Alrighty. Another chapter a few weeks before the Europe release of the 5th book! Huzzah! Wow, I'm getting behind, aren't I? Lol.

Well, here's another heart-warming Christmas Special in July! Merry Un-Christmas!

Chapter 5 --- Christmas Melody

"City side walks, precious side walks. Dressed in holiday style."

Artemis groaned, taking the cool wash cloth off his forehead. Not another Christmas song. Fourteen were enough, but now this? It was the worst. His mother played it over and over, he knew every note, beat, tap, chime, and word of this confounded song. And that said something since he wasn't a genius anymore. "Can you please turn that confounded drabble off!"

"Why?" Darren asked, humming along with the music. "I like it."

The raven-haired youth rolled his eyes. The Flamer was just doing that to get on his nerves, he knew. Even that he knew without his ingenuity. In fact, he confessed that he still knew a lot of things, most were typical, juvenile things, but he knew them. He knew things that he thought he wouldn't without his smarts. Fate seemed to have a different plan. His memory was still excellent, his eyesight sharp, his accent clever, and yet he felt as dumb as a primate.

Holly looked over the young Fowl. "You're quiet."

"I always am," Artemis replied, sitting straight in his seat. Searching through a stash of goodies he kept below his seat, he froze as he realized that most of the things inside he didn't know how to work. Most required manual codes written in, large sums of numbers to unlock them, or godly computer skills. He had none of them. But at least an IPOD didn't require too many neurons.

Sticking the earpieces in his ears, he scrolled down the list of songs until Coldplay came up, and then sank down in his seat again to listen to 'Clocks'. His peace of mind didn't last long.

Duke looked over to Artemis with a sneer, then jibbed Darren in the ribs. "I'm surprised he knows how to work an IPOD, the poor sap."

"Shush you," Darren scolded after a few laughs himself. "It's not his fault that he's forced to rise up to our level." Artemis quirked an eyebrow to the two young men. "What you looking at, Arty?"

"Two stupid dogs," the raven haired youth replied, turning the volume on his IPOD up so it drowned out everything except his own sloth-like thoughts. After the song ended, he scrolled over to Weird Al Yankovich. It had become an affinity to listen to strange, outlandish songs by this strange man. He had developed a taste for it over the past several months, and now that he had 'risen' to the level of 9th graders, he didn't feel like dirt while listening to it.

Especially Your Horoscope for Today.

Sullenly, he turned his eyes out of the window, to the green sloping hills of Ireland and the grassy outcrops. Windmills wove and swooped in the distance, herds of goats roamed each little crest, and quiet, quaint old men rode by on bicycles, enjoying the wonderful weather. At one point on their journey, Butler took a detour through a small town. It was one like Mrs. Fowl collected in miniature porcelain houses. A beautiful little town with quiet people. Artemis envied them, their carefree life, their bright smiles. Maybe they could train his smile to be as bright as theirs . . . maybe then he could please his mother.

"Fowl? Listen!"

Artemis snapped out of his awkward trance with a sharp gasp, Holly coarsely pulled the earphones from his ears. "Oh, what?"

With a sigh, the elf rolled her eyes and tapped her watch. "We're almost there. Get with the program please, we're not asking much from you, you know."

He smiled crudely, remembering when they had first entered the limousine. Holly had told him straight-forward that he wouldn't do anything, but didn't dare to say the reason why. He knew why. Everyone knew why. Who would profit from a regular rich Irish boy, besides investors, banks, salesmen, and stockbrokers? Holly had told him repeatedly that he was only coming along for a rouse, just to say that he came, as live bait so to say. Just as bait. Artemis hated the prospect. He felt useless, more-so now than ever.

With his thoughts set aside, he nodded to the elf. "I know."

"Okay, glad to see you listening," Holly said some-what gentler. Either she felt sorry that she had said the former so harshly, or she was ashamed that a normal mud-boy rode in the car with her. "Here's the plan . . ."

And Artemis tuned her out. Not once would she say his name. Not once would she mention him in her ingenious plan. She didn't, he knew, and suddenly felt a longing to jump behind the wheel once more and take to his drawing board. To take to his plans, his schemes, his outrageously entertaining exploits . . .

