All clear, Captain?'
'Just a damn second, Commander. Chix? How're we doin'?'
Chix checked the cab's monitor.
'He's movin'. The hammerin' is spookin' him. The claws are comin' out. My, he's a big sucker. I
wouldn't wanna be that Recon babe if she gets in the way of this.'
Gudgeon felt a momentary pang of guilt, which he dispelled with his favourite daydream - a vision
of himself sinking into a beige-velour Council seat.
The cage heaved violently, almost dislodging Chix from his seat. He held on like a rodeo rider.
'Woah! He's on the move. Lock and load, boys. I have a feeling that any second we're going to be
gettin' a cry for help.'
Gudgeon didn't bother locking and loading. He preferred to leave that sort of thing to the foot
soldiers. The Acting Commander considered himself too important to be risked in an insecure
situation. For the good of the People in general, it was better he remain outside the op zone.
Butler took the stairs four at a time. It was possibly the first time he had ever abandoned Master
Artemis in a crisis. But Juliet was family, and there was obviously something seriously wrong with
his baby sister. That fairy had said something to her and now she was just sitting in the cell giggling.
Butler feared the worst. If anything were to happen to Juliet, he didn't know how he'd live with
himself.
He felt a dribble of sweat slide down the crown of his shaven head. This whole situation was
shooting off in bizarre directions. Fairies, magic, and now a hostage loose in the manor. How could
he be expected to control things? It took a four-man team to guard the lowliest politician, but he
was expected to contain this impossible situation on his own.
Butler sprinted down the corridor into what had until recently been Captain Short's cell. Juliet
was sprawled on the cot, enraptured by a concrete wall.
'What are you doing?' he gasped, drawing the Sig Sauer nine-millimetre with practised ease.
His sister barely spared him a glance. 'Quiet, you big ape. Louie the Love Machine is on. He ain't
so tough, I could take him.'
Butler blinked. She was talking gibberish. Obviously drugged.
'Let's go. Artemis wants us upstairs in the situations room.'
Juliet pointed a manicured finger at the wall.
'Artemis can wait. This is for the intercontinental title. And it's a grudge match. Louie ate the
Hogman's pet piggie.'
The manservant studied the wall. It was definitely blank. He didn't have time for this.
'Right. Let's go,' he growled, slinging his sister over a broad shoulder.
'Nooo. You big bully,' she protested, hammering his back with tiny fists. 'Not now. Hogman!
Hogmaaaan!'
Butler ignored the objections, settling into a loping run. Who the hell was this Hogman person?
One of her boyfriends no doubt. He was going to keep closer tabs on callers to the lodge in future.
'Butler? Pick up.'
It was Artemis, on the hand-held. Butler jiggled his sister up a foot so he could reach his belt.
'Lollipops!' barked his employer.
'Say again. I thought you said -'
'Eh ... I mean get out of there. Take cover! Take cover!'
Take cover? The military term didn't sound right coming out of Master Artemis's mouth. Like a
diamond ring in a Lucky Bag.
'Take cover?'
'Yes, Butler. Cover. I thought speaking in primal terms would be the quickest route to your
cognitive functions. Obviously I was mistaken.'
That was more like it. Butler scanned the hall for a nook to duck into. Not much choice. The only
shelter was provided by the suits of medieval armour punctuating the walls. The manservant ducked
into the alcove behind a fourteenth-century knight complete with lance and mace.
Juliet tapped the breastplate.
'You think you're mean? I could take you with one hand.'
'Quiet,' hissed Butler.
He held his breath and listened. Something was approaching the main door. Something big.
Butler leaned out far enough to get one eye on the lobby ...
Then you could say that the doorway exploded. But that particular verb doesn't do the action
justice. Rather, it shattered into infinitesimal pieces. Butler had seen something like this once before
when a force-seven earthquake had rippled through a Colombian drug lord's estate seconds before
he had been scheduled to blow it up. This was slightly different. More localized. Very professional.
It was classic anti-terrorist tactics. Hit 'em with smoke and sonics, then go in while the targets were
disoriented. Whatever was coming, it would be bad. He was certain of it. He was absolutely right.
