by Eoin Colfer
Foaly actually blushed. 'It's early days yet, but I'm hopeful.'
The room was packed from floor to ceiling with state-of-the-art electronics. In fact some of it was in the floor and ceiling, including wall-sized gas view screens, and an incredibly realistic sim-sky overhead.
Foaly was obviously proud of what he had put together. 'Section Eight has the budget. I get the very best of everything.'
'What about your old job?'
The centaur scowled. 'I tried working for Sool, but it didn't work out.
He's destroying everything Commander Root built. Section Eight headhunted me discreetly at a speed-dating weekend. They made me an offer and I accepted. I get plenty of fawning adoration here, not to mention a huge salary hike.'
Mulch had a quick nosey around and was irritated to find that there wasn't a single crumb of food in the room.
'None of that salary went on vole curry, I suppose?"
Foaly raised an eyebrow at the dwarf, who was still coated with tunnel dirt.
'No. But we do have a shower room. You do know what a shower is, don't you, Diggums?'
Mulch's beard hair bristled. 'Yes, I do. And I know a donkey when I see one too.'
Holly stepped between them. 'OK, you two. No need to take up where you left off. Let's hold off on the traditional insults until we find out where we are, and why we're here.'
Mulch lowered himself gleefully on to a cream couch, |, fully aware that some of his mucky coating would rub into the furniture. Holly sat beside him, but not too close.
Foaly activated a wall screen, then touched it gently to navigate to the program he wanted.
'I love these new gas screens,' he snickered. 'Electric pulses heat the particles to different temperatures, causing the gas to turn different colours, forming pictures. Of course it's a lot more complicated than that, but I'm dumbing it down for the convict.'
'I was completely exonerated,' objected Mulch. 'As you well know.'
'The charges were dropped,' Foaly pointed out. 'You were not exonerated. It's a different thing. Slightly.'
'Yes, like a centaur and a donkey are different things. 'Slightly.'
Holly sighed. It was almost like old times. Foaly was the LEP technical consultant who had steered her through many ^ operations, and Mulch was their reluctant helper. It would be difficult for a stranger to believe that the dwarf and the centaur were actually good friends. She supposed this irritating bickering was how the males of every species showed affection.
A life-size picture of a demon flashed up on the screen. Its eyes were slitted, and its ears were crowned with spikes.
Mulch jumped. 'D'Arvit!'
'Relax,' said Foaly. 'It's computer-generated. Amazing picture quality though, I grant you.' The centaur enlarged the face until it filled the screen.
'Full-grown buck demon. Post warp.'
'Post warp?'
'Yes, Holly. Demons do not grow like other fairies. They are quite cuddly until they hit puberty, then their bodies undergo a violent and painful spasm, or warp. After eight to ten hours they emerge from a cocoon of nutrient slime as demons. Before that, they are simply imps.
Not the warlocks though, they never warp. Instead their magic blossoms. I don't envy them. Instead of acne and mood swings, a pubescent warlock demon gets lightning bolts shooting out of his fingers. If he's lucky.'
'Where do they shoot out of if he's unlucky? And why do we care about any of this?' asked Mulch, cutting to the chase.
'We care, because a demon popped up recently in Europe and we didn't get to him first.'
'So we heard. Demons are coming back from Hybras now?'
'Maybe, Holly.' Foaly tapped the screen, splitting it into smaller sections.
Demon pictures appeared in each one. 'These demons have materialized momentarily over the past five centuries. Luckily none of them have stayed around long enough to be captured by the Mud Men.'
Foaly highlighted the fourth picture. 'My predecessor managed to hold on to this one for twelve hours. He got a silver medallion on to him, and there was a full moon.'
'That must've been a special moment,' said Mulch.
Foaly sighed. 'Didn't you learn anything in school? Demons are unique among all the creatures of the Earth. Their island, Hybras, is actually an enormous moonrock that came down in the Triassic period when the moon was hit by a meteorite. From what we can glean from fairy cave paintings and virtual models, this moonrock punched into a magma stream and more or less got itself welded to the surface. Demons are descended from lunar microorganisms that lived inside the rock. They are subject to a strong physical and mental lunar attraction — they even levitate during the full moon. And it is this attraction which pulls them back into our dimension. They have to wear silver to repel the lunar pull. Silver is the most effective dimensional anchor. Gold works too, but sometimes you leave bits of yourself behind.'
