Disclaimer: Artemis Fowl and all other related characters are not mine.
They are the works of and are copyrighted to Eoin Colfer.
Intermezzo I: In the dark
One day after the Tater heist.
Mercury was standing amidst darkness atop a triangular platform. His face twisted in a grimace. One hand held a shoulder that had been clipped by a blast from a Neutrino. He had not fared so well from his firefight with Captain Kelp and his squad. His cloak was ripped and it hung in tattered shreds about his shoulder. His features were ashen underneath the darkened complexion. His left cheek suffered from a cut that would not heal. If he were a regular sprite, the magic would heal that. But no more. Oh well. Small prices to pay for a greater gift.
An unusual sprite in an unusual place. All around him was darkness that seemed to undulate like a serpent. There was a greenish tinge to this darkness, almost like slime. The platform he was standing upon was extremely old. It was of a plain, stone build except for the small stairs leading up to it. There were flowing designs on either side of the steps reaching up towards the top. The platform could only be discerned for the faint light falling on it as though from a great height.
"I'm okay," he said aloud although no one was near. "I was caught in a firefight with that muscle moron, Kelp. I got followed, yes, but nothing happened to me. I think so."
He visibly flinched at something. "It was really only a matter of time," he said before his voice was silenced. "We should be proud and show everyone the truth." He paused once more, "No, only Holly did. Holly Short. She's the first female officer in Recon squad. Y-yes." His shoulder shook and his face whipped violently to the side as though something had hit him. "You said I could do it to anyone I wanted!" he protested, stumbling on his feet. "Holly would be perfect as one of us." He shuddered, took a deep breath, and said, "No, no, I didn't. Kelp got in the way. I don't know if she was. I don't know how they followed me. Holly updated her wings and she was able to catch up. She must have radioed her coordinates to Foaly if she wasn't already being tracked with her locator." He frowned. "They probably must have taken her to the Healing Center. Yes, yes, I will." His face paled at words no one else but he could hear. "Yeah, I will as soon as you heal me. Yes, I know. She's dangerous."
Mercury sighed, "Thank you, Father." A few minutes later, red light began surrounding the platform and it engulfed his tall figure within.
Two days after the last scene in Act One.
Holly glared balefully at Corporal Grub Kelp's waddling behind as they skirted the shielded throng of fairies dancing under the full moon. The couple was far enough away from the drunken crowd for any to notice them. Just in case, Kelp had shielded and Holly had wrapped an extra long cam foil sheet around her like a cloak. Their objective was to complete the Ritual, but it also needed to be done in absolute secrecy. The last thing Holly needed was for rumors underground about the freak Holly Short going aboveground. But still.
Of all the people who would be assigned to escort her aboveground to Tara, it had to be him. The one fairy who could find a thousand and one excuses not to do his job, the one fairy who could make up a thousand and one excuses not to do anything, and the one fairy who could make up a thousand and one complaints about everything.
Someone up there must really despise her.
The Corporal was escorting her to Tara specifically to ensure that nothing happened to her from completing the Ritual up until she was dropped off in Dublin. The team underground had rushed to prepare Holly once approval from the Council was given to make it in time for the full moon.
Holly winced at the memory. The Council had been extremely difficult to convince. If it hadn't been for Commander Root vouching full support for Holly and Wing Commander Vinyaya's faith in her, they wouldn't have gone through with it at all. There were conditions of course.
She had to remain completely disguised at all times was one. Another condition was that Foaly would be monitoring her most times. Thirdly, she was to remain in constant contact with the LEP to report her findings. Fourthly, all her fairy equipment had explosives implanted in them in case of discovery. Fifthly, she was to obey commands at all times. And of course, one could not forget that she needed to have her magic with her. Just to make sure, she was ordered to complete the Ritual in the most magical place on Earth.
The Council was not the only people who had been reluctant to let Holly go. The warlock meds had been almost adamant in making Holly stay. Her condition had been stable, true, but they wanted to conduct further tests just in case. Holly shuddered at the thought of being an experiment or a specimen they would dissect in their labs. No way was she staying for them.
Ahh, the magic was calling to her. Holly had plucked an acorn seed in a dark shadow of the mighty oak where the fairy revelers would not notice her. Grub Kelp was inspecting his new boots that seemed to have a few spots on from walking in the dirt. He opened his mouth and Holly rolled her eyes. Without a doubt, he was going to complain.
