Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code

‘Richard of York gave battle in vain,’ said the bodyguard, enunciating clearly.

Blunt was screwing a silencer on to the muzzle of his ceramic pistol.

‘What are you saying? What kind of gibberish is that? Don’t say the great Butler is cracking up! Wait till I tell the guys.’

But the old woman looked thoughtful.

‘Richard of York. . I know that.’

Artemis knew it too. It was virtually the entire verbal detonation code for the fairy sonix grenade magnetized to the underside of the table.

One of Butler’s little security devices. All they needed was one more word and the grenade would explode, sending a solid wall of sound charging through the building, blowing out every window and eardrum. There would be no smoke or flames, but anyone within a ten-metre radius not wearing earplugs had about five seconds before severe pain set in. One more word.

The old lady scratched her head with the revolver’s barrel.

‘Richard of York? I remember now, the nuns taught us that in school. Richard of York gave battle in vain. It’s one of those memory tricks. The colours of the rainbow.’

Rainbow. The final word. Artemis remembered — just in time — to slacken his jaw. If his teeth were clenched, the sonic waves would shatter them like sugar glass.

The grenade detonated in a blast of compressed sound, instantaneously hurling eleven people to the furthest extremities of the room, until they came into contact with various walls. The lucky ones hit partitions and went straight through. The unlucky ones collided with cavity block walls. Things broke. Not the blocks.

Artemis was safe in Butler’s bear-hug. The bodyguard had anchored himself against a solid door frame, folding the flying boy into his arms.

And they had several other advantages over Spiro’s assassins: their teeth were intact, they did not suffer from any compound fractures and the sonic filter sponges had sealed, saving their eardrums from perforation.

Butler surveyed the room. The assassins were all down, clutching their ears. They wouldn’t be uncrossing their eyes for several days. The manservant drew his Sig Sauer pistol from a shoulder holster.

‘Stay here,’ he commanded. ‘I’m going to check the kitchen.’

Artemis settled back into his chair, drawing several shaky breaths.

All around was a chaos of dust and moans. But once again, Butler had saved them. All was not lost. It was even possible that they could catch

Spiro before he left the country. Butler had a contact in Heathrow Security: Sid Commons, an ex-Green Beret he’d served with on bodyguard duty in Monte Carlo.

A large figure came into view, blocking out the sunlight. It was Butler, returned from his reconnoitre. Artemis breathed deeply, feelingly uncharacteristically emotional.

‘Butler,’ he began. ‘We really must talk regarding your salary. .’

But it wasn’t Butler. It was Arno Blunt. He had something in each hand. On his left palm, two tiny cones of yellow foam.

‘Ear plugs,’ he spat through broken teeth. ‘I always wear ‘em before a fire fight. Good thing too, eh?’

In his right hand, Blunt held a silenced pistol.

‘You first,’ he said. ‘Then the ape.’

Arno Blunt cocked the gun, took aim briefly and fired.

HAVEN CITY, THE LOWER ELEMENTS

Though Artemis did not intend it, the Cube’s scan for surveillance beams was to have far-reaching repercussions. The search parameters were so vague that the Cube sent probes into deep space and, of course, deep underground.

Below the surface, the Lower Elements Police were stretched to their limits following the recent goblin revolution. Three months after the attempted goblin takeover, most of the major players were in custody.

But there were still isolated pockets of the B’wa Kell triad loping around Haven’s tunnels with illegal Softnose lasers.

Every available LEP officer had been drafted in to help with Operation Mop-Up before the tourist season got started. The last thing the city Council wanted was tourists spending their leisure gold in Atlantis because Haven’s pedestrianized central plaza was not safe to wander through. Tourism, after all, accounted for eighteen per cent of the capital’s revenue.

Captain Holly Short was on loan from the Reconnaissance squad.

Generally, her job was to fly to the surface on the trail of fairies who had ventured above ground without a visa. If even one renegade fairy got himself captured by the Mud People, then Haven ceased to be a haven.

So until every gang goblin was licking his eyeballs in Howler’s Peak correctional facility, Holly’s duties were the same as every other LEP officer: rapid response to any B’wa Kell alert.

Today she was escorting four rowdy goblin hoods to Police Plaza for processing. They had been found asleep in an insect delicatessen, stomachs distended after a night of gluttony. It was lucky for them that

Holly had arrived when she did, because the deli’s dwarf owner was on the point of lowering the scaly foursome into the deep-fat fryer.

Holly’s ride-along for Operation Mop-Up was Corporal Grub Kelp,

little brother to the famous Captain Trouble Kelp, one of the LEP’s most decorated officers. Grub, however, did not share his brother’s stoic personality.

‘I got a hangnail cuffing that last goblin,’ said the junior officer, chewing on his thumb.

‘Painful,’ said Holly, trying to sound interested.

They were driving along a magnastrip to Police Plaza, with the perpetrators manacled in the rear of their LEP wagon. It wasn’t actually a regulation wagon. The B’wa Kell had managed to burn out so many police vehicles during their short-lived revolution that the LEP had been forced to commandeer anything with an engine and room in the back for a few prisoners. In reality, Holly was piloting a curry van with the LEP acorn symbol spray-painted on the side. The motor-pool gnomes had simply bolted the serving hatch and removed the ovens. A pity they couldn’t remove the smell.

Grub studied his wounded thumb. ‘Those cuffs have sharp edges. I should lodge a complaint.’

Holly concentrated on the road, though the magnastrip did the steering for her. If Grub did lodge a complaint, it wouldn’t be his first, or even his twentieth. Trouble’s little brother found fault with everything, except himself. In this instance he was completely wrong: there were no sharp edges on the perspex vacuum cuffs. If there had been, a goblin might think to poke a hole in the other mitt and allow oxygen to reach his hand, and nobody wanted goblins hurling fireballs in the back of their vehicles.

‘I know it sounds petty to lodge a complaint over hangnails, but no one could accuse me of being petty.’

‘You! Petty! Perish the thought.’

Grub puffed up his chest. ‘After all, I am the only member of LEPretrieval One to have faced down the human, Butler.’

Holly groaned loudly. This, she fervently hoped, would dissuade Grub from telling his Artemis Fowl war story yet again. It grew longer and more fantastical each time. In reality, Butler had let him go, as a fisherman would a minnow.

But Grub was not about to take a hint.

‘I remember it well,’ he began melodramatically. ‘It was a dark night.’

And, as though his very words carried immeasurable magic, every light in the city went out.

Not only that, but the magnastrip’s power failed, leaving them stranded in the middle lane of a frozen highway.

‘I didn’t do that, did I?’ whispered Grub.

Holly didn’t answer, already halfway out of the wagon door.

Overhead, the sun strips that replicated surface light were fading to black.

In the last moments of half-light Holly squinted towards the Northern