Disclaimer: The characters, much of the dialogue, and sadly, even the plot are not mine; they all belong to Eoin Colfer.

Pages: 58 – 75

Chapter 4: A Life for a Life

"I'm sorry, Miss Short. But I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. Your mother has about a week to live."

Holly stood there next to Angeline's bed, stunned. "I know this," she said faintly. "I know it." And she knew, if this was what it looked like, just as for her own mother, there was no hope.

Holly stared at the thin, skeletal form of Angeline Fowl, the clear gel on the surface of her skin that instantly burned away from her fever only to be replaced by more.

Holly drew out her medi-kit to take a sample of the gel. She stared at it, a growing sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. This could be about more than Artemis's mother. This could put every fairy alive in jeopardy. In an instant Holly was shoving on her helmet to contact Foaly in Police Plaza, shutting Artemis out despite his many unanswered questions.

"Foaly? Are you there?"

Artemis gave Foaly his password to patch through to the Fowl Manor systems, and through the webcam and various screens around the room Foaly took a long, hard look at Angeline. It took no time at all for him to be convinced of Holly's analysis.

"It's impossible," Foaly said, though without conviction. "We eradicated this years ago."

Artemis was quickly growing frustrated at being left out of the loop. "What is impossible? Eradicated what?"

Foaly refused to tell Artemis anything before taking a direct scan of the gel oozing from Angeline's pores to be sure. He had Holly place her palm over the woman's forehead, so that her glove's omnisensor could retrieve whatever information Foaly required.

Holly breathed in the smell of lilies through her helmet filter as she waited, and the time seemed to stretch an eternity despite the fact she already knew what the results of the scan would be. This smell, a smell far too sweet it would seem to possibly ever be associated with such a horror, made it certain.

When the sensor had done its work and Foaly gave the okay, Holly straightened and stepped back.

Holly could feel Artemis's frustrated, questioning gaze on her, desperate to know. She felt queasy, and could not bring herself to speak. Instead, she reached over and took the boy's hand in her own as they waited for Foaly's report.

Foaly was uncharacteristically somber. "The computer has analyzed the gel. I am afraid it's Spelltropy."

Holly's hand tightened convulsively around Artemis's. Saying the word aloud somehow made it all the more real.

Artemis was done with patiently waiting, kept in the dark. He ripped his hand forcibly from Holly's grip as he went over to Foaly's image on his mother's wall-mounted television screen. He demanded harshly, "I need an explanation, Foaly. Now, please."

"Very well, Artemis," he said with a slight sigh. Then he said quite concisely, cruelly so, "Spelltropy was a plague among the Fairy People." Foaly then continued, explaining about the remarkable speed of the disease's progression, its invulnerability to almost any form of therapy, and the fearsome way it attacked and broke down the body. And, of course, that it was always fatal.

An excruciatingly painful disease with no cure, that was what Spelltropy was. The more Foaly said, the more a dark, invisible weight seemed to settle inside the room and Holly found she could not seem to breath properly.

The only real comfort in all this was that now that they knew about it they could keep the situation under control, keep the disease from spreading by preventing Angeline from having any magical contact with anyone before her soul departed this world. Though Holly knew that wouldn't be much consolation to Artemis. Thoughts of her own mother pricked her mind, and she realized that what had happened to Coral Short wasn't so different from this. Her submarine had been drenched in rancid radiation, and her mother had died a slow, agonizing death.

They did it, Holly thought. The humans.

Holly shook her head and crossed the room, putting a hand on his shoulder again. She knew there was nothing she could say, but she had to say something.

"Artemis," she said gently. "There are things we can do to make her comfortable."

Artemis forced her hand away, almost as though he were angry with it. She could see it in his eyes again, he was not going to give up. She should have known that about him. But how she hated the thought of seeing him at that moment when he was finally forced to accept the truth.

"No," said Artemis, and his eyes were wide with defiance, face was almost wild. "I can achieve wonders. I have talents. Information is my weapon."

Then he seemed to grow calm once again, coming back to himself. He turned back to Foaly, composed now, as though he had suddenly gone into a different mode entirely. An information-gathering mode, cold and analytical as a computer.

"You said that this Spelltropy was a plague—where did it begin?"

Despite his love of lecturing, this time Foaly did not seem eager to elaborate. However, he did explain. Spelltropy was born of magic, magic tainted by the incredible pollution levels pumped into the earth's atmosphere. It first appeared about twenty years back, and because the disease was communicable through magic, that made it immune to magical treatment. The disease had swept unhindered through the fairy people, reducing their numbers by a staggering twenty-five percent.

"But you stopped it," Artemis pointed out. "You must have found a cure."

Holly looked to Foaly as well. She knew the ultimate answer to Foaly's question, that there was no cure for Spelltropy, not any longer, but she was almost as little familiar with the details as Artemis.

"Not me," admitted Foaly, shrugging. "Our old friend Opal Koboi found the antidote."