The elf decided to ignore him and began walking far away. She cast a regretful look back to the shielded fairies. They were dancing and frolicking in a wild manner under the full moon. It had been a long time since she had danced under the moon as well. There was a great chance that she might never dance under it if the magic did not work.
About five hundred feet away, the red haired fairy chose a dark spot near the water, secluded from the stray fairies that were streaming to the chosen spot near Tara. There were large trees rising like sentries at the bank with extremely thick underbrush. It was far too crowded for humans and fairies alike. Nobody would be able to see them either. Kelp followed obligingly, but he was too busy telling Holly about his boots and complaining about her choice of location to notice much of anything.
Again, Holly resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It hadn't even bothered Grub at all that Holly had changed. He bulldozed into his whining habits as usual as if they were on chute surveillance duty. Holly wondered fleetingly if the sight of her juggling Atlantean stink balloons would be enough to make Grub stop. Probably not. She sighed before turning her attention to the task at hand.
The female licked her lips nervously. There really was no predictable outcome to this Ritual. The magic not returning to her would be one of the kinder courses of action to tell the truth. She might just be struck dead on the spot. That was also possible. Don't think about it, Holly, don't think about it, she told herself.
She fought with the underbrush until she was near the water. Then Holly knelt and dug her left hand into the soft damp Earth. She handled it delicately, turning it over, before deciding on a comfortable spot. Her right hand then dug into the space, and she whispered, "I return you to the Earth. And claim the gift that is my right."
Nothing happened for several moments. Dread washed over Holly. Even Corporal Kelp was watching now. Just as he was about to voice the anxious question waiting in his throat, a flood of magic descended on Holly like a tidal wave. Magic collected from everything: the trees, the air, the rocks, the Earth, even from the very Moon and stars. It shimmered to the visible spectrum and flashed spectacularly. It looked as if a flash bomb had exploded, illuminating a circle with a fifty-foot radius, and Holly at the center.
The individual sparks banded together into concentric waves before slamming into Holly. The elf was suspended several feet from the ground, twitching at the intensity of the magic crashing into her. The magic poured into every fiber of her being, cramming into every pore. In a mere matter of seconds, there was not a bit of her fully saturated with it. This was not like the previous Rituals she had completed before. This felt entirely different. Yet more came, faster and faster. All of this came inside her, filling her in a space she never knew was empty before. Her spine arced and her limbs thrashed, trembling at the full force. This felt so good. A wild laugh tore out her throat.
Grub looked frightened. The force of the magic had created a forceful gale whipping around Holly. He firmly attached himself to a tree whose leaves were shaking and boughs creaking underneath the intensity of the light. This assignment was not going as planned. Holly Short was supposed to, at best, regain her magic as well as her normal form and go back underground. If she regained only her magic, then she was to be escorted to the drop off point. If she did not, then she was to be escorted back underground anyway. This was a covert operation with high security. He had been fairly confident no one saw him or her but no guarantees now. He may as well have shot fireworks into the sky for all the attention the magic was doing. Really, this was not supposed to happen. The magic was in question of not returning to Holly. It was not supposed to come in overdose. Besides, he had never heard of over a minute of power restoring Rituals. He knew that the most they could go on was a minute.
Just when Grub thought of contacting HQ for further instructions, the lights stopped. The last bands were absorbed inside Holly and the remaining dispersed into the air. The fairy was dropped back to the ground and would have landed most ungracefully had it not been for her quick reflexes and training in the LEP academy. She landed catlike on her feet. Grub goggled at her from behind the tree.
Holly looked most surprised. She rose weakly, unsure of herself. In the Ritual, she had hoped that she might change back to her true form. Instead, she seemed more solidly big than ever. Not only that, the magic was gone. She could feel it no longer. She felt no different from when she was drained of her magic. Panic swelled inside her.
"What.what's happened to me?" she asked hoarsely for the second time in a week.
Grub approached from behind, brown eyes looking alarmed and afraid. "C- Captain," he began but did not continue.
