Kingdom Keepers VII (47 page)

But as a DHI, she wasn’t alone. She was one of five, and those four others—fast, gorgeous, thin, witty—appreciate her for what she is: smart. You can’t wear smart. You can’t fashion it or show it off on a playing field, and if you show it off in the classroom, you’re even more alone. So you learn to disguise it. But it grows in you, as it grew in her. She was so afraid others would see it. But at that moment of panic, the time in her life when she knew it would be impossible to keep it under wraps, the Keepers came along. Philby came along, a guy as smart as she. Four people accepted her, and that became something to build on.

Now, in the middle of a sea of devastation, sweeping in hologram form through displaced concrete and smoking holes in the pavement, Willa feels giddy with happiness. Whatever her path, it has led her to this moment: to be in charge and take the lead. If Chernabog wants to strike her down, then he’d better do it now, when she feels like nothing in the world could be as sweet as this.

Willa, Philby, and Charlene arrive at their destination, a nearly unscathed building on Main Street. Two royal-blue window awnings hang like fake eyelashes, revealing cracked panes. A burned but readable banner over the central doors reads:
ANIMATION CLASSICS
. Beneath it is a sign written in elegant script: Disneyana.

With a cry, Charlene stoops to help two birds on their backs, wings flapping frantically. She picks one up and tries to help it fly, but it’s no use. The bird dies in her hands and she drops it, holding back tears. Philby and Willa are waiting.

Willa gestures for Philby, directing him to go all clear and pass through a wall far away from the main doors; Charlene will climb the facade, slip in, and come down from the second floor. Neither scowls nor questions her decision; Philby parks his sword against the outside wall and stands ready. She and Philby wait for Charlene to climb into place. Then, on a silent finger countdown from three, they glide through solid matter.

Willa sweeps through the main doors. A witch soldier from the Wizard of Oz stands sentry by the open vault, holding an iron halberd like a tall cane, a fuzzy hat secured to his head with a leather chin strap.

He stands his ground, leveling the halberd’s deadly point at Willa, while its ax-like blade glistens, ready to cleave. The man’s dark eyes twitch, taking in Philby, who’s crouched behind a glass case on a walnut table. The room is made to look like a turn-of-the-century bank, all elaborate carvings and ornate molding. It is not a place meant for a fight.

Willa battles her own busy mind, aware that her overactive brain gets in the way of all clear. She need not contemplate how it is that her hands can grasp while her hologram remains fluidly transparent; that she can hit, yet not be hit herself.

The witch soldier glowers but does not speak. It makes him all the more menacing. His sole intention is to skewer Willa with the tip of the halberd and slice Philby’s head off his shoulders.

The tingling in Willa’s limbs confirms her worst fears: she can’t trust that she’s all clear. Philby’s blue outline pulses from bright to dim, suggesting that he’s faring the same way.

The soldier doesn’t move away from the vault. The halberd sweeps side to side, aimed at Willa, then Philby. Even if they charge him simultaneously, one of them is sure to fall. Philby shakes his head. Willa eye-signals the interior wall, which produces a moment of confusion in him, but then she watches his blue outline strengthen. She’s directing him away from the confrontation, allowing him to regain all clear.

Willa makes her first big mistake as a sliver of Charlene’s face oozes through a wooden door to the soldier’s left. It looks as if the door grows a pretty girl’s eyes. Charlene disappears as quickly as she revealed herself, but Willa’s distraction alerts the witch soldier, who glances in that direction.

As the soldier turns his head, Philby runs for the wall. The witch soldier spins and hurls the halberd like a javelin. He catches Philby in the shoulder, spinning him. Already halfway through the wall, Philby loses all clear and screams horrifically, his shoulder pierced, a solid wall running the length of him. It feels like he’s been severed in half.

Willa experiences his agony as her own. He’s more than a friend; he matters to her. She can’t stop her feet from running to him; she pays no attention to the witch soldier’s simultaneous advance. The soldier hooks her throat in the crook of his elbow and, lifting her, throws Willa against the outer wall. She slams and falls, breaking the glass of a display case.

Now she’s mad. And he shouldn’t have made her mad.

Pent up inside Willa are years of frustration at the world for not understanding her. This anger simmers like the belching lava of a near-dormant volcano. For eighteen years, she’s managed to keep it under control, like a spring in a box. But this soldier has hurt her maybe-boyfriend, thrown her across a room, and challenged her leadership.

She’s going to stop him. She will not fail.

F
INN CROUCHES WITH
Violet and Storey Ming in a clump of low bushes behind a pretzel stand. They’re hiding across from the Mark Twain Riverboat landing; from here, they can see that the riverboat broke loose in the earthquake and drifted against the retaining wall next to the
Columbia
.

