فصل چهارم

Chapter 4: Narrow Escapes

Munich

Munich during working hours was like any other major city in the world: utterly congested. In spite of the U-bahn, an efficient and comfortable rail system, the general population preferred the privacy and comfort of their own cars, with the result that Artemis and Butler were stuck on the airport road in a rush-hour traffic jam that stretched all the way from the International Bank to the Kronski Hotel.

Master Artemis did not like delays. But today he was too focused on his latest acquisition, The Fairy Thief, still sealed in its Perspex tube. Artemis itched to open it, but the previous owners, Sparrow and Crane, could have somehow booby-trapped the container. Just because there were no visible traps didn’t mean that there couldn’t be an invisible one. An obvious trick would be to vacuum pack the canvas, then inject a corrosive gas that would react with oxygen, and burn the painting.

It took almost two hours to reach the hotel, a journey that should have taken twenty minutes. Artemis changed into a dark cotton suit, then called up Fowl Manor’s number on his mobile phone’s speed dial. But before he connected, he linked the phone by firewire to his Powerbook, so he could record the conversation. Angeline Fowl answered on the third ring.

“Arty,” said his mother, sounding slightly out of breath, as though she had been in the middle of something. Angeline Fowl did not believe in taking life easy, and was probably halfway through a Tae Bo workout.

“How are you, Mother?”

Angeline sighed down the phone line. “I’m fine, Arty, but you sound like you’re doing a job interview, as usual. Always so formal. Couldn’t you call me Mom or even Angeline? Would that be so terrible?” “I don’t know, Mother. Mom sounds so infantile. I am fourteen now, remember?”

Angeline laughed. “How could I forget? Not many teenage boys ask for a ticket to a genetics symposium for their birthday.” Artemis had one eye on the Perspex tube. “And how is Father?”

“He is wonderful,” gushed Angeline. “I am surprised how well he is. That prosthetic leg of his is marvelous, and so is his outlook. He never complains. I honestly think that he’s got a better attitude toward life now than he did before he lost his leg. He’s under the care of a remarkable therapist, who says the mental is far more important than the physical. In fact, we leave for the private spa in Westmeath this evening. They use this marvelous seaweed treatment, which should do wonders for your father’s muscles.” Artemis Fowl Senior had lost a leg before his kidnap by the Russian Mafiya. Luckily, Artemis had been able to rescue him with Butler’s help. It had been an eventful year. Since Artemis Senior’s return, he had been making good on his promise to turn over a new leaf and go straight. Artemis Junior was expected to follow suit, but was having trouble abandoning his criminal ventures. Although, sometimes when he looked at his father and mother together, the idea of being a normal son to loving parents didn’t seem like such a far-fetched one.

“Is he doing his physiotherapy exercises twice a day?”

Angeline laughed again, and suddenly Artemis wished he were home.

“Yes, Granddad. I am making sure of that. Your father says he’ll run the marathon in twelve months.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it. Sometimes I think you two would spend your time wandering around the grounds holding hands if I didn’t check up on you.” His mother sighed, and static rushed through the speaker. “I’m worried about you, Arty. Someone your age shouldn’t be quite so…responsible. Don’t worry about us; worry about school and friends. Think about what you really want to do. Use that big brain of yours to make yourself and other people happy. Forget the family business. Living is the family business now.” Artemis didn’t know how to reply. Half of him wanted to point out that there really would be no family business if it weren’t for him secretly safeguarding it. The other half of him wanted to get on a plane home and wander the grounds with his family.

His mother sighed again. Artemis hated that just talking to him could make her worry.

“When will you be home, Arty?”

“The trip ends in three more days.”

“I mean, when will you be home for good. I know Saint Bartleby’s is a family tradition, but we want you home with us. Principal Guiney will understand. There are plenty of good day schools locally.” “I see,” said Artemis. Could he do it? he wondered. Just be part of a normal family. Abandon his criminal enterprises. Was it in him to live an honest life?