Holly had reared back, stumbling away from him. "What happened to me!" she cried in desperation. "Where did it go? Where did all the magic go!" The distraught fairy called it back but nothing, absolutely nothing responded. She gasped for breath.
"H-Holly!" screamed Grub. "Wait! Wait a minute!" He watched in panic as the taller fairy stumbled around, eyes half mad. Worse, it would only be a matter of time before the other fairies grew brave enough to venture into the undergrowth. "Holly, listen to me! We can open a channel to Foaly! We can figure it out! Holly!" But it was no use. Holly was not listening to him now.
Breathing sharply, Holly wheeled around, but she was not used to such quick movements in her new form. The female stumbled and fell. Her knee scraped the ground and blood spilled from the open wound. The younger of the Kelp brothers called out to her, but she wasn't listening. She wasn't listening any more because she saw the magic zipping her wound closed. It had not deserted her after all. It was still there, automatically healing her.
"Grub," she said, "Did you see?" Grub looked at her questioningly, still frightened of her.
"Oh come here, you baby!" snapped Holly brusquely. Grub immediately followed. This was the Holly he knew: commanding and to the point. Experimentally, Holly picked up a broken shell from the riverside and slashed her forearm. Blood spilled, but was quickly zipped up by magic. "It's here after all," she said. "It's inside me. I just can't call to it."
Grub, who had looked terrified at Holly wounding herself, nodded blankly. "Uh, yeah." muttered the Corporal. "Lemme just go and call Commander Root on that."
"Oh, no, you don't," said Holly, pouncing on the smaller fairy. "Listen, Root said that I could proceed with the mission so long as the magic returned to me. It did, didn't it?"
Grub nodded mutely. Holly was bearing down on him most threateningly and he had no desire to be squashed.
"That means we can proceed with the mission as planned," nodded Holly satisfactorily. "Now, we had better go before fairies start coming in. Let's get back to the vehicle and place the call. We're going to Dublin."
Grub nodded mutely once more. Who was he to argue with a superior officer in both rank and size? Wordlessly, he gave her the small case containing her earpieces. Holly accepted it and slipped them on. The two of them started jogging swiftly and silently away from the area.
"Oh and Grub." called Holly to the younger fairy as he began walking away to the fairy terminal. "If I hear one word of this spilled out to anyone, anyone, and I swear I'll tell LEP the one time you peed in your jumpsuit while we were containing those goblins from the B'WaKell."
Grub jumped as though she had hit him with a buzz baton. "You wouldn't dare," he said loudly.
"Wouldn't I?" challenged Holly.
Corporal Kelp paused, realizing his situation. Holly was not Trouble. Therefore, he did not know of as many embarrassing stories about Trouble as he did of Holly. The most he knew of her were from the Artemis Fowl stories circulating around the Lower Elements and the few times Trouble talked about Holly. "All right," sulked the elf.
"That's a good fairy," winked Holly. She switched on the radio option over her earpieces. "Foaly, you there?"
"Liar, liar, pants on fire," sang Foaly over the frequency. "You should tell Root the truth."
"You saw?"
"Of course I saw it," said Foaly, returning to his businesslike voice. "I was monitoring Grub's helmet feed from the start. Besides, that lightshow caught my cameras right away. There'll be a squad coming down there any minute now."
"Foaly, don't tell Root," begged the elf immediately. "You know he'll never let me go, but I have to do this."
"Holly," said the centaur reproachfully. "I don't mind breaking a few rules here and there, but there is a limit to what I do. That thing you experienced. that was not an ordinary Ritual. I have no idea what happened to you."
Holly bit her lip. "True." she admitted. "I'm not sure myself."
"So what did you feel?" asked the golden-eyed centaur, leaning back in his swivel chair. "I saw so much magic in one area than I've ever seen in a squadron of LEP elf commandos running hot."
"I felt good," said Holly, looking surprised herself. "It was kind of like running hot. but so much better. Everything I feel in a Ritual, a thousand times more intense."
"I see," said Foaly, and Holly knew he was frowning from the Ops Booth. "And?"
"It disappeared. I don't know why or how. All I know is that it's inside me. It heals my wounds automatically, but I can't do much with it. Nothing at all to tell you the truth."
"Holly, that's bad," warned the centaur. "If you don't have command of your magic."
