“As in ‘Na-na-ne-na-na, you can’t see me,’” said the dwarf, then slapped himself on the knee, exploding in a fit of giggles.
Artemis scowled, shaking Holly’s shoulders gently.
“Holly, can you hear me?”
Holly Short opened bleary eyes, rolled them around for a while, then focused.
“Artemis, I . . . Oh gods.”
“It’s okay. I don’t have the lemur . . . Well, actually, I do. The other me, but don’t worry, I know where I’m going.”
Holly dragged at her cheeks with delicate fingers. “I mean, Oh gods, I think I kissed you.”
Artemis’s head pounded, and Holly’s mismatched eyes seemed to hypnotize him. She still had a blue eye, even though her body had rejuvenated itself in the tunnel. Another paradox. But though Artemis felt hypnotized, even slightly dazed, he knew he was not mesmerized. There was no fairy magic here.
Artemis looked into those elfin eyes, and he knew that this younger, somehow more vulnerable Holly felt the same way, at this particular tangle of time and space, as he did.
After all we have been through. Or maybe because of it.
A memory smashed the delicate moment like a rock thrown through a spiderweb.
I lied to her.
Artemis rocked backward with the strength of the thought.
Holly believes that she infected Mother. I blackmailed her.
He knew at that instant that there was no recovering from such a brutal fact. If he confessed, she would hate him. If he did not, he would hate himself.
There must be something I can do.
Nothing came to mind.
I need to think.
Artemis took Holly’s hand and elbow, helping her to stand and step from the shallow gravelike hole.
“Reborn,” she quipped, then punched Mulch on the shoulder.
“Oww.‘Why-for, miss, dost thou torment me?’”
“Don’t quote Gerd Flambough at me, Mulch Diggums. There was no need to bury me. A simple broadleaf across my mouth would have done.”
Mulch rubbed his shoulder. “A broadleaf desn’t have the same artistry. Anyway, do I look like a fern type of guy? I am a dwarf and we deal in mud.”
Artemis was glad of the banter. It gave him a minute to compose himself.
Forget your adolescent confusion about Holly. Remember Mother wasting away in her bed. There are less than three days left.
“Very well, troops,” he said with forced joviality. “Let’s move it out, as an old friend of mine would say. We have a lemur to catch.”
“What about my gold?” asked Mulch.
“I shall put this as simply as possible. No lemur, no gold.”
Mulch tapped his lips with eight fingers, and his beard hairs vibrated like the tendrils of a sea anemone. Thinking.
“How much is stupendous, exactly, in bucket terms?”
“How many buckets do you have?”
Mulch took this as a serious question. “I have a lot of buckets. Most of them are full of stuff, though. I could empty them, I suppose.”
Artemis almost gnashed his teeth. “It was a rhetorical question. A lot of buckets. As many as you like.”
“If you want me to go any farther down this monkey road, I need some kind of down payment. A good-faith deposit.”
Artemis slapped his empty pockets. He had nothing.
Holly straightened her silver wig. “I have something for you, Mulch Diggums. Something better than a stupendous amount of gold. Six numbers, which I will reveal when we get there.”
“Get where?” asked Mulch, who suspected that Holly was being melodramatic.
“The LEP equipment lockup at Tara.”
Mulch’s eyes glowed with dreams of sky-skis and dive bubbles, laser cubes and fat vacuums. The motherload. He’d been trying to crack an LEP lockup for years.
“I can have anything I want?”
“Whatever you can get onto a hovertrolley. One trolley.”
Mulch spat a marbled blob of phlegm into his palm.
“Shake on it,” he said.
Artemis and Holly looked at each other.
“It’s your lockup,” said Artemis, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “It’s your mission,” countered Holly. “I don’t know the combination.” And then the trump. “We’re here for your mother.” Artemis smiled ruefully. “You, Captain Short, are getting as bad as me,” he said, and sealed the deal with a sopping handshake.
CHAPTER 9
THE FROG PRINCE
The Fowl Lear Jet, Over Belgium
Young Artemis made a video call from his PowerBook to the ancient town of Fez in Morocco. Even as he waited for the connection, Artemis silently fumed that it was necessary to make this intercontinental trip at all. Even Casablanca would have been more convenient. Morocco was hot enough without having to drive cross-country to Fez.