“This is not a shampoo commercial. Please stop flicking your hair.”
Holly was bent almost double, her hand on her heart.
“Hurry,” she groaned, “or I’ll have to go without you.”
“Please,” Artemis pleaded.“We need to go. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Young Artemis was unmoved. “I had a feeling you would be back. This is where it all began, right on this spot. I reviewed the security tapes, and you simply appeared in this room. Then you followed me to Africa, so I thought if I saved the creature’s life you might end up back here with my lemur. We simply blocked our heat signatures and waited. And here you are.”
“That’s pretty flimsy reasoning,” said Artemis the elder. “We were obviously after the lemur. Once we had the lemur, why would we return here?”
“I realize the logic was flawed, but I had nothing to lose. And, as we can see, a lot to gain.”
Holly did not have the patience for a Fowl gloating session. “Artemis, I know you have a heart. You’re a good person even if you don’t know it yet. You sacrificed your diamonds to save my life. What will it take for you to let us go?”
Young Artemis considered this for an infuriating minute and a half.
“The truth,” he said eventually. “I need to know the absolute truth about all of this. What kind of creature are you? Why does he look so familiar? What makes the lemur so special? Everything.”
Artemis the elder clutched Jayjay to his chest. “Get me a pair of scissors,” he said.
Opal ran into the manor, casually squashing the magical nausea that flared upon entering a human dwelling without permission.
A time stream, she thought, almost giggling with excitement. Finally I can test my theories.
The manipulation of time had long been Opal’s ultimate goal. To be able to control one’s passage through time was the greatest power. But her magic was not strong enough without the lemur. It took teams of LEP warlocks to slow time down for a few hours; the magic required to open a door to the tunnel was stupendous. It would be easier to shoot down the moon.
Opal tapped this into her notepad.
Reminder. Shoot down the moon? Viable?
But if she could gain entrance to the tunnel, Opal felt sure that she would quickly master the science involved.
It’s more than likely an intuitive organism; and after all, I am a genius.
She scaled the stairs, mindless of the scuff marks the high human steps inflicted on her new boots. Mervall and Descant trailed behind, surprised at this lack of footwear prudence.
“I got thrown into the pigpen for boots,” muttered Descant. “Now she’s scratching those ones on the stairs. Typical Koboi inconsistency. I think I’m getting an ulcer.”
Opal reached the upper landing and raced immediately through an open doorway.
“How does she know that’s the right room?” wondered Descant.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mervall, resting his hands on his knees. Scaling human steps is not easy for pixies. Big heads, short legs, tiny lungs. “Maybe it’s the magical red glow coming from the doorway, or perhaps it’s the deafening howl of the temporal winds.”
Descant nodded. “You could be right, brother. And don’t think I don’t know sarcasm when I hear it.”
Opal traipsed from the room, her expression sour.
“They have gone,” she announced. “And the tunnel is about to close. Also my boots are ruined. So, boys, I am looking for someone to blame.”
The Brill brothers took one look at each other, then turned and ran as fast as their tiny legs would carry them.
Not fast enough.
CHAPTER 14
THE HOLE IN THE ACE
Holly felt herself relax as soon as they entered the stream.
Safe for the moment.
Jayjay was safe. Soon Artemis’s mother would be well, and when that was accomplished, Holly decided that she would punch her erstwhile friend in his smug face.
I did what I had to do, Artemis had said. And I would do it again.
And she had kissed him. Kissed him!
Holly understood Artemis’s motives, but it wounded her deeply that he had felt the need to blackmail her.
I would have helped anyway. Definitely.
Would you? Would you have disobeyed orders? Was Artemis right to do it his way?
These were questions that Holly knew would haunt her for years. If she had years left to her.
The journey was more arduous than before. The time stream was eroding her sense of self, and there was a syrupy temptation to relax her concentration. Her world seemed less important wrapped in its sparkling waves. Being part of an eternal river would be a pleasant way to exist. And if the fairy races were wiped out by plague, what of it?
