Angeline was horrified. “You sound just like . . .”
“Father? Good. Someone has to be rational.”
Artemis’s face was stern, but inside he quailed. How could he speak to his mother like this, when she was literally driven demented by grief?
Why have I not fallen to pieces? he wondered, and the answer came to him quickly. I am a Fowl, and Fowls have always triumphed in the face of adversity.
“But fifty thousand, Mother? For a lemur?”
“They may find a female,” argued Angeline. “Then we will have saved a species.”
There is no point in arguing, thought Artemis. Logic cannot prevail here.
“And where is lucky silky now?” he asked innocently, smiling as a ten-year-old should when discussing a small furry animal.
“He is safe in Rathdown Park. Living like a king. Tomorrow he is being flown to a special artificial habitat in Florida.”
Artemis nodded. Rathdown Park was a privately funded nature reserve in Wicklow, specially constructed to protect endangered species. It had tighter security than the average Swiss bank.
“That’s wonderful. Perhaps I will visit the fifty-thousand-euro monkey.”
“Now, now, Artemis,” his mother chided. “Silky is a lemur; they predate monkeys, as you well know.”
I know but do not care! Artemis wanted to scream. Father is missing, and you have spent the expedition money on a lemur!
But he held his tongue. Mother was delicate at the moment, and he did not want to contribute to her instability.
“Rathdown doesn’t usually accept visitors,” continued Angeline. “But I am sure if I made a call they would make an exception for you; after all, the Fowls did pay for the primate village.”
Artemis appeared delighted. “Thank you, Mother. That would be a real treat for me, and Butler too. You know how he likes small furry creatures. I would love to see the species we have saved.”
Angeline smiled with a degree of madness that scared her son terribly.
“Well done, Artemis. This is one in the eye for the big-business men. Mother and son, united we shall save the world. I shall tease your father terribly when he gets home.”
Artemis backed slowly toward the door, his heart in his shoes.
“Yes, Mother. United we shall save the world.”
Once the door had closed behind him, Artemis stepped briskly downstairs, fingers conducting imaginary music as he plotted. He detoured to his bedroom and quickly dressed for a trip, then continued to the kitchen, where he found Butler slicing vegetables with a Japanese kodachi short sword. He was now chef and gardener as well as protector.
The huge bodyguard was making quick work of a cucumber.
“A summer salad,” he explained. “Just greens, hardboiled egg, and some chicken. I thought crème brûlée for dessert. It will give me a chance to try out my flamethrower.” He glanced across at Artemis and was surprised to see him dressed in one of his two suits, the dark blue one he had worn recently to the opera in Covent Garden. Artemis had always been a neat dresser, but a suit and tie were unusual even for him.
“Are we going somewhere formal, Artemis?”
“Nowhere formal,” said Artemis, with a coldness in his tone that the bodyguard had not heard before but would come to know well. “Just business. I am in charge of the family affairs now, and so I should dress accordingly.”
“Ah . . . I detect a distinct echo of your father.” Butler wiped the sword carefully, then pulled off his apron. “We have some typical Fowl family business to conduct, do we?”
“Yes,” replied Artemis. “With a monkey’s uncle.”
Present Day
Holly was aghast.
“So in a fit of childish pique you murdered the lemur.”
Artemis had composed himself and sat at a bedside chair, holding his mother’s hand gently, as though it were a bird.
“No. I used to suffer from the occasional fit of pique, as you well know, but they generally did not last. An intellect such as mine cannot be overpowered by emotions for long.”
“But you said that you killed the animal.”
Artemis rubbed his temple. “Yes, I did. I didn’t wield the knife, but I killed it, make no mistake.”
“How exactly?”
“I was young . . . younger,” mumbled Artemis, uncomfortable with the topic. “A different person in many ways.”
“We know what you were like, Artemis,” said Foaly in a rueful tone. “You have no idea how much of my budget the Fowl Manor siege ate up.”
Holly pressed for an answer. “How did you kill the lemur? How did you even get hold of it?”
“It was ridiculously easy,” admitted Artemis. “Butler and I visited Rathdown Park and simply disabled the security while we were there. Later that evening we both popped back and picked up the lemur.”
“So Butler killed it. I am surprised; it’s not his style.”
Artemis’s eyes were downcast. “No, Butler didn’t do it. I sold the lemur to a group called the Extinctionists.”
Holly was horrified. “Extinctionists! Artemis, you didn’t. That’s horrible.”
“It was my first big deal,” said Artemis. “I delivered it to them in Morocco and they paid me a hundred thousand euros. It funded the entire Arctic expedition.”
Holly and Foaly were speechless. Artemis had effectively put a price on life. Holly backed away from the human she had only moments ago considered a friend.
“I rationalized the whole thing. My father for a lemur. How could I not go through with it?”
Artemis had real regret in his eyes. “I know. It was a terrible thing to do. If I could turn back the clock . . .”
And suddenly he stopped. He couldn’t turn back the clock, but he knew a demon warlock who could. It was a chance. A chance.
He laid his mother’s hand gently on the bed, then stood to pace.
Plotting music, he thought. I need plotting music.
He selected Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 from his vast selection of mental music and listened to it as he thought.
Good choice. Somber yet uplifting. Inspiring stuff.
Artemis paced the carpet, almost unaware of his surroundings, lost in ideas and possibilities.
Holly recognized this mood.
“He has a plan,” she said to Foaly.
The centaur pulled a long face, which wasn’t difficult. “Why am I not surprised?”
Holly took advantage of Artemis’s distraction to seal her helmet and speak privately to Foaly. She walked to the window and peered out at the estate through a gap in the curtains. The sinking sun wavered behind tree branches, and clumps of dahlias flashed red and white like fireworks.
Holly allowed herself time for a sigh, then focused on the situation.
“There’s more at stake here than Artemis’s mother,” she said.
Foaly switched off the television so that Artemis could not hear him.
“I know. If there is an outbreak, it could be a disaster for fairies. We don’t have any antidote left, remember?”
“We need to interview Opal Koboi. She must have kept records somewhere.”
“Opal always kept her most valuable formulae in her head. I think she was caught off guard by the jungle fire; she lost all her donors in one fell swoop.”
Koboi Industries had attracted the Madagascan lemurs by setting a sonix box in the Tsingy of Bemaraha. Virtually every lemur on the island had responded to the box’s call, and they had all been wiped out by an unfortunate lightning fire. Luckily, the fairies had already treated most of their infected, but fifteen more fairies had died in quarantine wards.
Artemis stopped pacing and cleared his throat loudly. He was ready to share his plan, and he wanted the fairies’ complete attention.
“There is a relatively simple solution to our problem,” he said.
Foaly reactivated the television, his face filling the flat screen.
“Our problem?”
“Come, Foaly, don?
??t pretend to be obtuse. This is a fairy plague that has mutated and spread to humans. You have no antidote and no time to synthesize one. Who knows how many cases of Spelltropy are incubating right now?”