Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex (6 page)

Butler allowed himself to relax a little, a loosening of the fingers, which perhaps five people in the world would have noticed. He was still on high alert, but could admit to himself now that his darkest fear had always been that he would arrive too late.

Juliet is alive. And healthy. Whatever the problem is, we can solve it between us.

He decided then that the most prudent course of action would be to observe from this vantage point. He had a clear view of the wrestling ring, and, if necessary, he could be by his sister’s side in seconds.

The opening match was started by an old-fashioned ringside bell, and Juliet leaped high, landing catlike on the top rope.

“
Princesa! Princesa!”
chanted the audience.

A favorite with the crowd, thought Butler. Of course she is.

Juliet’s opponent was obviously the villain of the piece. A humongous woman with buzz-cut bleached hair and a costume of bloodred Lycra.

“Boo!” called the crowd.

Like most wrestlers on the
luchador
circuit, the huge newcomer wore a mask that covered her eyes and nose and was tied at the back with some nasty-looking barbed wire, which Butler suspected was actually plastic.

Juliet seemed like a doll in comparison, apparently outmatched. A little of the cockiness drained from her masked face, and she appealed to her corner for assistance, but was met with shrugged shoulders from a stereotypical flat-capped trainer who could have been recruited from the set of a wrestling movie. This match is all scripted, Butler realized. There’s no danger here
.

He pulled a chair up to the screen and settled to watch his sister.

The first round was gentle enough on Butler’s nerves. Then, in the second round, Juliet strayed a little close to her opponent and was pounced on with surprising speed.

“
Oooh
,” cried most of the crowd.
“Snap her in two, Samsonetta!” called a few less
charitable observers.

Samsonetta, thought Butler. It suits her
.

He was not worried at this point. There were at least a dozen ways for Juliet to break Samsonetta’s hold, as far as he could see. Most she could do without even using her hands. One would be theoretically possible by combining a fake sneeze with a sudden drop.

Butler started to worry when he noticed a dozen men in trench coats sidling along the far wall toward the ring.

Trench coats? In Cancún? Why would anyone wear a trench coat in Mexico unless they were concealing something?

The picture was too grainy for Butler to garner much detail, but there was something about these guys and the way they moved. Purposeful, devious, sticking to the shadows.

I’ve got time, Butler reasoned, already putting together his plan. This could be nothing, but it could be everything. I can’t take chances with Juliet’s life at stake
.

He glanced around the dressing room to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon. No such luck. All he could find were a couple of chairs, plenty of glitter and mascara, and a barrel of old costumes.

I won’t be needing the glitter or mascara, thought Butler, reaching into the costume barrel.

Juliet Butler was feeling a little claustrophobic in the arms of her opponent.

“Come on, Sam,” she hissed. “You’re suffocating me.”

Samsonetta stamped flat-footed on the canvas, sending hollow booms bouncing around the auditorium, while at the same time making a show of squeezing Juliet’s neck.

“That’s the idea, Jules,” she whispered, her Stockholm accent stretching the vowels. “I whip up the crowd, remember? And then you take me down.”

Juliet turned her face to the three-thousand-strong crowd, delivering a dramatic howl of pain.

“Kill her!” screamed the nice ones.

“Kill her and then snap her in two!” screamed the not-so-nice ones.

“Kill her, snap her in two, and stamp on the pieces!” howled the downright nasty audience members, usually easily identifiable by the violent slogans on their T-shirts, and the drooling.

“Careful, Sam. You’re moving my mask.”

“And such a pretty mask too.”

Juliet’s entire outfit was pretty enough to make her a crowd favorite. A jade skintight leotard, and a small eye mask, which was actually a gel-pack covered with glitter.

If I have to wear a mask, Juliet had reasoned, it might as well be good for my skin.

They prepared for Samsonetta’s trademark takedown: an overhead drop, helped along by the power of her amazing arms. Usually if her opponents had so much as a spark of energy left in them after that maneuver, Sam simply fell on them, and that generally did the trick. But since Juliet was the crowd’s favorite, the move was not planned to go as usual. A wrestling audience liked to see their hero as far down as possible without being out.

