“And armed with this knowledge, we can return when the time spell fades, and retake the Old Country.”
“When?” cried the imps. “When?”
“Soon,” replied Abbot.“Soon. And there will be humans enough for us all. They will be crushed like the grass beneath our boots. We will tear their heads off like dandelion flowers.”
Oh, please, thought N
o
1. Enough plant similes.
It was quite possible that N
o
1 was the only creature on Hybras who had ever even thought the human word
simile
. Saying it aloud would have certainly earned him a thrashing. If the other imps knew that his human vocabulary also included words like
grooming
and
decoration
, they would string him up for sure. Ironically he had learned these words from
Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow
, which was supposed to be a school text.
“Tear their heads off,” shouted one imp, and it quickly became a chant, taken up by everyone in the room.
“Yes, tear their heads off,” said N
o
1, trying it out, but there was no feeling in his voice.
What’s my motivation? he wondered. I’ve never even met a human.
The imps climbed onto their benches, bobbing in primal rhythm.
“Tear their heads off! Tear their heads off!”
Abbot and Rawley urged them on, flexing their claws and howling. A sickly sweet smell clogged the air. Warp muck. Someone was entering the warp spasm phase. The excitement was bringing on the change.
N
o
1 felt nothing. Not so much as a twinge. He tried his best, squeezing his eyelids together, letting the pressure build in his head, thinking bloody thoughts. But his true feelings shattered the false visions of bloodlust and carnage.
It’s no use, he thought. I am not that kind of demon.
N
o
1 stopped chanting and sat, head in hands. No point in pretending; another change cycle was passing him by.
Not so the other imps. Abbot’s theatrics had opened a natural well of testosterone, bloodlust, and bodily fluid.
One by one, they succumbed to the warp spasm. Green gunge flowed from their pores, slowly at first, then in bubbling gushes. They all went under, every one of them. It must be some kind of record, so many imps warping simultaneously. Of course Abbot would take the credit.
The sight of the fluid brought on fresh rounds of howling. And the more the imps howled, the faster the gunge spurted. N
o
1 had heard it said that humans took several years to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Imps did it in a few hours. And a change like that is going to hurt.
The howls of exultation changed to grunts of pain as bones stretched and horns curled, the gunge-coated limbs already lengthening. The smell was sweet enough to make N
o
1 gag.
Imps toppled to the floor all around. They thrashed for a few seconds, then their own fluids mummified them. They were cocooned like enormous green bugs, strapped tight by the hardening gunge. The schoolroom was suddenly silent, except for the crack of drying nutrient fluid and a rustle of flames from the stone fireplace.
Abbot beamed, a toothy smile that seemed to split his head in half.
“A good morning’s work, wouldn’t you say, Rawley? I got them all warping.”
Rawley grunted his agreement, then noticed N
o
1. “Except the Runt.”
“Well, of course not,” began Abbot, then caught himself. “Yes. Absolutely, except the Runt.”
N
o
1’s forehead burned under Rawley and Abbot’s scrutiny.
“I want to warp,” he said, looking at his fingers. “I really do. But it’s the hating thing. I just can’t manage it. And all that slime. Even the thought of that stuff all over me makes me feel a bit nauseous.”
“A bit what?” said Rawley suspiciously.
N
o
1 realized that he needed to dumb it down for his teacher.
“Sick. A bit sick.”
“Oh.” Rawley shook his head in disgust. “Slime makes you sick? What kind of imp are you? The others live for slime.”
N
o
1 took a deep breath and said something aloud that he had known for a long time.
“I’m not like the others.” N
o
1’s voice trembled. He was on the verge of tears.
“Are you going to cry?” asked Rawley, his eyes bugging. “This is too much, Leon. He’s going to cry now, just like a female. I give up.”
Abbot scratched his chin. “Let me try something.”
He rummaged in a cape pocket, surreptitiously fixing something over his hand.
Oh, no, thought N
o
1. Please no. Not Stony.
Abbot raised a forearm, his cloak draped over it. A ministage. A puppet human poked his head over the leather cape. The puppet’s head was a grotesque ball of painted clay, with a heavy forehead and clumsy features. N
o
1 doubted that humans were this ugly in real life, but demons were not known for their artistic skills. Abbot often produced Stony as a visual incentive for those imps who were having difficulty warping. Needless to say, N
o
1 had been introduced to the puppet before.
“Grrr,”
said the puppet, or rather Abbot said, as he waggled the puppet. “
Grrr
, my name is Stony the Mud Man.”
“Hello, Stony,” said N
o
1 weakly. “How’ve you been?”
