with his life.
'You remember my brother?' he asked, his voice shaking.
Holly presumed that this was a test. Foaly had mentioned a brother.
'Yes. I remember. Derek, wasn't it?'
Kong pulled a stiletto from his breast pocket, gripping it so tightly his knuckles whitened.
'Eric!' he shouted, spittle spraying from his mouth. 'It was Eric! Do you remember what happened to him?'
Holly felt suddenly nervous. This Mud Man was unstable. It would only take her a second to escape from these bonds, but maybe a second was too long. Artemis had requested that she remain bound for as long as possible, but from the look on Billy Kong's face it seemed as if staying bound could be a fatal mistake.
'Do you remember what happened to my brother?' asked Kong again, waving the knife like a conductor's baton.
'I remember,' said Holly. 'He died. Violently.'
Kong was thunderstruck. Reeling internally. For several moments he circled the room muttering to himself, which didn't encourage Holly any.
'It's true. Eric never betrayed me! My brother loved me. He loved me and they took him!'
Holly took advantage of this lack of focus to escape from the plastic ties binding her wrists. She did this using an old LEP trick taught to her by Commander Vinyaya back in the Academy. She rubbed her wrists against the rough edge, causing two small grazes. When magical sparks erupted from her fingertips to heal the wounds, she siphoned a few off to melt the plastic enough for her to yank her way out.
When Kong faced Holly again, she was untethered, but concealing the fact.
Kong knelt before her so their eyes were level. He was blinking rapidly and his pulse beat in a temple vein. He spoke slowly, in a voice fraught with barely repressed madness and violence. He had switched to Taiwanese, his family's first language.
'I want you to peel off your face. Right now.'
This, reasoned Kong, would be the final proof. If this demon could peel off her face, then he would stab her in the heart and damn the consequences.
'I can't,' said Holly. 'My hands are tied. Why don't you peel it off for me? We have new masks now. Disposable. They come off easily.'
Kong coughed in surprise, rocking back on his hunkers.
Then he steadied himself and reached out shaking hands. His hands did not shake from fear, but from anger and sorrow that he had dishonoured his brother's memory by believing the worst of him.
'At the hairline,' said Holly. 'Just grab and pull, don't worry if you tear it.'
Kong looked up, and they made eye contact. This was all Holly needed to employ the magical fairy mesmer.
'Don't those arms feel heavy?' she asked, her voice layered and irresistible.
Kong's brow suddenly creased, and the creases filled with sweat.
'My arms. What? They're like lead. Like two lead pipes. I can't. .'
Holly pushed the mesmer a little harder. 'Why don't you put them down.
Take it easy. Sit on the floor.'
Kong sat on the concrete. 'I'm just going to sit for a second. We're still doing the face-peeling thing. But in a second. I'm tired.'
'You probably feel like talking.'
'You know what, demon. I feel like talking. What should we talk about?'
'This whole group you're involved with, Billy. The Paradizos. Tell me about them.'
Kong snorted. The Paradizos! You're only dealing with one Paradizo here. And that's the girl, Minerva. Her daddy is just a money man. If Minerva wants it, Gaspard pays for it. He's so proud of his little girl the genius that he does whatever she says. Can you believe that she convinced him to keep the whole demon thing quiet until after the Nobel Committee get a look at her research.'
This was very good news. 'You mean that no one outside this house knows about the demons?'
'Hardly anybody inside the house knows. Minerva is paranoid that some other egghead will get hold of her work. The staff think we're guarding a political prisoner who needs his face redone. Only Juan Soto, the chief of in-house security, and myself were told the truth.'
'Does Minerva keep records?'
'Records? She writes everything down, and I mean everything. We have records of every demon action, right down to toilet breaks. She's got every twitch on video, the only reason that there's no cameras down here is that we weren't expecting anyone.'
'Where does she keep these notes?'
'A little wall safe in the security office. Minerva thinks I don't know the combination, but I do. Bobo's birthday.'
Holly touched a skin-coloured microphone pad glued to her throat. 'A wall safe in the security office,' she said clearly. 'I hope you're getting that.'
There was no reply. Wearing an earpiece had been too risky, so Holly had to make do with the mike pad on her neck, and iris-cam suckered like a contact lens over her right eye.
Kong still felt like talking. 'You know, I'm going to kill all of you demons. I've got a plan. Real clever too. Miss Minerva thinks that she's going to Stockholm, but that's never going to happen. I'm just waiting for the right moment. I know that silver is the only thing keeping you in this dimension. So, I'm going to send you back and give you a little present to take with you.'
Not if I can help it, thought Holly.
Kong half smiled at her. 'Are we doing the face-peeling thing? Can you really do that?'
'Of course I can,' said Holly. 'Are you sure you want to see it?'
Kong nodded, slack-jawed.
'OK, then. Watch carefully.'
Holly raised her hands to her face, and when she took them away, her head had disappeared. Her body and limbs quickly followed suit.
'Not only can I peel off my face,' said Holly's voice from thin air. 'I can do my entire body.'
'It's true,' croaked Kong. 'It's all true.'
Then a tiny invisible fist swished through the air, knocking him into unconsciousness. Billy Kong lay on the concrete floor dreaming that he was Jonah Lee once more, and his brother stood before him saying: I told you so, bio. I told you there were demons. They murdered me back in Malibu. So what are you going to do about it?
And little Jonah answered: I'm working on it, Eric.
Minerva accepted the phone from the security guard.
'Minerva Paradizo speaking.'
'Minerva, this is Artemis Fowl,' said a voice in perfect French. 'We met once across a crowded room in Sicily.'
'I know who you are; we nearly met in Barcelona too. And I know it's really you. I memorized your voice pattern and cadence from a lecture you gave on Balkan politics two years ago at Trinity College.'
'Very good. I find it strange that I haven't heard of you.'
Minerva smiled. 'I am not as careless as you, Artemis. I prefer anonymity, until I have something exceptional to be recognized for.'
'The existence of demons, for instance,' prompted Artemis. 'That would be exceptional.'
Minerva gripped the phone tightly. 'Yes, Master Fowl. It would be exceptional. It is exceptional. So you can keep your Irish paws off my research. The last thing I need is for some bigheaded teenage boy to hijack all my work at the last second. You had your own demon, but that wasn't enough, you had to try and steal mine too. The moment I recognized you in Barcelona, I knew you would be after my research subject. I knew you would try to smoke us out, have someone hide in the car. It was the logical thing to do, so I booby-trapped the vehicle.
You knocked out my baby brother too. How could you?'
'Apparently I did you a favour,' said Artemis lightly.
'Little Bobo is obnoxious by all accounts.'