Sam advertised the move by asking the crowd if they wanted the body slam.

“Do you vant it?” she shouted, playing up her accent.

“
Yes!”
they howled, beating the air with their fists.

“The body slam?”

“Slam!” they chanted. “Slam! Slam!”

A few chanted other rougher slogans, but security soon zoned in on them.

“You vant a slam! I vill slam!” Generally Samsonetta would have said
I shall slam!
But Max, the promoter/ manager of LuchaSlam, liked her to use ‘v’ instead of ‘w’ wherever possible, as for some reason it drove the crowd crazy.

And so she bent backward and hurled the unfortunate Jade Princess toward the deck, and that would have been the end of it had not the Jade Princess somehow twirled in midair to land on her toes and fingertips, and that wasn’t even the impressive part. The impressive part was springing back up again and whipping her head around so the jade ring woven into her blond ponytail whacked Samsonetta in the jaw, landing the giantess flat on her back.

Samsonetta whined and complained, rubbed her jaw to redden it, and rolled like a walrus on a hot rock.

She was quite a performer, and for a moment Juliet worried that the jade ring had really hurt her, but then Sam threw her a secret wink, and she knew that they were still playacting.

“Have you had enough, Samsonetta?” asked Juliet, springing nimbly to the top rope. “Would you like some more?”

“No,” blubbed her supposed opponent, then decided to sneak another ‘v’ in for Max. “I vant no more.”

Juliet turned to the audience. “Should I give her some more?”

Oh no
, said an imaginary audience.
No more, that would be barbaric.

But the real audience said things like:

“Kill her!”

“Take her downtown!” (Whatever that meant—they were already downtown.)

“Show her the pain!” The pain being obviously more excruciating than just plain old pain.

I love these people, thought Juliet, and launched herself off the top rope for the coup de grâce.

It would have been a thing of beauty. A lovely double flip rounded off with a nice
oooof-
inducing elbow to the stomach, but someone came out of the shadows and snatched Juliet from the air, tossing her roughly into the corner of the ring. Several other silent, muscled attackers piled on top of Juliet until all that was visible of the girl was one green-clad leg.

In the shadows, where he was watching behind one of the lighting rigs, Butler felt a sour ball of fear drop to the pit of his stomach, and muttered: “That’s my cue.”

Which sounded an awful lot more flippant than he felt.

The crowd was still applauding the unexpected arrival of the Ninja Squad
luchadores
in their trademark black costumes disguised by trench coats, who had doubtless shown up to avenge their master’s recent defeat at the hands and feet of the Jade Princess at QuadroSlam in Mexico City. Surprise guests often showed up unadvertised at the slams, but the entire Ninja Squad was an unexpected bonus.

The ninjas were a writhing mass of pumping limbs, each member desperate to land a blow on the Jade Princess, and there was nothing the slight girl could do but lie there and absorb it.

Butler entered the ring quietly. The element of surprise was often the difference between victory and defeat in against-the-odds situations, though if Butler were honest with himself he would admit that secretly he usually felt that the odds were in his favor, even in this case, where he was outnumbered twelve to one. Twelve to two if Juliet were still conscious, which was six to one, which was virtually even-stevens. A moment earlier Butler had felt a little self-conscious in the borrowed costume of fake bearskin leotard and mask, but now all embarrassment was forgotten as he clicked his brain into that cold space he called combat mode.

These people are hurting my sister, he thought as a hot trickle of anger cracked his icy shell of professionalism.

Time to go to work.

With a growl that was totally in keeping with his Crazy Bear costume, Butler rolled into the ring under the bottom rope, stepped briskly across the canvas, and began laying into the ninjas with blatant economy of movement. There was no threatening monologue, not even a simple foot stamp to herald his arrival, which was hardly courteous. He simply dismantled the ninjas as though they were a Jenga stack.

There followed thirty seconds of flailing limbs and high-pitched screaming that would have done hysterical teenagers at a boy-band concert proud, and then, finally, Juliet was uncovered.

Butler saw that his sister was intact, and smiled behind the mask.

“Hello there. I made it.”

