The Last Guardian

by Eoin Colfer

“The laser is untested,” said Artemis. “I would never unleash this kind of power unless there was absolutely no alternative. And from what Myles told us, we have no other card to play.”

  “And Juliet doesn’t know about this?” asked Holly.

  “No, I kept it to myself.”

  “Good. Then we might have a chance.”

  Butler outfitted them all in camouflage gear from his locker, and even forced Artemis to endure the application of waxy stripes of black and olive makeup on his face.

  “Is this really necessary?” asked Artemis, scowling.

  “Completely,” said Butler, energetically applying the stick. “Of course, if you would stay here and allow me to go, then you and Myles could relax in your favorite loafers.”

  Artemis put up with the dig, correctly assuming that Butler was still a little miffed about the super-laser deception.

  “I must come along, Butler. This is a super-laser, not a point-and-shoot toy. An entire activation system is involved, and there is no time to teach you the sequence.”

  Butler slung a heavy flak jacket over Artemis’s thin shoulders. “Okay. If you must go, then it’s my job to keep you safe. So, let’s make a deal: If you do not voice all the withering comments about the weight or uselessness of this jacket that are no doubt swirling in that big brain of yours, then I will not mention the super-laser episode again. Agreed?”

  This jacket is really cutting into my shoulders, thought Artemis. And it’s so heavy that I could not outrun a slug.

  But he said, “Agreed.”

  Once Artemis’s security system assured them that their perimeter was clear, the group snuck in single file from the office, out of the kitchen, across the yard, and slipped into the alley between the stables.

  There were no sentries, which Butler found strange. “I don’t see anything. Opal must know by now that we escaped her pirates.”

  “She can’t afford to commit more troops,” whispered Holly. “The gate is her priority, and she needs to have as many Berserkers watching her back as possible. We are secondary at this point.”

  “That will be her undoing,” gasped Artemis, already suffering under the weight of the flak jacket. “Artemis Fowl will never be secondary.”

  “I thought you were Artemis Fowl the Second?” said Holly.

  “That is different. And I thought we were on a mission.”

  “True,” said Holly, then she turned to Butler. “This is your backyard, old friend.”

  “That it is,” said Butler. “I’ll take point.”

  They crossed the estate with cautious speed, wary of every living thing that crossed their path. Perhaps the Berserkers inhabited the very worms in the earth, or the oversized crickets that flourished on the Fowl grounds and sawed their wings in the moonlight, sounding like an orchestra of tiny carpenters.

  “Don’t step on the crickets,” said Artemis. “Mother is fond of their song.”

  The crickets, which had been nicknamed Jiminies by Dublin entomologists, were seen all year round only on the Fowl Estate, and they could grow to the size of mice. Artemis now guessed this was an effect of the magical radiation seeping through the earth. What he could not have guessed was that the magic had infected the crickets’ nervous systems with a degree of sympathy for the Berserkers. This did not manifest itself in bunches of crickets sitting in circles around miniature campfires telling stories of valiant elfin warriors, but in an aggression toward whatever threatened the Berserkers. Or, simply put: If Opal didn’t like you, then the crickets didn’t care for you much either.

  Butler dropped his foot slowly toward a cluster of crickets, expecting them to move out of his path. They did not.

  I should crush these little guys, he thought. I do not have time to play nice with insects.

  “Artemis,” he called over his shoulder, “these Jiminies are giving me attitude.”

  Artemis dropped to his knees, fascinated. “Look, they display no natural prudence whatsoever. It’s almost as if these crickets don’t like us. I should really conduct a study in the laboratory.”

  The biggest bug in the cluster opened its lantern jaws wide, jumped high, and bit Artemis on the knee. Even though the bug’s teeth did not penetrate his thick combat pants, Artemis fell backward in shock and would have landed flat on his backside had Butler not scooped him up and set off running with his principal tucked under his arm.

  “Let’s leave that lab study for later.”

  Artemis was inclined to agree.

