I do not own Artemis Fowl

Chapter 35

Butler didn't hesitate, as soon has he saw the troll, he emptied his clip into its forehead. The troll reeled back, grasping at its face, which was now matted in blood. Butler dropped the empty clip to the floor, and reached for a new one. The troll glared at him, and launched its huge body, claws first, to disembowel him. Butler side-stepped and hid behind a pillar, reloading his Sig. The troll swung a huge fist at the pillar and smashed the 4-foot thick cement to smithereens.

Rubble rained down on Butler as he stepped out from under the ruined pillar. He aimed at what should be the monsters temple, and managed to land three shots before a flailing claw knocked the gun out of his hand, and left a deep gash on his right forearm.

Butler managed to draw his huge knife with his left hand, and twirled it in his fingers. The troll watched him warily, he had been hurt badly by the human. Plus, the light glinting off the blade was seductive, and the twirling was like the movement of a snake charmers flute. Butler watched the troll swaying, ready to pounce, its eyes fixed on the spinning blade. He caught the blade by the handle, and the troll lashed out with one of its arms.

Butler ducked the attack, and drove the blade upward, slicing across the beast's armpit. Butler dropped the blade and sliced across the creatures back, disconnecting several muscles. Butler spun to face the troll, his blade in front of him. The monster turned to face Butler as well, more wary than ever. It shifted it's center of gravity lower, bending it's knees and keeping its long arms and talons out in front of it. It lunged at him, he quickly stepped out of the way and cut across the creatures right bicep. Its arm was now useless, deadweight.

Deadweight, as it turns out, was more than enough, because the creature twisted, it's arm sweeping Butler off of his feet, his knife flying out of his hands, and into one of the pillars. He felt his back crack, and he landed on something hard, which was digging into his stomach. The troll walked up behind him, and flipped him over with his foot. It dug it's long talons into his abdomen, lifting him up by his ribcage. Butler was still alive, but only just. As the troll lifted him up to eye-level, The edges of Butler's vision were starting to go black, but he still looked at the troll; its dreadlocks in its face, matted with blood and spit; its tusks were glistening with a purple-colored poison; its eyes tiny, red, and stupid.

Butler re-gripped the object that had been digging into his side: it was Constantine's gun, thrown out of his hands by the troll. With one quick movement, Butler jammed the gun under the troll's chin, into the soft, fleshy part of the neck. "Look what I found."

As the trolls brain exploded inside its own skull, it slumped to the ground, and its talons slipped outside of Butler, who crumpled on top of it. He looked out between the beast's shaggy hairs, and coughed blood. Sorry Artemis, I don't think I'm going to make it through this one. He thought to himself, and everything went black.

Domovoi Butler was dead.

Constantine came too in a blur. His whole body was hurting, and he couldn't really remember why, in fact it felt like he had tangled with a troll or something. Wait. Troll. Everything came flooding back to Constantine, and he tried to get to his feet, but his whole body felt like it was weighed down with lead.

"Butler!"

Constantine was vaguely aware that it was Artemis calling out, but all he really got from it was that Butler was in trouble, probably still fighting the troll. He had to help the big man. He managed to support himself on his elbows, and looked up.

Everything was still blurry, but he could make out two figures, Artemis and Holly, running across to a heaping mass on the floor. As his vision cleared, the heaping mass was defined. It was two figures, lying on top of each other. Constantine's eyes widened as he realized what had happened.

"Butler!" He shouted, his own voice weak. His pain forgotten, he managed to stumble to his feet.

Artemis was kneeling in front of the two bodies, tears streaming freely down his face. He turned to Holly, whose face was also wet. "Can you heal him?"

Holly looked like she didn't want to give him the answer, but she did. "No."

"Why not?" Artemis demanded.

"Last time I healed him I nearly killed him doing it, it took from his life force to complete the healing. This time, if I took any more, it would kill him. His body cannot take another healing of that scale." Holly's voice was slow, measured, but cracking. Her eyes were welling up in tears again. She had grown to like the big man, throughout all their adventures. He was her friend, a protector, always looking down on her from above. More than that, she knew his relationship with Artemis, he was a father-figure to him for so long. Even when Artemis' father returned, Artemis always went to Butler for advice. He was Artemis' best friend, brother, confidant. She would be strong for Artemis, because Artemis would need someone to be strong for him now.

