Hey guys, here's the penultimate chapter!

It's... quite a bit violent and contains strong language - so be warned.

BE WARNED!

This... isn't an 'M' I'd say but half way between an M and a T.

(A... P?)

Anyways - enjoy. This story is almost at an end...

'Touch me and he'll kill you.'

'I highly doubt that.'

'Touch me and I'll kill you."

'Better.'

Disclaimer: If I were Eoin, Artemis would have clambered out of that grave four months earlier and launched a zombie attack on the manor.

Soundtrack: Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson/Alien Ant Farm/Glee Cast (whichever version you prefer).

A/N: Kudos to TrunkZY - you're the only one who got it girl.

Chapter Fifteen - Gone With The Demons

Artemis knew he was dreaming. He knew because his father was playing Chopin across a keyboard made of bones. The Artemis Senior of real life could barely play chopsticks, let alone Fantasie Impromtu.

His limbs were swimming in front and beneath him, flickering like vapours, breathing deep, like smoke. His heartbeat slipped between his fingers.

"No."

As his palm slapped to the floor he could only find an acorn, shrivelled and browning. Dead.

He turned.

WARNING - THIS CHAPTER IS BORDERLINE 'M' DUE TO LANGUAGE AND VIOLENCE.

"No," repeated Artemis, as a femur screamed under his father's touch. He recognised its voice. "C sharp minor, Father. Not E flat."

"Aurum Potestas Est," was the quiet reply, and gold began to bleed over his father's fingertips, weighing his hands, making his strokes heavier, better.

But the melody was still running away from him. Artemis grunted, frustrated. He reached down and snapped his right arm off at the elbow and handed it to his father.

"There," he said, his stump bleeding into the abyss. "This should help you."

The man smiled with whitened lips. "Thank you, Son." The arm was flying through a rapid line of semiquavers, outstripping his father's fingers, tutoring them, pulling them on.

Something heavy landed on the boy's shoulder.

"Tuley," sighed Artemis.

"Hello, Art."

He was pushed back, his limbs no longer gaseous but pure flesh, alive, wanting. His back met wall.

"You'll never clap again," breathed Tuley, his mouth somewhere near Artemis's chest.

"Hmm," replied Artemis. "And you shall never make the Premiership."

"And do we care?"

"For football?" Artemis gave a sharp gasp. "No."

"For applause?"

"I… I do not need…two hands in order to receive it..."

Tuley surfaced and suddenly Artemis was looking at himself.

"Save me!" his twin screamed and Artemis reared back in shock.

Its face was changing, its mouth opening so wide its jaws began to crack. It had the teeth of a shark; two sets, sharp, jagged. It fell to its knees, clutching its throat, choking.

"Get down!" roared a voice.

Butler was stood behind him dressed only in a pair of tattered dress trousers. His bare chest, head, arms and shoulders were smothered in weeping bite marks.

"Get down!" he roared again.

Artemis dropped and Butler raised his machine gun. The teenager screamed as he was peppered by blood and bullets; he was shattering, cracking–

Then Annie was pulling him to his feet, brushing the shell cases from the front of his jacket.

"There," she whispered through half-melted lips. "Well done that Fowl."

"Annie."

"Hush. It's alright. We'll all be alright."

She smiled at him–

And was immediately yanked backwards by the fish-hooks in her back and legs. A huge, leviathan figure was manipulating the wooden pallet above, jerking the strings, her hooks, forcing her to dance. Dangling from their left hand was another broken mannequin, joints splintering, hair stuck in patches to a rough, ill-painted crown.

"Indecent, am I?" hissed the toy through a chipped, red mouth. "Because you'd know all about that wouldn't you? Indecency?"

Artemis staggered back, tripped. A third puppet raised its head from the floor.

"Artemis," it whispered. "Why didn't you tell me?"

The leviathan's hand jerked, Annie's hand jerked, and Holly Short's whole body was yanked up and away from him.

"Tell you what?" yelled Artemis. "What?"

And then the monster was back, gripping his arms, clawing into his sleeves. It opened its jaws, revealed bestial teeth–

"Save me!" it screamed.

And Artemis woke in a cold sweat. His chest heaved, his mouth gasping for breath.

"Artemis?"

The boy started, jerked away from the shadow at his elbow.

"Beckett!" he snapped, then took a breath… swallowed.

Calm. Be calm. It was a dream. Only a dream.

"Beckett," he sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "What… What are you doing here?"

The little boy was struggling to get up on top of the covers. "You were moaning," he grumbled, his slippered feet sliding against the silk. "I came to see what it was about."

Artemis put his good hand on the back of his brother's pyjama shirt and helped him to clamber up.

"You… should be in your own bed."

