“Artemis,” she called, completely forgetting that she was still invisible. “Artemis!”
But he was nowhere to be seen. The world was a melee of elbows and torsos, sweat and screams. Voices were in her ears and ragged breath on her face, and by the time she had disentangled herself from the pack, the banquet hall was virtually deserted. A few stragglers, but no Artemis.
The souk, she thought. I will find him in the souk.
Artemis tensed himself to run. As soon as Holly took the guards out of commission, he would sprint as fast as he could and pray that he didn’t trip and fall.
Imagine, to endure all of this, only to be defeated by a lack of coordination. Butler would be sure to say I told you so when they met in the afterlife.
Suddenly the pandemonium level jumped a few notches, and the screaming of the Extinctionists reminded Artemis of Rathdown Park’s panicked animals.
Caged Extinctionists, he thought. Oh, the irony.
The kitchen door guards fell, clutching their throats.
Nice work, Captain.
Artemis bent low, like a sprinter waiting for the gun, then catapulted himself from his hiding place behind the dock.
Kronski hit him broadside with his full weight, tumbling them both through the railings into the dock. Artemis landed heavily on the baby chair, and it collapsed underneath him, one of its arms raking along his side.
“This is all your fault,” squealed Kronski. “This was supposed to be the best night of my life.”
Artemis felt himself being smothered. His mouth and nose were jammed by sweat-soaked purple material.
He intends to kill me, thought Artemis. I have pushed him too far.
There was no time for planning, and even if there were, this was not one of those situations where a handy mathematical theorem could be found to get Artemis out of his predicament. There was only one thing to do: lash out.
So Artemis kicked, punched, and gouged. He buried his knee in Kronski’s ample stomach and blinded him with his fists.
All very superficial blows that had little lasting effect—except one. Artemis’s right heel brushed against Kronski’s chest. Kronski didn’t even feel it. But the heel connected briefly with the oversize button on the remote control in the doctor’s pocket, releasing the dock trapdoor.
The second his brain registered the loss of back support, Artemis knew what had happened.
I am dead, he realized. Sorry, Mother.
Artemis fell bodily into the pit, breaking the laser beam with his elbow. There was a beep, and half a second later the pit was filled with blue-white flame, which blasted black scorch marks in the walls.
Nothing could have survived.
Kronski braced himself against the dock rails, perspiration dripping from the tip of his nose into the pit, evaporating on the way down.
Do I feel bad about what just happened? he asked himself, aware that psychologists recommended facing trauma head-on in order to avoid stress later in life.
No, he found. I don’t. In fact, I feel as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
Kronski raised himself up with a great creaking and cracking of knees.
Now, where’s the other one? he wondered. I still have some weight to lose.
Artemis saw the flames blossom around him. He saw his skin glow blue with their light and heard their raw roar, then he was through, unscathed.
Impossible.
Obviously not. Obviously these flames had more bark about them than bite.
Holograms?
The pit floor yielded beneath his weight with a hiss of pneumatics, and Artemis found himself in a sub-chamber, looking up at heavy steel doors swinging closed above him.
The view from inside a swing-top bin.
A very high-tech swing-top bin, with expanding gel hinges. Fairy design, without a doubt.
Artemis remembered something Kronski had said earlier.
This is not how she said it would go. . . .
She ... She ...
Fairy design. Endangered species. What fairy had been harvesting lemur brain fluid even before the Spelltropy epidemic?
Artemis paled. Not her. Please, not her.
What do I have to do? he thought. How many times must I save the world from this lunatic?
He scrambled to his knees and saw he had been funneled onto a padded pallet. Before he could roll off, octobonds sprang from recessed apertures along the pallet’s steel rim, trussing him tighter than a tumbled rodeo cow. Purple gas hissed from a dozen overhead nozzles, shrouding the pallet.
Hold your breath, Artemis told himself. Animals don’t know to hold their breath.
He held on until it felt as though his sternum would split, and then just as he was about to exhale and suck in a huge breath, a second gas was pumped into the chamber, crystallizing the first. It fell onto Artemis’s face like purple snowflakes.
You are asleep now. Play possum.
A small door sank smoothly into the floor, with a sound like air being blown through a straw.
Artemis peeked through one half-closed eye.
Magnetic field, he thought dully, a band of steel creasing his forehead.