Diego was still in bed when his phone rang. Still drowsy, he groped about for his mobile phone and got struck by his cat's paw, the pet as always lain on his chest and as always in amazingly bad mood. The gift of a friend, whose cat had kittens to everybodys surprise. If he had known that the mother had been chronically bad-tempered and aggressive, he had possibly rejected. Well, that's what you get, he supposed.

"You little diva," he muttered and finally found his phone jammed in the gap between the mattress and the bedframe. Still under the disapproving glare of the cat, he answered the call.

"Yes?"

"Diego. I need you in Germany within the next two hours."

In less than a split second, Diego was wide awake, trying to remove his mane from his eyes and searching the room for his pants. It was Linus and whenever Linus called, it was important enough to listen carefully. No matter how unbelievably tired he was.

"What's up?" he asked and thrusted the cat down on the floor. It landed as a white furball on the dark laminate, looking like a drop of milk in black coffee, and took painful revenge on his feet. "Aah! Shit!"

Fitch sighed at the other end of the line. He did not have to see Diego to know what the young man was up to. "You know what, Diego? If I were you, I would've abandoned that beast long ago."

"Abandoned? Nuts! You would've probably shot it. Might be that it's a beast, ugly and aggressive on top, but it's a present from Franziska and so . . . What do you want, Fitch? Why Germany?" He has been to Germany once, no, twice. Kind of nice it had been but after two people died during his stay - and due to it, to be honest - he made the wise decision to leave headlong. Returning know should be safe, according to the three years of time that went by since that incident, Diego calmed himself and safed his foot from another cat-attack.

"I need you to pick something up. One of my men should arrive in Germany today, if everything continues to plan, that is. You'll meet her and return safely to Paris with the theft."

"Fine. Why Germany?"

"That's another part of the plan you don't have to know," Linus said generous. Diego nodded quietly. That's the way the rules were. "To be precise, you'll meet her in Erlangen, Bavaria."

One leg already in his pants, Diego paused and watched the cat fighting the trouser leg voluptuously. "Bavaria?" he asked, a wide grin taking over his face. "Like, with Oktoberfest and all that?"

There was a short moment of dead silence before Fitch sighed again. Why did he work together with this kind of people again?

"Diego, it's May. So do me the favour and not look for Oktoberfest, as well as keeping distance on every dirndl you might come across, no matter how hard that'll be for you, capisce?" For such an blithering idiot like you, Linus added in his mind. This guy was busy with taming his hair half of the time. The other half, he was busy admiring his hair. Narcissist. "That's important, Diego."

"Okay, okay, I got you. I hear you. But two hours might be a bit few, from Paris to Bavaria, isn't it?"

"No. There's already somebody waiting in front of your door, picking you up. Get your cloths on and join him. He'll tell you the rest."

"All right, boss."

"Fine. Don't mess that up, would you? It's important."

"You said that already. Dangerous?"

Fitch needed a moment before he had found an adequate answer. "Probably not," he said. "But if this goes south, it really does."

Diego tied his shoes frowning. "As in 'I'll go to jail' - really?"

Fitch's laughter banged tinny through the phone. "No, man. Rather as in 'Have you made your testament'-really."

Diego swallowed, slightly unsettled and grabbed his keys. Let's go to Germany.

Butler stalked through the long halls of Fowl Manor. He hadn't seen anybody until now, everything seemed quiet. Nothing out of place. But something was up. He remembered having a similar feeling as Captain Short tried to ambush him at the gate back then. Butler clenched his teeth. He didn't really expect fairies being involved, but this was alway something to keep in mind.

Tensed in extreme, holding the comforting pistol tight in hands, he peeked around the next corner and with years of training and a huge amount of self-control, suppressed a gasp as he saw Juliet lying in the corridor, her feet still in one of the guest rooms.

Now he had to act cautiously. There were not too many doors in this part of the corridor - to be precise, there was only the one wide open door his sister was lying in front of - but still this was a perfect place for ambushing somebody, no matter if fairies were involved or not. That was an old trick: place an apparent bait somewhere close to a good hideout, wait for your enemy running in blindfold and the have fun with celebrating your victory.

Butler wasn't a raw recruit and he had seen too many people die after running anywhere blindfoldly. Which was why he kept his breath under control and proceeded step by step, always having an eye as well on the door as on the next corner. Anyway, everything staid dead silent when he arrived next to his sister.

