Ergh, so here I am writing this again.

This is un-beta'd (clearly).

Another instalment of Artemis's (incredibly stroppy) daughter...

Cora 0.4

Archimedes 'Cabbage' Fowl was five months old and deeply unhappy.

"Archimedes," said Artemis Fowl levelly, "come to me."

Cabbage backed away, his blue eyes wide and untrusting. Artemis took another small step forward.

"Come now, Archimedes. I've got a treat for you." He held up the bag of wilting lettuce leaves and potato peelings. "If you come to me, I shall give you–"

"NO!" screamed a voice from the other room. "NO!"

Artemis's head shot up. There was a frantic scratching of trotters on parquet flooring and Cabbage took his chance. Artemis ducked down, cursing, but it was too late. The piglet had shot between his legs and hurtled through the parlour doorway, escaping into the outside corridor.

"Oh, for Heaven's–!"

"NO!" wailed the voice again. "NO!"

Artemis stormed from the room.

He reached his daughter's bedroom in less than a minute only to find said daughter perched on the edge of a padded ottoman, kicking her tiny legs.

"Cora," Butler was saying, his massive form crouched down before her, his face uncharacteristically annoyed. "Stop screaming now, and let me put on your socks."

The three-year-old shook her head. "No!"

"Cora–"

"I don't want to!"

"Cora!" snapped Artemis. "Allow Butler to put on your socks this instant!"

The little girl shook her head again, her pigtails whipping her cheeks. "No!"

Butler sighed and looked back at his ex-charge. "Any luck with the pig?"

"None. I had her cornered in the bird room but she managed to escape."

"You leave Cabbage alone!" shouted Cora.

Her father strode towards her across the duck-pond patterned carpet and the little girl's brow creased into a frown.

"You, young lady, are trying my patience."

"I want to wear my sandals!"

"It is January."

"Your point being?"

Father and daughter glared at each other. Butler clapped his knees and rose to his full height.

"Here," he said, pushing the small ball of cotton socks into Artemis's hands. "You take child, I'll take pig."

"My name is not 'child'!" protested Cora.

Artemis passed Butler the small bottle which contained Cabbage's medicine. "It must be applied directly into the ear canal," he said. "That is, if you can bloody catch her."

"I'll try the West Wing. She's rather partial to the armchair in the scarlet suite."

"Yes, that is where I would try."

Artemis put his hands on his hips, turning his attention back to his daughter. "Right," he said as Butler left, tincture in hand. "Why are you suddenly so averse to the idea of warm, covered feet?"

Cora's bottom lip protruded to an almost comical degree. "I wish to wear my sandals."

Gods give me strength, thought Artemis.

"And why do you wish to wear your sandals?" he sighed.

"So we can go on holiday."

"Ah."

"And! I want to wear my elephant hat today."

The elephant hat was a miracle of woollen construction; a small blue cap complete with purple trunk, hairy ears and wide, googly eyes. Artemis had thought it inappropriate garb for a young and impressionable Fowl child when he had first received it in the post (a birthday present for Cora from her Auntie Juliet in Mexico), but both Butler and Cora had judged it spectacular. The old bodyguard had plopped it down onto the three-year-old's head and she had not taken it off for thirteen days straight.

"The hat we can negotiate," said Artemis, "but socks are a fixed term."

Cora's scowl deepened. "Since when did we have a sock contract?"

They had a knickers contract, a bedtime contract, and a mashed potato contract – but not a sock contract.

"We don't," agreed Artemis, "as of yet. But do I really need to draw one up?"

Cora considered this. "I shall agree to wearing the socks… if we go on holiday in the next ten minutes."

Artemis sighed. "We are not going on holiday today."

"Then I shall wear nothing at all!"

London – East Embankment

Pauli Garcia Butler's green eyes were slits behind dark, mirrored sunglasses.

"Stay close," warned the woman walking barely two steps ahead of him, "or you shall lose me."

Pauli did not respond. It was 5:15pm on London's East Embankment. It was a Friday afternoon, and his sensei was a four foot child amongst a sea of grey-suited giants.

"Hurry," she hissed.

