Kingdom Keepers III Dinsey in Shadow

by Ridley Pearson

  So she came into the lounge area quietly, raised up on tiptoe. She kept to the wal and then quietly slipped between it and the circus tent, moving slowly enough not to ripple the tent canvas.

  The door to the boardroom was partial y open. To her right was another doorway that led into the room where Finn and Maybeck would be hiding. If she was chased, her plan was to lead her pursuers right beneath Maybeck and Finn, who, by agreement, would be up the ladder and hidden in the circus tower in the center of the room.

  With the door open, she could just make out the Norwegian in profile. He had a mane of red hair, a strong jaw, and a weight lifter’s biceps.

  She moved closer, inch by inch, the clock ticking in her head. The young boy lay fast asleep with his head in the man’s lap.

  Was that all? she wondered. Just the two of them?

  She didn’t trust it. Wayne’s warning about a traitor in their midst made her question everything, everyone. She hated this change in herself. She stood stone stil and took in her surroundings, alert for someone hiding in waiting. Seeing no one, she darted across the carpet and planted herself behind the open boardroom door, and placed her eye to the crack.

  Wayne! He was sitting in the chair, his wrists bound, his eyes wide with expectation. Could he possibly know she was there?

  It al seemed so possible now—everything they’d worked toward. She didn’t want to blow it.

  Wayne, a few feet away. One man between her and Wayne’s freedom.

  It didn’t make any sense. It had to be a trap. Finn was always the first to point out that where the Overtakers were concerned, when it looked too good to be true, it probably was. There were more Overtakers nearby. Had to be. Maybe already watching her. Just as she feared that Wayne’s rescue now looked suspiciously too easy, the Overtakers, she thought, must be holding back, wondering why it looked so easy to grab her. Nothing was as it seemed.

  The clock kept moving in her head. Philby would cut the lights with five minutes left—exactly thirty seconds away.

  She used her gymnastic skil s and her exceptional sense of balance to stretch her legs between the lower door hinge on her left, and a piece of molding to her right. Her foot found the middle hinge, and she went up the wal like Spider-Man. Now with her left foot on the top hinge, she paused, hooked her fingers over the door and swung it open slightly.

  “Hvem er der?” the man said. “Who dere?” he tried in heavily accented English.

  Charlene struggled to hold herself high above the far side of the door. Final y she heard the man move the boy off his lap and the whisper of his clothing as he came out of the boardroom.

  She dove over the door, reached back, and caught her hand, flipping herself over and landing squarely on her feet.

  As the Norwegian left the boardroom, Charlene entered it. She pul ed the door shut behind her and locked it.

  Wayne, in the corner to her left, was tied to a chair. His mouth was gagged, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He didn’t look over at her and she wondered if they had him drugged. This time it was obvious that the wal behind him had been scrubbed clean—she could imagine the cryptogram having been written there. It was now erased.

  The boy was waking up in front of her.

  Four heads poked up from the far side of the table.

  Trolls!

  They’d been sleeping in the boardroom chairs, but they were too short for Charlene to have seen. They came awake groggily, but with looks of fierce determination. She’d heard trol s cal ed cute, but there was nothing cute about these. Two jumped up onto the table. Two others leaped down to the floor and ran beneath the table toward her.

  The sleepy boy rubbed his eyes and looked at her as if she were a ghost. It was too late for her to try to al -clear. She ran to Wayne and was reaching for the knot on his right wrist when a trol grabbed her legs from behind, pul ing her away from the chair. She kicked back and the little man went flying into one of his friends.

  Wayne continued to stare off into space.

  “Hang in there,” she said, no longer able to think about untying him. A third trol latched onto her lower leg. He opened his mouth and bit her.

  Charlene cried out and kicked him. The little man rol ed like a soccer bal and crashed into the far wal below one of the Mary Poppins Carousel horses.

  The door banged as it was struck hard from the other side.

