When the demon appeared, the public froze. When the creature disappeared they unfroze explosively. The air was rent with the sounds of shouting and screaming. Drivers abandoned their cars, or simply drove them into store windows to escape. A wave of humans withdrew from the point of materialization as though repelled by an invisible force. Again, the girl and her companions bucked the trend, actually running towards the spot where the demon had shown up. The man with the crutches displayed remarkable agility for one who was supposedly injured.
Butler ignored the pandemonium, concentrating on his right hand. Or rather where his right hand had been a second earlier. Just before Artemis fizzled into another dimension, Butler had managed to get a grip on his shoulder. Now the disappearing virus had claimed his own hand. He was going wherever Artemis had gone. He could still feel his young charge’s bony shoulder in his grip.
Butler fully expected his arm to vanish, but it didn’t. Just the hand. He could still feel it in an underwater-pins-and-needles kind of way. And he could still feel Artemis.
‘No, you don’t,’ he grunted, tightening his invisible grip. ‘I’ve put up with too much hardship over the years for you to disappear on me now.’
And so Butler reached down through the decades and yanked his young charge back from the past.
Artemis didn’t come easy. It was like dragging a boulder through a sea of mud, but Butler was not the kind of person that gave up easily. He planted his feet and put his back into it. Artemis popped out of the twentieth century and landed sprawling in the twenty-first.
‘I’m back,’ said the Irish boy, as if he had simply returned from an everyday errand. ‘How unexpected.’
Butler picked his principal up and gave him a perfunctory examination.
‘Everything is in the right place. Nothing broken. Now, Artemis, tell me, what is twenty-seven multiplied by eighteen point five?’
Artemis straightened his suit jacket. ‘Oh, I see, you’re checking my mental faculties. Very good. I suppose it’s conceivable that time travel could affect the mind.’
‘Just answer the question!’ insisted Butler.
‘Four hundred and ninety-nine point five, if you must know.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
The giant bodyguard cocked his head to one side. ‘Sirens. We need to get out of this area, Artemis, before I’m forced to cause an international incident.’
He hustled Artemis to the other side of the road, to the only car still idling there. Maria looked a little pale, but at least she had not abandoned her clients.
‘Well done,’ said Butler, flinging open the rear door. ‘Airport. Stay off the motorway as much as possible.’
Maria barely waited until Butler and Artemis were belted, before burning rubber down the street, ignoring the traffic lights. The blonde girl and her companions were left on the roadside behind them.
Maria glanced at Artemis in the mirror. ‘What happened out there?’
‘No questions,’ said Butler curtly. ‘Eyes on the road. Drive.’
He knew better than to ask questions himself. Artemis would explain all about the strange creature and the shining rift when he was ready.
Artemis remained silent as the limousine swung down towards Las Ramblas and from there into the labyrinthine backstreets of downtown Barcelona.
‘How did I get here?’ he said eventually. Musing aloud. ‘Or rather why aren’t we there? Or why aren’t we then? What anchored us to this time?’ He looked at Butler. ‘Are you wearing any silver?’
Butler grimaced sheepishly. ‘You know I never usually wear jewellery, but there is this.’ He shot one cuff. There was a leather bracelet on his wrist, with a silver nugget in the centre. ‘Juliet sent it to me. From Mexico. It’s to ward off evil spirits apparently. She made me promise to wear it.’
Artemis smiled broadly. ‘It was Juliet. She anchored us.’ He tapped the silver nugget on Butler’s wrist. ‘You should give your sister a call. She saved our lives.’
As Artemis tapped his bodyguard’s wristband, he noticed something about his own fingers. They were his fingers, no doubt about it. But different somehow. It took him a moment to realize what had happened.
He had, of course, done some theorizing on the hypothetical results of interdimensional travel, and concluded that there could possibly be some deterioration of the original, as with a computer program that has been copied once too often. Streams of information could be lost in the ether.
As far as Artemis could tell, nothing had been lost, but now the index finger on his left hand was longer than the second finger. Or more accurately, the index finger had swapped places with the second finger.
He flexed the fingers experimentally.
‘Hmm,’ noted Artemis Fowl. ‘I am unique.’
Butler grunted. ‘Tell me about it,’ he said.
CHAPTER 2: DOODAH DAY
HAVEN CITY, THE LOWER ELEMENTS
HOLLY Short’s career as an elfin private investigator was not working out as well as she’d hoped. This was mainly because the Lower Elements’ most popular current events show had run not one, but two specials on her over the past few months. It was difficult to go undercover when her face was forever popping up on cable reruns.
‘Surgery?’ suggested a voice in her head.
This voice was not the first sign of madness; it was her partner, Mulch Diggums, communicating from his mike to her earpiece.
‘What?’ she said, her voice carrying to her own microphone, a tiny flesh-coloured chip glued to her throat.
‘I’m looking at a poster of your famous face, and I’m thinking that you should have some cosmetic surgery if we want to stay in business. And I mean real business, not this bounty-hunting game. Bounty hunters are the lowest of the low.’
Holly sighed. Her dwarf partner was right. Even criminals were considered more trustworthy than bounty hunters.
‘A few implants and a reshaped nose and even your best friend wouldn’t recognize you,’ continued Mulch Diggums. ‘It’s not as if you’re a beauty queen.’
‘Forget it,’ said Holly. She was fond of the face she had. It reminded her of her mother’s.
‘What about a skin spray? You could go green, disguise yourself as a sprite.’
‘Mulch? Are you in position?’ snapped Holly.
‘Yep,’ came the dwarf’s reply. ‘Any sign of the pixie?’
‘No, he’s not up and about yet, but he will be soon. So stop the chatter and just get ready.’
‘Hey, we’re partners now. No more criminal and police officer. I don’t have to take orders from you.’
‘Get ready, please.’
‘No problem. Mulch Diggums, lowlife bounty hunter, signing off.’
Holly sighed. Sometimes she missed the discipline of the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance Division. When an order was given, it was followed. Although if she was honest, Holly had to admit she had got herself into trouble more than once for disobeying a direct command.
She had only survived in LEPrecon for as long as she had because of a few high-profile arrests. And because of her mentor, Commander Julius Root.
Holly felt her heart lurch as she remembered, for the thousandth time, that Julius was dead. She could go for hours without thinking about it, then it would hit her. Every time like the first time.