'So let's say we believe all this interdimensional lunar attraction baloney,' said Mulch, doing his utmost to wind Foaly up. 'What has that got to do with us?'
'It has everything to do with us,' snapped Foaly. 'If the humans capture a demon, who do you think will be next under their microscope?'
Vinyaya took up the backstory. 'That is why, five hundred years ago, Council Chairman Nan Burdeh set up Section Eight to monitor demon activity. Luckily Burdeh was a billionaire, and when she died, she left her entire fortune to Section Eight. Hence the rather impressive set-up.
We are a very small, covert Council division of the LEP, but everything we have is the best. Over the years our brief has expanded to include secret missions that are too sensitive to entrust to regular LEP. But demonology is still our priority. For five centuries our finest minds have been studying the ancient demon texts, trying to predict where the next demon will pop up. Generally our calculations are correct and we can contain the situation. But twelve hours ago something happened in Barcelona.'
'What happened?' asked Mulch, a reasonable question for once.
Foaly opened another box on the screen. Most of the picture was white.
'This happened.'
Mulch peered at the box. 'A very small snowstorm?'
Foaly wagged a finger at him. 'I swear, if I wasn't such a fan of mockery myself, I would have you tossed out of here on your combustible behind.'
Mulch accepted the compliment with a gracious nod.
'No, this is not a small snowstorm. This is white-out. Someone was blocking our Scopes.'
Holly nodded. Scopes was the shop name for the shrouded trackers attached to human communications satellites.
'You can see that whatever happened in our little snowstorm must have been pretty unusual, because the Mud Men are very eager to get away from it.'
On screen, humans outside the white-out zone ran away wildly or drove their cars into walls.
'Human news programmes report several sightings of a lizard-like creature appearing out of thin air for several seconds. Of course there are no photographs. I had calculated that there would be an appearance, but more than three metres to the left, and we had set up an Elldee, sorry, Light Distortion projector accordingly. Unfortunately, although we got the time right, the exact location was wrong.
Somehow, whoever was inside that ball of interference got the location exactly right.'
'So Artemis saved us,' noted Holly.
Vinyaya was puzzled. 'Saved us? How?'
'Well, if it hadn't been for that interference, our demon friend would have been all over the Internet by now. And you think that Artemis was inside the ball of interference.'
Foaly grinned, obviously delighted with his own cunning. 'Little Arty thought he could outwit me. He knows the LEP keep him under constant surveillance.'
'Even though they promised not to,' interjected Holly.
Foaly ignored this technicality, ploughing on. 'So Artemis sent out decoys to Brazil and Finland, but we put a satellite on all three. Took a big chunk out of my budget, I can tell you.'
Mulch g
roaned. 'I am either going to barf, or fall asleep, or both.'
Vinyaya slammed a fist into her palm. 'Right. I've had enough of the dwarf. Let's just toss him in a holding cell for a few days.'
'You can't do that,' objected Mulch.
Vinyaya grinned nastily at him. 'Oh yes I can. You wouldn't believe the powers Section Eight has. So shut up, or listen to your own voice bouncing back at you from steel walls.'
Mulch locked his mouth and threw away the key.
'So we know Artemis was in Barcelona,' continued Foaly. 'And we know a demon appeared. He was at several other possible materialization sites too, but no demons showed up. He's involved somehow.'
'How do we know that for sure?' asked Holly.
'Here's how,' said Foaly. He tapped the screen, enlarging a section of the Casa Mila's roof.
Holly stared at the picture for several seconds, looking for whatever it was she was supposed to see.
Foaly gave her a hint. 'This is a Gaudi building. You like Gaudi? He designed some lovely mosaics.'
Holly looked harder. 'Oh my God,' she said suddenly. 'It can't be.'
