Artemis Fowl: Wreaking Havoc

3. Puppet Bait

 There was a rather awkward pause.

“Yes,” said Holly, who was fairly pleased that the boy had noticed. She gave her auburn hair a bit of a pat; ever since it had grown out of its crew cut, she had been a little self-conscious about it. A little more like a female fairy who didn’t work as a LEPrecon officer.

Butler cleared his throat.

“This isn’t the time for tearful greetings,” he said in his hoarse voice, stepping in between the two. Holly shook her head.

“No, you’re right,” she said.

“It wasn’t tear –”

“Quiet for a minute, Artemis,” said Butler. Artemis fell into a rather resentful silence. “If you would care to explain, Holly? You nearly got the two of us killed.”

Holly twisted her long fingers together uncomfortably, hovering higher and higher as she grew more fidgety.

“The thing is…” she began. “The LEPrecon have found…” her voice tailed off as she seemed to become more and more uneasy. Her face was beginning to pale, but that could just have been the light.

Artemis felt his fingers twitch involuntarily as he began counting her words. Four. Death. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of happy thoughts, but the number four only grew beneath his eyelids.

The boy could feel his sub conscience, Orion, struggling to surface. Artemis felt mortified and heat rushed to his cheeks as he remembered all that the galling ‘other personality’ had put his body through.

“You can stay there,” he told himself, intentionally counting four words. He was a genius – this was below him, surely. Self discipline, that was all he needed.

“Sorry, Artemis?” said Butler.

“Carry on,” said Artemis quickly. “I was merely thinking aloud.”

He looked towards Holly, only to find that she wasn’t there anymore. In fact, she didn’t seem to be anywhere.
  Artemis suddenly felt a great force to his side as his bodyguard tackled him for the second time in less than ten minutes.

I am going to break my ribs soon, he thought as he hit the dusty earth. His left cheek pressed rather uncomfortably to the ground, he heard Butler’s heavy breathing as the burly man leapt to his feet and drew a Sig Sauer from his jacket.

Artemis rolled over onto his back to see Holly hovering high above him with Butler training his gun on her. But this wasn’t the oddest thing.

Holly’s head was as limp as a fish out of the sea, rolling about as she appeared to sleep…with her eyes open. With a Neutrino in her hands.

“Holly –” the elf’s name was all that left the boy’s mouth before she suddenly shot straight up as though she was a puppet that had been pulled up too quickly by the strings. Far up ahead a strange form of transport, shaped rather like a nail, flew to collect her before turning its nose to the sky and disappearing amongst the clouds.

“Holly!” Artemis scrambled to his feet but got no further as Butler blocked his path.

“I suggest you stay put, Artemis,” he said, still holding his Sig Sauer in one hand. “Someone’s clearly out to get you, and taking Holly must have either been a decoy, puppet spy or bait.”

Artemis knew this already, but hearing Butler say it out loud made the words ring in his head uncomfortably.

“I doubt she was a decoy, Butler,” he said, rubbing his face and crouching to the ground wearily. “It was impossible for us to follow them unless we had also been in a flying vehicle at that very moment. I believe she is both puppet and bait. But nobody knows of my – our – relationship with Holly Short. Why would they have chosen her as a puppet, and why would they have chosen her as bait?”

Butler gave his employer a rather kind smile.

“It’s very clear that you two are quite close for Mud Man and fairy. If you don’t mind me saying so, Artemis, the two of you looked almost like –”

Artemis suddenly found he didn’t want to hear anymore.

“I think we should alert the LEP,” he said abruptly, and reached for the communicator in his watch.