Finn put Storey on his team because of what the Dillard told him. He tries not to let her see the contempt he feels for her, and his confusion over her real intentions.

An enemy within.

In one short conversation with the Dillard, his trust has evaporated. Worse, it’s been replaced by
dis
trust. He wants Storey close, where he can deal with her. His heart fights against him; he doesn’t want to believe the dark things he has heard. She has helped him out so many times; why would one of Chernabog’s Overtakers do such a thing?

Maybe the Dillard retrieved incorrect data.
Never trust
anything from the Internet
is a maxim drummed into him since middle school. What is the Dillard but a talking search engine?

The distance between Finn and the boats seems enormous, an open expanse in which they will be easy to spot and attack. But the hilt of the sword has warmed in his hologram hand; it feels comfortable, part of him. Prince Phillip’s brief training fills him with confidence.

“It looks empty,” Finn whispers.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Storey says.

It’s different having these two at his side: non-Keepers, but not Fairlies. The girls feel like trainees or interns. At the same time, he can’t match Violet’s powers, nor does he possess Storey’s knowledge of the park and her otherworldly familiarity with Disney characters both good and evil.

“Thoughts? Suggestions?” he whispers.

“Be a nice place to lay a trap,” Storey says.

“If I were them,” Violet adds, “I’d put someone up top as a lookout.”

“Interesting,” Finn says, studying the riverboat more carefully.

“I’d go for the
Columbia
,” Storey says, pointing to the masts of the tall ship. Following her gaze, Finn counts three platforms that would make good hiding places, one on each mast. A person lying down on any one of them would be able to see without being seen.

Two boats. Three people in his team.

“But they’d be looking in this direction, into the park, not out toward the water,” Storey says.

“We attack from the water side!” Finn says. “Brilliant!”

“
I
approach the riverboat from the water,” Storey says. “I’m a bit of a fish—I even held the record for swimming under-water…at my school. If I get behind those rocks over there, I can come around on that side of the riverboat and go up its far side.”

“I’ll take the tall ship while Storey takes the riverboat.”

“Works for me,” says Storey.

“I can’t stay invisible forever,” Violet says, “but I can get over there, no sweat. Once I’m on the tall ship, I can hide for a minute and recharge. When Storey’s ready, I’ll climb up the center mast and Storey will check the top of the wheelhouse on the riverboat. Once it’s clear, we meet on the riverboat and search it.”

Finn has understood for years now that good leadership means allowing others to lead. He considers himself more a navigator than a captain, more a facilitator than a dictator. “Sounds good,” he says.

Violet looks at him oddly. “Even Dash would disagree with some part of any plan I made.”

“If I spot trouble, I’m asking questions later,” Finn says spinning the sword. “Let’s do this.”

The girls take off. Finn doesn’t see Violet again, but a shadow flows across the path in the far distance, over the wall, and into the water, as slippery as an octopus.

Finn has also learned that waiting is the hard part. Watching a plan unfold is far more difficult than being actively involved in it; patience is a warrior’s most challenging skill to perfect. He does not waste the downtime, but spends it focusing on nothing. Like patience, this isn’t easy. But nothingness is his avenue to all clear, his escape to transparency. And with the way he’s been clouded by grief over Wayne’s loss, he no longer trusts his self-assessment. This thought causes a ripple of worry, undoing his efforts of the past few seconds. Wayne, the man who introduced him to this unworldly world, now stands in the way of his owning it. Whoever said “Loss is gain” never tried to remain all clear.

Finn doesn’t want to admit to himself that he should have been the one to remain behind in the tunnel, protected by Amanda, that he’s not ready to return to his familiar role. He’s stronger than that. He pushes himself to unveil the blackness, to allow a pinpoint of light. But as a Keeper, you do not push to become nothing. You accept it.

As Storey slithers over the far rail of the riverboat, Violet appears, hugging the tall ship’s center mast. Their choreography could not be more perfect. Storey’s movement down onto the deck looks so fluid that Finn recoils, looking away briefly. For some reason, it makes him sick to his stomach. But looking back, there she is, crouching as she crosses the deck. The girl he knows and likes.

On the riverboat, Violet ascends the mast with the confidence and skill of Spider-Man. She looks like a tree frog as she climbs, a red bug with a black thorax.

Storey does not reappear right away. She must be waiting to inspect the roof of the wheelhouse until Violet confirms her successful occupancy of the top of the central mast.

Six feet before she reaches her destination, Violet vanishes. A moment later, Finn sees a telescope swing back through the air, seemingly by itself, and drop again in a crushing blow. This is followed by Violet’s reappearance, broken telescope in hand. There will be no more spying from the tall ship.