Artemis sighed and pressed his forehead against the cool window. No plans for him. No parts to play here.

"Memories, Christmas Memories, they're the sweetest ones I know . . ."

He wished the radio would die.

And in that moment, static filled the limo.

No one seemed to notice except for Artemis and his life-long friend, as he soon found out when the Eurasian glanced into his rearview mirror to his charge. Both nodded quietly and began to take precaution. It could have been the unseasonably rainy weather they had suddenly bumbled upon, but Artemis doubted it, and if any of the other occupants would have been paying attention instead of fussing over who would stay with the rich kid, they would have noticed it too.

It wasn't just the radio that had gone quiet --- oh no, that would have been too convenient --- the whole countryside sat in a puddle of brackish, deathly silence. Like someone had plugged everyone's ears with cotton, then pulled a blanket over the hills and crests.

Artemis didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. That was why he resorted to climbing over the quarreling occupants, through the limousine window, and into the front seat. If he stepped outside, he feared something worse than silence might strike.

"What do you think it is?" Butler asked calmly, although the teen did find him reaching for the magnum at his belt holster. "A trick?"

"Too well-planned. Keep driving." He didn't want their guests to know about this silence until the last possible second. Partly because it gave Artemis a sense of ingenious, but it would later hurtle those thoughts into utter stupidity. "I'm sure it's nothing."

The Eurasian frowned. "I doubt it's nothing Artemis ---"

"I said," his charge interrupted coolly, "keep driving."

Against his own regards, Butler kept driving, yet slower than before, eyes as sharp as arrows, taking in every upturned turf of grass, every root, every disarrayed rock. Just in case something would spring out, would catch them off guard. His charge did not notice.

Or if he did, this new Artemis didn't care.

Both sat like stone for a while until the squabbling in the backseat turned into an uproar, with shoes flying and fists waving. Hopefully, the would never know, and as Artemis rolled up the window to the back, something indeed waddled out from the crests and hills. Something small and insignificant, but Butler stopped anyway.

"Isn't he always on time?" Artemis frowned and unbuckled his seat belt, finally feeling the coast clear as he stepped out of the black limousine.

In front of the car stood Mulch Diggums. He held his hat in front of him innocently, and grinned up to Artemis like an old friend. But if Artemis would have known better, he would have known to stay in the car.

Because that dwarf turned his backside to the car and lowered his flap. Artemis ducked behind the car just in time. Dirt and grime rained down from the sky, and Butler clicked his windshield wipers on.

"Great," Artemis grumbled, flicking the clomps of dirt from his blue hoodie. "That's all I need now."

"What you rightfully deserve, Artemis Fowl!" called Mulch. "Selling me out! I can't believe you!"

Wait. Someone sold Mulch out? Standing again, he brushed a piece of grass from his hair and asked, "What?"

Mulch buttoned up his flap and rolled his eyes. "What what what --- you're the genius, you figure it out!" When the boy stared at him blankly, he responded, "You told LEPrecon about me! My whereabouts you filthy human!"

"Filthy?"

"Well . . . you know what I mean! You're the only one who could figure out where I was! How many gold coins Arty? Huh? I hope it's a lot, D'Arvit you!"

In defeat, the teen held up his hands with a shrug. He honestly had no idea what Mulch jabbered on about, but the silence still plagued the countryside, and it got quieter each moment. Mulch also felt uncomfortable, because he squirmed and plucked at his wiry beard. "Alright," the boy sighed, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about, but can you get out of the center of the road? You're an inconvenience."

That was the wrong thing to say to a dwarf. "Inconvenience? INCONVENIENCE! I'm not the one who rooted a fellow ally out of hiding! What would you do if you had the whole squad on your tail when ---"

"Mulch," the impatient boy growled, fists clenched.

" --- when you're sitting on the toilet minding your own business when wham! They come barging in and you have to escape by digging through the sewer! ---"

"Mulch."