Pauli was by far the tallest grey-suited giant in the crowd; he was seventeen years old and barely an inch off seven-feet tall. People stared as he passed, pointed, gawped, but he was too used to this to allow it to distract him. The sun glared against his sunglasses, a last diurnal insult as the sunset flared just above the horizon, but he still kept Madam Ko firmly in sight.

She stopped suddenly at a crossing and he stopped too. A green man lit up on the other side of the road and she disappeared in the pedestrian surge.

Always keep your eyes on her, said his mother's voice in his head. She's a slippery bitch when she wants to be, and on my test she managed to switch herself with a decoy. She was out of my sight for barely twenty seconds but I still failed…

Pauli wrenched down the man's shoulder in front of him.

"Hey!" protested the man.

Madam Ko was immediately put back in his eye line, and if he wasn't mistaken, a small smirk was playing about her lips.

"What's your problem?" demanded the man in his grip.

Pauli pushed him gently but firmly aside and strode after his sensei. He heard the man complaining behind him but thought no more about it. Madam Ko was walking north now, and so must he. Suddenly, she turned sharply to the left, heading towards an underground tube entrance: a bottle-neck of afternoon commuters and newspapervendors.

"Metro!" shouted a wart-faced man with a strong cockney accent. "Get 'cha Metro 'ere!"

Pauli was forced to pull aside a few more of the grey-suited crowd to keep sight of his mistress.

"Watch out!" complained a bespectacled man.

"Get your hands off me!" demanded a bleach-haired woman.

Pauli ignored them both. Madam Ko was already on the station escalator, descending into the bustle of the tube station at large. He passed easily by the other commuters, who were all uniformly sticking to the left leaving the right lane free.

"Madam," he said quietly as he reached her shoulder.

She nodded in acknowledgement and approached the turnstile. One flash of her travel card and she was through. The barriers were sturdy, dinted metal, guarded by policemen with dogs and machine guns, and Pauli had not had a chance to purchase a ticket.

If you need something, just get it, said his uncle's gravelly voice in his head.

Pauli pressed the ticket he had stolen earlier from the bespectacled man's pocket and pressed it the scanner. He slipped sideways through the clanking metal turnstile.

The air below was hot, thick, blasted into his face in smothering waves as he followed Madam Ko to her chosen platform. They had to wait barely a minute before their train arrived, and both stepped reasonably easily aboard.

"We shall have to change at Bakerloo," said Madam Ko, taking a seat beside an obese thirty-something in a tracksuit, "unless I change my mind."

Pauli nodded. He was busy giving everyone in the carriage their second look over.

"You have done well, young Butler," said the Japanese woman, "much better than your mother. She was a simpleton, unfit to sweep carpets at my school. She was a shame to your family."

This was water off a duck's back for Pauli who had long since had any pride or temper trained out of him in Madame Ko's school. He was retreating into his 'happy place', letting emotions take a back seat to instinct and training.

He found himself staring at a nervous-looking man at the end of the carriage who was gripping one strap of his backpack with white knuckles.

"Now," said Madam Ko, "you are exemplary. I am glad your mother survived my school if only to go on to give birth to you. Lying on her back and baring children – that is all she is good for."

The man wiped shaking fingers against his sweaty lip.

"Stupid. Ill-disciplined. Weak."

Pauli felt the blood begin to pound in his frontal lobe.

Trust your instincts, said his uncle's voice, they're rarely wrong.

"Excuse me, Madam," interrupted Pauli, grabbing his sensei under the arms and carrying her, toddler-like, to the opposite carriage doors.

"What are you doing?" demanded Madam Ko. "Put me down this instance!"

The other occupants began to look up from their books, phones and newspapers. His sensei's hand delivered a sharp downwards chop to Pauli's forearm which would have left an average man with a broken arm and eyes blurred from tears. Pauli took it with barely a clench of his jaw.

"It is for your own safety, Ma'am," he said, stepping through into the next carriage.

More bewildered faces greeted him there and he scanned the coach for optional escape routes.

"Is that your old woman?" asked a spotty young man accusingly.

"Yes," replied the trainee bodyguard.

