Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer Page B

Artemis.“Just riches.”
    “A thief!” spat Holly. “You’re just a thief!”
    Annoyance flashed across Artemis’s features, only to be replaced by his customary sardonic grin.
    “Yes. A thief if you like. Hardly just a thief, though. The world’s first cross-species thief.”
    Captain Short snorted. “First cross-species thief! Mud People have been stealing from us for millennia. Why do you think we live underground?”
    “True. But I will be first to successfully separate a fairy from its gold.”
    “Gold? Gold? Human idiot. You don’t honestly believe that crock-of-gold nonsense. Some things aren’t true, you know.” Holly threw her head back and laughed.
    Artemis checked his nails patiently, waiting for her to finish. When the gales had finally subsided, he shook his index finger.
    “You are right to laugh, Captain Short. For a while there, I did believe in all that under-the-rainbow crock-of-gold blarney, but now I know better. Now I know about the hostage fund.”
    Holly struggled to keep her face under control.
    “What hostage fund?”
    “Oh, come now, Captain. Why bother with the charade? You told me about it yourself.”
    “I—I told you!” stammered Holly. “Ridiculous!”
    “Look at your arm.”
    Holly rolled up her right sleeve. There was a small cotton pad taped to the vein.
    “That’s where we administered the sodium pentathol. Commonly known as truth serum. You sang like a bird.”
    Holly knew it was true. How else could he know?
    “You’re crazy!”
    Artemis nodded indulgently. “If I win, I’m a prodigy. If I lose, then I’m crazy. That’s the way history is written.”
    Of course, there had been no sodium pentathol, just a harmless prick with a sterilized needle. Artemis would not risk causing brain damage to his meal ticket, nor could he afford to reveal the Book as the source of his information. Better to let the hostage believe that she had betrayed her own people. It would lower her morale, making her more susceptible to his mind games. Still, the ruse disturbed him. It was undeniably cruel. How far was he prepared to go for this gold? He didn’t know, and wouldn’t until the time came.
    Holly slumped, momentarily defeated by this latest development. She had talked. Revealed sacred secrets. Even if she did manage to escape, she would be banished to some freezing tunnel under the Arctic Circle.
    “This isn’t over, Fowl,” she said at last. “We have powers you can’t possibly know about. It would take days to describe them all.”
    The infuriating boy laughed again. “How long do you think you’ve been here?”
    Holly groaned; she knew what was coming. “A few hours?”
    Artemis shook his head. “Three days,” he lied. “We’ve had you on a drip for over sixty hours . . . until you told us everything we needed to know.”
    Even as the words came out, Artemis felt guilty. These mind games were having an obvious effect on Holly, destroying her from the inside out. Was there really a need for this?
    “Three days? You could have killed me. What kind of ...”
    And it was that speechless quality that sent the doubt shooting through Artemis’s brain. The fairy thought him so evil, she couldn’t even find the words.
    Holly pulled herself together.
    “Well then, Master Fowl,” she spat, heavy on the contempt, “if you know so much about us, then you know what happens when they locate me.”
    Artemis nodded absently. “Oh yes, I know. In fact, I’m counting on it.”
    It was Holly’s turn to grin.
    “Oh really. Tell me, boy, have you ever met a troll?”
    For the first time, the human’s confidence dropped a notch.
    “No. Never a troll.”
    Holly showed more teeth.
    “You will, Fowl. You will. And I hope I’m there to see it.”
    The LEP had established a surface Ops HQ at E1: Tara.
    “Well?” said Root, slapping at a paramedic gremlin who was applying burn salve to his forehead. “Leave it. The magic will sort me out soon enough.”
    “Well, what?”