'Oh, but it is,' laughed Foaly, enlarging a particular rooftop mosaic until it filled the entire wall screen. There were two figures in the picture, stepping from a hole in the sky. One was obviously a demon, and the other was clearly Artemis Fowl.
'But that's impossible. That building must be a hundred years old.'
'Time is the key to this whole thing,' said Foaly. 'Hybras has been lifted out of time. A demon who gets sucked off the island drifts through the centuries like a temporal nomad. This demon obviously got hold of Artemis and took him along for the ride. They must have appeared to one of Gaudi's artists, or maybe even the man himself.'
Holly paled. 'You mean Artemis is…"
'No, no. Artemis is home in bed. We've pulled a satellite out of orbit to keep twenty-four-seven watch on him.'
'How is this possible?'
Foaly said nothing, so Vinyaya answered the question. I'll take this one, because Foaly doesn't like saying the words. We don't know, Holly. This affair leaves a lot of important questions unanswered. That's where you come in.'
'How? I don't know anything about demons.'
Vinyaya nodded craftily. 'Yes, but you know a lot about Artemis Fowl. I believe you keep in touch."
Holly shrugged. 'Well, I wouldn't say we really. .'
Foaly cleared his throat, then called up an audio file on the system.
'Hey, Artemis,' said a recording of Holly's voice. 'I've got a little problem you might be able to help me with.'
'Happy to help, Holly,' said Artemis's voice. 'Something difficult, I hope.'
'Well, there's this pixie I'm after, but he's a fast one.'
Foaly switched off the file. 'I think we can say you're in contact.'
Holly smiled sheepishly, hoping nobody would ask who gave Artemis a fairy communicator.
'OK. I call from time to time. Just to keep an eye on him. For the greater good.'
'Whatever your reasons,' said Vinyaya, 'we need you to contact him again. Go to the surface and find out how he can predict demon appearances so accurately. According to Foaly's calculations, there isn't a demon appearance due for six weeks, but we would like to know where exactly it's going to be.'
Holly took her time to think about this.
'In what capacity would I be contacting Artemis?'
'Full Captain, your old rank. Of course, now you'd be working for
Section Eight. Everything you do for us would be hush-hush.'
'A spy?'
'A spy, but with excellent overtime and medical insurance.'
Holly jerked a thumb at Mulch. 'What about my partner?'
The dwarf jumped to his feet. 'I don't want to be a spy.
Far too dangerous.' He winked slyly at Foaly. 'But I could be a consultant, for a fee.'
Vinyaya scowled. 'We're not prepared to grant Diggums a surface visa.'
Mulch shrugged. 'Good. I don't like the surface. It's too close to the sun and I have sensitive skin.'
'But we are prepared to compensate him for loss of earnings.'
'I don't know if I'm ready to put on the uniform again,' said Holly. 'I like working with Mulch.'
'Let's call this mission a probationary term. Do this one I for us. See if you like the way we operate.'
Holly mulled it over. 'What colour is the uniform?'
Vinyaya smiled. 'Matte black.'
'OK,' said Holly. 'I'm in.'
Foaly hugged her again. 'I knew you'd do it. I knew it. Holly Short cannot resist adventure. I told them.'
Vinyaya saluted stiffly. 'Welcome on board, Captain Short. Foaly will complete your briefing and get you kitted out. I expect you to make contact with the subject as soon as possible.'
Holly returned the salute. 'Yes, Commander. Thank you, Commander.'
'Now if you'll excuse me, I have a debriefing with a pixie we've managed to place inside the goblin triads. He has been wearing a scale suit for six months and he's having a bit of an identity crisis.'
Vinyaya left, her silver mane rippling behind her. The automatic doors closed with barely a whisper.
Foaly dragged Holly from her seat.
'I have so much to show you,' he babbled excitedly. 'The fairies here are nice, but a bit on the square side. Sure they ooh and aah, but no one appreciates me like you do. We have our own shuttle port, you know. And field equipment! You are not going to believe the spec. Wait until you see the new Shimmer Suit. And the helmet! Holly, this thing comes home on its own. I built a series of mini-thrusters into the skin.
It can't fly, but it can bounce wherever you want it to. The thing is beyond genius.'
