Kingdom Keepers VII (18 page)

Iago tucks his wings, dive-bombing Finn’s head in what is sure to be a kill strike. Finn tries to accomplish all clear, but before he can, the pain ends as quickly as it started, and the world stops growing. Iago misses, attacking a full-size Finn who is no longer present. Finn takes deep, heaving breaths of relief.
³⁴

The bird chirping turns out to be not Iago but Amanda, crying out for Finn to duck. She shrank before Finn, her voice jumping several octaves as her DHI grew smaller. Now that Finn grasps what’s happening, he begins to understand some of the hallucinations he’s experiencing. It’s not easy having the world grow to ten times normal size around you.

Iago turns to attack again but miscalculates a second time as Finn continues to shrink. The voices of Amanda, Maybeck, and Jess transition from high, ear-piercing squeaks to their normal pitch as Finn’s size matches theirs.

“If he gets us this time,” Maybeck says, glancing at the parrot, “he’ll have us for lunch!”

Finn spins fully around, taking in the mountainous size of the Partners statue, the towering walls of which were no more than knee high before the group shrank. Now Finn and the others are no more than five inches high.

“What happened?” Finn gasps.

“Philby…” Jess says, pausing. “When I…The thing is…The second lamp—”

“The tiny one,” Amanda says. “The only way to get to it…”

“Oh my word,” Finn says.

“
Honey, I Shrunk the Keepers
,” Maybeck quips.

“I should have warned you better,” Jess says. “Like I said, Philby practiced on—”

“Quick!” Maybeck grabs Jess’s arm and runs toward an enormous bench that looms overhead like a high-rise building. He leads the group under the structure as Iago—who now resembles a 747—makes another approach. The overhead slats of the bench seat form a protective cage, forcing the gargantuan parrot to veer away at the last second.

“Look!” Amanda calls, pointing.

Timon and Pumbaa are prancing along the street between the castle and the plaza. Not characters in plush costumes, but the real character animals. Timon, a meerkat, has a long narrow body and stands about two feet high; Pumbaa is nearly three feet long and almost as tall.

Amanda hurries out from beneath the bench. “Pumbaa! Pumbaa!”

The warthog turns in her direction.

Maybeck’s and Jess’s attention is on Amanda, but Finn feels compelled to look overhead. Iago, his giant wings spread, has turned and is coming for Amanda. Finn sprints, shouting her name. Amanda pivots, looks up—and is paralyzed. Pumbaa lowers his tusks and charges. Finn dives to tackle Amanda, knowing in advance that he’s failed—Iago will simply eat both of them instead of only Amanda. In a blur of alarming speed and unexpected agility, Pumbaa springs up.

Finn thought he’d seen everything, but an airborne warthog is new. Pumbaa looks like a flying butterball with horns and a shaggy mane. Turns out he’s more a flesh-and-bones cannonball with two curling tusks. He collides with Iago just behind the bird’s orange beak, a blow to the head that not only pushes the feathered dive-bomber off course, but knocks the parrot into Tweety-land—seeing stars, hearing whistles, out cold. To the miniaturized Keepers, Iago’s subsequent belly flop and skidding tumble across the concrete looks like the crash of a jetliner.

Pumbaa hollers at the fallen bird, “Go ahead! Make my day!”

Timon catches up. “He watches too many movies!” He shakes his head and tail and drags a paw across his eyes. “He can be so in-
fur
-iating!” Self-amused, he doubles over with laughter.

Jafar moves toward the Plaza. To Finn, it looks like the Empire State Building going for a stroll.

“Could you help us please?” Amanda asks Pumbaa, allowing Finn to help her up.

“I’ve never met a doll that can talk!” says Pumbaa.

“You have now,” Maybeck says. “Four of them, actually.”

“We need a ride to Storybook Land,” Amanda says, “before Jafar gets anywhere near us.”

Jess catches up to them. “Like right away!” she says. “Better make that the Casey Jr. Circus Train.”

“No,” says Amanda, “I think you mean—”

“I’ve got this,” Jess says. “It was my dream, remember?”

Jafar is now only yards away.

“All aboard! I’ve not met any two-legged creature that can catch a warthog,” says Pumbaa proudly.

“And if he gives you any trouble, I’ll run circles around him and climb him like a tree. He won’t forget that, believe me!” Timon proudly displays the razor-sharp claws on his forepaws, which he waves around like hands.

