Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl. The Lost Colony

Perhaps it is not altogether accurate to say Butler relaxed. Rather he appeared to relax, as a tiger appears to relax in the moment before it strikes. Butler was even less happy here than he had been in Barcelona.

At least for the Spain trip he'd had a few days to prepare, but for this jaunt he barely had time to catch up on his martial arts routines.

As soon as the Fowl Bentley had pulled up at Fowl Manor, Artemis had disappeared into his study, firing up his computers. Butler took the opportunity to work out, freshen up and prepare dinner: onion marmalade tartlets, rack of lamb with garlic gratin and a red berries crepe to finish.

Artemis broke the news over coffee.

'We need to go to Sicily,' he said, toying with the biscotti on his saucer.

'I made a breakthrough on the time spell figures.'

'How soon?' asked the bodyguard, mentally listing his contacts on the Mediterranean island.

Artemis looked at his Rado watch and Butler moaned.

'Don't check your watch, Artemis. Check the calendar.'

'Sorry, old friend. But you know time is limited. I can't risk missing a materialization.'

'But on the jet you said that there wasn't another materialization due for six weeks.'

'I was wrong, or rather, Foaly was wrong. He missed a few new factors in the temporal equation.'

Artemis had filled Butler in on the eighth family details as the jet soared over the English Channel.

'Allow me to demonstrate,' said Artemis. He put a silver salt cellar on his plate, 'Let us say that this salt cellar is Hybras. My plate is where it is: our dimension. And your plate is where it wants to go: Limbo. With me so far?'

Butler nodded reluctantly. He knew that the more he understood, the more Artemis would tell him, and there wasn't much space in a bodyguard's head for quantum physics.

'So, the demon warlocks wanted to move the island from plate A to plate B, but not through space, through time.'

'How do you know all this?'

'It's all in the fairy Book,' replied the Irish teenager. 'Quite a detailed description, if a bit flowery.'

The Book was the fairy Bible, containing their history and commandments. Artemis had managed to obtain a copy from a drunken sprite in Ho Chi Minh City years earlier. It was proving to be an invaluable source of information.

'I doubt the Book has too many charts and graphs,' noted Butler.

Artemis smiled. 'No, I got the specifics from Foaly, not that he knows he's sharing information.'

Butler rubbed his temples. 'Artemis. I warned you not to mess with Foaly. The decoy thing is bad enough.'

Artemis was fully aware that Foaly was tracking him and any decoys he sent out. In fact he only sent out the decoys to make Foaly dip into his funds. It was his idea of a joke.

'I didn't initiate the surveillance,' objected Artemis. 'Foaly did. I found over a dozen devices on my computers alone. All I did was reverse the spike to get into some of his shared files. Nothing classified. Well, maybe a few. Foaly's been busy since he left the LEP.'

'So, what did Foaly's files tell you?' said Butler resignedly.

'They told me about magic. Basically, magic is energy and the ability to manipulate energy. To move Hybras from A to B, the demon warlocks harnessed the power of their volcano to create a time rent, or tunnel.'

Artemis rolled his napkin into a tube, popped the salt cellar into it and deposited the cellar on Butler's plate.

'Simple as that?' said Butler doubtfully.

'Not really,' said Artemis. 'In fact the warlocks did an exceptional job,

considering the instruments available to them at the time. They had to calculate the power of the volcano, the size of the island, the energy of each individual demon on the island, not to mention the reverse pull of lunar attraction. It's amazing the spell worked as well as it did.'

'There was a glitch?'

'Yes. According to the Book, the warlocks induced the volcano, but the force was too strong. They couldn't control it and the magic circle was broken. Hybras and the demons were transported, but the warlocks were blasted into space.'

Butler whistled. 'That's quite a glitch.'

'It's more than a glitch. The demon warlocks were all killed, so now the rest of the pride are stuck in Limbo, held by a magical spell that was never meant to be permanent, without a warlock to bring them back.'

'Couldn't Foaly go and get them?'

'No. It would be an impossible mission to recreate the same circumstances. Imagine trying to steer a feather in a sandstorm, then land the feather on a particular grain of sand, except you don't know where the grain is. And even if you did know where the grain was, demon magic can only be controlled by a demon. They are by far the most powerful of warlocks.'

'Tricky,' admitted Butler. 'So, tell me why these demons are popping up here, now?'

Artemis corrected him with a wagging finger. 'Not just here, and not just now. The demons have always felt an attraction to their home world, a combination of lunar and terrestrial radiations. But a demon could only be pulled back if he was at his end of the time-tunnel mouth, the crater, and not wearing a dimensional anchor.'

Butler fingered his wristband. 'Silver.'

'That's right. Now because of massively increased radiation levels worldwide, the pull on demons is much stronger and reaches critical level with greater frequency.'

Butler was struggling to keep up. Sometimes it was not easy being a genius's bodyguard.

'Artemis, I thought we weren't going into specifics.'

Artemis continued regardless. He was hardly going to stop now, in mid-lecture.

'Bear with me, old friend. Nearly there. So now, energy spikes occur more often than Foaly thinks.'

Butler raised a finger. 'Ah yes, but the demons are OK as long as they stay away from the crater.'