The guest room was empty, nobody inside. Still, the room looked like it had sunk into total chaos somewhat earlier that day: a vase, mid-range price segment, had been shattered, the shards were covering the whole floor like massive blottoms and assorted very well with the broken glass that once belonged to the window. A little commode looked a lot like somebody had run into it with full speed, according to the massive bump in the wood. All over the carpet books were spread, they had obviously fallen from the shelf. The shelf itself was only hanging on one dowel and, as if it wanted to say 'hi', plunged down as soon as Butler had entered the room and made his heart skip a beat. Long story short, somebody had either tried to blow off steam by damaging the furniture or - which was more likely - there had been a fight in here.

After a few long seconds of more complete silence, Butler obeyed the urge and kneeled down next to his sister. She was breathing, which was a good sign so far, calm and steady and at least at first and second glance, she didn't seemed to be hurt.

Carefully, just in case that she was wounded after all, he rolled her on her side, finding that there were no bones broken. According to the little lump on the back of her head, she had been knocked out with something from behind. The sound he had heard when she called? Possible.

He was just about to stand as his gaze fell on a little red dot at her left arm. A tiny drop of blood that had congealed on her skin.

A prick, most certainly caused by a needle. Butler felt a growl build up in his chest. Somebody had knocked her out, after they had their fight in the guest room, and then drugged her. Again he cast a glance down the corridor. He had learned to trust his feeling as long as no other indications were on hand and that feeling told him that somebody was still in the Manor.

As if on cue, a barely perceptible sound called his attention to the other end of the corridor.

Kiara ducked instinctively before she peeked around the next corner. She still hadn't found Micah, and she had been wandering these spooky corridors way to long. In less than three minutes the cameras would start to film again, making it impossible to leave without being seen afterwards.

She granted herself a moment of uncertainty. Three minutes. She might be able to get out in time, if she hurried now. This would be something like the run of her life but she would be safe, out of the Manor, with this damn chip Fitch wanted so badly. Her face would've been nowhere to be seen, no traces left that anybody was able to follow. Nothing left to do, except going home, get a slap on the back by Fitch and badgering her brother.

It was the latter, who brought her back into reality with a very loud harrumph, sounding like he had coughed right into the microphone. Decisive, she made a step towards the door that would lead her to safety. But the thought of Micah, maybe in serious trouble, made her stop again.

"Princess, what are you actually doing? Are you out already?" Right, he couldn't see her. Well, he couldn't see her right now. As soon as the cameras were picking up their work again, Francis would be able to at least see everything, they recorded. He still couln't help her by deleting the files or whatever he was supposed to do but at least he could tell her in which corner of the room she had to smile in order to leave a good first impression.

"No," she murmured, inarticulately on purpose, and took a step in the opposite direction. What if he was actually in danger? She couldn't just leave him be, could she? No matter if he had a reason to be here - if the two of them, three, including Juliet, weren't alone, if somebody else had intruded the Manor, his alibi would not really be what you'd call useful.

"Can it be true," her brother said, stressing every single word "that you are still inside?"

"Mhm." Micah? Or her own hide?

"Are you nuts? Get your ass out there! Now! You have two minutes, Kiara!"

Wasn't it absurd, that she even cared? She didn't even like him. And if they had it Juliet's way, Micah was already part of the Fowl's furniture. How likely was he to be harmed, just here, attended by his girlfriend? Of course Ara had never met Juliet in person but she had seen records of her - and gosh, this girl really was a Butler.

"Ara!"

On the other hand - she had proved herself that it was not impossible to misappropriate something belonging to Fowl's inventory, hadn't she?

Shit!

"Ara!" The sudden height of her brother's voice made her finally come back to action. The unmistakeable panic was very unusual for him. He had been making silly jokes about something while she had been on the run, hunted through Tokio by some trigger-happy guys. He calmed her back then.

Now, he didn't. But that helped her making a decision.

"All right, Francis, I'm on my way."

She put up her hood in a fluent movement and sneaked through the next corridors. Hopefully the cameras wouldn't be able to capture her fa-

The startled outcry of her brother brought out two things.

The cameras had just returned back to work.

And something had went terribly wrong.