The Last Guardian

They tumbled through the hole onto a fallen rack of broken wine bottles, which had been knocked over by Butler’s hurried entry. Usually he would have inched his way through the entrance, moving the rack bit by bit, but in this case speed was more important than stealth, and so he simply crashed through Mulch’s tunnel plug and into the cellar beyond. The other two quickly followed, happy to escape the confines of the tunnel.

 

Artemis sniffed the liquid pooling in concave curves of broken bottle fragments. “That is most definitely not Chateau Margaux 1995,” he commented.

 

“It’s not even snake wine,” said Butler, brushing himself off. “Although I know a few mercenaries who would probably drink it.”

 

Holly hiked up the tall seventeenth-century stone cellar steps, then pressed her ear to the door.

 

“I can’t hear anything,” she said after a moment. “Wind from outside, that’s all.”

 

Butler pulled Artemis from the rack wreckage. “Let’s keep going, Artemis. We need to get to my weapons before it occurs to Juliet’s passenger.”

 

Holly opened the door a crack and peeped through. Halfway down a corridor was a bunch of pirates armed with automatic weapons. They stood absolutely still, probably in an attempt to stop their bones from rattling.

 

Butler crept up behind her.

 

“How are we doing?” he asked.

 

Holly held her breath as she closed the door.

 

“Not great,” she said.

 

They squatted behind a rack of 1990s California reds and spoke in urgent whispers.

 

“What do we have?” asked Artemis.

 

Butler held up his fists. “I’ve got these. That’s it.”

 

Holly searched the pockets of her jumpsuit. “Some plasti-cuffs. A couple of flares. Not much of an inventory.”

 

Artemis touched the tip of each finger against the pad of his thumb, one of his focusing exercises. “We have something else,” he said. “We have the house.”

 

 

 

 

 

Fowl Manor

 

 

Gobdaw and Bellico followed the hounds up Fowl Manor’s grand stairs and along the hallway to Artemis’s laboratory. Once through the door, the dogs leaped on Artemis’s white coat, which was hanging from a peg, using their teeth and claws to slash and chew the material.

 

“They smell the human,” said Gobdaw, disappointed not to have an opportunity to use the baby Glock that fit so neatly in Myles’s little hand.

 

They had raided Butler’s arms room, which was hidden behind a false wall in his quarters. Only four people knew the location of and passcode to the keypad—five, now, if Bellico could be counted as a separate person from Juliet. Gobdaw helped himself to the small gun and several blades, while Bellico chose a machine pistol and a carbon graphite recurve bow with a quiver of aluminium arrows. The pirates took more or less everything else, dancing happy jigs as they clattered downstairs to lie in wait.

 

“We should keep looking,” said Gobdaw.

 

Bellico did not agree, as she had Juliet’s knowledge of the manor. “No. Artemis’s office adjoins this room, so they will come here. We have warriors in the basement and the safe room. Let the hounds and the pirates herd them toward us.”

 

Gobdaw had enough leader’s experience to know a good plan when he heard it.

 

“Very well. We wait here, but if I don’t get to fire this gun before sunrise, I shall be most disappointed.”

 

“Don’t worry. You will need every bullet for the big human.”

 

Bellico grabbed the hounds by their collars and yanked them from the coat.

 

“You two should be ashamed,” she said. “Do not lose yourselves inside those beasts.”

 

One hound butted the second, as though the mistake had been his alone.

 

“Go now,” said Bellico, kicking their rumps. “And find us some Mud People.”

 

Gobdaw and Bellico squatted behind the worktop, one nocking an arrow and the other disengaging the safety on his stolen handgun.

 

“The house is a virtual fortress,” explained Artemis. “Once the siege function has been engaged on the security panel, then it would take an army to penetrate the defenses, all of which were designed and installed before Opal jumped from her time line, so there is no chance any of the components will have exploded.”

 

“And where is this panel?” asked Holly.

 

Artemis tapped his watch. “Usually I can access it remotely on my watch or phone, but the Fowl network is down. I upgraded the router recently and perhaps a Koboi component crept in, so we will have to use the panel in my office.”

 

Butler knew it was his function to play devil’s advocate. “Won’t that just lock us in here with a bunch of pirates?”

 

Artemis smiled. “Or lock them in here with us.”

 

Salton Finnacre was bemoaning the loss of his own body to his mate J’Heez.

 

“Remember those arm muscles I had?” he said wistfully. “They woz like tree trunks. Now look at me.” He jiggled his left arm to demonstrate how the flaps of flesh hung loosely from his bones. “I can barely hold this fire stick.”

 

“It ain’t a fire stick,” said J’Heez. “They’re called guns. That’s a simple enough word to remember, ain’t it?”

 

Salton looked at the automatic handgun in his bony fingers. “I suppose. Just point and pull, is it?”

 

“That’s what Bellico said.”