Author's Note: Hello, my beautiful readers. It's time for a new dose of "Angel Conundrum". We'll watch Trouble do his work and Artemis making some clever conclusions. Also, if you want to get into the mood, I suggest putting some Wagner music on. For the pure epicness of it. Faust Overture is great. Or Ride of the Valkyries. That one might bring the valkyrie out in you, though, so beware! Enjoy!

Many thanks to Space-Dweeb for the lovely comment on my last chapter. I hope you approve of Trouble in "action". ;-)

Disclaimer: Eoin Colfer owns all the characters from Artemis Fowl, I only own my imagination and my characters.

Chapter 9

3 years ago, ...

Sofia had moved into a smaller flat sometime during the summer break. The boxes were still piled up in the living room, the rooms bare. The walls, in contrast, were plastered in cryptic notes and codes as she tacked more and more illegible memos to the free spots. Two weeks later, she ripped them all down, hurled Lucifer's book against the wall and sank to the ground, completely exhausted. The book was useless. No hints on how to defy death. No information on how to find lost demons. Many references to other books regarding the angels, but she didn't care about the stupid angels!

At some point Sam came banging at her door, demanding to know why she hadn't answered her phone. When had she showered last? Eaten? Slept? Sofia had no answer for either question, she just kept sobbing her pitiful mantra of "I don't want to die." Fearing the worst, Sam dragged her hysterical friend to a medical practice, demanding an examination. The nurse gave her a sedative.

Once lucid, Sofia claimed her fiancé had broken up with her back in Italy. It was the easier explanation. As a result, Sam didn't leave her side for the next six months except for setting her up with as many men as possible to get over the separation. Naturally.

A year after her breakdown, Sofia finally made the connection after a colleague had asked her out to the opera. She had begrudgingly agreed and sat through three hours of Wagner's epic opera Das Rheingold. Thankfully, any awkward conversation was drowned out by the music. It was during the second scene when the music swelled to a crescendo and the dragon Fafner sang:

"Goldene Äpfel wachsen in ihrem Garten; sie allein weiß die Äpfel zu pflegen!"
Golden apples ripen within her garden, she alone knoweth how they are tended.

Electrified, Sofia sat up straighter, a faint memory rising from the depths of her subconscious. The orchestra played on without pause, while she followed the surtitles on the screen above the stage, holding her breath.

Her colleague had thought she had been captivated by the story. Why else hadn't she noticed his inviting hand on the armrest? He gifted her an edition of the Prose Edda, together with a dinner invitation. She took the book but declined the dinner.

The Edda had influenced Wagner and the motif of the apples appeared again. The Æsir preserved their youth with apples. Golden apples. And they didn't just show up in Norse mythology. The Greeks had myths of golden apples, too. Hippomenes threw golden apples in Atalanta's path. Hercules had to retrieve them from the garden of the Hesperides. The Hindu Upanishad told the story of two birds eating the sweet fruit, whereas the deity Manannán mac Lir guarded them in Irish mythology. Even the Bible had them: "But Eve was corrupted by the golden shine of the fruits of the divine tree in the garden Eden."

Sofia went back to Lucifer's book, a bit shabbier looking after its clash with the wall, opening it at a random page and reading the first sentence. The words hit her like a bus, making her dizzy.

"The apples of the golden sun."

It was all there. The book was filled with hints, she hadn't acknowledged before. And if those golden apples bestowed immortality than there was a way out of Hell, after all. There was only one tiny problem. Where did one find a golden apple?

The messenger in Trouble's helm signalled an incoming call. Glad to avoid the awkward silence, he switched his attention to the commander. "What's the matter, Commander?"

The commander's voice came through after a few seconds of static noise: "... can't properl... Captain, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear. Is Holly on her way?"

The commander grunted into his ear. "Negative, I need you to come done, ASAP. We have a situation at the Frond Hospital. A squad is on its way, but I don't like this at all. Holly is stuck with a bunch of psychos. Might be some drug-induced mass panic."

Trouble frowned. Sounded as if Holly was having all the fun! He updated Root on what he knew so far. The commander snorted. "Is that a joke?"

The captain shook his head. "Negative. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't been there. But I think the whole thing is legit."

Root hesitated. "Is our man related to this Lucifer person and/or the Mud Men?"

Trouble shrugged. "It is a possibility. I don't have enough information to come to a decisive conclusion, but I'll keep you in the loop. I get to the chutes as soon as I can."

All the while, Artemis had been listening to Trouble's answers. "Problems?"

"I need to get back underground. We got a situation," he said when the car door opened and Butler and Sofia got into the vehicle.