Artemis raised a triumphant finger. 'Yes!' he crowed. "That's what you would think. That's what Foaly thinks. But when our last demon was off course, I ran the equation from back to front. My conclusion is that the time spell is decaying. The tunnel is unravelling.'

Artemis allowed the napkin tube to widen in his hand. 'Now the catchment area is bigger, as is the deposit area. Pretty soon, demons won't be safe anywhere on Hybras.'

Butler asked the obvious question. 'What happens when the tunnel decays altogether?'

'Just before that happens, demons all over Hybras will be plucked off the island, silver or no silver. When the tunnel collapses, some will be deposited on earth, more on the moon and the rest scattered through space and time. One thing is for sure, not many of them will survive, and those that do will be locked up in laboratories and zoos.

Butler frowned. 'We need to tell Holly about this.' 'Yes,' agreed Artemis.

'But not just yet. I need one more day to confirm my figures. I'm not going to Foaly with nothing but theory.'

'Don't tell me,' said Butler. 'Sicily, right?'

So now they were in the Massimo Bellini Theatre, and Butler had barely half an idea why they were there. If a demon materialized on that stage, then Artemis was right and the fairy People were in major trouble. And if the fairies were in trouble, then it was up to Artemis to help them. Butler was actually quite proud that his young charge was doing something for somebody else for a change. Even so, they had only a week to complete their task and return to Fowl Manor, because in seven days Artemis's parents returned from Rhode Island where Artemis

Fowl Senior had finally taken possession of an artificial bio-hybrid leg, to replace the one he had lost when the Russian Mafiya blew up his ship.

Butler peered out of the box at the hundreds of golden arches and the thirteen hundred-odd people enjoying the evening's performance of Bellini's Norma.

'First a Gaudi building, now this theatre,' commented the bodyguard, his words audible only to Artemis, thanks to their box's isolation and the booming volume of the opera. 'Don't these demons ever materialize somewhere quiet?'

Artemis replied in a whisper. 'Just let the sublime music flow over you, enjoy the show. Don't you know how difficult it is to get a box for a Vincenzo Bellini opera? Especially Norma. Norma combines the requirements of both a coloratura and a dramatic soprano. And the soprano is excellent, comparable to Callas herself.'

Butler grunted. Perhaps it was difficult for ordinary people to get a box in the theatre, but Artemis had simply called his billionaire environmentalist friend Giovanni Zito. The Sicilian had gladly surrendered his own box, in exchange for two cases of the finest Bordeaux. Hardly surprising since Artemis had recently invested over ten million euros in Zito's water purification research.

A Sicilian drinking Bordeaux? Artemis had chuckled down the phone. You should be ashamed of yourself.

'Keep your watch pointed at the stage,' directed Artemis, interrupting Butler's thoughts. 'The chances are miniscule that a demon will be caught without silver, even away from the crater, but if one does show up, I want it on film to prove to Foaly that my theory is correct. If we don't have incontrovertible proof, the fairy Council will never take action.'

Butler checked that his watch crystal that doubled as a camera lens was angled towards the stage. 'The camera is fine, but if you don't mind I won't be letting the sublime music flow over me, I have enough to do keeping you safe.'

The Bellini Theatre was a bodyguard's nightmare. Multiple entrances and exits, over a thousand patrons that refused to be frisked, hundreds of golden arches that could conceal a gunman and countless nooks, crannies and corridors that probably didn't appear on the theatre plan.

Nevertheless, Butler was reasonably confident that he had done all he could to protect Artemis.

Of course there were certain things that bodyguards could not guard against, as Butler was about to find out. Invisible things.

Artemis's phone vibrated gently. Usually Artemis deplored the kind of person who kept their phone on during a performance, but this phone was special and he never turned it off. It was the fairy communicator given to him by Holly Short, plus a few modifications and add-ons made by Artemis himself.

The phone was the size and shape of a two-euro coin, with a pulsing red crystal at its centre. This was a fairy omni-sensor, which could interface with any communications system, including the human body. The phone was disguised as a rather ostentatious ring on Artemis's middle finger.

Artemis twisted the ring so that the phone sat on his palm, then closed his middle fingers, extending his thumb and little finger. The sensor would decode vibrations in his little finger and send them as voice patterns. It would also use the bones in his hand to transmit the caller's voice to the tip of his thumb.

Artemis looked for all the world like a young boy talking on an imaginary phone.

'Holly?' he said.

Butler watched as Artemis listened for a few moments, then hung up, twisting the phone back into ring position.

He looked steadily at Butler. 'Don't draw your weapon,' he said.

Which of course had Butler reaching for the butt of his Sig Sauer.

'It's fine,' said Artemis reassuringly. 'Someone is here. A friend.'

Butler's hand dropped to his side. He knew who it was.

Holly Short materialized in the velvet-covered seat beside Artemis. Her knees were drawn to her chin and her pointed ears were covered by a black helmet. As she fizzled into the visible spectrum, a full-face visor collapsed into sections and stored itself in her helmet. Her arrival among the humans was covered by the theatre's darkness.

'Afternoon, Mud Boys,' she said, smiling. Her hazel eyes sparkled impishly, or more accurately elfishly.