The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer

more than a glitch. The demon warlocks were all killed, so now the rest of the pride are stuck in Limbo, held by a magical spell that was never meant to be permanent, without a warlock to bring them back.”
    “Couldn’t Foaly go and get them?”
    “No. It would be an impossible mission to re-create the same circumstances. Imagine trying to steer a feather in a sandstorm, then land the feather on a particular grain of sand, except you don’t know where the grain is. And even if you did know where the grain was, demon magic can only be controlled by a demon. They are by far the most powerful of warlocks. “
    “Tricky,” admitted Butler. “So tell me why these demons are popping up here now?”
    Artemis corrected him with a wagging finger. “Not just here, and not just now. The demons have always felt an attraction to their home world, a combination of lunar and terrestrial radiations. But a demon could only be pulled back if he was at his end of the time tunnel mouth, the crater, and not wearing a dimensional anchor.”
    Butler fingered his wristband. “Silver.”
    “That’s right. Now, because of massively increased radiation levels worldwide, the pull on demons is much stronger and reaches critical level with greater frequency.”
    Butler was struggling to keep up. Sometimes it was not easy being a genius’s bodyguard.
    “Artemis, I thought we weren’t going into specifics.”
    Artemis continued regardless. He was hardly going to stop now, in midlecture.
    “Bear with me, old friend. Nearly there. So now, energy spikes occur more often than Foaly thinks.”
    Butler raised a finger. “Ah, yes, but the demons are okay as long as they stay away from the crater.”
    Artemis raised a triumphant finger. “Yes!” he crowed. “That’s what you would think. That’s what Foaly thinks. But when our last demon was off course, I ran the equation from back to front. My conclusion is that the time spell is decaying. The tunnel is unraveling.”
    Artemis allowed the napkin tube to widen in his hand. “Now the catchment area is bigger, as is the deposit area. Pretty soon, demons won’t be safe anywhere on Hybras.”
    Butler asked the obvious question. “What happens when the tunnel decays altogether?”
    “Just before that happens, demons all over Hybras will be plucked off the island, silver or no silver. When the tunnel collapses, some will be deposited on Earth, more on the moon, and the rest scattered through space and time. One thing is for sure, not many of them will survive, and those that do will be locked up in laboratories and zoos.”
    Butler frowned. “We need to tell Holly about this.”
    “Yes,” agreed Artemis. “But not just yet. I need one more day to confirm my figures. I’m not going to Foaly with nothing but theory.”
    “Don’t tell me,” said Butler. “Sicily, right?”
    So now they were in the Massimo Bellini Theatre, and Butler had barely half an idea why they were there. If a demon materialized on that stage, then Artemis was right, and the fairy People were in major trouble. And if the fairies were in trouble, then it was up to Artemis to help them. Butler was actually quite proud that his young charge was doing something for somebody else for a change. Even so, they had only a week to complete their task and return to Fowl Manor, because in seven days Artemis’s parents returned from Rhode Island, where Artemis Fowl Senior had finally taken possession of an artificial bio hybrid leg, to replace the one he had lost when the Russian Mafiya blew up his ship.
    Butler peered out of the box at the hundreds of golden arches and the thirteen hundred–odd people enjoying the evening’s performance of Bellini’s Norma .
    “First a Gaudí building, now this theater,” commented the bodyguard, his words audible only to Artemis, thanks to their box’s isolation and the booming volume of the opera. “Don’t these demons ever materialize somewhere quiet?”
    Artemis replied in a whisper.