Holly's eyes lost their playful twinkle. 'And why are you so interested in demons, Artemis?'
Artemis opened two shirt buttons and pulled out a gold coin on a thong.
The coin had a circular hole in the centre. Put there by a blast from Holly's laser.
'You gave this to me after you saved my father's life. I owe you. I owe the People. So now, I'm doing something for them.'
Holly wasn't entirely convinced. 'Usually before you do anything for the People, you negotiate a fee.'
Artemis accepted the accusation with a slight nod. 'It's true. It was true, but I have changed.'
Holly folded her arms. 'And?'
'And it's nice to find something Foaly missed, even if I did stumble on to it by accident.'
'And?'
Artemis sighed. 'Very well. There is another factor.'
'I thought so. What do you want? Gold? Technology?'
'No. Nothing like that.'
Artemis sat forward in his seat. 'Have you any idea how difficult it is to have had all those thrilling adventures with the LEP and suddenly not be a part of that world any more?'
'Yes,' replied Holly. 'Actually I do.'
'I went from saving the world to geometry in a week. I'm bored, Holly.
My intellect is not being challenged, so when I came across the demon gospel in the Book, I realized that here was a way to be involved without affecting things. I could simply observe, and perhaps refine,
Foaly's calculations.'
'Which are not actually in the Book,' Holly pointed out. 'Simply observe, my foot.'
Artemis waved Holly's point away. 'Some harmless hacking. The centaur started it. So, I began travelling to materialization sites, but nothing happened until Barcelona. A demon showed up all right, except he showed up in the wrong place, and late. I simply stumbled across him. I would be floating in prehistoric space right now if Butler hadn't anchored me to this dimension with silver.'
Holly stifled a laugh. 'So it was luck. The great Artemis Fowl trumps the mighty Foaly thanks to dumb luck.'
Artemis was miffed. 'Informed luck, I think, is a better description.
Anyway, that is unimportant. I have recalculated with the new figures, and my conclusions, if borne out, could be calamitous for the People.'
'Go on, tell me. In short words, though. You wouldn't believe the amount of science I had to listen to today.'
'This is serious, Holly,' snapped Artemis. His outburst was followed by a chorus of shushes from the audience.
'This is serious,' he repeated in hushed tones.
'Why?' asked Holly. 'Surely it's just a matter of sharing your new figures and letting Foaly take care of the rest with light-distortion projectors?'
'Not quite,' said Artemis, settling back in his chair. 'If a demon appears on that stage in the next four minutes, then soon there won't be enough projectors to go round. If I'm right and the time spell is unravelling, then Hybras and everyone on it will soon be dragged back into this dimension. Most of the demons won't make it alive, but those who do could pop up anywhere and at any time.'
Holly switched her gaze to the stage. A raven-haired woman was holding ridiculously high notes for a ridiculously long time. Holly wondered if the woman would even notice a demon popping out of the air for a second or two. There wasn't supposed to be a materialization today. If there was, then that would mean Artemis was right, as usual, and a lot more demons were on the way. If that happened, then
Artemis Fowl and Holly Short would be up to their necks in the whole saving-the-fairy-race thing, yet again.
Holly glanced sideways at Artemis, who was studying the stage through a pair of opera glasses. She would never tell him, but if a human had to be involved with saving the fairy People, then Artemis was probably the best man, or boy, for the job.
the island of hybras, Limbo
No.1 struggled up towards the first rocky ridge on the side of the volcano. Several demons passed him on the trail, but not one tried to talk him out of it. In fact, he'd bumped into Hadley Shrivelington
Basset, who had offered to scratch a map on a piece of bark for him.
No.1 suspected that if he did take the big dimensional jump, no one would miss him any more than they would miss their favourite crossbow target. Except perhaps the demoness with red markings who smiled at him. The one from the compound. Maybe she would miss him a little.
No.1 stopped in his tracks when he realized that the only demon who would care if he was gone was one he had never spoken to.
He moaned aloud. How depressing was that!
No.1 trudged onwards past the final warning which, with typical demon subtlety, was in the form of a blood-reddened wolf skull mounted on a stick.
'What's that even supposed to mean?' muttered No.1 as he passed the sign. 'A wolf's head on a stick. Big wolf barbecue tonight. Bring your own wolf.'
