The Artemis Fowl Files - Eoin Colfer [8]
“Don’t bother, my dear. I have been tying people up for centuries. It is one of the first skills you learn as a fugitive. And well done, by the way. A female at an initiation. I bet my little brother doesn’t like that. He was always a bit on the sexist side.”
“Yes,” said Holly. “Whereas you are a real gentle-fairy.”
“Touché,” said Turnball. “As I used to say in France.”
Trouble’s face had lost the green tinge. “Whatever your plan is, don’t expect any help from me.”
Turnball stood before Holly, lifting her chin with a curved nail. “I don’t expect help from you, Captain. I expect help from the pretty one. All I expect from you is a little screaming before you die.”
Turnball had two accomplices: a sullen dwarf and an earthbound sprite. Commander Root’s brother called them into the room for a round of introductions.
The dwarf’s name was Bobb, and he wore a wide-brimmed sombrero to keep the sun off his delicate dwarf skin.
“Bobb is the best burglar in the business after Mulch Diggums,” explained Turnball, draping an arm round the squat dwarf’s massive shoulders. “However, unlike the canny Diggums, he doesn’t plan so well. Bobb made his big mistake when he dug into a community center during a police fund-raiser. He’s been hiding out on the surface since then. We make a good team: I plan, he steals.” He turned to the sprite, spinning him round. Where the sprite’s wings should be, there were two bulbous knobs of scar tissue.
“Unix here got in a fight with a troll and lost. He was clinically dead when I found him. I gave him the last shot of magic I had to bring him back, and to this day I don’t know if he loves me or hates me for it. Loyal though. This fairy here would walk into Earth’s core for me.”
The sprite’s green features were impassive, and his eyes were as empty as wiped disks. These two fairies were the ones who had picked off Holly and Trouble on the pebble beach.
Turnball ripped Holly’s name tag from her chest. “Now, here’s the plan. We are going to use Corporal Short here to lure Julius in. If you try to warn him, then the captain dies in terrible agony. I have a Tunnel Blue spider in my bag that will rip his insides apart in seconds. And having entered a human dwelling, he won’t have a drop of magic to ease that pain. For your part, all you have to do is sit in a clearing and wait for Julius to come and get you. When he does, then we get him. It’s that simple. Unix and Bobb will accompany you. I will wait here for the happy moment when Julius is dragged through that door.”
Unix cut selected straps, hauling Holly from the chair. He propelled her through the giant doorway, into the morning sunlight. Holly breathed deeply. The air was sweet here, but there wasn’t a moment to pause and enjoy it.
“Why don’t you run, officer?” said Unix, his voice alternately high and low, as though half broken. “Run and see what happens.”
“Yeah,” taunted Bobb. “See what happens.”
Holly could guess what would happen. She would get another laser burst, this time in the back. She would not run. Not yet. What she would do was think and plan.
They dragged and prodded Holly across two fields that sloped southward to the cliffs. The grass was sparse and rough, like clumps of missed beard after a shave. Flocks of gulls, terns, and cormorants appeared over the cliff line like fighter jets climbing to cruising altitude. Down past a thicket rampant with wildlife, Bobb stopped beside a low rock erupting through the earth. Just big enough to shelter one fairy from an easterly approach.
“Down you go,’ he grunted, pushing Holly onto her knees.
Once she was down, Unix clamped a manacle round her leg, hammering the spike on the other end into the earth.
“This way, you can’t just take off,” he explained, grinning. “If we see you playing with your chain, then we knock you out for a while.” He patted the scope on the rifle strapped across his chest. “We’ll be watching.”
The rogue fairies retraced their steps across the field, settling down into two hollows. They