The Time Paradox (Artemis Fowl 6)

“Butler!”he gasped, dropping to his knees.“You shot me.”

“Everyone knows my name,” sighed the bodyguard, bending to sling the intruders over his shoulders.

“I am intrigued,” said ten-year-old Artemis Fowl, studying the two individuals in the Bentley trunk. “Something extraordinary has happened here.”

“Hardly extraordinary,” said Butler, checking the girl’s pulse. “Two thieves somehow broke into the manor.”

“They bypassed all the security. Not so much as a blip on the motion sensors?”

“Nothing. I just happened on them during a routine sweep. Hiding in the shadows, wearing cast-offs from the wardrobe.”

Artemis tapped his chin. “Hmm. So you didn’t find their clothes.”

“Not a stitch.”

“Which would mean that they broke in here and bypassed security in their underwear.”

“That is extraordinary,” admitted Butler.

Artemis took a penlight from his jacket pocket and shone it on Holly, setting the strands of her silver wig sparkling like a disco ball. “There’s something about this one. Her bone structure is very unusual. The cheekbones are high, Slavic, perhaps, and the brow is wide and childlike. But the proportion of skull to torso is adult, not infant.”

Butler chuckled low in his throat. “So they’re aliens?”

“The young man is human, but she’s something else,” said Artemis thoughtfully. “Genetically enhanced, perhaps.” He moved the beam of light along her cheekbone.“See here. The ears are pointed. Amazing.”

Artemis felt an excitement buzzing on his forehead. Something was happening here. Something important. There were surely serious amounts of money to be earned from this situation.

He rubbed his palms briskly. “Very well. I cannot be distracted by this now. Long term, this strange creature could make our fortune, but right now we need to get that lemur.”

Butler was crestfallen but covered it by slamming the trunk. “I had hoped we could forget the monkey. I was trained in several forms of martial arts; none of them had a monkey defense.”

“It’s a lemur, Butler. And I am aware that you believe this operation is beneath us, but my father’s life is at stake.”

“Of course, Artemis. Whatever you say.”

“Exactly. So here is the plan. We will proceed to Rathdown Park as planned, and after we have done the deal with the Extinctionists, then I can decide what to do with our two guests. I presume they will be safe in the trunk?”

Butler snorted. “Are you kidding?”

Artemis did not smile. “Perhaps you have not noticed, Butler. I rarely kid.”

“As you say, young master. You are not a kidder. Maybe someday, eh?”

“Perhaps when I find my father.”

“Yes. Perhaps then. Anyway, to answer your question: this is your father’s car, and there have been more prisoners in this trunk than you’ve had birthdays. Mafiya, Triad, Yakuza, Tijuana Cartel, Hells Angels. You name the gang, and a couple of them have spent a night in this trunk. In fact, your father had it specially modified. There’s air-conditioning, a stay-cool light, soft suspension, and even drinking water.”

“Is it secure? Remember, our captives already broke into the manor.”

Butler closed the trunk. “Titanium lock, reinforced trunk door. No way out whatsoever. Those two are staying in there until we let them out.”

“Excellent,” said Artemis, sliding into the Bentley’s rear seat. “Just give me a moment to do this one little thing, then let’s forget about them and concentrate on the lemur.”

“Excellent,” echoed Butler, and then under his breath, “Monkey business. My favorite.”

Rathdown Park

Even though Holly was ten pounds lighter than Artemis, she came to her senses before him. She was glad to be awake, as her dream had been terrible. While she was asleep, her knees and elbows struck the metal walls of the Bentley trunk, and she had imagined herself in an LEP submarine.

Holly lay huddled in the dark, swallowing and blinking to conquer the phobia. Her mother had been mortally injured in a metal box, and now she was inside one.

And it was thoughts of her mother that finally calmed Holly. She opened her eyes and explored the confined space with her vision and fingertips. It didn’t take long to find the bubble light set into the steel wall. She snapped it on to find Artemis stretched beside her, and the sloping metal sheeting of a trunk door curling down past his arm. Her own borrowed shoes rested on the shining curve of a wheel arch. They were inside a vehicle.

Artemis groaned, twitched, and opened his eyes.

