'Where…where am I?'

The human giggled delightedly, clapping her hands together.

Holly noticed her nails, long and painted.

'You can speak English. What sort of accent is that? Sounds like a little bit of everything.'

Holly frowned. The girl's voice was corkscrewing right to the middle of her headache. She lifted her arm. No locator.

'Where are my things?'

The girl wagged her finger, as one might at a naughty child.

'Artemis had to take your little gun away, and all those other toys. Couldn't have you hurting yourself.'

'Artemis?'

'Artemis Fowl. This was all his idea. Everything is always his idea.'

Holly frowned. Artemis Fowl. For some reason, even the name made her shiver. It was a bad omen. Fairy intuition was never wrong.

'They'll come for me, you know,' she said, her voice rasping through dry lips. 'You don't know what you've done.'

The girl frowned.

'You're absolutely right. I have no clue what's going on. So there's no future in trying to psych me out.'

Holly frowned. It was obviously pointless playing mind games with this human. The mesmer was her only hope, but that couldn't penetrate reflective surfaces. How the devil did these humans know that? That could be worked out later. For now she had to figure a way to separate this vacuous girl from her mirrored sunglasses.

'You are a pretty human,' she said, voice dripping with honeyed flattery.

'Why, thank you…?'

'Holly.'

'Why, thank you, Holly. I was in the local paper once. I won a competition. Miss Sugar Beet Fair Nineteen-Ninety-Nine.'

'I knew it. Natural beauty. I'll bet your eyes are spectacular.'

'So everyone tells me.' Juliet nodded. 'Lashes like clock springs.'

Holly sighed.

'If only I could see them.'

'Whyever not.'

Juliet's fingers curled around the glasses' arm. Then she hesitated.

'Maybe I shouldn't.'

'Why not? Just for a second.'

'I don't know. Artemis told me never to take these off.'

'He'd never know.'

Juliet pointed to a viewcam mounted on the wall.

'Oh, he'd find out. Artemis finds out about everything.' She leaned in close to the fairy. 'Sometimes I think he can see inside my head too.'

Holly frowned. Foiled again by this Artemis creature.

'Come on. One second. What harm could it do?'

Juliet pretended to think about it.

'None, I suppose. Unless of course you're hoping to nail me with the mesmer. Just how stupid do you think I am?'

'I have another idea,' said Holly, her tone altogether more serious. 'Why don't I get up, knock you out and take those stupid glasses off.'

Juliet laughed delightedly, as if this was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

'Good one, fairy girl.'

'I'm deadly serious, human.'

'Well, if you're serious,' sighed Juliet, reaching a delicate finger behind her lenses to wipe away a tear, 'two reasons. One, Artemis said that while you're in a human dwelling, you have to do what we want. And I want you to stay on that cot.'

Holly closed her eyes. Right again. Where did this group get their information?

'And two.' Juliet smiled again, but this time there was a hint of her brother in those teeth. 'Two, because I went through the same training as Butler, and I've been dying for somebody to practise my piledriver on.'

We'll see about that, human, thought Holly. Captain Short wasn't a hundred per cent yet, and there was also the small matter of the thing digging into her ankle. She thought she knew what it could be, and if she was right, then it could be the beginnings of a plan.

Commander Root had Holly's locator frequency keyed into his helmet face screen. It took Root longer than expected to reach Dublin.

The modern wing rigs were more complicated than he was used to, plus he'd neglected to take refresher courses. At the right altitude, he could almost superimpose the luminous map on his visor over the actual Dublin streets below him. Almost.

'Foaly, you pompous centaur,' he barked into his mouthpiece.

'Problem, bossman?' came the tinny reply.

'Problem? You can say that again. When was the last time you updated the Dublin files?'

Root could hear sucking noises in his ear. It sounded as though Foaly was having lunch.

'Sorry, Commander. Just finishing off this carrot. Ahm…Dublin, let's see. Seventy-five…Eighteen seventy-five.'

'I thought so! This place is completely different. The humans have even managed to change the shape of the coastline.'

Foaly was silent for a moment. Root could just imagine him wrestling with the problem. The centaur did not like to be told that any part of his system was out of date.

'OK,' he said at last. 'Here's what I'm going to do. We have a Scope on a satellite TV bird with a footprint in Ireland.'

'I see,' muttered Root, which was basically a lie.

'I'm going to e-mail last week's sweep direct to your visor. Luckily there's a video card in all the new helmets.'

'Luckily.'

'The tricky bit will be to coordinate your flight pattern with the video feed…'

Root had had enough.

'How long, Foaly?'

'Ahm…Two minutes, give or take.'

'Give or take what?'

'About ten years if my calculations are off.'

'They'd better not be off then. I'll hover until we know.'

One hundred and twenty-four seconds later, Root's black and white blueprints faded out, to be replaced by full-colour daylight imaging. When Root moved it moved, and Holly's locator beacon dot moved too.

'Impressive,' said Root.

'What was that, Commander?'

'I said impressive,' shouted Root. 'No need to get a swollen head.'

The commander heard the sound of a roomful of laughter, and realized that Foaly had him on the speakers. Everyone had heard him complimenting the centaur's work. There'd be no talking to him for at least a month. But it was worth it. The video he was receiving now was bang up to date. If Captain Short was being held in a building, the computer would be able to give him 3D blueprints instantaneously. It was foolproof. Except…

'Foaly, the beacon's gone off shore. What's going on?'

'Boat or ship, sir, I'd say at a guess.'

Root cursed himself for not thinking of it. They'd be having a right old giggle in the situation room. Of course it was a ship. Root dropped down a few hundred metres until its shadowy outline loomed through the mist. A whaler by the looks of it. Technology may have changed over the centuries, but there was still nothing like a harpoon to slaughter the world's largest mammal.

'Captain Short is in there somewhere, Foaly. Below decks. What can you give me?'

'Nothing, sir. It's not a permanent fixture. By the time we've run down her registration, it'd be way too late.'

'What about thermal imaging?'

'No, Commander. That hull must be at least fifty years old. Very high lead content. We can't even penetrate the first layer. I'm afraid you're on your own.'

Root shook his head.

'After all the billions we've poured into your department. Remind me to slash your budget when I get back.'

'Yes, sir,' came the reply, sullen for once. Foaly did not like budget jokes.

'Just have the Retrieval Squad on full alert. I may need them at a moment's notice.'

'I will, sir.'

'You'd better. Over and out.'

Root was on his own. Truth be told, that was the way he liked it.

No science. No uppity centaur whinnying in his ear. Just a fairy, his wits and maybe a touch of magic.

Root tilted his polymer wings, hugging the underside of a fogbank. There was no need to be careful. With his shield activated, he was invisible to the human eye. Even on stealth-sensitive radar he would be no more than a barely perceptible distortion. The commander swooped low to the gunwales. It was an ugly craft, this one. The smell of death and pain lingered in the blood-swabbed decks.