Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer [48]
He unhinged his jaw and leaped forward, clamping his teeth around the foremost goblin’s head.
“Ow, bagg off!” he shouted around the obstruction in his mouth. “Bagg off or ur briend gedds it!”
The others froze, uncertain of their next move. Of course they’d all seen what dwarf molars could do to a goblin head. Not a pretty sight.
Each one popped a fireball in his fist.
“I’m warnih ooh!”
“You can’t get us all, stumpy.”
Mulch resisted the impulse to bite down. It is the strongest of dwarf urges, a genetic memory born from millennia spent tunneling. The fact that the goblin was wriggling slimily didn’t help. His options were running out. The gang was advancing and he was powerless as long as his mouth was full. It was crunch time. Pardon the pun.
Suddenly the cell door clanked open and what seemed like an entire squadron of LEP officers flooded the confined space. Mulch felt the cold steel of a gun barrel against his temple.
“Spit out the prisoner,” ordered a voice.
Mulch was delighted to comply. A thoroughly slimed goblin collapsed retching on the floor.
“You goblins, put ’em out.”
One by one the fireballs were extinguished.
“That’s not my fault,” whined Mulch, pointing to the spasming Wart-face. “He blew himself up.”
The officer holstered his weapon, drawing out a set of cuffs.
“I couldn’t care less what you do to each other,” he said, spinning Mulch and snapping the cuffs on. “If it was up to me, I’d put the whole lot of you in a big room, and come back a week later to sluice it out. But Commander Root wants to see you above ground ASAP.”
“ASAP?”
“Now, if not sooner.”
Mulch knew Root. The commander was responsible for several of his government hotel visits. If Julius wanted to see him, it probably wasn’t for drinks and a movie.
“Now? But it’s daylight now. I’ll burn.”
The LEP officer laughed.
“It ain’t daylight where you’re going, pal. Where you’re going it ain’t anything.”
Root was waiting for the dwarf inside the time-field portal. The portal was yet another of Foaly’s inventions. Fairies could be introduced to and leave the time-field without affecting the altered flow inside the field. This effectively meant that even though it took nearly six hours to get Mulch to the surface, he was injected into the field only moments after Root had the notion to send for him.
It was Mulch’s first time in a field. He stood watching life proceed at an exaggerated rate outside the shimmering corona. Cars zipped by at impossible speeds, and clouds tumbled across the skyline as though driven by force-ten gales.
“Mulch, you little reprobate,” roared Root. “You can take off that suit now. The field is UV-filtered, or so I’m told.”
The dwarf had been issued a blackout suit at E1. Even though dwarfs had thick skins, they were extremely sensitive to sunlight and had a burn time of less than three minutes. Mulch peeled off the skintight suit.
“Nice to see you, Julius.”
“That’s Commander Root to you.”
“Commander, now. I heard that. Clerical error, was it?”
Root’s teeth ground his cigar to a pulp.
“I don’t have time for this impudence, convict. And the only reason that my boot is not up your behind right now is that I have a job for you.”
Mulch frowned. “Convict? I have a name, you know, Julius.”
Root squatted to the dwarf’s level.“I don’t know what dreamworld you live in, convict, but in the real world you are a criminal and it is my job to ensure your life is as unpleasant as possible. So if you’re expecting civility just because I’ve testified against you some fifteen times, forget it!”
Mulch rubbed his wrists where the handcuffs had left red welts.
“Fine, Commander. No need to blow a gasket. I’m not a murderer, you know, just a petty criminal.”
“From what I hear, you nearly made the transformation below in the cells.”
“Not my fault. They attacked me.”
Root screwed a fresh cigar into his mouth.
“Fine, whatever. Just follow me, and don’t steal anything.”
“Yessir, Commander,” said Mulch innocently. He didn’t need to steal anything else. He’d already palmed Root’s field-access card when the commander had