Kingdom Keepers VI (9781423179214) (25 page)

Far away on the mountain, a girl screamed.

Charlene!

They should have never left her behind.

* * *

During the six o'clock hour, half the passengers attended
the musical in the Walt Disney Theatre while the other half ate in one of the ship's three dining rooms.

Among the Keepers' cruise responsibilities was rotating each night to dine with a different family. Tonight, Finn had been assigned a table with a mom, a dad, and ten-year-old twin boys. At the next table, Philby was with two sets of parents and two good looking girls about his age. Some guys got all the luck, Finn thought bitterly. Was this Wayne's doing as well?

During the appetizer course—soup for Finn—a Cast Member, a young woman, arrived at his table.

“Finn Whitman?” She passed him an envelope.

“What's this?” Finn asked, accepting it. Typically, any note was left in a holder outside the door of your stateroom. A hand delivery had to be special.

She was college age, a little heavy, with sad, listless eyes. Not your typical Cast Member, Finn thought, though it had been a long day for everyone. She shrugged and headed off.

Finn opened the envelope. Inside was a typed or computer-printed card.

Finn gulped.
Per your recent activity…
As in: throwing a table across the room and destroying a wall?

The exchange had caught Philby's attention. Finn leaned out of his chair and passed him the note.

“Mind if I come along?” Philby said.

“I was just about to ask.”

* * *

With passengers divided between eating and enjoying the show, the ship was like a ghost town. As Finn and Philby descended the stairway to Deck 1, the staircase lights sputtered, flickered, and died.

When the lights came back up a moment later, they were at half their original brightness, a gloomy amber.

“Do you always travel in pairs?”

They recognized her voice immediately, the knowledge followed by a wave of dread and terror. Maleficent rarely showed herself, and when she did… Finn and Philby had too many bad memories of those moments.

Exchanging a look, refusing to glance back and see the evil fairy, the boys continued down the stairway. They were careful not to run, not to instigate some action from Maleficent. She was powerful, but they'd beaten her before; she didn't scare Finn the way she once might have. They wanted to reach the landing where there would be more room and more choices for escape or even—did he dare think it?—victory.

Below them, on the Deck 1 forward landing, a
second figure appeared: the Evil Queen.

A witch sandwich.

“No Chernabog,” Philby whispered. “That's interesting.”

“Only to
you
,” Finn said. “But now that you mention it…”

Maleficent raised both arms, lifting her robe. She looked like a giant purple-and-black raven, but with a green face, pointed chin, and a long nose.

“There comes a time in every rite of passage,” the evil fairy said in her clear but icy voice, “when one must confront one's demons. This is the moment between youth and adulthood. The dark passage. But you will never reach that passage, Finn Whitman and Dell Philby. For your time has come.”

“Your magic is powerful,” said the Queen from below. “Children should not play with fire. Sadly, you are neither children nor of age. You live in the middle kingdom, where views are never clear and trust is never certain. I envy you, if truth be told. I pity you as well. For in the end, it comes down to the person. The soul of the matter. We have transitioned, have we not? From one side to the next. From there, to here. And now, dear ones, you too will be given this honor, so that we may understand your magic better.”

Finn and Philby were trapped. On any other section of stairway, they could have vaulted the banisters and escaped. But the final flight of stairs did not offer that choice.

“We need only a tiny favor,” Maleficent said. “So much easier if you cooperate.”

“So much easier,” the Queen echoed.

Philby spoke calmly, like a man twice his age. Finn marveled at his composure.

“Beauty such as yours, fair Queen, should not be hidden. This wretch behind us—hideously foul, don't you think?—does not deserve to share the same air with loveliness such as yours. What does she want from you, do you think? Equality? Her? You may slay the two of us—helpless
children
—but beware the enemy within.”

Finn spotted the opening. Just for an instant, Philby's appeal to the Queen's vanity, his hints about competition from Maleficent, made the witch to take her eyes off the prize: she looked beyond the boys to the winged woman on the landing above. In that moment, Philby dove, a swan dive aimed at the witch below.

