The Artemis Fowl Files (Artemis Fowl 0.50)

Holly felt the tips of her pointed ears quiver. Was this entire trip a charade? Did the commander already have her report written?

They touched down on Seal Beach, which was remarkably devoid of seals and sand. The shuttle had a second skin of plasma screens that projected the surroundings onto the craft’s outer plates. To the casual observer, when Trouble Kelp popped the hatch, it would seem like a door in the sky.

Holly and Trouble hopped out onto the pebbles, scurrying forward to avoid the jet wash.

Root opened a porthole. “You’ve got twenty minutes to cry or say your prayers or whatever it is you females do, then I’m comin’ a callin’.”

Holly’s eyes were fierce. “Yessir. I’m going to start crying presently. Soon as you’re over the horizon.”

Root half smiled, half scowled. “I hope your skills can pay the checks your mouth is writing.” Holly had no idea what a check was, but she decided that now was not the time to say that.

Root gunned the engine, taking off over the hillside in a low, looping arc. All that was visible of the craft was a faint translucent shimmer.

Holly found that she was suddenly cold. Haven was completely air-conditioned, so her traffic suit did not have heating coils. She noticed Captain Kelp adjusting the thermostat on his computer.

“Hey,” Trouble said. “No need for two of us to be uncomfortable. I’ve already passed my initiation.”

“How many times did you get tagged?” Holly asked.

Trouble grimaced ruefully. “Eight. And I was the best in the group. Commander Root moves quickly for an old-timer, plus he has a couple of million ingots worth of hardware at his disposal.”

Holly turned up her collar against the Atlantic wind. “Any handy hints?”

“I’m afraid not. And once this camera starts rolling, I can’t even talk to you any more.” Captain Kelp touched a button on his helmet, and a red light winked at Holly. “The only thing I can say is that if I were you, I’d get moving. Julius won’t waste any time, so neither should you.”

Holly looked around. Make use of your environment, the manuals said. Use what nature provides. That maxim wasn’t much good to her here. The pebble beach was bordered by a steep rock face on two sides, with a steep mudslide incline on the third. It was the only way out, and she’d better take it before the commander had time to set himself up at the top. She double-timed it toward the slope, determined to make it out of this exercise with her self-respect intact.

Something shimmered in the corner of Holly’s eye. She stopped in her tracks.

“That’s hardly fair,” she said, pointing to the spot.

Trouble looked across the pebble beach. “What?” he asked, even though he was not supposed to talk.

“Look there. A sheet of cam foil. Someone is hiding on the beach. Do you have a little backup in case the corporal proves a bit quick for the old-timers?”

Trouble instantly realized the seriousness of the situation. “D’Arvit,” he growled, reaching for his sidearm.

Captain Kelp was quick on the draw. He actually managed to get his weapon out of its holster before a sniper’s rifle pulsed beneath the cam foil, catching him high on the shoulder, spinning him across the wet stones.

Holly darted right, zigzagging through the rocks. If she kept moving, the sniper might not be able to get a lock on her. Her fingers were actually digging into the mud slope when a second sniper reared up from the earth, shrugging off a sheet of cam foil.

The newcomer, a stocky dwarf, was holding the biggest rifle Holly had ever seen. “Surprise,” he said grinning, teeth crooked and yellowing.

He fired and the laser pulse hit Holly in the gut like a sledgehammer. That’s the thing about Neutrino weapons: they don’t kill, but they hurt worse than a bucket of hangnails.

Holly came to, and immediately wished she hadn’t. She leaned forward on the oversize chair she was tied to, and threw up all over her boots. Beside her, Trouble Kelp was involved in the same activity. What was going on here? Laser weapons were not supposed to have side effects, unless you were allergic, which she wasn’t.

Glancing around, Holly caught her breath. They were in a small roughly plastered room, dominated by a huge table. A huge table or a human-size table? They were in a human residence? That explained the sickness. Entering human residences without permission was expressly forbidden. The price for ignoring this edict was loss of magic, and nausea.

The details of their predicament sparked in Holly’s memory. She had been on her initiation when a couple of fairies had ambushed them on the beach. Could this be some kind of extreme test? She looked across at Captain Kelp’s drooping head. That was pretty realistic for a test.

