'Can you slow them down?' asked Artemis.
'Shouldn't be a problem. I don't want to leave any bodies here, Artemis.
I imagine the police are already on their way.'
'Maybe you could just scare them a bit.'
Butler grinned. 'My pleasure.'
The shooting stopped, and the security door drooped slightly on its hinges. Butler ripped the door open smartly, yanking Billy Kong inside, then jammed the door closed again.
'Hello, Billy,' he said, pinning the smaller man to the wall.
Kong was too demented to be scared. He lashed out with a series of blows, any one of which would have been fatal to a normal per son.
They bounced off Butler like a fly bouncing off aTigerTank. That's not to say they didn't hurt. Kong's trained hands felt like heated brands where they impacted. Butler's only reaction to the pain was a slight tightening round the corners of his mouth.
'Holly?' he said.
'Pull,' said Holly, aiming her Neutrino at a point in space.
Butler catapulted Billy Kong straight up, and Holly plucked him out of the air with a blast from her weapon. Kong spun across the floor, still throwing spasmodic punches.
'The snake's head is out of action,' said Artemis. 'Let's hope the rest will follow suit.'
Minerva decided to take advantage of Billy Kong's unconsciousness to indulge in some payback. She stalked over to her prone kidnapper.
'You, Mister Kong, are nothing but a thug,' she said, kicking him in the leg.
'Young lady,' said Butler sharply, 'move away. He may not be completely out.'
'If my father has as much as a hair out of place,' continued Minerva, oblivious to Butler's warnings, 'I will personally ensure that you spend the maximum time in prison.'
Kong cracked open a weeping eye. 'That's no way to talk to your staff,' he croaked, and wrapped steely fingers round her ankle.
Minerva realized that she had made a drastic mistake and decided that the best course of action was to scream as shrilly as possible. Which she did.
Butler was torn. His duty was to protect Artemis, not Minerva, but through years of working with Artemis and indeed Holly, he had unconsciously adopted the role of general protector. Whenever somebody was in danger, he helped them to get out of it. And this foolish girl was certainly in danger. Mortal danger.
Why is it, he wondered, that the smart ones always think that they're invincible?
And so Butler made a decision, the consequences of which would haunt his dreams and waking hours for years to come. As a professional bodyguard, he knew the futility of second-guessing his own actions, but in the nights ahead he would often sit by the fire with his head in his hands and replay the moment in his mind, wishing that he had acted differently. Whatever way he played it out, the results were tragic, but at least they would not have been tragic for Artemis.
So Butler acted. He took four smart steps away from the door to disentangle Minerva from Kong's grasp. It was a simple thing, the man was barely semi-conscious. He seemed to be operating on some kind of psychotic energy. Butler simply stepped down hard on his wrist, then rapped him sharply between the eyes with the knuckle of his index finger. Kong's eyes rolled back in his head, and his fingers relaxed like the legs of a dying spider.
Minerva stepped smartly out of Kong's range.
'That was very foolish. I apologize,' she mumbled.
'It's a little late for that,' reprimanded Butler. 'Now will you please take cover?'
The entire mini-episode took about four seconds, but in that four seconds a lot happened on the other side of the security door. Don, who was holding the bomb, and who had recently been punched for no good reason by his boss, decided to win Kong's favour by bursting into the gallery and taking on the giant in there. He put his shoulder to the door at the exact moment that Butler stepped away at the other side, and to his own surprise, went tumbling head first into the room, followed quickly by four more of Kong's henchmen, brandishing an assortment of weapons.
Holly, who was covering the door with her Neutrino, was not unduly worried. She began to worry when a grenade rolled out of the tangle of men and tapped against her foot. It would be easy enough for her to escape the explosion, but Artemis and N°l would be well within the blast radius.
Thinkfast!
There was a solution, but it was costly in terms of equipment. She bolstered her weapon, whipped off her helmet and jammed it down over the grenade, holding it there with her own weight. This was a trick she had employed before with mixed results. She had hoped it wouldn't become a habit.
She squatted there like a frog on a toadstool for what seemed like a long time, but couldn't have been more than a few seconds. She noticed, from the corner of her eye, that a thug with a silver case was slapping the man who had rolled the grenade. Perhaps using lethal force had been against orders.
The grenade exploded, blasting Holly into a sharp arc. The helmet absorbed most of the shock, and all of the shrapnel, but there was still enough force to shatter both of Holly's shinbones and fracture one femur. She landed on Artemis's back like a sack of rocks.
'Ow,' she said, and passed out.
Artemis and No.1 were attempting to revive Qwan.
'He's alive,' said Artemis, checking the warlock's pulse.
'Steady heartbeat. He should come out of it soon. You keep a strong contact with him, or he could disappear.'
No.1 cradled the old demon's head. 'He called me a warlock,' he said tearfully. 'I am not alone.'
'Time enough for a talk-show moment later,' said Artemis brusquely.
'We need to get you out of here.'
Kong's men were in the gallery now and shots were being fired. Artemis was confident that Butler and Holly could take care of a few thugs, but this confidence took a blow when there was a sudden explosion and a battered Holly landed on his back. Her body was instantly enveloped in a cocoon of blue light. Sparks dropped from the cocoon, like falling stars, pinpointing the most severe injuries.
Artemis crawled out from beneath her, laying his recuperating friend gently on the floor beside Qwan.
Kong's men were now embroiled with Butler, and probably regretting choosing this line of work. He tore into them like a bowling ball into a pack of quivering pins.
One made it past Butler. A tall man with a tattooed neck and an aluminium case. Artemis guessed that this case probably did not contain a selection of Asian spices, and realized that he would have to take action himself. While he was wondering exactly what it was he could do, the man sent him sprawling. By the time he made it back to Holly's side, his friend was sitting up groggily and there was a suitcase handcuffed to her wrist.
The man who had delivered the case had returned to the fray, where he had lasted less than a second before Butler took him out of it again.
Artemis knelt by Holly's side.
'Are you all right?'
Holly smiled, but it was an effort. 'Just about, thanks to the magic. I'm out though, not a drop left. So I would advise everyone to stay healthy until I can complete my ritual.' She shook her wrist, jangling the chain.
'What's in the case?'
Artemis seemed paler than usual. 'I would guess nothing pleasant.' He flicked the clips and lifted the lid. 'And I would be right. It's a bomb. Big and complicated. They sneaked it past security somehow. Through an area still under construction, I would guess.'
Holly blinked herself alert, shaking her head until the pain woke her up.
'OK. Bomb. Can you see a timer?'
'Eight minutes. And counting.'
'Can you disarm it?'
Artemis pursed his lips. 'Perhaps. I need to open the casing and get into the works before I know for sure. It could be a straight detonator, or we could have all kinds of decoys.'
Qwan struggled to his elbows, coughing up large globs of dust and spit.