Pauli shifted the screaming Japanese woman under one arm and pulled out his Sig Sauer: a belated fifteenth birthday present from his uncle in Ireland. More than one person in the carriage screamed. A man with another backpack, and the same whitened, terrified expression as the man in the previous carriage, met Pauli's gaze. He was muttering under his breath, whispering, perhaps praying. He was reaching a shaking hand towards a strange strap on his bag.

Pauli turned his gun arm 180 degrees and shot at the train window between the heads of two petrified adolescents. The glass shattered. And despite the fact that the train was travelling at forty-five miles-per-hour, and that there was nothing to land on but hard concrete and gravel, and he had a protesting octogenarian stuffed beneath his arm, Pauli leapt through it.

He hit the ground hard, taking most of the impact to his shoulder and spine, keeping Madam Ko wrapped in his arms. As soon the world stopped jerking, he was up, adrenaline numbing him to the pain of his potential injuries, to the yowling of his life-long teacher, and cupping the old woman hurriedly beneath him.

Ten seconds later, the rear end of the train exploded.

Fowl Manor – Ireland

"It is going to be so awesome," gushed the female voice at the end of the telephone. "Seriously, I reckon that if we get there early enough we could get on barrier, and then we might even get to touch her."

Cora smiled, lying on her back across her silk duvet cover. "I doubt it, Tilly. There'll be twenty bodyguards between us and her even if we do get on barrier."

"You'll get us through! I know you will! You've got a way with people…"

The fifteen-year-old smirked wryly and allowed a few sparks of magic to spill, fountain-like, from the end of her long index finger. "I can't make any promises, Tilly…"

Cora Fowl had the pale skin of her aristocratic father but the muscles and hair of her police-trained mother. She danced like her grandmother, laughed like her uncle, and could nip like the local farmer's dog. Quick to anger, she could win almost any argument she set her mind (and fists) to, but would almost always regret the fight after her blood had cooled. She had many friends, but only a few close companions, and once she was told a secret it was well-known that it would never pass her lips again.

"Well, whatever," said Tilly, her oldest school friend, "five metres should be close enough. You'll just have to keep a hold on me in the crowd; I don't want to lose you… Have you asked your dad yet, by the way?"

Cora frowned slightly, plucking at the bottom of her vest top. "No. But he'll say yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely. He used to do all kinds of crazy stuff when he was my age; he'll have no excuse not to let me go to a concert."

He really won't, she thought.

"What kinds of crazy stuff?" asked Tilly, her voice picking up. "Sexy stuff?"

"No, just… teenager stuff. You're so gross, woman… But he will let me, honestly. We just might have to take Dom."

"But that's no problem. He's massive. We could both just sit on his shoulders if we don't get on barrier; we'll have the best seats in the house."

"And a lot of angry people stood behind us."

Annie could almost hear her friend's shrug. "Fuck 'em."

They both laughed and Cora heard someone enter Tilly's bedroom and speak to her.

"I've got to go," said Tilly, the receiver crackling slightly as she put the phone back to her mouth. "My father's back for the weekend and apparently he's still really shook up."

"What? Why?"

"Haven't you heard? There was a fake terrorist attack on the underground today. Some eejit blew up the back of a tube carriage."

"What?"

"I know. Nobody was injured. They're saying it was just a film crew doing a stunt but nobody notified London transport so there were just normal people on the train too. It caused all sorts of panic."

"Jesus..."

"But anyway, I'll speak to you later, alright? Ask your dad."

"Yes. I will. 'Night."

"'Night."

Cora disconnected.

"Have you heard about the train explosion in London?" she asked later, walking into her father's office.

"Hmm?" he said, looking up from his desk and swivelling his chair. "Oh. Yes. Butler was telling me about it."

Artemis Fowl the Second was aging extremely well. His hair was dark and glossy except for the large iron patches surrounding his temples, but they had been a constant feature for as long as Cora could remember. His eyes were only slightly wrinkled at the corners, his hands a little creased and sometimes a little too dry, but overall, for a nearing-forty-year-old, Artemis Fowl was in particularly good nick. Cora had begun to resent this a little lately. Her friends had begun their 'older man' phase and were commenting more and more on how 'distinguished and handsome' her father looked.

"He's ancient!" she would tell them.

