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  The shaggy head froze, its snout pointed directly at Butler's hiding place. It was no coincidence. The manservant peeked out between the chain-mail fingers of a gauntlet. Now came the stalk.

  Once a scent had been acquired, the predator would attempt a slow silent approach, before the lightning strike.

  But apparently the troll had not read the predator's handbook, because it didn't bother with the stealth approach, jumping directly to the lightning strike. Moving faster than Butler would have believed possible, the troll sprang across the lobby, brushing the medieval armour aside as though it were a shop mannequin.

  Juliet blinked.

  'Ooh,' she gasped. 'It's Bigfoot Bob. Canadian champion nineteen ninety-eight. I thought you were in the Andes, looking for your relatives.'

  Butler didn't bother to correct her. His sister wasn't lucid. At least she would die happy. While his brain was contemplating this morbid observation, Butler's gun hand was coming up.

  He squeezed the trigger as rapidly as the Sig Sauer's mechanism would allow. Two in the chest, three between the eyes. That was the plan. He got the chest shots in, but the troll interfered before Butler could complete the formation. The interference took the form of scything tusks that ducked below Butler's guard. They coiled around his trunk, slicing through his Kevlar reinforced jacket like a razor through rice paper.

  Butler felt a cold pain as the serrated ivory pierced his chest. He knew immediately that the wound was fatal. His breath came hard.

  That was a lung gone, and gouts of blood were matting the troll's fur.

  His blood. No one could lose that amount and live. Nevertheless, the pain was instantly replaced by a curious euphoria. Some form of natural anaesthetic injected through channels in the beast's tusks.

  More dangerous than the deadliest poison. In minutes Butler would not only stop struggling, but go giggling to his grave.

  The manservant fought against the narcotics in his system, struggling furiously in the troll's grip. But it was no use. His fight was over almost before it had begun.

  The troll grunted, flipping the limp human body over his head.

  Butler's burly frame collided with the wall at a speed human bones were never meant to withstand. The bricks cracked from floor to ceiling. Butler's spine went too. Now, even if the blood loss didn't get him, paralysis would.

  Juliet was still enthralled by the mesmer.

  'Come on, brother. Get off the canvas. We all know you're faking.'

  The troll paused, some basic curiosity piqued by the lack of fear.

  He would have suspected a trick, if he could have formulated such a complicated thought. But in the end, appetite won out. This creature smelled flesh. Fresh and tender. Flesh from above ground was 217different. Laced with surface smells. Once you've had open-air meat, it's hard to go back. The troll ran a tongue over his incisors and reached out a shaggy hand…

  Holly tucked the Hummingbirds close to her torso, dropping into a controlled dive. She skimmed the banisters, emerging into the portico below a stained-glass dome. The time-stop light filtered unnaturally, splitting into thick azure shafts.

  Light, thought Holly. The helmet high-beams worked before, there was no reason why they wouldn't work again. It was too late for the male, he was a bag of broken bones. But the female, she still had a few seconds left before the troll split her open.

  Holly spiralled down through the faux light, searching her helmet console for the Sonix button. Sonix were generally used on canines, but in this case it might provide a moment's distraction.

  Enough to get her to ground level.

  The troll was reaching in towards Juliet underhand. It was a move generally reserved for the defenceless. The claws would curl in below the ribs, rupturing the heart. Minimum damage to the flesh and no last-minute tension to toughen the meat.

  Holly activated her Sonix… and nothing happened. Not good.

  Generally your average troll would be at the very least irritated by the ultra-high-frequency tone. But this particular beast didn't even shake his shaggy head. There were a couple of possibilities: one, the helmet was malfunctioning; two, this troll was deaf as the proverbial post.

  Unfortunately, Holly had no way of knowing as the tones were inaudible to fairy ears.

  Whatever the problem, it forced Holly to adopt a strategy she would rather not have resorted to. Direct contact. All to save a human's life. She'd gone section eight. Without a doubt.

  Holly jerked the throttle, straight from fourth to reverse. Not very good for the gears. She'd get a dressing-down from the mechanics for that, in the unlikely event she actually survived this never-ending nightmare. The effect of this gear-crunching was to flip her around in mid-air, so that her boot heels were pointed directly at the troll's head.