" --- oooh, and that ain't all! Now I travel halfway across Ireland and here you are trying to run a poor dwarf over! I see how you play, Artemis. A backstabber, aye? That's all you filthy mud people do. I've lived with 'em enough to know ---"

"MULCH!"

"What?"

Artemis wanted to strangle the dwarf, but instead, the silence got to him so fast, his ears popped, and his sight went gray. That impounded silence brought him to a crouch, and churned inside his head, that quiet dull gray head of his, and filled it with fuzziness.

"Arty?" Mulch asked, looking oddly to the squatting boy with hands clasped over his ears. "Mud boy?"

He didn't respond to any of it, he just kept his ground. It was all he could do until his ears finally popped again, and his vision colorized. But by then, the peculiar headache erupted into a savage pounding worse than a migraine --- as if his a giant ogre slowly peeled off his forehead.

The ex-genius finally dropped to one knee.

Then did the silence begin to make its appearance. Small, slithering silver coils crept up behind the dwarf, and hovered like a striking cobra. Swaying back and forth, back and forth as if it sized the small dwarf up. Artemis shot his eyes up and said in a grunt, "Run."

Mulch Diggum was dumbfounded. "What?"

So the next best thing to do was to grab him by the closest thing to Artemis --- his beard --- and swing him into the car. Artemis took little time in opening the door, he just flung the dwarf inside as fast as possible. Then did he himself step into the vehicle. But he couldn't close the door because he wasn't fast enough. Steel slithered up his foot.

"Artemis," Bulter said fatherly, "close the door."

The poor boy looked so pale as the little thin wire inched itself up his leg, poked around the skin on his knee, and dove into the warm flesh. "I can't." He gritted his teeth so hard, a filling cracked. The pain was almost as bad as his headache. Almost. Yet that headache proved to be useful, it let him think. "Remember that taser in the back seat safe?" he asked the Butler.

Butler nodded, slowly moving his eyes to his charge's leg.

The wire began to slither its way under the skin, up to the inside of his thigh. Artemis tried to show composure. If they didn't do something soon, he could wave goodbye to passing on any of his genes. "Get it and pull up my pants leg. Now, please."

The Eurasian rolled down the window to the back seats and snappily ordered Darren to unlock the safe and hand him the taser. The Flamer did with the question why, but the Butler didn't answer. Darren handed over the taser to him, who in turn reached over Artemis's lap and pulled up his pants leg.

The silvery wire swirled up the teen's leg, up to his knees where it punctured the skin bloodlessly, and disappeared. Though Butler had an idea where it ventured to as his charge grew more nervous, clutching onto his seat painfully.

"Now Butler," Artemis commanded through gritted teeth. "Right now."

So Butler charged up the taser and stuck it to the wire. Electric jolts hopped through the wire, up and up into the flesh where it sizzled the skin and into the blood and bone and muscle. With the painful jolt, the leg gave a kick and Artemis bit down a horrible scream. The taser had stopped the procession of the wire, but it didn't take it out.

"Okay," his charge said, swallowing blood from his bitten lip, "pull it out."

This the Eurasian did with care, then bandaged Artemis's knee up tightly. His leg was numb, as was his hip and most of his right side, but it worked, and silently Artemis congratulated himself for doing something right. Then he looked around for Mulch, and found him gorging through a package of potato crisps.

Artemis tried to sound professional, but he came out sounding like a seriously injured teen with a higher-pitched voice. "Who in God's name told you to suspect me! And what the hell were those---those things!"

It was easy to tell that Mulch knew the answer, and his squabble with Artemis was just a rouse.

"How much did they pay you, Diggums?" Everyone who knew Artemis wasn't one to lose his cool very often, but being attacked by an unknown thing and almost having his manhood taken away would put any self-respecting male in a bad mood. "Two million? Ten?"

"Err, ah ---" Mulch gulped down the rest of the potato crisps before he answered. "You see, this pretty lady gave me twenty million ---"

"Twenty?" Artemis reasoned. "Is that worth your life?"

On queue the Eurasian picked Mulch up by his collar and held him up tightly. There wasn't a way in heaven or hell that dwarf would be leaving the Fowl limousine any time soon.

