And here we go again! I have to admit, my usual rhythm does not really work out right now, so ... I'm sorry for the delays, honestly. Much would I like to promise that the next updates will be punctual but I'm not quite sure that they will be, so - well, I can still promise that I didn't forget you, and I will keep posting around the weekend for sure. Thank you for staying tuned all the more!

Alright, so much for that one. The following chapter will contain death, just in case some of you prefer to be warned. Nothing explicit in terms of violence, or at least nothing extensive, one single sentence, to be precise.

Hope you enjoy this chapter! Read you next week!

Every student faces that special moment of pride, the feeling of having finally reached a higher level than his teacher. And almost every student faces that other moment of fear and shame. The feeling of failure, of being not worth the time others had invested in bringing him so far.

Domovoi Butler faced that moment right now, after he had repetetively und unsuccesfully tried to contact Artemis. If there had been any hope left that the current circumstances and the events that had been taking place in the last hour or so were just mere coincidences, that hope was now finally dying. Somebody had set up a trap and Butler had just went right into it, headlong, like a first-year on the academy. Now, by the looks of it, Artemis was lost, in the best case. Worst case scenarios reached from something like captured over wounded to killed. The sheer thought of that made Butler growl. Artemis had a talent of tripping into dangerous situations all by himself but until now, Butler had always managed to be around like he was supposed to. And now, he wasn't and with all due respect: master Artemis was a lot of things but able to defend himself was none of them.

And not only that Butler had lost sight of his charge, which was sure enough a reason to rip the tattoo out of his shoulder, but he had also lost that girl. For the first time in his life he was wondering if he got old or something. He had watched the whole chase after he had frustratingly found out that the cameras had just started to film a few minutes after he had entered the manor himself.

Great timing.

The part he had missed was the one she actually vanished. Reasonably perplexed, he stared at the monitor, watched himself wasting an unbelievably expensive Stradivari cello and then leave the room, only to watch that damn girl climb out of the instrument case and leave the room. Butler allowed himself to snap and hit the little side table once with an enormous momentum that made the furniture groan. But it held.

Okay, that helped. Butler controlled his breathing again and focussed at the situation at hand. Yes, the intruder was long gone and the cello was wasted. None of this could now be changed (not that Butler was actually thinking about that old instrument that probably nobody was even able to play in the household). He wondered how Madam Ko had been able to overlook such an interesting place to hide and attack - maybe it was simply the lack of contrabasses and their cases in the academy - before he found back to his military, matter-of-fact self. The camera tapes didn't really help him to find out what had happened before the cat-and-mouse thing begun, except he was now sure that the mouse had escaped through the wide open main gate. The data confirmed that, yes, the gate had indeed been opened due to the command of a computer that was neither known nor could be localised. Which meant that somebody had managed to hack the security system of the manor and shut down the cameras for a bit of time and was able to open and close the gate as they wish. Butler mused shortly, why they didn't just let the gate closed so that he was not able to enter the manor but he dropped that thought soon. Butler's experience had told him more than once that people weren't always acting logically. Not to talk about perception. Whoever was responsible for this mysterious opening of the gate, they were most likely being too busy guiding that girl through the manor without her getting lost in the endless halls to lock the gate.

What else could be useful if not the camera tapes? Butler's finger tapped repeatedly on the table. Normally, he should be able to track Artemis' phone in an emergency situation, which this one obviously was. But as it seemed either the phone was somewhere shrouded so it could not be tracked or it was completly broken. Taking the battery out wouldn't spoile the tracking device, since it had a little power supply itself that kept it running for 48 hours.

Not that that helped him now. He wasn't able to find out were his charge was currently to be found.

Butler stood and started to pace from one end of the room to the other, which was, to be fair, a span of two steps before he had to turn. What other possibilities were there?

Well, the intruder, of course, and the attack on his sister and her strange boyfriend. Unfortunately Juliet was still unconscious. After the unsuccessful chase, Butler had taken her into one of the guest rooms under video surveillance, to see when she woke up. Still, that could as well be in four minutes as in two days, depending on what kind of sedative she had received. Same for the boy, who was lying in the room next door to Juliet's. Usually Butler had suspected him to be involved but after he had almost tripped over him, it looked like Micah had some sort of an alibi.

With almost painfully gritted teeth Butler watched the video from camera F6 again, the one at the main gate. After she had found out of the manor, the girl had made her way as straight as possible to the gate, a car already waiting for her to pick her up.

Butler froze.

The car!

He could tell his heartbeat doubled as he zoomed the part of the picture that showed the license plate. That was good. Well, not good as in "good" but it was a start. Something he could follow.

The modest, silver grey Benz belonged undoubtable to the fleet of the Fowls. Which meant two things.