  The crickets followed, pistoning their powerful hind legs to fling themselves into the air. They jumped as one, a bustling green wave that mirrored Butler’s path exactly. More and more crickets joined the posse, pouring from dips in the landscape and holes in the earth. The wave crackled as it moved, so tightly were the crickets packed.

  At least these ones can’t fly, thought Butler, or there would be no escape.

  Artemis found purchase and ran on his own two feet, wiggling out from Butler’s grip. The big cricket was still clamped to his knee, worrying the combat material. Artemis slapped at it with his palm, and it felt like hitting a toy car. The cricket was still there, and now his hand was sore.

  It was difficult even for Artemis to think in these circumstances, or rather it was difficult to pluck a sensible thought from the jumble zinging off his cranial curves.

  Crickets. Murderous crickets. Flak jacket heavy. Too much noise. Too much. Insane crickets. Perhaps I am delusional again.

  “Four!” he said aloud, just to be sure. “Four.”

  Butler guessed what Artemis was doing. “It’s happening, all right. Don’t worry, you’re not imagining it.”

  Artemis almost wished that he were.

  “This is serious!” he shouted over the sound of his own heart beating in his ears.

  “We need to get to the lake,” said Holly. “Crickets don’t swim so well.”

  The barn was built on a hilltop overlooking a lake known as the Red Pool because of the way it glowed at sunset when viewed from the manor’s drawing room bay window. The effect was spectacular, as though the flames of Hades lurked below fresh water. By day, a playground for ducks; but by night, the gateway to hell. The idea that a body of water could have a secret identity had always amused Artemis, and it was one of the few subjects on which he allowed his imagination free rein. Now the lake simply seemed like a safe haven.

  I’ll probably be dragged straight down by the weight of this flak jacket.

  Holly crowded him from behind, elbowing him repeatedly in the hip.

  “Hurry!” she said. “Get that glassy look off your face. Remember, there are killer crickets after us.”

  Artemis picked up his feet, trying to run fast like he had seen Beckett do so often—on a whim it seemed, as though running for half a day took no particular effort.

  They raced across a series of garden plots that had been sectioned off with makeshift fences of shrub and posts. Butler barged through whatever blocked their way. His boots kicked new potatoes from their beds, clearing a path for Artemis and Holly. The crickets were not impeded by barriers, simply buzz-sawing through or flowing around with no discernible loss of pace. Their noise was dense and ominous, a cacophony of mutters. Scheming insects.

  The lead crickets nipped at Holly’s boots, latching on to her ankles, grinding their pugnacious jaws. Holly’s instinct told her to stop and dislodge the insects, but her soldier’s sense told her to run on and bear the pinching. To stop now would surely be a fatal mistake. She felt them piling up around her ankles, felt their carapaces crack and ooze beneath her boots. It was like running on Ping-Pong balls.

  “How far?” she called. “How far?”

  Butler answered her by raising two fingers.

  What was that? Two seconds? Twenty seconds? Two hundred yards?

  They ran through the gardens and down the plowed hill toward the water’s edge. The moon was reflected in the surface like the white of a god’s eye, and on the far side was the gentle ski-slope
rise of Artemis’s runway. The crickets were on them now, waist high for Holly. They were swarming from every corner of the estate.

  We never had a cricket problem, thought Artemis. Where have they all come from?

  They felt the bites on their legs like tiny burns, and running became next to impossible with a writhing skin of crickets coating each limb.

  Holly went down first, then Artemis, both believing that this must surely be the worst possible way to die. Artemis had stopped struggling when a hand reached down through the electric buzzing and hauled him free of the morass.

  In the moonlight he saw a cricket clamped to his nose, and he reached up to crush it with his fingers. The body crunched in his fist, and for the first time Artemis felt the adrenaline rush of combat. He felt like squashing all of these crickets.

  Of course it was Butler who had rescued him, and as he dangled from the bodyguard’s grip, he saw Holly hanging from Butler’s other hand.

  “Deep breath,” said Butler, and he tossed them both into the lake.

