MUNICH
Butler woke to find blood dripping from the tip of his nose. It was falling on to the white hat of the hotel chef.
The chef stood with a group of hotel kitchen staff in the middle of a destroyed storage shed. The man gripped a cleaver in his hairy fist, just in case this giant on the tattered mattress that was wedged into the rafters was a madman.
‘Excuse me,’ said the chef politely, which is unusual for a chef, ‘are you alive?’
Butler considered the question. Apparently, unlikely as it seemed, he was alive.
The mattress had saved him from the strange missile. Artemis had survived too. He remembered feeling his charge’s heartbeat just before he passed out. It wasn’t there now.
‘I am alive,’ he grunted, a paste of tile dust and blood spilling from his lips.
‘Where is the boy who was with me?’
The crowd assembled in the ruined shed looked at one another.
‘There was no boy,’ said the chef finally. ‘You fell into the roof all on your own.’
Doubtless, this group would like an explanation, or they would inform the police.
‘Of course there was no boy. Forgive me, the mind tends to wander after a three-storey fall.’
The group nodded as one. Who could blame the giant for being a touch rattled?
‘I was leaning against the railing, sunning myself, when the railing gave way.
Luckily for me, I managed to grab the mattress on the way down.’
This explanation was met with the mass scepticism it thoroughly deserved. The chef voiced the group’s doubts.
‘You managed to grab a mattress?’
Butler had to think quickly, which is not easy when all the blood in your body is concentrated in your forehead.
‘Yes. It was on the balcony. I had been resting in the sun.’
This entire sun business was extremely unlikely. Especially considering that it was the middle of winter. Butler realized that there was only one way to dispel the crowd. It was drastic, but it should work.
He reached inside his jacket, pulling out a small spiral pad.
‘Of course I intend to sue the hotel for damages. Trauma alone should be worth a few million euro. Not to mention injuries. I presume I can count on you good people to be witnesses.’
The chef paled, as did the others. Giving evidence against one’s employers was the first step to unemployment.
‘I… I don’t know, sir,’ he stammered. ‘I didn’t actually see anything.’ He paused to sniff the air. ‘I think I smell my pavlova burning. Dessert will be ruined.’
The chef hopped over the chunks of shattered tile and disappeared back into the hotel. The remaining staff followed his lead, and within seconds Butler was on his own again. He smiled, though the action sent a flare of pain down his neck. The threat of a lawsuit generally scattered witnesses as effectively as any gunfire.
The giant Eurasian disentangled himself from the remains of the rafters. He really had been amazingly lucky not to be impaled on the beams. The mattress had absorbed most of the impact, while the timbers were rotten and had splintered harmlessly.
Butler dropped to the floor, brushing dust from his suit. His priority now was to find Artemis. It seemed likely that whoever had made the attempt on his life had taken the boy. But why would someone try to kill him, and then take him prisoner? Unless it was their unknown enemy who had taken advantage of the situation and decided to look for a ransom.
Butler returned to the hotel room, where everything was as they had left it.
There was absolutely no sign that anything had exploded in here. The only unusual things revealed by Butler’s investigations were small clusters of dead insects and spiders. Curious. It was as though the blue flash of light affected only living things, leaving the buildings unaffected.
A blue rinse, said his subconscious, but his conscious self took no notice.
Butler quickly packed Artemis’s box of tricks and, of course, his own. The weapons and surveillance equipment would be held in a deposit box at the airport. He left the Kronski Hotel without checking out. An early checkout would arouse suspicion, and with any luck this entire matter could be resolved before the school group returned home.
The bodyguard collected the Hummer in the hotel car park, and set off for the airport. If Artemis had been kidnapped, then the kidnappers would contact Fowl Manor with their ransom demand. If Artemis had simply removed himself from danger, he had always been told to head for home. Either way, the trail led to Fowl Manor, so that was where Butler intended to go.
TEMPLE BAR, DUBLN, IRELAND
Artemis had recovered sufficiently for his natural curiosity to surface. He walked around the cramped room, touching the spongy surface of the walls.
‘What is this place? Some form of surveillance hide?’ ‘Exactly,’ said Holly. ‘I was on stakeout here a few months ago. A group of rogue dwarfs was meeting their jewellery fences here. From the outside, this is just another patch of sky on top of a building. It’s a cham pod.’ ‘Cam, camouflage?’
‘No, cham, chameleon. This suit is cam, camouflage.’ ‘You do know, I suppose, that chameleons don’t actually change colour to suit their surroundings. They change according to mood and temperature.’
Holly looked out over Temple Bar. Below them, thousands of tourists, musicians and residents were winding their way through the small artisans’ streets.
‘You’d have to tell Foaly about that. He names all this stuff.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Artemis. ‘Foaly. He is a centaur, is he not?’
‘That’s right.’ Holly turned to face Artemis. ‘You’re taking this very calmly. Most humans completely freak out when they find out about us. Some go into shock.’
Artemis smiled. ‘I am not most humans.’
Holly turned back to the view. She was not going to argue with that statement.
‘So tell me, Captain Short. If all I am to the fairy People is a threat, why did you heal me?’
Holly rested her forehead against the cham pod’s translucent face.
‘It’s our nature,’ she replied. ‘And of course I need you to help me find Opal Koboi. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.’
Artemis stood beside her at the window. ‘So first you mind-wipe me, and now you need me?’
‘Yes, Artemis. Gloat all you like. The mighty LEP needs your help.’
‘Of course there is the matter of my fee,’ said Artemis, buttoning his jacket across the bloodstain on his shirt.
Holly rounded on him. ‘Your fee? Are you serious? After all the fairy People have done for you? Can’t you just do something good for once in your life?’
‘Obviously you elves are an emotional race. Humans are slightly more business-minded. Here are the facts: you are a fugitive from justice, on the run from a murdering pixie genius. You have no funds and few resources. I am the only one who can help you track down this Opal Koboi. I think that’s worth a few bars of anybody’s gold.’
Holly glowered at him. ‘Like you said, Mud Boy. I don’t have any resources.’
Artemis spread his hands magnanimously. ‘I’m prepared to accept your word. If you can guarantee me one metric tonne of gold from your hostage fund, I will devise a plan to defeat this Opal Koboi.’
Holly was in a hole and she knew it. There was no doubt that Artemis could give her the edge over Opal, but it galled her to pay someone who used to be a friend. ‘And what if Koboi defeats us?’
‘If Koboi defeats and presumably murders us both, then you can consider the debt null and void.’
‘Great,’ growled Holly. ‘It would be almost worth it.’
She left the window and began raiding the pod’s medical chest. ‘You know something, Artemis. You’re exactly how you were when we first met: a greedy Mud Boy who doesn’t care about anyone except himself. Is that really how you want to be for the rest of your life?’