First, Butler could now take for granted that there was some sort of mole in the manor. Again, he looked up the data and found that the garage had been opened at the time in question and not from outside the manor but from the grage gate itself. That narrowed the circle of people because there were only three depts of the staff that had access: naturally, the drivers, the security team and, as long as you would want to call him a part of the staff, Butler himself. Then again, he had only to look at the video tapes to see who had opened the garage.

Alas, they did not exist because the cameras had been off at that time already. The poor table made the second acquaintance with Butler's hand and the sound the furniture made this time could have been described as pain. So no camera tapes. Fine. Fortunately, there was another way, thanks to what usually was named paranoia.

Every single one of the Fowls' cars was equipped with microphones and of course GPS. The installation of cameras had been successfully foiled by Miss Fowl. Needless to say that the microphones could be shut off by either the driver or the passengers if wanted, as long as they had the required code. And, since the whole idea of mounting microphones was pointless if anybody could shut them off, the chauffeurs did not know that code. Long story short: as long as the car had not been kidnapped by a member of the security itself, the microphones would still work. And the GPS, of course.

Which, of course, did not. Data liked to put it as a disfunction, which made Butler almost laugh. As if. Finally, the audio tape put an end to his streak of bad luck because it actually worked. Butler fought the urge to start pacing again, leaned over the table and stared at the up and down of the visualized audio track.

The beginning of the track was quiet. The engine started and the Benz rolled out of the garage. Then a long time nothing happened, pushing Butler closer and closer to the point he'd lose his patience. The sudden bang of a closing door made him jump.

"Hello?" a tired, female voice asked on the tape and Butler was quiet sure that this at least could be the missing girl. "Yes," was the next thing she said. She did sound very breathless, indeed. And a bit frightened, too. Butler found himself a little satisfied.

"Mhm," she made. Come on, Butler thought. Talk to me. It seemed like she was phoning, which was unfunctional for him since he lacked the answers of the person she talked with. But then ...

"You sound quiet fucked, Ara."

For a long second, Butler stood and stared. And felt cold anger rise in his chest.

He knew that voice. Just to be sure, he replayed the tape and listened again.

"You sound quiet fucked, Ara." Butler clenched his fingers around the chairback because otherwise he would've slammed his fist into the montior. Or fired a few rounds at it.

Yes, he knew that voice. Indeed one of the chauffeurs that worked for the Fowls occasionally, on call. This particular one was named Carl, a gelled, self-regarding guy. Nevertheless, Carl was unconspicous enough to be hired and he had worked for the Fowls for now around four years. Naturally that picture had faded now. It was not clear how the man was involved but in the way he had talked to that Ara it did seem clear, that they had known each other for longer. This was nothing you could tell by the words but by the way they were said. Which, in turn, meant that he had known about the intruding and most likely also about the attack on Jules and her boyfriend. Not to talk about Artemis' disappearance ...

At least Butler now had a track to pick up. Three clicks later, he knew where to find Carl or at least where he lived. If it wasn't for the rest of the tape, Butler would've already been outside, pushing the Bentley to its limits in order to find that backstabber and show him that the Fowls - and therefor the Butlers - were not people you messed with if you had any interest in something like a happily ever after. But that had to wait, maybe the rest of the tape had some useful information. Waste not, want not.

Hearing the girl snap was actually nice to hear and made him clear that this was indeed the one he had been after. And if she was true, she was not responsible for the attack on Juliet. Lucky her.

On top, some names were used that Butler processed and saved as possibly important. Linus seemed to be somebody important, even if not emotionally connected to her, as this Diego. Still, after it was not like these names belonged only to a handful of people, they were not more than a little bit of extra information. What was more enchanting was that the girl named Ara repeated some of the things that Linus had told her. By the looks of it, she had to meet somebody in Germany. Now, Germany was not too small but if Carl was a deadend in some way, Butler at least had another possible track. That lit things up a bit.

But that did not last long. "Linus! According to your masterplan, Butler should be busy picking his charge up! Why did he suddenly show up then? And who else was there?" Ara hissed and complicated things further. If he wasn't mistaken, and he was pretty sure he was not, than she didn't know what had kept himself from picking Artemis up. Following this thought, there had to be more than one group of people . . . the one Carl had picked up, with Ara intruding the manor and - probably - stealing something. She had planned a typical in-out-session, without being seen and very sure without being shot at.

Meaning that somebody else was in the manor at the same time, and that somebody had attacked his sister and caused her to call her brother up for help. Which then had lead to her brother indeed turning and heading back to the manor, leaving Artemis alone with whatever he now had to face. Of course it could as well been Ara who had the fight with Juliet but in the end, if Juliet was meant to call him - which she most likely was - . . . looks like they really had two conspiracies at the same time?

Butler found himself confused and pacing again. Artemis would've figured this out in a minute, he thought. Things didn't fit, which was frustrating enough without his charge being in danger. Hopefully he was. He'd always had to face the possibility of Artemis being already dead.

