Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl. The Lost Colony Страница 15

Holly had already weakened the bolts with her Neutrino. One tap from the vehicle's grille would be more than sufficient to barge the gates out of the way. If it got that far. Which it did not.

After she had crushed Kong's cigarette, Minerva took a remote control from her pocket, tapped in a short code, then hit the 'Send' button. In the BMW's cab, a tiny charge detonated in the airflow system, releasing a cloud of sevoflurane, a potent sleeping gas. In seconds, the vehicle began to weave, ramping the driveway bushes and cutting a swathe through the manicured lawn.

'Problems,' said Butler.

'Hmm,' said Artemis. 'A gas device, I would guess. Fast-acting. Possibly cyclopropane or sevoflurane.'

Butler knelt, drawing his pistol. 'Should I stroll in there and get them?'

'No. You shouldn't.'

The BMW was careering wildly now, following the dips and slopes of the grounds' topography. It destroyed a mini-golf green, pulverized a gazebo and decapitated a centaur statue.

Hundreds of miles below ground, Foaly winced.

The vehicle finally came to rest in a lavender bed, nose down, rear wheels spinning, spitting out hunks of clay and uprooted long-stemmed purple flowers, like missiles.

Nice action, thought Mulch, but he kept the notion to himself, fully aware that this might not be the time to stretch Butler's patience.

Butler was raring to go. His gun was out and the tendons in his neck were stretched, but Artemis held him back with a touch to the forearm.

'No,' he said. 'Not now. I know your impulse4s to help, but now is not the time.'

The bodyguard jammed his Sig Sauer handgun back into its holster, scowling. 'Are you sure, Artemis?'

'Trust me, old friend.'

And of course, Butler did, even if his instincts were not so sure.

Inside the grounds, a dozen security guards were warily approaching the vehicle, led by Billy Kong. The man moved like a cat, on the balls of his feet. Even his face was feline, smug grin and flat eyes.

On his signal, the men rushed the car, reclaiming the golf bag and hauling an unconscious Holly from the front seat. The elf was cuffed with plastic ties and hauled across the garden to where Minerva Paradizo and her father stood waiting.

Minerva removed Holly's helmet and kneeled to examine her pointed ears. Through his binocular lenses, Artemis could clearly see that she was smiling.

It had been a trap. AH a trap.

Minerva tucked the helmet under her arm, then walked briskly back towards the house. Halfway there, she stopped and turned. Shielding her eyes from the sun's glare, she scanned the shadows and peaks of the surrounding hillsides.

'What's she looking for?' Butler speculated aloud.

Artemis did not wonder. He knew exactly what this surprising girl was after.

'She's looking for us, old friend. If that was your chateau, perhaps you might have wondered where a spy would conceal himself.'

'Of course. And that's why I picked this spot. The ideal location would have been further up the hill, in that cluster of rocks, but that would also have been the first spot any security expert would booby-trap. This would be my second choice, and so, my first choice.'

Minerva's gaze swept past the rock cluster and rested on the line of bushes where they were hiding. She couldn't possibly see them, but her intellect told her that they were there.

Artemis focused on the girl's pretty face. It amazed him that he could appreciate Minerva's features, even as his friend was being hauled into captivity. Puberty was a powerful force.

Minerva was smiling. Her eyes were bright and they taunted Artemis across the vale between them. She spoke in English then. Artemis and Butler, both expert lip-readers, had no difficulty interpreting her short sentence.

'Did you get that, Artemis?' asked Butler.

'I got it. And she got us.'

'Your move, Artemis Fowl,' Minerva had said.

Butler sat back in the ditch, slapping mud from his elbows.

'I thought you were one of a kind, Artemis, but that girl is a smart one.'

'Yes,' said Artemis, musing. 'She's a regular juvenile criminal mastermind.'

Below ground, in Section 8 HQ, Foaly groaned into his microphone.

'Great,' he said. 'Now there are two of you.'

Chapter 8: SUDDEN IMPACT

INSIDE the chateau paradizo

No.1 was having a lovely dream. In the dream, his mother was holding a surprise party for him, in honour of his graduation from warlock college. The food was scrumptious. The dishes were cooked and most of the meat was already dead.

He was reaching for a beautifully presented basted pheasant in a basket of woven herb bread ropes, just like the one described in Chapter Three of Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow, when suddenly the vision retreated into the far distance, as though reality itself was being stretched.

