Kingdom Keepers VII (4 page)

T
IA DALMA OBSERVES HER WORK BY NIGHT
, an artist in the privacy of her studio.

She studies the destruction she has caused. The gray stones of the temple lie on the ground, wearing a crust of dirt and debris. The grass and plants that once surrounded the temple look as if they belong on an ancient gravestone.
¹
The temple, at one time tall, and proud as the forces of nature it was modeled after, now is little more than a child’s broken tower of building blocks. Water trickles through the blocks and pieces of the once majestic pyramid, the very stream that defeated the Beast, Chernabog, years before. A miasma of evil fills the dusty air. This was a place of sacred ritual, untouched by the commoners, now desecrated by outsiders—worse, foreigners—who have no right to be here. The tears in the earth scream like wounds, spitting hate. Who knows what ancient powers have been released?
²

A snorting, heavy-breathing sound summons Tia Dalma closer—the sound made by a ferocious bull trapped in a branding chute. Despite all the magnificent horrors her eyes have seen, many of her own making, she approaches with trepidation and unusual reserve. But this is hardly a usual situation. Only as she nears the grating noise does it dawn on her that these catacombs have been dormant for thousands of years; that high priests perhaps more powerful than she (a terrifying thought in itself) utilized them as a place of banishment for thieves, those unwanted outcasts deemed a danger to the greater community.

Danger. Desire. Death. Evil spirits would have been expelled to this labyrinth, led into its tangled tunnels with no hope of finding their way out.

Until now.

In all her impatience, Tia Dalma thinks, she may have liberated these festering forces. She may have inadvertently torn the lid off Pandora’s box. Tia Dalma is not one to experience chills of fear rippling up her spine, and yet the sensation invades her now, as unwanted and unfamiliar as disease. The very location of the labyrinth, below the earth, its proximity to the realm of fire and darkness that has fed her all these years, allows a faint possibility to enter her mind: she could be standing atop an access to the Underworld. A portal to the kingdom of Hades himself—one so powerful, so ultimate, that she would be made to look the infant by comparison.

She wants no contact with Hades. Briefly, she considers running. Tia Dalma—flee like a frightened child? Unthinkable! Inexcusable! And yet…the urge is there, ever present and gnawing her brain raw.

She lays one bare foot in front of the other. She has carved her own way through this murky world, no doubt troubling the likes of Hades—assuming powers she might have been better off leaving to others, misusing those powers, abusing, torturing. He might smile at what she has done. Pain could raise a chuckle. But in the past she has forgiven, nurtured, nursed, and assisted those in need: violations, all. She has allowed herself to act—dare she even think it?—human. If caught, she will be punished. Pulled deeper into the realm through the cavernous cracks in the earth that spread before her.

She must hurry! A power such as this knows no compassion, has no sense of time. Should he find his way out, she—and perhaps those she seeks to liberate—will be fugitives from his all-encompassing wrath for time immemorial. Never safe, always on the run.

The solution is plain to see: she must free her associates and search for a way to cause an even bigger earthquake, something to fold the dirt and stone back in on itself, closing off the very chambers she has now exposed.

But for now, her skin crawling, she marches steadily forward, only yards from the nearest exposed tunnel. She must peer inside—which goes against every fiber of her being.

She must free the Beast.

I
T’S NOT JUST THE OTHER
K
EEPERS
—Philby, Maybeck, Willa—who are in the back of Maybeck’s van. Brad is there too. Brad, the Imagineer technician responsible for all the studio green-screen work involved in digitizing the Keepers’ actions and speech to create their holograms. Brad, who worked with them during the upgrade to DHI version 2.0, stabilizing their holograms. He’s maybe thirty now, but still has a youthful face, dark hair, and thick eyebrows. He works calmly but intensely, making sure that each Keeper is comfortable lying down on a few yoga mats.

Finn is shoulder-to-shoulder with the fiercely intelligent and sometimes brooding Willa. At their heads, Maybeck lies sideways across the van. Next to him, and immediately behind the front two seats, is Philby, also sideways on the floor.

Brad climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the ignition. “For the past three years,” he says, “it’s been mostly exercises. Right?”