No1’s presence pricked her consciousness and bolstered her resolve. The little demon’s power was evident in the stream, a shimmering thread of crimson pulling them on through the miasma. Things moved in the shadows. Darting, sharp things. Holly sensed teeth and hooked fingers.
Had No1 mentioned something about quantum zombies? That was probably a joke. Please let that be a joke.
Concentrate! Holly told herself. Or you will be absorbed.
She could feel other presences traveling with her. Jayjay was surprisingly calm, considering his surroundings. Somewhere in the periphery was Artemis, his sense of purpose keen as a blade.
No1 is going to get a shock, thought Holly, when he sees us pop through.
No1 didn’t seem very shocked when the group tumbled from the stream, solidifying on the floor of Artemis’s study.
“See any zombies?” he asked with a spooky wiggling of his fingers.
“Thank the gods,” proclaimed Foaly from the television screens, then exhaled loudly through his broad nostrils. “That was the longest ten seconds of my life. Did you get the lemur?”
There was no need for an answer, as Jayjay decided he liked the sound of Foaly’s voice and gave the nearest screen a lick. The little primate’s tongue crackled, and he scampered back, shooting Foaly a glare.
“One lemur,” said the centaur. “No female?”
Holly shook the stars from her eyes, the fog from her brain. The stream lingered in her head like the last moments of sleep.
“No. No female. You’ll have to clone him.”
Foaly peered past Holly to the shuddering form on the ground behind her.
The centaur raised an eyebrow.
“I see we have an—”
“Let’s talk about that later,” said Holly sharply, interrupting the centaur. “For now we have work to do.”
Foaly nodded thoughtfully. “I’m guessing, from the look of things, that Artemis has a plan of some sort. Is that going to be a problem for us?”
“Only if we try to stop it,” said Holly.
Artemis took Jayjay into his arms, stroking the little lemur’s Mohawk and calming him with a rhythmic clicking of his tongue.
Holly felt that she too would be calmed—not by Artemis’s clicking, but by the sight of her own face in the mirror. She was herself again; her one-piece fit snugly. A grown woman. No more teenage confusion. She would feel even better once she retrieved her gear. There was nothing like a Neutrino on the hip for a self-confidence boost.
“Time to see Mother,” said Artemis grimly, selecting a suit from the wardrobe. “How much fluid should I administer?”
“It’s powerful stuff,” said Foaly, entering some calculations on his keyboard.“Two cc’s. No more. There is a syringe gun in Holly’s medi-kit on the bedside table. Be very careful with the brain drain. There’s an anaesthetic tab in there too. Give Jayjay a swab, and he won’t feel a thing.”
“Very well,” Artemis said, pocketing the kit. “I shall go in alone. I do hope Mother recognizes me.”
“So do I,” agreed Holly. “Or she may object to lemur brain juice being injected into her by a total stranger.”
Artemis’s hand hovered over the crystal doorknob on hi
s parents’ bedroom door. In its facets he could see a dozen reflections of his own face. Each one was drawn and worried.
Last chance. My last chance to save her.
I am forever trying to save people, he thought. I’m supposed to be a criminal. Where did it all go wrong?
No time for drifting. There was more at stake here than gold or notoriety. His mother was dying, and her salvation was perched on Artemis’s shoulder, searching his scalp for ticks.
Artemis closed his fingers over the knob. Not another moment to waste on thoughts; time now for action.
The room seemed colder than he remembered, but this was doubtless his imagination.
All minds play tricks. Even mine. The perceived cold is a projection of my mood, nothing more.
His parents’ bedroom was rectangular in shape, stretching along the west wing from front to rear. It was actually more of an apartment than a room, with a lounge area and office corner. The large four-poster bed was angled so that tinted light from a medieval stained-glass porthole would fall across the studded headboard in summer.
Artemis placed his feet carefully on the rug, like a ballet dancer, avoiding the vine pattern in the weave.
Step on a vine, count to nine.
Bad luck was the last thing he needed.