"Foaly, listen to me," said the elf urgently. "I can't use my magic in excess in any case if I don't want to blow my cover. The primary purpose of the magic was to heal me in case of emergency. Plus, what good am I going to do underground? I'll just be stuck bothering you in Ops. Foaly, please. Let me handle this."
The centaur considered it. Grub was walking back, presumably with the clearance. "All right," he relented. "Fine, fine. But if Root finds out, then I had no part in this."
"Absolutely no idea," promised Holly.
"All right, Captain," said Foaly. "I have to break up now. Magma flares are coming up. Best of luck to you."
"You too," responded Holly switching off the transmission. "Ready?" she asked Grub.
A few hours later.
The night air streamed inside an open window. It was chill and cool, slipping cold fingers inside the room. The full moon traveled outsidde, bathing whatever it could find with an ethereal, silver glow. The incandescent orb sailed past the vault of dark heaven, drawing silvery, gray clouds as its cape.
Slowly, very slowly, it inched its way across the room, revealing a carpeted floor, a desk, and finally the foot of a bed. As slowly as the tides but as inexorably as the rise and fall of the sun, it illumed the figure sleeping underneath the white sheets.
The boy had night black hair like the shadows themselves. They seemed so dark they almost had a violet sheen in them. The boy had a creamy complexion, as pale as the moon itself, and long, dark sooty lashes that contrasted with the pallor of his skin. His features were finely chiseled, like a sculpture.
The youth tossed in his comfortable bed. His brows furrowed in concentration and thought. His flickering eyes beneath his lids suggested a dream.
I know.. I know that I am dreaming. I see glimpses of someone. Auburn hair? Pointy ears. flashing hazel eyes. This person.. No, not a person. I know her. I know her. The boy's vision was dim, as though he were watching a scene at night with sunglasses. He caught flashes of something. someone. Several people. They teased the corner of his vision, but danced back into the darkness before closer inspection could reveal their secrets. He tried to call out to them, to say something, but his voice refused to cooperate.
Dim, shadowy figures teased his eyes once more. There was something.no, someone burrowing underneath the Earth as though it were water. There was someone else, a short, squat figure. He seemed to be smoking a cigar. The lit tip was the only light in the surrounding darkness.
A scene played itself before his eyes. That girl again. she was standing some ways in front of him with her back turned towards him. Wings graced her back. No, they were not wings. They were mechanical wings. How? She glanced back, her eyes gazing at him sidelong with hints of playful merriment in them but underlined with fiery strength. She lifted her right hand to display her thumbs up before she lifted up into the air, a graceful take off. Then she vanished out of sight.
It was snatched away from him once more as he heard a voice yelling at him. He tried to turn around to see who it was, but all around him was darkness. His breath caught in his throat. Darkness. Alone. Totally alone. He shuddered, eyes swinging around desperately to see someone. He forced his rising fear down, focusing on the voice.
"To remind you that deep beneath the layers of deviousness, you have a spark of decency. Perhaps you could blow on that spark occasionally," said the voice. There was a flash of light and something glinted in the darkness, a spark of gold. Somehow, he caught it. It was a gold medallion. It lay at the very center of his open palm and glowed in the darkness with a life of its own. There was a hole in it: dead center. His fingers slowly curled over it.
Although he couldn't see, he could feel the ground beneath him shaking and beginning to fall apart. He tried with all his might, but he couldn't help but yell as he plummeted straight through the air.
The boy arced straight up on his bed, gasping for breath. His heart thudded madly in his ribcage. He took a few moments to calm his racing breaths. When he opened his eyes once more, sapphire eyes gazed dully at the open window. That dream. he had been having such dreams on and off for over the past two years. His gaze fell at his clenched fist. He opened them slowly. There was nothing there. But his fingers had been clenched tightly around something he thought he had that the imprints had dug into his soft flesh.
He was missing something. He didn't know what it was, but he was missing something. His attention was drawn to the window where headlights from a car glowed. The vehicle was makings its way down to where the estate was. Strange. There were not many visitors after dark.
He would have gotten up to investigate but sleep was calling him back to the pillows once more. Gently, he lay down and curled up in the ring of light the moon made on his bed. They once said that people who slept by the light of the moon went mad. But he had seen the full moon before with someone. Someone who had said .