Trouble's job was to read people on a daily basis. His instincts always directed him in the right direction. Even in such weird situations as the one in the hotel. Up in the hotel room, his gut had been dancing an Irish jig. Something had been off, but he couldn't say what. The woman didn't appear to be a threat. She was involved in something quite extraordinary, probably illegal too. She also seemed intelligent, albeit not the same level as the Mud Boy. What was her deal, though? Time to find out.

The more a person was fighting the mesmer, the more power you had to use. Trouble had been the best in his Academy psychology classes and had aced all his exams. He knew people enjoyed talking about themselves. All you had to do was coax them to do it. That's why in general you only had to use minimal magical powers. Plus, Mud People were easy to manipulate. He leaned over to her seat and sent the tiniest amount of magic into his voice. "You go back a long time with this Lucifer, aren't you?"

Sofia sighed, unaware of the magical attack. "Way too long."

"Who is he really, though?"

She turned around, holding on to the backrest and resting her head on her hands. "What do you think? Not Santa Clause," she grinned. Nobody smiled. Tough crowd.

Trouble hesitated, increasing the power of the mesmer. "You think he is the actual devil from Hell and everything?"

Her features became sombre. "Yes."

"How did you two meet?"

Sofia started giggling, switching more and more between Italian and English. "That is actually a very story. I was working at l'Archivio Apostolico Vaticano and I found this ring in la Basilica Papale di San Pietro. And it was where Lucifer was trapped and then I freed him."

She waited for the others to join in her laughter. Nobody did.

Butler turned to look at her in disbelief. "You freed Lucifer?"

"I know, isn't it hilarious?"

Trouble blinked. "How did you find the ring?"

"Oh, that was easy. It was in one of the documents in the restricted section of the Archive. Just don't tell anyone, I wasn't supposed to be there," she grinned ruefully.

"When was that?"

"Oh, about 10 years ago. I was a snoopy college kid back then."

Tell me about it, Trouble thought. "And you have been in contact with him all this time?"

Sofia shook her head. "Nah, I hadn't seen him for a long time. No idea who he was torturing instead. He came back three years ago."

"Why?" Trouble pressed on.

"He needed help in finding Yonatan, his boyfriend."

Trouble's ears began to itch at this piece of information. Maybe that Yonatan was less elusive and could be questioned too. "Lucifer has a boyfriend?"

"I know, right? Anyone spending time with Lucifer voluntarily should receive a medal."

The captain chuckled, throwing Artemis a side glance, reducing the mesmer to a trickle. "He is a handful, isn't he? Have you already found him? Yonatan, I mean."

"No," Sofia wrinkled her nose. "Come l'ago nel pagliaio. He will be somewhere in those angel hideouts. Freaking cockroaches all of them. Gone as soon as you turn on the lights."

Another dead-end. Trouble made a disappointed noise. "You will get a reward for your efforts, won't you?"

Sofia's eyes darted to one side, a shadow flitting over them. Gone before Trouble gave it another thought. A mistake as it turned out.

"I will get knowledge."

Knowledge?

"And what are you going to do when you have the knowledge?"

"Continue learning?" the professor shrugged. Trouble was speechless.

"You learn to learn more? No plans to take over the world? Blackmailing people for money?"

She laughed. "You sound disappointed. Do you want me to use it for something more exciting?"

Trouble shot Artemis a meaningful look. "No, you do you, Professor."

He believed her. But he doubted that the commander would be satisfied with his discovery. Speaking of which, time to get back underground and see what Holly had been up to. Trouble disappeared into the night before Butler reached the airport. They were led to New York's airport hangar, passing numerous private planes and jets in the safety of the tin walls that shook and groaned under New York's aggressive winds.

An airport employee was busy pushing a metal staircase up to the doors, the sight of Butler giving him extra motivation. Sofia considered for a second to turn around and run, but then the Major would have hunted her down. A free plane flight to Romania seemed like a nicer alternative to her. Climbing into the jet, she stopped short at the sight of wood and leather. It was the most luxurious plane she had ever seen from the inside. And suddenly she knew.

"You are from the Mafia," she breathed. Would the Cosa Nostra kill her family, if she colluded with the Mob of another country? She didn't know what the rules were in such a matter.

Artemis raised an eyebrow. "I assure you, Professor, I do not need to work in an organisation to conduct illegal business. I am capable to do that on my own."

She could have sworn she heard some pride in his voice and it unsettled her even more. The boy sat down and motioned to the chair opposite from him, while Butler disappeared into the cockpit.

It would take them nearly seven hours to reach Bucharest. Time Artemis spent, retrieving information from the Internet on Lucifer, angels and the Nephilim. A lot of the sources were only filled with religious gibberish and not helpful. Only a small fraction of the texts seemed to be academic enough to be properly examined.