Angeline Fowl was splayed on the bed, as though thrown there. Her head was angled back so sharply that the line from her neck to her chin was almost straight, and her skin was pale enough to seem translucent.
She’s not breathing, thought Artemis, panic fluttering in his chest like a caged bird. I was wrong. I am too late.
Then his mother’s entire frame convulsed as she dragged down a painful breath.
Artemis’s resolve almost left him. His legs were boneless rubber and his forehead burned.
This is my mother. How can I do what needs to be done?
But he would do it. There wasn’t anyone else who could.
Artemis reached his mother’s side and gently pushed strands of hair back from her face.
“I am here, Mother. Everything will be fine. I found a cure.”
Somehow, Angeline Fowl heard her son’s words, and her eyes flickered open. Even her irises had lost their color, fading to the ice blue of a winter lake.
“Cure,” she sighed. “My little Arty found the cure.”
“That’s right,” said Artemis. “Little Arty found the cure. It was the lemur. Remember, the Madagascan lemur from Rathdown Park?”
Angeline raised a bone-thin finger, tickling the air before Jayjay’s nose. “Little lemur. Cure.”
Jayjay, unsettled by the bedridden woman’s skeletal appearance, ducked behind Artemis’s head.
“Nice lemur,” said Angeline, a weak smile twitching her lips.
I am the parent now, thought Artemis. She is the child.
“Can I hold him?”
Artemis took a half-step back. “No, Mother. Not yet. Jayjay is a very important creature. This little fellow could save the world.”
Angeline spoke through her teeth. “Let me hold him. Just for a moment.”
Jayjay crawled down the back of Artemis’s jacket, as though he understood the request and did not want to be held.
“Please, Arty. It would comfort me to hold him.”
Artemis nearly handed the lemur over. Nearly.
“Holding him will not cure you, Mother. I need to inject some fluid into one of your veins.”
Angeline seemed to be regaining her strength. She inched backward, sliding her head up the headboard. “Don’t you want to make me happy, Arty?”
“I prefer healthy to happy for the moment,” said Artemis, making no move to hand over the lemur.
“Don’t you love me, son?” crooned Angeline. “Don’t you love your mommy?”
Artemis moved briskly, tearing open the medi-kit and closing his fingers around the transfusion gun, a single tear rolling down his pale cheek.
“I love you, Mother. I love you more than life. If you could only know what I have been through to find little Jayjay. Just be still for five seconds, then this nightmare will be over.”
Angeline’s eyes were crafty slits. “I don’t want you to inject me, Artemis. You’re not a trained nurse. Wasn’t there a doctor here, or was I dreaming that?”
Artemis primed the gun, waiting for the charge light to flash green. “I have administered shots before, Mother. I gave you your medicine more than once the last time you were . . . ill.”
“Artemis!” snapped Angeline, the flat of her hand slapping the sheet. “I demand that you give the lemur to me now! This instant! And summon the doctor.”
Artemis plucked a vial from the medi-kit. “You are hysterical, Mother. Not yourself. I think I should give you a sedative before I administer the antidote.” He slid the vial into the gun and reached for his mother’s arm.
“No,” Angeline virtually screeched, slapping him away with surprising strength. “Don’t touch me with your LEP sedatives, you stupid boy.”
Artemis froze.“LEP, Mother? What do you know of the LEP?”
Angeline tugged her lip, a guilty child. “What? Did I say LEP? Three letters, no more. They mean nothing to me.”
Artemis took another step away from the bed, gathering Jayjay protectively in his arms.
“Tell me the truth, Mother. What is happening here?”
Angeline abandoned her innocent act, pounding the mattress with delicate fists and squealing in frustration.
“I despise you, Artemis Fowl. You bothersome human. How I loathe you.”
Not words one expects to hear from one’s mother.
Angeline lay flat on the bed, steaming with rage. Literally steaming. Her eyeballs rolled in their sockets, and tendons stood out like steel cables on her arms and neck. All the time she ranted.