Mulch covered his ears. 'Same old Foaly. Modest to a fault.'
Foaly aimed a kick at Mulch, pulling it at the last second.
'Keep it up, Diggums. I could snap at any moment. I am half beast, remember.'
Mulch moved the hoof away from his face with a finger. 'I can't help it,' he whined. 'All this melodrama. Someone has to poke fun.'
Foaly turned once more to his precious wall screen. He selected and enlarged an artist's impression of the island of Hybras.
'I know this all sounds very cloak-and-dagger, and I know you think I'm making an anaconda out of a stinkworm. But believe me, somewhere on that island there is an unsuspecting demon who is about to make a reluctant visit to Earth and make life very difficult for us.
Holly stepped close to the screen. Where was that reluctant demon? she wondered. And did he have any idea that he was about to be snatched from his own dimension and propelled into another?
As it happened, Holly's questions were inaccurate on two counts. Firstly, the demon in question was not actually a demon, he was just an imp.
And secondly, the imp in question was anything but reluctant. In fact, visiting Earth was his dearest wish.
Chapter 3: FIRST IMPRESSION
the island of hybras, LIMBO
One night, Imp No.1 dreamed he was a demon. He dreamed his horns were curved and pointed. His hide was coarse and armoured, and his talons were sharp enough to rip the hide from a wild boar's back. He dreamed the other demons cowered before him, then scurried away lest he injure them while in the throes of his battle spasms.
That night he dreamed this magnificent dream, then awoke to find he was still merely an imp. Of course technically he did not have this dream at night. The sky over Hybras is forever tinged with the red glow of dawn. But No.1 thought of his rest period as night, even though he'd never seen one.
Imp No.1 dressed quickly, rushing into the hallway to check his reflection in the lodge mirror, just in case he had warped in his sleep.
But there was no change. Still the same unimpressive figure as usual.
One hundred per cent imp.
'Grrr,' he said to his image. And even the No.1 in the mirror was unconvinced. And if he couldn't scare himself, then he was not a scary creature and might as well get a job changing b
aby imps.
There was some potential in the mirror. Imp No.1 had the general skeletal structure of a proper demon. He was about the same height as a sheep sitting on its rear. His skin was grey as moon dust and pebbled with armoured plating. Spiralling red runes wound their way round his chest, up along his neck and across his forehead. His eyes had striking orange irises, and his jaw had a noble jut about it, or so he liked to think, though others had called it protruding. He had two arms, slightly longer than an average human ten-year-old, and two legs, slightly shorter. Fingers and toes: eight of each. So nothing weird there. One tail, more of a stump, actually, but excellent for burrowing holes if you're hunting for grubs. All in all, your typical imp. But at fourteen years old, the oldest imp in Hybras. Roughly fourteen years old, that is.
It was hard to be exact when it was always dawn. The hour of power as the warlocks used to call it, before they got sucked into the depths of cold space. The hour of power. Very catchy.
Hadley Shrivelington Basset, a demon who was actually six months No.1's junior, but already fully fledged, strolled down the tiled corridor on his way to the washroom. His horns corkscrewed impressively and his ears had at least four points. Hadley enjoyed parading his new demon self in front of the imps. Generally demons shouldn't even bunk in the imp lodge, but Basset seemed in no hurry to move out.
'Hey, imp,' he said, snapping his towel at No.1's behind. It connected with a sharp crack. 'Are you going to warp any time soon? Maybe if I get you angry enough.'
The towel stung, but No.1 didn't get angry. Just nervous. Everything made him nervous. That was his problem.
Time for a quick subject change. 'Morning, Basset. Nice ears.
'I know,' said Hadley, tipping the points one after another. 'Four points already and I think there's a fifth coming up. Abbot himself only has six points.'
Leon Abbot, the hero of Hybras. The demons' self-proclaimed saviour.
Hadley snapped No.1 again with the towel.
'Don't you get a pain in your face, looking in the mirror, imp? Because you're giving me a pain in mine.'
He put his hands on his hips, threw back his head and laughed. It was all very dramatic. You'd think there was an artist in the wings doing sketches.