“The holidays are in a couple of weeks. We can talk then,” he said. Using a delay tactic, he continued, “To be honest, I can’t concentrate now. I’m not feeling very well. I thought I might have food poisoning, but it turns out to be just a twenty-four-hour bug. The local doctor says I will be fine tomorrow.” “Poor Arty,” crooned Angeline. “Maybe I should put you on a plane home.”

“No, Mother. I’m feeling better already. Honestly.”

“Whatever you like. I know bugs are uncomfortable, but it’s better than a dose of food poisoning. You could have been laid low for weeks. Drink plenty of water, and try to sleep.” “I will, Mother.”

“You’ll be home soon?”

“Yes. Tell Father I called.”

“I will, if I can find him. He’s in the gym, I think, on the treadmill.”

“Good-bye, then.”

“Bye, Arty, we’ll talk more about this on your return,” said Angeline, her voice low and slightly sad, sounding very far away.

Artemis ended the call and immediately replayed it on his computer. Every time he spoke to his mother he felt guilty. Angeline Fowl had a way of awakening his conscience. This was a relatively new development. A year ago he might have felt a tiny pinprick of guilt at lying to his mother, but now even the minor trick he was about to play would haunt his thoughts for weeks.

Artemis watched the sound-wave meter on his computer screen. He was changing, no doubt about it. This kind of self-doubt had been increasing over the past several months—ever since he had discovered mysterious mirrored contact lenses in his own eyes one morning. Butler and Juliet had been wearing the same lenses. They had tried to find out where the lenses had come from, but all that Butler’s contact in that field would say was that Artemis himself had paid for them. Curiouser and curiouser.

The lenses remained a mystery. And so did Artemis’s feelings. On the table before him was Hervé’s The Fairy Thief, an acquisition that established him as the foremost thief of the age. A status he had longed for since the age of six. But now that his ambition was literally in his grasp, all he could think about was his family.

Is now the time to retire? he thought. Age fourteen and three months, the best thief in the world. After all, where can I go from here? He replayed a section of the phone conversation again: Don’t worry about us; worry about school and friends. Think about what you really want to do. Use that big brain of yours to make yourself and other people happy.

Maybe his mother was right: he should use his talents to make others happy. But there was a darkness in him. A hard surface on his heart that would not be satisfied with the quiet life. Maybe there were ways to make people happy that only he could achieve. Ways on the far side of the law. Over the thin blue line.

Artemis rubbed his eyes. He could not come to a conclusion. Perhaps living at home full time would make the decision for him. Best to continue with the job at hand. Buy some time, and then authenticate the painting. Even though he felt some guilt about stealing the masterpiece, it was not nearly enough to make him give it back. Especially to Messrs. Crane and Sparrow.

The first task was to deflect any inquiries from the school as to his activities. He would need at least two days to authenticate the painting, as some of the tests would need to be contracted out.

Artemis opened an audio manipulation program on his Powerbook and set about cutting and pasting his mother’s words from the recorded phone call. When he had selected the words he wanted, and put them in the right order, he smoothed the levels to make the speech sound natural.

When Principal Guiney turned on his mobile phone after the visit to Munich’s Olympia Stadium, there would be a new message waiting for him. It would be from Angeline Fowl, and she would not be in a good mood.

Artemis routed the call through Fowl Manor, then sent the edited sound file by infrared to his own mobile phone.

“Principal Guiney.” The voice was unmistakably Angeline Fowl’s, and the caller ID would confirm it. “I’m worried about Arty. He has a dose of food poisoning. His outlook is marvelous and he never complains, but we want him home with us. You understand. I put Arty on a plane home. I am surprised he got a dose of food poisoning under your care. We will talk more on your return.” That took care of school for a few days. The dark half of Artemis felt an electric thrill at the subterfuge, but his growing conscience felt a tug of guilt at using his mother’s voice to weave his web of lies.

He banished the guilt. It was a harmless lie. Butler would escort him home, and his education would not suffer through a few days’ absence. As for stealing The Fairy Thief, theft from thieves was not real crime. It was almost justifiable. Yes, said a voice in his head, unbidden. If you give the painting back to the world.