  Holly winced. Two entanglements with the same troll. Unbelievable. Her heels caught the beast square on the crown of its head. At that speed, there was at least half a tonne of G-force behind the contact. Only the reinforced ribbing in her suit prevented Holly's leg bones from shattering. Even so, she heard her knee pop. The pain clawed its way to her forehead. Ruined her recovery manoeuvre too.

  Instead of repelling herself to a safe altitude, Holly crumpled on to the troll's back, becoming instantly entangled in the ropy fur.

  The troll was suitably annoyed. Not only had something distracted it from dinner, but now that something was nestled in its fur, along with the cleaner slugs. The beast straightened, reaching a clawed hand over its own shoulder. The curved nails raked Holly's helmet, scoring parallel grooves in the alloy. Juliet was safe for the moment, but Holly had taken her place on the endangered-individuals list.

  The troll squeezed tighter, somehow securing a grip on the helmet's anti-friction coating, which, according to Foaly, was impossible to grip. Serious words would be had. If not in this life, then definitely the next.

  Captain Short found herself being hoisted aloft to face her old enemy. Holly struggled to concentrate through the pain and confusion. Her leg was swinging like a pendulum, and the troll's breath was breaking over her face in rancid waves.

  There had been a plan, hadn't there? Surely she didn't fly down here just to curl up and die. There must have been a strategy. All those years in the Academy must have taught her something. Whatever her plan had been, it floated just out of reach somewhere between pain and shock. Out of reach.

  'The lights, Holly…'

  A voice in her head. Probably talking to herself. An out-of-head experience. Ha ha. She must remember to tell Foaly about this…

  Foaly?

  'Hit the lights, Holly. If those tusks get to work, you'll be dead before the magic can kick in.'

  'Foaly? Is that you?' Holly may have said this aloud, or she may just have thought it. She wasn't sure.

  'The tunnel high beams, Captain!' A different voice. Not so cuddly. 'Hit the button now! That's an order!'

  Oops. It was Root. She was falling down on the job again. First Hamburg, then Martina Franca, now this.

  'Yessir,' she mumbled, trying to sound professional.

  'Press it! Now, Captain Short!'

  Holly looked the troll straight in its merciless eyes and pressed the button. Very melodramatic. Or it would have been, if the lights had worked. Unfortunately for Holly, in her haste she'd grabbed one of the helmets cannibalized by Artemis Fowl. Hence no Sonix, no filters and no tunnel beams. The halogen bulbs were still installed, but the wires had come loose during Artemis's investigations.

  'Oh dear,' breathed Holly.

  'Oh dear!' barked Root. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

  'The beams are off-line,' explained Foaly.

  'Oh…' Root's voice trailed off. What more was there to say?

  Holly squinted at the troll. If you didn't know trolls were dumb animals, you'd swear the beast was grinning. Standing there with blood dripping from various chest wounds, grinning. Captain Short didn't like being grinned at.

  'Laugh this off,' she said, and butted the troll
with the only weapon available to her. Her helmeted head.

  Valiant undoubtedly, but about as effective as trying to cut down a tree with a feather. Luckily, the ill-advised blow had a side effect. For a split second, two strands of conductor filament connected, sending power flooding to one of the tunnel beams. Four-hundred watts of white light blasted through the troll's crimson eyes, dispatching lightning rods of agony to the brain.

  'Heh heh,' mumbled Holly, in the second before the troll convulsed involuntarily. Its spasms sent her spinning across the parquet floor, leg jittering along behind her.

  The wall was approaching at an alarming speed. Maybe, thought Holly hopefully, this will be one of those impacts where you don't feel any pain until later. No, replied her pessimistic side, afraid not. She slammed into a Norman narrative tapestry, bringing it tumbling down on top of her. Pain was immediate and overwhelming.

  'Ooof,' grunted Foaly. 'I felt that. Visuals are shot. Pain sensors went right off the scale. Your lungs are busted, Captain. We're going to lose you for a while. But don't worry, Holly, your magic should be kicking in already.'

