The Time Paradox

“I remember it clearly. We had just returned from Rathdown Park, the private zoo, and I thought I should check how she was feeling before flying to Morocco. In a month from now, she won’t be able to look after herself anymore.”

 

 

Holly squeezed his forearm. “It’s fine, Artemis. This is all in the past. In a few minutes your mother will be back on her feet. She will love you as she always has.”

 

Artemis nodded glumly. He knew it was probably true, but he also knew that he would never fully escape the specter of this bad memory.

 

Upstairs, Angeline Fowl’s voice moved from her bedchamber to the upper landing, trailing shrill notes behind her.

 

Artemis pulled Holly back against the wall.

 

“Butler will be on the stairs now. We should keep to the shadows, just in case.”

 

Holly couldn’t help a flutter of nerves. “You’re sure he stays outside? The last time I faced Butler as an enemy, I had the entire LEP on my side. I don’t relish the thought of meeting him armed with nothing more than a silver wig.”

 

“Calm yourself, Captain,” said Artemis, unconsciously patronizing. “He stays outside. I saw it with my own eyes.”

 

“Saw what with your own eyes?” asked Butler, who had appeared in the archway behind them, having let himself in through the adjoining bedroom door.

 

Artemis felt his pulse throb in his fingertips. How could this be? This was not the way it had happened. Artemis had never been on the receiving end of Butler’s glare before, and understood for the first time just how terrifying his bodyguard could be.

 

“You two kids have been helping yourselves to the Fowl wardrobe, I see,” continued Butler without waiting for an answer to his question. “Now, are you going to cause a fuss or are you going to come quietly? Let me give you a hint: the correct answer is come quietly.”

 

Magic is the only way out, Holly realized.

 

She twisted her chin sharply to call on her fairy power. If she couldn’t stun Butler, she would mesmerize him.

 

“Stand down, human,” she intoned, voice loaded with hypnotic magic. But the mesmer is a two-pronged attack, audio and visual. Butler could hear the magical words, but eye contact was not consistent in the shadows.

 

“What?” he said, surprised. “How did you . . .” The hulking bodyguard had been drugged enough times to realize that his will was being sapped. Somehow these kids were putting him under. He staggered backward, his shoulder bashing against the arch.

 

“Sleep, Butler,” said the little one in the starship trooper wig.

 

She knows me?

 

This was serious. These two had done some surveillance and decided to break in anyway.

 

I have to neutralize them before I pass out, thought Butler. If I go down, Master Artemis and Mrs. Fowl are defenseless.

 

He had two options: fall on the midget burglars or shoot them with the tranquilizer pistol he was carrying for the planned animal abduction at Rathdown Park.

 

He chose the second option. At least tranquilizer darts would not smother these two or crush their bones. Butler felt mildly guilty about his decision to “tranq” a couple of kids, but not overly so; after all, he worked for Artemis Fowl and knew exactly how dangerous children could be.

 

The starship trooper came out of the shadows, and Butler could see her eyes clearly. One blue, one tawny.

 

“Sleep, Butler,” she said again in that melodious layered voice. “Aren’t your eyelids heavy? Sleep.”

 

She’s hypnotizing me! Butler realized. He dragged out the pistol with fingers that felt as though they had been dipped in molten rubber then sprinkled with ball bearings.

 

“You sleep,” he mumbled, then shot the girl in the hip.

 

Holly stared in disbelief at the hypodermic dart sticking out of her leg.

 

“Not again,” she moaned, then collapsed to the floor.

 

Butler’s head cleared immediately. The other intruder did not move an inch.

 

The little girl is the professional of the two, thought Butler, climbing to his feet. I wonder what this scruffy individual contributes to the partnership.

 

Artemis quickly saw that he had no choice but to reveal his identity and enlist Butler as an ally.

 

This will be difficult. I have nothing more than a passing resemblance to my younger self as proof.

 

Still, he had to try before his plan unraveled utterly.

 

“Listen, Butler,” he began. “I have something to tell you—”

 

Butler didn’t entertain another word. “No, no, no,” he said briskly, shooting Artemis in the shoulder. “No more talking from either of you.”

 

Artemis pulled out the dart, but it was too late. The tiny reservoir of sedative was empty.

 

“Butler!”he gasped, dropping to his knees.“You shot me.”

 

“Everyone knows my name,” sighed the bodyguard, bending to sling the intruders over his shoulders.

 

“I am intrigued,” said ten-year-old Artemis Fowl, studying the two individuals in the Bentley trunk. “Something extraordinary has happened here.”

 

“Hardly extraordinary,” said Butler, checking the girl’s pulse. “Two thieves somehow broke into the manor.”

 

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