Holly spent a minute exploring the trunk’s surface, running her fingertips along each weld in the metal. Finally she shook her head, silver wig sparkling. “Not a weak spot I can find. Even the air-conditioning vent is completely flush. No way out.”
“Of course not,” said Artemis. “We’re inside the Bentley. The trunk is a steel box with a titanium lock.” He breathed the cool air deeply.“How can this have happened? Everything is different. Butler was supposed to have deposited the cage in my study. Instead he creeps in through the bedroom and sedates us both. Now we don’t know where we are, or indeed where the lemur is. Do they have it already?”
Holly pressed one ear to the trunk door. “I can tell you where we are.”
Outside, the sounds of snuffling and snoring animals drifted on the air.“We’re close to animals. A park, I would guess, or a zoo.”
“Rathdown Park,” exclaimed Artemis. “And that fact tells us they do not, in fact, have the lemur. The schedule and situation have changed.”
Holly was thoughtful. “We are not in control of this situation anymore, Artemis. Perhaps it’s time to admit defeat and return home, when your younger self brings us back to the manor. Perhaps you can discover a cure in the future.”
Artemis had been expecting this suggestion. “I considered that. The lemur is still our best option, and we are just a few feet away from it. Give me five minutes to get us out of here.”
Holly was understandably dubious. “Five minutes? Even the great Artemis Fowl might have trouble breaking out of a steel box in five minutes.”
Artemis closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to ignore his cramped surroundings and the sheaves of hair brushing his cheeks, and the itch of bristles on his chin.
“Face it, Artemis,”said Holly impatiently.“We’re stuck. Even Mulch Diggums would probably struggle with a lock like that if he happened to stroll by.”
Artemis’s brow flickered, irritated by this interruption, but then a smile spread across his face, made eerie by the stark lighting.
“Mulch Diggums strolling by,” he whispered. “What are the chances of that?”
“Zero,” said Holly. “Absolutely none. I would bet my pension on it.”
At that moment something, or someone, tapped on the trunk door from the outside.
Holly rolled her eyes. “No. Not even you . . .”
Artemis’s smile was smug beyond belief. “Just how large is your pension?”
“I do not believe it. I refuse to believe it. It is impossible.”
More taps on the door now, followed by a delicate scraping and a muted swearword.
“What a guttural voice,” said Artemis. “Very like a dwarf’s.”
“It could be Butler,” argued Holly, irritated by Artemis’s self-satisfied expression.
“Swearing in Gnommish. Hardly.”
More metallic noises from the outside world.
Shhhnick. Chunk. Clackack.
And the trunk’s lid swung upward, revealing a slice of starry night with the glinting silhouette of a gigantic pylon behind it. A bedraggled head popped into the space, features smeared with mud and worse. This was a face that only a mother could love, and then perhaps only if her sight were failing. The dark close-set eyes peered out from above a dense beard that shivered slightly, like seaweed in a current. The creature’s teeth were large, square, and not made any more appealing by the large insect wriggling between two molars.
It was, of course, Mulch Diggums.
The dwarf snagged the unfortunate insect with his tongue, then chewed it delicately.
“Ground beetle,” he said with relish. “Leistus montanus. Nice bouquet, solid earthy shell; then once the carapace cracks, a veritable explosion of flavors on the palate.”
He swallowed the unfortunate creature, then funneled a mighty burp though his flapping lips.
“Never burp when you’re tunneling,” he advised Artemis and Holly as casually as though they were sitting around a café table. “Dirt coming down, air coming up. Not a good idea.”
Holly knew Mulch well. This chitchat was simply for distraction while he took a peek around.
“And now to business,” said the dwarf finally, discarding the dead beard hair he had used to pick the lock. “I seem to have a human and an elf trapped in a car. So I ask myself, should I let ’em out?”
“And what do you answer yourself?” asked Artemis with barely contained impatience.
Mulch’s black pebble eyes danced in the moonlight. “So, the Mud Boy understands Gnommish. Interesting. Well, understand this, human. I let you out as soon as I get my money.”
Ah, thought Holly. There is money involved. Somehow these two have set up a deal.
Holly had endured her prison for long enough. Mulch is not yet my friend, she thought. So there’s no need to be polite.
She drew a knee to her chin, tugging on it with both hands for an extra pound of elastic force.
Mulch realized what she was about to do. “Hey, elf. No—”
Which was as far as he got before his face was batted with the trunk door. The dwarf tumbled backward into the hole he had climbed out of, sending up an oof of wind and dirt.