Something was waiting beside the tree. Something roughly the size of a mountain, but considerably more mobile.
“Nice peashooter,” grinned the figure, smothering Holly’s gun hand in a turnip-sized fist.
Holly managed to extricate her fingers a nanosecond before they snapped like brittle spaghetti.
“I don’t suppose you would consider peaceful surrender?” said a cold voice behind her.
Holly turned, elbows raised for combat.
“No,” sighed the boy melodramatically. “I suppose not.”
Holly put on her best brave face.
“Stay back, human. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
The boy laughed. “I believe, fairy, that you are the one unfamiliar with the facts.”
Fairy? He knew she was a fairy.
“I have magic, mud-worm. Enough to turn you and your gorilla into pig droppings.”
The boy took a step closer. “Brave words, miss. But lies nonetheless. If, as you say, you had magic, you would have no doubt used it by now. No, I suspect that you have gone too long without the Ritual and you are here to replenish your powers.”
Holly was dumbfounded. There was a human before her, casually spouting sacred secrets. This was disastrous. Catastrophic. It could mean the end of generations of peace. If the humans were aware of a fairy subculture, it was only a matter of time before the two species went to war. She must do something, and there was only one weapon left in her arsenal.
The mesmer is the lowest form of magic and requires only a trickle of power. There are even certain humans with a bent for the talent. It is within the ability of even the most drained fairy to put a complete mind kibosh on any human alive.
Holly summoned the final dribble of magic from the base of her skull.
“Human,” she intoned, her voice suddenly resonating with bass tones. “Your will is mine.”
Artemis smiled, safe behind his mirrored lenses. “I doubt it,” he said, and nodded curtly.
Holly felt the dart puncture the suit’s toughened material, depositing its load of curare and succinylcholine chloride-based tranquilizer into her shoulder. The world instantly dissolved into a series of technicolored bubbles and, try as she might, Holly couldn’t seem to hold on to more than one thought. And that thought was: How did they know? It spiraled around her head as she sank into unconsciousness. How did they know? How did they know? How did they . . .
Artemis saw the pain in the creature’s eyes as the hollow hypodermic plunged into her body. And for a moment he experienced misgivings. A female. He hadn’t expected that. A female, like Juliet, or Mother. Then the moment passed and he was himself again.
“Good shooting,” he said, bending to study their prisoner. Definitely a girl. Pretty too. In a pointy sort of way.
“Sir?”
“Hmm?”
Butler was pointing to the creature’s helmet. It was half buried in a drift of leaves where the fairy had dropped it. A buzzing noise was coming from the crown.
Artemis picked up the contraption by the straps, searching for the source.
“Ah, here we are.” He plucked the viewcam from its slot, careful to point the lens away from Butler. “Fairy technology. Most impressive,” he muttered, popping the battery from its groove. The camera whined and died. “Nuclear power source, if I’m not mistaken. We must be careful not to underestimate our opponents.”
Butler nodded, sliding their captive into an oversized duffel bag. Something else to be lugged across two fields, a bog, and a stile.
CHAPTER 5
MISSING IN ACTION
Commander Root was sucking on a particularly noxious fungus cigar. Several of the Retrieval Squad had nearly passed out in the shuttle. Even the stench from the manacled troll seemed mild in comparison. Of course, no one said anything, their boss being touchier than a septic boil.
Foaly, on the other hand, delighted in antagonizing his superior. “None of your rancid stogies in here, Commander!” he brayed, the moment Root made it back to Ops. “The computers don’t like smoke!”
Root scowled, certain that Foaly was making this up. Nevertheless, the commander was not prepared to risk a computer crash in the middle of an alert, and so doused his cigar in the coffee cup of a passing gremlin.
“Now, Foaly, what’s this so-called alert? And it better be good this time!”
The centaur had a tendency to go completely hyper over trivialities. He’d once gone to Defcon Two because his human satellite stations were out.
“It’s good all right,” Foaly assured him. “Or should I say bad? Very bad.”
Root felt the ulcer in his gut begin to bubble like a volcano.
“How bad?”
Foaly punched up Ireland on the Eurosat. “We lost contact with Captain Short.”
“Why am I not surprised?” groaned Root, burying his face in his hands.
“We had her all the way over the Alps.”
“The Alps? She took a land route?”
Foaly nodded. “Against regulations, I know. But everyone does it.”
The commander agreed grudgingly. Who could resist a view like that? As a rookie, he’d been placed on report himself for that exact offense.
“Okay. Move on. When did we lose her?”
Foaly opened a viewer window on the screen.
“This is the feed from Holly’s helmet unit. Here we are over Disneyland Paris. . . .”
The centaur pressed the fast forward.
“Now dolphins, blah blah blah. The Irish coastline. Still no worries. Look, her locator comes into shot. Captain Short is scanning for magic hot spots. Site fifty-seven shows up red, so she heads for that one.”
“Why not Tara?”
Foaly snorted. “Tara? Every fairy hippie in the northern hemisphere will be dancing around the Lia Fáil at the full moon. There’ll be so many shields on, it’ll look like the whole place is underwater.”
“Fine,” grunted Root through gritted teeth. “Just get on with it, will you.”
“All right. Don’t get your ears in a knot.” Foaly skipped several minutes of tape. “Now. Here’s the interesting bit. . . . Nice smooth landing, hangs up the wings. Holly takes off the helmet.”
“Against regulations,” interjected Root. “LEP officers must never remove—”
“LEP officers must never remove their headgear above ground, unless said headgear is defective,” completed Foaly. “Yes, Commander, we all know what the handbook says. But are you trying to tell me that you never sneaked a breath of air after a few hours in the sky?”
“No,” admitted Root. “What are you? Her fairy godmother or something? Get to the important part!”
Foaly smirked behind his hand. Driving up Root’s blood pressure was one of the few perks of the job. No one else would dare to do it. That was because everybody else was replaceable. Not Foaly. He’d built the system from scratch, and if anyone else even tried to boot it up, a hidden virus would bring it crashing about their pointy ears.
“The important part. Here we are. Look. Suddenly Holly drops the helmet. It must land lens down, because we lose, picture. We’ve still got sound though, so I’ll bring that up.”
Foaly boosted the audio signal, filtering out background noise.
“Not great quality. The mike is in the camera. So that was nose down in the dirt too.”
“Nice peashooter,” said a voice. Definitely human. Deep too. That usually meant big.
Root raised an eyebrow. “Peashooter?”
“Slang for gun.”
“Oh.” Then the importance of that simple statement struck him. “She drew her weapon.”
“Just wait. It gets worse.”
“I don’t suppose you would consider peaceful surrender?” said a second voice. Just listening to it gave the commander shivers. “No,” continued the voice. “I suppose not.”
“This is bad,” said Root, his face uncharacteristically pale. “This feels like a setup. These two goons were waiting. How i
s that possible?”
Holly’s voice came through the speaker then, typically brazen in the face of danger. The commander sighed. At least she was alive. It was more bad news, though, as the parties exchanged threats, and the second human displayed an uncommon knowledge of fairy affairs.
“He knows about the Ritual!”
“Here’s the worst bit.”
Root’s jaw dropped. “The worst bit?”
Holly’s voice again. This time layered with the mesmer.