  She had to time this just right. The trol s were going to make a mess of that. The three had recovered and now joined hands with the fourth to form a semicircle of smal , ugly dwarves taking smal steps toward her.

  She didn’t have to worry about Wayne—Finn and Maybeck could take care of him. Her job was to get back through the door and lead the Overtakers away from here. Timing her exit was critical.

  Another tremendous crash. One more of those and the doorjamb would give.

  She judged the height of the trol s—three and a half feet. If they raised their arms, maybe as high as five feet.

  Her track hurdles were set at “low”: thirty inches. The trol s were too tal for her to hurdle over.

  She stepped to the wal and ran at them at an angle, envisioning herself in the high jump. She lifted her chest, arching her back, and kicked her feet high. She flew over them upside down.

  As she smacked down onto the floor—wishing there had been some kind of mat for her to land upon—the surprised trol s turned around. The Norwegian boy stood up in his chair. At the same moment, the door blew open in a spray of splinters.

  Charlene spun the boy in the swivel chair and pushed him; he fel into the trol s and they col apsed as a group.

  The Norwegian barreled through the broken door and was carried forward by his momentum straight into the boardroom table.

  Charlene timed it perfectly, sprinting behind him and out the door. She had no doubt that everyone in that room would now be chasing her, but she never looked back to confirm it. She took off at ful speed, through the door to her left, and out to the glassed-in sunroom, making for the same window she’d used only hours before.

  The lights went out.

  At the same time, a loud electronic clunk signaled that the elevator was in use and coming up.

  Three feet from the window Charlene saw the brace. It was an adjustable and lockable tube of metal that now prevented the same window from opening. Every window had a similar brace in place. She was locked inside.

  The elevator clunked again. The doors were coming open. Behind her came the Norwegian and his posse of trol s, but she wasn’t sure they could see her in the dark. They stopped and looked around.

  If she made for the elevator and it turned out Overtakers were inside, she would be caught. If she waited even a second or two longer the Norwegian was going to see her crouched down beside the wal .

  Something winked at her from high up on the wal : a piece of glass reflecting the smal amount of ambient outdoor light that came through the glass ceiling and wal s.

  A security camera.

  Philby.

  He’d seen the locked windows. He’d sent the elevator for her. It was a gamble. If she guessed wrong…

  Behind the Norwegian, Maybeck and Finn would have by now descended from the room’s tower and gone after Wayne. She had to keep the Norwegian and his pals busy for a few seconds longer.

  The elevator doors…

  She ran and dove like she was sliding into third base in a tied game—and slid right into the elevator.

  The empty elevator.

  Was about to reach for the panel when the CLOSE DOORS button lit up, as did the 1.

  Philby.

  The doors eased shut just a fraction of a second ahead of the Norwegian trying to stop her.

  The problem was, the elevator was far slower than the Norwegian. He raced down the curved staircase to meet the elevator on the first floor.

  He stood there—al six-foot-four of him—as the elevator doors slid open.

  It was empty.

  * * *

  Finn and Maybeck sneaked
down the circus-pole ladder and then hurried to the door, where they paused, with the boardroom to their right. Philby’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

  “Do I answer that?” he hissed at Finn.

  “Not now,” Finn answered.

  The area in front of them was dark and eerily empty. The circus tent to their left posed the greatest threat—anything could hide in there—though its canvas wal s remained motionless, suggesting that the tent was empty.

  Finn stepped tentatively toward the boardroom, Philby right behind him.

  Philby’s phone buzzed in his pocket for a second time.

  Finn peered around the splintered doorjamb. The seat in the corner was empty. He ran to the chair, angry and frustrated. A pattern had been scratched into the wood of the arm. It looked something like a sword or a cross, but on closer examination there was a second crosspiece beneath the top bar.

  “It’s a combination of an F for Fantasmic! and a cross for the sword,” Finn said. He now knew the purpose of the sword and where he would use it.

  But in his chest was an empty hole where his heart should have been.

  Wayne was gone.

