As Linus had said that she'd meet Diego at a campus, he obviously had shown his love for euphemisms. The university in question was interspersed throughout the whole city, actually, it was even located in two cities, Nuremberg, where Ara had stepped out of her plane with trembling knees, and Erlangen, which was not really what you'd call a city in a literal way. Yes, there were around one hundred thousand inhabitants but to be fair: they were either students or working for Siemens. In the last ten minutes Kiara had wandered the city, trying to find the location she was supposed to meet Diego and hand him the damn chip over, she hadn't seen anybody. It was already beyond sunset, the students were either home or on their way to get sozzled, the streets were illuminated by the lanterns. The silence made her nervous, she felt like a sitting duck. Not long after exiting the train at the station, she had jumped at a skeleton, staring at her out of the only illuminated window of a - obviously - university building reserved for medicine. It took her ten minutes to make her heart stop trembling. The professional thief in her soul loved to be in crowds, have the possibility to hide between dozens of people, not to wander wide-open streets, on the way to meet somebody she had not seen for almost a year and she hadn't missed him and his bravado.

I haven't missed him. Definitely not. How could I? Good look won't stay forever and Diego does not anything but good look.

And heart. Admittable, he's brave as a lion.

Come on, girl, pull yourself together. Don't let down your guard just because the streets look so damn empty that you'd expect a tumbleweed to be blown across the street.

Not that she couldn't deal with hiding in an empty street. She had studied the map whilst the flight though she would've preferred to sleep for an hour or two. At least she had a rough picture of the streets and buildings. Possible places to run to if necessary. And of course, the location she would meet Diego and the adress of Franziska's flat. Ara had decided that this was her El Dorado now, the place she wanted to go, and Diego wouldn't be able to stop her from doing that.

Sure he'll try, she mused and kicked an empty paper cup along the street. Something rustled in the bushes. As he always does. No way, man, you messed that up, so stand that. There'r many handsome women out there you can conquer with your famous Tom-Cruise-smile. A rat crossed the way right before her feet and Ara scowled. What a night. What a day.

Kiara shuddered slightly and thrusted her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket, felt the warm fabric of her hoodie beneath it. She considered to put her hood on but she didn't dare. That would narrow her vision so she left it where it was. It wasn't even cold. Just her raw nerves, probably. Jesus Christ, what a day.

She passed a roundabout and as soon as the little complex of buildings came in eye-sight, Ara felt a little relieved. Diego had many wrongs but he was punctual. He'd already wait for her and after the transaction it was less than fifteen minutes to Franzi's apartment, where she could finally take a warm shower and rest. End this haunted day.

"Aye, are you there?" Ara jumped. Literally. Her brother giggled, satisfied that he had managed to scare his tortured sister. "Sorry, Ara. You tend to forget the headset, it's just too tempting."

The two drunk students, the first human beings she had seen in her stay in this city - except you want to count the skeleton - were all eyes as they heard the curses Ara muttered. Francis was right. She always forgot that she still head the earphones in. And that her brother could always contact her as he wished. Technically that was useful in case of problems she had to be informed about - whilst she was in trouble herself, so they couldn't call her up. More than one intruder had been caught because of a phone humming at the wrong time. No cliche.

In practice, the device was more often a burden for her than a boon. With a brother like that, who needs enemies?

"Sure I'm there," she growled and shot the fucked up students a dark look Butler would be proud of. They turned their back on her, not because of the glare but rather because one of them started to throw up violently in drain. German comity. They even vomit into the drain so that nobody is confronted with it. "Where did you think I'd go? Home, and leave my ears in the plane to distract you?"

"Oh, Ara. Why such a bad mood? After all, everything had went according to -"

"Don't you dare, Francis!" She hissed. "In case I do have to remember you, this was close to be a desaster!" She took a trembling breath and focussed. "Is Diego already there?"

She could see her brother shrug that question off in her mental eye. How sould he know?

"How should I know?" Gotcha. "It's not like we air monitoringthe whole city, are we?"

"Dunno. Are we?"

She checked the courtyard of the building. Empty. Bar a young man, the characteristic hazelbrown mane of hair illuminated by an old, rotten outdoor luminaire like a halo.

"Shut up now, brother. Let me end that disgusting day with a meeting with my wonderful disgusting ex."

