Artemis cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Captain. Are you two going to weep salty tears of admiration over a helmet all night, or do we have matters to discuss?”
Holly winked at Butler. “Your master calls. I’d better see what he wants.”
Holly deactivated her wings and settled into the chair. She folded her arms, looking Artemis straight in the eyes.
“Okay, Mud Boy, I’m all yours.”
“Demons. We need to talk about demons.”
Holly’s eyes lost their playful twinkle. “And why
are
you so interested in demons, Artemis?”
Artemis opened two shirt buttons and pulled out a gold coin on a leather necklace. The coin had a circular hole in the center. Put there by a blast from Holly’s laser.
“You gave this to me after you saved my father’s life. I owe you. I owe the People. So now I’m doing something for them.”
Holly wasn’t entirely convinced. “Usually before you do anything for the People, you negotiate a fee.”
Artemis accepted the accusation with a slight nod. “It’s true. It
was
true, but I have changed.”
Holly folded her arms. “And?”
“And it’s nice to find something Foaly missed, even if I did stumble onto it by accident.”
“And?”
Artemis sighed. “Very well. There is another factor.”
“I thought so. What do you want? Gold? Technology?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
Artemis sat forward in his seat. “Have you any idea how difficult it is to have had all those thrilling adventures with the LEP, and suddenly not be a part of that world anymore?”
“Yes,” replied Holly. “Actually, I do.”
“I went from
saving the world
to
geometry
in a week. I’m bored, Holly. My intellect is not being challenged. So when I came across the demon gospel in the Book, I realized that here was a way to be involved without affecting things. I could simply observe, and perhaps refine Foaly’s calculations.”
“Which are not actually in the Book,” Holly pointed out. “Simply observe, my foot.”
Artemis waved Holly’s point away. “Some harmless hacking. The centaur started it. So I began traveling to materialization sights, but nothing happened until Barcelona. A demon showed up, all right, except he showed up in the wrong place, and late. I simply stumbled across him. I would be floating in prehistoric space right now if Butler hadn’t anchored me to this dimension with silver.”
Holly stifled a laugh.“So it was luck. The great Artemis Fowl trumps the mighty Foaly thanks to dumb luck.”
Artemis was miffed. “Informed luck I think is a better description. Anyway, that is unimportant. I have recalculated with the new figures, and my conclusions, if borne out, could be calamitous for the People.”
“Go on, tell me. In short words, though; you wouldn’t believe the amount of science I had to listen to today.”
“This is serious, Holly,” snapped Artemis. His outburst was followed by a chorus of shushes from the audience.
“This is serious,” he repeated in hushed tones.
“Why?” asked Holly. “Surely it’s just a matter of sharing your new figures and letting Foaly take care of the rest with light-distortion projectors?”
“Not quite,” said Artemis, settling back in his chair. “If a demon appears on that stage in the next four minutes, then soon there won’t be enough projectors to go around. If I’m right, and the time spell is unraveling, then Hybras and everyone on it will soon be dragged back into this dimension. Most of the demons won’t make it alive, but those who do could pop up anywhere and at any time.”
Holly switched her gaze to the stage. A raven-haired woman was holding ridiculously high notes for a ridiculously long time. Holly wondered would the woman even notice a demon popping out of the air for a second or two. There wasn’t supposed to be a materialization today. If there was, then that would mean Artemis was right, as usual, and a lot more demons were on the way. If that happened, then Artemis Fowl and Holly Short would be up to their necks in the whole saving-the-fairy-race thing yet again.
Holly glanced sideways at Artemis, who was studying the stage through a pair of opera glasses. She would never tell him, but if a human had to be involved with saving the Fairy People, then Artemis was probably the best man, or boy, for the job.