A huge door creaked open and a grinning elf stepped through. “Oh, you are unwell. Sorcery sickness, or ‘book barfing’ as I believe the younger fairies call it. Don’t worry, it will soon pass.” The elf looked older than any fairy Holly knew, and was wearing a yellowed LEP dress uniform. It was like something out of a period movie.

The elf caught Holly’s glance. “Ah, yes,” he said, plumping up his ruffles. “My finery fades. It is the curse of living without magic. Everything fades, and not just the clothing. To look in my eyes you would never guess that I am barely a century older than my brother.”

Holly looked in his eyes. “Brother?”

Beside her, Trouble stirred, spat, and raised his head. Holly heard a sharp intake of breath. “Oh gods. Turnball Root.”

Holly’s mind spun. Root? Brother. This was the commander’s brother.

Turnball was delighted. “Finally, someone remembers. I was beginning to think I was forgotten.”

“I majored in Ancient History,” said Trouble. “You have your own page in the ‘Criminally Insane’ section.”

Turnball tried to appear casual, but he was interested. “Tell me, what did this page say?”

“It said that you were a traitorous captain who tried to flood a section of Haven just to wipe out a competitor who was muscling in on your illegal mining scheme. It said that if your brother had not stopped you with your finger on the button, then half the city could have been lost.”

“Ridiculous,” tutted Turnball. “I had engineers study my plans. There would have been no chain reaction. A few hundred would have died, no more.”

“How did you escape from prison?” asked Holly.

Turnball’s chest puffed up. “I have never spent a day in prison. I am not a common criminal. Luckily, Julius lacked the gumption to kill me, and so I managed to escape. He has hunted me ever since. But that ends today.”

“So that’s what this is all about: revenge?”

“Partly,” admitted Turnball. “But also freedom. Julius is like a dog with a bone. He will not let go. I need a chance to finish my martinis without looking over my shoulder. I have had ninety-six residences in the past five centuries. I lived in a fabulous villa near Nice in the seventeen-hundreds.” The old elf’s eyes grew misty. “I was so happy there. I can still smell the ocean. I had to burn that house to the ground because of Julius.”

Holly was rotating her wrists slowly, trying to loosen the knots. Turnball noticed the motion.

“Don’t bother, my dear. I have been tying people up for centuries. It is one of the first skills you learn as a fugitive. And well done, by the way. A female at an initiation. I bet my little brother doesn’t l

ike that. He was always a bit on the sexist side.”

“Yes,” said Holly. “Whereas you are a real gentle-fairy.”

“Touché,” said Turnball. “As I used to say in France.”

Trouble’s face had lost the green tinge. “Whatever your plan is, don’t expect any help from me.”

Turnball stood before Holly, lifting her chin with a curved nail. “I don’t expect help from you, Captain. I expect help from the pretty one. All I expect from you is a little screaming before you die.”

Turnball had two accomplices: a sullen dwarf and an earthbound sprite. Commander Root’s brother called them into the room for a round of introductions.

The dwarf’s name was Bobb, and he wore a wide-brimmed sombrero to keep the sun off his delicate dwarf skin.

“Bobb is the best burglar in the business after Mulch Diggums,” explained Turnball, draping an arm round the squat dwarf’s massive shoulders. “However, unlike the canny Diggums, he doesn’t plan so well. Bobb made his big mistake when he dug into a community center during a police fund-raiser. He’s been hiding out on the surface since then. We make a good team: I plan, he steals.” He turned to the sprite, spinning him round. Where the sprite’s wings should be, there were two bulbous knobs of scar tissue.

“Unix here got in a fight with a troll and lost. He was clinically dead when I found him. I gave him the last shot of magic I had to bring him back, and to this day I don’t know if he loves me or hates me for it. Loyal though. This fairy here would walk into Earth’s core for me.”

The sprite’s green features were impassive, and his eyes were as empty as wiped disks. These two fairies were the ones who had picked off Holly and Trouble on the pebble beach.

Turnball ripped Holly’s name tag from her chest. “Now, here’s the plan. We are going to use Corporal Short here to lure Julius in. If you try to warn him, then the captain dies in terrible agony. I have a Tunnel Blue spider in my bag that will rip his insides apart in seconds. And having entered a human dwelling, he won’t have a drop of magic to ease that pain. For your part, all you have to do is sit in a clearing and wait for Julius to come and get you. When he does, then we get him. It’s that simple. Unix and Bobb will accompany you. I will wait here for the happy moment when Julius is dragged through that door.”