Francis stifled a laugh and the mockery in his voice made his sister bite her lip again. "Sure, Ara, sure. We all know you still dream of him but I won't bother you. I'll get out of the line, you two have a nice night together." Said it and indeed cleared the line, left her alone with Diego.

They skipped the "hi" part and her hands rampaged in her pockets, searched for the ballpoint that contained Fowl's newest invention. Or, to be precise, the information he had gathered with that invention. The technique itself would stay his secret, unless he wanted to sell it. Her fingers touched the cool metal and she shot her hand out to him roughly.

"Always the charmer, huh?" Diego asked.

"Shut your trap." I need to get away. Quick. God, please don't let him smile ...

"Oh, come on madge," he said, using the stupid nickname he had used to give her back then, both for her talent in stealing as good as anything and for the black-white contrast of her dark hair and light skin.

And then he smiled.

Ara groaned and brusquely turned her back on him. "I need to get some rest," she hissed and moved. She heard him follow. Jesus, just go! Leave me alone!

"Oh, alone?"

Ha, funny. Like he read my mind, just like it used to be.

Shut up, stupid.

"Yes, alone. No, actually, Franzi's mad cat is in the house. It'll take care, nobody can enter that apartment without getting attacked."

He sniggered and closed up. "Francis called," he said in a voice he deemed to be arcane. Another groan made its way out of Ara's chest. Diego continued as if he hadn't heard. He probably hadn't. "You've had a terrible day, madge."

"Francis is exaggerating, he always does that. My day was not that bad at all."

"Ah, no?" Diego answered in mock astonishment. "Then you haven't been busy with breaking into the manor of one of the oldest crime lord families in Europe, if not the world? And Francis made up the whole part in which one of your companions was knocked out by somebody? And this cat-mouse-thing, a pity he lied about that, I really enjoyed the story in which you were running from that manservant, that sounds very sexy, doesn't it? Franics said he almost shot you but I bet he exaggerated at that one, too? I'm sure that man only wanted to serve you dishes or something. And what about -"

"Diego!" Kiara stopped dead in her tracks, turned severly and made an attempt to cuff him. However, she might be quick when it came to running and climbing but Diego was the fighter, so he caught her hand in mid-air and pulled her close with a jerk.

Asked afterwards by her brother, she couldn't tell anymore about how the kiss came about.

Juliet groaned as she rolled over and fell from the sofa. Her sight went blurry for a second but she fought the black parts of her vision back to the edges and finally managed to ban it entirely. The floor was not the best place to lie around, she better got up.

Actually, the floor is not the worst option either, she decided as she sunk back and held her stinging head. The carpet was quiet comfortable, to be fair. There were advantages if you work for such a rich family as the Fowls.

She allowed herself a few moments of contemplation on the comfortable carpet, then checked her surroundings. For the second time, of course. Stinging head or not, she was a Butler and as long as a Butler did not completely lack a head at all, there's hardly anything that could keep them from checking the surroundings after opening their eyes. At the second attempt, she recognized the guest room at first floor, west wing of the manor. A quick look out of the window made her eyebrows jump up. It was already dark outside.

Aha. Then, how did I get here? Something caught her eye at the glass table she was half lain under. Looked like a piece of paper. Alright, Jules. Time to get up. This time, it was succesful even though her head stung like hell. Her hands were clutched around the armrest of the sofa on the one side, on the egde of the table on the other side. Again she was engaged in a fight against the darkness and blurring vision and again she won. I haven't been drunk, have I?

No, definitely not. Teenage girl or not, she knew her limits well enough to not step over them. In addition, if she gave it a closer thought, she hadn't been alone. What date do we have? Thankfully, Angeline Fowl had a little quirk when it came to calendars - every room in the manor had to contain one, and every one had to show the correct date, which was capable of driving the maids crazy. Especially on weekends or around Christmas Eve, when some of the staff were home with their own families, some maids spent hours with wandering the - partially - abandoned parts of Fowl Manor and checking the calendars. Of course, nobody ever complained. Because she was a member of the Fowl family. And because this was a habit Angeline Fowl had formed during the absence of her husband, to keep herself current, also about the current date. She didn't want to lose grip. The calendars hadn't helped her in the end but the habit had stayed.

Naturally there was also a calendar in this specific guest room and somebody had turned it to the right date. Juliet mused if it had been her but dropped that thought. She remembered that date. Micah had a few days off at his job and he wanted to spend them with her, in the manor. They both had looked forward to that few days. And now ... what happened? Blurry thoughts appeared in her mind, gathered to a coherent picture.