Holly started a little. She had completely forgotten Opal's involvement, perhaps because back then she had not known the pixie as a homicidal maniac. In general, she tried to think of the unstable, deranged fairy as little as possible.

When Foaly went off on a bit of a tangent about how Opal had tried to charge a fortune for her antidote and the upper echelons among the fairies had had to force her to give it up, Artemis seemed to grow understandably edgy again.

"I don't care about the politics Foaly," he snapped, the look of open impatience abd barely contained hostility slashing through his ordinarily cool features like a knife. "I want to know what the cure was, and why we can't administer it to my mother."

"It's a long story," Foaly hedged uncomfortably, and Holly looked at him oddly, wondering what was up.

"Abbreviate," Artemis shot back harshly.

Foaly didn't seem able to look Artemis in the eye and Holly's whole frame was tense as she stared at the centaur. Something was clearly wrong, but she couldn't figure out what. After all, Foaly had already told Artemis that there was no cure for the disease anymore, that Angeline Fowl was going to die. So why would he be reluctant to go on now? Any other revelation couldn't get any worse than what he had already put forth. Right?

Foaly spoke in a flat, dull monotone as he explained. "The cure occurred naturally. Many creatures contain important pharmacopoeia and act as natural magic enhancers. But because of human activities, more than twenty thousand of these potentially lifesaving species are made extinct every year..."

As Foaly talked on, Holly's eyes migrated from the centaur to Artemis. As soon as Foaly stopped talking, Artemis suddenly froze, and what little color there was drained from his face.

Artemis had evidently understood what was wrong. Holly saw some sort of understanding pass between the two.

It was Holly's turn to be out of the loop and her eyes flickered between them as they continued to stare at each other.

Artemis suddenly bowed his head, and he pressed his hands hard against either side of his skull.

"Oh no," he said, with such a note of desperation in his voice that for a moment Holly felt a flicker of fear. After seeing how strange Artemis had been acting since she had arrived, she had not thought that he could speak in yet another tone that would be still yet even more disturbing to her. "Don't say it," he whispered, and it was like he was almost pleading.

Foaly went on however, relentless now. "Opal Koboi found the antidote in the brain fluid of the silky sifaka lemur of Madagascar."

Artemis did not seem to be listening anymore. He was muttering to himself, head in his hands, "I always knew that this would come back."

Foaly continued, "Unfortunately, the silky sifaka is now extinct. The last one died almost eight years ago."

Artemis's hands fell slowly from his face, but his head remained bowed, as though all the energy had been sucked from his thin frame. The premature wrinkles about his eyes somehow seemed more pronounced than usual, as though in the span of a few minutes he had suddenly aged. Artemis's voice was normally so strong, so full of purpose and authority, but when he spoke now, it came out feeble, weak.

"I know," he said softly, "I killed it."

For a second, Holly froze where she was, certain she had heard wrong. She looked slowly from Foaly to Artemis, then back again.

"Yes," said Foaly simply, staring at the human boy before him just as Artemis lifted pained eyes back to the screen. The centaur did not look angry, but neither was there any pity in his long face.

Each continued to stare into the face of the other until Holly finally cut in, her voice coming out a bit too loud in the reigning quiet. She felt distantly as though it were someone else speaking, someone else standing here, witnessing this. "What?" she said. Then she hesitated, shooting a glance at Angeline Fowl. But the sick woman slept on, unaware of the drama unfolding in her bedroom.

Holly continued, dropping her voice. "What are you two talking about?" She turned from Foaly, the muscles of her face tightening so that her expression was somehow both angry and pleading at the same time, to the boy standing in front of her. "Artemis?"

Artemis did not meet her eyes. He did not seem to want to look at anyone.

"What do you mean you killed it?" Holly heard herself demanding. "What are you talking about, Artemis?"

She saw Foaly glance back at the human boy.

"You better explain," the centaur told him. "I don't know any of the details anyway."

Artemis still looked deeply shaken, but he gave a small nod. Closing his eyes, he pressed his fingers hard to either side of his temple, concentrating. When his eyes opened, Artemis was composed once more, at least outwardly.

"I suppose it began with my father's disappearance five—no, eight years ago."

He began the story by describing the time before his father had been kidnapped. How his father and his mother had been having disagreements about Artemis Fowl Senior's business ventures, and how his mother's concern for the well-being of the planet in addition to her family caused her husband's work to bother her a great deal.

His father had decided then to give up his criminal career, but only after one big deal that would give them enough money to be able to pursue legitimate enterprises successfully. But of course, it was during that last expedition Artemis Fowl Senior would vanish.

Artemis went on to explain how, as soon as the kingpin of all the Fowl activities was unaccounted for, presumed dead, the Fowls suddenly found themselves low on funds. They had countless debts to pay off, while those that owed his father saw an opportunity and bolted rather than cough up—After all, there was no longer anyone left to chase them down. In addition, Artemis wanted to keep the expedition he had sent out to hunt for his father going, and get new equipment to give the search a better chance of success.