His words trigger memories and images for Finn, most of them good. He pushes past the pain of losing Dillard to the harrowing events of the cruise, and past those to the long year spent battling Maleficent in all four of the Disney World parks. As a team, they’ve come through a great deal together and grown closer as a result. They battled back the dolls of It’s a Small World and endured the rage of Judge Frollo; they’ve had crushes and learned to distinguish them from real feelings; they’ve experienced loss, rage, determination, and frustration as they’ve battled the Overtakers.

The reality-TV crew that broadcast their actions without their knowledge during the second half of the cruise has come and gone. For a time, their show drew the highest ratings of any program on the Disney Channel. The only good that came of it—if you can call it good—is that television executives in L.A. noticed Charlene’s all-American good looks and gymnastic athleticism and gave her a shot at the big time. She’s had several guest appearances on
Good Luck Charlie
, and there’s talk she may be offered a starring role in a new Disney Channel show. The thought that Charlene could be the next Hannah Montana is a little off-putting to all the Keepers, especially Maybeck, who texts with her constantly and hasn’t been himself since her departure. They’ve all missed her, but for Maybeck it has been agony.

“This is not an exercise,” Brad continues. “There’s been a breach in security at the Studio Archives.”

“But wait,” Willa says, “aren’t they in—”

“Burbank. You’ll be crossed over onto the Disney Legend outdoor terrace between the Team Disney and Frank G. Wells buildings. Finn has the Return.”

Finn taps his pocket, ensuring that the small fob-size remote device Brad is referring to is where it belongs. Items in pockets cross over; handheld objects are less predictable: sometimes they make it, sometimes not. It’s crucial that the Return crosses over successfully; it’s what enables the Keepers to trigger their emergence from their hologram state. Although the Imagineers could return the DHIs manually, the Keepers have learned through hard experience that initiating their exit themselves is critical to their survival.

It is not an exact science. Research into the DHI phenomena of crossing over into hologram form is ongoing, and conducted by te very people who created the DHI program in the first place.

The best explanation the Imagineers have so far offered the Keepers is that crossing over involves each Keeper’s consciousness making a jump “into” his or her hologram at the moment of drifting off to sleep. In that fragile moment between wakefulness and slumber, a kind of portal opens to supercomputers operated by the Disney Imagineers running artificial intelligence software. The Imagineers believe that each DHI operates in a dream state controlled by the sleeping Keeper. This hypothesis is at least partly confirmed by the all-too-real fact that while crossed over, a Keeper can get stuck—in what they call the Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, or SBS. If a DHI is not returned, the sleeping host is trapped in what appears to be a coma while the spark of waking consciousness is unable to make the jump back to the sleeping body.

“You’re being dropped into a hot zone,” Brad cautions. “Fair warning: this isn’t like crossing over at the Hub in the Magic Kingdom and going off searching for OTs. Tonight, you’ll be dropped into the middle of an active operation. The security breach is a well-organized raid. It’s imperative that it be thwarted. We are Code Jiminy.”

A collective gasp. On a scale from one to five, Jiminy is code for the second-highest threat level, surpassed only by Tink. Its invocation authorizes the Keepers to use any means necessary to accomplish the specified goal, including “loss of property”—an Imagineer euphemism for the destruction of Disney characters. Tink allows further for the destruction of physical property, attractions, and systems within the park, as well as for the use of “enhancers”—meaning, dark magic and specialized implements of destruction.

This new military-style regimen is a direct result of the ordeal in Mexico that cost Dillard his life. Since the Imagineers adopted it, the Keepers have never been authorized to go beyond Code Alice, the second of the five levels. By establishing the higher risk level, Brad is warning them that they’re being dumped into a dogfight.

“Mission objective?” Philby asks. The Professor wants to get the facts straight.

“Protect assets; restore video surveillance; determine the target or objective of the raid.”

“Layout?” Philby, again.

“You will cross over onto the terrace. There’s a Starbucks in the corner of the lobby of the target building. The doors are straight ahead. Inside the lobby, the Archives’ entrance is forty feet ahead and on your left.”

“‘Restore video,’” Finn says, quoting Brad. “So, will we go dark once inside?” The holograms need to be projected. If a Keeper goes into “DHI shadow,” their hologram disappears, and the Keeper becomes invisible to others, which can be a blessing or a curse.

