Kingdom Keepers VI Read online

  Storey fell to the sand, coughing. But breathing.

  Maleficent, holding the burning orb, marched steadily toward them.

  Storey and Maybeck crawled away, keeping low to avoid the dangling snakes.

  “Oh, please!” Maleficent called out. “Are we so limited in our thought?”

  A hundred snakes dropped to the sand, writhing and coiling. Maybeck started dancing from foot to foot, shifting wildly, terrified. Storey grabbed him and tried to climb up him to get her feet higher.

  Maybeck eased her back to the sand. “Hang tough.” He knew this was one of those defining moments, his chance to prove himself. He sucked it up and shook off his outward fright.

  “Perplexing, isn’t it?” Maleficent said.

  Maybeck dove, took hold of one of the snakes, and threw it at Maleficent—more out of fear than heroics, but he wasn’t ever going to admit that.

  Maleficent threw a transfiguration spell. The snake became a harmless length of rope, and she caught it with her free hand.

  Tia Dalma strode up behind Maleficent.

  “How you feel now, me boy? Eh?” She stuck the doll with a pin.

  Maybeck twisted, moving in inhuman ways that seemed sure to break his limbs.

  “Stop it!” Storey shouted.

  “Now?” Tia Dalma said, delivering more of her voodoo.

  Maybeck folded backward, screaming. Storey feared the next pin would break him in half.

  “Run out of fire, old lady?” A girl’s voice echoed through the cave.

  “Charlie?” a tortured Maybeck whispered.

  Charlene dropped through a ceiling hole in the next room, sticking a perfect landing. Irate, Maleficent wound up and threw the fireball in Charlene’s direction. Charlene cartwheeled. The fireball missed and ricocheted off the cave’s ceiling in a shower of sparks.

  In that moment, two things happened:

  The fireball caused the snakes to release and slither away, clearing a path to the exit. And as the fireball exploded into the ceiling, ten thousand bats took flight.

  Maleficent, blinded by the swarm, spoke a curse that turned a thousand of the feckless bats into rats.

  Tia Dalma cursed at Maleficent. “Rats? You make the rats?”

  “Children hate rats.”

  “I no like the rats, neither, you lizard-skinned fairy!”

  “You shut your trap, or I’ll turn you into one yourself.”

  “You talk like that, missy; I give you the gift of pain. Pain like none you felt.”

  For Maybeck, Charlene, and Storey, escaping the cave was like trying to run underwater. The churning, screeching, flapping bats were like windblown leaves, batting against faces and arms, making it hard to see, to breathe. The rats crawling on the floor only made matters worse; no foothold was secure. The three teens held their breath, squinted, and dashed for the entrance. Maybeck hollered as he ran. Charlene and Storey covered their faces, peering through the cracks between their fingers.

  Gasping for air, they followed the bats out the cave, bursting into the sunlight. There, twenty feet away, a Japanese tour group that had gone off-map cowered back from the black wave escaping the cave. Without noticing Charlene, Storey, and Maybeck, the tourists ran for their mini-bus. The kids headed for the street and Maybeck’s taxi.

  “Where did you come from?” Maybeck asked Charlene. Looking at her, he couldn’t help the huge smile breaking out on his face.

  “My first cave was no good, but my driver recognized the sketch. Sorry I was late.”

  “Me, too.”

  They dove into the cab and slammed the door shut. The driver came awake, banging his head against the steering wheel and sounding the car horn.

  Looking back, Maybeck saw Maleficent at the mouth of the cave, bats flooding out past her. She swiped her cape up, posing for the running tourists.

  The taxi sped away.

  “So?” Maybeck asked Storey.

  “It was some kind of ceremony or ritual,” Storey said. “Tia Dalma was crouched over a pile of bones. She was burning a bird’s nest, or maybe twigs? I couldn’t see that well in that weird light. She was chanting and kind of half-singing, and Maleficent said nothing. Just stood there, watching her.”

  The driver was turned, listening to Storey.

  “Drive!” Maybeck shouted. “Fast!”

  The taxi driver sneered. The cab gained speed.

  “And there was this yellow flower,” Storey said. “It seemed like that was what the crazy lady was focused on.”

  “A key flower?” the driver said, his eyes locked on theirs in the rearview mirror. “You actually saw a key flower?”

  “Yellow,” Storey said. “The only flower I saw.”

  The driver nodded. “You are special, missy. And so very lucky! A key flower! Imagine!”

  “I take it, it’s special,” Maybeck said.

  “Special?” The driver scoffed. “Only blooms between a new moon and a full eclipse. You tell me, mister. Special?”

  “They picked it,” Storey said. “They did their little ceremony, and they picked it.”

  The driver’s eyes filled with terror. “They killed a key flower?”

  He sounded horrified.

  “What?” Maybeck said.

  The driver shook his head, refusing to answer.