They had been together, had a ... hmmm ... peaceful morning but that had changed, something had happened. Somebody attacked them, Micah had shouted a warning from outside the room ...

The whole memory came back like a suddenly working flashlight and it dazzled her as violently.

There had been a fight, over at another guest room. She remembered her training had kicked in, she had fought like a tiger ... but whom? She did't remember. No, that's not correct. It's not that I don't remember it, I have never known. She never had the opportunity to see the attacker's face, she realised.

At some point she had got hold of her phone somehow and had automatically called her brother for help. She hadn't been thinking anymore, there was no time left for such thing as thinking or considering her options. And then ... nothing. Somebody has knocked me out, she realised and blushed immediately. Shame, Jules. You're a Butler, not a fucking damsel in distress. No way you'll ever get the Diamond as long as you are incapable of defending yourself, wallflower.

Juliet, filled with a nasty mixture of shame and anger, pushed herself up on her feet, careless of the starting dizziness that made her almost fall again. Micah. She needed to find Micah, she just hoped that he was fine.

Now that she was standing, her gaze fell on the piece of paper she had seen from underneath the table. She recognized the writing immediately as her brother's. In less than three minutes from that point on, she was in the monitoring room of the manor, had checked the screens for any possible danger (none) and found Micah still asleep in what once used to be Hollys lock-up. She decided to leave him there until he woke up. There were more important problems at hand.

Artemis was endangered. After all, she was still a Butler. For the second time that day, she rang her brother.

The latter had just run out of options by now. After the small-scale desaster in Dublin, namely a clearly backstabbing but nonetheless now dead driver, Butler had decided to go for the girl again. Naturally, as she was the only leftover hint he had. But before he had entered the plane, he wanted to make sure that he was not going to fly hundreds of miles for nothing. Happy is the man with friends, or let's say, at least some contacts that still owed him something. After Butler had called in favours he had the confirmation that yes, there were several female passengers in passenger flights from Dublin to Nuremberg and yes, some of them were not only female but had also names that could be abbreviated with Ara, including several Chiaras and Kiaras, one Barbara and a handful others. Another contact, with another favour was able to connect these names with ID-images and, will wonder never cease: one of them fit perfectly to the description Butler could make. Black hair and light skin, in a mixture you found in millions in Asia but not that often in Europe. This woman - she was actually already in her mid-twenties, so not that much a girl than you might think at the first sight - was also indeed in Germany. So that was where he'd go.

Not that Butler knew where to go afterwards. He could hardly search Nuremberg and its surroundings for any Franziska, since it looks like Ara would spend the night in her apartment. Anyway, there was half a million people solely in Nuremberg and God knows how many Franziskas you would encounter. Even Butler could probably not save as many people to get that many favours to call.

Juliet saved him unexpectedly as she called him. At that time, Butler had just managed to rent a car on one if his aliases and was currently trying to push the seat in a position he would not pinch off the veins in his legs. It didn't really work out.

"Juliet!" he said and tried to conceal his worried tone. "Are you alright?" So much for that one.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Where are you?"

He clamped the phone between his shoulder and his ear and bended around the seat. Where in the world is this useless - "Germany," he answered in the meanwhile and found the lever he had searched for. Finally, the seat glided back and he felt his blood tentatively entering his legs again. Anyway, this is what you get if you wanted to avoid the car rentings directly next to the airport, where anybody would look first. Not many people knew the alias he had used but after the newest events, paranoia had just turned out to be the right way.

"Aha," his sister answered. "Found anything?"

Mhm. One of the chauffeurs has been executed. And if I'll ever wreck the Bentley, our next car won't for sure be an old Golf. This exemplar had been the only car left in the rotten car park of the car rental. Besides an even older Fiat Panda that didn't look like Butler would be able to get into without breaking any bones before.

"Not yet." The little lever felt ridiculously tiny in his hand. Butler tried for a better grip and some bones in his back popped audibly. The seat groaned. He would've tried to manage this from outside the car but that hadn't worked as well. And after it had started raining cats and dogs in a manner that Butler wondered if he should've better invested in an ark like Noah, the decision had been made: try it better from inside of that crappy car. And here he was. Might be good as stretching exercises.

"But you know where to go next, don't you?"