The puppet held a tiny wooden sword in its hand. “Never mind how I’ve been. I don’t care how you’ve been, because I hate all fairies,” said Abbot in a squeaky voice. “I drove them from their homes. And if they ever try to come back, I will kill them all.”
Abbot lowered the puppet. “Now, how does that make you feel?”
It makes me feel that the wrong demon is in charge of the pride, thought N
o
1, but aloud he said, “Eh, angry?”
Abbot blinked. “Angry? Really?”
“No,” confessed N
o
1, wringing his hands. “I don’t feel anything. It’s a puppet. I can see your fingers through the material.”
Abbot stuffed Stony back in his pocket.
“That’s it. I’ve had it with you, N
o
1. You will never earn a name from the book.”
Once demons warped, they were given a human name from
Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow
. The logic being that learning the human language and possessing a human name would help the demon army think like humans, and therefore defeat them. Abbot may have hated the Mud Men, but that wasn’t to say he didn’t admire them. Also, politically, it was a good idea to have every demon on Hybras calling each other by names that Leon Abbot had procured for them.
Rawley grabbed N
o
1’s ear and dragged him from his seat to the rear of the classroom. A metal grille on the floor covered a shallow, pungent dung pit.
“Get to work, Runt,” he said gruffly. “You know what to do.”
N
o
1 sighed. He knew only too well. This wasn’t the first or second time he’d had to endure this odious task. He hefted a long-handled gaff from a peg on the wall and pulled the heavy grille from its groove. The smell was rank but not unbearable, as a crust had formed on the dung’s surface. Beetles crawled across the craggy skin, their legs clicking like claws on wood.
N
o
1 uncovered the pit completely, then selected his nearest classmate. There was no way of telling which classmate it actually was because of the slime cocoon. The only movements were small air bubbles around the mouth and nose. At least, he hoped it was the mouth and nose.
N
o
1 bent low and rolled the cocoon along the floor and into the dung pit. The warping imp crashed through the crust, taking a dozen beetles with him into the muck below. A gush of dung stink washed over N
o
1, and he knew his skin would smell for days. The others would wear their pit stink proudly, but for N
o
1 it was just another badge of shame.
It was arduous work. Not all the warping imps were still. Several struggled inside their cocoons, and twice demon claws punctured the green chrysalis inches from N
o
1’s skin.
He persisted, groaning loudly in the hope that Rawley or Leon Abbot would lend a hand. It was a vain hope. The two demons were huddled at the head of the classroom, poring over
Lady Heatherington Smythe’s Hedgerow
.
Eventually, N
o
1 rolled his last classmate into the dung pit. They were piled in there like meat in a thick stew. The nutrient-rich dung would accelerate their warp, ensuring they reached full potential. N
o
1 sat on the stone floor, catching his breath.
Lucky you, thought N
o
1. Dunked in dung.
N
o
1 tried to feel envious, but even being near the pit made him gag; the thoughts of being immersed in it, surrounded by cocooned imps, made his stomach churn.
A shadow fell across the flagstones before him, flickering in the firelight.
“Ah, N
o
1,” said Abbot. “Always an imp, never a demon, eh? What am I going to do with you?”
N
o
1 stared at his own feet, clicking his baby talons on the floor.
“Master Abbot, sir. Don’t you think? Isn’t there the tiniest chance?” He took a deep breath and raised his eyes to meet Abbot’s. “Couldn’t I be a warlock? You saw what happened with the skewer. I don’t want to embarrass you, but you saw it.”
Abbot’s expression changed instantly. One second he was playing the genial master, the next his true colors shone through.
“I saw nothing,” he hissed, heaving N
o
1 to his feet. “Nothing happened, you odious little freak of nature. The skewer was coated with ash, nothing more. There was no transformation. No magic.”
Abbot drew N
o
1 close enough to see the slivers of trapped meat between his yellowed teeth. The next time he spoke, his voice seemed different somehow. Layered. As though an entire choir were singing in harmony. It was a voice that could not be ignored. Magical?
“If you are a warlock. Then you should really be on the other side, with your relative. Wouldn’t that be for the best? One quick leap, that’s all it would take. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Runt?”
N
o
1 nodded, dazed. What a lovely voice. Where had that come from? The other side—of course that’s where he should go. One small step for an imp.
“I understand, sir.”
“Good. The subject is closed. As Lady Heatherington Smythe would say,‘Best foot forward, young sir, the world awaits.’”