Beckett flumped over the duvet clamped tightly under his brother's arms and came to rest with his nose almost touching Artemis's stump. He glared at it.

"So it's true."

"What is?"

The little boy huffed. "Well, Mummy said you'd lost your hand but I thought that just couldn't be true because it was just too careless of you Arty. You're never careless. And I also didn't know it was possible to lose hands. I'm always losing my toys and my mittens and things, and Tara always says that I'd lose my head if it wasn't screwed on properly but–"

"You shall not lose your head, Beckett."

"Oh no. I won't lose my hands either. I'll keep a firm grasp of them."

Beckett grinned up at his brother with white milk teeth. Artemis snorted softly. Then the little boy crawled forward, hesitantly, and touched a hand to his brother's bandage.

"When Mummy first told us I thought… I thought someone might have stolen it or something... something terrible. Or that you'd been fighting with… with swords and someone, a pirate, had cut it off…"

Artemis's smile dimmed.

"Or… or that it was… it was the scratching creature."

"The what?"

"You know. The one you went to find."

Another one of his childish fantasies.

"I thought maybe you'd found it and it had… it had bitten your hand off." Beckett sat up and twisted to look at his brother. "I can't hear the scratching anymore."

Artemis's eyes narrowed and he studied his brother's face.

Scratching… scratching…

Something faint and cold was flickering at the base of his mind, where it had been stamped down, repressed.

Stairs. Themonster in the basement.

But then a sudden weight hit his eyelids. He was sinking fast again.

"Beckett," he muttered, suddenly terrifically tired. "You need… to go to bed."

The little boy's lip quivered. "But–"

"No." He pushed at his brother with his good hand, sliding him off the duvet. "Your own… bed, Beckett.

Rain was just beginning to pick at the windows, a sharp, angry wind snapping twigs against the panes. Beckett's mouth turned down.

"Mummy says… She says there's going to be a storm tonight."

"Yes," agreed Artemis, his head already dropping to the pillows. "I think… she is probably… right."

Holly stood in room lit only by a television. It was cluttered, with people as well as possessions. A baby was gargling in the centre of a matted carpet, surrounded by toys, stuffed animals, loomed over by a stained ironing-board and a dark-haired, dark-eyed teenager whom Holly had come to recognise so well. A young man was splayed on the sagging sofa, a cigarette in one hand, a can of lager in the other. Another man, around the same age but three times the size, was sunk into a threadbare armchair nearest the TV.

"Cal." He coughed. "Eh… Callum."

"Wah?" grunted the man on the sofa.

"Put that out would cha, man?"

The blonde frowned and dropped his hand lazily from his mouth. "Yah wha?"

"Yer fag like. I seen this advert ch'other day, babies smoking like. All comin' out chair noses and mouths… 'Orrible. Don't be doing it ta little Anna."

"Yer feckin' soft, man."

"Aye, like yer says like, but…"

Callum muttered something, stretched out and stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray on the floor.

"Annie," he barked, and the teenager on the floor stirred. "Go gerrus another can."

She didn't move.

"Anne."

"Go get it yerself."

He swung his foot out and kicked the girl in the back, hard enough to tip her sideways.

"Shift."

She gritted her teeth and got up.

The fat man opened his mouth. "Cal–"

"Don't," spat Callum, and pulled another cigarette from his pocket.

Annie came back with the drinks and threw her brother's against the back of the sofa. She put the larger man's on the arm of his chair.

"Thanks," he muttered.

She didn't reply, only dropped herself back to the carpet. The baby was chewing on a plastic set of keys now, her wide eyes glassy in the reflective glow of the television.

"And now, playing for a thousand pounds…"

"I've just about 'ad enough o' you," muttered Callum. "You an' yer feckin moods."

"What is the capital of Uzbekistan? Is it A: Tashkent? B: Bishkek?"

"Fer ony a grand?" snorted the big man loudly. "Jaysus Christ, no-one's gonna feckin know that."

"You've always got a face on. Always."

"C: Ashgabat? Or D…. Istanbul?"

Annie got up. "I'm goin' out."

"Where?"

"You've still got all three life lines. You could still use any one of them."

Callum sat up. "I said where?"

"Can I borrow yer hoodie again, Tank?"

The big man shifted, yanking it from under him. The girl pulled it on.

Callum rose to his feet. "Dunt you ignore me!"

She bent down and kissed the baby swiftly on the head. "I'll see yah later, Anna," she whispered.

Then her brother seized her arm.

"Get off me!"

"Tell us where yer goin' then!"

"It's nun o' yer business!"

"Yer livin' in ma feckin' house, Annie!"

"If I fall then al hurt Anna!"

For a moment they were statues… and then Callum relaxed his grip. His nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Feck off then."

She took her chance, ducking sideways and grabbing a thinly-soled trainer from just under the sofa.

