Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl. The Opal Deception

TEMPLE BAR, DUBLN, IRELAND

Artemis had recovered sufficiently for his natural curiosity to surface. He walked around the cramped room, touching the spongy surface of the walls.

‘What is this place? Some form of surveillance hide?’ ‘Exactly,’ said Holly. ‘I was on stakeout here a few months ago. A group of rogue dwarfs was meeting their jewellery fences here. From the outside, this is just another patch of sky on top of a building. It’s a cham pod.’ ‘Cam, camouflage?’

‘No, cham, chameleon. This suit is cam, camouflage.’ ‘You do know, I suppose, that chameleons don’t actually change colour to suit their surroundings. They change according to mood and temperature.’

Holly looked out over Temple Bar. Below them, thousands of tourists, musicians and residents were winding their way through the small artisans’ streets.

‘You’d have to tell Foaly about that. He names all this stuff.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Artemis. ‘Foaly. He is a centaur, is he not?’

‘That’s right.’ Holly turned to face Artemis. ‘You’re taking this very calmly. Most humans completely freak out when they find out about us. Some go into shock.’

Artemis smiled. ‘I am not most humans.’

Holly turned back to the view. She was not going to argue with that statement.

‘So tell me, Captain Short. If all I am to the fairy People is a threat, why did you heal me?’

Holly rested her forehead against the cham pod’s translucent face.

‘It’s our nature,’ she replied. ‘And of course I need you to help me find Opal Koboi. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.’

Artemis stood beside her at the window. ‘So first you mind-wipe me, and now you need me?’

‘Yes, Artemis. Gloat all you like. The mighty LEP needs your help.’

‘Of course there is the matter of my fee,’ said Artemis, buttoning his jacket across the bloodstain on his shirt.

Holly rounded on him. ‘Your fee? Are you serious? After all the fairy People have done for you? Can’t you just do something good for once in your life?’

‘Obviously you elves are an emotional race. Humans are slightly more business-minded. Here are the facts: you are a fugitive from justice, on the run from a murdering pixie genius. You have no funds and few resources. I am the only one who can help you track down this Opal Koboi. I think that’s worth a few bars of anybody’s gold.’

Holly glowered at him. ‘Like you said, Mud Boy. I don’t have any resources.’

Artemis spread his hands magnanimously. ‘I’m prepared to accept your word. If you can guarantee me one metric tonne of gold from your hostage fund, I will devise a plan to defeat this Opal Koboi.’

Holly was in a hole and she knew it. There was no doubt that Artemis could give her the edge over Opal, but it galled her to pay someone who used to be a friend. ‘And what if Koboi defeats us?’

‘If Koboi defeats and presumably murders us both, then you can consider the debt null and void.’

‘Great,’ growled Holly. ‘It would be almost worth it.’

She left the window and began raiding the pod’s medical chest. ‘You know something, Artemis. You’re exactly how you were when we first met: a greedy Mud Boy who doesn’t care about anyone except himself. Is that really how you want to be for the rest of your life?’

Artemis’s features remained static, but below the surface his emotions were in turmoil. Of course he was right to ask for a fee; it would be stupid not to. But even asking had made him feel guilty. It was this idiotic newfound conscience. His mother seemed able to activate it at will, and this fairy creature could do it too. He would have to keep a tighter check on his emotions.

Holly finished raiding the cabinet. ‘Well, Mister Consultant. What’s our first move?’

Artemis did not hesitate. ‘There are only two of us, and we are not very tall. We need reinforcements. As we speak, Butler will be making for Fowl Manor. He may even be there already.’

Artemis turned on his mobile, speed dialling Butler’s phone. A recorded message told him that the customer he was trying to reach was not available. He declined the offer to try again, instead dialling Fowl Manor. An answering machine cut in after the third ring. Obviously his parents had already left for the spa in Westmeath.

‘Butler,’ said Artemis to the recorder. ‘You are well, I hope. I myself am fine. Listen very carefully to what I have to tell you, and believe me, every word is true…’

Artemis proceeded to summarize the day’s events into the phone. ’We will arrive at the manor shortly. I suggest we stock up on essentials and proceed to a safe house…‘

Holly tapped him on the shoulder.

‘We should get out of here. Koboi is no fool. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had some back-up plan in case We survived.’

Artemis covered the mouthpiece with his palm.

‘I agree. That is what I would do. This Koboi person is probably on her way right now.’

As if on cue, one of the pod walls fizzled and dissolved. Opal Koboi was standing in the hole, flanked by Merv and Scant Brill. The pixie twins were armed with transparent plastic handguns. Merv’s gun barrel glowed gently in the aftermath of his wall-melting shot.

‘Murderer!’ shouted Holly, reaching for her gun. Merv casually put a blast close enough to her head to singe her eyebrows. Holly froze, raising her hands in submission.

‘Opal Koboi, I presume?’ said Artemis, although if Holly had not told him the whole story he never would have guessed that the female before him was anything but a human child. Her black hair was braided down her back, and she wore a checked pinafore of the type worn by a million schoolgirls around the world. Her ears were, of course, rounded.

‘Artemis Fowl, how nice to see you again. I do believe that in different circumstances we could have been allies.’