The DHIs climb aboard and Pumbaa proves as good as his word, taking off so quickly that Finn, in the lead, has to grab the warthog’s mane to keep from falling off. Amanda grips Finn around the waist, then Jess, with Maybeck sitting astride near the point where Pumbaa’s mane ends. Timon, down on all fours, circles them playfully.

“That old goat stayed back with the bird!” Timon hollers.

Pumbaa skids to a halt. “First stop, Casey Jr.! Will you be needing a return fare?”

“How do we find you?” Amanda asks.

“We’re always up for a good laugh!” The two chuckle and bound away, gone in seconds.

“Whatever that means,” Maybeck says.

“Quick,” Finn says. “Before we’re seen.”

“We’re the size of clothespins. Who’s going to see us?” Maybeck asks.

“Shrinking us is part of Philby’s plan,” says Jess, “to avoid our being seen by the security cameras. That’s why he was testing it out on Charlene in the first place.”

“Is that what he told you?” asks Maybeck. “You gotta watch out for that kid. The Professor is prone to exaggeration.”

“Look who’s talking!” Finn hollers.

“Hey! Are you all coming or not?” Jess has a lead on them.

The perspective of his newly massive surroundings overwhelms Finn. For a moment, he loses his balance to vertigo. It takes him twenty paces to cover the distance of a full-size human stride. He feels as if he’s walked miles by the time Jess leads them onto a paved path; they pass a blue-roofed structure that looks like part of a fruit stand. Jess climbs over some pieces of gravel that resemble giant boulders; it looks like she’s mountaineering. Finn follows, careful of every hand and toe-hold. Once up, he leans back to help Amanda but lets Maybeck take care of himself, a gesture he knows the other boy appreciates.

Jess leads the way through dense planting; they pause at a railroad track that to creatures their size looks as wide as a twelve-lane highway. There’s a solid steel wall to cross over, supported by inordinately large wooden beams—the railroad ties, Finn realizes.

“This will not be easy,” Jess says. “The metal is superslick.”

Maybeck lays his hand on the rail. “It’s vibrating. News alert: the train is running.”

The Keepers have encountered such unexpected anomalies many times before: segments of an attraction operating after hours. The train running implies the work of the Overtakers. Finn and Maybeck understand this fact and acknowledge it with an exchange of glances; for now they keep it from the two Fairlies. No reason to scare them if their fears are unfounded.

“Heads up! Stay alert!” cautions Finn, as close as he’ll get to an all-out warning.

They stand in front of the steel rail, their DHIs shimmering.

“In my dream,” Jess says, “we climbed over. It was hard.”

“You sketched a locomotive,” Amanda reminds her.

“Yes.”

“Not good,” Amanda says, “if it happens to be coming right at us.”

“That occurred to me. Yes.”

“Occurred to us all,” Maybeck says. As an artist, he clearly grasped more of the meaning of Jess’s sketch than Finn, who barely remembers more than the lamp in the middle of the confusion.

Jess removes the sheet of paper from her back pocket. Again, it sticks to her fingers like flypaper, but remains a projection. She unfolds it, and they study the locomotive.

“It’s coming right at you. That does not look so good,” Finn says.

“It looks fatal,” Maybeck agrees.

“So we walk through it,” says Amanda. “Right?” she asks Finn, turning to him and meeting his eyes.

“Absolutely.” The connection between them intensifies. For a moment, there is only this girl, a castle rising up behind her. She is the princess of that castle. She is everything.

“So…” Maybeck is clearly about to complain.

“Company!” Jess cries.

Two scruffy feral cats, one a tailless Manx, have spotted the four chipmunk-size DHIs. Lowering their heads, bodies frozen in place, the cats sense a late-night snack.

The train rail’s vibration intensifies, approaching a clatter.

“Push
all
thought away. Focus instead on blank nothingness. Close your eyes if you have to. Here we go. Jess, you first. Then Terry. Amanda and I’ll go last.”

Amanda keeps her eyes locked with Finn’s. She looks frightened. He shakes his head and forces a caring smile.

Jess turns toward the rail. Her eyelids flutter shut, and her DHI’s blue outline appears to shimmer. She steps forward and passes through the metal barrier.

The Manx cat stalks toward them, seeming seductively motionless, and yet somehow moving. Finn edges away from the others as Maybeck follows Jess. He vanishes. The metal rail is jumping as the locomotive approaches.

“Made it!” shouts Jess, excitedly.