"He's fine!" they would reply.

To her he was just her dad: her stuffy, ice-eyed yet patient, dad; clever, yes, but boring, safe; a million miles away from the teenaged criminal renegade in all of Dom's stories. If it weren't for the magic that could blossom like summer flowers from the tips of her fingers, she would have thought that they were all a joke. Just fairy tales.

"They're saying it was a film crew," she said, walking across the Persian carpet, her toes pressing into the Tree of Life motif, "but what was it really?"

Artemis smiled. "A test."

"Did whoever pass?"

"We think so." He sighed and rubbed the wood of his desk. "Butler certainly hopes so."

Cora wanted to know more, but decided she could always investigate later. Better to cut straight to the chase than get lost in a cryptic conversation with her father. She didn't want to be there all night.

"Um… Dad?"

"Um, yes?" he replied, looking back at her.

She started to fidget with her fingers before forcing herself to stop. "It's not really a big deal… but The Jericho Bandits are playing in Chicago next weekend and Tilly's got us tickets and it's only for that night because it's their break-up tour and…"

Artemis Fowl's face grew serious.

"…We've got the hotel sorted already, it's in the middle of the city, Tilly's dad has stayed there loads with business so–"

"Get to the point, Cora," he said quietly.

"Can I go?"

Artemis studied her for a moment, his expression sombre… And then he brushed a hand back through his thick hair.

"It's not a school night," said Cora quickly, recognising the gesture. "And I thought I could take Dom with me–"

Artemis interrupted. "Butler is not going to a rock concert in Chicago, Cora."

"Well, okay, I'll be fine with Tilly then. We'll be in a very reputable part of town and–"

The forty-year-old was shaking his head.

"Dad, please," begged Cora, her nails digging into the armrest of his chair. "It will be our last chance to see her, please."

Artemis looked pained. "Cora…"

He's not letting me, she thought. He's not going to let me.

She took a sharp step back from him, her blue eyes flashing. "How can you say no?"

Artemis's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"What were you doing when you were my age? Probably… chasing around some troll army in Tunisia with only a spoon and a fire extinguisher or… or something. I only want to go to a sodding concert!"

"Language," said Artemis levelly, "and you want to go to a concert in Chicago at age fifteen unaccompanied."

"I said that Dom could come with me!"

"And I said no. That would be extremely unfair to him."

"Why? He's a bodyguard isn't he? That's what he was trained to do!"

Her father's expression darkened. "He was my bodyguard for twenty years, Cora," he said, in a tone that she had heard only three times before in her life and never directed towards herself. "He laid down his life for this family, more than once, and he deserves our utmost respect in his retirement. You will not treat him like some faithful dog to be dragged across continents for your own convenience."

Cora's cheeks flushed. "I didn't say that!" she snapped, anger and shame pooling in her stomach. "I wouldn't say that! You know I would never–"

He was turning back to his desk. "I have said no, Cora. That is the end of it."

Cora just stood there, breathing heavily. She could feel her magic bubbling under the surface of her skin. She wanted nothing more than to wrench his chair back around, to scream in his smug face. This was so unfair. He was always sounfair. She hadn't said anything aboutButler! And it was Chicago, hardly a bloody Mafia hostage exchange!

"You're…You're such a hypocrite!" she blurted.

Artemis didn't move. "Do you really wish to continue this?"

It was a quiet and none too subtle warning.

Cora didn't take it.

"Dom's told me all about what you did when you were my age," she persisted, sparks sputtering at her fingertips, burning tiny holes in the tops of her socks as they fell, "how you always did whatever you wanted. You could just click your fingers, get in the jet, and Dom would take you all over the world!"

Artemis had turned back to face her. He was listening to his daughter with a fixed, patient expression, his long fingers steepled in his lap.

"I can't even go to Tilly's without telling you," she was yelling, her red hair swinging. "I go five steps out the front door and you're on me, 'Where are you going? How long will you be? Who will you be with?'"

Artemis almost laughed. "Oh, I do apologise for caring."

"It's not caring though, is it?" spat Cora. "It is a complete lack of trust. You think I'm still a little girl. I am fifteen."

"Practically middle-aged."

