Mulch locked his mouth and threw away the key.
“So we know Artemis was in Barcelona,” continued Foaly. “And we know a demon appeared. Artemis was at several other possible materialization sights, too, but no demons showed up. He’s involved somehow.”
“How do we know that for sure?” asked Holly.
“Here’s how,” said Foaly. He tapped the screen, enlarging a section of the Casa Milà’s roof.
Holly stared at the picture for several seconds, looking for whatever it was she was supposed to see.
Foaly gave her a hint. “This is a Gaudí building. You like Gaudí? He designed some lovely mosaics.”
Holly looked harder. “Oh my God,” she said suddenly. “It can’t be.”
“Oh, but it is.” Foaly laughed and enlarged a particular rooftop mosaic until it filled the entire wall screen. There were two figures in the picture stepping from a hole in the sky. One was obviously a demon, and the other was clearly Artemis Fowl.
“But that’s impossible. That building must be a hundred years old.”
“Time is the key to this whole thing,” said Foaly. “Hybras has been lifted out of time. A demon who gets sucked off the island drifts through the centuries like a temporal nomad. This demon obviously got hold of Artemis and took him along for the ride. They must have appeared to one of Gaudí’s artists, or maybe even the man himself.”
Holly paled. “You mean Artemis is . . .”
“No, no. Artemis is home in bed. We’ve pulled a satellite out of orbit to keep twenty-four/seven watch on him.”
“How is this possible?”
Foaly said nothing, so Vinyáya answered the question.“I’ll take this one, because Foaly doesn’t like saying the words.
We don’t know, Holly. This affair leaves a lot of important uestions unanswered. That’s where you come in.”
“How? I don’t know anything about demons.”
Vinyáya nodded craftily. “Yes, but you know a lot about Artemis Fowl. I believe you keep in touch.”
Holly shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t say we really . . .”
Foaly cleared his throat, then called up an audio file on the system.
“Hey, Artemis,” said a recording of Holly’s voice. “I’ve got a little problem you might be able to help me with.”
“Happy to help, Holly,” said Artemis’s voice. “Something difficult, I hope.”
“Well, there’s this pixie I’m after, but he’s a fast one.”
Foaly switched off the file. “I think we can say you’re in contact.”
Holly smiled sheepishly, hoping nobody would ask who gave Artemis a fairy communicator.
“Okay, I call from time to time. Just to keep an eye on him. For the greater good.”
“Whatever your reasons,”said Vinyáya,“we need you to contact him again. Go to the surface and find out how he can predict demon appearances so accurately. According to Foaly’s calculations, there isn’t a demon appearance due for six weeks, but we would like to know where exactly it’s going to be.”
Holly took her time to think about this.
“In what capacity would I be contacting Artemis?”
“Full captain, your old rank. Of course, now you’d be working for Section Eight. Everything you do for us would be hush-hush.”
“A spy?”
“A spy, but with excellent overtime and medical insurance.”
Holly jerked a thumb at Mulch. “What about my partner?”
The dwarf jumped to his feet. “I don’t want to be a spy. Far too dangerous.” He winked slyly at Foaly. “But I could be a consultant, for a fee.”
Vinyáya scowled. “We’re not prepared to grant Diggums a surface visa.”
Mulch shrugged. “Good. I don’t like the surface. It’s too close to the sun and I have sensitive skin.”
“But we are prepared to compensate him for loss of earnings.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to put on the uniform again,” said Holly. “I like working with Mulch.”
“Let’s call this mission a probationary term. Do this one for us. See if you like the way we operate.”
Holly mulled it over. “What color is the uniform?”
Vinyáya smiled. “Matte black.”
“Okay,” said Holly. “I’m in.”
Foaly hugged her again. “I knew you’d do it. I knew it. Holly Short cannot resist adventure. I told them.”
Vinyáya saluted stiffly. “Welcome on board, Captain Short. Foaly will complete your briefing and get you set up. I expect you to make contact with the subject as soon as possible.”
Holly returned the salute. “Yes, Commander. Thank you, Commander.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a debriefing with a pixie we’ve managed to place inside the goblin triads. He has been wearing a scale suit for six months, and he’s having a bit of an identity crisis.”
Vinyáya left, her silver mane rippling behind her. The automatic doors closed with barely a whisper.
Foaly dragged Holly from her seat.
“I have so much to show you,” he babbled excitedly. “The fairies here are nice, but a bit on the square side. Sure they ooh and aah, but no one appreciates me like you do. We have our own shuttle port, you know. And field equipment! You are not going to believe the spec. Wait until you see the new Shimmer Suits. And the helmet! Holly, this thing comes home on its own. I built in a series of mini-thrusters into the skin. It can’t fly, but it can bounce and roll. The thing is beyond genius.”
Mulch covered his ears. “Same old Foaly. Modest to a fault.”
Foaly aimed a kick at Mulch, pulling it at the last second.
“Keep it up, Diggums. I could snap at any moment. I am half beast, remember.”
Mulch moved the hoof away from his face with a finger. “I can’t help it,” he whined. “All this melodrama. Someone has to poke fun.”
Foaly turned once more to his precious wall screen. He selected and enlarged an artist’s impression of the island of Hybras.
“I know this all sounds very cloak-and-dagger, and I know you think I’m making an anaconda out of a stink worm. But believe me, somewher
e on that island there is an unsuspecting demon who is about to take a reluctant visit to Earth and make life very difficult for us.”
Holly stepped close to the screen. Where was that reluctant demon? she wondered. And did he have any idea that he was about to be snatched from his own dimension and propelled into another?
As it happened, Holly’s questions were inaccurate on two counts. Firstly, the demon in question was not actually a demon, he was just an imp. And secondly, the imp in question was anything but reluctant. In fact, visiting Earth was his dearest wish.
CHAPTER 3
FIRST IMPRESSION
The Island of Hybras, Limbo
One night, Imp No1 dreamed he was a demon. He dreamed his horns were curved and pointed. His hide was coarse and armored, and his talons were sharp enough to rip the hide from a wild boar’s back. He dreamed the other demons cowered before him, then scurried away lest he injure them while in the throes of his battle spasms.
That night he dreamed this magnificent dream, then awoke to find he was still merely an imp. Of course, technically he did not have this dream at night. The sky over Hybras is forever tinged with the red glow of dawn. But No1 thought of his rest period as night, even though he’d never seen one.
Imp No1 dressed quickly and rushed into the hallway to check his reflection in the lodge mirror, just in case he had warped in his sleep. But there was no change. Still the same unimpressive figure as usual. One hundred percent imp.
“Grrr,” he said to his image, but even the No1 in the mirror was unconvinced. And if he couldn’t scare himself, then he was not a scary creature and might as well get a job changing baby imps’ diapers.
There was some potential in the mirror. Imp No1 had the general skeletal structure of a proper demon. He was about the same height as a sheep sitting on its rear. His skin was gray as moon dust and pebbled with armored plating. Spiraling red runes wound their way around his chest, up along his neck, and across his forehead. His eyes had striking orange irises, and his jaw had a noble jut about it, or so he liked to think, though others had called it protruding. He had two arms, slightly longer than an average human ten-year-old, and two legs, slightly shorter. Fingers and toes, eight of each. So nothing weird there. One tail, more of a stump, actually, but excellent for burrowing holes if you’re hunting for grubs. All in all, your typical imp. But at fourteen years old, No1 was the oldest imp in Hybras. Roughly fourteen years old, that is. It was hard to be exact when it was always dawn. “The hour of power,” as the warlocks used to call it before they got sucked into the depths of cold space. The hour of power. Very catchy.