The Manx focuses on Finn, lowering its massive head to the concrete.

“Go!” Finn tells Amanda without taking his eyes off the Manx.

“No. Back up toward the rail. We go together.”

“Since when do you give the orders?” Finn asks, still enmeshed in a stare-down with his would-be attacker.

The cat springs. Its outstretched paw, claws extended, aims for Finn’s face. Finn’s feet betray him, unwilling to move. Five claws like sharpened meat hooks whir through the air; Finn is about to have the flesh of his fear-frozen face ripped from the bone.

He’s struck by a ferocious wind. The paw moves up as if yanked hard by a rope.

Finn cocks his head to see Amanda, arms outstretched. She has pushed, throwing Finn over and altering the course of the cat’s paw.

“We…go…now!” she shouts. She takes a step forward.

Finn rolls, passing through the rail. Sits up. He can see the train coming at him.

No Amanda.

A few feet away, Amanda bangs into the rail, unable to get through. Her strength has lessened because of her telekinetic push, limiting the power and clarity of her DHI. She’s disoriented; Finn rolled and disappeared, but she can’t follow. The cat with no tail turns its attention on her. She senses she’s about to be lunch meat. She bangs her balled fists against the metal.

The cat takes a step toward her. Another.

Her ability to push something so big is lost; she used everything she had to save Finn. “Finn!” she hollers.

* * *

Finn moves well before he hears her call his name. Forcing his mind—and his pounding heart—to still, he dives at the rail, arms out, head first, and passes through it, arriving at Amanda’s feet.

He catches the movement of the cat out of the corner of his eye, somehow knowing there’s no time to think or calculate or plan. He wraps his arms around Amanda’s knees and lifts, pushing her from below up and over the rail.

As the cat strikes out, Finn somersaults. With a
whoosh
, he finds himself on the other side of the rail, nearly on top of Amanda.

The train is bearing down on them. Twenty yards…Fifteen…

Finn grabs Amanda by the hands and swings her around; once—twice—and he releases her, sending her over the far rail.…But not quite. She lands on the rail and stands. The train is a only a few yards away.

“Fi-i-i-i-inn!”

Finn sees he’s taken too long. He looks toward the rail, thinking: Never gonna make it. He closes his eyes, imagining a pinprick of light. Amanda jumps to safety. Finn turns to the train and opens his arms wide.

It runs him over.

* * *

Responding to an urgency fueled by Amanda’s hysteria, Maybeck is the first to vault atop the rail to look for Finn.

Nothing.

Reluctant to tell the others, he calls back, “Just a second—still looking!”

“What’s wrong?” Amanda calls out.

His tight voice has belied his confidence. “I…ah…Just a minute.” He jumps over the rail, landing on a railroad tie, unable to face telling them the truth.

Maybeck wonders what he’s looking for. What happens when a
partial
hologram is struck by a moving locomotive? Your pixels are scattered, he answers himself. Your projection stops and your human self is trapped in SBS for eternity. He hopes that
for once
he’s wrong about something.

Idly, brain whirring with shock, he wonders at all the thousands of people who have fallen into comas over the centuries, never to wake up again. Is this strictly a medical condition, or does it have something to do with a similar phenomenon? How long have groups of determined individuals battled the supernatural villains of the world? In Europe, such folklore stretches back for centuries. In China, for millennia.

He searches the tracks for bits and pieces—a sparkle, a jewel of fading color, evidence he has no desire to discover. He wonders if Philby can possibly reconstruct what was once a compromised DHI. No person could face an oncoming train without fear—to do so would be superhuman—so what happened to the
human
percentage of Finn when the train hit?

The thought of telling the girls is devastating. But not knowing will hurt them even more. He hears Amanda’s sobs, hears Jess comforting her, and realizes he is in charge. He wonders what he’s supposed to do.

Lead.

It’s not something Maybeck’s comfortable with; at times, he can barely keep himself together, much less others. He hears his snide remarks to Finn and Philby replay in his head, sees himself as an idiot for making them. How’s he supposed to comfort Amanda? Shouldn’t he get word to Philby? What’s next in the quest for the lamp? He’s overwhelmed.

For a moment he wishes it had been him and the train instead of Finn, but only for a moment, as again he ponders Finn’s fate and a lump lodges in his throat. He wishes he could take back a lot of things he’s said to his friend over the years. The thought,
friend
, overwhelms him with grief.