"Stop it! Stop mocking me!"

"I apologise again."

"Shut up!"

Her father's smile dropped.

"Just shut up! Christ! You're so in love with the sound of your own voice! I don't understand how anyone can stick you!"

"No one could," Artemis said, his eyes suddenly as cold as the winds whistling through the trees outside. "Why else do you think I spent my childhood globe-trotting with only a paid servant for a companion?"

This brought Cora up short. "You… you could do anything," she insisted, recovering quickly. "You didn't have anyone pulling you back–"

"And wasn't that terrible?"

"No," she said immediately. "You were free–"

"I was incredibly lonely."

"You had adventures. You found fairies–"

"Due to my own desperation and selfishness."

"Because you were clever."

"Because I was a little fool."

Cora felt close to tears. "It's… you… It's a concert, Dad!"

"And I have said no! No, Cora."

"Oh my God! Grandma and Grandad would have allowed you!"

"Most probably," agreed Artemis, with a strange laugh. "They made numerous parental decisions which, now that I am a parent myself, I shall never quite be able to fathom… But they are irrelevant right now. And you are still not going."

For the fourth time in her life Cora Fowl was severely tempted to use the Mesmer on her father. It was forbidden, of course. She would be grounded for a decade but… but it was The Bandits…

"Don't even think about it," said Artemis simply.

Their eyes met for the briefest of moments… and then Cora was flying from the room, slamming the antique door behind her. Sparks erupted at the hinges and Artemis was forced to flinch back in his chair as the whole door creaked before falling flat to the floor with a crash.

"Cora!" he bellowed, his face turning puce. "Cora Evangeline Fowl, get back in here!"

"No!" came the distant shriek.

Cora was hurtling down the main stairway, the carpet fibres crisping beneath her feet as she walked. She knew that would be something else her father would be screaming at her for later but right now she couldn't give a nun's fart. She reached the main hall in a blaze of fury, not noticing the strange, giant figure towering in her path until his hands had clamped around her forearms, just stopping her from crashing into him.

"Careful, miss," said the giant, in a soft, slightly accented voice.

She wrenched herself away from him.

"Who the hell are–?"

"Cora?" interrupted her father's bodyguard, who Cora finally noticed was stood beside the stranger. "What's wrong? What have you done?"

"Oh yeah," she spat, recoiling from her life-long carer, the memory of her father's accusation still strong, "just automatically take his side! I'm going out. I'll be back later–"

Butler reached out and took her by the arm. "Hey, slow down. I want you to–"

"Cora!" shouted a voice from the floor above.

Cora pulled herself away again.

"Miss," said the giant, as she reached for the door. "You are not wearing any shoes."

Cora finally looked at him properly.

He had close-cropped blonde hair and skin like toughened leather. Cora guessed that he was young, in his early twenties perhaps, but on a second look she thought that he could have been older; his face was unlined but his green eyes were solemn; they had far too much depth in them to belong to someone less than forty. He was dressed in a dark suit, non-descript, with a pair of designer sunglasses tucked into the outside pocket.

Cora snorted. "You're in Ireland, you know. You won't have much use for those here."

"Cora!" bellowed her father's angry voice again.

"They're specially modified, Miss. My uncle said they might come in handy."

"Uncle?"

Butler smiled, clapping a hand on the man's broad shoulder, careful to avoid the hidden bandages he knew were covering a fresh diamond tattoo. "This is my nephew, Cora. You met before, when you were younger..."

And then Cora realised. The brief image of a gangly boy, with knobbly knees and a face wrinkled with pain, flashed in her mind's eye. "Madre Dios," she whispered.

Pauli nodded. "Hola, Señorita."

Butler found Cabbage in the West Wing curled up in the aforementioned armchair.

"There you are, you little bugger," he muttered, clomping across the shag-pile carpet.

Cabbage just panted warily at him as Butler lifted him into bulky arms. Apparently too exhausted to protest, the errant porker let the ex-bodyguard pore the medicine into his ears with barely a wheeze in reply.

"Done," declared Butler, setting the piglet down again. "Now wasn't that a load of fuss over nothing?"