A crack, and the lever fell off, and Butler fell with it, almost knocking his head off the door. Instinctively he tried to get hold on the handle, the door opened and he slumped out of the Golf. At least, where another might have crashed into the pavement, he rolled off like the ninjas his little sister had adored when she was young. The phone still in hand - the other held the broken lever- he tried to brush the coarse dirt off his jacket and then ducked into the car again to escape the pouring rain that had already soaked him.

"Dom? What was that?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. Some things, she better didn't get to know. Including both executions of staff and her brother falling out of a tiny car into the rain.

"Aha," was her comment and her way to say What do you take me for. "So? Do you have an idea where to go next?"

"Er, well, I have -"

"No, you don't. Right?"

Butler groaned. She had probably known that from the very beginning. "No, I don't," he confirmed contrite.

"See. Who are you after, actually? The one that attacked us?"

"Probably. You remember anything?" Juliet made a sound like an unhappy cat.

"No, nothing. Haven't seen him. Or her, dunno. What's wrong with the tapes, Dom? I tried to watch them but ... haven't they filmed?"

Now it was his turn, even though he sounded more like an unhappy tiger. "No, looks like somebody turned them off for a certain time. You watched the part they have filmed?" That was probably rhethorical. Sure she had.

Juliet didn't comment the question at all. "So you're after that girl," she concluded. "The woman with the black hair? Because of the audio tapes from the Bentley, right?"

Congratulations, Dom, he thought sour. Your sister is now just as far as you are. In how long? Ten minutes?

"Yes," he said and tried to turn the key in the ignition lock. It hooked but after a bit of love and a bit of violence, it worked. The engine started with an awful coughing sound.

"So ... Dom, why didn't you go for the driver? I thought he's one out of the Manor. Didn't think I was mistaken ..."

Aah, great. Go tell your baby sister about the murderer you just let get away. Butler sighed but fortunately the sound was absorbed by an enormous misfiring.

"What -" Juliet started to ask, alarmed by the sound that might have similarities with a shot if transferred through the phone.

"Misfiring," Butler said quickly, then sighed again, this time audible for her. "The driver is dead," he said. She was a Butler and almost eighteen. At her age, he was less than a year from the diamond so she could handle that perfectly.

She could. "Hmm. You don't know who, do you?"

Dyed black hair and a wide grin on the face. "No."

"Hmm. Then ... hmm." Juliet went silent. As long as she mused, he could try to ask her something.

"Jules ... that ... friend of yours. -" She didn't even allow him to ask anything, intervened after he had taken a breath for it.

"Forget Micah, he didn't attack me. I could hardly be wrong at this point, can I?" The waspish tone made Butler flinch. "Sorry, Jules. Is he still unconscious?"

"Yes." His sister sounded rather worried than angry. She recovered herself after a deep breath. "Okay, summary. You're searching this Ara, after you lost her in the manor." Butler groaned. "It looks like you are at least in the same area like she is," Juliet continued with her analysis. "And, according to the Bentley's tapes, she'll spend the night in a friend's apartment. Artemis has vanished into thin air, or at least this is what he could as well have done, since we are obviously unable to find him without any more information."

We. Butler frowned. Did she say we because she felt in charge? Or just to not sound as accusing like in you are unable to find your principal now, fool? Even if he wanted to ask her, she didn't give him the time for it. "Obviously, we need to find the apartment of this Franziska. Have you tried to locate Ara's mobile phone?" she asked.

"Sure I have." Another favour. Thank god he had been so altruistic back then. "But it's secured. Impossible to locate."

"Oooh ..." The clear disappointment made him almost smile. Juliet wanted to find a way to help him.

Something clattered, Juliet was rumoring. "Wait a sec, Dom," she said and dropped the phone somewhere. More sounds were to hear, like she was rummagine through a lot of ... stuff. As she finally came back in the line, Butler was very worried about the state of whatever room she was currently in.

"Jules, what are you actually doing?" Butler asked after there was nothing but static to hear. She hushed him. After two long minutes, she finally came back to life. And she sounded very, very excited about whatever she had found. Butler wasn't. He already knew what she had found. He felt sorry for her that she had to go through the same disappointing process he had.

"Dom! Haven't you heard the talk at the end of the tape?" She's sure that I overheard that detail, he realised.

"I have heard, Jules," he sighed. " But scratch that. It's too much hissing. Before you ask: I also tried to filter it but the qua -"

"Ha!" she interrupted him triumphantly. "I bet I can make that audible!"

