“And the elf?” asked Bellico. “What of her?”
“The elf made her choice,” said Gobdaw. “If she steps aside, then we let her live. If she stands her ground, then she becomes as a Mud Person to us.” Sweat rolled down Gobdaw’s brow though the night was growing cool, and he spoke through clenched teeth, trying to hold back Myles Fowl’s consciousness, which bubbled up inside him like mental indigestion.
This exchange was cut short when the English pointers streaked away from the collapsed tunnel mouth and across the meadow toward the large human dwelling that crested the hill.
“Ah,” said Bellico, taking off after the dogs. “The humans are in the stone temple.”
Gobdaw tried to stop himself from talking but failed. “He says to tell you that it’s called a manor. And that all girls are stupid.”
Artemis, Holly, and Butler squirmed along a tunnel that Mulch had assured them would emerge in the wine cellar behind a rack of Chateau Margaux 1995.
Artemis was horrified by this revelation. “Don’t you know that your tunnel could affect the temperature of the cellar? Not to mention the humidity? That wine is an investment.”
“Don’t worry about the wine, silly Mud Boy,” said Mulch in a very patronizing tone that he had developed and practiced simply to annoy Artemis. “I drank that months ago and replaced it. It was the only responsible thing to do—after all, the cellar’s integrity had been compromised.”
“Yes, by you!” Artemis frowned. “Replaced it with what?”
“Do you really want to know?” the dwarf asked, and Artemis shook his head, deciding that, given the dwarf’s history, in this particular case ignorance would be less disturbing than the truth.
“Wise decision,” said Mulch. “So, to continue. The tunnel runs to the back of the cellar, but the wall is plugged.”
“Plugged with what?” asked Artemis, who could be a bit slow in spite of his genius.
The dwarf finger-combed his beard. “I refer you to my last question: Do you really want to know?”
“Can we break through?” asked Butler, the pragmatist.
“Oh yes,” said Mulch. “A big strong human like you. No problem. I’d do it for you, but apparently I have this other mission.”
Holly looked up from her wrist computer, which still wasn’t picking up a signal. “We need you to get the weapons in the shuttle, Mulch. Butler has some kit in the house, but Juliet could already be leading the Berserkers there. We need to move fast and on two fronts. A pincer movement.”
Mulch sighed. “Pincer. I love crab. And lobster. Makes me a little gassy, but it’s worth it.”
Holly slapped her knees. “Time to go,” she said.
Neither of the humans argued.
Mulch watched his friends climb into the manor tunnel and then turned back the way they had come, toward the shuttle.
I don’t like retracing my steps, he thought. Because there’s usually someone chasing after me.
So now here they were, wriggling along a claustrophobic tunnel with the heavy smell of earth in their noses and the ever-present threat of untold tonnage looming above them like a giant anvil.
Holly knew what everyone was thinking. “This tunnel is sound. Mulch is the best digger in the business,” she said between grunts and breaths.
The tunnel meandered, and their only light was from a cell phone taped to Butler’s forehead. Artemis had this sudden vision of the three of them stuck in there forever, like rodents in the belly of a snake, being slowly digested until not a trace remained.
No one will ever know what happened to us.
This was a redundant thought, Artemis knew, because if they didn’t get out of this tunnel, then in all likelihood there would be no one left to wonder what had become of their small group. And he would never know if he had failed to save his parents or if they had already been killed somehow in London.
Nevertheless, Artemis could not shake the notion that they were about to die in this vast unmarked grave, and it grew stronger with every grasping reach of his hand that drew him farther into the earth.
Artemis reached forward once more in the blackness and his scrabbling fingers met Butler’s boot.
“I think we made it,” said the bodyguard. “We’ve reached the blockage.”
“Is the blockage solid?” called Holly from the rear.
There followed a series of noises that would not sound out of place in a jelly factory, and a smell that would be totally consistent with a burst sewage pipe.
Butler coughed several times, swore at length, then said a line heavy with dreadful implication. “Only the crust is solid.”