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

Pages: 237 – 244

Chapter 20: Death by Incineration

Just beyond the freezer where Holly was being held was a silver-steel kitchen, and just beyond that was apparently the dining hall where the event was to be held.

At least, this was what Holly gathered from what she could hear when she put her superior elven hearing to use in order to listen to what was going on beyond her prison. Based on the echoing of the sounds of conversation and clinking of glasses, Holly guessed the dining hall must be a fairly large room. This was not going to be a small event.

Unfortunately, being so close to the center of the action Holly soon began to wish her sense of hearing wasn't quite so keen as the indistinct rumble of talk died down and Damon Kronski started speaking, subjecting her to a stream of such vile sentiments as should have been regarded as criminal just for voicing them.

Kronski began by informing the crowd of an extinction of a species of fish known as the yellowfin cutthroat, which of course was the result of human actions, an event of which the crowd clearly approved. Kronski however claimed to be sorrowful over their demise, telling his audience in mournful tones that drifted back to Holly at the back of the freezer, "No, no. This is not a cause for joy. It is said that the yellowfin was a very tasty fish, with a particularly sweet flavor."

This was even more insulting than the crowd's response, and Holly suddenly had a wish she could put duct tape over Kronski's mouth instead, and make him shut up.

Holly was feeling distinctly ill again. Now that the conference had actually begun, Holly was not quite so flippant as she had when Kronski had come to see her. Time was really running out. Although she imagined her appearance in this sick, twisted program would be saved for the very end as the climax, therefore giving her a bit more time before she had to go out there and face her fate, the opportunity for Artemis to show up and get her out was dwindling, almost completely gone now. It looked as though Artemis really was not going to come after all. Maybe he just hadn't had enough time to make any necessary preparations, perhaps he just hadn't had enough resources.

With a sinking feeling, Holly realized that, despite all her reasoning and doubt, deep down she really had been expecting him to be there in the end.

But there's still a chance, she kept saying. There's still time.

Holly wondered how long was she going to keep saying that. Until Kronski put the skewer through her heart, or whatever he planned to do with her, she supposed.

Holly felt a jolt in her stomach as one of the guards suddenly seized the back of her chair, hoisting her, plastic baby chair and all, into the air. He shifted his grip to get a better hold, then nodded at the other two guards, who nodded back, then turned toward the freezer exit.

Holly's legs dangled helplessly far above the floor.

No, she silently breathed, the word as soft and hopeless in her mind as a wisp of wind against her face through the bars of a prison. It couldn't be time already. Should she try to fight? But any idiot could see that would do nothing to help her. Would Artemis come with a plan to rescue her soon, or was all her hope and waiting in vain?

The three guards moved swiftly into the kitchen, which was completely deserted, then turned left and headed for a set of double doors off to the side similar to the entrance to the freezer itself. The entire time Holly was nauseous with indecision, a feeling she had not often had as a full adult LEP officer. But there was no clear path, no clear action for this situation, and so her thoughts had nowhere to go but to flow in circles like the pacing of a caged beast.

Fighting was her last hope. But why do so when it was completely useless and she might inadvertently interfere with Artemis's plan if he had one? But if Artemis had no plan, if he wasn't here after all, wasn't it better to try every possible avenue she could to get away even if it was no good, rather than sitting here in silence, meekly waiting for the end to come?

One of the guards went ahead of the others and silently opened the entryway. The guard carried Holly quickly through and the doors swung shut behind them.

Inside was what appeared to be a storage space, though it would be closer to say that it resembled a changing room that actors used for putting on plays. All manner of ridiculous costumes on racks, as well as theatrical items like hooks attached to cords used for rock climbing or scaling the side of a building, and swords and flamethrowers among scattered piles of other various props were everywhere. Evidently, Kronski was going all out with this show.

In the center of the room sat several larger sets mounted on wheels, likely used as supporting props to create environments in stage dramas. The largest one caught her notice right away, a sort of wooden platform with horizontal wood boards for a floor like a dock, raised only a little off the floor. However, it wasn't really the wooden platform itself she cared about so much as the steel cage mounted on top of it, and the line that went through the center of the floor inside the cage – a trap door.

