Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer [67]
“Oh, dear,” breathed Holly.
“Oh, dear?” barked Root. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The beams are off-line,” explained Foaly.
“Oh . . .” Root’s voice trailed off. What more was there to say?
Holly squinted at the troll. If you didn’t know trolls were dumb animals, you’d swear the beast was grinning. Standing there with blood dripping from various chest wounds, grinning. Captain Short didn’t like being grinned at.
“Laugh this off,” she said, and butted the troll with the only weapon available to her. Her helmeted head.
Valiant undoubtedly, but about as effective as trying to cut down a tree with a feather. Luckily, the ill-advised blow had a side effect. For a split second, two strands of conductor filament connected, sending power flooding to one of the tunnel beams. Four hundred watts of white light blasted through the troll’s crimson eyes, dispatching lightning rods of agony to the brain.
“Heh heh,” mumbled Holly, in the second before the troll convulsed involuntarily. Its spasms sent her spinning across the parquet floor, leg jittering along behind her.
The wall was approaching at an alarming speed. Maybe, thought Holly hopefully, this will be one of those impacts where you don’t feel any pain until later. No, replied her pessimistic side, afraid not. She slammed into a Norman narrative tapestry, bringing it tumbling down on top of her. Pain was immediate and overwhelming.
“Ooof,” grunted Foaly. “I felt that. Visuals are shot. Pain sensors went right off the scale. Your lungs are busted, Captain. We’re going to lose you for a while. But don’t worry, Holly, your magic should be kicking in already.”
Holly felt the blue tingle of magic scurrying to her various injuries. Thank the gods for acorns. But it was too little too late. The pain was way beyond her threshold. Just before unconsciousness claimed her, Holly’s hand flopped from beneath the tapestry. It landed on Butler’s arm, touching the bare skin. Amazingly, the human wasn’t dead. A dogged pulse forced the blood through smashed limbs.
Heal, thought Holly. And the magic scurried down her fingers.
The troll faced a dilemma—which female to eat first. Choices, choices. This decision was not made any easier by the lingering agony buzzing around its shaggy head, or the cluster of bullets lodged in the fatty chest tissue. Eventually it settled on the surface dweller. Soft human meat. No dense fairy muscle to chew through.
The beast squatted low, tilting the girl’s chin with one yellowed talon. A pulsing jugular looped lazily down the length of her neck. The heart or the neck? the troll wondered. The neck, it was closer. It turned the talon sideways, so that the edge pressed against soft human flesh. One sharp swipe and the girl’s own heartbeat would drive the blood from her body.
Butler woke up, which was a surprise in itself. He knew immediately that he was alive, because of the searing pain permeating every cubic centimeter of his body. This was not good. Alive he may have been, but considering the fact that his neck had a one-eighty twist on it, he’d never so much as walk the dog again, not to mention rescue his sister.
The manservant twiddled his fingers. Hurt like hell, but at least there was movement. It was amazing that he had any motor functions at all, considering the trauma his spinal column had suffered. His toes seemed all right too, but that could have been phantom response, given that he couldn’t actually see them.
The bleeding from his chest wound appeared to have stopped and he was thinking straight. All in all, he was in much better shape than he had any right to be. What in heaven’s name was going on here?
Butler noticed something. There were blue sparks dancing along his torso. He must be hallucinating, creating pleasant images to distract himself from the inevitable. A very realistic hallucination, it must be said.
The sparks congregated at trauma points, sinking into the skin. Butler shuddered. This was no hallucination. Something extraordinary