He heard the flutter of wings too late. Diablo—freed from his kitchen prison cell—struck Philby mid-flight. The smallish bird smashed Philby into the wall. He slid limply to the floor; the Evil Queen put her
polished shoe on his neck and pressed down. Hard. Philby's face went red. She eased up, but not much.

“Return of the journal,” Maleficent said.
“Now!”

“I…ahh…”

“NOW!”

Finn looked between the two women. The Queen increased the pressure on Philby's neck. He was shaking his head no.

One of you will die.

“Okay! Okay!” Finn said. He gently slipped his Wave Phone from his pocket and called Maybeck. But all the while he was thinking:
If they need the journal, if
they want to kill us, then they don't have Chernabog yet.

“Listen up,” Finn said nervously. “The safe combination is four-two-one-two.” He gathered his courage. He would have to talk incredibly fast. He wondered
if his newfound speed and abilities would translate
to his voice. “Take the journal to the jogging track. Hold it over the rail. Wait for us. Drop it if we're
not—”

He had done it: spoken faster than those guys at the end of radio ads. But Maleficent had him off his feet, held by the throat, her hand as cold as liquid nitrogen.

“Fix it,” she whispered.

Finn could barely breathe—his throat was starting to freeze shut—but he managed to drop the phone. It bounced down the stairs.

“Curse you!” Maleficent cried, dropping him like a sack of sand. Finn collapsed to the stairs. “You obstinate, wretched little—” She raised her hands high, clearly preparing to end him.

Finn closed his eyes:
One of you will die.

“Stop! You fool!” the Queen thundered. “We
need
him. We
need that journal
!”

Maleficent turned a darker, hideous green as she blushed, clearly not accustomed to being scolded.

“Up,” the Queen commanded. “Both of you.” She took her foot off Philby's throat. He rubbed his neck and sucked for air.

She addressed Finn. “We will go along with your plan, young man, but if I sense the slightest deceit, believe me, you will wish you were dead and buried.”

“I believe you,” Finn muttered.

Diablo landed on Maleficent's shoulder and stared cruelly at Philby.

Minutes later, they were on the jogging track, the evening wind driving warm sea air across the deck. A few stray passengers lined the rail looking out, some arm-in-arm.

One person was not studying the sea, but staring at the two women and two boys who came through the amidships doorway: Maybeck.

A bird took flight from the taller woman's shoulder, startling a few of the passengers. They immediately took this to be part of the evening's entertainment. Whispers went down the rail.

Ignoring them, Maybeck held the journal over the side.

“What now?” said Maleficent. She held Finn by the back of the neck.

“You release us and you both keep your hands at your side.”

“You tell her, Finn!” a passenger shouted. A few applauded.

“He'll put the journal down on the deck,” Finn said.

“Finn will join him,” Philby said, taking over. “I stay with you. They will back away from the journal. When the Queen is close to the journal, you will release me. I run. The Queen gets the journal.”

Maleficent considered the rules. “Agreed.”

Philby caught Finn's attention and threw his eyes to the wall, where the shuffleboard equipment hung. Philby was a devious boy; it was everything Finn could do to stop from smiling.

“You hear any of that?” Finn called to Maybeck.

The boy shook his head.

“Journal goes on the deck. You kick it under the rail if they don't let us go.”

Maybeck nodded and set the journal down.

Finn, who wanted to switch roles with Philby, knew better than to protest. He walked toward Maybeck. The Queen followed, a few steps behind.

Their audience grew significantly—the passengers seemed to be coming out of the woodwork. To them, it looked like an improvisation on an Old West shootout.

The Queen was now a step from the journal, practically drooling.

Maleficent held tightly to Philby, her grip cruel.

“Release him!” Finn called. He and Maybeck did the fox-trot; they took a step back and another away from the rail. “Do not move,” Finn whispered to the Queen, who seemed ready to pounce.

