Venice, Italy; Now

The giant amorphobot bore Turnball Root to his beloved, who waited for him at the basement dock to their house in Venice. The house stood four stories high and had been commissioned by Turnball himself in 1798 and built from the finest reconstituted Italian marble mixed with fairy polymers, which would absorb the gradual shift of the city without cracking. It took several hours to make the journey, during which time the amorphobot kept Turnball and his men alive by periodically surfacing to replenish its cells with oxygen and spiking their arms with saline drips for nourishment. As they traveled, Turnball logged on to the computer in the amor-phobot’s belly to ensure that all was ready for the next stage of his plan.

Turnball found that he was very comfortable working in this sheltered environment with the world flashing by. He was insulated yet in control.

Safe.

From the corner of his eye, through the bleary mask of gel, Turnball was aware that Bobb Ragby and Ching Mayle now regarded him with something approaching worship, following the spectacular nature of their escape. Worship. He liked that.

As they approached the Italian coast, Turnball felt his calm smugness desert him, as a nervous serpent crawled into his stomach.

Leonor. How I have missed you.

Since Turnball had acquired a computer, there had been barely a day when they had not written to each other, but Leonor refused to participate in video calls, and of course Turnball knew why.

You will always be beautiful to me, my darling.

The amorphobot thrummed the length of Venice’s Grand Canal, skirting the mounds of rubbish and corpses of murdered princes, until it stopped in front of the only subaquatic gate with an omni-sensor. The bot winked at the sensor, and the sensor winked back, and now that everyone was all pally, the gate opened without blasting them with the recessed Neutrino lances on its pillars.

Turnball winked at his crew. “Thank goodness for that, eh? Sometimes that gate is a little unfriendly.” It was difficult to talk with the slow surge of gel over one’s teeth, but Turnball felt the comment was worth it. Leonor would like that one.

Turnball’s crew did not answer; their accomodation inside the gel bot was a little more cramped than their captain’s. They were squished together like salted slugs in a cone.

The bot elongated itself to flow easily down the narrow channel to Turnball’s underground dock. Strip lights glowed in the gloom, drawing them underneath the house. Deeper and deeper they went, until at last the bot expelled Turnball gently onto a sloping slipway. He straightened his coat, tightened his ponytail, and walked slowly along the ramp toward the slight figure waiting in the shadows.

“Put the others to sleep,” he told the bot. “I need to talk to my wife.”

A plasma charge crackled through the bot, knocking out the fairies inside. Unix barely had time to roll his eyes before passing out.

Turnball took a halting step, nervous as a teenage elf about to take his first moon flight.

“Leonor? Darling. I have come home to you. Come and kiss me.”

His wife hobbled forward from the blackness, leaning heavily on an ivory-topped cane. Her fingers were gnarled, with glowing rheumatoid knuckles, her body was angular and unnatural, with sharp bones stretching the heavy lace of her skirt. One eye drooped, and the other was closed completely, and the lines on her face were scored deep by time and black with shadows.

“Turnball. As handsome as ever. It is so wonderful to see you free.” Leonor’s voice was a mere rasp, labored and painful.

“Now that you are home,” she said, haltingly, “I can allow myself to die.”

Turnball’s heart lurched. He had palpitations, and a red band of heat tightened about his forehead. Everything he had ever done suddenly seemed all for nothing.

“You cannot die,” he said furiously, rubbing the pad of his thumb, heating the rune. “I love you, I need you.”

Leonor’s eyelids fluttered. “I cannot die,” she repeated.

“But why not, Turnball? I am too old for life. Only my longing to see you again has kept me alive, but my time has passed. I regret nothing, except that I never flew again. I wanted to, but I didn’t. . . . Why was that?”

My hold is weakening. The old spell has died.

“You chose a life with me, my darling,” he said, rushing the last steps to her side. “But now that I have found the secret to eternal youth, you can be young again, and soon you will fly wherever you want to go.”

Turnball felt the tiniest pressure as her fragile hand squeezed his fingers. “I would like that, my dear.”

“Of course you would,” said Turnball, steering his wife to the basement elevator. And now you should rest. I have a lot to organize before we leave.”

Leonor allowed herself to be led, feeling, as always, powerless to resist her charismatic husband.

“That’s my Turnball. Always coming to my rescue. One of these days I will rescue you.”

“You do rescue me,” said Turnball sincerely. “Every day.”

A barb of guilt pricked his heart, as he knew he could never allow Leonor to fly again. For if she could fly, then she might fly away.

Turnball was shocked and frightened by how feeble Leonor had become. Somehow, the simple act of marrying a fairy had slowed down her aging process, but now it seemed that he could delay her decline no longer. Turnball took his fear for his wife, turned it into rage, and pointed it at his crew.

“We have a historic opportunity here,” he shouted at the small group, who were assembled in the second-story library, “to strike a blow at the heart of our ancient enemy and also secure a supply of magic that will never run dry. If one of you useless jail rats fails in his task, there will be nowhere on this earth you can hide from me. I will hunt you down and peel the skin from your head. Do you understand?”

