"Norma really is an essential of the medium if you've even the least bit of interest in opera. BBC recently put out a review of this production, and although —"
Butler leaned over to where Artemis was sitting, keeping his voice low. "Does the group on the balcony over there look familiar?"
"Hm?"
Artemis turned away from the empty corner of their box where a very well shielded Captain Short was hovering. Craning his neck, he looked to where Butler was pointing.
The balcony across the way was packed. There didn't seem to be an empty seat in the house, and the restless energy of the crowd made it all too easy for Artemis to let his gaze be diverted away from the pair that Butler had pointed out. Focusing, his eyes landed upon the duo in the balcony with whom Butler was concerned.
It was a young girl, probably a year or two younger than himself, and an adult man just nearing his thirties. The girl's corkscrew curls that had been meticulously pinned back seemed familiar enough, and Artemis remembered that one of the young women in the café had been of the same stature.
The man, though. Artemis furrowed his brow in thought, tilting his head slightly.
The man accompanying the girl from before looked forgettable. He fit the profile of many men who had too much money and too little of a sense of how they should spend it. He sat slouched, but not so much as to be hunched over. He wore a nondescript suit, neither too extravagant nor too casual. His hair was cut in one of the faux-sensible styles that could be achieved just as easily at home, to be frank. He was average. Very nouveau-riche, Artemis added privately.
However, Artemis mused, contrary to popular belief, boring and uninteresting were not necessarily mutually inclusive. Artemis knew many boring people who were of great interest to him; some of Father's mob contacts had been some of the worst conversationalists with whom he had ever met. He did not know, however, many interesting people who partnered up with people who were uninteresting.
The girl from the café was interesting — her existence on the periphery of the Hybras affair aside, she carried herself with an energy that made the people seated around her give her space despite her age and diminutive stature.
As such, the man sitting next to her — regardless of if he was her guardian, family friend, teacher, or what have you — came off as trying a bit too hard. He was her buffer; perhaps they'd hoped that when people looked at them, they'd see an extraordinarily boring man before they'd see her. It had the opposite effect, ironically enough.
"I recognize her," Artemis finally said, breaking the silence and turning back to face Butler. "I can't say outright if she was accompanied by the same man when we were in Spain, though,"
A voice next to Artemis sighed. "I don't love the implications of why the same human is showing up at Hybras rifts."
"Fair," Artemis hummed, "but the real question is whether or not her presence is troublesome enough to divert our attention from our interdimensional friend."
Holly snorted. "Personal experience points towards human curiosity and magic being a recipe for disaster. How long do we have until the curtain goes up?"
Turning his wrist, Artemis displayed the face of his watch. "15 minutes. We've plenty of time."
"Right. Try not to cause a scene while I'm gone,"
Before Artemis could shoot back a response, he felt the air shift, indicating Holly had already sped off towards the nearby balcony.
"Do you think she'll find anything?" Butler kept his voice low, watching the duo seated across the opera house.
Tearing his eyes away from the girl and her compatriot, Artemis watched the rippling curtain below.
"Hm. Maybe, maybe not."
—
It was times like these that made Holly grateful that she had stuck with Foaly throughout the years. If someone had asked her even ten years ago if there would be hover-tech that was suited for indoor reconnaissance, she'd have laughed in their face. But Foaly had done it. Not even a stone's throw away from the sea of faces below her, and no one was the wiser.
The lights in the opera house were a rich yellow, and she could just barely make out her own silhouette amongst the flickering shadows. The blonde girl that Butler had pointed out earlier was leaning on the rail of the balcony, drumming her fingers impatiently. Next to her sat a man of considerable height, watching the curtain flutter below them. Neither spoke.
The sides of Holly's mouth quirked upwards slightly, her dimples deepening subconsciously. She threw a glance over to where Artemis and Butler were. Neither of her human friends showed any signs of awareness that she was looking at them. Both of them, however, were unwittingly mirroring the two opera attendees she was investigating — she'd be hard pressed to decide who seemed the most unapproachable. Butler's arms were crossed, and Artemis was hardly any better — she wouldn't say he was scowling, per se, but Artemis inevitably wound up making the 'neutral face of displeasure' whenever he was focused intently upon something he couldn't quite figure out.
She powered down her hover-tech slightly, decreasing her altitude. Now only a few meters from the girl and man situated on the balcony, she brought her helmet's camera up.
Easy.
Holly took a quick look at the image before deciding that its quality was fine. Foaly would be able to use it, and it wasn't as if the lighting in here was going to improve if she waited. Sparing the two below her one last glance, she allowed her gear to lift her high above the balcony.
—
Minerva Paradizo.
The text on the screen of her helmet appeared mere moments after Holly uploaded the photo to Foaly's cloud databank. Eyes still scanning for anything of importance, Holly alighted onto the ledge of the opera box. Her hover-tech protested slightly, its fans humming softly in protest, and she could tell from the sudden alertness in Butler's gaze that he had heard her.