Maleficent released Philby. He backed up toward the door slowly.

It was a five-person dance now. Maybeck and Finn eased closer to the wall; the Queen bent toward the journal; Maleficent eyed the three boys, expecting trouble.

Finn didn't disappoint. He jumped for the wall, jumped farther than an Olympian, grabbed hold of a shuffleboard disc, squatted down, and shot it across the deck, knocking the journal beneath the rail just as the Queen's long fingers reached for it.

Philby and Maybeck rushed through the door, followed by Finn, whose speed made him nearly impossible to see. He was the last through the door, his eyes alight with victory.

The Queen shrieked, “KILL THEM!”

But Maleficent made no move. She was
smiling
—red lips, green skin, white teeth. A horror show.

Like an angel rising, here came Diablo above the rail, the journal's cover clenched in his beak, the rest of the pages dangling.

The Queen wound up to throw a spell. Finn dove inside, came to his feet, and ran.

“They got the journal!” he shouted as the three boys bounded down the stairs. “Diablo caught it!”

At Deck 3 they hurried toward the bow and the forward stairs.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Maybeck asked.

“Security!” replied Philby. “They're expecting us.”

* * *

Poised precariously on a rock ledge thirty feet below the zip-line platform, Charlene dared not move, for fear of being seen. Having jumped from the platform, she'd also jumped into DHI shadow—invisibility.

As she reached out from where she was hidden, several of her fingers reappeared. For the ruse to work, every last guard who had pursued them had to ride the zip line to the far side. Only one guy had done so. After colliding with the empty harness that she'd sent ahead halfway out across the line, this man had shouted something back in Spanish. Whoever was on the platform above her—if anyone—had failed to follow down the line.

What any of it meant, Charlene wasn't sure. She was currently tucked in behind a plant with green leaves the size of beach towels, her back against rock.

The ledge was no more than four feet wide. Ten feet below was another ledge, and thirty feet below that yet another, like stair steps leading down into the dark slash of ravine. Her only hope of catching up to Amanda and Mattie was the trail on this side. But if she were seen taking it, she would lead their pursuers straight to her friends.

The only way to reach the trail from the ledge was to climb up to the platform, and until the man left the zip line he would spot her if she tried to do that. Presently, she saw him hand-walking back toward her, his ankles crossed over the line, moving like an inchworm.

What now? Charlene thought.

Climbing nearly straight up the rock should keep her in DHI shadow, but if not… Charlene wasn't overly concerned about her own safety; she was fast, strong, and a projection of light, impossible to harm. But Mattie was vulnerable. If she were captured, the Keepers would be missing two of their team members.

Decision time.
The longer she stayed here, the longer Amanda would wait—no matter how detrimental to the bigger plan. Amanda was just too Amanda to leave without her. Charlene faced the rock and began climbing like Spider-Man, alert for both handholds and toeholds as well as her DHI reappearing.

Behind her, the guard continued pulling himself toward the platform.

Ten feet from the wooden struts, Charlene stretched her hand to grab a thick root sticking out of the mud wall and her hand sparkled to life. She quickly drew it down out of projection. The inchworm guard was close behind and moving fast.

She waited, holding on for dear life, the toe of
her running shoe barely caught on a small jutting
rock, her left hand clinging to a vine. She formed a plan.

As the guard neared the platform, two of his pals stepped forward to help him, their feet at the platform's edge.

Charlene timed her climb carefully. As the two leaned out, reaching for the man, she moved furiously, her DHI reappearing, first fuzzy, then solid. One of the two men leaning out spotted her, but too late. She grabbed the first leg she could reach and pulled. This man fell from the platform and wrapped his arms around the guard inchworming on the zip line. The second man tried to hold his partner back, but he, too, was pulled off balance. With the added weight, the zip line pulleys began to roll, and the three men, screaming for help, raced away over the ravine. Charlene hooked a knee, pulling herself fully up onto the platform.