Facing in Finn’s direction, Violet raises both arms in a questioning gesture. She is looking down at the Mark Twain Riverboat. Finn points, indicating Storey is there, but Violet shakes her head,
No
.

This is the problem with unfamiliar people, Finn thinks. You haven’t worked with them, and you don’t know what they’ll do. His first guess is that Storey has gone rogue—she’s entered the riverboat, intending to find the missing piece of Mickey and come out the hero. It makes sense, given Storey’s uncanny independence.

But this is followed by a more chilling thought: what if Storey has no intention of sharing? What if she’s in this for herself? How well does he know Storey and Violet? And yet, the two have been allowed to overhear all the Keepers’ plans and theories.…

Finn is up and running before he makes any conscious decision. He moves in a zigzag, the sword gripped in both hands and held before him, ready to strike.

Strike what, he isn’t sure.

C
AUGHT HALFWAY
through the wall, his hologram degraded, Philby moans, struggling to maintain consciousness. His right shoulder is stained red from the halberd spearing him.

The halberd lies atop the broken glass of a display case, just out of reach. A brief, long-distance exchange between Philby and Willa suggests that they understand each other and share a similar plan. If only Philby can seize the halberd in time. He catches another glimpse of Charlene, inside the vault and searching for the Mickey illustration.

Willa must keep the witch soldier distracted and buy Charlene time; she must also rescue Philby, though dislodging his DHI from the wall is something only he can do. The two tasks are part and parcel of the same problem: if she can win the witch soldier’s full attention, Philby will have an unthreatened window in which to reach all clear and free himself.

She and Philby have come to the same conclusion: it all has to do with the halberd. A soldier and his weapon.

The soldier makes a move. In that instant, Willa, still holding Philby’s attention, points to her eyes, her heart, and to Philby.

I…love…you.

With a pained cry, Philby lunges. His fingers hook the pole of the halberd and flick it. The strength required for such a move should make it impossible for the weapon to travel more than a few inches, but the seven-foot steel-topped lance flies across the room and into Willa’s outstretched hands. Philby now hangs at a precipitous angle, his body suspended above the jagged broken glass of the display case.

Willa cannot believe the weight of the soldier’s weapon. It pulls her toward the floor. Only fierce determination allows her to regain her balance and swing it at the approaching soldier. He’s too close; the blade impales his arm. He jumps back, his pinprick eyes a riot of disbelief.

“I didn’t mean it!” Willa says apologetically. Recovering, she adds, “I meant it for your neck.” She gets her legs under her and lunges. The soldier jumps back, folding in at the waist to avoid being spiked.

She has his attention now.

* * *

Charlene has the advantage of all clear. She moves silently, slipping through walls. The vault’s interior is a boxlike space containing nothing but an easel with a poster on it, which block the door. The velvet-draped walls are lit by overhead track lights, giving it the look of an unused closet or prison cell.

Charlene can’t figure out the implications of the empty room, the posting of a single guard, though admittedly a formidable one. Fearing an invisible foe is about to strike her down without warning, she keeps her back to the bland wall and moves as silently as possible. She sees nowhere to hide the pasted-together pieces of an illustration, no art on the walls, no shelves, no other doors. The emptiness of the room frightens her, and it worries her that there is nothing to be found here—that the presence of the single guard means that the Overtakers don’t value the empty vault.

There is carpeting, but it’s new. If clues once existed leading to the Mickey illustration, they are long gone.

What convinces Charlene to look more carefully is the room’s size and shape. It’s small, and wider than it is deep. Coming from upstairs, arriving in the former offices, she’s seen the hallway that leads to the gallery proper, a hallway longer than the vault is deep.

As the sounds of struggle arise from the gallery, she taps the back wall with a knuckle. Faced with the decision to explore or rescue, her battle is not with the witch soldier but with her own desire to join the fight.

But the plan was diversion and execution. She would defeat their efforts if she joined Willa and Philby. The idea is not to bring down the witch soldier, but to discover and recover whatever he’s protecting.

The sound behind her drumming knuckle changes as she reaches a point directly across from the vault’s door. It’s richer, deeper, more drumlike. The wall is hollow, suggesting a doorway boarded up years before.

Charlene exhales, blocks out the fight raging behind her, peers into the wall and sees lumber instead of concrete. She steps through and finds herself inside a dark, narrow space with three of its walls lined with safe-deposit boxes, many of them with their doors wide open, single keys protruding from one of the two keyholes in each door. The linoleum floor is strewn with debris and litter. Most of the boxes are small, but the three lowest rows have larger and wider ones. Safe-deposit boxes, Charlene recalls, can normally only be opened by the simultaneous use of a personal key, property of the box holder, and a master key, property of a bank. Even if she can locate a box containing the missing Mickey, she’ll need two keys to open the box. But there must be a hundred or more keys scattered around, including both the ones on the floor and those left in the keyholes of opened boxes.