"I'm back," she called out softly, unshielding, and his shoulders relaxed.
"Who is she?" Butler asked, keeping his voice low.
"Minerva Paradizo"
Butler looked at Artemis, who shook his head.
"We don't know her," Butler sighed, pursing his lips.
Holly snorted. "Funny, because her file implies that you all should run in similar circles. The information our program pulled up is full of news stories about her taking home awards at some child savant competition."
Artemis leaned closer in his chair, his expression a tad smug. "I actually prefer to compete at the adult level when it comes to those types of events."
"The point, Artemis," Holly looked at him pointedly, "is that I'd rather none of us, particularly myself, end up locked in some basement at the whim of some pre-teen megalomaniac."
Butler, at least, had the grace to look guilty, but Artemis crossed his arms challengingly.
"As far as she knows, the demon is the only magical visitor the Bellini Opera House is hosting tonight," Artemis insisted. "We already know where and when he's going to appear — I don't know when I'll be able to get the calculations ready to guess the next opening of the rift. We need to catch up to the demon tonight, Holly."
The box fell silent.
"You're positive that he's going to be at stage right," Holly finally said, trying to study Artemis' face for any hint of guile.
"Yes."
"Okay. Okay, I'll try to intercept him," she conceded. Artemis blinked owlishly, the whites of his eyes glowing dimly in the low light before he smiled.
"But, Artemis?" Holly flickered out of view slightly, her shield starting to power up. "Leave your comm link on."
—
The backstage of the opera house felt old. The parts of the building that faced the audience looked old in that they had been meticulous upkept to preserve the century-old architecture, but it didn't feel genuine. The hallway that Holly was carefully hovering in smelled damp and musty — it didn't need stained marble or imported wood, it just was old.
Her hover-tech barely disturbed the dust filtering through the air as she crept down the way. Artemis had said that the demon would be near the part of the backstage where the original stairway to the underground would have been, but that the exact place the rift would open was as good as anyone's guess. Holly was fine with having to make her own call with where to station herself. Ideally, she'd get lucky and the demon would be hidden from the bustle of the technical crew near the curtain, but she felt confident enough that she could shoot out and pull him away from prying eyes before anyone noticed him; the humans here were busy enough that she'd have a few seconds of grace time before his presence was noticed.
Her comm beeped. Holly flinched slightly, startled. Reaching towards her helmet, she pressed one of the protruding buttons on the side, and the interior of her visor flickered green. One new message. She sighed. She pressed the button on her helmet again.
"Is he here yet? -A," she read, mouthing the words slightly.
Her comm beeped again. "Apologies — only meant to send one '?'. - A"
Holly grinned. Opening the comm keyboard discreetly, she tapped out an 'n' and an 'o' with her index finger, the clicking of the keys muted by her the cushioning on the fingertips of her gloves.
She moved to send the text, but a chill wracked her body. Frowning, she closed the keyboard, eyes scanning her surroundings. A draft disturbed some of the dust on the floor, and the legs of the curtain on stage right seemed to dance with the breeze.
Holly blanched, a realization dawning on her with horror.
He was tangled in the curtains.
The ashy grey of the demon's skin was suddenly grotesquely obvious against the deep wine of the velour of the drapery — even ignoring his thrashing, it was a miracle no one had noticed him yet.
Her body moving into action before her mind could fully catch up, Holly darted between the openings in the crowd of technical crew staff bustling around. Her suit hummed with the whirring of the mechanical wings, and she frantically tried to move the curtain aside to reach the imp.
"I'm not trying to hurt — stop moving! It's dangerous to be out in the open, I need you to shield yourself," Holly hissed in Gnommish. The demon's eyes were wide, his pupils constricted, and Holly cursed herself. Unshielding slightly, she grasped the curtain and drew it close around the two of them.
"Can you use your magic? We cannot be visible right now," she repeated slowly and firmly, voice low.
"I don't — are those humans?" he blinked, his Gnommish accent unfamiliar to Holly's ears.
Holly winced, feeling almost claustrophobic. "Er, yes?"
"Oh."
God, Holly internally groaned, her hand steadied only by sheer habit as it moved to tap her comm. Why did Sool have to be such a piece of shit — LEP might have gone to hell in a handbasket, but at least they had more than one active field officer on a mission at a time. At least she'd get to interact with her old recon coworkers when Section 8's impressive four fairies strong workforce got subpoenaed for letting a damn demon loose in front of a crowd of humans.
"Call Foaly," she hissed into her helmet's mic, gritting her teeth at the whirring of the comm on her wrist as it processed the request. Around her, the curtain rippled. Fumbling, she pulled the drapes closer around her and the demon, trying to shush him. "Call. Foaly."
