explained.“Very difficult to get coffee out. Now they can just suck up the grains.”
Holly stepped down into the room.
“Sometimes I think you don’t quite get the gravity of field missions,” she said, skirting a massive velvet sofa.
N
o
1 stumbled down the human-size steps after his rescuer. In spite of all his new vocabulary, the imp was not quite sure how he was feeling.
Scared, of course. Big Mud Men with fire weapons and all that. Excited, too. Being rescued by some kind of elf superhero, who was invisible, too. Pain in the leg, don’t forget that. The angry human had shot him in the leg, with a silver bullet, no doubt. But N
o
1 realized that one feeling was missing from the melting pot. One that had been strong within him for as long as he could remember. Uncertainty. In spite of the frantic antics unfolding all around, he felt more at home on this planet than he ever had on Hybras.
A bullet whistled past his ear.
Then again, maybe Hybras hadn’t been so bad
.
“Wake up, Foaly!” admonished Holly. “You’re supposed to be watching our backs.”
“Sorry,” said the centaur, swiveling the laser and strobing the doorway. The female guard smiled broadly then collapsed. On the ground she began singing a nursery rhyme about doggies and their bones.
“Bizarre,” said Foaly. “That guard is singing.”
“Often happens,” grunted Holly, clambering onto the windowsill. “The laser knocks out some functions, but sometimes awakens others.”
Interesting, thought the centaur. A happy gun. Certainly worth investigating.
Holly reached down and grasped N
o
1’s wrist, pulling him over the sill. She was dismayed to see that her own arms were not as invisible as she would have hoped. Her magic was wearing thin. Shielding was a real power siphon. She would flicker into visibility soon, whether hey were safely away or not.
“Nearly there,” she said.
“Just across the wide-open green space, is it?” said N
o
1, displaying a real gift for sarcasm.
“I like him,” said Foaly.
They tumbled out onto the lawn. The alarm was well and truly raised now, and guards poured from the various doors like beads from a ruptured beanbag.
“Go crazy, Foaly,” said Holly. “And take out their vehicles, too.”
“Yes sir, ma’am,” said Foaly, and began firing.
Holly ran flat out, pulling the imp behind her. There was no time to consider his physical abilities; either he kept up or he got dragged. The laser pencil on her helmet flashed out burst after burst, swiveling in wide arcs to cover the approaching guards. Holly felt the weapon’s heat on the crown of her head and resolved to mention the helmet’s supposedly revolutionary cooling system to Foaly, if they ever made it out of this.
The centaur was too busy for chat now. All Holly could hear through her headset was grunting and whinnying as Foaly concentrated on his job. He was not concerned about pinpoint accuracy anymore; there were too many things to shoot. He sent out scything fans of energy that socked half a dozen guards per burst. The guards would be perfectly fine in half an hour, though some might experience headaches, hair loss, irritability, loss of bowel control, and other assorted side effects for a few days.
Foaly targeted the four-wheel drives next, firing several pulses into each petrol tank. The BMWs exploded in sequence, turning spectacular fiery cartwheels. The force of the blast cupped Holly and N
o
1 like a giant hand, scooting them on their way a little faster. Holly’s helmet protected her from the noise, but poor N
o
1’s head would ring for quite a while.