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 groaned. '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?'