Sleep claimed the youth, and this time his dreams were untroubled and serene.
Intermezzo I: In the dark
One day after the Tater heist.
Mercury was standing amidst darkness atop a triangular platform. His face twisted in a grimace. One hand held a shoulder that had been clipped by a blast from a Neutrino. He had not fared so well from his firefight with Captain Kelp and his squad. His cloak was ripped and it hung in tattered shreds about his shoulder. His features were ashen underneath the darkened complexion. His left cheek suffered from a cut that would not heal. If he were a regular sprite, the magic would heal that. But no more. Oh well. Small prices to pay for a greater gift.
An unusual sprite in an unusual place. All around him was darkness that seemed to undulate like a serpent. There was a greenish tinge to this darkness, almost like slime. The platform he was standing upon was extremely old. It was of a plain, stone build except for the small stairs leading up to it. There were flowing designs on either side of the steps reaching up towards the top. The platform could only be discerned for the faint light falling on it as though from a great height.
"I'm okay," he said aloud although no one was near. "I was caught in a firefight with that muscle moron, Kelp. I got followed, yes, but nothing happened to me. I think so."
He visibly flinched at something. "It was really only a matter of time," he said before his voice was silenced. "We should be proud and show everyone the truth." He paused once more, "No, only Holly did. Holly Short. She's the first female officer in Recon squad. Y-yes." His shoulder shook and his face whipped violently to the side as though something had hit him. "You said I could do it to anyone I wanted!" he protested, stumbling on his feet. "Holly would be perfect as one of us." He shuddered, took a deep breath, and said, "No, no, I didn't. Kelp got in the way. I don't know if she was. I don't know how they followed me. Holly updated her wings and she was able to catch up. She must have radioed her coordinates to Foaly if she wasn't already being tracked with her locator." He frowned. "They probably must have taken her to the Healing Center. Yes, yes, I will." His face paled at words no one else but he could hear. "Yeah, I will as soon as you heal me. Yes, I know. She's dangerous."
Mercury sighed, "Thank you, Father." A few minutes later, red light began surrounding the platform and it engulfed his tall figure within.
Two days after the last scene in Act One.
Holly glared balefully at Corporal Grub Kelp's waddling behind as they skirted the shielded throng of fairies dancing under the full moon. The couple was far enough away from the drunken crowd for any to notice them. Just in case, Kelp had shielded and Holly had wrapped an extra long cam foil sheet around her like a cloak. Their objective was to complete the Ritual, but it also needed to be done in absolute secrecy. The last thing Holly needed was for rumors underground about the freak Holly Short going aboveground. But still.
Of all the people who would be assigned to escort her aboveground to Tara, it had to be him. The one fairy who could find a thousand and one excuses not to do his job, the one fairy who could make up a thousand and one excuses not to do anything, and the one fairy who could make up a thousand and one complaints about everything.
Someone up there must really despise her.
The Corporal was escorting her to Tara specifically to ensure that nothing happened to her from completing the Ritual up until she was dropped off in Dublin. The team underground had rushed to prepare Holly once approval from the Council was given to make it in time for the full moon.
Holly winced at the memory. The Council had been extremely difficult to convince. If it hadn't been for Commander Root vouching full support for Holly and Wing Commander Vinyaya's faith in her, they wouldn't have gone through with it at all. There were conditions of course.
She had to remain completely disguised at all times was one. Another condition was that Foaly would be monitoring her most times. Thirdly, she was to remain in constant contact with the LEP to report her findings. Fourthly, all her fairy equipment had explosives implanted in them in case of discovery. Fifthly, she was to obey commands at all times. And of course, one could not forget that she needed to have her magic with her. Just to make sure, she was ordered to complete the Ritual in the most magical place on Earth.
The Council was not the only people who had been reluctant to let Holly go. The warlock meds had been almost adamant in making Holly stay. Her condition had been stable, true, but they wanted to conduct further tests just in case. Holly shuddered at the thought of being an experiment or a specimen they would dissect in their labs. No way was she staying for them.
Ahh, the magic was calling to her. Holly had plucked an acorn seed in a dark shadow of the mighty oak where the fairy revelers would not notice her. Grub Kelp was inspecting his new boots that seemed to have a few spots on from walking in the dirt. He opened his mouth and Holly rolled her eyes. Without a doubt, he was going to complain.