Several dozen of the safe-deposit boxes remain locked. The missing Mickey could be in any one of them.

Charlene releases herself to all clear, using a technique different from the one Finn has taught them. She doesn’t focus on anything; she turns herself over to nothing, just as she does to move through walls. But this time it’s a more difficult exercise. She enters the wall of safe-deposit boxes headfirst and studies the contents of several. But being blind to anything that might happen behind her with her head in a wall is terrifying, and she can’t keep it up.

Feeling pressured to accomplish her task while Philby and Willa are dealing with the witch soldier, she finds it difficult to think. It bothers her how Finn and Philby are always doing the thinking for the group. It vexes her to not feel more in control of herself at the moment.

How can she identify the box containing the Mickey illustration? Why would Wayne or Walt leave no clue about which box to search and how to open it?

Believing there must be instructions lurking about, coded or disguised, Charlene reads and studies the scattered papers on the floor, tossing aside abandoned costume jewelry and discarded Disney memorabilia removed from the now-empty boxes.

Have the Overtakers beaten them to it? She won’t go there—won’t consider the possibility.

The instructions will be coded. She’s certain of it. But there will exist some clue for the Keepers. As Charlene is thinking this, she spots a pair of black-framed eyeglasses amid the stuff spread around on the floor. She hurries to pull them on, but it’s too dark to see clearly. Throwing papers to the side like a whirling wind, she comes across a small keychain flashlight, then another—and another. She nearly squeals with shock and surprise as she sees what’s printed on each of them:

The trinkets are named for the Keepers, but there’s an added line:
THE INSIDER
. Here she is,
inside
a bank vault that may hold the secret to saving the devastated park. How long have these flashlights been lying around in here? How is this possible?

Picking up one of the key chains, she squeezes the fob. The tiny light emits a soft, wide beam, turning the whole room vaguely purple. Charlene sees the vault’s interior with a sudden new clarity, and realizes that the eyeglasses she has put on have 3-D lenses.

Wayne!

She carefully studies the vault’s interior, knowing—no,
believing
—that clues only the Keepers could figure out are within her reach. Outside the doorless room, there’s trouble. But this
insider
feels only hope. Her blue outline begins to shimmer.

* * *

When Philby slipped, reaching for the halberd, he inadvertently moved the stripe of pain caused by his mortal contact with the wall to his lungs and heart. It’s as if an unfathomable weight has been placed on his chest. He can’t breathe. His vision blurs as Willa, looking so small and fragile, stabs at the soldier. Philby is about to pass out; through the haze of pain, he realizes that to move as he did, he must have gone briefly all clear. Willa’s signed message to him is the only possible reason. He thinks of her words. He fixes his mind on her. Seconds before drawing what would be his last breath, Philby turns his thoughts away from his own pain, away from the crushing wall, and directs his focus to the Willa and Charlene’s safety, to Finn’s success, somewhere out there in the park, to the continued protection of Amanda and Jess in the forgotten tunnel that’s now KK Central Headquarters.

Philby tumbles out of the wall, through the broken glass case, and lands. He has no need to breathe, no room for pain. He is all clear at last.

Grabbing the witch soldier from behind, Philby spins him off balance. The soldier, nearly twice Philby’s weight, crashes into the center display case, reaches overhead, and snags a chandelier for stability.

Willa lunges with the halberd.

“Do it!” Philby yells.

But Willa pulls back, unable to impale the man.

“I can’t!”

“He’s—not—human!” Philby snatches the halberd and thrusts its top spike into the soldier’s chest. His eyes widen, fixing on Philby with a look of incomprehension.

“A child?” he says. The witch soldier turns gray and begins to crack. A pile of broken stone falls to the ground where he was standing.

“But…how…?” Willa asks.

“They’re bewitched! Brought alive by the ones with real power. We’re killing illusions the real OTs want us to fear.”

“You couldn’t possibly have known that,” Willa gasps.

“No,” he admits. “Lucky guess.”

“And if he’d been human?”

“I don’t go there. I can’t.”

“But if he
had been
, you’d have killed him!”

“Where’s Charlene?” he says. “Charlie!”

The girl’s voice shouts an answer, but it sounds muted, like she’s been gagged. Exchanging a startled look, Willa and Philby run into the vault.

“Empty,” Philby gasps.

Charlene’s voice is louder now, but Willa and Philby still cannot determine where it is coming from.

“Over here!” Willa tells Philby. “She’s on the other side of this wall.”