Dust clouds settled slowly, depositing a pale sheet on the Tunisian rug. Madam Fowl would have
been furious, if she ever put so much as a toe outside the attic door. Butler's instincts told him to
move. Zigzag across the ground floor, make for the higher ground. Stay low to minimize the target.
This would be the perfect time to do it, before visibility cleared. Any second now, a hail of bullets
would be whistling through the archway, and the last place he wanted to be was pinned down on a
lower level.
And on any other day Butler would have moved. He would've been halfway up that stairway
before his brain had time for second thoughts. But today he had his baby sister over his shoulder
spouting gibberish, and the last thing he wanted to do was expose her to murderous assault fire.
With Juliet in the state she was in, she'd probably challenge the fairy commandos to a tag-wrestling
match. And though his sister talked tough, she was just a kid really. No match for trained military
personnel. So Butler hunkered down, propped Juliet against a tapestry behind a suit of armour and
checked his safety catch. Off. Good. Come and get me, fairy boys.
Something moved in the dust haze. It was immediately obvious to Butler that the something
wasn't human. The manservant had been on too many safaris not to recognize an animal when he
saw it. He studied the creature's gait. Possibly simian. Similar upper-body structure to an ape, but
bigger than any primate Butler had ever seen. If it was an ape, then his handgun wasn't going to be
of much use. You could put five rounds in the skull of a bull ape and he'd still have time to eat you
before his brain realized he was dead.
But it wasn't an ape. Apes didn't have night eyes. This creature did. Glowing crimson pupils,
half-hidden behind shaggy forelocks. Tusks too, but not elephantine. These were curved, with
serrated edges. Gutting weapons. Butler felt a tingle low in his stomach. He'd had the feeling once
before. On his first day at the Swiss academy. It was fear.
The creature stepped clear of the dust haze. Butler gasped. Again, his first since the academy.
This was like no adversary he'd ever faced before. The manservant realized instantly what the fairies
had done. They had sent in a primal hunter. A creature with no interest in magic or rules. A thing
that would simply kill anything in its way, regardless of species. This was the perfect predator. That
much was clear from the meat-ripping points on its teeth, from the dried gore crusted beneath its
claws and from the distilled hatred spilling from its eyes.
The troll shambled forwards, squinting through the chandelier light. Yellowed claws scraped
along the marble tiling, throwing up sparks in their wake. It was sniffing now, snorting curious
breaths, head cocked to one side. Butler had seen that pose before - on the snouts of starved pit
bulls, just before their Russian handlers set them loose on a bear hunt.
The shaggy head froze, its snout pointed directly at Butler's hiding place. It was no coincidence.
The manservant peeked out between the chain-mail fingers of a gauntlet. Now came the stalk. Once
a scent had been acquired, the predator would attempt a slow silent approach, before the lightning
strike.
But apparently the troll had not read the predator's handbook, because it didn't bother with the
stealth approach, jumping directly to the lightning strike. Moving faster than Butler would have
believed possible, the troll sprang across the lobby, brushing the medieval armour aside as though it
were a shop mannequin.
Juliet blinked. 'Ooh,' she gasped. 'It's Bigfoot Bob. Canadian champion nineteen ninety-eight. I
thought you were in the Andes, looking for your relatives.'
Butler didn't bother to correct her. His sister wasn't lucid. At least she would die happy. While
his brain was contemplating this morbid observation, Butler's gun hand was coming up.
He squeezed the trigger as rapidly as the Sig Sauer's mechanism would allow. Two in the chest,
three between the eyes. That was the plan. He got the chest shots in, but the troll interfered before
Butler could complete the formation. The interference took the form of scything tusks that ducked
below Butler's guard. They coiled around his trunk, slicing through his Kevlar reinforced jacket like
a razor through rice paper.
Butler felt a cold pain as the serrated ivory pierced his chest. He knew immediately that the
wound was fatal. His breath came hard. That was a lung gone, and gouts of blood were matting the
troll's fur. His blood. No one could lose that amount and live. Nevertheless, the pain was instantly
replaced by a curious euphoria. Some form of natural anaesthetic injected through channels in the
beast's tusks. More dangerous than the deadliest poison. In minutes Butler would not only stop
struggling, but go giggling to his grave.