The elf decided to ignore him and began walking far away. She cast a regretful look back to the shielded fairies. They were dancing and frolicking in a wild manner under the full moon. It had been a long time since she had danced under the moon as well. There was a great chance that she might never dance under it if the magic did not work.
About five hundred feet away, the red haired fairy chose a dark spot near the water, secluded from the stray fairies that were streaming to the chosen spot near Tara. There were large trees rising like sentries at the bank with extremely thick underbrush. It was far too crowded for humans and fairies alike. Nobody would be able to see them either. Kelp followed obligingly, but he was too busy telling Holly about his boots and complaining about her choice of location to notice much of anything.
Again, Holly resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It hadn't even bothered Grub at all that Holly had changed. He bulldozed into his whining habits as usual as if they were on chute surveillance duty. Holly wondered fleetingly if the sight of her juggling Atlantean stink balloons would be enough to make Grub stop. Probably not. She sighed before turning her attention to the task at hand.
The female licked her lips nervously. There really was no predictable outcome to this Ritual. The magic not returning to her would be one of the kinder courses of action to tell the truth. She might just be struck dead on the spot. That was also possible. Don't think about it, Holly, don't think about it, she told herself.
She fought with the underbrush until she was near the water. Then Holly knelt and dug her left hand into the soft damp Earth. She handled it delicately, turning it over, before deciding on a comfortable spot. Her right hand then dug into the space, and she whispered, "I return you to the Earth. And claim the gift that is my right."
Nothing happened for several moments. Dread washed over Holly. Even Corporal Kelp was watching now. Just as he was about to voice the anxious question waiting in his throat, a flood of magic descended on Holly like a tidal wave. Magic collected from everything: the trees, the air, the rocks, the Earth, even from the very Moon and stars. It shimmered to the visible spectrum and flashed spectacularly. It looked as if a flash bomb had exploded, illuminating a circle with a fifty-foot radius, and Holly at the center.
The individual sparks banded together into concentric waves before slamming into Holly. The elf was suspended several feet from the ground, twitching at the intensity of the magic crashing into her. The magic poured into every fiber of her being, cramming into every pore. In a mere matter of seconds, there was not a bit of her fully saturated with it. This was not like the previous Rituals she had completed before. This felt entirely different. Yet more came, faster and faster. All of this came inside her, filling her in a space she never knew was empty before. Her spine arced and her limbs thrashed, trembling at the full force. This felt so good. A wild laugh tore out her throat.
Grub looked frightened. The force of the magic had created a forceful gale whipping around Holly. He firmly attached himself to a tree whose leaves were shaking and boughs creaking underneath the intensity of the light. This assignment was not going as planned. Holly Short was supposed to, at best, regain her magic as well as her normal form and go back underground. If she regained only her magic, then she was to be escorted to the drop off point. If she did not, then she was to be escorted back underground anyway. This was a covert operation with high security. He had been fairly confident no one saw him or her but no guarantees now. He may as well have shot fireworks into the sky for all the attention the magic was doing. Really, this was not supposed to happen. The magic was in question of not returning to Holly. It was not supposed to come in overdose. Besides, he had never heard of over a minute of power restoring Rituals. He knew that the most they could go on was a minute.
Just when Grub thought of contacting HQ for further instructions, the lights stopped. The last bands were absorbed inside Holly and the remaining dispersed into the air. The fairy was dropped back to the ground and would have landed most ungracefully had it not been for her quick reflexes and training in the LEP academy. She landed catlike on her feet. Grub goggled at her from behind the tree.
Holly looked most surprised. She rose weakly, unsure of herself. In the Ritual, she had hoped that she might change back to her true form. Instead, she seemed more solidly big than ever. Not only that, the magic was gone. She could feel it no longer. She felt no different from when she was drained of her magic. Panic swelled inside her.
"What.what's happened to me?" she asked hoarsely for the second time in a week.
Grub approached from behind, brown eyes looking alarmed and afraid. "C- Captain," he began but did not continue.
Holly had reared back, stumbling away from him. "What happened to me!" she cried in desperation. "Where did it go? Where did all the magic go!" The distraught fairy called it back but nothing, absolutely nothing responded. She gasped for breath.