“When I have the lemur I will crush you all. The LEP, Foaly, Julius Root, all of you. I will send laser dogs down every tunnel in the earth’s crust until I flush out that odious dwarf. And as for that female captain, I will brainwash her and make her my slave.” She cast a hateful look at Artemis. “Fitting revenge, don’t you agree, my son.” The last two words dripped from her lips like poison from a viper’s fangs.
Artemis held Jayjay close; he could feel the small creature shivering against his chest. Or perhaps the shivering was his own.
“Opal,” he said. “You followed us home.”
“Finally!” shouted Artemis’s mother, in Opal’s voice. “The great boy genius sees the truth.” Angeline’s limbs stiffened, and she levitated from the bed, surrounded by a roiling mist of steam. Her pale blue eyes cut through the fog, spearing Artemis with their mad glare.
“Did you think you could win? Did you believe that the battle was won? How charmingly deluded. You do not even possess magic. I, on the other hand, have more magic than any other fairy since the demon warlocks. And once I have the lemur, I will be immortal.”
Artemis rolled his eyes. “Don’t forget invincible.”
“I haaate you!” squealed Opal/Angeline. “When I have the lemur, I will ... I will ...”
“Kill me in some horrible fashion,” suggested Artemis.
“Precisely. Thank you.”
Angeline’s body pivoted stiffly until she hovered upright, her halo of charged hair brushing the ceiling.
“Now,” she said, pointing a skeletal finger at the cowering Jayjay, “give me that creature.”
Artemis wrapped the lemur in his jacket. “Come and get him,” he said.
In the study, Holly was running through Artemis’s theory.
“That’s it?” said No1 when Holly had finished explaining. “You’re not forgetting some crucial detail? Like the part that makes sense?”
“The whole thing is ridiculous.” interjected Foaly from the monitors. “Come on, fairies. We’ve done our part. Time to head belowground.”
“Soon,” said Holly. “Let’s just give Artemis five minutes to check it out. All we need to do is be alert.”
Foaly’s sigh
crackled through the speakers. “Well, at least let me raise the shuttle. The troops are holding at Tara, waiting for a callback.”
Holly thought about this. “That’s good. You do that. Whatever happens, we need to be ready to move out. And when you’re finished, do a sweep of the estate, see where that nurse is.”
Foaly’s focus shifted left, while he put a call in to Tara.
Holly pointed at No1. “You just have a little of that signature magic dancing on your fingertips in case we need it. I won’t feel completely safe until Angeline is well, and we’re drinking sim-coffee in a Haven bar.”
No1 raised his hands, and soon they were enveloped in ripples of red power. “No problem, Holly. I’m ready for anything.”
It was a statement that was missing an almost.
In the same split second, the monitors blacked out and the door burst open with a force that actually drove the doorknob into the wall. Butler’s huge frame filled the gap.
Holly’s smile slipped when she noticed the pistol in the bodyguard’s fist and the mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes.
He’s armed and doesn’t want to be mesmerized.
Holly was quick, but Butler was quicker, and he had the element of surprise; after all, he was supposed to be on his way to China. Holly went for her gun, but Butler was there before her, ripping the Neutrino from her hip.
We have other tricks, thought Holly. We have magic. No1 will knock your socks off.
Butler dragged something into the room on a trolley. A steel barrel with runes etched on the metal.
What’s this? What’s he doing?
No1 managed to get off a single bolt; indoor lightning that scorched Butler’s shirt, knocking him back a pace. But even as he stumbled backward, the bodyguard swung the trolley past him, slingshotting it into the room. A thick slime slopped from its open mouth, splashing on No1’s legs. The barrel trundled forward, knocking Holly and No1 aside like skittles.
No1 stared at his fingers as the magic on each tip winked out like candles in a breeze.
“I don’t feel so great,” he groaned, then keeled over, eyes flickering, lips muttering ancient spells that did not one iota of good.
What is in that barrel? wondered Holly, releasing her suit’s wings from their sheath. Butler grabbed Holly’s ankle as she ascended, flipping her ignominiously into the barrel. She felt the thick gunk close over her like a wet fist, blocking her nose and filling her throat.