Butler frowned. "Aha? And how would you?" The sheer confidence made him feel a wee better.

"Micah -" she started explaining and rummaged again, "has huge knowledge about technical stuff. He once told me."

"He - " Butler stopped himself before the whole extent of his surprise could reach her. He didn't want to insult her boyfriend but whatever he in his role as caring big brother had imagined they were doing when he was not around to shoot the guy dark looks, it wasn't talking about technical stuff. "So you really can make that audible?" he reassured. Juliet laughed, happiness seeped through the phone.

"Sure I can! Wait, I just have to ... man, that pony-man would be proud, wouldn't he?"

Pony - ... ah, Foaly. No, he would actually laugh and track Ara's phone. Or Artemis', forget about that girl. Woman.

"Ah, yeah, sure he'd be. Jules, how long does this take - " He was interrupted by the worst feedback he had ever heard and for some seconds there was a high pitched beeping in his ears.

"Sorry," Juliet muttered and Butler grumbled some swear words.

"Did you say something?"

"No."

"Fine. Alright, I think I got that now. I'll just listen to it and tell you what they say."

That fast? Butler didn't dare to hope for any good results. It was the very end of the tape, his sister would probably encounter something like "Bye", "See you".

According to the cheery Whooop she let out, it was more than that. Butler straightened quick in the seat and bumped against the roof of the car.

"Juliet? What is it?"

"It's her address, Dom! The driver reminds Ara of the address of Franziska's flat!" Another Whooop followed. Butler couldn't believe it. She told him the address and a wolfish smile appeared on his face. Before she hung up, drunken by her master stroke, he held her back for a moment.

"Jules."

"Huh?"

"Take care." She huffed, obvioulsy belied. Butler laughed quietly. "And, Jules?"

"Hm."

"That was amazing. You're a real Butler, undoubtedly."

He could tell she was smiling as she muttered a "Love you" into her phone. He smiled, too. Half because of her. Half because he was going on the hunt. This time, Ara wouldn't find any instrument cases to hide in.

"This cat is even worse than mine!" Diego complained and tried to avoid the striking paws while at the same time he made attempts to keep the cat off his legs. "You can't actually scare it off by shouting!"

"Cause it's deaf, Diego. That's not her fault."

"It's not mine either." Finally he managed to take the pet by its neck and escort it out of the room into the tiny corridor. Everything about Franziska's apartment was tiny. The one single room he and Ara were in was tiny, so was the corridor that connected them with the tiny kitchen and the tiny bathroom. The furniture was minimalist, to put it positively. There wasn't even a bed, just an old sofa. They almost wrecked it before they understood that no, this was not one of this sofa beds you could turn into a bed if you needed to. It was just a sofa and it protested as soon as somebody dared to burden it with something like a human being searching for a place to sit. The bathtub seemed to be more comfortable to him.

Nevertheless, Diego was in a very good mood. Ara had allowed him to accompany her on her way to the apartment and afterwards she had allowed him to accompany her in the apartment as well. She hadn't allowed him to accompany her under the shower but that was okay. They've been parted for a while and though it looked like they had missed each other, there was no need to hurry. They had time. Lots of.

He watched his girlfriend as she put her pitch-black hair to a ponytail. Ara had been nervous when he met her at the university building and she still was. Francis had indeed told him about her day and if he hadn't exaggerated, she really had gone through a lot for one day. It wasn't the first time she was on the run, this was something she had got used to. Nevertheless, it was the only time they could remember that a plan Fitch had made had went that south. That was scary. As was the thought they maybe were taking on too much with Fowl.

There was another reason why Ara was worried. Still worried. Fowl was supposed to be after his chip. Diego owned that now but that wasn't what made her shudder. Linus hadn't meant that Fowl would try to hunt Diego himself down. This kind of treasure hunt was normally made on a technical base: the search for information, about addresses, phone numbers, tracking of cars. They'd search in Paris or wherever Linus would bait them. Franziska's apartment was a safe place, as far as she could tell. It would be almost impossible to find them here. No, that was not what she worried about.

Kiara was worried about that chip itself. Linus wanted it very badly and the only thing a chip could provide was information, as far as she could tell. But information was a dangerous good to deal with. Often protected way more grimly than anything else. Gold and diamonds were to be replaced, if expensive, but replaceable. Information was different. Once in the wrong hands it was impossible to get it back - unless you extinguished everybody who had access to it.