Cabbage looked guiltily up at him and Butler couldn't help but crack a smile. He still wished they'd gone for a lurcher, but teacup pigs did have a certain appeal. They ate scraps and Cabbage was gentle with Cora… and if things didn't work out, he would still make a delectable fricassée.

Butler sighed and walked out of the parlour, Cabbage snorting and trotting along in his wake. Artemis Senior stepped out of a room just up ahead, yawning and carrying a morning newspaper under his arm. He spotted Butler and smiled.

"Ah, there you are, old boy. What was all that racket about earlier? I thought I heard my granddaughter screaming fit to burst!"

"Socks, sir," replied the ex-bodyguard. "She didn't fancy them this morning."

"Ah. Didn't Artemis go through a similar phase at her age?"

"That was Beckett, sir. Artemis had the toothpaste thing."

"Oh, yes, I remember now. Angeline was most concerned at one stage."

"As was his music teacher."

Artemis Senior chuckled and stroked a hand against his short silver beard. "I remember that woman. She had a voice that could have cut glass..." The old man frowned. "I still don't understand why he doesn't just hire some help, Butler. He is with her practically twenty-four seven!" He looked seriously at his son's ex-bodyguard. "All his talents, his work skills… With a little spare time he could put those brains of his back to work. He was once a genius, Butler..."

"And still is, sir. He still invents."

"Oh, yes," said the old man impatiently, flicking the comment away with one hand as if it were some irksome house fly. "I've seen him doodling on the corners of colouring books, sketching with crayons between potty breaks and nap times… But it isn't the same, Butler, and you know it! He's hiding himself away, wasting himself! And that bloody pig!"

Cabbage choose that moment to scramble past Artemis Senior, wheezing excitedly.

"Come here, boy!" called an infant voice up ahead. "Come here, piggy!"

A giggling Cora was almost bowled over as Cabagge careened into her legs.

"Artemis?" said Artemis Senior seriously, quickening his pace up the corridor. "We must really talk about that bloody swine of hers. I appreciate that Cora wanted a pet but must it really spend most of its time in our end of the house–?"

Artemis Fowl the Second came into view up the corridor and turned to look dreamily at his father. Artemis Senior stopped mid-stride. Gone were the days when a suit and tie were the only items of clothing his son would ever be caught in. Babies and formal business attire were not compatible, and so something had had to give. Three years ago, the world-renowned genius had swapped his dinner jackets for a wardrobe-full of practical polo shirts, and his scuffable, beautiful loafers for trainers that could be put on with a few quick stamps. It had been quite a shock when he had descended the manor's main stairway one morning with his arms full of Harrods clothing bags.

"These are for mother," he had said. "I understand she's taking a few cases of old clothes to St Michael's?"

"Yes," his father had said uneasily as his son had dumped the bags at his feet, "but these are all your suits, Artemis. What are you doing with them? Are you donating them all?"

"I no longer need them anymore," his son had replied simply, and headed back upstairs in the direction of a high infant's wail.

"Artemis?" gasped Artemis Senior, shocked once more. "What on Earth are you doing?"

His son was dressed in a pair of bright swimming trunks, several bulging beach bags clamped under his arms and a giant sun hat, which he appeared to have borrowed from his mother, perched atop his raven head.

"We're going to the Caribbean!" announced Cora, who was also dressed for the sun in a mismatched bikini top and bottoms. "And Daddy's going to fly us all there!"

Butler and Artemis Senior stared at the Fowl Heir.

"The Caribbean?" repeated Butler finally.

"To see dolphins," confirmed Artemis in a strange, slow voice, his vision unfocused.

"Are you on drugs?" hissed Artemis Senior.

"We're going to the beach, Grandad!" trilled Cora, pulling at the sleeve of his dressing gown. "Would you like to come? Daddy will fly the jet!"

Butler stepped up to his ex-charge and gripped him on either side of his head. "Look at me," he commanded.

Artemis swayed dreamily. "Dophins," he slurred, as the bodyguard inspected his misshapen irises. "We shall ride them over the waves and swim with all the mermaids…"

The manservant swore under his breath.

"Look," giggled Cora, drawing Butler's attention. "Grandad said he's coming too!"