N
o
1 struggled up toward the first rocky ridge on the side of the volcano. Several demons passed him on the trail, but not one tried to talk him out of it. In fact, he’d bumped into Hadley Shrivelington Basset, who had offered to scratch a map on a piece of bark for him. N
o
1 suspected that if he did take the big dimensional jump, no one would miss him any more than they would miss their favorite crossbow target. Except perhaps the demoness with red markings who smiled at him. The one from the compound. Maybe she would miss him a little. N
o
1 stopped in his tracks when he realized that the only demon who would care when he was gone was one he had never spoken to.
He moaned aloud. How depressing was that!
N
o
1 trudged onward past the final warning, which, with typical demon subtlety, was in the form of a blood-reddened wolf skull mounted on a stick.
“What’s that even supposed to mean?” muttered N
o
1 as he passed the sign. “A wolf’s head on a stick. Big wolf barbecue tonight. Bring your own wolf.”
Barbecue
. Another word from Lady Heatherington Smythe.
N
o
1 sat on the ridge, wiggling his rump to dig a little trench for his tail. Might as well be comfortable before jumping the few hundred feet into the mouth of a steaming volcano. Of course, even if he didn’t get whisked away to the New Country, he still wouldn’t be vaporized by the lava. No, he would probably be dashed against the rocks on the way down. What a cheery thought.
From his seat on the ridge, N
o
1 could see the jagged mouth of the crater and the rhythmic wisps of smoke that drifted skyward like the breath of a sleeping giant. It was the nature of the time spell that things progressed as though Hybras were still attached to the rest of the world, albeit at a different pace. So the volcano still bubbled and occasionally burped up a skinny column of flame even though there was no earth beneath it.
If N
o
1 were honest with himself, his resolve was wavering. It was easy to imagine hopping into an inter-dimensional crater when you were rolling your cocooned classmates into a becrusted dung pit. It had seemed then, as the flakes of ash had fluttered down on him, that things could not get any worse. And there had been something in Abbot’s voice that made the idea seem irresistible. But now, sitting on the ridge, with a gentle wind cooling his chest plates, things didn’t seem quite as bleak. At least he was alive, and there was no guarantee that the crater led anywhere except into the belly of the volcano. None of the other demons had made it back alive. They came back, all right. Some encased in blocks of ice, some burned to a crisp, but none hale and hearty like the pride leader. Although, for some reason, when N
o
1 thought about Abbot, the many moments of cruelty he had suffered at the pride leader’s whim seemed hazy, hard to focus on. All he could remember was that beautiful insistent voice telling him to cross over.
Moon madness. That was the heart of the matter. Demonkind were attracted to the moon. It sang to them, agitating particles in their blood. They dreamed of it at night and ground their teeth at its absence. At any hour of the so-called day here on Hybras, demons could be seen stopping in their tracks to gaze at the space where the moon used to be. It was part of them, a live organic part; and on an atomic level, they belonged together.
There were threads of the time spell still in the crater. Wisps of magic that curled about the mountaintop snagging any demon stupid enough to be caught without silver. And coded inside the magic was the song of the moon, calling the demons back, enticing them with visions of white light and weightlessness. Once those pale tendrils had a grip on a demon’s mind, he would do anything to be closer to the source. The magic and moon madness would pour energy into the atoms of his being, vibrating his very electrons to a new orbit, changing his molecular structure, pulling him through time and space.
But there was only Abbot’s word that this journey would end on Earth. It could end on the moon, and as much as demons loved the moon, they knew that nothing survived on its barren surface. The elders said that sprites could not fly close without freezing to death, spiraling to earth with frozen wings and blue faces.
For some reason, N
o
1 wanted to take the journey today. He wanted the moon to call him into the crater, then deposit him somewhere where another warlock existed. Someone who would teach him to control his strange powers. But, he miserably admitted, he didn’t have the courage. He could not just hurl himself into a rocky crater. The volcano’s base was littered with the charred corpses of those who had imagined the moon calling to them. How could he know if the moon’s power was truly beckoning, or if it was simply wishful thinking.
N
o
1 rested his face in his hands. Nothing for it but to return to the school. The imps in the pit would need turning, or their hides could suffer dung lividity marks.