No. No, that was simply not an option. Butler's gaze fell on the monitor again, which still showed the visualized audio track. Carl was where he'd begin, picking up more tracks that in the end would lead to his charge. Just like he had been trained for, made for, a bloodhound. There was no sense in being a Butler if you let your Fowl die at the poor age of thirteen.

He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote a short message to Juliet. Something about leaving her here like this gave him a painful sting but he couldn't help it. She'd be able to take care. She was almost eighteen and she had access to the weaponry which allowed her to turn into a female version of Rambo in less than ten minutes. Butler decided to put that Micah into the little room that had once been Captain Short's lock-up. If Juliet trusted him, she knew the code to open the door. There wasn't much more he could do to keep her safe.

Finally, he let the whole system reboot and changed all codes so that whoever had hacked the system was first out of it now and second, didn't get in with the same passwords again. Butler hoped that Juliet had taken the time to learn the spare passwords as well, because without them she was not able to do a lot. Then again, she was so keen on being what she used to call a "real" Butler that she probably would've learnt the next ten spare passwords on the list if he had given them to her. Something like a proud smile found the way on Butler's face. In one fluent movement, he grabbed his keys from the desk, gave the side table another, more friendly, kick and closed the door shut.

His steps had not even distorted in the staircase, as the table groaned and moaned again and finally collapsed.

One hour later, Butler got out of the car and jogged down the street he knew Carl was living in. This was one of the better parts in Dublin, which was not really surprising. The Fowls were paying good and whoever the man was also working for was probably doing so, too. Hopefully, that is. Given the things Carl was up to it would've been a pity if it wasn't even worth it.

The Benz was parked almost demonstratively in front of the house. Idiotic but that at least ensured Butler, that his prey was home. He growled. He was not at all short-tempered but there were a few things that were destined to make him snap. Which were basically his sister and Artemis.

Which both were affected and both were, maybe, still endangered.

Which was why Carl better had some very good excuse ready.

Butler pushed the door easily open and tried to calm himself. It didn't work at all.

Carl lounged satisfied on his white leather couch. This way of making your income was a rather good one, he had to admit. Most of the time he was on call for the Fowls, ready to drive the members of the family, and sometimes the staff, wherever they wanted him to. A nice job, with nice cars, actually. And they payed good.

On the other side of his paycheck, so to say, was Linus Fitch. To be fair, Fitch was the one he had been working for way longer than for the Irishmen. Then, four years ago, Linus had asked him to take the emlpoyment and work for the Fowls. Officially, that is, of course. Carl had been sceptical at the beginning, and had almost quit when he had been confronted with the double of a Butler presence during the job interview. He was sure back then that at least half of the people lost their ambitions to get the job all of a sudden after the intimidating moment of sinking into a chair opposite of Artemis Fowl, the older one back then, and the two dark looking giants behind him. However, with the thought of the money Fitch had promised Carl for picking up the work in his mind, he managed to go through this interview without fainting or suffering a heart attack. This may seem a bit overreacting but, as he told himself even years after that, he had known back then that Fitch had a god reason to put him there. Fowl was a name with a reputation that was without equal and Fitch was always keen on rising his own name above others. But then, whatever plan Linus had had back then, the head of the family had gone astray in Russia and his wife spent a year of her life in her own room. Not too much to do for a driver but Carl was never officially fired nor did he quit and so, after Miss' Fowls sudden awakening about a year ago or so, she had called him, remembered his polite nature, she said.

And now here he was. Linus had come up with another plan, now focussing on the young heir of the family, that was a thorn in Fitch's flesh. Carl did understand that very well. Being towered by a family was humiliating enough for somebody with Linus' ambitions but being towered by a boy alone was basically too much to bear. However, after Fitch had succeeded in his plan, his own name may earn the Fowlish shimmer and the respect that came with that.

Not that Carl cared about that. He was interested in his paycheck and in the feeling of being part of something. And he was. One of the most important friends and followers of Linus Fitch. irreplaceable, absolutely. And, of course, he was interested in being safe but Linus had ensured him that he was, since his technicians had managed to waste the GPS of the Benz he had used to pick Ara up. It had felt strange to enter the manor without a call or some excuse to be there but it all went like clockwork.

Oh, and today there was something else he was interested in. Linus promised to bring him another kind of reward for his loyalty and for fullfilling his part in the plan. A long-legged, blond, nice-to-look-at reward, that was. He was really looking forward to that.

Only a few minutes after he lost himself in daydreams of long legs and blond hair, the doorbell rang and Carl's heart jumped cheerily. That had to be her!

With growing dither and butterflies in his stomach, Carl made his way to the door over the white deep-pile carpet and opened the door with a slimy smile.

Little did he know how wrong he had been about the identity of his guest. At least, he never got to know that, either. Because the bullet, fired from point blank, hit him right between his eyes.