Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer [64]
“Butler? Pick up.”
It was Artemis, on the handheld. Butler jiggled his sister up a foot so he could reach his belt.
“Lollipops!” barked his employer.
“Say again. I thought you said—”
“Eh . . . I mean, get out of there. Take cover! Take cover!”
Take cover? The military term didn’t sound right coming out of Master Artemis’s mouth. Like a diamond ring in a lucky bag.
“Take cover?”
“Yes, Butler. Cover. I thought speaking in primal terms would be the quickest route to your cognitive functions. Obviously I was mistaken.”
That was more like it. Butler scanned the hall for a nook to duck into. Not much choice. The only shelter was provided by the suits of medieval armor punctuating the walls. The manservant ducked into the alcove behind a fourteenth-century knight, complete with lance and mace.
Juliet tapped the breastplate.
“You think you’re mean? I could take you with one hand.”
“Quiet,” hissed Butler.
He held his breath and listened. Something was approaching the main door. Something big. Butler leaned out far enough to get one eye on the lobby. . . .
Then you could say that the doorway exploded. But that particular verb doesn’t do the action justice. Rather, it shattered into infinitesimal pieces. Butler had seen something like this once before when a force-seven earthquake had rippled through a Colombian drug lord’s estate seconds before he had been scheduled to blow it up. This was slightly different. More localized. Very professional. It was classic anti-terrorist tactics. Hit ’em with smoke and sonics, then go in while the targets were disoriented. Whatever was coming, it would be bad. He was certain of it. He was absolutely right.
Dust clouds settled slowly, depositing a pale sheet on the Tunisian rug. Madam Fowl would have been furious, if she ever put so much as a toe outside the attic door. Butler’s instincts told him to move. Zigzag across the ground floor, make for the higher ground. Stay low to minimize the target. This would be the perfect time to do it, before visibility cleared. Any second now, a hail of bullets would be whistling through the archway, and the last place he wanted to be was pinned down on a lower level.
And on any other day Butler would have moved. He would’ve been halfway up that stairway before his brain had time for second thoughts. But today he had his baby sister over his shoulder spouting gibberish, and the last thing he wanted to do was expose her to murderous assault fire. With Juliet in the state she was in, she’d probably challenge the fairy commandos to a tag-wrestling match. And though his sister talked tough, she was just a kid, really. No match for trained military personnel. So Butler hunkered down, propped Juliet against a tapestry behind a suit of armor, and checked his safety catch. Off. Good. Come and get me, fairy boys.
Something moved in the dust haze. It was immediately obvious to Butler that the something wasn’t human. The manservant had been on too many safaris not to recognize an animal when he saw it. He studied the creature’s gait.
Possibly simian. Similar upper body structure to an ape, but bigger than any primate Butler had ever seen. If it was an ape, then his handgun wasn’t going to be of much use. You could put five rounds in the skull of a bull ape and he’d still have time to eat you before his brain realized he was dead.
But it wasn’t an ape. Apes didn’t have night eyes. This creature did. Glowing crimson pupils, half-hidden behind shaggy forelocks. Tusks too, but not elephantine. These were curved, with serrated edges. Gutting weapons. Butler felt a tingle low in his stomach. He’d had the feeling once before. On his first day at the Swiss academy. It was fear.
The creature stepped clear of the dust haze. Butler gasped. Again, his first since the academy. This was like no adversary he’d ever faced before. The manservant realized instantly what the fairies had done. They had sent in