He sighed. This was not the first time he had made this desperate journey. But now N
o
1 really thought he would do it. Abbot was in his head, urging him on. This time he could almost bear the idea of the rocks rushing toward him. Almost.
N
o
1 toyed with the silver bangle on his wrist. It would have been so easy to slip off this trinket and just disappear.
Slip it off, then, little one
, said a voice in his head.
Slip it off and come to me
.
N
o
1 was not surprised by the voice. Actually, it was more a feeling than a voice. N
o
1 had supplied the words himself. He often conversed with voices in his head. There was no one else to talk to. There was Flambard the shoemaker, and Lady Bonnie the spinster, and his favorite, Bookie the lisping gossip.
This voice was new. More forceful.
A moment without silver, and a new world could be yours.
N
o
1’s bottom lip jutted as he considered. He could remove the bangle, he supposed, just for a moment. What harm could it do? He was nowhere near the crater, and the magic rarely strayed beyond the volcano.
No harm. No harm at all. One little tug.
The ridiculous notion had N
o
1 now. Taking off the bangle could be like a practice run for the day when he finally worked up the courage to feel the moon madness. His fingers traced the runes on the bangle. They were precisely the same as the markings on his chest. A double charm. Repelling the moon magic. Removing one meant that the force of his own markings was reversed, pulling him straight toward the moon.
Take it off. Reverse the power.
N
o
1 watched his fingers grip the bangle’s rim. He was in a daze, a buzzing fugue. The new voice had coated his mind with fog and was in control.
We will be together, you and I. You will bask in my light.
Bask in my light? thought the last conscious sliver of N
o
1. This new voice is quite the drama queen. Bookie is not going to like you.
Take it off, little one.
N
o
1 watched his hand tug the bangle over his knuckles. He was powerless to stop himself, not that he wanted to.
Moon madness, he realized with a jolt. All the way over here. How can that be?
Something in him knew. The warlock part of him, perhaps.
The time spell is breaking down. No one is safe.
N
o
1 saw the bangle, his dimensional anchor, slip from his fingers and spin to the ground. It seemed to happen in slow motion—the silver flowed and rippled like sunlight through water.
N
o
1 felt the tingle that comes when every atom in your body is overloaded with energy and boosted into a gaseous form. It really should be terribly painful, but the body doesn’t really know how to respond to this kind of cell damage, and so throws up a pathetic tingling.
There was no time to scream. All N
o
1 could do was disappear into a million flashing pinpoints of light, which quickly wound themselves into a tight band following a path to another dimension. In seconds there was nothing left to show that N
o
1 had ever been there but a spinning silver bangle.
It would be a long time, relatively speaking, before anyone missed him. And no one would care enough to come looking.
To look at Artemis Fowl, you would have thought that he was here simply for the opera. One hand trained a pair of opera glasses on the stage, the other hand conducted expertly, following the score note for note.
“Maria Callas is the acknowledged seminal Norma,” he said to Holly, who nodded politely, then rolled her eyes at Butler. “But I have a confession: I actually prefer Montserrat Caballé. She took the role on in the seventies. Of course, I have only heard recordings, but to me, Caballé’s performance is more robust.”
“Really,” said Holly. “I’m trying to care, Artemis. But I thought it was all supposed to be over when the fat lady sings. Well, she’s singing, but it doesn’t appear to be over.”
Artemis smiled, exposing his incisors. “That’s Wagner you’re thinking of.”
Butler did not participate in the opera-related chitchat. To him it was just another layer of distraction to be zoned out. Instead he decided to test the night-vision filter on Holly’s new helmet. If it could indeed overcome the whiteout problem, as Holly claimed, then he would have to ask Artemis to procure one for him.
Needless to say, Holly’s helmet would not fit on Butler’s head. In fact, it would barely slot over his fist, so the bodyguard folded the filter’s left wing out until he could squint through it by holding the helmet to his cheek.