“Sell the Phonetix shares,” he blurted, then remembered Butler and the darts. “Holly. Holly?”

Holly patted his leg. “It’s okay, Artemis,” she said in Gnommish, in case the car was bugged. “I’m here. Where else could I be?”

Artemis shifted onto his side, flicking back the dense black hair obscuring his features, and spoke in the fairy tongue.

“We received the same dosage of tranquilizer, and yet you, the lighter person, are awake first. Magic?”

The side of Holly’s face was thrown into deep shadow by the bubble light. “Yes. No1’s signature magic is powerful stuff.”

“Powerful enough to get us out of here?”

Holly spent a minute exploring the trunk’s surface, running her fingertips along each weld in the metal. Finally she shook her head, silver wig sparkling. “Not a weak spot I can find. Even the air-conditioning vent is completely flush. No way out.”

“Of course not,” said Artemis. “We’re inside the Bentley. The trunk is a steel box with a titanium lock.” He breathed the cool air deeply.“How can this have happened? Everything is different. Butler was supposed to have deposited the cage in my study. Instead he creeps in through the bedroom and sedates us both. Now we don’t know where we are, or indeed where the lemur is. Do they have it already?”

Holly pressed one ear to the trunk door. “I can tell you where we are.”

Outside, the sounds of snuffling and snoring animals drifted on the air.“We’re close to animals. A park, I would guess, or a zoo.”

“Rathdown Park,” exclaimed Artemis. “And that fact tells us they do not, in fact, have the lemur. The schedule and situation have changed.”

Holly was thoughtful. “We are not in control of this situation anymore, Artemis. Perhaps it’s time to admit defeat and return home, when your younger self brings us back to the manor. Perhaps you can discover a cure in the future.”

Artemis had been expecting this suggestion. “I considered that. The lemur is still our best option, and we are just a few feet away from it. Give me five minutes to get us out of here.”

Holly was understandably dubious. “Five minutes? Even the great Artemis Fowl might have trouble breaking out of a steel box in five minutes.”

Artemis closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to ignore his cramped surroundings and the sheaves of hair brushing his cheeks, and the itch of

bristles on his chin.

“Face it, Artemis,”said Holly impatiently.“We’re stuck. Even Mulch Diggums would probably struggle with a lock like that if he happened to stroll by.”

Artemis’s brow flickered, irritated by this interruption, but then a smile spread across his face, made eerie by the stark lighting.

“Mulch Diggums strolling by,” he whispered. “What are the chances of that?”

“Zero,” said Holly. “Absolutely none. I would bet my pension on it.”

At that moment something, or someone, tapped on the trunk door from the outside.

Holly rolled her eyes. “No. Not even you . . .”

Artemis’s smile was smug beyond belief. “Just how large is your pension?”

“I do not believe it. I refuse to believe it. It is impossible.”

More taps on the door now, followed by a delicate scraping and a muted swearword.

“What a guttural voice,” said Artemis. “Very like a dwarf’s.”

“It could be Butler,” argued Holly, irritated by Artemis’s self-satisfied expression.

“Swearing in Gnommish. Hardly.”

More metallic noises from the outside world.

Shhhnick. Chunk. Clackack.

And the trunk’s lid swung upward, revealing a slice of starry night with the glinting silhouette of a gigantic pylon behind it. A bedraggled head popped into the space, features smeared with mud and worse. This was a face that only a mother could love, and then perhaps only if her sight were failing. The dark close-set eyes peered out from above a dense beard that shivered slightly, like seaweed in a current. The creature’s teeth were large, square, and not made any more appealing by the large insect wriggling between two molars.

It was, of course, Mulch Diggums.

The dwarf snagged the unfortunate insect with his tongue, then chewed it delicately.

“Ground beetle,” he said with relish. “Leistus montanus. Nice bouquet, solid earthy shell; then once the carapace cracks, a veritable explosion of flavors on the palate.”

He swallowed the unfortunate creature, then funneled a mighty burp though his flapping lips.

“Never burp when you’re tunneling,” he advised Artemis and Holly as casually as though they were sitting around a café table. “Dirt coming down, air coming up. Not a good idea.”