“We can’t confirm. Currently, we have eyes on a few spots in there, so I suppose it’s more a case of you encountering extended DHI shadow.”

“Until and unless we fix the cameras that aren’t projecting,” Philby says.

“Correct.”

“So, basically,” Maybeck says, “we won’t know what’s going on until the Overtakers are throwing everything they have at us.”

“Basically,” Brad says.

The van rolls. The Keepers rock from side to side on the yoga mats.

Finn says, “Everyone okay with this? It’s voluntary, you know.”

No one speaks up.

“All right, then,” Brad says. “Good luck.”

F
INN AWAKENS TO THE HUM
of traffic. Overhead, flashing jet lights punctuate a colorless night sky void of stars. He’s lying on a stone terrace. A hand holding a wand looms over him. He rolls out of the way before a curse is landed, only then identifying the hand and wand as part of a bronze statue—a ten-foot-high replica of the Disney Legend award, the emblem of imagination: Mickey’s gloved hand hoisting his powerful wand skyward.

The image sticks in Finn’s mind; he thinks it’s no coincidence that the DHI server has crossed them over to this particular spot.

Maybeck and Philby appear at nearly the same instant. They both react defensively to the ominous wand hovering over them, scurrying out of the way, only to realize that it’s immobile. Nearly in unison, all three glance in the direction of the Frank G. Wells Building; ghostly wraiths swirl in and out like angry bees around a hive. Possessed demons march like zombies toward the door. It’s like nothing any of the boys has seen before, and the sight temporarily paralyzes them. Finn finds himself checking his pocket for the Return.

“What are they?” Maybeck asks.

Professor Philby answers. “Wraiths and demons. Possibly from the Haunted Mansion. More likely
Princess and the Frog
. Dr. Facilier and his ‘friends on the other side.’ Makes one think of New Orleans, and therefore Tia Dalma. Chernabog summoned harpies and all sorts of ghouls. What’s important to us is that wraiths are immortals and remain so as long as they can find humans to feed upon. That would be us—or so they will think, since I doubt they’re versed in hologram technology. They’re agile—can jump over fifteen feet. Apparently this variety can fly as well. They feed through their palms. Drain your soul by placing their hand to your heart. As much as I’d like to think they can’t drain a DHI’s heart, it’s the life energy they crave, and we are, after all—”

“Energy,” Finn says.

“Light energy. Yes.” Philby considers their situation. “Since we’re highly concentrated arrays of photons, I’m pretty sure they can suck us dry if they want to.”

“And if they do, we’ll be where, exactly?” Maybeck asks.

“SBS, I suppose,” Philby says, sounding more like a scientist than a possible victim: Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.

Finn shudders instinctively. “Fascinating.”

Maybeck snorts.

“A demon, on the other hand,” Philby continues, “to be distinguished from
daemon
—is a spiritual, paranormal entity. It takes human form and can be conjured and/or controlled. Demons first appeared—”

“Save it,” Maybeck snaps, pointing to the base of the statue.

A girl’s translucent shape appears and then vanishes. Then reappears, flickers, and solidifies. Willa’s DHI looks at the boys—and then at the swirling wraiths at the far end of the terrace.

“That’s interesting,” she whispers. A moment later she takes in the Legend statue without reaction; she might as well have crossed over beneath an oak tree.

“Let’s go,” Finn says.

The Keepers pair up without discussion. Philby and Willa crouch and move to the right of the terrace; Maybeck and Finn crouch and scurry to the left.

“You ever see something like that before?” Maybeck whispers.

Finn doesn’t answer. A memory of Splash Mountain is playing in a loop in his head: he’s wet from the waist down, hearing a sound as creepy and unexplained as these ghostly shadows swirling in and around the office building door.

The wraiths have shriveled human skulls, and black smoky capes trail behind them. Witchlike, they appear more female—and uglier—up close.

“Can you say ‘Dementors’?” Maybeck cracks. “If they try to suck your face off, my suggestion is to bolt.”