  * * *

  As the Norwegian stepped into the empty elevator, Charlene was hovering directly over him, each limb extended between the wal s to hold her there. She looked like a four-legged starfish.

  Just as he raised his head to look up, she let go and dropped, catching his shoulders from the back and using the momentum of her fal to pul him over backward. They went together, crushing the trol s and knocking them down like bowling pins. She released him just before hitting the floor so that she could land on her feet. The Norwegian hit the floor hard. The elevator alarm went off as the doors tried to shut but couldn’t. Philby must have overridden the safety feature, because suddenly the doors slid shut, catching and pinning the Norwegian’s legs. He tried to free himself, kicking out, but the doors held him. At the same time the elevator began to climb, lifting the Norwegian and hanging him upside down. The elevator stopped four feet off the floor, so that his shoulders were touching the carpet, and the elevator held his legs.

  Charlene spotted a security camera in the corner and she threw a thumbs-up toward it. As the trol s attempted to recover, she took off out the front door but quickly skidded to a stop.

  Two Foo lions—that should have been stone lions from China, but seemed not to be made of stone at al , but from flesh and blood that only looked like stone—blocked the path in front of her.

  The lion on the left cocked its head toward her—it held a lion cub with its left front paw. The lion to the right growled.

  Charlene fought to catch her breath, terror rippling through her.

  “Good kitties,” she said.

  * * *

  Maybeck held his phone to his ear. “It’s a trap,” he told Finn. “There are lions at the front door.”

  “Lions?”

  “Gigabyte’s at the back.” He spoke into the phone—“Wayne?”—and then listened. “They haven’t seen him leave.” He paused. “We were set up, man. This is a trap.”

  “Is not!” Finn said, trying to make sense of it al . “Stop thinking like that!” But the truth was: he was thinking about the possible traitor as much as anyone. He and Maybeck had spent, at most, thirty to forty seconds coming down the ladder. Somehow the Overtakers had managed to move Wayne, an old guy who didn’t move that fast, in that short time.

  “They should get back to Nemo ASAP,” Finn said. “No use in al of us getting caught.”

  “No way anyone’s catching me,” Maybeck said, though his voice lacked his usual confidence.

  Only then did an unwanted thought surface in Finn’s mind. The kind of thought that on one hand made little sense, but on the other hand could not be easily dismissed. Suddenly Finn feared that the Overtakers knew that the Kingdom Keepers were unable to activate the Return—that the fob was missing. What if the Overtakers had somehow determined the Keepers’ vulnerable status and were now set to exploit it? As long as that fob remained in the Lost and Found there was no way out for the Keepers. They were easy prey, in danger of attack and capture. Maleficent must have been licking her chops. Whether by accident or design, the Keepers had made themselves easy targets.

  Maybeck took out his phone to relay the order to return to the Nemo lounge as Finn looked on, but he speed-dialed without thinking, and had no idea who he had cal ed. Whomever he was speaking to, Amanda, Wil a, or Jess—Finn guessed it was Wil a—obviously tried to argue, but Maybeck shut her up. “Just do it!” he shouted into the phone before disconnecting the cal .

  “Sometimes I hate girls,” he said to Finn. “Al the talking….”

  I would bet they don’t exactly love us either, Finn was about to say, but he kept the thought to himself.

  “Easy!” Maybeck pul ed Finn against the wal . Through the lounge windows that looked out onto the pavilion’s dark lower level, lit only by the dim glow of exit signs, the boys could see two jesters and a crash-test dummy. They appeared to be searching the various scenes and attractions.

  The crash-test dummy turned and raised its head toward the lounge. It lifted its robotic arm and pointed.

  “Wayne must stil be in the building.”

  “Forget about him, would you?” Maybeck said. “Right now, we’ve got to get out of here. And we’ve got to make sure Charlene and Philby make it too.”

  He pushed the phone’s direct-connect button. “Philby?”

  “Here.”