Artemis Senior was beaming dopily. "We shall all build sandcastles," he announced, waving his newspaper grandly, "and sing!"

Butler calmly plucked the sunglasses from atop his ex-charge's magnificent sun hat and placed them over his eyes.

"Cora," he said, "come here."

The three-year-old sidled towards him, her bare feet slapping against the wooden floor.

"I know you'd like to come too, Dommy," she said, in the voice of a thousand children's choirs. "You love the beach!"

Even safe behind the mirrored lenses, Butler felt the potency of her magic. It didn't help that this was Artemis' and Holly's daughter, and he loved her more than perhaps anyone on Earth.

"Cora," he said, softly but firmly, kneeling down so his was nearer her level. "You need to take the spell off Daddy."

"Spell?" she repeated, obviously confused. "I can't do spells. I'm not a witch."

"You need to tell Daddy and Grandad that they can do what they want to do."

The little girl's face puckered. "But I want to go on holiday!"

Butler jammed his eyes shut, feeling her magic increase his heart rate by a few beats.

"I know. I know. But not today, Cora. Right now, you need to release Daddy and Grandad."

"No! I want to go on holiday!"

Butler swallowed. "Cora," he said softly, "this is very important."

The People were in the forefront of Butler's mind now. If Cora could not control her magic then they would find out, and they would take her. That was part of the deal Holly and Artemis had struck. Butler could feel the heat radiating from her skinny arms as her breath began to hitch. Cabbage whined and trotted to hide under a nearby trestle table.

"I-I h-haven't d-done a-any spells!"

"Hush," whispered Butler, pulling her closer so she was cradled in the cave of his torso. "I know. But do you feel… do you feel hot, Cora? Do you feel really warm?"

She nodded tearfully.

"Then we need to make that feeling go away. You need… to think cool thoughts, Shortcake. Cool thoughts."

"L-Like… about ice cream?"

"Yes! Exactly! Think about Ice cream! What else do you know that's cold?"

"Snow."

"Yep, that's a good one."

"The fridge!"

"Yes."

"Norway!"

"Yes, definitely. Is that working, Shortcake? Are you feeling colder?"

"A little bit…"

She was calming down, and her cheeks were slowly losing their flush. Butler swept a palm against her forehead. There was a slight, alien buzzing feeling against him hand, but it too was quietening.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "Shall we go to the kitchen and make some iced smoothies?"

"Can I have pomegranate?" she asked feebly.

"Yes. As long as you promise to keep thinking those cool thoughts."

She nodded and toddled away, all thoughts of the Caribbean temporarily forgotten. "I'll race you to the kitchen!" she told him, Cabbage piling after her.

Butler sighed, clasped his knees, and straightened to his full height. He walked closer to Cora's father and surveyed him a moment, taking in the sun hat and the vacant expression.

"Well," he said, after a moment. "I suppose I'm not your bodyguard anymore."

And he slapped him, open-palmed, across his right cheek.

Artemis rocketed back to his senses. "Ah!" he yelled, staggering back a few paces, the beach bags dropping from under his arms. "Jesus, Butler! What do you think–?" And then he realised what he was wearing. "Oh gods," he whispered, still clutching a hand to his reddening face. "Cora mesmerised me."

"She did indeed," said Butler. "Now, do you want to slap your father or shall I?"

Artemis looked at his elder, who was swaying absently and humming Cliff Richard to himself.

"Cora mesmerised us," repeated Artemis. "That can't happen again, Butler."

The old man sighed. "Then what do you suggest? We wear sunglasses everywhere? The contacts?"

"We must instil in her that she must never mesmerise a family member… or anyone else, for that matter," he added worriedly." At least until she truly has control of her abilities. We can't risk her drawing the attention of our underground… friends."

The bodyguard smiled wryly. "She's a three-year-old child, Artemis. She had no idea what she was doing."

They were quiet for a moment, deep in mutually dark and threatening thoughts.

"Fun and laughter on our summer holiday," sang Artemis Senior, "no more worries for me and you, for a week or two."

Artemis drew back his hand.

Can't help a it of Art Senior bashing - literally.

Please review!

And please go back a step and review the last chapter too because that got less than half the usual reviews... :(