N
o
1 nodded just as he knew Abbot wanted him to, but inside, his brain churned along with his stomach. Was this to be the whole extent of his life? Forever mocked, forever different. Never a moment of light or hope. Unless he crossed over.
Abbot’s suggestion was his only hope.
Cross over
. N
o
1 had never seen the appeal of jumping into a crater before, but now the notion seemed nigh on irresistible. He was a warlock, there couldn’t be any doubt. And somewhere out there, in the human world, there was another like him. An ancient brother who could teach him the ways of his kind.
N
o
1 watched Abbot stride away. Off to exercise his power on some other part of the island, possibly by belittling the females in the compound, another of his favorite pastimes. Then again, how bad could Abbot be? After all, he had given N
o
1 this wonderful idea.
I cannot stay here, thought N
o
1. I must go to the volcano.
The notion took firm hold of his brain. And in minutes it had drowned out all the other notions in his head.
Go to the volcano.
It pounded inside his skull, like waves breaking on the shore.
Obey Abbot. Go to the volcano.
N
o
1 brushed the dust from his knees.
“You know what,” he muttered to himself, in case Rawley could hear. “I think I’m going to the volcano.”
CHAPTER 4
Artemis Fowl and his bodyguard, Butler, relaxed in a private box at the stage-left side of Sicily’s world-famous Bellini Theatre. Perhaps it is not altogether accurate to say Butler
relaxed
. Rather, he
appeared
to relax, as a tiger appears to relax in the moment before it strikes.
Butler was even less happy here than he had been in Barcelona. At least for the Spain trip he’d had a few days to prepare, but for this jaunt he barely had time to catch up on his martial arts routines.
As soon as the Fowl Bentley had pulled up at Fowl Manor, Artemis had disappeared into his study, firing up his computers. Butler took the opportunity to work out, freshen up, and prepare dinner: onion marmalade tartlets, rack of lamb with garlic gratin, and a red berries crepe to inish.
Artemis broke the news over coffee.
“We need to go to Sicily,” he said, toying with the biscotti on his saucer. “I made a breakthrough on the time spell figures.”
“How soon?” asked the bodyguard, mentally listing his contacts on the Mediterranean island.
Artemis looked at his Rado watch and Butler moaned.
“Don’t check your watch, Artemis. Check the calendar.”
“Sorry, old friend. But you know time is limited. I can’t risk missing a materialization.”
“But on the jet you said that there wasn’t another materialization due for six weeks.”
“I was wrong, or rather, Foaly was wrong. He missed a few new factors in the temporal equation.”
Artemis had filled Butler in on the 8th Family details as the jet soared over the English Channel.
“Allow me to demonstrate,” said Artemis. He put a silver salt shaker on his plate “Let us say that this salt shaker is Hybras. My plate is where it is: our dimension. And your plate is where it wants to go: Limbo. With me so far?”
Butler nodded reluctantly. He knew that the more he understood, the more Artemis would tell him, and there wasn’t much space in a bodyguard’s head for quantum physics.
“So, the demon warlocks wanted to move the island from plate A to plate B, but not through space, through time.”
“How do you know all this?”
“It’s all in the fairy Book,” replied the Irish teenager. “Quite a detailed description, if a bit flowery.”
The Book was the fairy bible, containing their history and commandments. Artemis had managed to obtain a copy from a drunken sprite in Ho Chi Minh City years earlier. It was proving to be an invaluable source of information.
“I doubt the Book has too many charts and graphs,” noted Butler.
Artemis smiled. “No, I got the specifics from Foaly, not that he knows he’s sharing information.”
Butler rubbed his temples. “Artemis, I warned you not to mess with Foaly. The decoy thing is bad enough.”
Artemis was fully aware that Foaly was tracking him and any decoys he sent out. In fact, he only sent out the decoys to make Foaly dip into his funds. It was his idea of a joke.
“I didn’t initiate the surveillance,” objected Artemis. “Foaly did. I found more than a dozen devices on my computers alone. All I did was reverse the spike to get into some of his shared files. Nothing classified. Well, maybe a few. Foaly’s been busy since he left the LEP.”
“So what did Foaly’s files tell you?” said Butler resignedly.
“They told me about magic. Basically, magic is energy, and the ability to manipulate energy. To move Hybras from A to B, the demon warlocks harnessed the power of their volcano to create a time rent, or tunnel.” Artemis rolled his napkin into a tube, popped the salt shaker into it, and deposited the shaker on Butler’s plate.
“Simple as that?” said Butler doubtfully.