"Yeah, yah can feck off!" said Callum, louder. "Gerrof t'feckin Fowl's house! Still asn't sunk in yet that he dunt give a flying fuck about chah?" She passed close to him and his spittle spattered her cheek. "Hasn't called yah in o'er two years like but no… you go up there, Annie, molly! He'll be there nah doubt!"

"Is that true, Annie?" asked Tank softly. "You still goin' up ta see little Arty Fowl's house?"

The girl didn't answer. She scraped up a set of keys from the ironing board and stalked out of the room. Tank heaved himself out of the chair.

"Leave 'er Tank!" roared Callum, but the bigger man ignored him.

Holly hurried out of the room.

"Annie!" shouted Tank. "Annie, wait now!"

The girl was crouched over in the tiny back courtyard, yanking a rusting chain from the back wheel of an equally rusting push-bike.

"Annie, slow down a sec' would cha? I'm trying ta talk ta yeh."

She knocked the kickstand off and wheeled the bike towards a wooden side door.

"Ignore yer brother, Annie," said Tank, his voice echoing off the walls of the alley. "He dunt mean what he says, like."

She stopped at the next door, snapping the lock aside and kicking it open. They all emerged onto a deserted terrace street, silent but for the sputtering buzz of one, lone street lamp. Annie swung her leg over the bike.

"Anne," continued Tank, his breath slightly laboured. "He… might sound sorta… harsh at ya like but… it's ony cos he cares, Anne."

Annie snorted. She wound a pedal backwards, poised her foot ready to take off. Tank gripped the handlebars.

"He just… He dunt like ta see ya so miserable, molly. He hates that Fowl boy fer what he's did ta ya. Hates that he can't do anythin'."

"It wasn't Artemis that did wrong," said Annie. Her voice was low, husky from disuse. "It was me what dun him wrong."

"Aye, maybe, but still, Anne… two years…" His face was pained. "I never met 'im, Annie, but a'v heard a lot about him from yer bro and uver peole. It sounds… it sounds like if he'd a wanted ta get in touch wit chers by now he coulda done it. He woulda found a way. What wit' all that money… and all them brains like. If he's not… ya know… what Callum thinks he's not an' all… dead, then–"

Annie pushed her full weight down onto one pedal. The bike lurched forward but Tank hung on, stopped her.

"Listen ta me!"

Annie glared at the floor.

"Listen to me." He sighed, rubbed a spare hand over his greasy head. "Just dunt… dunt go doing anythin' stupid, alroight? Yeh brother's scared yeh gonna–" He cut himself off.

Annie waited silently.

"Just…" Tank slid his hand off the bars. "Anne–"

And she was gone, pedalling hard, rocking the bike from side to side to gather momentum. Holly soared along beside her. The main roads were silent as they flew out from her brother's cul-de-sac, with only the odd minicab to challenge their rule of the road. The girl pushed hard through the city centre, as she found the midnight traffic, ignored the growing burn in her legs. Horns honked at her as she weaved through the jams. She clipped wing mirrors, occasionally scraped paint. It wasn't like she was trying to do it. She wasn't really thinking of anything. She ignored the gestures and the roars of anger as if they too were only the wind against her cheeks. And soon she was in the countryside.

She closed her eyes there, let the cold blow against her eyelids. The night pressed like a blanket on her shoulders, against her head and jacket like the touch of a guardian's hand, firm and purposeful, protective. It pushed her onwards. The road, shiny from a recent rainfall, flew beneath her and danced back the light from the street lamps. She opened her eyes and watched the patterns.

Fire.

No, she mustn't think that. When she thought of fire she thought of Hell.

"What do you mean?" Artemis's father had demanded two years ago. "What do you mean he's gone with the demons?"

She pedalled a little harder, stood up, breathed steam.

"Sir, I… it is a lot to explain."

"Is he dead? Is that what you are trying to tell us?"

Annie had been sat on a disused servant staircase, one ear pressed to the plaster of the wall, two hands muffling her breaths.

"No," Butler had said, with a firmness that had, for a second, bolstered Annie. "No, sir, I am not."

She had closed her eyes.

"And yet you return here empty handed."

"Where is my son?" Angeline had gasped.

"Missus Fowl–"

"Where is my son!"

"He's… he is gone."

"…with the demons," Artemis senior had finished.

Some days, Annie felt as if she had followed him.

She got off the bike whilst it was still in motion and ran it to a halt. The iron security gates of Fowl Manor were still two hundred yards away but she had never had a use for that entrance. She never would. So she gripped the frame of her rusting bicycle and launched it into the tangle of brier and nettles at the side of the road. Then, using the bike and bushes as a makeshift trampet, jumped and bounced up onto the Fowl perimeter wall. Three grunts and a heave later she was up and over the top, crouching cat-like in the shadows on the other side. Her head snapped left then right before she was off, sprinting through the dense woodland.