No.1 tried to follow the feast but it drew further and further away, and now his legs wouldn't work and No.1 couldn't understand why. He looked down and saw to his horror that everything from his armpits down had turned to stone. The stone virus was spreading upwards across his chest and along his neck. No.1 felt the urge to scream. He was suddenly terrified that his mouth would turn to stone before he could scream. To be petrified forever and hold that scream inside would be the ultimate horror.

No.1 opened his mouth and screamed.

Billy Kong, who had been lounging on a chair watching, snapped his fingers at a camera on the ceiling.

'The ugly one is awake,' he said. 'And I think it wants its mother.'

No.1 stopped screaming when his breath ran out. It was a bit of an anticlimax really, starting out with a lusty howl and petering off to a reedy whine.

OK, thought No.1. I am alive and in the land of men. Time to open my eyes andjind out just how deep in the pig dung I actually am.

No.1 cracked his eyes open warily, as though he might see something big and hard heading for his face at high speed. What he did see was that he was in a small bare room. There were rectangular lights on the ceiling that threw out the light of a thousand candles, and most of one wall was taken up by a mirror. There was a human, possibly a child, perhaps a female, with a ridiculous mane of blonde curls and an extra finger on each hand. The creature was wearing a ludicrously impractical toga-type arrangement and spongy-soled shoes, with lightning bolts 170 embossed on the sides. There was another person in the room. A slouching, leering, thin man, who tapped a staccato rhythm on his leg.

No.1 's eyes were drawn to the second human's hair. There were at least half a dozen colours in there. The man was a peacock.

No.1 decided that perhaps he should raise his empty hands, to show that he wasn't carrying a weapon, but it's difficult to do that when you are tied to a chair.

'I'm tied to a chair,' he said apologetically, as though it was his fault.

Unfortunately he said this in Gnommish and in the demon dialect. To the humans it sounded like he was trying to dislodge a particularly annoying blockage from his throat.

No.1 resolved not to talk again. Doubtless he would say the wrong thing and the humans would have to ritually execute him. Thankfully the female seemed eager to chat.

'Hello, I am Minerva Paradizo and this man is Mister Kong,' she said.

'Can you understand me?'

It was all gibberish to No.1. Not a single recognizable word from the text of Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow.

He smiled encouragingly, to show he appreciated the effort.

'Do you speak French?' asked the blonde girl, then switched languages.

'How about English?'

No.1 sat up. That last bit was familiar. Strange inflections, surely, but the words themselves were from the book.

'English?' he repeated.

This was the language of Lady Heatherington Smythe. Learned at her mother's knee. Explored in the lecture halls of Oxford. Used to profess her undying love for Professor Rupert Smythe. No.1 loved the book. He sometimes believed that he was the only one who did. Even Abbot didn't seem to appreciate the romantic bits.

'Yes,' said Minerva. 'English. The last one spoke it well enough. French too.'

Manners must be appreciated somewhere outside a book, No.1 had always thought, so he decided to give them a go.

He growled, which was the polite demon way of asking to speak in front of your betters. This must not be how humans interpreted it because the skinny human jumped to his feet, pulling out a knife.

'No, kind sir,' said No.1, hurriedly cobbling together a couple of sentences from Lady Heatherington. 'Prithee sheath thine weapon. I bring joyous tidings only.'

The skinny human was confounded. He spoke English as well as the next American, but this little runt was spouting some kind of medieval nonsense.

Kong straddled No.1, holding the knife to his throat.

'Talk straight, ugly,' said the man, deciding to give Taiwanese a go.

'I wish I could understand,' said No.1, shaking. Unfortunately he said this in Gnommish. 'What I… eh. . meanest to say is…"

It was no good. Quotes from Lady Heatherington that he could generally shoehorn into any occasion just weren't coming under pressure.

'Talk straight or die!' shrieked the human into his face.

No.1 shrieked right back at him. 'How can I talk straight, you son of a three-legged dog? I don't speak Taiwanese!'

All of this was said in perfect Taiwanese. No.1 was stunned. The gift of tongues was not one demons possessed. Except the warlocks. More proof.

He intended to ponder this development for a few moments, now that the knife-wielding human had backed off, but suddenly the beauty of language exploded inside his brain. Even his own tongue, Gnommish, had been severely culled by the demons. There were thousands of words that had dropped from regular use on the basis that they did not relate to killing things or eating them, and not necessarily in that order.

'Cappuccino!' shouted No.1, surprising everyone.

'Excuse me?' said Minerva.

'What a lovely word. And manoeuvre. And balloon.'