"Is it?"

"Well, ah, you see . . . I'm broke. And I thought Opal could ---"

"Opal?" Artemis didn't believe his ears, and neither did the other occupants spying on them from the back seat. Holly hovered just over Artemis's shoulder. "Opal paid you."

"No."

"So who ---"

"Jon Spiro."

Artemis's eyebrow twitched. "Jon Spiro?" Mulch nodded vigorously. "Ah. And what were those wiry machines? A new invention?"

"Straight from development. Spiro's done the works, mudboy. Everything. Funded and all. Stole fairy technology, he did."

The interrogator glanced to Holly for backing, and the elf nodded, hand on her earpiece as Foaly spoke through it. "Says a few things were stolen. Nothing groundbreaking."

"Then what did that to my knee? Don't tell me living machines are ---"

"Wait," Holly held up a hand. "Foaly says those weren't machines. The spindly things? He made them himself, his latest invention in finding lost items. Artemis, there isn't a way Opal or Spiro could have made those. Are you sure it was ---"

"Holly." The boy closed his eyes and tried to calm down. His mother always warned him about his temper sometimes, but now that he didn't have his genius backing him up, it flared out of control worse than ever. Maybe some of those breathing exercises were needed, but he wouldn't give them the time of day right now. "I might be stupid, but I am not witless. And tell Foaly I did see those wires, and tell him that they do not work."

Holly looked at him blankly, and clearly on the other end of the receiver, Foaly did the same. So Artemis explained it properly.

"I haven't lost what it was searching for!"

Then did Holly blush. "Oh. Well, he said there also --- umm --- they can be also used to find things in general. Foaly says they're very useful."

"Useful? Oh yes, tell him there are so useful, I wouldn't mind him trying them out himself!" The teen spun back around in his chair and locked his side door. "Butler, lets get going again before it comes back."

Darren and Duke grinned from the back seat, "You mean before they find out that you haven't been whacked?"

"Shut it!"

While the teens began to bicker again, Butler --- being the most mature and somewhat reasonable one out of the bunch --- went on with his own business and started the engine again, put it in gear, then began to drive.

The limousine gave a start, throwing both the teens in the back and Artemis frontward. At least Darren and Duke had nice cushioning when the car jerked. Artemis had a dashboard and glass.

He thumped up against the glass and silently cursed. "Butler, tell me the car didn't stop."

The manservant tried the limo again, yet this time it didn't even budge. He looked out the side mirror to find silvery wires wrapping around the tires, and slowly inching up the door. On Artemis's side the wire tapped the window and began to scratch.

"Butler!" Artemis yelped, scooting into the center.

"Get out," he growled. "Sunroof."

"Run for it!" He couldn't hardly believe his ears. If he needed his brain, it would be now. Right now. But didn't just a few days ago he wanted to be normal? Well, if this was normal, he hated it. The fast heartbeat, the uncontrolled thoughts --- the utter fear of helplessness. "How ---"

From behind, Darren grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "We go up, genius," he pointed to the sunroof. "C'mon." But Artemis was somewhat numb from the waist down.

"Dude," Duke suddenly grabbed Artemis's arm and heaved him helplessly through the window. "Remember the No Man's Left Behind act? Yeah, we're enforcing it. Go."

So Artemis went, halfway numb, through the sunroof and onto the hood of the car where he found the extent o the damage to be horrible. Those silvery wires twisted and turned upon the car. Opal and Spiro must really hate him, but who could blame them?

If he had the choice, he'd hate himself too. Well, sort of.

Instead, he reached back down into the sunroof and yanked Holly up after him, Darren and Duke took Mulch as they surfaced, and Butler remained to be seen. Until, of course, he kicked open the driver's side with force and told them to run for it.

Then did Artemis run for the second time in his life. He ran so fast, even with his numbing leg, that it was hard for him not to trip on his own shoes. And then, farther down the road, there was a red corvette, a man leaning on its hood, looking rather smug.

"So," said the finely dressed man, "you managed to escape? How like you, Fowl."

Then Artemis back-stepped in fear for the first time in his life.