Yes, she thought, this was going to be quite the performance. A performance where the much-awaited final act would be her death.

The guard bearing Holly lifted her up over the wooden railing of the dock and set her in the cage, facing the front. He shut the cage door after her and set the lock with an ominous click.

Holly's eyes flickered about the space, a steel box with bars in front, like those cages used at Mud Men carnivals to let them see the animals, or even sometimes other Mud Men with abnormalities. Maybe, she realized, this abhorrent exhibition would be better compared to a circus than to a play.

Holly looked all around her carefully, but her eyes told her what she already knew: there was no way out. While she looked, she noticed the lens of a camera winking at her from outside the bars from the upper left-hand corner, that would make certain her execution would be well-documented.

There was also, she noted, a curtain fixed to a small device, the curtain currently held off to one side. Holly could tell as much by the slight smell as the brief glimpse she'd gotten before being placed inside the cage that the material was made of – what else – animal skin. One would think she would be used to the horror of it already, but she suddenly felt queasy.

The guard stared at Holly for a second, then reached up and dragged the drapery closed with a sharp snap.

Holly's eyes adjusted slowly, but still she closed her eyes and bowed her head, for the moment left alone in the darkness.

Before long, Holly heard the sound of scuffling feet outside, a lot more than her original three guards from the sound of it. She could feel her palms beginning to sweat and when the dock started to move slowly forward on its wheels, at first she jumped like a rabbit, wrists digging against her restraints.

Holly could hear the dull murmur of many disjointed conversations grow louder the moment the dock was moved out of the props room and into what Holly guessed was the Banqueting Hall, where all the guests had earlier eaten the extinct yellowfin.

As soon as the dock came to a stop, so did the hundred or so voices of the Extinctionists, dying away like the settling of an ocean wave. There was a long silence before it finally began.

"Every year we put a rare animal on trial," boomed Kronski's speaker-amplified voice across the hall.

Holly's heart slowly began to pound, and her stomach tightened hard suddenly, as though she'd been thrown off the edge of a building. Here it was then – the countdown to her inevitable demise.

It was happening too quickly. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that she did not want to die here, like this. She had not said a proper farewell to anyone, not to Mulch or Commander Kelp – no, Trouble – not to Foaly or Nº1, who had been standing right there when she had left her own time, not to anyone she knew in the LEP, not to Butler or any of her human friends, not even to Artemis.

Well, at least she'd had a chance to say goodbye to Commander Root, even if she hadn't known at the time it was a goodbye that involved her end as well as his.

However, the reason why she despised the idea of dying here so much was more than that. It wasn't that she was so terrified of death itself or even that she felt she had so much left she wanted to do in her life, even though she did. If nothing else, she had always wanted to go out fighting, doing something worthwhile so she wouldn't have any regrets – like the commander. Instead, she was going to die as a sideshow freak, nothing more than entertainment for these abominable Mud Men, a means to satisfy the basest of human nature.

At Kronski's use of the word 'trial,' Holly heard several audience members laugh and hoot derisively, as though they and Kronski were sharing an inside joke. Holly understood well the source of their amusement – A bit funny to call something a "trial" when there was absolutely no chance the defendant would be exonerated.

"A real trial," Kronski argued good-naturedly, though with a hint of irony in his voice, "where the host prosecutes, and one of you lucky people get to defend." He went on, almost dreamily, "The idea is simplicity itself. If you can convince a jury of your unprejudiced peers that the creature in this cage contributes positively to human existence on this planet, then we will free the creature, which, believe it or not, did happen once in 1983."

Holly was finally beginning to understand the setup of what this spectacle was going to be, the tradition and "rules" of this "trial." Not that it did her one bit of good, as she highly doubted there was a single person in this room who would want to defend her existence seriously. Those who were here were here because they wanted to see a show, the murder of another living being.

Holly wondered what sort of animal it could have been to convince these insane people to let it go back then. "Contributes positively to human existence on this planet..." Holly was so galled by the utter arrogance of the statement, as though they thought themselves to be the gods of the world, she was temporarily distracted from her own predicament.

"A little before my time, but I am assured that it actually happened," Kronski continued, apparently as stumped as Holly on how this crowd could ever find an animal that was useful to human beings.