Maybeck and his wisecracks. Finn shakes his head wryly, lost in the memory of another encounter: the frightening sounds behind him and Philby that turned out to be a
T. rex
breaking loose from a painted scene on the wall in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The dinosaur chased the boys down the train tracks, its jaws snapping like a hungry alligator’s. They outwitted it, but only because it was so big and clumsy. These wraiths and demons do not look big and clumsy.

“You’re not helping,” Finn says.

“Chill,” Maybeck snaps.

“I will once we’re returned.”

“So serious. We’re 2.0, dude. What are they going to do to us?”

Finn can’t argue about the benefits of the software upgrade. Among other problems, version 1.6 had stability issues: personal fear could trigger a decay of the hologram and therefore physical vulnerability, and physical objects that were not part of their DHIs when they crossed over could present difficulties. It could be—unpredictably—impossible to move or pick up certain things in certain circumstances. The 2.0 upgrade—carefully protected and secured by the Imagineers—has removed those bugs and more: they’ve gained high-definition projection and audio; their sensory stimuli have been enhanced. All in all, there’s no comparison.

“And then there’s your Superman thing,” Maybeck says, reminding Finn of the perplexing but welcome strength he inherited after a brush with electricity in the bowels of the Disney
Dream
cruise ship. Struggling with Tia Dalma, he’d collided with a power source. Finn still doesn’t know if it was the electricity, some miscalculated spell that backfired on the Creole witch doctor, or a combination of the two, but he came away from the encounter with surprising strength, the kind of strength associated with guys who are six feet six and two hundred forty pounds. More than that, even. Much more.

“Do you actually think Chern—?” Finn starts.

Maybeck cuts him off. “I don’t know.”

The Keepers have been together so long that they can complete each other’s sentences, share each other’s thoughts. But despite all their experience, neither of them knows how to battle wraiths and demons.

“I just hope it’s not like bear cubs,” Maybeck says.

“Chernabog’s dead or, at the very least, still trapped in the labyrinth,” Finn says. “Philby’s right: if these belong to anyone, it’s Tia Dalma.”

“I know that, and you know that. But do they?”

The boys move closer, within a few yards of the door.

“No blue lines,” Maybeck says. DHIs rendered in version 1.6 had thin glowing blue borders around the projected images, signaling that they were holograms, not real. The absence of blue edges suggests that the wraiths and demons are not holograms either. Projected in 2.0, the boys lack the blue outlines as well, which should convince their opponents they too are real.

Philby and Willa have worked their way on their bellies through the grass to the edge of the patio walkway bordering the building. Philby points up. Finn nods.

“Does he think we don’t see them?” Finn says softly to Maybeck.

“No idea what he’s doing.”

Finn nods more enthusiastically. Philby shakes his head and points sharply again, gesturing to a spot above the door. The wraiths are swirling like black smoke into a vent.

“You okay?” Maybeck asks.

“Not really,” Finn admits, unconcerned about being teased—even by Maybeck. The Keepers have long since crossed such boundaries. There’s no need to exaggerate with each other, no need to lie. Finn can say what he feels and thinks, more so even than he can at home. It’s the safest group of friends he’s ever had.

“I hear you,” Maybeck says. This is as close as Maybeck will get to an admission of fear; at such moments, he is still something less than one-hundred-percent candid, as if that makes him older or cooler than the others. They’ve learned to accept this. Maybeck is never the first to adapt.

“The lights!” Finn says. “Philby’s pointing to the lights.”

“There are no lights.”

“That’s the point.”

The only light emanating from the Frank G. Wells Building is the sterile bluish-white brilliance of the emergency fixtures, the same kind of lighting the Keepers have encountered in attractions throughout Disney World when they are inside the parks after hours.

Behind the glare cast by the emergency lights, the edifice looms, a gray obelisk against an eerily glowing sky lit by the light pollution from urban sprawl. The cardboardlike silhouette of mountains serves as a backdrop.

“Power’s out.” Maybeck speaks reverently, a hush whispered in a cathedral.

“Yup,” says Finn.

By lifting his arms with his hands gripping an invisible lever, Philby signals back that he and Willa will attempt to reinstate the electricity. The two turn and slither off through the grass like gators, moving away from the entrance. Typical Philby, Finn thinks; he’s probably memorized the studio map and all the buildings’ blueprints, including mechanical specifications.