Artemis was able to say all this in the same even, almost clinical tone with which he had begun, like he was reading off a list of rules concerning a company's insurance policy, but when he opened his mouth and started to explain how his mother had refused to acknowledge his father's disappearance, and had continued to spend money as always in her quest to 'save the world,' Artemis suddenly stopped talking.

Without even looking at Holly or Foaly, who stared at him, and without his calm expression changing in the slightest, he suddenly walked past Holly as though he could not see her and sat in a chair by Angeline's bed. He tenderly took one of his mother's hands, cradling it between his own, gazing at his mother's face, drawn and sickly as it was.

Afterward, he continued speaking in a tone that did not indicate there had been any interruption.

He told them how he had gone to his mother's room one day to confront her about fifty thousand euros she had spent and found her distraught and crying. Instead of comforting her, he had told himself to be strong so that he could save his father, and so demanded to know where the money had gone.

When Angeline finally remembered that she had spent the funds on a silky sifaka lemur, a creature thought to be extinct, Artemis was frustrated beyond belief.

At first, young Artemis had tried to argue the folly of what his mother had done, but quickly changed tactics, pretending to be only innocently interested in the lemur to ease his mother's suffering, deciding it would be better not to cause her additional grief as reality slipped further away from her.

Instead, as he left his mother's room and went to see his bodyguard, he made plans to go to the nearby nature reserve where the lemur was being held temporarily.

It was at this point that Holly broke in, unable to keep quiet any longer.

"So in a fit of childish pique you murdered the lemur," she accused.

Without taking his eyes off his mother, Artemis replied in an even tone, "No. I used to suffer from the occasional fit of pique, as you well know, but they generally did not last. An intellect such as mine cannot be overpowered by emotions for long."

"But you said you killed the animal," said Holly, frowning, trying to understand.

Artemis assured Holly that he had indeed killed the lemur, even if he himself hadn't committed the act personally, but afterward he seemed to lose some of his earlier momentum and didn't appear particularly eager to continue. So Holly had to keep pressing Artemis relentlessly to tell her exactly how he had done away with the creature.

Those details were, of course, irrelevant to their predicament, but Holly pushed him anyway. Something inside her was driving this unnecessary interrogation, this need to know all the circumstances. She had gotten so used to thinking of Artemis as the boy who had waited for death with her atop a Temple of Artemis replica, who had gone out of his way to save Minerva Paradizo, a girl whose mistakes reminded him so much of his own, and who had once brought Holly back to life. Being shocked back to remembering the boy she had first met when he was twelve was an unwelcome surprise in the midst of an already gut-wrenching crisis.

Holly tried to keep her head cool, but she couldn't help but remember that part of her mother's job with the LEPmarine had been protecting species close to extinction, and here Artemis had been all along, contributing to the Mud Man disease ravaging the planet. It felt like a personal betrayal.

"How did you kill the lemur?" she pressed. "How did you even get hold of it?"

So Artemis finally told them. He had not killed the lemur himself while throwing a tantrum over what Angeline Fowl had done. He had not had Butler kill it out of spite. No, it was about money. With Artemis Fowl, it always was.

When Artemis told them how he had sold the animal to group known as 'the Extinctionists,' it didn't take a genius to realize what that meant, and Holly felt a thrill of horror.

"It was my first big deal," said Artemis. "I delivered it to them in Morocco and they paid me a hundred thousand euros. It funded the entire Arctic expedition."

Feeling sick, Holly slowly inched away from him. She'd thought she'd been growing to know him, thought he was different from the humans who had been responsible for her mother's death.

Artemis wasn't done talking. "I rationalized the whole thing," he said quietly, glancing at Holly's expression, then looking away. "My father for a lemur. How could I not go through with it?"

Holly felt an unwilling pang, despite herself. She knew how much Artemis loved his parents. But she quickly pushed it away—exchanging a life for a life, that was still what it was. Killing the innocent lemur, the last of its kind, for quick money. It was like a direct attack on her mother's memory, on nature, on every fairy belief. Even if he argued that doing so could provide a remote chance of saving his father, that couldn't possibly be right.

"I know," he said, meeting Holly's gaze this time, despite her the disgusted look on her face. "It was a terrible thing to do. If I could turn back the clock..."

He stopped. His face, tense with guilt, suddenly smoothed, eyes glassy. He seemed to stare right past her as though she wasn't there, seeing something no one else could.

He set down Angeline's hand and stood up slowly, apparently still unaware of the presence of his two fairy friends. Moving away from his mother's pain-stricken form, he began to pace.

Holly forgot about her revulsion for just a moment, her interest piqued, as it always was. She turned to Foaly, and said with total certainty, "He has a plan."

A/N: Made a few edits as of June 2014. I cut some things out and switched around which pieces of dialogue I used, in hopes of making it flow better.

So anyway, thank you so much for the reviews last chapter! (: Please tell me what you think.

Posted 10/4/12, reposted 9/30/14