Kingdom Keepers VII

by Pearson, Ridley

  “Add him to the lot!” the henchman shouts, indicating the pyre and laughing. “We can burn him for ya!”

  “I’d rather toss him off the Matterhorn!” Violet shouts back, unable to pass up a golden opportunity. She could ditch the outfit and go invisible for the climb, but they might shoot at her even so. She elects to stay in costume. “Tell the others I intend to do exactly that! That way they won’t shoot me when I climb it!” Under her breath she says, “Stay limp!” as Mickey squirms in irritation at the henchmen’s disdain.

  She and the second girl drag their booty toward the Little Red Wagon.

  Just for a moment, the air around the girls seems to swirl in an oily, otherworldly way. The henchmen consult each other. “Did you see that?” one asks.

  “What?” the other replies.

  “Never mind. Me eyes ain’t been the same since Mr. H melted me specs.”

  “I know what you mean,” says the other. “He melted me gold fillings straight out of me teeth, he did. Me chompers ain’t never felt right since. But no complaining!”

  “No complaining!” his partner agrees, echoing Hades’s number-one rule and glancing over his left shoulder. Hades is never far behind, and he’s always listening. They have found this out the hard way.

  Like all the Keepers, Willa finds operating in DHI shadow thrilling. She has always felt so invisible throughout her high school years. Being truly invisible combines reality with fantasy in a way only old souls like her can fully appreciate. She feels right at home.

  No one, including Willa, is sure how far Finn’s team can make it, but slipping past the Plaza instills in them a renewed sense of urgency and confidence.

  “We can do this,” Finn says, turning them past the Little Red Wagon, up a short flight of stairs, across the umbrella-bedecked patio in front of the Plaza Inn, and beneath Tomorrowland’s Astro Orbiter.

  But Willa knows the truth: the worst is yet to come.

  AS PHILBY’S TEAM, comprising Maybeck, Charlene, and Amanda, nears Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, he wishes Amanda were Willa. He understands and agrees with the logic behind Finn’s allocation of forces to the two teams: Philby’s team faces the more physical task. Willa can help Finn think through solutions; Philby needs no such help. As the crane comes into detailed view, he puts the makeup of the teams aside. He understands what the Overtakers are trying to do.

  Chained to the crane’s hook, carried aloft as the crane extends, is the bronze Partners statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

  The Overtakers intend to attract a lightning strike to the most celebrated statue in the Kingdom, Philby realizes. Its bronze will melt as the park explodes in a swelling sea of gas.

  Seeing this stops the Keepers. Philby checks his wristwatch: they have four minutes until the Dillard knocks out the projectors on this side of the park. Strategy is discussed. In the distant skies, the lightning storm renews its steady northeastward progress toward the park.

  The teens hide behind a rock outcropping and boarded-up tunnel across from the railroad bridge and Big Thunder Trail. Philby is not one for pep talks; he leaves that to Finn. He’s not given to sentimentality. His is a world of calculation and purpose, of numbers and common sense. He is practical, the professor. But at this particular moment, he can’t help himself.

  “It’s strange to think that all of this, everything we’ve done, would put us here. Agreed? The Quill, the battles, the cruise. But oddly enough, if we fail now, it’s all been for nothing. Dillard. Wayne. Nothing. Granted, Mickey and Finn’s team have to clean up the pieces, but we have to stop this or there won’t be pieces to clean up.” Another quick glance at his watch. Two minutes to shadow. “Sometimes we’ve worked well together, a lot of times we’ve disagreed.” He looks to Maybeck, who smirks and claps him on the back.

  “This is one of those times—the time—when we need to get it right the first time. We owe it to everyone, every character, every Imagineer, to stop the OTs. Corny, but for once it’s true. If it means sacrifice, so be it. If it means doing stuff we’ve never done, so be it. We never talk of this again. We do what needs to be done. We end this. We end them.”

  There is the sound of a crane roaring nearby. Voices shout instructions. The approaching storm flashes and cracks. A mechanical whine interrupted by a ripple of the fire that continues to pour from rents in the earth.

  One minute.

  Looks are exchanged between them, things said that would never dare be spoken, kindnesses that cannot be voiced without tears and emotions that have no place on the battlefield. Each knows his or her strength, his or her value to the team and the mission.