No, replied his granite-hearted half. This painting is mine until someone can steal it away. That’s the whole point.

Artemis banished his indecision and turned off his mobile phone. He needed to focus completely on the painting, and a vibrating phone at the wrong moment could cause his hand to jitter. His natural inclination was to pop the stopper on the Perspex tube’s lid. But that could be more than foolish: it could be fatal. There were any number of little gifts that Crane and Sparrow could have left for him.

Artemis took a chromatograph from the rigid suitcase that contained his lab equipment. The instrument would take a sample of the gas inside the tube and process it. He chose a needle nozzle from a selection of several and screwed it onto the rubber tube protruding from the chromatograph’s flat end. He held the needle carefully in his left hand. Artemis was ambidextrous, but his left hand was slightly steadier. With care, he poked the needle through the tube’s silicon seal, into the space around the painting. It was essential that the needle be moved as little as possible, so the container’s gas could not leak out and mingle with the air. The chromatograph siphoned a small sample of gas, sucking it into a heated injection port. Any organic impurities were driven off by heating, and a carrier gas transported the sample through a separation column and into a Flame Ionization Detector. There, individual components were identified. Seconds later a graph flashed up on the instrument’s digital readout. The percentages of oxygen, hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide matched a sample taken earlier from downtown Munich. There was a five percent slice of gas which remained unidentified. But that was normal. This was probably caused by complex pollution gases or equipment sensitivity. Mystery gas aside, Artemis knew that it was perfectly safe to open the tube. He did so, carefully slitting the seal with a craft knife.

Artemis put on a set of surgical gloves and teased the painting from the cylinder. It plopped onto the table in a tight roll, but sprung loose almost immediately. It hadn’t been in the tube long enough to retain the shape. Artemis spread the canvas wide, weighing the corners with smooth gel sacs. He knew immediately that this was no fake. His eye for art took in the primary colors and layered brushwork. Hervé’s figures seemed to be composed of light. So beautifully were they painted that the picture seemed to sparkle. It was exquisite. In the picture a swaddled baby slept in its sun-drenched cot near an open window. A fairy with green skin and gossamer wings had alighted on the windowsill and was preparing to snatch the baby from its cradle. Both of the creature’s feet were on the outside of the sill.

“It can’t go inside,” muttered Artemis absently, and was immediately surprised. How did he know that? He didn’t generally voice opinions without some evidence to back them up.

Relax, he told himself. It was simply a guess. Perhaps based on a sliver of information he had picked up on one of his Internet trawls.

Artemis returned his attention to the painting itself. He had done it. The Fairy Thief was his, for the moment at any rate. He selected a surgical scalpel from his kit and scraped the tiniest sliver of paint from the picture’s border. He deposited the sliver in a sample jar and labeled it. This would be sent to the Technical University of Munich, where they had one of the giant spectrometers necessary for carbon dating. Artemis had a contact there. The radiocarbon test would confirm that the painting, or at least the paint, was as old as it was supposed to be.

He called to Butler in the suite’s other room.

“Butler, could you take this sample over to the university now. Remember, give it only to Christiana, and remind her that speed is vital.” There was no answer for a moment, then Butler came charging through the door, his eyes wide. He did not look like a man coming to collect a paint sample.

“Is there a problem?” asked Artemis.

Two minutes earlier, Butler had been holding his hand to the window, lost in a rare moment of self-absorption. He glared at the hand, almost as if the combination of sunlight and staring would make the skin transparent. He knew that there was something different about him. Something hidden below the skin. He had felt strange this past year. Older. Perhaps the decades of physical hardship were taking their toll on him. Though he was barely forty, his bones ached at night and his chest felt as though he were wearing a Kevlar vest all the time. He was certainly nowhere near as fast as he had been at thirty-five, and even his mind seemed less focused, more inclined to wander…Just as it is doing now, the bodyguard scolded himself silently.