And that was what Ara was worried about. Little did she know that she'd better was nervous about the thing with the apartment...

The cat annoyed them, it scratched at the door and tried to look through the glassy insert in the door. Diego groaned. For almost a minute, he and Ara stared at each other in a silent duel to figure out who locked the beast into the kitchen. Diego lost. Like it used to be.

Kiara smiled a bit as he exited the room and started another fight with the aggressvie animal. Not the only one that day, as it would turn out ...

Butler entered the apartment on high alert, backing up in all directions, and peeked through the glass insert into the tiny living room. Everything in this apartment was tiny. If it wasn't for his training, he would've felt quite claustrophobic.

The (small) room contained not more than a sofa, a glass table besides and a small bookshelf. This part of the city was mostly inhabited by students and their typical lack of money was clearly visible in their furniture. Or the lack of that.

A cat hissed violently in the room he supposed to be the bathroom but Butler didn't care. He had just seen the woman on the old, half-rotten sofa. She seemed to be not asleep but in thoughts. All the better. The only window in the room was closed and if she didn't try to hide under the transparent glass table, there was nowhere she could run to.

He opened the door and saw her tense. Pure instinct, she couldn't have heard him and the window didn't catch his reflection yet. He carefully rose the gun and finally, her instincts took over. Ara jumped up and swirled round while she tried to back of but bumped against the table with her knee pits. The portentious sound of a pistol being cocked made her stop in her movement anyway. As opportunistic and militant she had been when they last met, as shocked and frozen she was now. She had nowhere to go, and she knew.

That was what Butler thought at that time. A split second later, he dodged quickly, but not quickly enough to escape the from behind thrown knife completely. Aimed to hit between his scapulas it now impacted in his right upper arm and stuck. Butler skipped the phase of pain and little shock that would've been usual for normal people, adrenaline kicked in violently and made him come into action.

Instead of just turning around to face the attacker, he threw himself forwards and escaped another knife attack that would've found its target otherwise. Ara had escaped the narrow between table and sofa but Butler forced her to take cover behind the sofa with two high aimed shots.

The knife-thrower, a young man, was clever enough to not go into a hand-to-hand combat with Butler. Instead he tried to accompany Ara behind the couch, no doubt because he wanted to take cover somewhere without letting her alone. However, he had underestimated Butler's swiftness, like many people did after they had seen his huge frame. Butler was up on his feet fast enough to grasp the man's wrist, dodge another attack meanwhile and wrestle the knife out if his hand before he threw him in the general direction of the furniture where he collided with Ara, who had tried to make her way to the bookshelf. Instead of reaching the shelf, which probably contained some sort of hidden weapon, the both of them fell and crashed into the table, which shattered under their impact weight. He had landed on her, which was his luck and her bad as the shards brought her several injuries. The man seemed to be a deft fighter, otherwise he wouldn't have been standing up that fast. Ara rolled, groaning in pain, out of the destruction field, bleeding out of diverse small wounds.

Butler had no time to check if she was endangered to bleed to death in case of some artery that had been opened by a shard, the other man was up for an attack again, and this time the adrenaline had taken him over so he didn't care about staying at distance. That made Butler have an easy job, he dived under the first puch, caught the second, turned and pulled the attacker with him which almost dislocated the other man's arm and finally released him against the wall so roughly that the clock on the wall almost fell. That one wouldn't be standing up too soon he decided and turned again, just in time to see Ara stumble in front of the bookshelf she had just retrieved a gun from.

He considered his chances in no time and decided to go for an indirect hit rather than killing her or wounding her so severe she might fall into shock.

The bracket that fixed the shelf to the wall was not an easy target for anybody who hadn't gone through the training of a Blue Diamond. Butler had and he hit. The bolt flew out, and the overloaded bookshelf made a strange sound before it doubled over and emptied itself. Ara had seen what he was trying to do, rejected her previous plan to shoot him and tried to escape the avalanche of books that fell out of the broken shelf. She didn't manage perfectly, the shelf itself came down on her left leg and caught her. She crashed on the floor and started to cough heavily as something that looked like the Holy Bible dropped on her back.

Butler gave himself a tiny moment for a status report but found no too serious wounds. His arm hurt but he had worse though he knew that the pain would double as soon as all the adrenaline was out of his blood. But that would heal. He'd live.

And he had finally got his hands on somebody.