The manservant fought against the narcotics in his system, struggling furiously in the troll's grip.
But it was no use. His fight was over almost before it had begun.
The troll grunted, flipping the limp human body over his head. Butler's burly frame collided with
the wall at a speed human bones were never meant to withstand. The bricks cracked from floor to
ceiling. Butler's spine went too. Now, even if the blood loss didn't get him, paralysis would.
Juliet was still enthralled by the mesmer.
'Come on, brother. Get off the canvas. We all know you're faking.'
The troll paused, some basic curiosity piqued by the lack of fear. He would have suspected a
trick, if he could have formulated such a complicated thought. But in the end, appetite won out.
This creature smelled flesh. Fresh and tender. Flesh from above ground was different. Laced with
surface smells. Once you've had open-air meat, it's hard to go back. The troll ran a tongue over his
incisors and reached out a shaggy hand ...
Holly tucked the Hummingbirds close to her torso, dropping into a controlled dive. She skimmed
the banisters, emerging into the portico below a stained-glass dome. The time-stop light filtered
unnaturally, splitting into thick azure shafts.
Light, thought Holly. The helmet high-beams worked before, there was no reason why they
wouldn't work again. It was too late for the male, he was a bag of broken bones. But the female, she
still had a few seconds left before the troll split her open.
Holly spiralled down through the faux light, searching her helmet console for the Sonix button.
Sonix were generally used on canines, but in this case it might provide a moment's distraction.
Enough to get her to ground level.
The troll was reaching in towards Juliet underhand. It was a move generally reserved for the
defenceless. The claws would curl in below the ribs, rupturing the heart. Minimum damage to the
flesh and no last-minute tension to toughen the meat.
Holly activated her Sonix ... and nothing happened. Not good. Generally your average troll would
be at the very least irritated by the ultra-high-frequency tone. But this particular beast didn't even
shake his shaggy head. There were a couple of possibilities: one, the helmet was malfunctioning;
two, this troll was deaf as the proverbial post. Unfortunately, Holly had no way of knowing as the
tones were inaudible to fairy ears.
Whatever the problem, it forced Holly to adopt a strategy she would rather not have resorted to.
Direct contact. All to save a human's life. She'd gone section eight. Without a doubt.
Holly jerked the throttle, straight from fourth to reverse. Not very good for the gears. She'd get a
dressing-down from the mechanics for that, in the unlikely event she actually survived this
never-ending nightmare. The effect of this gear-crunching was to flip her around in mid-air, so that
her boot heels were pointed directly at the troll's head. Holly winced. Two entanglements with the
same troll. Unbelievable.
Her heels caught the beast square on the crown of its head. At that speed, there was at least half a
tonne of G-force behind the contact. Only the reinforced ribbing in her suit prevented Holly's leg
bones from shattering. Even so, she heard her knee pop. The pain clawed its way to her forehead.
Ruined her recovery manoeuvre too. Instead of repelling herself to a safe altitude, Holly crumpled
on to the troll's back, becoming instantly entangled in the ropy fur.
The troll was suitably annoyed. Not only had something distracted it from dinner, but now that
something was nestled in its fur, along with the cleaner slugs. The beast straightened, reaching a
clawed hand over its own shoulder. The curved nails raked Holly's helmet, scoring parallel grooves
in the alloy. Juliet was safe for the moment, but Holly had taken her place on the
endangered-individuals list.
The troll squeezed tighter, somehow securing a grip on the helmet's anti-friction coating, which,
according to Foaly, was impossible to grip. Serious words would be had. If not in this life, then
definitely the next.
Captain Short found herself being hoisted aloft to face her old enemy. Holly struggled to
concentrate through the pain and confusion. Her leg was swinging like a pendulum, and the troll's
breath was breaking over her face in rancid waves.
There had been a plan, hadn't there? Surely she didn't fly down here just to curl up and die. There
must have been a strategy. All those years in the Academy must have taught her something.
Whatever her plan had been, it floated just out of reach somewhere between pain and shock. Out of
0 Comments