  “We’ve got—”

  “Trouble. I know. I’m watching everyone. I heard Wil a just now. Charlene’s at the front door, pinned there by the lions. Wil a’s right: the snake’s at the back exit. That dummy—there are two of them, actual y—looks like he’s headed for the stairs. I cut the lights. I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “Direct us?” Finn asked, leaning toward Maybeck’s phone. “Can you get us out of here?”

  “There are a lot of cameras, to be sure. But it’s not like I can see everywhere.”

  “How many exits are there?” Finn asked.

  “Twelve,” came Philby’s answer immediately.

  “And they only have two blocked?” Maybeck said. “So what’s the big deal?”

  “The pavilion is closed. Remember?” Philby said. “The other exits are locked—not electronical y, but with actual keys. Front and back are the only ways out. The sunroom windows are locked as wel . That stopped Charlene.”

  “Roach motel,” Maybeck said.

  Finn knew he was right: the Overtakers had let them in, but were now blocking their way out.

  The situation had every appearance of having been a trap from the start.

  “Did you see where they took Wayne?” Finn asked Philby. Maybeck grimaced; he didn’t want Finn hung up on rescuing the old man.

  “Never saw him,” Philby reported. “Not in any of the cameras.”

  “Then he’s probably stil on this floor somewhere,” Finn said to Maybeck. “We can find him and get him.”

  “Leave it alone, Whitman. He was bait. That’s al . We need to get out of here.” To the phone he said, “Any ideas, genius?”

  “Yeah, but you won’t like it,” Philby replied.

  “How do you know?” Maybeck barked into the phone. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Because it involves heights.”

  Maybeck’s shoulders slumped. To Finn he said, “How did I know he was going to say that?”

  Philby told them his plan.

  37

  CHARLENE HAD MONITORED the direct-connect cal between Maybeck and Philby. She cut in.

  “Philby, I could use a little help here,” she said. “The door is locked behind me.”

  The stone lions were advancing one heavy step at a time, making the path shake.

  With each step, Charlene had backed up until her spine was pressed against the pavilion’s front-door glass. The four trol s had col ected on the other side of the door but obviously had no intention of becoming invo
lved with the lions, even if, theoretical y, they were on the same team.

  “Philby?” she repeated.

  Charlene considered running for it. Being made of stone, the lions were moving sluggishly.

  But maybe their slow movement was nothing more than them stalking her. She had three cats and loved to watch them stalk their toys, or a lizard in the backyard, or a seagul . She loved the control ed complexity of the hunt, the cats’ unwavering focus and fierce concentration. She saw that same look now in the gray stone eyes of the lions. She was wil ing to bet that they could move very fast if need be, and had no desire to test her theory.

  “Okay,” Philby said after an exasperatingly long pause. “I’ve got it. My theory is—”

  “Lose the theory,” she said.

  The lions were less than fifteen feet away and moving steadily toward her.

  “Now would be a good time to actual y do something,” she added. “As in…right now. This very second.”

  Right on cue, the lawn sprinklers erupted, spewing cold water. There were spray nozzles edging the entry path, as wel as circular sprinklers out in the lawn. Thankful y, none of them was perfectly set, meaning that al the planters, the grass, and the entry path were suddenly wet and getting wetter.

  The lions moved away from the edges of the path and bumped into each other, frantic to avoid the spray. Cats hate water!

  Charlene vaulted over the green metal fence and took off running, keeping herself in the thick of the spray. She heard a col ision as one of the lions attempted to charge her but struck the fencing, denting it. It whined as it was hit by the water.

  She ran in a zigzag pattern in case one of the cats had dared to pursue her, but glanced back and saw with relief that they had not. Together they had moved to the one place the water didn’t reach—the front doors—conveniently trapping the ugly trol s on the other side.

  Soaking wet, Charlene vaulted the metal fence twenty yards further on, pul ed out her phone, and thanked Philby, tel ing him she’d meet him at the rendezvous.