  Five minutes later, Artemis arrived gasping at the other side minus one flak jacket, about which he felt sure Butler would have something to say—but it had been either ditch the jacket or drown, and there wasn’t much point in being bulletproof at the bottom of a lake.

  He was relieved to find that he was flanked by Holly and Butler, who seemed considerably less out of breath than he himself was.

  “We lost the crickets,” said Butler, causing Holly to break down in a splutter of hysterical giggles, which she stifled in her sopping sleeve.

  “We lost the crickets,” she said. “Even you can’t make that sound tough.”

  Butler rubbed water from his close-cropped hair. “I am Butler,” he said, straight-faced. “Everything I say sounds tough. Now, get out of the lake, fairy.”

  It seemed to Artemis that his clothes and boots must have absorbed half the lake, judging by their weight as he dragged himself painfully from the water. He often noticed actors on TV ads exiting pools gracefully, surging from the water to land poolside, but Artemis himself had always been forced to climb out at the shallow end or to execute a sort of double flop that left him on his belly beside the pool. His exit from the lake was even less graceful, a combined shimmy-wiggle that would remind onlookers of the movements of a clumsy seal. Eventually Butler put him out of his misery with a helping hand beneath one elbow.

  “Up we come, Artemis. Time is wasting.”

  Artemis rose gratefully, sheets of night-cold water sliding from his combat pants.

  “Nearly there,” said Butler. “Three hundred yards.”

  Artemis had long since given up being amazed at his bodyguard’s ability to compartmentalize his emotions. By rights the three of them should have been in shock after what they’d been through, but Butler had always been able to fold all that trauma into a drawer to be dealt with later, when the world was not in imminent danger of ending. Just standing at his shoulder gave Artemis strength.

  “What are we waiting for?” Artemis asked, and he set off up the hill.

  The chitter of the crickets receded behind them until it merged with the wind in the tall pines, and no other animal adversaries were encountered on the brief hunched jog up the runway. They crested the hill to find the barn unguarded. And why wouldn’t it be? After all, what kind of strategist deserts a stronghold to hide out in a highly combustible barn?

  Finally a touch of luck, Artemis thought. Sometimes being devious pays off.

  They got lucky again inside the barn, where Butler recovered a Sig Sauer handgun from a coded lockbox bolted to the blind side of a rafter.

  “You’re not the only one with barn secrets,” he said to Artemis, smiling as he checked the weapon’s load and action.

  “That’s great,” said Holly dryly. “Now we can shoot a dozen grasshoppers.”

  “Crickets,” corrected Artemis. “But let’s get this plane in the sky and shoot a big hole in Opal’s plans instead.”

  The light aircraft’s body and wings were coated with solar foil that powered the engine for liftoff. Once airborne, the plane switched between powered flight and gliding, depending on the directions from the computer. If a pilot were content to take the long way around and ride the thermals, then it was possible to engage the engine for takeoff only, and some trips could actually create a zero carbon footprint.

  “That plane over there,” said Butler. “Beyond the unused punch bag and the gleaming weights with their unworn handles.”

  Artemis groaned. “Yes, that plane. Now, can you forget about the weights and pull out the wheel blocks while I get her started?” he said, giving Butler something to do. “Let’s leave the door closed until we are ready for takeoff.”

  “Good plan,” said Holly. “Let me check inside.”

  She jogged across the barn, leaving muddy footprints in her wake, and pulled open the plane’s rear door.

  The plane, which Artemis had named the Khufu after the pharaoh for whom a solar barge was built by the ancient Egyptians, was a light sports aircraft that had been radically modified by Artemis in his quest to design a practical green passenger vehicle. The wings were fifty percent longer than they had been, with micro-fine struts webbed above and below. Every surface, including the hubcaps, was coated in solar foil, which would recharge the battery in the air. A power cable ran from the Khufu’s tail socket to the south-facing slope of the barn roof, so that the craft would have enough charge to take off whenever Artemis needed to make a test flight.

  Holly’s head emerged from the darkness of the interior.

  “All clear,” she said in a hushed tone, in case loud noises would break their streak of luck.