And in response to her life being saved, Juliet jammed four rigid fingers into his solar plexus, driving the air from his body.

“Aarrrk,” he grunted; then, “Whuueeeech.” Which was supposed to be
What are you doing?

A couple of the ninjas had recovered and tried a few of their stylized moves on their attacker, only to be rewarded with casual openhanded slaps.

“Watch it,” snapped Butler, drawing breath once more and shooting the ninjas the evil eye. “I need a minute of family time.”

Something flickered in the corner of Butler’s vision, moving with blurred, jittery speed. His left hand automatically shot out to grab the jade ring that was braided into his sister’s blond ponytail.

“Wow,” said Juliet. “No one’s ever done that before.”

“Really?” said Butler, dropping the jade ring. “No one?”

Juliet’s eyes widened behind her mask. “No one except . . . Brother, is that you?”

Before Butler could reply, Juliet sidestepped and pole-axed with her forearm a ninja who may have been sneaking up on them, or may in fact have been trying to escape from what had become the ring of real pain as opposed to the ring of convincingly faked agony.

“Didn’t you guys hear this man? We need family time!” The ninjas shrank back against the rope, whimpering.

Even Samsonetta seemed a little concerned.

“Brother, I’m in the middle of a grudge match. What are you doing here?” asked Juliet.

It might have taken many people a few more minutes before they realized something was amiss, but not Butler. Years of protecting Artemis Fowl had taught him to catch the penny before it dropped.

“Obviously you didn’t send for me. We need to leave so I can figure things out.”

Juliet’s bottom lip hung sulkily, transporting Butler ten years into the past, when he’d forbidden her to shave her head.

“I can’t just go. I’ve got fans expecting me to do cartwheels and give you the signature move.”

It was true. The Jade Princess’s camp was bouncing on their benches, baying for Crazy Bear’s blood.

“If I just leave, there could be a riot.”

Butler glanced up at the giant screen suspended from the ceiling and saw a close-up of his own head looking up at the screen, which was enough to give anyone a headache.

A voice boomed from four old-fashioned conical speakers wired to the corners of the overhead screen.

“Who is this guy, folks? Is it Crazy Bear come to take down his old enemy, the Jade Princess?”

Juliet stuck out her chin. “Max. Always looking for the angle.”

“Juliet, we don’t have time for this.”

“Whoever it is,” continued Max, “we’re not just going to let him walk out of here with our princess, are we, amigos?”

Judging by the loud and sustained reaction, the paying customers did not take to the idea of Crazy Bear simply walking out with the princess. The language was florid, and Butler could have sworn that the walls were shaking slightly.

Butler took three quick steps to the side of the ring and wagged his finger at a little man holding a microphone.

He was surprised when the little man jumped up on the table, stamped on his own hat, then shouted into the mike.

“You’re threatening me, Crazy Bear? After all I’ve done for you? When those forest rangers found you living with the grizzlies, who took you in? Max Schetlin, that’s who. And this is how you repay me?”

Butler tuned out the rant. “Okay, Juliet. We need to get out of here now. We do not have time for this. Someone wanted me out of the way. Possibly someone who has a grudge against Artemis.”

“You need to be an awful lot more specific than that, brother. Artemis has more enemies than you, and you have quite a few at the moment.”

It was true. The crowd was turning ugly—a lot of it was fake ugly, but Butler’s keen eye spotted scores of wrestling fans in the front rows who looked ready to storm the ring.

I need to make a statement, he thought. Show these people who’s boss.

“Outside the ring, Jules. Right now.”

Juliet did what she was told without complaint. Butler had that look on his face. The last time she had seen
that
look, her brother had punched his way through the hull of a Somali pirate’s stolen yacht, sinking the vessel in the Gulf of Aden.

“Don’t hurt Samsonetta,” she ordered. “We’re friends.”

Butler shook his head in disapproval. “Friends? I knew you two were faking.”

Samsonetta and the ninjas were busy throwing shapes in the far corner of the ring. They stamped, punched, and threatened without actually attacking.

When Juliet was safely outside the ropes, Butler turned to his own corner and threw his shoulder into the pad covering the post. The impact rattled the post in its housing.