“Not really,” said Artemis. “In fact, the warlocks did an exceptional job, considering the instruments available to them at the time. They had to calculate the power of the volcano, the size of the island, the energy of each individual demon on the island, not to mention the reverse pull of lunar attraction. It’s amazing that the spell worked as well as it did.”
“There was a glitch?”
“Yes. According to the Book, the warlocks induced the volcano, but the force was too strong. They couldn’t control it, and the magic circle was broken. Hybras and the demons were transported, but the warlocks were blasted into space.”
Butler whistled. “That’s quite a glitch.”
“It’s more than a glitch. The demon warlocks were all killed, so now the rest of the pride are stuck in Limbo, held by a magical spell that was never meant to be permanent, without a warlock to bring them back.”
“Couldn’t Foaly go and get them?”
“No. It would be an impossible mission to re-create the same circumstances. Imagine trying to steer a feather in a sandstorm, then land the feather on a particular grain of sand, except you don’t know where the grain is. And even if you did know where the grain was, demon magic can only be controlled by a demon. They are by far the most powerful of warlocks. “
“Tricky,” admitted Butler. “So tell me why these demons are popping up here now?”
Artemis corrected him with a wagging finger. “Not just here, and not just now. The demons have always felt an attraction to their home world, a combination of lunar and terrestrial radiations. But a demon could only be pulled back if he was at his end of the time tunnel mouth, the crater, and not wearing a dimensional anchor.”
Butler fingered his wristband. “Silver.”
“That’s right. Now, because of massively increased radiation levels worldwide, the pull on demons is much stronger and reaches critical level with greater frequency.”
Butler was struggling to keep up. Sometimes it was not easy being a genius’s bodyguard.
“Artemis, I thought we weren’t going into specifics.”
Artemis continued regardless. He was hardly going to stop now, in midlecture.
“Bear with me, old friend. Nearly there. So now, energy spikes occur more often than Foaly thinks.”
Butler raised a finger. “Ah, yes, but the demons are okay as long as they stay away from the crater.”
Artemis raised a triumphant finger. “Yes!” he crowed. “That’s what you would think. That’s what Foaly thinks. But when our last demon was off course, I ran the equation from back to front. My conclusion is that the time spell is decaying. The tunnel is unraveling.”
Artemis allowed the napkin tube to widen in his hand. “Now the catchment area is bigger, as is the deposit area. Pretty soon, demons won’t be safe anywhere on Hybras.”
Butler asked the obvious question. “What happens when the tunnel decays altogether?”
“Just before that happens, demons all over Hybras will be plucked off the island, silver or no silver. When the tunnel collapses, some will be deposited on Earth, more on the moon, and the rest scattered through space and time. One thing is for sure, not many of them will survive, and those that do will be locked up in laboratories and zoos.”
Butler frowned. “We need to tell Holly about this.”
“Yes,” agreed Artemis. “But not just yet. I need one more day to confirm my figures. I’m not going to Foaly with nothing but theory.”
“Don’t tell me,” said Butler. “Sicily, right?”
So now they were in the Massimo Bellini Theatre, and Butler had barely half an idea why they were there. If a demon materialized on that stage, then Artemis was right, and the fairy People were in major trouble. And if the fairies were in trouble, then it was up to Artemis to help them. Butler was actually quite proud that his young charge was doing something for somebody else for a change. Even so, they had only a week to complete their task and return to Fowl Manor, because in seven days Artemis’s parents returned from Rhode Island, where Artemis Fowl Senior had finally taken possession of an artificial bio hybrid leg, to replace the one he had lost when the Russian Mafiya blew up his ship.
Butler peered out of the box at the hundreds of golden arches and the thirteen hundred–odd people enjoying the evening’s performance of Bellini’s
Norma
.
“First a Gaudí building, now this theater,” commented the bodyguard, his words audible only to Artemis, thanks to their box’s isolation and the booming volume of the opera. “Don’t these demons ever materialize somewhere quiet?”
Artemis replied in a whisper. “Just let the sublime music flow over you, enjoy the show. Don’t you know how difficult it is to get a box for a Vincenzo Bellini opera? Especially
Norma
.
Norma
combines the requirements of both a coloratura and a dramatic soprano. And the soprano is excellent, comparable to Callas herself.”
Butler grunted. Perhaps it was difficult for
ordinary
people to get a box in the theater, but Artemis had simply called his billionaire environmentalist friend, Giovanni Zito. The Sicilian had gladly surrendered his own box in exchange for two cases of the finest Bordeaux. Hardly surprising, since Artemis had recently invested more than ten million dollars in Zito’s water purification research.
