I'm baaaack!

Disclaimer: I recently discovered you could actually be friends with Eoin Colfer on Facebook. OMG. Also, I own nothing.

Chapter Thirteen - Sparks

She had never been particularly good with men.

A big part of it was her choice of career, of course. Men inside the force were put off by how good she was at her job and those outside the force felt threatened by the fact that she was on it in the first place. And she hadn't much cared, to be honest. Oh, she'd had her fair share of flirtations in high school, before she'd hacked off all her hair and announced she wanted to be a cop when she grew up. There had been a couple of guys in her college years, minor things, and little since, although if the way Trouble Kelp had been staring at her across the cafeteria lately was any indication, maybe not for long.

Trouble. She might never see him again if Artemis had his way. Not that she believed that, she had the plan, after all. But what was he thinking, what was the commander thinking? Would she even have a life to go back to after been held captive by a Mud Man for gods know how long? Tainted, unclean, would she be driven from the LEP like a plague or worse, like a human?

It was not a comforting train of thought.

Anyway, she'd had little enough experience with fairy men, let alone Mud ones. And Artemis was like no man on earth, mortal or otherwise. He was stark raving bonkers. Her plan of being nice to him was going well enough, but for the life of her she couldn't work out when to stop. When she was crossing the line between 'kind-and-not-upsetting-the-crazy-man-but-friends-only' and entering the territory of 'aw-you-poor-thing-do-you-want-a-hug'. Added to the confusion was Artemis's apparent isolation from the rest of the world to the point where holding his hand was enough to make his eyes well up. Weird.

But there was one thing she knew: tonight he would be at the lake, at eleven. Her adroit eavedropping had taught her that much. She had no clock to tell the time and no clue where the lake was, but she could escape. She could, she could, she could - she had to, she couldn't stand the captivity any longer. Elves were meant to fly and be free, not caged below ground like a - like a troll, or something.

So she endured the long day with him, the singing, the fawning, the touching of the hem of her dress - her dress! She needed to get out of here - when he thought she wasn't paying attention. She bid him goodnight prettily after dinner, citing a headache and closing the door, listening to him putter around the house for a while until she heard him retrieve his hat and his coat. He paused outside her door, she could hear his breathing, and then he moved away with a heavy sigh. She held her breath until she heard the front door click, and then she sprang out of bed, shoving her feet into the delicate and impractical shoes Artemis asked (forced) her to wear and yanking open her bedroom door.

The small problem was that she couldn't actually see the front door she needed to exit the house. She knew the general direction Artemis exited the house, but there was no door, just wall. She knew she wasn't insane, that by all rights there should be a door in front of her, but there simply was not.

So. Plan B, then.

Artemis' bedroom was locked with a simple mechanism. It stung at her a little when she realised this was because he had never had people in his home before and so had no reason to bolt the door against anyone. Why couldn't she just hate him and be done with it? She hated what he had done to her, but not he himself. He was an odd and fragile creature, after all. Even if he was a lunatic. He belonged in a nice padded room somewhere. She could come back and ensure that once she had been below ground once more, amongst her People. She could return with a full LEP team - no, two LEP teams - and lay some unholy smackdown on Artemis. As gently as possible, of course. Mentally unstable he might be, but he was a criminal, and he deserved to be treated as such. And in regards to her present situations, she knew, from her past experience with criminals, that there was always another way out.

She picked the lock and entered the bedroom, flicking on the light switch. And then she turned around and walked out, and then re-entered. She felt her jaw physically drop.

The walls were black, the floor was black, even the ceiling was black. The furnishings were black. It was like stepping back a century or so, the antique furniture and general sense of dust covering everything making her feel like she had crossed an invisible threshold into some past time she had little knowledge of and desired to know even less.

But there was a door. A plain, black door, set amongst the black walls with their faint markings. She edged through the room, past the bed - one of the few dustless items in the room - with the black sheets in the centre and out through the (unlocked) door. She spared a thought for Artemis' arrogance that she - or anyone - would be unable to get as far in either direction as this that he felt he did not need to lock the door, and fled into the dark.