"No." Artemis whispered, turning back to Butler's body. "No. You can't die. You can't die on me now. We were supposed to go out in a blaze of glory, if we did go out, but it was always supposed to be both of us. You can't leave me behind now."

"He won't." Constantine's voice rang deep, and clear. Both Artemis and Holly turned to look at him. He had taken his coat and shirt off, and was walking towards the pair, his jaw set, his face somber, his eyes determined.

"What do you mean." Artemis asked.

"I am going to show you a part of me I never wanted to." He walked between the two, and bent down near Butler. With a grunt and a heave, he managed to lift Butler up into his arms. Artemis and Holly marveled at the super-human feat of strength, and then Holly noticed something: Constantine's skin had turned white. There were no imperfections, bar the scars carved into his body, but bruises and cuts he had gained recently were fading as if they were being healed by magic. The blood that was dripping off of Butler's torso was sliding off the skin without leaving any trace of it being there before.

He walked past them, and laid the body down onto the floor. He put his hand on Butler's chest, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. Something pulsed away from the floor where Butler's body lay, kicking up dirt and dust in an expanding circle. Neither Artemis nor Holly dared to make a sound, it was like a trance, like they were about to see something heavenly, and if they were to speak, it would all crumble about them.

Slowly Constantine began to change. Artemis noticed it start at his fingertips. They started to blacken and change. His hand started to turn a sooty color, and the darkness crawled up his arm, contrasting starkly with the pure white his skin had originally turned. When the blackness reached his shoulder, Constantine's fingertips changed again, white lines cracking on his skin, creating cubic, pixelated patterns. They jumped up his skin in bursts, criss-crossing, creating spider webbed patterns like a crack in a windshield.

The darkness that had originally grasped Constantine's arm stopped at his neck, with a few tendrils creeping across his chest, back, and onto his scalp, dipping in and out of his scars like a shadow. With a sick, wrenching noise, a bone jutted out of his back, stretching the skin out like a tent. Holly gasped, and Artemis grabbed her shoulder. Constantine's eyes were screwed up in concentration, as if he were holding back the great pain that must have been wracking his body. He never let out so much as a whimper, however.

The bone started to elongate, and the skin around it shrunk and stretched, fitting it like those shrink wrap toys you can buy on TV. It grew to a length of five feet, jutting out of Constantine's back, just under his right shoulder blade. It started to widen, and with a retch-inducing schluck, seemed to unfold, the skin breaking in half, then re-wrapping around itself. The skin was pure white as well, clearer and purer than any either Artemis or Holly had seen before, with a few black tendrils stretching along a nob at the base, and blood dripping profusely from where the skin and been torn. The blood started to solidify, and change its color as well. Almost as if the dark red could not hold back the sanctity of the white skin, the white itself started to drip down and envelope the blood, forming flat, dagger-like stalactites hanging from the long, thin bone.

The bone, which was now jointed and at least ten feet long, and still growing, wrapped itself around Constantine, stopping just in front of him, between his face and Butler's. Then, it whipped back around, and, in a flash of brilliant light, feathers appeared. A gust had blown up from the force of it, and stray feathers, pure as the wind-driven snow, spiraled around and away from Constantine, but neither Holly or Artemis were paying attention to that, they were more focused on the man in front of them, for he had grown a wing.

Constantine stayed there, kneeling on the ground in front of Butler's body, breathing heavily from exhaustion, with a wing, thirteen feet long and a virgin white, sprouting out of his back. Light seemed to emanate from him, giving a soft glow to the room. Artemis understood, at that moment, why a team of trained assassins were called "angels" for he had never seen anything so hallowed in his entire life.

Constantine bent his wing around again, the white feathers encapsulating Butler's upper body, and closed his eyes. Constantine's hair started to grow back at a startling rate, growing blonde and dropping in front of his eyes. The light that glowed around him started to fade, and his hair started turning black, changing at the roots, and then the dark color creeped up to the tips. The brightness of Constantine's skin dimmed, and the feathers on his wing started to droop.