"If the defense counsel's peers are not convinced of the animal's usefulness, then I press this button," said Kronski. Even though Holly was still in the darkness behind the curtain, she could imagine Kronski's lips curling upward into a little sadistic smile at this.

Holly's hands tightened ever so slightly on the arms of the plastic chair, sweat-slicked palms slipping against the smooth surface.

"Allow me to demonstrate. Indulge me; it's a new pit. I've been testing it all week." He sounded like a big kid with a brand new remote-controlled toy car.

Pit – Holly did not much care for the sound of that. Would she be thrown to some beast to be devoured? Maybe her fate was to be thrown to the animal that had been spared for this very purpose back all that time ago. It would be just like the Extinctionists, she thought, people who hated animals, to keep a particularly big, nasty one as a pet to enjoy watching it first stalk then rip to shreds other creatures as they screamed in fear and agony.

Of course, the Extinctionists wouldn't be getting any screaming out of her. Her mouth was taped.

But in any case, she supposed it would be better to be eaten by some rabid animal than the Extinctionists.

Holly heard a beep and she assumed Kronski must have activated the means of her execution. Perhaps showing off his pet to the crowd. But a moment later, instead of the snarling of some great brutish predator she had been expecting, she heard a wooshing sound and though she felt nothing, she had heard that noise all too often in mission after stupidly dangerous mission in her time with the LEP not to know what it was.

While the Extinctionists clapped approvingly, Holly realized what this 'pit' must contain, or at least she got the general idea.

Incinerated, she thought. I'm going to be incinerated.

Actually, that was quite a bit better than she'd anticipated. Incineration meant it was bound to be pretty quick, and at least now she had the comfort of knowing weird things like being eaten or stuffed and mounted wouldn't be happening to her body afterward. Setting aside the whole murdering-another-sentient-species-for-sport part, comparatively speaking this could almost be considered humane.

Humane – now there was a term that had quite a bit of irony to it.

Meanwhile, the audience was starting to get impatient. One man called out, "Come on, Damon. What have we got tonight? Not another monkey. Every year it's monkeys."

Holly might have smirked if not for her nerves and the tape.

A lemur, actually. Or, it was going to be, before Kronski lost it and got a fairy instead.

At least Jayjay wasn't being forced to endure this nightmare, she thought. That was one thing to be glad for.

"No, Jeffery," replied Kronski, "not another monkey. What if – "

"Jeffery" cut Kronski off with an irritated noise from the back of his throat. "Please, no more what if's. We had half a dozen with the fish."

As much as Holly would have liked to enjoy hearing someone make snide remarks at Kronski, it was difficult given the fact that the audience was as deranged as he was.

"Jeffery"'s voice had a scratchy, grating quality to it like stones being scrapped against each other, and when he spoke again, there was an added level of viciousness that made his words all the more unpleasant to Holly's ears.

"Show us the blasted creature."

There was a short pause, and Holly could imagine Kronski pretending to consider it. Perhaps then he even shrugged his shoulders in apparent indifference.

"As you wish," he said.

Holly's heart began to start up again, pounding so hard and fast against her chest this time that she could feel the vibration of it through her entire body. It was too late now, far too late. Artemis had not come for her, as she should have known from the beginning he would not be able to –

The room went absolutely still and silent again, enough so that Holly could hear the whirring of machinery some ways above where she was. At the same time, she heard a light, high-pitched whine just in front of her to the upper left, no doubt as the camera mounted there was activated. She noticed in the last moment how very much it was like the one Artemis would try in eight years to fix to his mother's bed so that it would be easy for others to examine his mother's condition from afar.

And then the curtain flew aside.

A/N: No, we're not quite to the trial yet... Not next chapter either, but we'll get there eventually, I promise. If you're amazed that it's even possible to go this slow, well, you're not alone. (Yes, it's hard for me to believe too.) But I've found for my writing style when I try to go too fast, it just makes things come out anticlimactic... I have to force myself to slow down and take the time necessary to develop these things, lol. It'll be chapter after next, I promise.

Thanks for reading and reviewing, hope to hear from you! (:

Posted 1/13/12 (Heh heh... Friday the thirteenth.)