Kingdom Keepers VII (53 page)

W
ITHIN THE BACKSTAGE
area of the Matterhorn lies a network of catwalks and ladders that would make the Hunchback of Notre Dame queasy.

Elsa has frozen the two wooden Christmas soldiers pursuing Finn’s team, turning them into red-black-and-white Popsicles. Once the whole team is inside and up the first ladder, she freezes it too, adding three thick inches of ice to prevent its use by their pursuers.

The group continues to climb. Violet stays close to Mickey, like a personal bodyguard, while Jess catches up to Finn.

“How do you know this is what Wayne meant for you to do?” Jess asks.

“I don’t,” he replies. “But your drawing helped.”

“What if I got it wrong?”

“You know better than any of us that first we have to count on each other, second we need to go with our gut instincts.”

“And if you’re wrong? What if
we’re
wrong?”

“We learn from it. Right?”

“Except that if we’re wrong this time there’s maybe not a next time.”

“Feels kind of that way,” Finn admits. “But we’ve never had Mickey before. He’s not here to lead a parade, you know? He’s connected to the Stonecutter’s Quill. Something
good
happened that night. This…tonight…reminds me, reminds all of us of that. We know Mickey’s the real deal. We know our best shot is to give him a chance to fix it. The Cryptos and Joe, they sense it too. You can’t challenge yourself once you make a decision like this, Jess. It’ll kill the magic.”

“If there is any magic.”

“Of course there’s magic.”

“But choosing this plan was your decision, Finn. More than anyone else’s, it was yours. How do you deal with that if it goes wrong?”

“Maybe I won’t have to—maybe it deals with me.” He feels a shudder. He wishes she’d be quiet a minute.

“‘It’s about time,’” she says.

“I remember. I was there.”

“I sketched the watch. It was in my dream.”

“Again, I remember. There were thirteen hours on its face. That sealed the deal. The thirteenth piece.”

“‘It’s about time,’” she repeats.

“Will you stop saying that? All you’re doing is reminding me of Wayne.”

“Good. Finn, Wayne wanted more than anything for you to have his watch. Not see a picture of it, but own it. Wear it.”

“I’m not getting whatever it is you’re trying to say, so why not just spit it out?”

“If I knew what I was trying to say, I would, but I don’t, so I can’t. Okay?”

“Okay.” Finn checks behind him. It’s a long, long climb. Mickey is slowing. Elsa has fallen back, too, though she’s continuing to freeze the ladders.

“Number one, Main Street,” Jess blurts out.

“I saw that on the back of the watch. So what?” Finn is beyond annoyed with her.

“You know what number one, Main Street, Rahway, New Jersey is?”

“A watch shop? Watch repair?”

“The nearest watch repair is on Irving Street.”

“Spent a lot of time in Rahway, New Jersey, have you?” Despite his sarcasm, Finn does recognize the name of the town—and not from the back of the watch. But he can’t place it.

“I consulted the Dillard. At that address there’s a business called the Music Box Company.”

Finn stops, three rungs up yet another ladder. He remembers now. “What?”
RAHWAY, N.J.
was written inside the music box in Walt’s apartment. “Come again?”

“Why would the address on the back of Wayne’s watch have nothing to do with watches?”

“Back up! No! Not literally,” he says, as Jess, climbing right behind him, drops down two rungs so Finn will not tread on her fingers accidentally. “The Music Box Company. You’re sure that’s right?”

“Unless the Dillard is suddenly making mistakes.”

Finn swoons, finding it hard to hold on to the ladder.

“Finn?”

“I’m all right.” He continues climbing.

“What is it? What did I say?”

“What does a music box have to do with time?” he asks.

“I don’t know! Music is timeless?”

Finn stops again, looks down at Jess. Then he turns and continues climbing, reaching what feels like the hundredth catwalk. A few feet in front of him, the surface is wet, slick. Finn forces his eyes up. Through an open hatch at the top of a ladder, he sees gray sky.

To one side stands a massive leg covered in brown fur. Above the leg, a curled horn comes into view.

What’s up there needs no introduction.

