The troll was directly below her, pounding against the town's outer wall, which was coming away in chunks beneath his powerful fingers. Holly sucked in a startled gasp. This guy was a monster! Big as an elephant and ten times as mean. But this particular beast was worse than mean, he was scared.
'Control,' said Holly into her mike. 'Runner located. Situation critical topside.'
Root himself was on the other end of the comlink.
'Clarify, Captain.'
Holly pointed her video link at the troll.
'Runner is going through the town wall. Contact imminent. How far away are Retrieval?'
'ETA five minutes minimum. We're still in the shuttle.'
Holly bit her lip. Root was in the shuttle?
'That's too long, Commander. This whole town is going to explode in ten seconds…I'm going in.'
'Negative, Holly…Captain Short. You don't have an invite. You know the law. Hold your position.'
'But, Commander — '
Root cut her off. 'No! No buts, Captain. Hang back. That's an order!'
Holly's entire body felt like a heartbeat. Petrol fumes were addling her brain. What could she do? What was the right decision to make? Lives or orders?
Then the troll broke through the wall and a child's voice split the night.
'Aiuto!' it screamed.
Help. An invitation. At a stretch.
'Sorry, Commander. The troll is light-crazy and there are children in there.'
She could imagine Root's face, purple with rage as he spat into the mike.
'I'll have your stripes, Short! You'll spend the next hundred years on drain duty!'
But it was no use. Holly had disconnected her mike and swooped in after the troll.
Streamlining her body, Captain Short ducked into the hole. She appeared to be in a restaurant. A packed restaurant. The troll had been temporarily blinded by the electric light and was thrashing about in the centre of the floor.
The patrons were stunned. Even the child's plea had petered out.
They sat gaping, party hats perched comically on their heads. Waiters froze, huge trays of pasta quivering on their splayed fingers. Chubby Italian infants covered their eyes with chubby fingers. It was always like this in the beginning: the shocked silence. Then came the screaming.
A wine bottle crashed to the floor. It broke the spell. The pandemonium started. Holly winced. Trolls hated noise almost as much as light.
The troll lifted massive shaggy shoulders, its retractable claws sliding out with an ominous schiiick. Classic predator behaviour. The beast was about to strike.
Holly drew her weapon and flicked it up to the second setting.
She couldn't kill the troll under any circumstances. Not to save humans. But she could certainly put him out until Retrieval arrived.
Aiming for the weak point at the base of the skull, she let the troll have a long burst of the concentrated ion ray. The beast staggered, stumbled a few steps, then got very angry.
It's OK, thought Holly, I'm shielded. Invisible. To any onlookers it would seem as though the pulsing blue beam emanated from thin air.
The troll rounded on her, its muddy dreadlocks swinging like candles.
No panic. It can't see me.
The troll picked up a table.
Invisible. Totally invisible.
He pulled back a shaggy arm and let fly.
Just a slight shimmer in the air.
The table tumbled straight towards her head.
Holly moved. A second too late. The table clipped her backpack, knocking the petrol tank clean off. It span through the air, trailing flammable fluid.
Italian restaurants — wouldn't you know it full of candles. The tank twirled right through an elaborate candelabrum. It burst into flames, like some deadly firework. Most of the petrol landed on the troll. So did Holly.
The troll could see her. There was no doubt about it. It squinted at her through the hated light, its brow a rictus of pain and fear. Her shield was off. Her magic had gone.
Holly twisted in the troll's grip, but it was useless. The creature's fingers were the size of bananas, but nowhere near as pliant. They were squashing the breath from her ribcage with savage ease. Needle-like claws were scraping at the toughened material of her uniform.
Any second now, they would punch through, and that would be that.
Holly couldn't think. The restaurant was a carousel of chaos. The troll was gnashing its tusks; greasy molars trying to grip her helmet.
Holly could smell its fetid breath through her filters. She could smell the odour of burning fur too, as the fire spread along the troll's back.
The beast's green tongue rasped across her visor, sliming the lower section. The visor! That was it. Her only chance. Holly wormed her free hand to the helmet controls. The tunnel lights. High beams.
She depressed the sunken button and 800 watts of unfiltered light blasted from the twin spotlights above her eyes.
The troll reared back, a penetrating scream exploding from between rows of teeth. Dozens of glasses and bottles shattered where they stood. It was too much for the poor beast. Stunned, set on fire and now blinded. The shock and pain made their way through to its tiny brain, ordering it to shut down. The troll complied, keeling over with almost comical stiffness. Holly rolled to avoid a scything tusk.