Butler flexed his fingers, straightened his tie, and got back to work. He was not at all happy with the security of the hotel suite. Hotels were a bodyguard’s nightmare. Service elevators, isolated upper floors, and totally inadequate escape routes made the Principal’s safety almost impossible to guarantee. The Kronski was luxurious, certainly, and the staff efficient, but that was not what Butler looked for in a hotel. He looked for a ground-floor room with no windows and a six-inch steel door. Needless to say, rooms like this were impossible to find, and even if he could find one, Master Artemis would undoubtedly turn up his nose at it. Butler would have to make do with this third-story suite.

Artemis wasn’t the only one with a case of instruments. Butler opened a chrome briefcase on the coffee table. It was one of a dozen such cases that he held in safe-deposit boxes around the world. Each case was full to bursting with surveillance equipment, counter surveillance equipment, and weaponry. Having one in each country meant that he did not have to break customs laws on each overseas trip from Ireland.

He selected a bug sweeper and quickly ran it around the room, searching for listening devices. He concentrated on the electrical appliances: phone, television, fax machine. The electronic waffle from those items could often drown a bug’s signal, but not with this particular sweeper. The Eye Spy was the most advanced sweeper on the market and could detect a pinhole mike half a mile away.

After a minute he was satisfied, and was on the point of returning the device to the case, when it registered a tiny electrical field. Nothing much, barely a single flickering blue bar on the indicator. The first bar solidified, then turned bright blue. The second bar began to flicker. Something electronic was closing in on them. Most men would have discounted the reading. After all, there were several thousand electronic devices within a square mile of the Kronski Hotel. But normal electronic fields did not register on the Eye Spy, and Butler was not most men. He extended the sweeper’s aerial, and panned the device around the room. The reading spiked when the aerial was pointed at the window. A claw of anxiety tugged at Butler’s intestines. Something airborne was coming closer at high speed.

He dashed to the window, ripped the net curtains from their hooks, and flung open the window. The winter air was pale blue with remarkably few clouds. Jet trails crisscrossed the sky like a giant’s game of tic-tac-toe. And there, twenty degrees up—a gentle spiraling curve—was a tear-shaped rocket of blue metal. A red light winked on its nose, and white-hot flames billowed from its rear end. The rocket was heading for the Kronski, no doubt about it.

It’s a smart bomb, Butler said to himself without one iota of doubt. And Master Artemis is the target.

Butler’s brain began flicking through his list of alternatives. It was a short list. There were only two choices, really: get out or die. It was how to get out that was the problem. They were three stories up with the exit on the wrong side. He spared a moment to take one last look at the approaching missile. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Even the emission was different from conventional weapons, with hardly any vapor trail. Whatever this was, it was brand new. Somebody must want Artemis dead very badly.

Butler turned from the window and barged into Artemis’s bedroom. The young master was busy conducting his tests on The Fairy Thief.

“Is there a problem?” asked Artemis.

Butler did not reply because he didn’t have time. Instead he grabbed the teenager by the scruff of the neck and hoisted him onto his own back.

“The painting!” Artemis managed to shout, his voice muffled by the bodyguard’s jacket.

Butler grabbed the picture, unceremoniously stuffing the priceless masterpiece into his jacket pocket. If Artemis had been able to see the century-old oil paint crack, he would have sobbed. But Butler was only paid to protect one thing, and it was not The Fairy Thief.

“Hang on extremely tightly,” advised the massive bodyguard, hefting a king-size mattress from the bed.

Artemis held on tight as he’d been told, trying not to think. Unfortunately his brilliant brain automatically analyzed the available data: Butler had entered the room at speed and without knocking; therefore, there was danger of some kind. His refusal to answer questions meant that the danger was imminent. And the fact that Artemis was on Butler’s back, hanging on tightly, indicated that they would not be escaping the aforementioned danger through conventional exit routes. The mattress would indicate that some cushioning would be needed.

“Butler,” gasped Artemis. “You do know that we’re three stories up?”

