Midnight Brings the Best Revenge

Chapter 2: Connection?

-TWO DAYS PREVIOUS-

Captain Holly Short sat down in the chair across from the empty seat of Commander Julius Root. She had been called in to discuss the dangerous matter at hand.

Of course, the matter was the disappearances. About twenty faeries of different kinds had illegally made their ways above ground within the past three weeks. All of them had been faeries with bad reputations...very popular in the crime business. Several of them had been given terms in jail, all of which escaped and were on the "Faeries Most Wanted List."

She twirled around in her seat. Nasty business, it was. Once the LEPrecon figured out that the criminals had gone to the land of the Mud Men, they had sent out several squads to seek them out and bring them back to The Haven.

Fortunately, most of the squads had been successful in finding and returning them.

Unfortunately, the 12 that they had found were all dead.

Each of the twelve had faced an obviously painful death. One had had his throat severed by a very jagged and rusty blade. Another's eyes had been plucked out of their sockets and placed delicately into his mouth. The tenth one they had picked up was one of the more grotesque deaths. The commander didn't want to get into to great detail, but he had told her it involved a rope, a severed hand, a tongue and a very bloodied rapier. Of course, one couldn't forget the faerie who had been done in the old fashion way: disembowelment.

"Short," said a voice behind her, breaking up her thoughts. She swerved in her chair to face Commander Root. His face was of normal color, which was a good sign, but he was frowning. But, then again, Root only smiled once in a blue moon, so this did not mean anything.

Holly nodded her head and, with an airy tone, replied, "Commander."

Root walked around his desk and sat down in his seat. "We have a situation here, Short."

The elf rolled her eyes at her superior and said, "Sir, we ALWAYS have a situation. If we didn't, we'd all be out of jobs."

Root didn't crack even a slight grin. "No jokes in my office, Captain. Now listen here: it's about the murders."

Holly stopped fidgeting in the chair and looked at him seriously for the first time."The murders, sir? What information do we have? Have any of the remaining eight missing been found?"

"Slow down Captain," he said, raising a hand. "We have found three more of the bodies: one in the Mississippi River, one on the coast of Australia and another on buried under some snow in the Arctic. I don't want to get started on how they died; you know how brutal they've been." Holly nodded and let him continue. "But that's not the worst of it. You see, there have been more disappearances down here."

Holly froze. "What?!"

The Commander sighed. "Yes, you heard me right. In addition to the twenty that escaped before, we now have seventeen more missing, bringing the total to 37. Three of them are ex-convicts, five of them are on the most wanted list, eight of them are currently at large and one..." he paused, massaging the bridge of his nose. "And one is Randa Bawshan."

"Randa Bawshan?!" Holly gaped. Randa Bawshan was the host of one of the most famous fairy talk shows to date: Goblin Gossip. She was a goblin, obviously, and just as stupid as the rest of them, but she had a good heart. She dedicated her show to topics like the most stylish clothes, the best hairdo, events you wouldn't want to miss out on...it was very popular with some of the newer generation. "Was she involved in a secret crime or something?"

"That's the thing," he replied. "As far as any of us can tell, her record remains perfectly clean. It was like she just decided to get up and leave The Haven."

Now that was interesting news. All of these murders and vanishings had been connected in some way up until now. All of the previous had been evil, vile creatures. Why an innocent talk show host?

And that is when Foaly rushed in.

Root stood up abruptly and said, "D'Arvit, centaur! Can't you learn to knock?!"

"Sorry, Root-honey," Foaly said sarcastically. "Listen up, I've got news!"

Holly sighed and raised her eyebrows. "Don't we all?"

Foaly ignored the Captain's comment and continued. "I was looking around the Mud Men's online newspapers to see if they caught on to any of the murders of our dear, fellow faerie friends."

"And?" Root asked, expectantly.

"Didn't catch a thing," said the centaur. "But don't get too settled in that brain of yours. There's more."

Holly glanced at her commander. This couldn't be good.

"Even though they haven't yet gotten whiff of our problems above ground, I was able to look up a few of their own." Foaly said, matter-of-factly. "Turns out, we aren't the only ones who are having problems with missing peoples and murders. Seventeen Mud Men have mysteriously vanished within the past few weeks and all of them turned up dead."

Root and Holly made eye contact and then both returned their gazes to Foaly. This was worse than not good. This was horrible.

"They were found in rivers, lakes, and stuff like that," continued Foaly. "All of them died by loss of blood. Morticians found puncture wounds on the inner skin of their right thighs." Holly froze (again). That method of killing sounded VERY familiar. "Not to mention the fact that all seventeen of them were criminals. In addition to their fabulous choice of lifestyle, they all have another connection."

Root groaned. "I don't like where this is going, Foaly. I take this doesn't have a happy ending?"

Foaly nodded. "It seems that they had been in contact with the one and only Theodore McKenzie."

"D'Arvit!" swore Root.

Unbeknownst to Artemis, Theodore McKenzie wasn't just well known above ground. He was very popular below, as well. Under a different name, however: Oravano Kei was a crook unlike any other. He had caused one of the worst cases in The Haven. Well, not as bad as the one Artemis Fowl had caused, but still pretty bad.

Oravano was an elf. As stated above, he had caused a very terrible incident called The Mall Massacre. Oravano and several other elves had showed up at one of the younger generations' shopping malls about twenty years ago. It was simply dreadful. Seventy-five dead and about three hundred injured. He had evaded the LEPrecons squads and laid low for a while. About five years later, he had been caught and accused of several minor crimes and sentenced to life in prison. (Thirty years for the small offenses, and life for the massacre.)

Of course he had escaped. He went Above Ground and mingled around the Mud Men for another ten years under the name Max Dunn. He made the mistake of running into a scout from the LEPrecon who had been on the lookout for Mulch Diggums and got into a nasty bit of fighting.

Then, about three years following that, a secret scout of the LEPrecon spied him (he's not the best master of disguise) in Reno. Ever since then, the force had been monitoring his movements. He had quite a few hits on his record as a Mud Man, not all of them pretty.

Anyway, getting back to the discussion in the office, Root's face was turning from a bright scarlet to a deep purple. A vein was pulsing on his neck and was clearly threatening to burst at any second. "D'Arvit," he swore again.

Holly turned (rather, swiveled) to face Foaly and said, "Can all these murders, faerie and Mud Men, be connected at all?"

Foaly shrugged. "Likely, and, then again, not likely. Sure, it is strange that the murders are large in number and have occurred around the same time, but the killing style is very different. The Mud Men's murders seem to be neat and fast, while ours are more...implacable."

Root sank back down into his chair, his face returning to its normal color. "You know..." he began.

"Probably," said Foaly.

"Smartass," the Commander muttered under his breath. He continued speaking in a regular voice. "I'd bet anything that, if this these slaughters are so large in the world above, Artemis Fowl is involved in some way."

Holly shook her head. "No, I don't think so," she said. When Root started to protest, she interrupted, "Trust me, Commander. That guy kidnapped me. I know what he is like and he would never kill that many men without good reason."

Foaly smiled. "Well then," he put in, "why don't we go find out if that reason exists?"