Holly ran silently beside her.

Breaking into Fowl Manor was the easiest it had been in years. Artemis's lumping bodyguard had left the house two years ago, vowing not to return until he had his erstwhile principle back at his side. That, of course, had not happened. And so the manor's security had fallen into a state of negligence and disrepair. Cameras still stared down from every post and cranny, but Annie knew they were unmanned and unseeing. There were no gunned patrols, no electricity in the fences, no alarm to trigger if she stepped on a hidden line. Likewise had the gardens and grounds been allowed to slip. They were a jungle of weeds and thorns. Dark. Unwelcoming.

Annie paused, panting, slumped against a crumbling cupid.

The manor had not escaped the wrath of the gardens. Dark vines of ivy smothered the face of the house, strangling its stonework and creeping, thief-like, onto the wood of the windows. The previous shine of the steps and driveway had long since faded, along with the lights and the lamps in the trees. Nothing moved at night in Fowl Manor anymore. Only the spiders and the shadows.

She moved swiftly, Holly trailing behind her, around the corner of the west-wing until she came to a row of low-set windows. The girl dropped to her knees and winched one open. She dropped silently down into the kitchen, her trainers not making a single squeak on the polished floors. It was dark in here as well but it didn't matter. She knew her way around.

Her footsteps echoed as she walked across the grand foyer.

"You should be more cautious," warned a voice. "Your recklessness will be your undoing."

"Shut up," whispered Annie.

She started up the staircase, Holly following close behind her. The dark figure behind her kept close to her elbow.

"You shouldn't ignore me either," it muttered. "You know I'm always right."

The girl stopped dead. "Yes," she hissed. "I know. But just lay off my case tonight would yah? I'm not in the mood for you."

And the boy faded in a wisp of shadow.

Annie slowed as she reached the top; the portraits in the corridors always gave her the creeps. Their eyes were… accusing; that's what Artemis had once described them as. He had joked a long time ago that he would be sure to wear sunglasses when it became his turn to sit for a portrait, so as to spare his future ancestors any grief. No, you're just causing me grief instead.

She reached The Door, its brass handle the only shining lever in a row of sixteen others. Annie knew she wasn't the only one visiting ghosts. She pushed it open.

As always, the smell was the first thing to hit her. Even after two years the room still smelt like him. Almost as if the carpets and furnishings were holding onto him as tight as she was. She ran her eyes over the sheets. They still hadn't been changed. They were folded just as they had been on the morning he had left them.

"Well this is morbid," drawled the shadow.

"Artemis, I'm warning you..."

"Well really." There was a slight breeze and suddenly there he was, sat in the Georgian armchair besides the bookcase. "It's not as if you're going to find me here. Why keep coming back?"

She stroked a hand across a pillowcase. Then her knee was raised to the sheets. She was crawling across them, to the west side, his side.

"I need to keep reminding myself."

"Of what?"

His hands, vapour and shadow, wrapped around her coat.

"Of you." She held onto his coldness. "I'm beginning to think you never existed. That you were just a dream."

He frowned, and Annie closed her eyes as his palm ghosted against the skin of her cheek.

"We were never just a dream."

Artemis knew he was dreaming. He knew because someone was laughing. He was clutching his stomach, hooting, reeling.

Then the noise cut off.

"You," hissed the creature, his twin, stalking quickly towards Artemis.

The teenager staggered backwards.

"You did this."

"What? What did I do?"

The creature raised a hand, ready to strike. Artemis cried out.

Boom.

A rumbling was growing in the dark. The creature's eyes widened. It turned tail and ran, fled into the blackness.

"What have I done?" Artemis screamed after it.

"The storm is coming," whispered another voice.

"What storm? Please! I don't know what you're talking about!"

There was a hissing in the air, a whipping wind that snapped at Artemis's clothing. He cried out and flung an arm over his face. Blood filled his mouth, forced its way into his throat. He was coughing, choking. His foot slipped and dropped suddenly into a hole in the floor. He scrabbled at the darkness, trying to keep himself out.

Annie stood over him, untouched by the storm.

"Why didn't you hear me, Art?"

But he couldn't answer; his ears were too full of storm, he was losing grip–

Annie got up from the bed. It was a sharp movement, forced. She knew that if she stayed there too long then his smell would diminish. Already, she could smell herself in this room, the mustiness of Tank's sweat-stained hoodie. She took it off and kicked it under the bed, where it wouldn't spoil anything.

"I'll be back later," she whispered.

The shade in the corner nodded his farewell.

Holly followed her out of the room.