  Holly felt the blue tingle of magic scurrying to her various injuries. Thank the gods for acorns. But it was too little too late. The pain was way beyond her threshold. Just before unconsciousness claimed her, Holly's hand flopped from beneath the tapestry. It landed on Butler's arm, touching the bare skin. Amazingly, the human wasn't dead. A dogged pulse forced the blood through smashed limbs.

  Heal, thought Holly. And the magic scurried down her fingers.

  The troll faced a dilemma — which female to eat first. Choices, choices. This decision was not made any easier by the lingering agony buzzing around its shaggy head, or the cluster of bullets lodged in the fatty chest tissue. Eventually it settled on the surface dweller. Soft human meat. No dense fairy muscle to chew through.

  The beast squatted low, tilting the girl's chin with one yellowed talon. A pulsing jugular looped lazily down the length of her neck. The heart or the neck? the troll wondered. The neck, it was closer. It turned the talon sideways, so that the edge pressed against soft human flesh. One sharp swipe and the girl's own heartbeat would drive the blood from her body.

  Butler woke up, which was a surprise in itself. He knew immediately that he was alive, because of the searing pain permeating every cubic centimetre of his body. This was not good. Alive he may

  have been, but considering the fact that his neck had a one-eighty twist on it, he'd never so much as walk the dog again, not to mention rescue his sister.

  The manservant twiddled his fingers. Hurt like hell, but at least there was movement. It was amazing that he had any motor functions at all, considering the trauma his spinal column had suffered. His toes seemed all right too, but that could have been phantom response, given that he couldn't actually see them.

  The bleeding from his chest wound appeared to have stopped and he was thinking straight. All in all, he was in much better shape than he had any right to be. What in heaven's name was going on here?

  Butler noticed something. There were blue sparks dancing along his torso. He must be hallucinating, creating pleasant images to distract himself from the inevitable. A very realistic hallucination, it must be said.

  The sparks congregated at trauma points, sinking into the skin.

  Butler shuddered. This was no hallucination. Something extraordinary was happening here. Magical.

  Magic? That rang a bell in his recently reassembled cranium.

  Fairy magic. Something was healing his wounds. He twisted his head, wincing at the grate of sliding vertebrae. There was a hand resting on his forearm. Sparks flowed from the slim elfin fingers, intuitively targeting bruises, breaks or ruptures. There were a lot of injuries to be dealt with, but the tiny sparks handled it all quickly and effectively.

  Like an army of mystical beavers repairing storm damage.

  Butler could actually feel his bones knitting and the blood retreating from semi-congealed scabs. His head twisted involuntarily as his vertebrae slid into their niches, and strength returned in a rush as magic reproduced the three litres of blood lost through his chest wound. Butler jumped to his feet — actually jumped. He was himself again. No. It was more than that. He was as strong as he had ever been. Strong enough to have another crack at that beast hunkered over his baby sister.

  He felt his rejuvenated heart speed up like the stroke of an outboard motor. Calm, Butler told himself. Passion is the enemy of efficiency. But calm or no, the situation was desperate. This beast had already effectively killed him once, and this time round he didn't even have the Sig Sauer. His own skills aside, it would be nice to have a weapon. Something with a bit of weight to it. His boot clin ked on a metallic object. Butler glanced down at the debris strewn in the troll's wake… Perfect.

  There was nothing but snow on the viewscreen.

  'Come on,' urged Root. 'Hurry up!'

  Foaly elbowed past his superior.

  'Maybe if you didn't insist on blocking all the circuit boards.'

  Root shuffled out of the way grudgingly. In his mind it was the circuit boards' fault for being behind him. The centaur's head disappeared into an access panel.

  'Anything?'

  'Nothing. Just interference.'

  Root slapped the screen. Not a good idea. First, because there was not one chance in a million that it would actually help, and second, because plasma screens grow extremely hot after prolonged use.

  'D'Arvit!'

  'Don't touch that screen, by the way.'

  'Oh, ha ha. We have time for jokes now, do we?'

  'No, actually. Anything?'