Ten minutes later, she knew the reason for that arrogance. The tunnels leading away from the fifth cellar were a maze of false ends and sharp corners, a construction that even Daedalus himself could be proud of. Any mortal to come this way would no doubt be hopelessly lost in minutes, and it was only her superior fairy instincts that helped her find her way through the darkness. But even her heightened senses couldn't help her as she moved further into the labyrinth, and she was growing concerned after her fourth wrong turn when thankfully she heard voices up ahead through the darkness.

" - can't do this, sir, it's not right."

"I think you'll find I can do whatever I want. I can have whatever I want. Don't I deserve it by now?"

"Sir, that is neither here nor there. Let the girl go."

"And what if I don't?" Silky, smooth, and furious. "Really, Butler, a gun? So predictable..." Against her will she shivered. She had heard that Voice before, back when she had oh so foolishly believed Artemis was an angel. She had asked to see him and his voice had been all ice and fire and fury, turning her to stone under the cold-burning heat of his rage. She could only imagine what his eyes, coupled with the frigid Voice, could do to a person. But then Artemis said, in quite a different voice, "Do you know what she calls me?"

The other man - Butler, presumably - was silent. Artemis introspective and thoughtful was more dangerous than an angry Artemis, she knew from experience.

"Arty. When she's not shouting at me for being a bastard, of course, or throwing things at my head. She threw a teacup at me today, can you imagine? The sultana's angel of death, standing there covered in tea and being stared down by this tiny little angel... I need her, Butler, no matter what you or even she says, and no one will be taking that away. Not even you."

Silence followed Artemis's little speech; Holly could hear her own heartbeat like thunder in her ears, convinced the two men out by the lake could hear it too.

The gun cocked. "Sir, don't make me do this," said the stranger. Artemis laughed.

"You always underestimate me, Butler, even now," he chuckled, and then there was silence.

Silence, and something else.

Terrible, breathy whistling, like a throat trying to suck in air that would not come.

Oh, Artemis. She couldn't leave.

She bolted out from her hiding place to see the tableau in front of her unfold with almost dramatic slow motion. Artemis held a giant of a man off the ground, a thin piece of rope around his neck, as the stranger choked and spluttered and slowly turned the colours of a dying man.

"Artemis!" she burst out, and the deformed man's head whipped around, the death struggles of the man he was murdering knocking off his mask. She did not flinch from the sight of his face, but Artemis did from the sensation of cool air on his unmasked face, Butler hitting the ground with a thud.

"Holly - I - " Artemis stuttered out. Holly felt sick. She could still see the lasso dangling from Artemis's limp fingers. She had seen it all.

Nevertheless, she felt compelled to ask, "Artemis, what did you do?" in horror. He cringed away from her; that familiar surge of pity welled up again. Just what had happened to this man to destroy him so completely? She had the feeling the little he had told her was merely the tip of the iceberg.

"Don't be angry with me!" he pleaded, sounding all too much like a child for her anger to remain much longer, and forced herself to think. She could heal him, but she was out of magic and they were underground... wait... She was by a lake, standing on muddy ground with the big man coughing and wheezing at her feet, Artemis mashed up against the rock wall as though trying to melt into the stone.

There was water. There was dirt. And there was an acorn in a capsule around her throat.

The giant Mud Man was taking great heaving gulps of air, but they were becoming shallower. He was dying. Artemis stood back with his hands pressed against his thin lips, his eyes fever bright and terrified.

The familiar blue sparks raced through her body, and she felt herself become suffused with magic and vitality once more. D'Arvit, but she had missed this. Artemis had not noticed, too fixated on the sight of his friend slowly suffocating in front of him. A hideous statue, almost gargoyle-like, frozen with horror. She hated Artemis, yes, but she didn't hate this stranger. And if she was totally honest with herself, she didn't hate Artemis so much anymore, either. Those few moments she had thought he might be dead were few she did not want to have to remember again any time soon.

The right thing to do was never the easy thing to do.

So she shoved the stunned Artemis aside, dropped to her knees, and murmured heal as her hands touched the stranger's already-purpling throat. The magic fled her into his body and even as he convulsed she felt Artemis's lightning gaze switch to her in shock and awe, locked onto the blue sparks exiting her hands in waves and streams.

And now, she thought grimly to herself as she healed Artemis's friend and cursed her own kind nature, things were bound to get messy.

Note: the black bedroom is from Susan Kay's Phantom. Erik's bedroom is entirely black with a coffin in the centre and the notes of the Dies Irae on the walls. Cheerful fellow.