  * * *

  Finn and Willa reboarded to the ship after Philby, but before the others. While Philby returned to his stateroom to review the ship’s security video for Luowski and the stolen computer, Finn and Willa watched for their friends on the dock over the stern rail of Cabanas restaurant.

  “Have you kissed her?” Willa asked.

  “W…h…a…t…?”

  “Amanda. Have you guys kissed?”

  “We barely even talk anymore. Why are you asking me this?”

  “Conversation breaks the tension. We all need conversation.”

  “You need your head examined,” Finn said.

  “It’s a simple enough question. Have you kissed her?”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “You guess!? Was it that bad? Seriously?”

  “I didn’t say it was bad.” Finn felt like jumping over the rail.

  “You don’t sound too impressed.”

  “I’ve kissed her. Okay, Willa?”

  “It was just okay?”

  “Stop messing with me.” Finn peered over the edge at workers sitting on a plank suspended by ropes, washing the hull.

  “I’m sure it was more than okay for Amanda. Same for Charlene.”

  “What’s Charlie got to do with this?”

  “Are you that blind?”

  “She likes Maybeck.”

  “You got that right. She likes Maybeck.”

  “Get your head in the game,” he said.

  “There’s one checkpoint, Finn. How difficult is it to watch one checkpoint?”

  There was a moment of awkward silence.

  “The silent treatment is killing Amanda,” Willa said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “That’s ridiculous. She’s barely even spoken to me lately.”

  “What’s she supposed to say? ‘Hey, Finn, I’m crushing on you big-time, and the way you gawk at Storey and the way you treat me leaves me in tears and unable to sleep at night’? That?”

  “Oh…come on!” Finn said.

  Willa rolled her eyes at him. “Seriously? Get… a…clue.”

  The Disney Channel mini-blimp passed over the ship for maybe the sixth time. Passengers waved up at it.

  “Do they have any idea,” Finn said, “that it’s a drone? That it’s way too small to carry even a pilot?”

  “They probably think it’s filming them,” Willa said, scoffing.

  “Yeah, right. Boneheads.”

  “You should say something,” Willa said. “To Amanda. And it should start with ‘I’m sorry.’”

  “For what?”

  “Take your pick. Hurting her feelings? Not speaking to her? Being a boy?”

  “Good
one.”

  They stood there for a long while before Willa spoke again.

  “What do you suppose it means if they get a computer on board?”

  “That the OTs become impossible to stop. Or nearly impossible.”

  “Because of 2.0.”

  “Yes.”

  “But if Amanda’s ‘pushing’ tires her out when she’s crossed over, doesn’t that mean Maleficent’s powers would tire her DHI out, too?”

  “No. Pushing tires Amanda anytime. Don’t confuse that with Maleficent throwing spells. We need to accept that with Maleficent in 2.0, there’s basically nothing we can do to stop her.”

  Willa hesitated before speaking. “You don’t suppose the Imagineers want the OTs getting hold of 2.0, do you? Like, what if they want to test how invincible or how vulnerable 2.0 makes you? It’s not like we’re going to attack each other, right? There’s really no way to test that side of the upgrade without giving us a 2.0 opponent.”

  “Do not say that stuff.”

  “I’m just wondering.”

  “Wayne would never do that. We’re not guinea pigs.”

  “Are you sure?”

  A boy stepped up alongside Finn and leaned against the stern rail.

  “There’s a Cast Member making the rounds that I don’t trust. He’ll be here any minute.”

  Finn looked over at the boy.

  “Dill!”

  Dillard looked older and more serious than normal. He also looked thinner. A lot thinner. Maybe he’d been wearing baggy clothes the last time he’d seen him, but the change was drastic.

  “You should get going.”

  “It was you at the Sail-Away.”

  Dillard smiled at Willa. “Hi. We met before.” He offered his hand, and the two shook.

  “Yes,” Willa said.

  “Wayne sent you,” Finn said.

  “Wanda. As your guardian angel.”

  “Alone?” Finn asked. Storey had already told him about Kenny and Bart; now he was beginning to see a pattern to Wayne’s bigger plan to protect his team of Keepers.

  “Alone. Listen, the aft staircase is safe. Head over to the starboard side of the restaurant. The guy’s searching the port side.”

  “Ah…”

  “You can thank me later. I’ll stall him,” Dillard said. He left, heading for the restaurant. A moment later they heard a crash. Someone’s tray had spilled.

  “We’d better get out of here,” Finn said.

  SHOOTING A DISNEY CHANNEL 365 while on a moving ship containing three thousand passengers is a study in “controlled chaos.” In this case, the chaos was controlled by the film director, Andy Meyers. The handsome, dark-eyed man was joined by Jodi Bennett, the Disney Cruise Line executive, a kind-faced woman whose managerial and organizational skills rivaled those of an army general.

  Andy won the attention of Charlene and Willa with “Hello.” This was the fourth Disney Channel 365 the Keepers had shot; Charlene and Willa both had barely disguised crushes on Andy.