D
ISPATCHING THE LAST
of the Thugs, Maybeck looks first to his wound, then up in time to see the Partners statue, hanging from the end of the crane’s boom, swing into place atop Big Thunder. He’s too late!

As he sprints to attack the crane operator, there’s a loud
pop!
Lacking all clear because of his wound, Maybeck climbs the machine to the operator’s booth. As he’s reaching for the door handle, the entire crane shifts. He falls, but saves himself by snagging a handrail. His head thrown back, he sees the Partners statue swinging in space once again.

He looks down to see it was the rats chewing through one of the crane’s tires that disrupted the OT’s work. The statue swings away from its intended lightning-rod perch.

Nearby, Charlene scales the rock like a kid on a playground climbing gym. This is home to her, hanging precariously by a few fingers forty feet above certain death. The red spire shoots straight up; it’s among the most dangerous free climbs she’s attempted. Angling her body unnaturally, she wedges a heel and finds purchase: another finger grip. Flex. Push. Pull. Up she travels, slow as a caterpillar, determined as a Kingdom Keeper. Her destination is not the summit, but a small nose of rock facing the Big Thunder Trail.

But when the crane shifts, the Partners statue swings like a wrecking ball or a pendulum, first out and away from her, and then back, directly toward her.

Charlene loosens her grip, dropping fast. She squeezes the cable hard to brake. Above, the bronze Mickey and Walt collide with her former resting place; fragments of rock rain down. Two more swings. Two more collisions. She dares to steal a look upward, blinking away the sifting debris and dust, to see the crane lifting the statue into position again.

She climbs recklessly fast, paying no mind to the sixty feet of open air now beneath her. The statue’s smashing into the rock face has made the handholds easier, bigger. Reaching the damaged area, Charlene moves faster still to pull herself onto a protrusion of rock, a narrow shelf immediately above, tucking her feet in tight and squatting on the bridge of the sculpted figure’s giant stone nose.

In front of her, the cable holding the statue has steadied. She stretches out to reach it, but it lingers just beyond her grasp: she’s going to have to jump.

* * *

Maybeck can’t believe his eyes: Charlene must have some kind of death wish. The Partners statue looks as if it’s about to crush her. Cursing beneath his breath, he storms the crane operator’s booth, swinging open the door.

It’s Judge Doom at the controls. Amanda’s push has broken his jaw, shifting it miserably to the left. He looks like a discarded action figure under a Christmas tree. His left leg isn’t much better; twisted and ungainly, it looks more like the number three than a limb. But his hands work the seven hydraulic levers before him like those of a church organist playing Bach. Two television monitors, one in each corner of the booth’s front window, show closed-circuit camera views from the boom’s upper and lower sheaves. Doom pulls a lever, hoisting the statue higher. Another tug sends the jib forward and thrusts out the upper sheave’s pulley.

If Charlene jumps now, he knows, it will be out into space.

Maybeck grabs the top sill like a pull-up bar and kicks Doom squarely in the jaw. Then he lunges for the middle lever and pulls back.

The statue drops. It’s in free fall.

* * *

Charlene, airborne, collides with the hoist rope, a steel cable that was not there a fraction of a second before. She grabs hold and slides down like a firefighter, her hologram hands suffering severe rope burns due to her partial all clear. Her shoes slam into the hook, now a chain’s length from the top of Walt Disney’s metal hair.

The crane’s hook contains an emergency release side lever, once brightly red-and-white striped, the paint now chipped. Charlene wraps her legs around the cable, prepared to invert herself.

As she does, the statue falls a second time.

* * *

Philby signals Amanda from the hut end of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Bridge. He’s banging a rock against the rail in an effort to loosen the joint, something Amanda told him was not a problem. Philby wouldn’t listen.

Amanda, at the far end of the expanse, near the miner’s cabin entrance to the ride, spots the lantern headlamp of a railroad handcar in the darkness of the tunnel, immediately behind Philby, where he cannot see it.