Barbecue. Another word from Lady Heatherington Smythe.
No.1 sat on the ridge, wiggling his rump to dig a little trench for his tail.
Might as well be comfortable before jumping the hundred or so metres into the mouth of a steaming volcano. Of course, even if he didn't get whisked away to the old country, the still wouldn't be vaporized by the lava. No, he would probably be dashed against the rocks on the way down. What a cheery thought.
From his seat on the ridge, No.1 could see the jagged mouth of the crater and the rhythmic wisps of smoke that drifted skywards like the breath of a sleeping giant. It was the nature of the time spell that things progressed as though Hybras were still attached to the rest of the world, albeit at a different pace. So the volcano still bubbled and occasionally burped up a skinny column of flame, even though there was no Earth beneath it.
If No.1 was honest with himself, his resolve was wavering. It was easy to imagine hopping into an interdimensional crater when you were rolling your cocooned classmates into a becrusted dung pit. It had seemed then, as the flakes of ash had fluttered down on him, that things could not get any worse. And there had been something in Abbot's voice that made the idea seem irresistible. But now, sitting on the ridge, with a gentle wind cooling his chest plates, things didn't seem quite as bleak. At least he was alive, and there was no guarantee that the crater led anywhere except into the belly of the volcano. None of the other demons had made it back alive. They came back all right.
Some encased in blocks of ice, some burned to a crisp, but none hale and hearty like the pride leader. Although for some reason, when No.1 thought about Abbot, the many moments of cruelty he had suffered at the pride leader's whim seemed hazy, hard to focus on. All he could remember was that beautiful insistent voice telling him to cross over.
Moon madness. That was the heart of the matter. Demonkind was attracted to the moon. It sang to them, agitating particles in their blood.
They dreamed of it at night and ground their teeth at its absence. At any hour of the so-called day here on Hybras, demons could be seen stopping in their tracks to gaze at the space where the moon used to be.
It was part of them, a live organic part, and on an atomic level, they belonged together.
There were threads of the time spell still in the crater. Wisps of magic that curled about the mountain top, snagging any demon stupid enough to be caught without silver. And coded inside the magic was the song of the moon, calling the demons back, enticing them with visions of white light and weightlessness. Once those pale tendrils had a grip on a demon's mind, he would do anything to be closer to the source. The magic and moon madness would pour energy into the atoms of his being, vibrating his very electrons to a new orbit, changing his molecular structure, pulling him through time and space.
But there was only Abbot's word that this journey would end on Earth. It could end on the moon, and as much as demons loved the moon, they knew that nothing survived on its barren surface. The elders said that sprites could not fly close without freezing to death, spiralling to Earth with frozen wings and blue faces.
For some reason, No.1 wanted to take the journey today. He wanted the moon to call him into the crater, then deposit him somewhere where another warlock existed. Someone who would teach him to control his strange powers. But, he admitted miserably, he didn't have the courage. He could not just hurl himself into a rocky crater. The volcano's base was littered with the charred corpses of those who had imagined the moon calling to them. How could he know if the moon's power was truly beckoning, or if it was simply wishful thinking?
No.1 rested his face in his hands. Nothing for it but to return to the school. The imps in the pit would need turning or their hides could suffer dung lividity marks.
He sighed. This was not the first time he had made this desperate journey. But now No.1 really thought he would do it. Abbot was in his head, urging him on. He could almost bear the idea of the rocks rushing towards him. Almost.
No.1 toyed with the silver bangle on his wrist. It would have been so easy to slip off this trinket and just disappear.
Slip it off then, little one, said a voice in his head. Slip it off and come to me.
No.1 was not surprised by the voice. Actually it was more a feeling than a voice. No.1 had supplied the words himself. He often conversed with voices in his head. There was no one else to talk to. There was Flambard the shoemaker, and Lady Bonnie the spinster and his favourite, Bookie the lisping gossip.
This voice was new. More forceful.
A moment without silver, and a new world could be yours.
No.1's bottom lip jutted as he considered. He could remove the bangle,
he supposed, just for a moment. What harm could it do? He was nowhere near the crater, and the magic rarely strayed beyond the volcano.
No harm. No harm at all. One little tug.
