“Yes, sir. On my way, sir.”
CHAPTER 4
ABDUCTION
Artemis’s main problem was one of location— how to locate a leprechaun. This was one sly bunch of fairies, hanging around for God knows how many millennia and still not one photo, not one frame of video. Not even a Loch Ness-type hoax. They weren’t exactly a sociable group. And they were smart, too. No one had ever got his hands on fairy gold. But no one had ever had access to the Book either. And puzzles were so simple when you had the key.
Artemis had summoned the Butlers to his study, and spoke to them now from behind a mini-lectern.
“There are certain rituals every fairy must complete to renew his magic,” explained Artemis.
Butler and Juliet nodded, as though this were a normal briefing.
Artemis flicked through his hard copy of the Book and selected a passage.
“From the earth thine power flows, Given through courtesy, so thanks are owed. Pluck thou the magick seed, Where full moon, ancient oak and twisted water meet. And bury it far from where it was found, So return your gift into the ground.”
Artemis closed the text. “Do you see?”
Butler and Juliet kept nodding, while still looking thoroughly mystified.
Artemis sighed. “The leprechaun is bound by certain rituals. Very specific rituals, I might add. We can use them to track one down.”
Juliet raised a hand, even though she herself was four years Artemis’s senior.
“Yes?”
“Well, the thing is, Artemis,” she said hesitantly, twisting a strand of blond hair in a way that several of the local louts considered extremely attractive. “The bit about leprechauns.”
Artemis frowned. It was a bad sign. “Your point, Juliet?”
“Well, leprechauns. You know they’re not real, don’t you?”
Butler winced. It was his fault really. He’d never got around to filling in his sister on the mission parameters.
Artemis scowled reprovingly at him.
“Butler hasn’t already talked to you about this?”
“No. Was he supposed to?”
“Yes, he certainly was. Perhaps he thought you’d laugh at him.”
Butler squirmed. That was exactly what he’d thought. Juliet was the only person alive who laughed at him with embarrassing regularity. Most other people did it once. Just once.
Artemis cleared his throat. “Let us proceed under the assumption that the fairy folk do exist, and that I am not a gibbering moron.”
Butler nodded weakly. Juliet was unconvinced.
“Very well. Now, as I was saying, the People have to fulfill a specific ritual to renew their powers. According to my interpretation, they must pick a seed from an ancient oak tree by the bend in a river. And they must do this during the full moon.”
The light began to dawn in Butler’s eyes. “So all we have to do ...”
“Is run a cross reference through the weather satellites, which I already have. Believe it or not, there aren’t that many ancient oaks left, if you take ancient to be a hundred years plus. When you factor in the river bend and full moon, there are precisely one hundred and twenty-nine sites to be surveyed in this country.”
Butler grinned. Stakeout. Now the Master was talking his language.
“There are preparations to be made for our guest’s arrival,” said Artemis, handing a typewritten sheet of A4 to Juliet. “These alterations must be made to the cellar. See to it, Juliet. To the letter.”
“Yes, Arty.”
Artemis frowned, but only slightly. For reasons that he couldn’t quite fathom, he didn’t mind terribly when Juliet called him by the pet name his mother had for him.
Butler scratched his chin thoughtfully. Artemis noticed the gesture.
“Question?”
“Well, Artemis. The sprite in Ho Chi Minh City . . .”
Artemis nodded. “I know. Why didn’t we simply abduct her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“According to Chi Lun’s Almanac of the People, a seventh-century manuscript recovered from the lost city of Sh’shamo: Once a fairy has taken spirits with the Mud People—that’s us by the way—they are forever dead to their brothers and sisters. So there was no guarantee that that particular fairy was worth even an ounce of gold. No, my old friend, we need fresh blood. All clear?”
Butler nodded.
“Good. Now, there are several items you will need to procure for our moonlight jaunts.”
Butler scanned the sheet: basic field equipment, a few eyebrow raisers, nothing too puzzling until . . .
“Sunglasses? At night?”
When Artemis smiled, as he did now, one almost expected vampire fangs to sprout from his gums.
“Yes, Butler. Sunglasses. Trust me.”
And Butler did. Implicitly.
Holly activated the thermal coil in her suit, and climbed to thirteen thousand feet. The Hummingbird wings were top of the range. The battery readout showed four red bars—more than enough for a quick jaunt through mainland Europe and across the British Isles. Of course, the regulations said always travel over water if possible, but Holly could never resist knocking the snowcap from the highest Alp on her way past.
The suit protected Holly from the worst of the elements, but she could still feel the chill sinking into her bones. The moon seemed huge from this altitude, the craters on its surface easily distinguishable. Tonight it was a perfect sphere. A magical full moon. Immigration would have their hands full, as thousands of surface-sick fairies were drawn irresistibly overground. A large percentage would make it, probably causing mayhem in their revelry. Earth’s mantle was riddled with illegal tunnels, and it was impossible to police them all.
Holly followed the Italian coast up to Monaco, and from there across the Alps to France. She loved flying— all fairies did. According to the Book, they had once been equipped with wings of their own, but evolution had stripped them of this power. All but the sprites. One school of thought believed that the People were descended from airborne dinosaurs. Possibly pterodactyls. Much of the upper body skeletal structure was the same. This theory would certainly explain the tiny nub of bone on each shoulder blade.
Holly toyed with the idea of visiting Disneyland Paris. The LEP had several undercover operatives stationed there, most of them working in the Snow White exhibit. It was one of the few places on Earth where the People could pass unnoticed. But if some tourist got a photo of her and it ended up on the Internet, Root would have her badge for sure. With a sigh of regret, she passed over the shower of multicolored fireworks below.
Once across the Channel, Holly flew low, skipping over the white-crested waves. She called out to the dolphins and they rose to the surface, leaping from the water to match her pace. She could see the pollution in them, bleaching their skin white and giving them red sores on their backs. And although she smiled, her heart was breaking. Mud People had a lot to answer for.
Finally the coast loomed ahead of her. The old country. Éiriú, the land where time began. The most magical place on the planet. It was here, ten thousand years ago, that the ancient fairy race, the Dé Danann, had battled against the demon Fomorians, carving the famous Giants’ Causeway with the strength of their magical blasts. It was here that the Lia Fáil stood, the rock at the center of the universe, where the fairy kings and later the human Ard Rí were crowned. And it was also here, unfortunately, that the Mud People were most in tune with magic, which resulted in a far higher People-sighting rate than you got anywhere else on the planet. Thankfully the rest of the world assumed that the Irish were crazy, a theory that the Irish themselves did nothing to debunk. They had somehow got it into their heads that each fairy lugged around a pot of gold with him wherever he went. While it was true that LEP had a ransom fund, because of its officers’ high-risk occupation, no human had ever taken a chunk of it yet. This didn’t stop the Irish population in general from skulking around rainbows, hoping to win the supernatural lottery.