  As wry smiles steal across their lips and a telling agelessness gleams from their eyes, the Keepers and Amanda share a moment of communion, expressing a togetherness they have never felt this deeply before, not since they first stepped in front of a green screen so many years before.

  The moment passes.

  The remaining seconds run down.

  They remain visible.

  FINN, WILLA, JESS, and the Dillard, all in DHI shadow, are scattered across the Plaza, awaiting the crossover of Mickey’s cap and baton. Willa is on the Adventureland side of the Plaza’s circle, Finn is by the castle; Jess should be near Tomorrowland. Fearing that the cap will not go unnoticed for long, Finn’s team is charged with its immediate recovery.

  Finn looks right and left, eyes sweeping the pavement. He does his best to ignore the dozens of Overtakers coming and going inches from where he stands.

  “Finn!” A familiar voice emerges from nothingness. The Dillard, invisible, is apparently standing mere inches away.

  “I told you!” Finn hisses. “Don’t do that!”

  “Finn, it’s Joe!”

  But Finn could swear he heard the Dillard’s voice. “Joe?”

  A passing Stormtrooper stops and looks directly at the nonexistent Finn. “Who goes there? Declare yourself!”

  Finn freezes. He wills Joe not to speak.

  Joe speaks. “We are under cyber attack and must shut down the fiber op—”

  The holograms of Finn, Jess, and Willa reappear instantly. The Dillard is nowhere to be seen.

  Sorcerer Mickey’s cap and conductor’s baton lie on the asphalt halfway between Finn and Jess, who spot them simultaneously. Together, they run toward them. Jess snags the cap. Finn scoops up the baton.

  “The OTs hacked the system!” Finn shouts at her.

  “Yeah,” she says, pivoting to run alongside him.

  “You there!” shouts a menacing voice. It comes from one of a pair of patrolling wooden Christmas soldiers.

  Finn tries shaking the baton at them. It’s no use. “Give me that!” he calls to Jess, who passes him the cap. Willa appears on Finn’s right, outrunning an angry Zira.

  With one hand, Finn puts the cap on his head, clears his mind, turns, and aims the baton at the two advancing soldiers. “Away!” he shouts.

  Both soldiers halt in lockstep, but only briefly; they’re alarmed by Finn’s actions, but no magic explodes from the baton. No curse is thrown. The soldiers grin malevolently and continue advancing.

  Willa catches up, and she, Finn, and Jess leap across broken pavement in which the earthquake has ripped a five-yard-long hole. Jess skids to a stop by a leaning lamppost, its light flickering ominously. Finn tries to put on the brakes but slips and falls.

  The Christmas soldiers advance, Zira nearly even with them.

  Willa joins Jess in pushing against the lamppost, an act that makes absolutely no sense. The soldiers will just run around it!

  “All clear!” Willa calls to Finn.

  On the third try, the girls push the post down like a closing parking garage gate. It slams onto the broken pavement, creating an explosion that sounds like a bomb going off.

  The girls’ pure holograms, and Finn’s near-all-clear state, allow them to survive the force of the blast and the flying debris.

  The soldiers and Zira are not so lucky.

  “SOME
THING’S OBVIOUSLY HAPPENED,” Philby says, taking in his team. “The Dillard hasn’t shut down the projectors, so we’re not in DHI shadow. We’re not invisible. We’re completely outnumbered. We have to decide to risk an attack while we’re visible or wait and hope the projectors can be shut down.”

  “Check out the crane!” Maybeck says. “And the storm! The lightning. We can’t wait around!”

  “Then we vote,” Philby says. “Fair warning: if we’re visible, if we lose all clear, then we may not be coming back from this. Any one of us could end up in SBS, maybe forever.” There’s a moment when he can practically hear everyone thinking. “No pressure. No judgment. I mean that! It’s entirely up to each of us.”

  “I’m going,” Maybeck says.

  The others nod.

  “Is everyone sure?” Philby asks. There are no dissenters. “Okay, we go as planned!”

  There’s no mention of all clear or how to protect the team from attack. They’ve been in similar situations before. Maintaining all clear is up to the individual. Ironically, the one who’s usually best at that has led his own team to the Matterhorn.

