CHAPTER 4
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
The Bellini Theatre, Catania, Southern Sicily
Artemis Fowl and his bodyguard, Butler, relaxed in a private box at the stage-left side of Sicily’s world-famous Bellini Theatre. Perhaps it is not altogether accurate to say Butler relaxed. Rather, he appeared to relax, as a tiger appears to relax in the moment before it strikes.
Butler was even less happy here than he had been in Barcelona. At least for the Spain trip he’d had a few days to prepare, but for this jaunt he barely had time to catch up on his martial arts routines.
As soon as the Fowl Bentley had pulled up at Fowl Manor, Artemis had disappeared into his study, firing up his computers. Butler took the opportunity to work out, freshen up, and prepare dinner: onion marmalade tartlets, rack of lamb with garlic gratin, and a red berries crepe to inish.
Artemis broke the news over coffee.
“We need to go to Sicily,” he said, toying with the biscotti on his saucer. “I made a breakthrough on the time spell figures.”
“How soon?” asked the bodyguard, mentally listing his contacts on the Mediterranean island.
Artemis looked at his Rado watch and Butler moaned.
“Don’t check your watch, Artemis. Check the calendar.”
“Sorry, old friend. But you know time is limited. I can’t risk missing a materialization.”
“But on the jet you said that there wasn’t another materialization due for six weeks.”
“I was wrong, or rather, Foaly was wrong. He missed a few new factors in the temporal equation.”
Artemis had filled Butler in on the 8th Family details as the jet soared over the English Channel.
“Allow me to demonstrate,” said Artemis. He put a silver salt shaker on his plate “Let us say that this salt shaker is Hybras. My plate is where it is: our dimension. And your plate is where it wants to go: Limbo. With me so far?”
Butler nodded reluctantly. He knew that the more he understood, the more Artemis would tell him, and there wasn’t much space in a bodyguard’s head for quantum physics.
“So, the demon warlocks wanted to move the island from plate A to plate B, but not through space, through time.”
“How do you know all this?”
“It’s all in the fairy Book,” replied the Irish teenager. “Quite a detailed description, if a bit flowery.”
The Book was the fairy bible, containing their history and commandments. Artemis had managed to obtain a copy from a drunken sprite in Ho Chi Minh City years earlier. It was proving to be an invaluable source of information.
“I doubt the Book has too many charts and graphs,” noted Butler.
Artemis smiled. “No, I got the specifics from Foaly, not that he knows he’s sharing information.”
Butler rubbed his temples. “Artemis, I warned you not to mess with Foaly. The decoy thing is bad enough.”
Artemis was fully aware that Foaly was tracking him and any decoys he sent out. In fact, he only sent out the decoys to make Foaly dip into his funds. It was his idea of a joke.
“I didn’t initiate the surveillance,” objected Artemis. “Foaly did. I found more than a dozen devices on my computers alone. All I did was reverse the spike to get into some of his shared files. Nothing classified. Well, maybe a few. Foaly’s been busy since he left the LEP.”
“So what did Foaly’s files tell you?” said Butler resignedly.
“They told me about magic. Basically, magic is energy, and the ability to manipulate energy. To move Hybras from A to B, the demon warlocks harnessed the power of their volcano to create a time rent, or tunnel.” Artemis rolled his napkin into a tube, popped the salt shaker into it, and deposited the shaker on Butler’s plate.
“Simple as that?” said Butler doubtfully.
“Not really,” said Artemis. “In fact, the warlocks did an exceptional job, considering the instruments available to them at the time. They had to calculate the power of the volcano, the size of the island, the energy of each individual demon on the island, not to mention the reverse pull of lunar attraction. It’s amazing that the spell worked as well as it did.”
“There was a glitch?”
“Yes. According to the Book, the warlocks induced the volcano, but the force was too strong. They couldn’t control it, and the magic circle was broken. Hybras and the demons were transported, but the warlocks were blasted into space.”
Butler whistled. “That’s quite a glitch.”
“It’s more than a glitch. The demon warlocks were all killed, so now the rest of the pride are stuck in Limbo, held by a magical spell that was never meant to be permanent, without a warlock to bring them back.”
“Couldn’t Foaly go and get them?”