There was complete silence, but for tinkling glass, crackling fur and the sudden release of breath. Holly climbed shakily to her feet.
There were a lot of eyes following her — human eyes. She was 100 per cent visible. And these humans wouldn't stay complacent for long.
This breed never did. Containment was the issue.
She raised her empty palms. A gesture of peace.
'Scusatemi tutti,' she said, the language flowing easily from her tongue.
The Italians, ever graceful, muttered that it was nothing.
Holly reached slowly into her pocket and withdrew a small sphere. She placed it in the middle of the floor.
'Guardate,' she said. Look.
The restaurant's patrons complied, leaning in to see the small silver ball. It was ticking, faster and faster, almost like a countdown.
Holly turned her back to the sphere. Three, two, one…
Boom! Flash! Mass unconsciousness. Nothing fatal, but headaches all around in about forty minutes. Holly sighed. Safe. For the moment. She ran to the door and slid the latch across. Nobody was going in or out. Except through the big gaping hole in the wall. Next she doused the smouldering troll with the contents of the restaurant's fire extinguisher, hoping the icy powder wouldn't revive the sleeping behemoth.
Holly surveyed the mess she had created. There was no doubt, it was a shambles. Worse than Hamburg. Root would skin her alive.
She'd rather face the troll any day. This was the end of her career for sure, but suddenly that didn't seem so important because her ribs were aching and she had a blinder of a pressure headache coming on.
Perhaps a rest, just for a second, so she could pull herself together before Retrieval showed up.
Holly didn't even bother looking for a chair. She simply allowed her legs to buckle beneath her, sinking to the chessboard lino floor.
Waking up to Commander Root's bulging features is the stuff of nightmares. Holly's eyes flickered open, and for a second she could have sworn that there was concern in those eyes. But then it was gone, replaced by the customary vein-popping fury.
'Captain Short!' he roared, mindless of her headache. 'What in the name of sanity happened here?'
Holly rose shakily to her feet.
'I…That is…There was…' The sentences just wouldn't come.
'You disobeyed a direct order. I told you to hang back! You know
it's forbidden to enter a human building without an invitation.'
Hollv shook the shadows from her vision.
'I got invited in. A child called for help.'
'You're on shaky ground there, Short.'
'There is precedent, sir. Corporal Rowe versus the State. The jury ruled that the trapped woman's cry for help could be accepted as an invitation into the building. Anyway, you're all here now. That means you accepted the invitation too.'
'Hmm,' said Root doubtfully. 'I suppose you were lucky. Things could have been worse.'
Holly looked around. Things couldn't have been a lot worse. The establishment was pretty trashed and there were forty humans out for the count. The tech boys were attaching mind-wipe electrodes to the temples of unconscious diners.
'We managed to secure the area, in spite of half the town hammering on the door.'
'What about the hole?'
Root smirked. 'See for yourself.'
Holly glanced over. Retrieval had jimmied a hologram lead into the existing electricity sockets and were projecting an unbattered wall over the hole. The holograms were handy for quick patches, but no good under scrutiny. Anyone who examined the wall too closely would have noticed that the slightly transparent patch was exactly the same as the stretch beside it. In this case there were two identical patches of spiderweb cracks and two reproductions of the same Rembrandt. But the people inside the pizzeria were in no condition to examine walls, and by the time they woke up, the wall would have been repaired by the Telekinetic Division and the entire paranormal experience would be removed from their memories.
A Retrieval officer bolted from the restroom.
'Commander!'
'Yes, Sergeant?'
'There's a human in here, sir. The Concusser didn't reach him.
He's coming, sir. Right now, sir!'
'Shields!' barked Root. 'Everyone!'
Holly tried. She really did. But it wouldn't come. Her magic was gone. A toddler waddled out of the bathroom, his eyes heavy with sleep. He pointed a pudgy finger directly at Holly.
'Ciao, folletta,' he said, before climbing into his father's lap to continue his snooze.
Root shimmered back into the visible spectrum. He was, if possible, even angrier than before.
'What happened to your shield, Short?'
Holly swallowed.
'Stress, Commander,' she offered hopefully.
Root wasn't having any of it.
'You lied to me, Captain. You're not running hot at all, are you?'
Holly shook her head mutely.
'How long since you completed the Ritual?'
Holly chewed her lip.
'I'd say… about… four years, sir.'
Root nearly popped a vein.
'Four…Four years? It's a wonder you lasted this long! Do it now.Tonight! You're not coming below ground again without your powers. You're a danger to yourself and your fellow officers!'
'Yessir.'
