Holly yawned, then pushed her red hair behind her years. In another part of the world she was sitting on a rooftop waiting for the legendary Sphinxa, a flying image of the Sphinx in Egypt. The redhead could almost hear Artemis saying, "How very droll indeed."
Her wide green eyes were tearing up, not in sadness of course, but in boredom. Her sketchbook was resting on her lap and her three pencils sat beside her. Rich fools were what she called her clients. They gave her enough gold to last her for years just to get a sketch and photograph of the Sphinxa. According to them they wouldn't mind going themselves except they were actually paying her for the risk she was taking. Quoting Artemis, how very droll. She missed the LEP for sure. Trouble was going to be promoted to commander, Foaly was cackling evilly waiting to get on his nerves. Sooty as Foaly called Ark Sool was fun to bother but he had demanded to be transferred to another port thanks to a certain centaur.
Her watch beeped, demanding attention.
"'Ello," she said with a yawn.
"Hey Holly," the voice greeted.
Between murmurs of discontent she nearly tore apart her watch with her fingers alone. "What do you want Chix?"
"Foaly wanted me to tell you that his monitor is receiving some strange brain patterns from Artemis' brain."
"No surprise, isn't he always strange?"
She could nearly hear Chix shake her head through the clutter in her mind. Perhaps a few loose bolts would ring against the emptiness of his mind."
"Dream patterns, y'know, premonition types."
"Okay, that's it, who are you and what have you done to Chix? The Chix I know always called me babe!" Holly said, her eyes suddenly wide in realisations, hissing silently at her watch.
She calmed back down. This lack of sleep was getting to her head.
"If you want me to, I can call you babe again…" Chix offered with a tone of flirtation.
Yup, she knew it, the lack of sleep must most definitely be getting to her head.
"He's alive you know," she whispered.
"Who's alive?" Artemis demanded as she circled him, scrutinising his features.
"Commander Root, Julius. Whatever you may call him, I do not care," the thick Italian accent flowed smoothly.
"Where's your proof?" the Irish boy inquired meticulously with Juliet filing her nails nearby. "Best be inconspicuous" was her motto.
As Juliet blew the tips of her nails, the veiled face leaned in and whispered, "His memory is gone, but he is somewhere." She smiled, her molars showing clearly. "What do I get for such information?" she stated.
Amethyst eyes glimmered with greed. His ice blue orbs met the liquid amethyst, neither of which refused to deter.
"You must not be more than fifteen," he remarked coolly, refraining surprise.
"Nor you," she simply replied, feigning shock.
"I am willing to offer the Eiffel Tower," he said, his pale skin lighted up with a vampirish smile, revealing his canines.
"I am not an imbecile, you have a reputation of making fake documents which seem authentic," she stated with a wave of her hand. "I want a metric ton of gold, no less but I would appreciate more."
"How about fifty thousand euros?"
She seemed to ignore that comment. "I have heard," she purred, with the calm that probably seemed more dangerous than anger, "that you are the one responsible for returning your family to the list of the wealthy. I have also heard that you are the one who has stolen a huge fortune from a bank account which has made your own swell up to size."
"These are rumours," he replied with equality.
"But I believe everyone of them," said she, a smirk tweaking at her lips.
Artemis cleared his throat. "I'm offering fifty thousand euros for such information."
"That is much less than what I am willing to receive for such information."
The Fowl heir put his hands together, leaning back in the chair. "I do not have a metric ton of gold," he replied truthfully.
She stared into his eyes. Shifting slightly in her seat, she pulled at the hem of her shirt. "I see. In that case, the information shall not be yours. Tell the fairies to send me the gold, I do not have him, but for two metric tons, I will be glad to retrieve him."
Soon the Irish was not himself. "Who are you?" he asked with the eagerness of a young child.
"That is for me to know, and for you to never find out," she said her accent slightly neutralised in this sentence.
The accent was not her own, Artemis realised. It was real and authentic but she did not use it commonly.
Her stare did not falter. Before she said another thing she disappeared, her steely gaze the last thing the Fowl heir saw.
Artemis sat up. Violet eyes. What was the setting behind him? Perhaps he would meet the purple eyed girl there. Perhaps he would, perhaps he wouldn't. The setting was rather dark, she was probably Italian, she had raven hair which could be seen even with a veil.
He massaged his temples, murmuring several doctrines which were carved in his memory.
He looked up in realisation…
The dream may have truth.
Foaly flinched slightly.
Stumbling towards him, an elf, blood covered and gasping for air. Its skin was deathly pale nearing towards a shade of blue, the magical sparks travelled up and down his skin, but the wounds never healed. The elf's blonde hair was matted with blood, its small figure crumbling before Foaly, the blue eyes screamed help at the technical centaur.
The centaur flinched again.
His senses awakening after fully digesting the scene he rushed towards his computer. "Vox," he shouted, "immediate medical attention for the elf at coordinates 91, 83, 67, 48."
A cylindrical crystal container lowered with pipes pumping in herbs after Vox diagnosed whatever the fairy may have.
He held his breath, afraid that under lumino, if the elf had died, he would be blamed. It seemed very black for his name.
But how did he get through security right to Foaly's laboratory and without anyone noticing that he was bleeding?
The mist cleared up and Vox raised her crystal jar.
Dead, on the floor, lay an unknown creature.