  Now Philby, Maybeck, Charlene, and Amanda face a swarm of the Sultan’s henchmen, pirates, Stormtroopers, Thuggee warriors, and, overhead, wraiths circling like hungry vultures. The hive is Big Thunder, where the Overtaker minions are disassembling the roller coaster’s steel rails and, using the bucket-brigade technique, passing them up the more easily scalable southeast face of the central peak. The crane has been positioned there as well. The rails are bound together with wire wrapping, like a giant grounding cable running from the mountain peak down to the existing track and beyond to the track laid around the Central Plaza. The network of steel creates a gigantic ignition switch that, when charged with lightning, will spark like a gas stove.

  Maybeck and Charlene move up Big Thunder Trail in the direction of the crane. Philby and Amanda approach the Thunder Mountain railway bridge in an attempt to break the circuit should Maybeck and Charlene fail. The Keepers are taking nothing for granted.

  “What’s—the—plan?” calls Charlene, marveling at how difficult it is to keep up with Maybeck when she’s slipped out of all clear. She works to calm herself and get it back. Everyone knows she’s the fastest Keeper, yet Maybeck is moving at super speed.

  “You’re the climber,” Maybeck replies. “So climb. I happen to love being behind the wheel, so that’s where you’ll find me.”

  Remy and company hear him. A gray, snaking line of coursing rat bodies divides before the two Keepers as Remy’s troops fan out. Despite their short legs, the rats reach the crane well ahead of Maybeck. Unnoticed, they pass swiftly beneath the legs of several Thugs standing guard. Several dozen of the vermin begin chewing the rubber of the crane’s right front tire.

  Maybeck arrives at full speed and encounters a line of six turbaned Thugs in long red overcoats, each warrior brandishing a curved sword.

  Lightning strikes the ground not a quarter mile away with an explosive sound, like TNT detonating. A cheer rises from the OT workers. A light rain begins to fall. Small drops that quickly approach the size of acorns.

  Maybeck stops. The warriors have placed themselves directly between him and the crane. Six against one: Maybeck likes those odds. “You might want to put your swords down,” Maybeck says, “so you don’t get hurt.” The Thugs laugh vociferously and raise their blades higher. “The thing is,” he says, “when you miss me, you’re likely going to injure one of your buddies. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” More laughter. “Allow me to demonstrate,” Maybeck says. He walks—walks, not runs—between the two warriors in the center. One swings. The blade passes through Maybeck’s hologram and decapitates the Thug next to him.

  As the headless warrior slumps, Maybeck grabs the man’s sword, spins, and puts the tip of his blade through the nearest man’s chest. The second warrior falls. Wielding two swords, Maybeck backs toward the working crane as the remaining four Thugs slash and clang. They’re expert swordsmen. The telltale tingling sweeps through Maybeck, and his blue outline dims. He’s losing all clear. He removes the legs of one warrior below the knees. Severs the arm from the next: Two to go.

  Pain shoots through him—one of the remaining Thugs has delivered a surface wound with a slicing stroke down his left arm, ten inches of screaming agony that Maybeck fights to overcome as he battles the remaining Thugs. He finds two swords too cumbersome; dropping one, he slips his wounded left arm behind his back, limiting its exposure. His wound won’t allow all clear. He’s just Maybeck, a recent high school graduate armed with a sword, fighting two trained warriors.

  Wraiths sweep over the maimed and injured, pausing to draw out what life remains in the bodies. Only as Maybeck watches the two warriors grow gray from head to foot does he realize they are not being turned to smoke or stone: they’re covered in rats.

  * * *

  Philby leads Amanda up a small hill to the Big Thunder mining cabin. They slip past two railroad men arguing over the explosive use of a locomotive’s steam engine, and Philby kneels in front of a box of explosives.

  “What are you doing?” Amanda whispers.

  “Stealing some dynamite.”

  “You know, for someone so smart, you can be incredibly stupid.”

  Amanda has never spoken to Philby this way, and he’s taken aback. “Excuse me?”

  “We are trying to prevent an explosion, not cause one! You set off some dynamite, and the whole park may go up because of the gas.”

  “Duh!” he says, leaning away from the box.

  “I thought that’s why you brought me along?” She motions gently, both palms out. “To destroy the bridge without any sparks.”

  A devilish grin spreads across Philby’s face. “Now I remember.”

  WITHIN 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 doi
ng 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?”