The ridiculous notion had No.1 now. Taking off the bangle could be like a practice run for the day when he finally worked up the courage to feel the moon madness. His fingers traced the runes on the bangle. They were precisely the same as the markings on his chest. A double charm.
Repelling the moon magic. Removing one meant that the force of his own markings was reversed, pulling him straight towards the moon.
Take it off. Reverse the power.
No.1 watched his fingers grip the bangle's rim. He was in a daze, a buzzing fugue. The new voice had coated his mind with fog and was in control.
We will be together, you and I. You will bask in my light.
Bask in my light? thought the last conscious sliver of No.1. This new voice is quite the drama queen. Bookie is not going to like you.
Take it off, little one.
No.1 watched his hand tug the bangle over his knuckles. He was powerless to stop himself — not that he wanted to.
Moon madness, he realized with a jolt. All the way over here. How can that be?
Something in him knew. The warlock part of him, perhaps.
The time spell is breaking down. No one is safe.
No.1 saw the bangle, his dimensional anchor, slip from his fingers and spin to the ground. It seemed to happen in slow motion, the silver flowed and rippled like sunlight through water.
No.1 felt the tingle that comes when every atom in your body is overloaded with energy and boosted into a gaseous form. It really should be terribly painful, but the body doesn't really know how to respond to this kind of cell damage and so throws up a pathetic tingling.
There was no time to scream; all No.1 could do was disappear into a million flashing pinpoints of light, which quickly wound themselves into a tight band following a path to another dimension. In seconds there was nothing left to show that No.1 had ever been there but a spinning silver bangle.
It would be a long time, relatively speaking, before anyone missed him.
And no one would care enough to come looking.
the Massimo BELLini theatre, SiciLY
To look at Artemis Fowl, you would have thought that he was here simply for the opera. One hand trained a pair of opera glasses on the stage, the other hand conducted expertly, following the score note for note.
'Maria Callas is the acknowledged seminal Norma,' he said to Holly, who nodded politely, then rolled her eyes at Butler. 'But I have a confession:
I actually prefer Montserrat Caballe. She took the role on in the seventies. Of course, I have only heard recordings, but to me, Caballe's performance is more robust.'
'Really,' said Holly. 'I'm trying to care, Artemis, really. But I thought it was all supposed to be over when the fat lady sings. Well, she's singing, but it doesn't appear to be over.'
Artemis smiled, exposing his incisors. 'That's Wagner you're thinking of.'
Butler did not participate in the opera-related chit-chat. To him it was just another layer of distraction to be zoned out. Instead he decided to test the night-vision filter on Holly's new helmet. If it could indeed overcome the white-out problem, as Holly claimed, then he would have to ask Artemis to procure one for him.
Needless to say, Holly's helmet would not fit Butler's head. In fact it would barely slot over his fist, so the bodyguard folded the filter's left wing out until he could squint through it by holding the helmet to his cheek.
The effect was impressive. The filter successfully equalized the light throughout the building. It boosted or dimmed so that every person in the building was seen in the same light. Those on the stage appeared caked in make-up, and those in the boxes had no shadows to hide in.
Butler panned across the boxes, satisfying himself that there was no threat present. He saw plenty of nose-picking and handholding, sometimes by the same people. But nothing obviously dangerous. But in a second-tier box, adjacent to the stage, there was a girl with a head of blonde curls, all dressed up for a night of theatre.
Butler immediately recalled seeing the same girl at the materialization site in Barcelona. And now she was here too? Coincidence? There was no such thing. In the bodyguard's experience, if you saw a stranger more than once, either they were following you, or you were both after the same thing.
He scanned the rest of the box. There were two men behind the girl.
One in his fifties, paunchy, expensive tuxedo, was filming the stage with his mobile-phone camera. This was the first man from Barcelona. The second man was there too, possibly Chinese, wiry, spiked hair. He had apparently not yet recovered from his leg injury and was adjusting one of his crutches. He flipped it round, removed a rubber grip from the foot, then nestled it against his shoulder like a rifle.
Butler automatically moved between Artemis and the man's line of fire.
Not that the crutch was aimed at his charge, it was pointed stage right.
A metre from the soprano. Just where Artemis was expecting his demon to show up.
'Holly,' he said in a low, calm voice. 'I think you should shield.'
Artemis lowered his opera glasses. 'Problems?'
