“Well done, old friend,” he commented. “Although I’m certain your martial arts sensei is turning in his grave. A spinning kick? How could you?”
Butler bit his tongue, reversing the four-wheel drive off the woodenworks. As they crossed the overpass, he couldn’t resist glancing down at the chaos he had created. The government men were hauling a sodden docker from the polluted waters.
Artemis had needed this diversion for something. But Butler knew there was no point in asking what. His employer did not share his plans with anyone until he thought the time was right. And if Artemis Fowl thought the time was right, then it usually was.
Root emerged shaking from the pod. He didn’t remember it being like this in his time. Although, truth be told, it had probably been an awful lot worse. Back in the shillelagh days, there were no fancy polymer harnesses, no auto thrusters, and certainly no external monitors. It was just gut instinct and a touch of enchantment. In some ways Root preferred it like that. Science was taking the magic out of everything.
He stumbled down the tunnel into the terminal. As the number-one preferred destination, Tara had a fully fledged passenger lounge. Six shuttles a week came in from Haven City alone. Not on the flares, of course. Paying tourists didn’t like to be jostled around quite that much, unless of course they were on an illegal jaunt to Disneyland.
The fairy fort was crammed with full-moon overnighters complaining about the shuttle suspensions. A beleaguered sprite was sheltering behind her ticket desk, besieged by angry gremlins.
“There’s no point hexing me,” squealed the sprite, “there’s the elf you want right there.”
She pointed a quivering green finger at the approaching commander. The gremlin mob turned on Root, and when they saw the triple-barreled blaster on his hip, they kept right on turning.
Root grabbed the microphone from behind the desk, and hauled it out to the extent of its cable.
“Now hear this,” he growled, his gravelly tones echoing around the terminal. “This is Commander Root of the LEP. We have a serious situation above ground, and I would appreciate cooperation from all you civilians. First, I would like you all to stop your yapping so I can hear myself think!”
Root paused to make certain his wishes were being respected. They were.
“Secondly, I would like every single one of you, including those squawling infants, to sit down on the courtesy benches until I have gone on my way. Then you can get back to griping or stuffing your faces. Or whatever else it is civilians do.”
No one had ever accused Root of political correctness. No one was ever likely to either.
“And I want whoever’s in charge to get over here. Now!”
Root tossed the stand on to the desk. A blare of whistling feedback grated on every eardrum in the building. Within fractions of a second, an out-of-breath elf/goblin hybrid was bobbing at his elbow.
“Anything we can do, Commander?”
Root nodded, twisting a thick cigar into the hole beneath his nose.
“I want you to open a tunnel straight through this place. I don’t want to be bothered by Customs or Immigration. Start moving everybody below after my boys get here.”
The shuttle port director swallowed. “Everybody?”
“Yes. That includes terminal personnel. And take everything you can carry. Full evacuation.” He stopped and glared into the director’s mauve eyes. “This is not a drill.”
“You mean—”
“Yes,” said Root, continuing down the access ramp. “The Mud People have committed an overtly hostile act. Who knows where this is going?”
The elf/goblin combo watched as Root disappeared in a cloud of cigar smoke. An overtly hostile act? It could mean war. He punched in his accountant’s number on his mobile.
“Bark? Yes. This is Nimbus. I want you to sell all my shares in the shuttle port. Yes, all of them. I have a hunch the price is about to take a severe dive.”
Captain Holly Short felt as though a sucker slug was drawing her brain out through her earhole. She tried to figure out what could possibly have caused such agony, but her faculties didn’t stretch to memory just yet. Breathing and lying down were about all she could manage.
Time to attempt a word. Something short and pertinent. Help, she decided, would be the one to go for. She took a trembling breath and opened her mouth.
“Mummlp,” said her treacherous lips. No good. Incomprehensible even by a drunken gnome’s standards.
What was going on here? She was flat on her back with no more strength in her body than a damp tunnel root. What could have done this to her? Holly concentrated, skirting the edge of blinding pain.
The troll? Was that it? Had the troll mauled her in that restaurant? That would explain a lot. But no. She seemed to remember something about the old country. And the Ritual. And there was something digging into her ankle.
“Hello?”
A voice. Not hers. Not even elfin.
“You awake, then?”
One of the European languages. Latin. No, English. She was in England?
“I thought the dart might have killed you. Aliens’ insides are different from ours. I saw that on television.”
Gibberish. Aliens’ insides? What was the creature talking about?
“You look fit. Like Muchacho Maria, she’s a Mexican midget wrestler.”
Holly groaned. Her gift of tongues must be on the blink. Time to see exactly what kind of craziness she was dealing with here. Focusing all her strength at the front of her head, Holly cracked open one eye. She closed it again almost immediately. There appeared to be a giant blond fly staring down at her.
“Don’t be scared,” said the fly. “Just sunglasses.”
Holly opened both eyes this time. The creature was tapping a silver eye. No, not an eye. A lens. A mirrored lens. Like the lenses worn by the other two . . . It all came back in a jolt, rushing to fill the hole in her memory like a combination lock clicking into place. She had been abducted by two humans during the Ritual. Two humans with an extraordinary knowledge of fairy affairs.
Holly tried speaking again. “Where . . . where am I?”
The human giggled delightedly, clapping her hands together. Holly noticed her nails, long and painted.
“You can speak English. What sort of accent is that? Sounds like a little bit of everything.”
Holly frowned. The girl’s voice was corkscrewing right to the middle of her headache. She lifted her arm. No locator.
“Where are my things?”
The girl wagged her finger, as one might at a naughty child.
“Artemis had to take your little gun away, and all those other toys. Couldn’t have you hurting yourself.”
“Artemis?”
“Artemis Fowl. This was all his idea. Everything is always his idea.”
Holly frowned. Artemis Fowl. For some reason, even the name made her shiver. It was a bad omen. Fairy intuition was never wrong.
“They’ll come for me, you know,” she said, her voice rasping through dry lips. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”
The girl frowned. “You’re absolutely right. I have no clue what’s going on. So there’s no future in trying to psych me out.”
Holly frowned. It was obviously pointless playing mind games with this human. The mesmer was her only hope, but that couldn’t penetrate reflective surfaces. How the devil did these humans know that? That could be worked out later. For now she had to figure a way to separate this vacuous girl from her mirrored sunglasses.