Finally, the comm light glowed with a dim, green light. "Thank Frond, look, the demon just popped through the rift, and he's experiencing too much shock to manage a passable shield — can you knock out the lights or— or, I don't know, get some director to send out an announcement that there's going to be a fifteen minute delay before the curtain goes up?"
"My Gnommish is fairly good, Holly, but not that good. I'm going to have to ask for a repeat of that, I'm afraid," the voice crackled over the audio link, and Holly's stomach dropped as she heard one of the only versions of the fae tongue spoken with the slight lilt of an Irish accent.
"Artemis?" she slipped back into English, hesitating. Her grip on the curtain tightened. "Where's — nevermind. I found the demon. I need you to delay curtain-up."
"I beg your pardon? Holly, I have only my phone with me. I don't exactly have an app that can hack the electrical grid of Sicily. Ask Foaly-"
"Foaly is completely unreachable on my suit tech right now!" she groaned, waving the demon's hands away from the curtain. Faintly, she heard the sound of voices murmuring on the other side of the line.
Artemis' voice came back through on the line, his tone all business. "How fast can your suit fly with the weight of another person?"
Holly snorted. "Fast enough. I didn't think that the flyboy route of action is the, uh, most discreet way to get our friend out of here, though."
The tinny sound of a sigh rattled through the comm speakers. "True. However, it seems like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place here. I will say the building is old, though, and that works in your favor. Ironically enough, the signal from your suit's communication systems is almost enough on its own to make the CCTV footage from the cameras near the stairwell choppy. I'll try to jam it further, so please don't get caught up in worrying about found footage being the downfall of the People."
Pursing her lips, Holly steeled her nerves. Once she let go of the curtain, she needed to shoot straight out towards the stairwell — the less time it took, the better, and hopefully any techie that saw her unshielded passenger would blame it on the stress of the job. She opened the curtain a crack, thanking the fates that the demon had seemed to gone stock still once the initial adrenaline rush of having jumped dimensions wore off. Reaching blindly behind herself, she grasped the young imp's scaly arm.
"We're going to go somewhere a bit less crowded, is that alright?" she asked kindly, keeping her voice to a whisper.
"Erm, yes?" he squeaked out, his posture making him look like he was folding in on himself.
"In a moment I'm going to move us towards where we're going, and I'm sorry in advance about the speed. It's only going to be for a moment, though, okay?" she gave his wrist a slight squeeze, trying not to feel awkward. She nearly slumped in relief when he nodded haltingly, his expression unsure.
"Great, great. Hey, Artemis? How's the signal situation shaping up?" She tried, putting her hover-tech into the first stages of powering up.
"Ready."
Holly didn't need to wait for more. Twisting her body to scoop the imp up into her arms, she kicked up off the ground to launch herself out from the curtains.
The drapes fluttered behind her as she shot out, and Holly's vision zeroed in on the door to the stairwell in front of her. Contorting as she narrowly avoided one of the various humans bustling around backstage, she forced herself to ignore the sensory overload that was creeping up on her, what with the suffocating sound of the murmurs of the audience and the shadows cast throughout the poor lighting.
Her hand reached outward towards the handleset-style doorknob, pulling it open clumsily as she tried not to drop the demon in her arms. Thankfully, it gave, opening outwards.
She all but shoved the demon through the crack in the door before she slipped into the room with the old, stairwell, slamming the door shut behind her.
She winced. Holly could all but picture the lengthy list of charges that'd get lobbed at her when the council dealt with the disaster of the Hybras mission. Sool would have a field day with this.
Looking at the awkward heap into which the demon had collapsed, Holly pinched the bridge of her nose and forced herself to breathe deeply. He looked back up at her, his cat-like eyes glowing eerily in the dark.
"Hullo," he said simply, tilting his head to the side curiously.
"Hi," Holly forced herself to grin, the motion not quite reaching her eyes. They stared at one another in silence for a moment, the sounds of the hall bleeding through the thick wood of the door behind Holly.
"So," the imp tried, scratching the side of his chin shyly. "My name is Nº1. What do you like to be called?"
AN: I... am sorry about the inconsistent update schedules. I don't think that there'll be any more big hiatuses on this fic, and I'll try to keep a chapter per week plan. The upcoming chapters are going to go into some 'Chekhov's gun' plot points, the development of Fowl Family Lore TM in terms of the history of the Republic of Ireland, and callbacks to the events in book 3 (to be honest, the eternity code was one of my favorite books in the series because 1) heist plots are *so good* and 2) the conflict driven by Artemis' criminal past with both the human world and Haven was such an interesting plot point to explore, in my opinion. We stan!). Also, if you want to leave a review, even if it's to say "hi", that'd be great! Finally, I'd just like to say that as this is being uploaded halfway through December, happy holidays/winter season, everyone :)