“No. It would be an impossible mission to re-create the same circumstances. Imagine trying to steer a feather in a sandstorm, then land the feather on a particular grain of sand, except you don’t know where the grain is. And even if you did know where the grain was, demon magic can only be controlled by a demon. They are by far the most powerful of warlocks. “
“Tricky,” admitted Butler. “So tell me why these demons are popping up here now?”
Artemis corrected him with a wagging finger. “Not just here, and not just now. The demons have always felt an attraction to their home world, a combination of lunar and terrestrial radiations. But a demon could only be pulled back if he was at his end of the time tunnel mouth, the crater, and not wearing a dimensional anchor.”
Butler fingered his wristband. “Silver.”
“That’s right. Now, because of massively increased radiation levels worldwide, the pull on demons is much stronger and reaches critical level with greater frequency.”
Butler was struggling to keep up. Sometimes it was not easy being a genius’s bodyguard.
“Artemis, I thought we weren’t going into specifics.”
Artemis continued regardless. He was hardly going to stop now, in midlecture.
“Bear with me, old friend. Nearly there. So now, energy spikes occur more often than Foaly thinks.”
Butler raised a finger. “Ah, yes, but the demons are okay as long as they stay away from the crater.”
Artemis raised a triumphant finger. “Yes!” he crowed. “That’s what you would think. That’s what Foaly thinks. But when our last demon was off course, I ran the equation from back to front. My conclusion is that the time spell is decaying. The tunnel is unraveling.”
Artemis allowed the napkin tube to widen in his hand. “Now the catchment area is bigger, as is the deposit area. Pretty soon, demons won’t be safe anywhere on Hybras.”
Butler asked the obvious question. “What happens when the tunnel decays altogether?”
“Just before that happens, demons all over Hybras will be plucked off the island, silver or no silver. When the tunnel collapses, some will be deposited on Earth, more on the moon, and the rest scattered through space and time. One thing is for sure, not many of them will survive, and those that do will be locked up in laboratories and zoos.”
Butler frowned. “We need to tell Holly about this.”
“Yes,” agreed Artemis. “But not just yet. I need one more day to confirm my figures. I’m not going to Foaly with nothing but theory.”
“Don’t tell me,” said Butler. “Sicily, right?”
So now they were in the Massimo Bellini Theatre, and Butler had barely half an idea why they were there. If a demon materialized on that stage, then Artemis was right, and the fairy People were in major trouble. And if the fairies were in trouble, then it was up to Artemis to help them. Butler was actually quite proud that his young charge was doing something for somebody else for a change. Even so, they had only a week to complete their task and return to Fowl Manor, because in seven days Artemis’s parents returned from Rhode Island, where Artemis Fowl Senior had finally taken possession of an artificial bio hybrid leg, to replace the one he had lost when the Russian Mafiya blew up his ship.
Butle
r peered out of the box at the hundreds of golden arches and the thirteen hundred–odd people enjoying the evening’s performance of Bellini’s Norma.
“First a Gaudí building, now this theater,” commented the bodyguard, his words audible only to Artemis, thanks to their box’s isolation and the booming volume of the opera. “Don’t these demons ever materialize somewhere quiet?”
Artemis replied in a whisper. “Just let the sublime music flow over you, enjoy the show. Don’t you know how difficult it is to get a box for a Vincenzo Bellini opera? Especially Norma. Norma combines the requirements of both a coloratura and a dramatic soprano. And the soprano is excellent, comparable to Callas herself.”
Butler grunted. Perhaps it was difficult for ordinary people to get a box in the theater, but Artemis had simply called his billionaire environmentalist friend, Giovanni Zito. The Sicilian had gladly surrendered his own box in exchange for two cases of the finest Bordeaux. Hardly surprising, since Artemis had recently invested more than ten million dollars in Zito’s water purification research.
“A Sicilian drinking Bordeaux?” Artemis had chuckled on the phone. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Keep your watch pointed at the stage,” directed Artemis, interrupting Butler’s thoughts. “The chances are minuscule that a demon will be caught without silver, even away from the crater, but if one does show up, I want it on film to prove to Foaly that my theory is correct. If we don’t have incontrovertible proof, the fairy Council will never take action.”
Butler checked that his watch crystal, which doubled as a camera lense, was angled toward the stage. “The camera is fine, but if you don’t mind, I won’t be letting the sublime music flow over me. I have enough to do keeping you safe.”