Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer [19]
Butler scratched his chin thoughtfully. Artemis noticed the gesture.
“Question?”
“Well, Artemis. The sprite in Ho Chi Minh City . . .”
Artemis nodded. “I know. Why didn’t we simply abduct her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“According to Chi Lun’s Almanac of the People, a seventh-century manuscript recovered from the lost city of Sh’shamo: Once a fairy has taken spirits with the Mud People—that’s us by the way—they are forever dead to their brothers and sisters. So there was no guarantee that that particular fairy was worth even an ounce of gold. No, my old friend, we need fresh blood. All clear?”
Butler nodded.
“Good. Now, there are several items you will need to procure for our moonlight jaunts.”
Butler scanned the sheet: basic field equipment, a few eyebrow raisers, nothing too puzzling until . . .
“Sunglasses? At night?”
When Artemis smiled, as he did now, one almost expected vampire fangs to sprout from his gums.
“Yes, Butler. Sunglasses. Trust me.”
And Butler did. Implicitly.
Holly activated the thermal coil in her suit, and climbed to thirteen thousand feet. The Hummingbird wings were top of the range. The battery readout showed four red bars—more than enough for a quick jaunt through mainland Europe and across the British Isles. Of course, the regulations said always travel over water if possible, but Holly could never resist knocking the snowcap from the highest Alp on her way past.
The suit protected Holly from the worst of the elements, but she could still feel the chill sinking into her bones. The moon seemed huge from this altitude, the craters on its surface easily distinguishable. Tonight it was a perfect sphere. A magical full moon. Immigration would have their hands full, as thousands of surface-sick fairies were drawn irresistibly overground. A large percentage would make it, probably causing mayhem in their revelry. Earth’s mantle was riddled with illegal tunnels, and it was impossible to police them all.
Holly followed the Italian coast up to Monaco, and from there across the Alps to France. She loved flying— all fairies did. According to the Book, they had once been equipped with wings of their own, but evolution had stripped them of this power. All but the sprites. One school of thought believed that the People were descended from airborne dinosaurs. Possibly pterodactyls. Much of the upper body skeletal structure was the same. This theory would certainly explain the tiny nub of bone on each shoulder blade.
Holly toyed with the idea of visiting Disneyland Paris. The LEP had several undercover operatives stationed there, most of them working in the Snow White exhibit. It was one of the few places on Earth where the People could pass unnoticed. But if some tourist got a photo of her and it ended up on the Internet, Root would have her badge for sure. With a sigh of regret, she passed over the shower of multicolored fireworks below.
Once across the Channel, Holly flew low, skipping over the white-crested waves. She called out to the dolphins and they rose to the surface, leaping from the water to match her pace. She could see the pollution in them, bleaching their skin white and giving them red sores on their backs. And although she smiled, her heart was breaking. Mud People had a lot to answer for.
Finally the coast loomed ahead of her. The old country. Éiriú, the land where time began. The most magical place on the planet. It was here, ten thousand years ago, that the ancient fairy race, the Dé Danann, had battled against the demon Fomorians, carving the famous Giants’ Causeway with the strength of their magical blasts. It was here that the Lia Fáil stood, the rock at the center of the universe, where the fairy kings and later the human Ard Rí were crowned. And it was also here, unfortunately, that the Mud People were most in tune with magic, which resulted in a far higher People-sighting rate than you got anywhere else on the planet. Thankfully the rest of the world assumed that the Irish were crazy, a theory that the Irish themselves