  “Good,” said Artemis, hurrying to the door, already running the startup sequence in his head. “Butler, would you open the doors as soon as I get the prop going?”

  The bodyguard nodded, then kicked the white wedge of wood from under the forward wheel. Two more to go.

  Artemis climbed into the plane and knew right away that something was wrong.

  “I smell something. Juliet’s perfume.”

  He knelt between the passenger seats, tugging open a metal hatch to reveal a compartment below. Thick cables thronged the box, and there was a rectangular space in the middle where something boxlike should have sat.

  “The battery?” asked Holly.

  “Yes,” said Artemis.

  “So we can’t take off?”

  Artemis dropped the hatch, allowing it to clang shut. Noise hardly mattered anymore.

  “We can’t take off. We can’t shoot.”

  Butler poked his head into the plane. “Why are we making noise all of a sudden?” One look at Artemis’s face was all the answer he needed.

  “So, it’s a trap. It looks like Juliet was keeping closer tabs on you than we thought.” He pulled the Sig Sauer from his waistband. “Okay, Artemis, you stay in here. It’s time for the soldiers to take over.”

  Butler’s features then stretched in an expression of surprise and pain as a bolt of magic sizzled into the barn from outside, engulfing the bodyguard’s head and torso, permanently melting every hair follicle on his head, and tossing him into the rear of the plane, where he lay motionless.

  “It’s a trap, all right,” said Holly, grimly. “And we walked straight into it.”

  MULCH DIGGUMS was not dead, but he had discovered the limits of his digestive abilities: that it was possible to eat too many rabbits. He lay on his back in the half-collapsed tunnel, his stomach stretched tight as the skin of a ripe peach.

  “Uuuugh,” he moaned, releasing a burst of gas that drove him three yards farther along the tunnel. “That’s a little better.”

  It took a lot to put Mulch off a food source, but after this latest gorging on unskinned rabbit, he didn’t think he would be able to look at one for at least a week.

  Maybe a nice hare, though. With parsnips.

  Those rabbits had just kept coming, making that creepy hissing noise, hurling themselv
es down his gullet like they couldn’t wait for their skulls to be chomped. Why couldn’t all rabbits be this reckless? It would make hunting a lot easier.

  It wasn’t the rabbits themselves that made me queasy, Mulch realized. It was the Berserkers inside them.

  The souls of the Berserker warriors could not have been very comfortable inside his stomach. For one thing, his arms were covered in rune tattoos, as dwarfs had a fanatical fear of possession. And, for another, dwarf phlegm had been used to ward off spirits since time immemorial. So, as soon as their rabbit hosts died, the warrior spirits transitioned to the afterlife with unusual speed. They didn’t move calmly toward the light so much as sprint howling into heaven. Ectoplasm flashed and slopped inside Mulch’s gut, giving him a bad case of heartburn and painting a sour scorch in the lower bell curve of his tummy.

  After maybe ten more minutes of self-pity and gradual deflation, Mulch felt ready to move. He experimentally waggled his hands and feet, and when his stomach did not flip violently, he rolled onto all fours.

  I should get away from here, he thought. Far, far away from the surface before Opal releases the power of Danu, if there even is such a thing.

  Mulch knew that if he was anywhere in the vicinity when something terrible happened, the LEP would try to blame him for the terrible happening.

  Look, there’s Mulch Diggums. Let’s arrest him and throw away the access chip. Case closed, Your Honor.

  Okay, maybe it wouldn’t happen exactly like that, but Mulch knew that whenever there were accusing fingers to be pointed, they always seemed to swivel around to point in his direction and, as his lawyer had once famously said, Three or four percent of the time my client was not a hundred percent accountable for the particular crime he was being accused of, which is to say that there were a significant number of incidents where Mr. Diggums’s involvement in the said incidents was negligible even if he might have technically been involved in wrongdoing adjacent to the crime scene on a slightly different date than specified on the LEP warrant. This single statement broke three analytical mainframes and had the pundits tied up in knots for weeks.