Butler might have answered, but his employer did not hear him, because by then the giant bodyguard had propelled them through the open double windows and over the balcony railing.

For a fraction of a second, before the inevitable fall, the air currents spun the mattress around, and Artemis could see back into his own bedroom. In that splinter of a moment, he saw a strange missile corkscrew through the bedroom door and come to a complete halt directly over the empty Perspex tube. There was some kind of tracker in the tube, said the tiny portion of his brain that wasn’t panicking. Someone wants me dead.

Then came the inevitable fall. Thirty feet. Straight down.

Butler automatically spread his limbs in a skydiving X, bearing down on the four corners of the mattress to stop it from flipping. The trapped air below the mattress slowed their fall slightly, but not much. The pair went straight down, fast, G-force increasing their speed with every inch. Sky and ground seemed to stretch and drip like oil paints on a canvas, and nothing seemed solid anymore. This impression came to an abrupt halt when they slammed into the extremely solid tiled roof of a maintenance shed at the hotel’s rear. The tiles seemed to almost explode under the impact, though the roof timbers held—barely. Butler felt as though his bones had been liquidized, but he knew that he would be okay after a few moments of unconsciousness. He had been in worse collisions before.

His last impression before his senses deserted him was the feel of Master Artemis’s heartbeat through his jacket. Alive, then. They had both survived. But for how long? If their assassin had seen his attempt fail, then maybe he would try again.

Artemis’s impact was cushioned by Butler and the mattress. Without them he certainly would have been killed. As it was, the bodyguard’s muscle-bound frame was dense enough to break two of his ribs. Artemis bounced a full three feet into the air before coming to rest on the unconscious bodyguard’s back, facing the sky.

Each breath was short and painful, and two nubs of bone rose like knuckles from his chest. Sixth and seventh rib, he guessed.

Overhead, a block of iridescent blue light flashed from his hotel window. It lit the sky for a split second, its belly busy with even brighter blue flares that wriggled like hooked worms. No one would pay much attention; the light could easily have been from an oversized camera flash. But Artemis knew better.

Bio-bomb, he thought. Now, how do I know that?

Butler was unconscious or else he would be moving, so it was up to Artemis to foil their attacker’s next murderous attempt. He tried to sit up, but the pain in his chest was ferocious, and intense enough to knock him out for a second. When he came to, his entire body was slick with sweat. Artemis saw that it was too late to escape. His assassin was already here, crouched catlike on the shed wall. The killer was a strange individual, no bigger than a child but with adult proportions. She was female with pretty, sharp features, cropped auburn hair, and huge hazel eyes, but that didn’t necessarily mean any mercy would be forthcoming. Butler had once told him that eight of the top-ten paid hitters in the world were women. She wore a strange jumpsuit that shifted colors to suit the background, and those large eyes were red from crying.

Her ears are pointed, thought Artemis. Either I’m in shock, or she’s not human.

Then he made the mistake of moving again, and one of his broken ribs actually punched through the skin. A red stain blossomed on his shirt, and Artemis gave up the fight to stay conscious.

It had taken Holly only ninety minutes to reach Germany. On a normal mission it would have taken at least twice that, but Holly had decided to break a few LEP regulations. Why not? she reasoned. It wasn’t as if she could get into any more trouble. The LEP already thought she had killed the Commander, and her communications were blocked so she could not explain what really happened. No doubt she was classified as rogue, and there was a Retrieval squad already on her tail. Not to mention the fact that Opal Koboi was probably keeping electronic tabs on her. So there was no time to lose.

Ever since the goblin gangs had been caught smuggling human contraband through disused chutes, sentries had been posted in each surface shuttleport. Paris was guarded by a sleepy gnome who was only five years from retirement. He was awoken from his afternoon nap by an urgent communiqué from Police Plaza. There was a rogue Recon jock on the way up. Detain for questioning. Proceed with caution.