Annie walked quickly. She had discovered three weeks ago that the house would be free for the evening. The Fowl parents would be making one of their not infrequent visits to the man who had lost their son–

to the demons

– in Duncade and they would not be back until late tomorrow. She had the night and the house to herself. And she had… some business she wanted to attend to before returning to her vigil on the bed.

Artemis had always been the one to hold her head just out of the waters of serious crime but since his disappearance… she had slipped under. She haunted shadows Artemis had never even known existed. She heard things now, saw things… rumours and deeds she didn't tell her brother about, occurring at a distance but growing ever closer.

She climbed a new set of stairs, narrower than the main way, the carpet a deeper shade of scarlet. The double handles of the door above her were sheened with use. Annie didn't hesitate in pulling them open. The room beyond was as grand as any the manor contained: over twenty feet in length and gilded and panelled to a nineteenth-century gothic perfection. The bed was bigger than Artemis's, canopied and draped in plum silk, the sheets unturned, untouched. The furniture was all eighteenth-century, polished, of superb quality. But cold. Not at all like the rosy-cheeked wardrobe and burnished oak desk of Artemis's room that Annie had come to know as old friends.

The girl walked forward, eyes fixed on the floor.

The shadow was beside her again.

"Step on a vine, count to nine," he whispered.

She stepped on every liana in the weave, unheeding, and only when she had reached a low, Chinese tea-cabinet on the far side of the room did she pause. The thing was on castors, shifting easily under her touch, and underneath was the largest knot in the room. Every creeper, every plant in the pattern, fed into this ugly trap of wool. For a moment Annie stared at it.

Then she stamped on it, digging her heel into the green.

"One," she whispered.

Her heel sank slowly into the floor.

"Two."

The clicking started, the cranking of century-old cogs stirring into life.

"Three."

The noises travelled along the wall, creeping behind the antique paper.

"Four."

The huge bed gave a groan before the bottom two posters actually cracked inwards.

"Five."

They folded in, allowing the roof to tip forwards, down.

"Six."

A frescoed panel began to crank back in the ceiling.

"Seven."

The bed's roof continued to lower itself, revealing wooden stairs shaped into the top.

"Eight."

A dark hole had now fully opened in the ceiling, eight foot long and two feet wide.

"Nine."

The bed settled finally onto the floor with a soft doom and Annie was left staring up into the dark.

Artemis had never known about this, of that Annie was sure. He had repeated it to her on many an occasion the little rhyme which his father had whispered to him as a child; how it was the only superstition he really followed. Even then he had admitted the strangeness of it and how it surprised him about his father every time he uttered it. He had never considered the straightforward function of the statement.

Annie hadn't, until the night she had heard the cranking. She had spied on Artemis Senior, watched him, hidden in the shadows, as he'd moved the cabinet aside, ascended into the dark… That's when she'd thought something. Another whisper, a dark rumour…

There were no lights in the newly revealed passage, only the black slot into which the steps disappeared. Annie took the first stair cautiously. It creaked but felt sturdy enough. She climbed into the black.

As soon as her head broke the gap in the ceiling, a light sputtered into life. It was a dim light, warm, shining from a tiffany lamp sat on a desk of darkest juniper. Annie emerged into the small office, circular in shape, with handled, panelled walls and a carpet that matched that of the bedroom below. She climbed free of the last step and gazed around.

You would have loved this, Art, she thought.

Holly stood beside her, a feeling of deepest foreboding growing in the pit of her stomach.

Annie walked forward and touched the desk. A single photo frame was sat in the centre of the leather inset, leaning over a gilded pen case and a pad of yellow legal paper. She picked up the frame and two babies and their mother gazed out from behind the glass. The mother's smile was dimmed, unreal somehow. Annie put it back down.

She pulled open a desk drawer, unsurprised to find it unlocked. After all, who the hell would be looking up here? She quickly rifled through the contents. There were documents, envelopes, some hand written. She slumped down in the antique swivel chair and started to read.

"… agreement, Mister Hunter," she muttered, "only on the con… condition that our… our mu…tual be-ne-fac-tors receive exactly…"

She put it aside impatiently and picked up another sheet, one where the writing was not so dense. A simple post-it note.

"Then threaten to… remove The Neck."

A coldness crept along her spine. There it was; the name she had heard in the whispers. She closed the top drawer, opened the second.

"…shall have to be re…viewed. The Neck does not take threats… lightly."

The Neck.

"… in Moscow are not to be tolerated. You, Mister Neck, are…"

The Neck.

"… re-establish a link with Singapore. My asso…ciate, The Neck…"

The Neck.

"… a meeting. The Neck shall be…"

The Neck.

The Neck.

The Neck.

Annie's heart was pounding in her chest. It was everywhere; that name, the name that was only ever murmured. She wrenched open the bottom most drawer. There was nothing in there but a second photo frame laid face down against the wood. She lifted it out.