If someone had asked Artemis if he believed the man, they had met to be Lucifer, he would have scoffed and replied that he wasn't a gullible child that was fooled by whatever someone claimed. The wings seemed real enough, true, but there were enough nutcases, saying they were God or Napoleon Bonaparte. He believed in facts and the facts told him that this Lucifer person believed to be the devil himself. He had others convinced, too. The professor did, but she believed in all sorts of things, like accumulating knowledge for the sake of knowledge. He would have laughed out loud if it wasn't so sad. Why learn if you couldn't make a profit out of it? While he had given up on blackmailing fairies to gain money, he was far from giving up all his shadier businesses simply because it was bad. Aurum potestas est wasn't a pretty phrase. It was a way of life, a means to an end, a driving force. He pitied anyone with less ambitious goals in life.

Right now, he had a series of theories about what was going on and had made several calculations with differing levels of probability. If he limited the ones with a probability of 70% and higher, he had a handful of likely scenarios.

A: The man who claimed to be Lucifer was a good actor, who had undergone plastic surgery to pretend to have angel wings. The reason for this ruse was to lure him into a trap to either kill or kidnap him and to blackmail his family for a ransom. He had bribed the Major to play along for a part of the ransom as well as several other stooges. Possible, but a very clumsily performed plan. Even with the Major as a possible threat to his well-being, he was positive that Butler was competent enough to foresee any plans of the older man. After all, he had trained under and with the Major. Possibility B: The man was indeed an angel, which considering that fairies existed, was plausible. However, he just pretended to be the Lord of Hell to impress him and in doing so to get him to help in whatever real goal he had. Also possible. Or C: He was Lucifer Morningstar and was the real deal. If all three cases were taken into consideration, Artemis concluded that, as his well-being wasn't in any danger, it would only be in his own interest to tag along on this quest. Either there was no knowledge to gain in which case he would enjoy tearing apart the professor's childish beliefs or he would gain insight into a completely different species that could be extorted. Since he didn't know any of them, his consciousness wouldn't bother him, which he thought was ideal.

He had been working for several hours, while the professor had fallen asleep in her seat. He threw her a disapproving look, eyebrows raised, without stopping to type on the keyboard. Then his gaze fell on the golden signet ring she was wearing on her index finger. Its black onyx stone was magnificent. His writing slowed down as he unconsciously leaned closer.

Butler stepped into the cabin as Artemis was staring into the distance. "Artemis, you should try to sleep, the safe house in Romania isn't the most luxurious place, I am afraid."

"I appreciate the warning, old friend. But I assure you, I am not so spoilt that I'll mind a hard mattress for a few days. Please rest. You have had a long day," he said, straightening in his seat and returning his attention to the screen.

The bodyguard nodded and shot the sleeping professor a quick look, making sure that she wasn't about to jump Artemis in an attack. He sank into another seat and closed his eyes. Thanks to years of military training, he fell asleep in less than a minute, waking up in time to pilot the plane onto Bucharest's airfield runway.

Romania's capital was a grey city, but when they landed it was pouring down like it would never stop. The rain kept drumming against the window of the rental car, concealing the buildings they passed on the way to the highway. Butler had picked it up earlier from an airport employee, who had given the strange trio curious glances but kept his questions to himself after an intimidating glare from Butler.

Now, the bodyguard was threading into the busy afternoon traffic. They were still about two hours away from the safe house, but if they were trapped in the rush hour, it would take much longer. Hopefully, his uncle would be waiting for them. While he had been asleep, Butler had thought of questions for the Major. If only to quench his curiosity. The Major might not answer after all. Chances were that he wouldn't answer. But if the situation arose, he would be better prepared than last time. Juliet wouldn't have such troubles, talking to her uncle. Because she didn't fear nor respect him enough to second guess her actions. The professor on the other hand seemed to be scared of the Major half the time. His demeanour did that to people. They were family, though. Butler gripped the steering wheel tighter. Why would he turn his back on them? He would have never admitted it, but the betrayal to their family hurt him more than if the Major had stayed dead.

A/N: Thanks for joining me this week. I hope you enjoyed it and will tune in next week when we spend some time in a Butler family safe house. We'll also spend some more time underground and see what Holly has been up to. Comments are always appreciated!

Also, Fun Fact: When I went to Romania in October 2019, it was raining so badly on my last day in Bucharest that I spent a good part of the day in a restaurant holding my drenched shoes up to a hand dryer in the women's toilet. It was just a minor hiccup on a great trip because I got to see beautiful Romania and Artemis didn't, hehe.