Nobody really expected that the gnome would have any success. Holly Short was in peak physical condition and had once lived through a tussle with a troll. The gnome sentry couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been in shape, and had to lie down if he got a hangnail. Nevertheless, the sentry gamely guarded the shuttlebay until Holly blew past him on her way to the surface.

Once in the air, she peeled back a Velcro patch on her forearm, and ran a search on her computer. The computer found the Kronski Hotel and flashed up three route options. Holly chose the shortest one, even though it meant passing over several major human population centers. More LEP regulations smashed to bits. At this point she really didn’t care. Her own career was beyond salvaging, but that didn’t matter. Holly had never been a career elf anyway. The only reason she hadn’t already been booted out of the LEP was the commander. He had seen her potential, and now he was gone.

The earth flashed by below. European smells drifted through her helmet filters. The sea, baked earth, vines, and the tang of pure snow. Generally this was what Holly lived for, but not today. Today she felt none of the usual aboveground euphoria. Today she simply felt alone. The commander had been the closest thing to family she had left. Now he was gone too. Perhaps because she had missed the sweet spot. Had she effectively killed Julius herself? It was too awful to think about, and too awful to forget.

Holly opened her visor to clear the tears. Artemis Fowl must be saved. As much for the commander as for himself. Holly closed her visor, kicked up her legs, and opened the throttle to maximum. Time to see what these new wings of Foaly’s could do.

In a little more than an hour, Holly sped into Munich’s airspace. She dropped to a hundred feet and activated her helmet’s radar. It would be a shame to make it this far only to be pasted by an incoming aircraft. The Kronski showed up as a red dot in her visor. Foaly could have sent a live satellite feed, or at least the most recent video footage, but she had no way to contact the centaur, and even if she did, the Council would order her back to Police Plaza immediately.

Holly zeroed in on the red dot in her visor. That was where the bio-bomb would be headed, so she had to go there too. She dropped lower, until the Kronski’s roof was below her toes, and touched down on the rooftop. She was on her own now. This was as far as the onboard tracker could take her. She would have to locate Artemis’s room on her own.

Holly chewed her lip for a moment, then typed a command into the keypad on her wrist. She could have used voice command, but the software was touchy and she did not have time for computer error. In seconds, her onboard computer had hacked into the hotel computer and was displaying a guest list and schematic. Artemis was in room 304. Third story, in the south wing of the hotel.

Holly sprinted across the roof, activating her wings as she ran. She was seconds away from saving Artemis. Having a mythological creature drag him from his hotel room might be a bit of a shock, but not as much of a shock as being vaporized by a bio-bomb.

She stopped dead. A guided missile was arcing in from the horizon toward the hotel. It was fairy manufactured, no doubt about it, but it was new, slicker and faster, with bigger tail rockets than she’d ever seen on a missile. Opal Koboi had obviously been making upgrades.

Holly spun on her heels, racing for the other side of the hotel. In her heart she knew she was too late, and the realization hit her that Opal had set her up again. There never was any hope of rescuing Artemis, just as there never had been any chance of rescuing the commander.

Before her wings even had a chance to kick in, there was a bright blue flash from beyond the lip of the roof, and a slight shudder underfoot as the bio-bomb detonated. It was the perfect weapon. There would be no structural damage to the hotel room, and the bomb casing would consume itself and leave no evidence that it had ever been there.

Holly dropped to her knees in frustration, peeling off her helmet to gulp breaths of fresh air. The Munich air was laced with toxins, but it still tasted better than the belowground filtered variety. But Holly did not notice the sweetness. Julius was gone. Artemis was dead. Butler was dead. How could she go on? What was the point? Tears dropped from her lashes, running into tiny cracks in the concrete.

Get up! said her core of steel. The part of her that made Holly Short such an excellent officer. You are an LEP officer. There is more at stake here than your personal grieving. Time enough to cry later.

In a minute. I’ll get up in a minute. I just need sixty seconds. Holly felt as though the grief had scooped out her insides. She felt hollow, numb. Incapacitated.

“How touching,” said a voice, robotic and familiar.