'Get a set of Hummingbirds from Retrieval and zip across to the old country. There's a full moon tonight.'
'Yessir.'
'And don't think I've forgotten about this shambles. We'll talk about it when you get back.'
'Yessir. Very good, sir.'
Holly turned to go, but Root cleared his throat for attention.
'Oh, and Captain Short…'
'Yessir?'
Root's face had lost its purple tinge and he almost seemed embarrassed.
'Well done on the life-saving thing. Could have been worse, an awful lot worse.'
Holly beamed behind her visor. Perhaps she wouldn't be kicked out of Recon after all.
'Thank you, sir.'
Root grunted, his complexion returning to its normal ruddy hue.
'Now get out of here, and don't come back until you're full to the tips of your ears with magic!'
Holly sighed. So much for gratitude.
'Yes, sir. On my way, sir.'
Chapter 4: Abduction
Artemis’s main problem was one of location — how to locate a leprechaun. This was one sly bunch of fairies, hanging around for God knows how many millennia and still not one photo, not one frame of video. Not even a Loch-Ness-type hoax. They weren't exactly a sociable group. And they were smart too. No one had ever got his hands on fairy gold. But no one had ever had access to the Book either.
And puzzles were so simple when you had the key.
Artemis had summoned the Butlers to his study, and spoke to them now from behind a mini-lectern.
'There are certain rituals every fairy must complete to renew his magic,' explained Artemis.
Butler and Juliet nodded, as though this were a normal briefing.
Artemis flicked through his hard copy of the Book and selected a passage.
'From the earth thine power flows,
Given through courtesy, so thanks are owed.
Pluck thou the magick seed,
Where full moon, ancient oak and twisted water meet.
And bury it far from where it was found,
So return your gift into the ground.'
Artemis closed the text.
'Do you see?'
Butler and Juliet kept nodding, while still looking thoroughly mystified.
Artemis sighed.
'The leprechaun is bound by certain rituals. Very specific rituals, I might add. We can use them to track one down.'
Juliet raised a hand, even though she herself was four years Artemis's senior.
'Yes?'
'Well, the thing is, Artemis,' she said hesitantly, twisting a strand of blonde hair in a way that several of the local louts considered extremely attractive. 'The bit about leprechauns.'
Artemis frowned. It was a bad sign.
'Your point, Juliet?'
'Well, leprechauns. You know they're not real, don't you?'
Butler winced. It was his fault really. He'd never got around to filling in his sister on the mission parameters.
Artemis scowled reprovingly at him.
'Butler hasn't already talked to you about this?'
'No. Was he supposed to?'
'Yes, he certainly was. Perhaps he thought you'd laugh at him.'
Butler squirmed. That was exactly what he'd thought. Juliet was the only person alive who laughed at him with embarrassing regularity. Most other people did it once. Just once.
Artemis cleared his throat.
'Let us proceed under the assumption that the fairy folk do exist and that I am not a gibbering moron.'
Butler nodded weakly. Juliet was unconvinced.
'Very well. Now, as I was saying, the People have to fulfil a specific ritual to renew their powers. According to my interpretation, they must pick a seed from an ancient oak tree by the bend in a river. And they must do this during the full moon.'
The light began to dawn in Butler's eyes.
'So all we have to do…'
'Is run a cross-reference through the weather satellites, which I already have. Believe it or not, there aren't that many ancient oaks left, if you take ancient to be a hundred years plus. When you factor in the river bend and full moon, there are precisely one hundred and twenty-nine sites to be surveyed in this country.'
Butler grinned. Stakeout. Now the Master was talking his language.
'There are preparations to be made for our guest's arrival,' said Artemis, handing a typewritten sheet of A4 to Juliet. 'These alterations must be made to the cellar. See to it, Juliet. To the letter.'
'Yes, Arty.'
Artemis frowned, but only slightly. For reasons that he couldn't quite fathom, he didn't mind terribly when Juliet called him by the pet name his mother had for him.
Butler scratched his chin thoughtfully. Artemis noticed the gesture.
'Query?'
'Well, Artemis. The sprite in Ho Chi Minh City…'
Artemis nodded.
'I know. Why didn't we simply abduct her?'
'Yes, sir.'
'According to Chi Lun's Almanac of the People, a seventh-century manuscript recovered from the lost city of Sh'shamo: "Once a fairy has taken spirits with the Mud People" — that's us, by the way — "they are forever dead to their brothers and sisters." So there was no guarantee that that particular fairy was worth even an ounce of gold.
No, my old friend, we need fresh blood. All clear?'