The skinny man pocketed his knife. 'Now he's talking. If he's anything like the videos you showed me of the other one, we'll never get him to shut up.'

'Pink!' exclaimed No.1 delightedly. 'We don't have a word for that colour in the demon commonspeak. Pink is considered undemonlike, so we ignore it. It's such a relief to be able to say pink!'

'Pink,' said Minerva. 'Fabulous.'

'Tell me,' said No.1. 'What is a candyfloss? I know the words, and it sounds. . scrumptious. . but the picture in my head cannot be accurate.'

The girl seemed pleased that No.1 could talk, but slightly miffed that he had forgotten his situation.

'We can talk about candyfloss later, little demon. There are more important things to discuss.'

'Yes,' agreed Kong. 'The demon invasion, for example.'

No.1 rolled the sentence round in his head. 'Sorry, my gifts must not be fully developed. The only meaning I have for invasion is a hostile entry of an armed force into a territory.'

'That's the one I mean, you little toad.'

'Again, I'm a little confused. My new vocabulary is telling me that a toad is a froglike creature. .' No.1 's face fell. 'Oh, I see — you're insulting me.'

Kong scowled at Minerva. 'I think I preferred him when he spoke like an old movie.'

'I was quoting scripture,' explained No.1, enjoying the shape of these new words in his mouth. 'From the sacred book: Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow.'

Minerva frowned, looking at the ceiling as she thought back in time.

'Lady Heatherington Smythe. Why is that familiar?'

'Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow is the source of all our human knowledge. Lord Abbot brought it back to us.' No.1 bit his lip, shutting off his own babbling. He had said too much already. These humans were the enemy, and he had given them the blueprint to Abbot's plans.

Blueprint. Nice word.

Minerva clapped her hands once, sharply. She had found the memory she was looking for.

'Lady Heatherington Smythe. My goodness, that ridiculous romance!

Remember, Mister Kong?'

Kong shrugged. 'I don't read fiction. Manuals, mostly.'

'No, remember the video footage of the other demon. We let him have a book, he carried it around like a security blanket.'

'Ah, yes. I remember that. Stupid little goat. Always toting around that stupid book.'

'You know, you're repeating yourself,' said No.1, wittering nervously.

'There are other words for stupid. Dim, dense, slow, thick. Just to name a few. I can do Taiwanese if you prefer.'

A knife appeared in Kong's hand as if from nowhere.

'Wow,' said No.1. 'That's a real talent. A bravura in fact.'

Kong ignored the compliment, flipping the knife so he was holding the blade.

'Just shut up, creature. Or this goes between your eyes. I don't care how valuable you are to Miss Paradizo. To me, you and your kind are simply something to be wiped off the face of the Earth.'

Minerva folded her arms.

'I will thank you, Mister Kong, not to threaten our guest.

You work for my father, and you will do what my father tells you to do.

And I am pretty sure my father told you to keep a civil tongue in your head.'

Minerva Paradizo may have been a precocious talent in many areas, but because of her age, she had limited experience. From her studies, she knew how to read body language, but she did not know that a skilled martial artist can train himself to control his body, so that his real feelings are hidden. A true disciple of the discipline would have noted the subtle tightening of the tendons in Billy Kong's neck. This was a man holding himself in check.

Not yet, his stance said. Not yet.

Minerva returned her attention to No.1.

'Lady Heatherington Smythe's Hedgerow, you say?'

No.1 nodded. He was afraid to speak in case his runaway mouth leaked any more information than it already had.

Minerva spoke now to the large mirror. 'You remember that one, Papa?

The most ridiculous fluffy romance you are ever likely to avoid like the plague. I loved it when I was six. It's all about a nineteenth-century

English aristocrat. Oh, who's the author. . Carter Cooper Harbison.

The Canadian girl. She was eighteen when she wrote it. Did absolutely no research. She had nineteenth-century nobles speaking like they were from the fifteen hundreds. Absolute tosh, so obviously a worldwide hit.

Well, it seems our old friend Abbot brought it home with him. The cheeky devil has managed to sell it as gospel truth. It seems he has the rest of the demons spouting Cooper Harbison as though she were an evangelist.'

No.1 broke his no-speaking vow. 'Abbot? Abbot was here?'

'Mais oui,' said Minerva. 'How do you think we knew where to find you.

Abbot told us everything.'

A voice boomed through a wall-mounted speaker. 'Not everything. His figures were flawed. But my young genius Minerva figured it out. I'll get you a pony for this, darling. Whatever colour you like.'