Holly did not even look up. “Koboi. Have you come to gloat? Does murder make you happy?”

“Hmm?” said the voice, seriously considering the question. “You know, it does. It actually does make me happy.”

Holly sniffled, shaking the last tears from her eyes. She decided that she would not cry again until Koboi was behind bars.

“What do you want?” she asked, rising from the concrete roof. Hovering at head height was a small bio-bomb. This model was spherical, about the size of a melon, and equipped with a plasma screen. Opal’s happy features were plastered across the monitor.

“Oh, I just followed you from the chute because I wanted to see what total despair looks like. It’s not very fetching, is it?” For a few moments the screen displayed Holly’s own distraught face before flashing back to Opal.

“Just detonate, and be damned,” growled Holly.

The bio-bomb rose a foot, slowly circling Holly’s head.

“Not just yet. I think there’s a spark of hope in you yet. So I would like to extinguish that. In a moment I will detonate the bio-bomb. Nice, isn’t it? How do you like the design? Eight separate boosters, you know. It’s what happens after the detonation that’s important.” Holly’s law-enforcer curiosity was piqued in spite of the circumstances. “What happens then, Koboi? Don’t tell me, world domination.” Koboi chuckled, the volume distorting her laugh through the bomb’s microspeakers. “World domination? You make it sound so unattainable. The first step is simplicity itself. All I have to do is put humans in contact with the People.” Holly felt her own troubles instantly slip away. “Put humans in contact with the People? Why would you do that?”

Opal’s features lost their merry cast. “Because the LEP imprisoned me. They studied me like an animal in a cage, and now we shall see how they like it. There will be a war, and I will supply the humans with the weapons to win. And after they have won, my chosen nation will be the most powerful on earth. And I, inevitably, will become the most powerful person in that nation.” Holly almost screamed. “All this for a childish pixie’s revenge.”

Seeing Holly’s discomfort cheered Opal immediately. “Oh no, I’m not a pixie anymore.” Koboi slowly unwound the bandages circling her head to reveal two surgically rounded humanoid ears. “I’m one of the Mud People now. I intend to be on the winning side. And my new daddy has an engineering company. And that company is sending down a probe.” “What probe?” shouted Holly. “What company?”

Opal wagged a finger. “Oh no, enough explaining. I want you to die desolate and ignorant.” For one moment her face lost its false merriment, and Holly could see the hatred in her huge eyes. “You cost me a year of my life, Short. A year of a brilliant life. My time is too special to be wasted, especially answering to pathetic organizations like the LEP. Soon I will never have to answer to anyone, ever again.” Opal raised one hand into view. It was clutching a small remote. She pressed the red button. And as everyone knows, the red button can only mean one thing: Holly had milliseconds to come up with a plan. The monitor fizzled out, and a green light on the missile’s console winked red. The signal had been received. Detonation was imminent.

Holly jumped up, hooking her helmet over the spherical bomb. She put her weight on the helmet, bearing it down. It was like trying to submerge a football. LEP helmets were composed of a rigid polymer that could deflect solinium flares. Of course, the rest of Holly’s suit was not rigid and could not protect her from the bio-bomb, but maybe the helmet would be enough.

The bomb exploded, spinning the helmet into the air. Pure blue light gushed from the underside of the helmet, dissipating across the concrete. Ants and spiders hopped once, then their tiny hearts froze. Holly could feel her own heart speed up, battling against the deadly solinium. She held on for as long as she could, then the concussion bucked her off. The helmet spun away, and the fatal light was free.

Holly flipped her wing-control to rise, reaching for the skies. The blue light was after her like a wall of death. It was a race now. Had she gained enough time and distance to outrun the bio-bomb?

Holly felt her lips drag back across her teeth. G-force rippled the skin on her cheeks. She was counting on the fact that the bio-bomb’s active agent was light. This meant that it could be focused to a certain diameter. Koboi would not want to draw attention to her device by wiping out a city block. Holly alone was her target.