"H-Holly!" screamed Grub. "Wait! Wait a minute!" He watched in panic as the taller fairy stumbled around, eyes half mad. Worse, it would only be a matter of time before the other fairies grew brave enough to venture into the undergrowth. "Holly, listen to me! We can open a channel to Foaly! We can figure it out! Holly!" But it was no use. Holly was not listening to him now.
Breathing sharply, Holly wheeled around, but she was not used to such quick movements in her new form. The female stumbled and fell. Her knee scraped the ground and blood spilled from the open wound. The younger of the Kelp brothers called out to her, but she wasn't listening. She wasn't listening any more because she saw the magic zipping her wound closed. It had not deserted her after all. It was still there, automatically healing her.
"Grub," she said, "Did you see?" Grub looked at her questioningly, still frightened of her.
"Oh come here, you baby!" snapped Holly brusquely. Grub immediately followed. This was the Holly he knew: commanding and to the point. Experimentally, Holly picked up a broken shell from the riverside and slashed her forearm. Blood spilled, but was quickly zipped up by magic. "It's here after all," she said. "It's inside me. I just can't call to it."
Grub, who had looked terrified at Holly wounding herself, nodded blankly. "Uh, yeah." muttered the Corporal. "Lemme just go and call Commander Root on that."
"Oh, no, you don't," said Holly, pouncing on the smaller fairy. "Listen, Root said that I could proceed with the mission so long as the magic returned to me. It did, didn't it?"
Grub nodded mutely. Holly was bearing down on him most threateningly and he had no desire to be squashed.
"That means we can proceed with the mission as planned," nodded Holly satisfactorily. "Now, we had better go before fairies start coming in. Let's get back to the vehicle and place the call. We're going to Dublin."
Grub nodded mutely once more. Who was he to argue with a superior officer in both rank and size? Wordlessly, he gave her the small case containing her earpieces. Holly accepted it and slipped them on. The two of them started jogging swiftly and silently away from the area.
"Oh and Grub." called Holly to the younger fairy as he began walking away to the fairy terminal. "If I hear one word of this spilled out to anyone, anyone, and I swear I'll tell LEP the one time you peed in your jumpsuit while we were containing those goblins from the B'WaKell."
Grub jumped as though she had hit him with a buzz baton. "You wouldn't dare," he said loudly.
"Wouldn't I?" challenged Holly.
Corporal Kelp paused, realizing his situation. Holly was not Trouble. Therefore, he did not know of as many embarrassing stories about Trouble as he did of Holly. The most he knew of her were from the Artemis Fowl stories circulating around the Lower Elements and the few times Trouble talked about Holly. "All right," sulked the elf.
"That's a good fairy," winked Holly. She switched on the radio option over her earpieces. "Foaly, you there?"
"Liar, liar, pants on fire," sang Foaly over the frequency. "You should tell Root the truth."
"You saw?"
"Of course I saw it," said Foaly, returning to his businesslike voice. "I was monitoring Grub's helmet feed from the start. Besides, that lightshow caught my cameras right away. There'll be a squad coming down there any minute now."
"Foaly, don't tell Root," begged the elf immediately. "You know he'll never let me go, but I have to do this."
"Holly," said the centaur reproachfully. "I don't mind breaking a few rules here and there, but there is a limit to what I do. That thing you experienced. that was not an ordinary Ritual. I have no idea what happened to you."
Holly bit her lip. "True." she admitted. "I'm not sure myself."
"So what did you feel?" asked the golden-eyed centaur, leaning back in his swivel chair. "I saw so much magic in one area than I've ever seen in a squadron of LEP elf commandos running hot."
"I felt good," said Holly, looking surprised herself. "It was kind of like running hot. but so much better. Everything I feel in a Ritual, a thousand times more intense."
"I see," said Foaly, and Holly knew he was frowning from the Ops Booth. "And?"
"It disappeared. I don't know why or how. All I know is that it's inside me. It heals my wounds automatically, but I can't do much with it. Nothing at all to tell you the truth."
"Holly, that's bad," warned the centaur. "If you don't have command of your magic."