It contained school photograph of a boy, a young teenager, straight backed and dark haired.

His eyes had been scratched out.

Holly wanted to scream at her. "Get out! Get out!"

"Good evening," said a voice.

The photo frame dropped from Annie's hand.

At the top of the stairway, not three feet from where Annie was sat, stood Artemis Fowl the First. He had ascended the steps with the silent footfalls his first-born had inherited and was looking at the girl occupying his chair with polite amusement. Annie staggered clumsily to her feet.

"No, please," said the Fowl patriarch, "keep your seat. You looked very comfortable."

Annie didn't sit. Holly had backed into a panelled wall, her hands clasped to her chest.

"I see you've been looking through my personal effects," continued Artemis Senior. "That was most ill-mannered of you."

Annie's eyes darted about the desk. There was a letter-opener slotted in a rack just on the edge of the wood.

"Did you find anything of interest?"

Annie looked up to see that the man had raised a thin eyebrow, just like Artemis did when he was waiting for an answer.

Annie's lips tightened.

"I… I don't know. I can't… I can't read."

Artemis Senior cocked his head. "Come now, Ms Shinner. We both know that isn't true."

There was a moment of silence.

He looks just like him. Just like him.

"My brother knows I'm here," she whispered.

"Which affects your situation… how?"

"He'd kill you. Touch me and he'll kill you."

"I highly doubt that."

Annie shot out a hand and grabbed the letter opener.

"Touch me and I'll kill you."

Artemis Senior smiled. "Better."

The air in the room was getting thicker, harder to breath. Annie was brandishing the letter-opener as if it were a knife. Artemis Senior only watched her calmly.

"You knew my son."

Annie didn't answer.

"Well, former son." The man sighed. "He is in hell now, so I've been told: gone with the demons."

Annie's hand was shaking.

"What have you done to him?"

"Oh, nothing, I assure you."

"Like I would trust anything you say."

"Arty was the liar, Ms Shinner, not me."

Annie was suddenly seething, more angry than scared.

"He trusted you!"

The man's brow furrowed as if he'd been unfairly accused of cheating in a card game.

"I'm very sorry, Ms Shinner, but I'm going to have to ask you to explain yourself with that one."

Annie's fists clenched. The letter opener hung lower.

"Your son," she hissed. "He… I told him not to but… but he trusted you. You told him you were going straight and he believed you."

Artemis Senior looked just as confused.

"I'm afraid you are mistaken, Ms Shinner. You see my sons are barely three years old. And I cannot remember having promised them anything of the sort…"

Annie's eyes narrowed.

"Get out!" screamed Holly. "Get out!"

"You have three sons."

"No. I have two sons. As I have told you, I once had a demon… but he is amongst his own kind now."

"You..." Annie's eyes were slits, her heart beating like a rabbit's. "You were always the demon."

Artemis knew he was dreaming. He knew because he was dressed in a doublet and tights, holding a skull tightly in one hand.

"Madnesse in great ones, should not Unwatched go," said the bones.

Artemis jerked, repulsed, and dashed it to the floor. It exploded into white dust.

"Though this be madnesse, Yet there is Method in't!"

The teenager whirled around. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Who is talking?"

Then the earth was smoking; he was ripped backwards, wrapped around a thin, towering pyre. Annie stood beside him.

"The earth can have but earth, which is his due; my spirit is thine, the better part of me."

He writhed against the wood, fighting the bonds that had drawn his arms tight behind his back. He was shrieking, panicking. His father appeared, tall, strong. Artemis cried out for help but the man only stared blankly down.

"Why can't I hear the scratching, Arty?"

"What?" gasped Artemis.

The flames were licking at his feet.

"I should not have named you Artemis. For now you will never be able to escape the consequences of my own sins."

Sins?

Then Beckett was crouched beside him.

"Why can't I hear the scratching, Artemis?"

The fire lapped at his knees. He stretched out his neck, twisting his head away from the burn, screamed–

"And anyway," continued Artemis Senior. "Who has said anything about my not being 'straight' as you call it? If you apparently cannot read, Ms Shinner, then how could you possibly know anything about my dealings?"

"I've heard things. Things said about you."

"No. What you have heard are rumours about an individual called 'The Neck', not I."

Annie licked her lips.

"I know enough. And enough people know enough."

Artemis Senior considered her calmly. The letter-opener still shook in her grasp.

"They'll come here and get you, stop you from piling in on their turf."

"No," he said softly, "they shall not. And I'm afraid that you are now only one of four select individuals who have even a vague inkling about my undertakings."

On the words 'select individuals', Artemis Senior had taken another step forward.

Annie's back hit the rear of the office.

"I'll tell them," she whispered. "I'll tell them all what you really are."