“A Sicilian drinking Bordeaux?” Artemis had chuckled on the phone. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Keep your watch pointed at the stage,” directed Artemis, interrupting Butler’s thoughts. “The chances are minuscule that a demon will be caught without silver, even away from the crater, but if one does show up, I want it on film to prove to Foaly that my theory is correct. If we don’t have incontrovertible proof, the fairy Council will never take action.”
Butler checked that his watch crystal, which doubled as a camera lense, was angled toward the stage. “The camera is fine, but if you don’t mind, I won’t be letting the sublime music flow over me. I have enough to do keeping you safe.”
The Bellini Theatre was a bodyguard’s nightmare. Multiple entrances and exits, more than a thousand patrons that refused to be frisked, hundreds of golden arches that could conceal a gunman, and countless nooks, crannies, and corridors that probably didn’t appear on the theater plan. Nevertheless, Butler was reasonably confident that he had done all he could to protect Artemis.
Of course, there were certain things that bodyguards could not guard against, as Butler was about to find out. Invisible things.
Artemis’s phone vibrated gently. Usually Artemis deplored the kind of person who kept their phone on during a performance, but this phone was special and he never turned it off. It was the fairy communicator given to him by Holly Short, plus a few modifications and add-ons made by Artemis himself.
The phone was the size and shape of a quarter with a pulsing red crystal at its center. This was a fairy omnisensor, which could interface with any communications system, including the human body. The phone was disguised as a rather ostentatious ring on Artemis’s middle finger. Artemis twisted the ring so that the phone sat on his palm, then closed his middle fingers, extending his thumb and little finger. The sensor would decode vibrations in his little finger and send them as voice patterns. It would also use the bones in his hand to transmit the caller’s voice to the tip of his thumb.
Artemis looked for all the world like a young boy talking on an imaginary phone.
“Holly?” he said.
Butler watched as Artemis listened for a few moments, hung up and twisted the phone back into ring position.
He looked steadily at Butler. “Don’t draw your weapon,” he said.
Which of course had Butler reaching for the butt of his Sig Sauer.
“It’s fine,” said Artemis reassuringly. “Someone is here. A friend.”
Butler’s hand dropped to his side. He knew who it was.
Holly Short materialized in the velvet-covered seat beside Artemis. Her knees were drawn to her chin, and her pointed ears were covered by a black helmet. As she fizzled into the visible spectrum, a full-face visor collapsed into sections and stored itself in her helmet. Her arrival among the humans was covered by the theater’s darkness.
“Afternoon, Mud Boys,” she said, smiling. Her hazel eyes sparkled impishly, or more accurately,
elfishly
.
“Thanks for calling ahead,” said Butler sarcastically. “Wouldn’t want to spook anyone. No shimmer?”
Usually when fairies used their magic to shield, the only thing visible was a slight shimmer, like a heat haze. Holly’s entrance had been completely undetectable.
Holly patted her own shoulder. “New suit. Made entirely from smart wafers. It vibrates with me.”
Artemis studied one of the wafers, noting the microfilaments in the material. “Foaly’s work? Section Eight issue.”
Holly could not hide her surprise. She punched Artemis playfully on the shoulder. “How do you know about Section Eight? Aren’t we allowed any secrets?”
“Foaly shouldn’t spy on me,” said Artemis. “Where there’s a way in, there’s a way back. I suppose I should congratulate you on the new job. And Foaly, too.” He nodded at the tiny lense over Holly’s right eye. “Is he watching us now?”
“No. He’s trying to figure out how you know what he doesn’t. We’re taping, though.”
“I presume you’re talking about demons.”
“I might be.”
Butler stepped between them, interrupting the verbal sparring that was bound to follow.
“Before you two get into negotiations, how about a real hello?”
Holly smiled fondly at the huge bodyguard. She activated the electronic wings built into her suit and hovered to his eye level. Holly kissed his cheek, then wrapped her arms all the way around his head. They barely made it.
Butler rapped her helmet. “Nice equipment. Not run-of-the-mill Lower Elements Police.”
“No,” agreed Holly, removing the helmet. “This Section Eight stuff is years ahead of standard LEP. You get what you pay for, I suppose.”
Butler plucked the helmet from her hands. “Anything an old soldier would be interested in?”
Holly pressed a button on her wrist computer. “Check out the night vision. It’s as clear as . . . well . . . day. And the clever thing is that the filter reacts to light as it passes through, so no more being blinded by camera flashes.”
Butler nodded appreciatively. Night vision’s major drawback had historically been that it left the soldier vulnerable to sudden flashes of light. Even a candle flame could blind the wearer momentarily.