"Foaly, listen to me," said the elf urgently. "I can't use my magic in excess in any case if I don't want to blow my cover. The primary purpose of the magic was to heal me in case of emergency. Plus, what good am I going to do underground? I'll just be stuck bothering you in Ops. Foaly, please. Let me handle this."
The centaur considered it. Grub was walking back, presumably with the clearance. "All right," he relented. "Fine, fine. But if Root finds out, then I had no part in this."
"Absolutely no idea," promised Holly.
"All right, Captain," said Foaly. "I have to break up now. Magma flares are coming up. Best of luck to you."
"You too," responded Holly switching off the transmission. "Ready?" she asked Grub.
A few hours later.
The night air streamed inside an open window. It was chill and cool, slipping cold fingers inside the room. The full moon traveled outsidde, bathing whatever it could find with an ethereal, silver glow. The incandescent orb sailed past the vault of dark heaven, drawing silvery, gray clouds as its cape.
Slowly, very slowly, it inched its way across the room, revealing a carpeted floor, a desk, and finally the foot of a bed. As slowly as the tides but as inexorably as the rise and fall of the sun, it illumed the figure sleeping underneath the white sheets.
The boy had night black hair like the shadows themselves. They seemed so dark they almost had a violet sheen in them. The boy had a creamy complexion, as pale as the moon itself, and long, dark sooty lashes that contrasted with the pallor of his skin. His features were finely chiseled, like a sculpture.
The youth tossed in his comfortable bed. His brows furrowed in concentration and thought. His flickering eyes beneath his lids suggested a dream.
I know.. I know that I am dreaming. I see glimpses of someone. Auburn hair? Pointy ears. flashing hazel eyes. This person.. No, not a person. I know her. I know her. The boy's vision was dim, as though he were watching a scene at night with sunglasses. He caught flashes of something. someone. Several people. They teased the corner of his vision, but danced back into the darkness before closer inspection could reveal their secrets. He tried to call out to them, to say something, but his voice refused to cooperate.
Dim, shadowy figures teased his eyes once more. There was something.no, someone burrowing underneath the Earth as though it were water. There was someone else, a short, squat figure. He seemed to be smoking a cigar. The lit tip was the only light in the surrounding darkness.
A scene played itself before his eyes. That girl again. she was standing some ways in front of him with her back turned towards him. Wings graced her back. No, they were not wings. They were mechanical wings. How? She glanced back, her eyes gazing at him sidelong with hints of playful merriment in them but underlined with fiery strength. She lifted her right hand to display her thumbs up before she lifted up into the air, a graceful take off. Then she vanished out of sight.
It was snatched away from him once more as he heard a voice yelling at him. He tried to turn around to see who it was, but all around him was darkness. His breath caught in his throat. Darkness. Alone. Totally alone. He shuddered, eyes swinging around desperately to see someone. He forced his rising fear down, focusing on the voice.
"To remind you that deep beneath the layers of deviousness, you have a spark of decency. Perhaps you could blow on that spark occasionally," said the voice. There was a flash of light and something glinted in the darkness, a spark of gold. Somehow, he caught it. It was a gold medallion. It lay at the very center of his open palm and glowed in the darkness with a life of its own. There was a hole in it: dead center. His fingers slowly curled over it.
Although he couldn't see, he could feel the ground beneath him shaking and beginning to fall apart. He tried with all his might, but he couldn't help but yell as he plummeted straight through the air.
The boy arced straight up on his bed, gasping for breath. His heart thudded madly in his ribcage. He took a few moments to calm his racing breaths. When he opened his eyes once more, sapphire eyes gazed dully at the open window. That dream. he had been having such dreams on and off for over the past two years. His gaze fell at his clenched fist. He opened them slowly. There was nothing there. But his fingers had been clenched tightly around something he thought he had that the imprints had dug into his soft flesh.
He was missing something. He didn't know what it was, but he was missing something. His attention was drawn to the window where headlights from a car glowed. The vehicle was makings its way down to where the estate was. Strange. There were not many visitors after dark.
He would have gotten up to investigate but sleep was calling him back to the pillows once more. Gently, he lay down and curled up in the ring of light the moon made on his bed. They once said that people who slept by the light of the moon went mad. But he had seen the full moon before with someone. Someone who had said .
Sleep claimed the youth, and this time his dreams were untroubled and serene.