Artemis Senior frowned, almost pityingly. Annie recognised that look and for a moment she was reminded so much of the boy she'd lost that it hurt.

"Come now, Ms Shinner," said the man softly, his blue eyes still and piercing. "We both know you are not leaving this house alive."

And that's when Annie attacked.

She thrust forward with a roar, stabbing her right hand towards the elder Fowl's stomach. But the man was ready. He shifted his weight, knocked her arm and her body aside with practiced ease so her shoulder crashed into the wood panels. She twisted, ready to try again, when he collided hard with her back, flattening her, face forward, to the wall.

"Get off!" she screamed, her cheek and chest bruising against the wood.

He ignored her, reaching for her squirming wrists. He grasped the hand that held the letter-opener and slammed it again and again into the wall. She hung on, the wood cracking beneath her fingers, before, with a scream, the weapon fell. She lashed out, shrieking, clawing, but Artemis Senior rammed her back to the wood, pinning her and cutting off any chance of escape.

Holly could only watch, her hands clutched to her mouth, as Annie struggled in what was swiftly becoming a losing battle. Artemis Senior had trapped one of her arms behind her back, pushing it in a way that was almost popping it out of its socket. Her other hand was bleeding profusely, her palm pushing desperately against the wall. The man grabbed her by the back of her hair and slammed her face-first into the hard, unforgiving wood of the panelling. There was a terrific crack and he hauled her backwards with the rebounding force of the blow, stepping aside so that the small of her back collided heavily with the edge of the desk, and she fell, slumping, broken to the floor.

Panting, Artemis Senior stood back and let his head flop against the wall, eyes shut.

"Get up," pleaded Holly. "Get up."

Slowly, deliberately, Annie raised her head. She dragged herself away from him, blood streaming from a shattered nose. For a second or so, Artemis Senior didn't move, but finally he looked up, lurched forward with a shallow growl.

Too late.

She had already snatched up the fallen letter-opener and stabbed backwards, driving the brass point straight into his trouser leg. The man screamed like a banshee and Annie, with a brief sob, scrambled to her feet.

Thank fuck I got the right leg, she thought, staggering through the chaos of pain, panic and adrenaline.

She had just reached the top of the stairwell when something collided once more with her back. She went down hard, her chest hitting against the first step, branding a line of pain across her ribs and forcing the air from her lungs. Fingers tightened once more in her hair, wrenching her backwards.

"No!" she screeched, her voice distorted by the new angle of her throat. "No!"

She raked first at his hand and then through the short pile of the carpet, her fingernails leaving shallow grooves as he dragged her backwards into the office. In one brutally sharp movement, she was thrown flat. His left hand was clutching his leg, blood darkening the grey wool to black.

"You'll regret that," hissed Artemis Senior, his blue eyes showing much too much white. "These trousers were vintage Westwood."

For a moment Annie's mouth gaped…and then the letter-opener was against her throat. Her jaw snapped shut, muscles straining as she reared back, choking, scrabbling to grasp the blade with both hands. It was blunt, unable to pierce her skin. But that wasn't the intention. The metal had completely sealed off her windpipe.

Artemis Senior hung above her, his black hair in disarray.

"No," whispered Holly. "No. No!"

Annie's hands flailed against his, her eyes bulging, her chest and hips bucking, legs kicking uselessly.

"Ninety per cent of accidents occur in the home."

Was this what it had been like for her father, looking up into those Fowl-blue eyes? Was this what he had felt?

Artemis Senior leant down hard. He could feel her body weakening beneath him, her scrawny struggles fading as bit by bit her body shut down.

Artemis…

The light dimmed in her eyes.

Holly was sobbing now, crouched in a corner, her arms folded tightly above herself.

Annie's eyes rolled back.

Artemis…

She finally lay still.

"Timmy? Timmy, what's happening?"

Artemis Senior shot to his feet. "Darling," he said, grimacing slightly as the pain flared in his punctured shin. "What are you doing up here?"

Angeline Fowl gaped around at the smashed lamp, the broken wall panels, the girl lying prone on the carpet. She was dressed only in her nightgown and silk robe, her bare feet ghostly pale against the carpet. "Timmy… what?"

Then Annie sucked in a sudden breath as if surfacing from the depths of lake. She rolled onto her side, choking, heaving into a coughing fit.

"That's… that's Arty's girl isn't it?" whispered Angeline as Annie continued to fight for air. "The one who always came to visit him."

Timmy frowned and limped to his wife's side.

"She has been sneaking into our house, Angeline. She has done our son a disservice."

"A… a what?"

Tears were streaming down Annie's face. She couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe.

"She knows," whispered Artemis Senior.

His wife's eyes widened. "But you said no one could know."