They understood. Historically, Turnball’s threats were usually vague and stylish—when he got down to specifics, then the captain was close to the edge.

“Good. Good.” Turnball took a breath. “Is everything ready, Quartermaster?”

Quartermaster Ark Sool stepped forward. Sool was an unusually tall gnome who had, until quite recently, been an internal affairs officer for the LEP. Having been demoted to private following an investigation into the ethics of his own methods, Sool had cashed in whatever years he had and decided that he would use the accumulated knowledge of decades of criminal investigation to make himself some of the gold that gnomes were almost hypnotically attracted to. He’d advertised his services at The Sozzled Parrot and had soon been picked up by Turnball, anonymously at first, but now they were meeting face-to-face.

“Everything is ready, Captain,” he said, tones clipped, back straight. “The shuttle we acquired from the LEP pound has been fitted out as an Atlantis ambulance. And I managed to trim the budget quite a bit and took the liberty of ordering a few new dress suits for you.”

“Excellent work, Quartermaster,” said Turnball. “Your share has just gone up three percent. Initiative pays. Never forget that.”

He rubbed his hands. “How soon can we leave?”

“As soon as you give the word, Captain. The ambulance is on the jetty and ready for push off.”

“The laser?”

“Modified as requested. Small enough to fit in your pocket.”

“I find myself liking you quite a bit, Sool. Keep it up and soon you will be a full partner.”

Sool bowed slightly. “Thank you, sir.”

“Any casualties while you were doing the shopping?”

“Not on our side, sir,” said Sool.

“And who cares about the other side, eh?”

Turnball liked the idea of blood being spilled. It made the entire exercise seem worthwhile.

“Now, we all know I am a selfish fairy—that’s what’s kept us alive and prospering, apart from our recent stint at the Council’s pleasure. If I get what I want, then we all flourish. And what I want is a source of magic strong enough to make my wife young again. And if that source of magic can also make your dreams come true, so much the better. Until recently, there was no everlasting source, but now the demons have returned from Limbo, bringing a mighty warlock with them. A young demon who has taken the unusual name of No1.”

“A smarmy little upstart,” said Sool. “Won’t salute or wear a uniform.”

“I’m taking one percent of your share back for interrupting,” said Turnball gently. “Do it again and I’ll take an arm.”

Sool opened his mouth to apologize, but on consideration decided that another little bow would suffice.

“You’re new. You’ll learn. And if you don’t, at least Mr. Ragby will have a nice meal. He loves limbs.”

Ragby made the point by gnashing his large teeth.

“So, to continue uninterrupted, there is now a demon warlock in Haven. If we can take him, then he shields us forever and he brings my Leonor back to me. Questions?”

Bobb Ragby raised a finger.

“Yes, Mr. Ragby?”

“Won’t this No1 be hard to get to?”

“Ah, excellent question, Mr. Ragby. Not quite as stupid as you appear, after all. And you are right. Generally, a person of this importance would be hidden away like the last stink worm at a dwarf sludge pool party, but in the event of a disaster at sea, where the medical staff are stretched to their limits, such a powerful warlock will be pressed into service by the medical warlocks. So we will find him in the aquanaut Nostremius, the floating hospital.”

A broad smile spread across Ragby’s face. “And we have a fake ambulance.”

“We do indeed, Bobb. You put things together quickly.”

Ching had a question too. “A person like that, with all this power, surely the LEP are going to come after a person like that?”

This was exactly the question Turnball wanted asked. He was delighted by how this presentation was going. “Let me answer your question with one of my own, just to get your mind working, because I have faith that you’re not just a stupid goblin. Do you know why I had the space probe crash into the prison shuttle?”

Ching’s reptilian face wrinkled in concentration, and he absently licked his eyeballs as he thought. “I think you done that so the Leppers would assume we were dead.”

“Correct, Mr. Mayle. I orchestrated a huge catastrophe so everyone would believe we had been killed.” Turnball shrugged. “I don’t feel bad about that. We are at war with the Leppers, as you call them. If you take sides in a war, then you can expect to be a target. I might feel a little bad about the next catastrophe. I’m a little sentimental about hospitals: I was born in one.”

Bobb raised the same finger again. “Uh, Captain, was that a joke?”

Turnball beamed a charming smile. “Why, yes it was, Mr. Ragby.”

Bobb Ragby started to laugh.

The Atlantis Trench; Now

Artemis Fowl felt the tentacles of the giant squid tighten around him. Saucer-sized spherical suckers latched on to his pressure suit, slobbering on the surface, searching for purchase. Each cup was lined with rings of razor-sharp chitin teeth, which gnashed viciously on Artemis’s protected limbs and torso.

Eight arms, if I remember correctly, thought Artemis. Which is two fours. Die! Die!

Artemis almost giggled. Even in the death grip of the biggest squid ever to be seen by a man, he was persisting with his compulsive behavior.