Without all the noise, he might have heard it; without the near constant shifting of the ground from the thunderclaps overhead, he might have felt it. Two miners face each other on opposite sides of the handcar, taking turns pumping its teeter-totter–like mechanism up and down to drive it along. They aren’t on a joy ride. As she watches the handcar speed up, Amanda knows with sickening certainty that their purpose is to reach Philby.

Instead of running away from the bridge as he should, Philby makes the mistake of running toward her
across
the bridge. If she pushes now, she’ll probably kill Philby, who can’t possibly be all clear.

The miners pump faster, closing on her friend.

In a moment of absolute clarity, Amanda knows Philby will not reach her before the handcar knocks him from the bridge.

“P—h—i—l—b—y!” she screams.

The handcar reaches him, shoving Philby off the bridge and sending him plummeting toward the bed of rocks below.

As Philby begins his fall he’s overcome with fear. Without a speck of his body all clear, he falls like a stone. His one success is his ability to keep from screaming. Keepers don’t scream.

He doesn’t want to die. He has a lot to live for, starting with the friends he doesn’t think he can live without. A family he loves. Willa. A computer that kicks butt. But while he’s not as heartless as the Dillard, Philby’s no romantic. It’s going to hurt when he lands. He’s going to suffer. It’s not the death he would have chosen.

It feels like the tug of gravity is sucking him down like the Devil himself drawing breath from Hell. Spread out beneath Philby is the kingdom he has sworn to defend in flames, under the control of barbarians armed with black magic. He has devoted six years of his life to a singular aim, a goal with no personal gain—and that has made it the best ride ever. He and these friends have struggled to advance an ideal. He can live with that.

Or die with it, as the case may be.

* * *

Amanda sees Philby slipping away from her, claimed by gravity. Her heart sinks with him.

Her life so far has been full of opposites. Other people have families; she was claimed by an institution. Other people have hobbies; she has a power she can’t escape. Other people have sisters; she has a fellow stranger who feels like her twin.

No thought, only pure instinct, motivates what Amanda does next. Pivoting on her heels, she reverses herself and
pushes
. She faces a four-story mountain of rock that isn’t going to budge. The force of her thrust drives her straight back, as if a rocket had hit her in the stomach. She is propelled through space like a crash-test dummy thrown from a test car, except that she holds both hands palms down, facing out, ready for impact.

There!

Keepers don’t scream.

She feels Philby’s hand smack hers. He squeezes like there’s no tomorrow, which, technically, there may not be. She carries him with her, his body outstretched, parallel to the ground, buckled forward as if she were working out on a rowing machine. Together, hand in hand, they sail backward and slam into a patch of sand between a small cluster of rocks. A puff of dust rises.

Philby coughs. Amanda wipes tears from her eyes before he notices. Her back to the mountain, she gives another huge shove with her palms. There’s the sound of an explosion, but not sparks, no flames.

The bridge is spun like a turnstile, away from the moorings that hold it to the mountain.

The bridge collapses in an epic crash that challenges the shattering heavens for bragging rights. The miners and their car sail through the air to a dire fate awaiting them below.

The Overtakers’ improvised grounding rod is broken.

* * *

Maybeck puts his fist where his feet were, punching his clenched hand into Doom’s ruined jaw and separating its one remaining workable joint. The force of his punch leaves Doom’s head swinging like a rattan porch chair in a warm summer breeze.

Simultaneously, Maybeck uses his remarkable agility to work the third of the seven levers with his foot, dipping the crane’s jib into the rock face of Big Thunder Mountain. His ankle manages to trigger the winding drum’s payout of hoist rope, lowering Charlene, whose remarkable bravery has freed the Partners statue, allowing it to free-fall to the ground below, where it squishes two Thuggee warriors flat like bugs.

Then Charlene and Maybeck jump at the same instant, whether by instinct or good judgment, neither knows.

A lightning strike hits the uplifted crane. A wild, rollicking jolt of several million volts of electricity races the length of the crane’s boom and, finding no ground, builds to bursting on the crane’s slewing platform. The crane melts like chocolate left in the sun and sags until nothing but a molten blob of metal remains.

Somewhere in the sludge is the Judge—doomed.