Maybeck attempts to sing. “‘Just the two of us…’” A music machine, Maybeck has managed to mine the database of his aunt’s oldies collection and come up with a Bill Withers hit from forever ago. Finn only recognizes the lyric because his parents play the same music in their car nonstop and sing along like college freshmen.

“Not now,” Finn says. “There’s work to do.”

“
Work
is a term for those who don’t enjoy their particular enterprise. You and I, on the other hand, relish the chance to put the Overtakers back where they belong. This isn’t work, Finn. This is what we do. And we do it well.”

“We’ve never battled wraiths.”

“It’s the brooms I’m worried about. And that green goo in their buckets.”

The
Fantasia
brooms have been known to carry a toxic acid in their work buckets that is capable of melting glass—and more frighteningly, metal, wood, flesh, and bone. The only broom Finn can make out through the floor-to-ceiling windows appears to be standing guard at an internal door. The body of a Security guard lying on the floor against a wall—hopefully unconscious, not dead—remains a top priority for Finn.

He hatches a plan. Maybeck is strength and quickness deployed with the creative accuracy of a painter’s mind. Finn is strategy, cunning, and calculation. They make a good pair.

“You see Starbucks?” Finn asks.

“Hardly a good time for a latte.”

“That’s you. In behind the bar, you’ll find a fire extinguisher—”

“Says who?”

“—that you’ll use to hit the flying uglies. There’s toxic powder in those canisters, Maybeck. It’ll blind them at the very least.”

“You can be very mean.”

“As you crash and blast your way through them, I’ll make for the door and check the guy on the floor over there. That’ll draw the bucket brigade, so don’t dawdle. I’m going to need reinforcements.”

“Crafty. Even devious. I approve.”

“You first,” Finn says.

* * *

At the westernmost side of the building, across from the electrical substation, Philby and Willa’s DHIs rise to their feet. Philby takes Willa’s hand and heads about eight feet to the left of a door. The two disappear through the solid wall.

* * *

Maybeck’s DHI walks through the plate glass window as if it isn’t there; technically, he’s the one who isn’t there. He enters the Starbucks and walks through, not around, the counter. A fire extinguisher is strapped to the wall next to a first aid kit. Maybeck doesn’t waste any time wondering how Finn knew the extinguisher would be there or doubting his faith in Finn’s knowledge. Maybeck is not the type to get all sentimental about how they have each other’s backs, how they complement each other’s deficits, how they work so well as a team. He’s not a sports guy; he doesn’t have “team” in him. He’s an artist, and he considers himself something of a loner (though that has changed since his feelings for Charlene have grown); he feels like a discard, because he’s been raised by his aunt Jelly and not by his biological parents. He has issues.

Maybeck focuses. The 2.0 software makes touching, smelling, hearing—all five senses—seem perfectly normal and real. He unclamps the fire extinguisher, turns, pulls the safety pin, and squeezes the handle.

He spots an attacking airborne wraith in a reflection on the plastic face of a coffee timer. Yellow dust hits the wraith in its horrid, withered face. A sound like a baby pig being sat upon ricochets off the walls, rattles the coffee mugs, and shakes the teacups. Maybeck identifies terror bubbling up in his DHI, a sensation he does not expect and could never have anticipated. It’s uncomfortable and irritating.

The wraith crashes into a wall, sending a stack of mugs to the floor. It writhes on a shelf, clearly injured by the impact. Regaining its strength, the wraith turns its hooded, hollow-eyed leathery head and stares darkly at Maybeck. A bony hand shoots out from beneath its smoky cape. Palm to chest, the hand attaches to Maybeck’s sternum like a suction cup.

Maybeck looks down in surprise: the gray hand should have passed
through
his DHI, but as Philby warned, something is wrong. The hand attaches to his chest, palm forward. Colored pixels collect at his chest in a brilliant flare, first red, then blue, yellow, white, and suddenly a blinding burst brighter than sunshine. The particles migrate from Maybeck’s side and extremities like electronic blood draining away. His DHI turns gray at the edges. His arms and legs grow weaker; it’s harder to think. He’s losing consciousness. This creature is sucking the light out of him. The melody of “Killing Me Softly” floats through his head.