  The snow settled into recognizable shapes.

  'That's it, hold it there. We've got a signal.'

  'I've activated the secondary camera. Plain old video, I'm afraid, but it'll have to do.'

  Root didn't comment. He was watching the screen. This must be a movie. It couldn't be real life.

  'So what's going on in there? Anything interesting?'

  Root tried to answer, but his soldier's vocabulary just didn't have the superlatives.

  'What? What is it?'

  The commander made an attempt.

  'It's… the human… I've never… Oh, forget it, Foaly.You're going to have to see this for yourself.'

  Holly watched the entire episode through a gap in the tapestry

  folds. If she hadn't seen it, she wouldn't have believed it. In fact, it wasn't until she'd reviewed the VT for her report that she was certain the whole thing wasn't a hallucination brought on by a near-death experience. As it was, the video sequence became something of a legend, initially doing the rounds on the Amateur Home Movies cable shows and ending up on the LEP Academy Hand-to-Hand curriculum.

  The human, Butler, was strapping on a medieval suit of armour.

  Incredible as it seemed, he apparently intended going toe to toe with the troll. Holly tried to warn him, tried to make some sound, but the magic hadn't yet reinflated her crushed lungs.

  Butler closed his visor, hefting a vicious mace.

  'Now,' he grunted through the grille. 'I'll show you what happens when someone lays a hand on my sister.'

  The human twirled the mace as though it were a cheerleader's baton, ramming it home between the troll's shoulder blades. A blow like that, while not fatal, certainly distracted the troll from its intended victim.

  Butler planted his foot just above the creature's haunches and tugged the weapon free. It relinquished its grip with a sickly sucking sound. He skipped backwards, settling into a defensive stance.

  The troll rounded on him, all ten talons sliding out to their full extent. Drops of venom glistened from the tip of each tusk. Playtime was over. But there would be no lightning strike this time. The beast was wary, it had been hurt. This latest attacker would be afforded the same respect as another male of the species. As far as the troll was concerned, his territory was being encroached on. And there was only one way of solving a dispute of this nature. The same
way that trolls solved every dispute…

  'I must warn you,' said Butler, straight-faced. 'I am armed and prepared to use deadly force if necessary.'

  Holly would have groaned if she could. Banter! The human was trying to engage a troll in macho repartee! Then Captain Short realized her mistake. The words weren't important, it was the tone he employed. Calm, soothing. Like a trainer with a spooked unicorn.

  'Step away from the female. Easy now.'

  The troll ballooned its cheeks and howled. Scare tactics. Testing the waters. Butler didn't flinch.

  'Yeah, yeah. Real scary. Now just back out of the door, and I won't have to cut you into little pieces.'

  The troll snorted, miffed by this reaction. Generally his roar sent whatever creature was facing it scurrying down the tunnel.

  'One step at a time. Nice and slow. Easy there, big fellow.'

  You could almost see it in the troll's eyes. A flicker of uncertainty. Maybe this human was…

  And that was when Butler struck. He danced under the tusks, hammering home a devastating uppercut with his medieval weapon.

  The troll staggered backwards, talons flailing wildly. But it was too 227late: Butler had stepped out of reach, scooting across to the other side of the corridor.

  The troll lumbered after him, spitting dislodged teeth from pulped gums. Butler sank to his knees, sliding and turning, the polished floor bearing him like an ice skater. He ducked and pirouetted, facing his pursuer.

  'Guess what I found?' he said, raising the Sig Sauer.

  No chest shots this time. Butler laid in the rest of the automatic's clip in a ten-centimetre diameter between the troll's eyes.

  Unfortunately for Butler, due to millennia spent butting each other, trolls have developed a thick ridge of bone covering their brows. So his textbook spread failed to penetrate the skull, in spite of the Teflon-coated load.

  However, ten Devastator slugs can't be ignored by any creature on the planet, and the troll was no exception. The bullets beat a sledgehammer tattoo on its cranium causing instant concussion. The animal staggered backwards, slapping at its own forehead. Butler was after it in a heartbeat, pinning one shaggy foot beneath the mace spikes.