"Exactly, my love. And that is why…"

Annie's hand clapped against the leg of the desk. She attempted to raise herself but her slick palm slid against the wood. She was too weak, too weak.

"But Artemis… Artemis would be so upset on his return. You remember them together, my love? How they danced on the roof…"

Artemis Senior's face darkened. "We have talked about this, Angeline. That… that boy was not our son."

Angeline swallowed. She watched as the girl attempted to get to her knees.

"But, my love… It… It is Arty's time now. He's been taken away for a while, like you were, but he'll… he'll come back and he shall be good again… just like you were… You'll see. He shall be… resurrected. We all shall."

Artemis Senior looked into his wife's eyes and realised there was no hope in arguing. He sighed heavily.

"Keep her," said Angeline, laying her palm against his cheek. "Keep her safe for Arty. And when he returns, we shall deal with her as a family"

Artemis Senior nodded. "As you will."

Angeline smiled and turned back down the stairway. "Goodnight, my darling. I shall see you on the morn."

"Goodnight…"

And she was gone, drifting like a lost spectre out of sight. Artemis Senior waited until he had heard the bedroom doors close before seizing Annie by an ankle and pulling her after his wife. Annie didn't have the breath or strength to scream as she was dragged, roughly, down the hidden steps, across the bedroom, and onto the thin stairway. The carpet of the corridors burned the skin of her back, as she passed door after door, the Fowl portraits staring down at her now with something more akin to pity than contempt. The marble cooled her wounds as she was wrenched across the grand foyer and finally Annie began to gather an inkling of where she was being taken. She attempted to struggle, to kick, but it was useless.

"No…" whispered Holly, watching as they took that fateful passageway, down to the place of so many lingering nightmares. "No… Gods no."

Artemis Senior smiled as he stepped inside the concrete cell.

"Yes, this shall do nicely," he commented, sliding Annie's limp, battered body over the threshold. "I believe Arty had it built in the years I was missing. Never did tell me why…" He frowned, inspecting the low, shortened cot in the corner of the room and the fist-sized hole cracked in the floor besides it. "It always looked as if he'd had it made for a child… really made me dread to ask…"

Annie was still too out of it to appreciate the irony. She squinted up at her capturer through blackening eyes, her mouth parted, almost questioning. Artemis Senior stared back for a moment… before kicking her, viciously, in the head with the toe of his patented-leather brogue.

Holly felt nothing as she followed Artemis's father to the family garage. Nothing, as he picked out a car from the end of the row: a grey Ford Fiesta, ten years old, with a number plate that would lead the police nowhere. Nothing, as he keyed the ignition, drove to the end of the driveway and turned west, stopping to pick Annie's bike from the bush with his gloved hands before starting off for the city.

He cruised the outskirts of Dublin, to a few select streets only frequented by select people. He kept his speed down, scrutinising each female face he passed. Eventually he stopped.

The girl that trotted up to his window must have been only sixteen or seventeen years old. Her hair was bleached a straw-like canary yellow and she was chewing gum.

"Yah lookin' fer business, Mister?" she asked, fear and desperation playing behind her smile.

Artemis Senior nodded and she got in. One swift, underhand injection later and the girl was lying comatose on the back seat, snoring into the stained nylon. It took ten minutes for them to get to Crook Lane. Fowl Senior got out of the car and opened the boot, tossing Annie's already well-abused bike onto the pavement. He got the girl next, carried her up to the house. The door was already open, the hall filled with leaves and broken bottles. He carried her right to the top floor.

The bag had broken in his pocket; one of Annie's canines had pierced the plastic, attempting to escape just as its owner had when Artemis Senior had first put the pliers in her mouth. His next victim was much quieter, sleeping on in her drugged, ignorant state. He swapped like for like and stood back to admire his crooked handy work.

He fetched the petrol next. He hefted the tank to his shoulder, carelessly dousing the house as he went: the curtains, chairs, carpets, the ceilings. When he reached Harold Shinner's room, he lifted the tank above the girl's body and upended it. Her hair flattened to her head, liquid trailing from her clothes, her mouth. He pulled a lighter from his pocket. He snapped it back.

And dropped it.

Artemis woke with a scream.

His head was filled with a thousand crying voices.

He knew. He knew.

"No!"

Holly woke bolt upright. Foaly was staring at her, as was No.1. They were frozen, horror-struck.

Holly looked straight into the centaur's eyes.

"Annie's still in the house."

Now play Coheed and Cambria's 'Welcome Home' and wait for the final chapter.

Oh, but give me a review first?

I wanna hear your reactions on this one...

P.S. Big thanks to Wolfy for sorting out Annie and Art Senior's fight!

P.P.S. And BIG thanks to CeiloCrimisi for sorting everything else - glad to have you back my lovely :)