Holly felt the light swipe her toes. A dreadful feeling of nothingness crept up her leg before the magic banished it. She streamlined her body, arcing her head back, folding her arms across her chest, willing the mechanical wings to accelerate her to safety.

Suddenly the light dissipated. Flashed out, leaving only a dozen squirrelly flares in its wake. Holly had outrun the deadly light, with only minor injuries. Her legs felt weakened, but the sensation would recede shortly. Time enough to worry about that later. Now she had to return to the Lower Elements and somehow warn her comrades what Opal was planning.

Holly glanced down at the roof. Nothing remained now to suggest she’d ever been there, except the remains of her helmet, which spun like a battered top. Generally, inanimate objects were not affected by bio-bombs, but the helmet’s reflective layer had bounced the light around internally so much that it had overheated. And once the helmet had shorted out, so had all Holly’s bio-readings. As far as the LEP or Opal Koboi were concerned, Captain Short’s helmet was no longer broadcasting her heartbeat or respiratory rate. She was officially dead. And being dead had possibilities.

Something caught Holly’s eye. Far below, in the center of a cluster of maintenance buildings, several humans were converging on one hut. With her bird’s-eye view, Holly could see that the hut’s roof had been blown out. There were two figures lying in the roof timbers. One was huge, a veritable giant. The other, closer to her own size. A boy. Artemis and Butler. Could they have survived?

Holly threw her legs up behind her, diving steeply toward the crash site. She did not shield, conserving her magic. It looked as though every spark of healing power she possessed would be needed, so she would have to trust speed and her revolutionary suit to keep her hidden.

The other humans were several feet away, picking their way through the debris. They looked curious rather than angry. Still, it was vital that Holly get Artemis away from here, if he were alive. Opal could have spies anywhere and a backup plan just waiting to spring into deadly operation. It was doubtful they could cheat death again.

She landed on the shed’s gable end and peered inside. It was Artemis, all right, and Butler. Both breathing. Artemis was even conscious, though clearly in pain. Suddenly a red rose of blood spread across his white shirt, his eyes rolled back, and he began to buck. The Mud Boy was going into shock, and it looked like a rib had punctured his skin. There could be another one in his lung. He needed healing. Now.

Holly dropped to Artemis’s chest, placing a hand on the nubs of bone protruding under his heart.

“Heal,” she said, and the last sparks of magic in her elfin frame sped down her arms, intuitively targeting Artemis’s injuries. The ribs shuddered, twisted elastically, then rejoined in a hiss of molten bone. Steam vented from Artemis’s shuddering body as the magic flushed impurities from his system.

Even before Artemis had finished shaking, Holly had wrapped herself around the boy as much as possible. She had to get him away from here. Ideally, she could have taken Butler, too, but he was too bulky to be shielded by her slim frame. The bodyguard would have to look out for himself, but Artemis had to be protected. Firstly because he was undoubtedly the prime target, and secondly because she needed his devious brain to help her to defeat Opal Koboi. If Opal intended to join the world of men, then Artemis was the ideal foil for her genius.

Holly locked her fingers behind Artemis’s back and hoisted his limp body into an upright position. His head lolled on her shoulder and she could feel his breath on her cheek. Regular. Good.

Holly bent her legs until her knees cracked. She would need all the leverage she could get to mask their escape. Outside the voices grew closer, and she felt the walls shake as someone inserted a key in the door.

“Good-bye, Butler, old friend,” she whispered. “I’ll be back for you.”

The bodyguard groaned once, as though he had heard. Holly hated to leave him, though there was no choice. It was either Artemis alone or no one, and Butler himself would thank her for what she was doing.

Holly gritted her teeth, tensed every muscle in her body, and opened the throttle wide on her wings. She took off out of that shed like a dart from a blowpipe, kicking up a fresh cloud of dust in her wake. Even if someone had been staring right at her, all they would have seen was dust and a sky-colored blur, with possibly one loafered shoe poking out. But that must have been their eyes playing tricks, because shoes couldn’t fly. Could they?