The Artemis Fowl Files - Eoin Colfer [38]
“It won’t. Trust me.”
Mulch unbuttoned his bum flap. “It’d better not.” He winked at Butler. And he was gone, below the earth in a flurry of dust, before the bodyguard could respond. It was just as well, really.
Artemis closed his fist around the blue diamond on the tiara’s crown. It was already loose in its setting. All he had to do now was leave. Simple. Let the LEP clean up their own mess. But even before he heard Holly’s voice, Artemis knew that it couldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever was.
“Don’t move, Artemis!” said the fairy captain. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you. In fact, I’m quite looking forward to it.”
Holly activated the Polaroid filter on her visor just before the stun grenade detonated. It was difficult to concentrate enough to perform even that simple operation. The canvas was flapping, the dwarfs were popping their bum flaps, and from the corner of her eye she noticed Fowl disappearing through a slit in the tent. He would not escape again. This time she would get a mind-wipe warrant and erase the fairy People from the Irish boy’s memory permanently.
She closed her eyes, in case any strobe light leaked through her visor, and waited for the pop. The flash, when it came, lit up the tent like a lampshade. Several seams of weak stitching were burned out, and rays of white light shot skyward like wartime searchlights. When she opened her eyes, the dwarfs were unconscious on the tent floor. One was the unfortunate Sergei, who had managed to climb from his tunnel just in time to get knocked out. Holly searched her belt for a sleeper-seeker hypodermic. The hypodermic contained small tracker beads loaded with a charged sedative. When the beads were injected into a fairy’s bloodstream, that fairy could be tracked anywhere in the world, and knocked out at will. It made retrieving rogue fairies a lot easier. Holly quickly fought her way through the folds of canvas, tagged all six dwarfs, then crawled to the flaps. Now Sergei and his band could be apprehended at any time. This left her free to pursue Artemis Fowl. The tent was around her ears now, held up by pockets of trapped air. She had to get out, or it would completely collapse on her. Holly activated the mechanical wings on her back, creating her own little wind tunnel, and hovered through the flap, boots scraping the earth.
Fowl was leaving along with Butler.
“Don’t move, Artemis!” she yelled. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you. In fact, I’m quite looking forward to it.”
This was fighting talk, brimming with bravado and confidence—two things that were in short supply. But at least she sounded ready for a fight.
Artemis turned slowly. “Captain Short. You don’t look so well. Maybe you should get some medical attention.”
Holly knew she looked terrible. She could feel her fairy magic healing the bruises on her ribs, and her vision was still jumpy from stun-grenade overspill.
“I’m fine, Fowl. And even if I’m not, the computer in my helmet can fire this gun all on its own.”
Butler took a step to one side, splitting the target. He knew Holly would have to shoot him first.
“Don’t bother, Butler,” said Holly. “I can drop you and hunt the Mud Boy down in my own time.”
Artemis tutted. “Time is something you don’t have. The circus hands are already coming. In seconds they will be here, followed closely by the circus audience. Five hundred people all wondering what is going on here.”
“So what? I’ll be shielded.”
“So there is no way for you to take me in. And even if you could, I doubt that I have broken any fairy law. All I did was to steal a human tiara. Surely the LEP don’t get involved in human crime. I can’t be held responsible for fairy criminals.”
Holly struggled to keep her gun hand steady. Artemis was right, he hadn’t done anything to threaten the People. And the shouts from the circus folk were growing louder.
“So you see, Holly, you have no choice but to let me go.”
“And what about the other dwarf?”
“What dwarf?” said Artemis innocently. “The seventh dwarf. There