Suddenly, Constantine's arm split open at the elbow, and a bright, yellow light shone from within. The strain was showing in Constantine's face, and he looked somewhat older, lines and wrinkles appearing across what had been baby smooth skin. Then, the light in his arm dimmed as well, and his arm resealed itself. He lifted his wing, revealing a gasping, but alive, Domovoi Butler.

Artemis rushed forward and dropped to his knees at his manservants side, with Holly right behind him. Butler's eyes were darting around, trying to take in everything that had just happened. Constantine got up slowly, and moved away from the reunion.

"Butler." Artemis croaked.

"Artemis." Butler said, without a hint of weakness in his voice. "I thought I had died."

Artemis looked over his puzzled friend's face. "Me too, old friend, me too." Butler brought his hand in front of his face, opening and closing it a few times, testing the dexterity.

"Artemis, something's wrong. I feel...young."

Artemis cocked his eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"All the aches and pains I had gained over the years, all the effects of old age that Holly's healing had done to me, they're all gone. My chest doesn't even feel tight anymore."

"You are young," Constantine's voice was weak. Artemis turned around to look at him and saw the Angel doubled over, his left arm clasped around his stomach, his breathing coming heavy, and him straining to walk to his large, black coat. His wing was still standing proudly out behind him, but the feathers were losing their glow, and molting. "I can't stop time, nor undo it's effects, but I can undo most magics. You are the same age you were when you got shot in that cafe, Butler. I even weaved that bit of kevlar in your chest into your skin, it should no loner hinder you."

"How is that possible?" Holly asked.

"There was a bit of magic infused with the science that created us." Constantine said, still not looking at them, still walking slowly towards his coat. "Pepper was a brilliant man. Brilliant, but deranged, and demented. He meddled in powers no man on earth has any right too. He stole the power of God and created us, and in doing so he made us all forsaken." His head tilted up, as if looking towards the sky. "And God said unto him..." His breath was ragged now, and his voice cracking. Artemis noticed a shining, splotchy scar splashed across his back, symmetrical with the base of his wing. "Amen." And Constantine's legs, which were weak from the healing, gave out from under him.

"Constantine!" Holly shouted, and she and Artemis rushed over to him. Even Butler jumped up from where he lay and went to his side. They couldn't get near him though, when they got within five feet of him, they stopped, as if some invisible force was holding him back. Holly actually puked.

"Holly!" Artemis exclaimed.

"He's right." She said, wiping her mouth with her sleeve and taking a step back.

"What?"

"I don't know if he's right about the God thing, but this is definitely dark magic, something with which no earth-bound creature should ever deal. It reacts badly with elven magic, which is why I was sick, he's practically radiating the stuff."

So all they could do was watch, as Constantine, who was still moving struggled, using his right arm, which was still black, and cracked with white lines, to drag himself closer and closer to his coat. He finally reached it, and fumbled around with one hand in one of the pockets, picking out a leather case. With his thumb he popped the lid, revealing two vials, filled with a clear green liquid, and a syringe. He pulled the syringe out, and, with the intense concentration showing on his face, rammed the needle into the top of one of the vials. He drew the green fluid out of the tube, and into the syringe, then with a swift motion, jammed the needle into one of the blue veins that was showing tight through the now ashen skin on his left arm. The he forced every last drop of the liquid out of the syringe, and into his system, then closed his eyes, pulled the syringe out, and lay his head, resting, upon the floor.

A moment passed, then another, and soon, a healthy pigment started returning to his skin, and his hair blossomed to its original blonde. The blackness that had encased his right arm started to fade, drawing back into his fingertips, and disappearing, leaving the arm, no longer white, but the pale, peachy color of skin. His wing started to shrink, it's feathers falling off in sheaves, and the structure itself drew back into his body, leaving no indication that it had ever been there. He didn't open his eyes, but his breathing was easy and deep, and his face was calm. He was asleep, resting peacefully.

Please read and review :)

Sorry it took so long, I was away at a writing retreat, no internet. :)