‘Circumstances change,’ said Artemis. ‘Perhaps we can still be allies.’

Holly chose to give Artemis the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was acting like a traitor to save their skins. Maybe.

Opal fluttered her long, curved eyelashes. ‘Tempting, but no. I feel the world is only large enough for one child genius. And now that I’m pretending to be a child, that genius would be me. Meet Belinda Zito, a girl with big plans.’

Holly reached out a hand towards her weapon but stopped when Merv levelled his transparent handgun at her.

‘I know you,’ she said to the Brill brothers. ‘The pixie twins. You were on TV.’

Scant couldn’t hold back a grin. ‘Yes, on Canto. It was the season’s highest-rated show. We’re thinking of writing a book, aren’t we, Merv? All about how we…’ ‘Finish each other’s sentences,’ completed Merv, though he knew it would cost him.

‘Shut up, you utter imbecile,’ snapped Opal, shooting Merv a poisonous glare.

‘Keep your weapon up and your mouth closed. This is not about you, it is about me.

Remember that, and I may not have to liquidize the pair of you.’

‘Yes, of course, Miss Koboi. It’s all about you.’

Opal almost purred. ‘That’s right. It’s always about me. I am the only important one here.’

Artemis casually slipped one hand into his pocket. The one holding the mobile phone that was still connected to Fowl Manor.

‘If I may, Miss Koboi. This delusion of self-importance is common among those recently awakened from comas. It is known as the Narcissus Syndrome. I wrote a paper on this precise subject for the Psychologists’ Yearbook, under the pseudonym of Sir E. Brum. You have spent so much time in your own company, so to speak, that everyone else has become unreal…’

Opal nodded at Merv. ‘For heaven’s sake, shut him up.’

Merv was glad to oblige, sinking a blue power slug into Artemis’s chest. The Irish boy dropped in mid-lecture.

‘What have you done?’ shouted Holly, dropping to Artemis’s side. She was relieved to find a steady heartbeat under the bloodied shirt.

‘Oh no,’ said Opal. ‘Not dead, merely painfully stunned. He is having quite a day, young Artemis.’

Holly glared at the small pixie, her pretty features distorted by grief and outrage.

‘What do you want from us? What else can you do?’

Opal’s face was the picture of innocence. ‘Don’t blame me. You have brought this on yourself. All I wanted to do was bring down fairy society as we know it, but oh no, you wouldn’t have it. Then I planned a couple of relatively simple assassinations, but you insisted on surviving. Kudos to you for evading the bio-bomb, by the way. I was watching the whole thing from twenty metres up in my stealth shuttle. Containing the solinium with an LEP helmet — good thinking. But now, because you have caused me so much trouble and exasperation, I think I will indulge myself a little.’

Holly swallowed the fear that was crawling up her throat.

‘Indulge yourself?’

‘Oh yes. I had a nasty little scenario planned for Foaly, something theatrical involving the Eleven Wonders. But now I have decided that you are worthy of it.’

Holly tensed herself. She should go for her gun, there was no other option. But she had to ask; it was fairy nature.

‘How nasty?’

Opal smiled, and evil was the only word for that expression.

‘Troll nasty,’ she said. ‘And one more thing. I am telling you this because you are about to die, and I want you to hate me as much as I hate you at the moment of your death.’ Opal paused, allowing the tension to build. ‘Do you remember the sweet spot on the bomb I strapped to Julius?’

Holly felt as though her heart was expanding to fill her chest. ‘I remember.’

Opal’s eyes flared. ‘Well, there wasn’t one.’

Holly went for her gun, and Merv hit her in the chest with a blue charge. She was asleep before she hit the ground.

UNDER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, TWO MILES OFF THE KERRY COAST, IRISH WATERS

Three thousand metres below the surface of the Atlantic, an LEP sub-shuttle was speeding through a minor volcanic trench towards the mouth of a subterranean river.

The river led to an LEP shuttle port, where the sub-shuttle’s passengers could transfer to a regular craft.

Three passengers and a pilot were aboard it. The passengers were a dwarf felon and the two Atlantis marshals who were escorting him. Mulch Diggums, the felon in question, was in high spirits for someone in prison clothes, the reason being, his appeal had finally come through, and his lawyer was optimistic that all charges against his client were about to be quashed on a technicality.

Mulch Diggums was a tunnel dwarf who had abandoned the mines in favour of a life of crime. He removed items of value from Mud People’s houses and sold them on the black market. In the past few years his destiny had become intertwined with those of Artemis Fowl and Holly Short, and he had played a key part in their adventures.

Inevitably, this rollercoaster lifestyle had come crashing down around him as the long arm of the LEP closed in.

Before he had been led away to serve the remainder of his sentence, Mulch

Diggums was permitted to say goodbye to his human friend. Artemis had given him two things. One was a note advising him to check the dates on the original search warrant for his cave. The other was a gold medallion, to be returned to Artemis in two years.

Apparently Artemis had wished to resurrect their partnership at that time. Mulch had studied the medallion a thousand times, searching for its secrets, until his constant rubbing wore down the gold plating, to reveal a computer disk beneath. Obviously,