  Maybeck, forever a thorn in Andy’s side, catered to the fans who gathered around, turning a deaf ear to direction while offering autographs and smiling for photo ops. Finn reluctantly tried to help Andy keep the group under control, while Philby busied himself with studying the camera and lighting gear and interacting with the five-person film crew.

  The location of the morning sun required them to shoot on Deck 12 aft, starboard side. A half-dozen tripods connected by dozens of thick black cables awaited the Keepers.

  Andy barked out instructions to Finn, Willa, and Charlene, speaking loudly enough for Maybeck and Philby to hear him.

  “The first scene we’re going to shoot is where the five of you are talking excitedly about everything cool on the Dream.”

  “Remember,” Jodi said, “not ‘the Dream,’ but ‘the Disney Dream.’ Very important.”

  Andy continued. “Near the end of the shot, Maleficent is going to make a cameo appearance behind you. You guys will freak out, she’ll throw a spell—” He paused. “Then I think Charlene, you will catch Willa as she faints. Finn, you run toward Maleficent as she hurries off screen.”

  He stared at Finn’s long face.

  “What?” Andy asked. “We’re going to turn Willa into a bouquet of flowers in post-production. Charlene ends up catching a bunch of flowers. It’ll be good, you’ll see.”

  “Maleficent?” Finn said.

  “Oh, come on! The big evil fairy? You’re talking to a guy who deals with special effects on a daily basis. You’re going to try to sell me that the Imagineers have figured out how to allow your brain function to control a hologram while you’re asleep? Uh-huh. Look, I’m in on the gag, Finn. Don’t worry, it’s safe with me.”

  “But Maleficent,” Finn said, realizing Andy was a lost cause.

  “I’m shooting an interstitial for the Channel. I’ve got a casting call for Maleficent, who is currently down in wardrobe and styling, and as much as I’d love to play along with the whole”—he drew air quotes—“‘Keepers thing,’ we’re burning daylight. ’Kay? So let’s get in a couple run-throughs before the talent arrives.”

  “The talent. Right,” Finn said. He’d lost Maybeck to the adoring crowds, and Philby to the lighting grip, but he addressed Willa and Charlene. “The Green Machine is scheduled for the next shot.”

  “Green Machine?” the lighting man inquired, overhearing. “Those smoothie drinks? Blue Machine. Red Machine. They got a green one now?”

  “Something like that,” Finn said as his eyes met Willa’s.

  Jodi overheard Finn, saw the troubled look in his eyes, and consulted her clipboard. “Andy…this character appearance…she wasn’t in the final script.”

  Andy looked up from his clipboard of notes. “Yeah, I know. But she’s in the sides now, so we’re shooting it.”

  “I should have heard about this,” Jodi said, approaching him.

  “Reach Storey Ming,” Finn whispered to Willa. “Have her check the break room, make sure we’re getting the Cast Member character, not…our friend.”

  “I’m on it.”

  He asked Charlene to get Maybeck away from his fans.

  “Philby!”

  Philby joined Finn. “I know my lines. I’m good,” he said.

  Finn told him about the addition of Maleficent to the scene. “We need to think fast.”

  “We’ve got nothing!” Philby said. “We’re totally exposed out here.”

  Indeed, with the passengers held back from the film shoot, it left the small film crew and the five Keepers isolated in an empty area of open deck with nothing but some tripods, lights, and cameras to hide behind.

  Charlene returned with Maybeck.

  “Guys,” Maybeck said, “if she throws a fireball, we’re toast. As in, crispy. She misses us? She’s going to hit them.” He indicated the dozens of fans and their parents, held back by crew members.

  “We’re aware of the situation,” Finn said.

  “Storey’s heading to the break room.” Willa wore her concern openly.

  “Okay everyone!” Andy called out above the sound of the wind from the moving ship. “Places! Let’s do a run-through ahead of the talent!”

  “The ‘talent,’” Willa whispered. “Now, that’s just precious.”

  * * *

  Storey Ming reached the bulletin board in the I-95 crew corridor and read the day’s itinerary. Her plum-colored painted nail traced across the matrix of boxes, stopping at the column labeled “Character Calls.”

  Chip and Dale (BR3M, A, 8:00am)…Belle (BR 3F, MM, 9am)…Maleficent (BR11A, D12aft, 8am). Break Room 11A, Deck 12 aft, 8am

  This appearance accorded with the video shoot now under way. Confirmation of a Cast Member playing the Maleficent character lowered Storey’s anxiety—it seemed less likely this was a sneak attack by the OTs.

  She texted Willa:

  on way to break room. M appearance confirmed.

  In the break room, she swiped her ID card over the reader, pushed th
e lever, and banged her face on the door. It hadn’t opened. Storey swiped her ID a second time. The small light on the card reader: red.

  She knocked loudly. The door had to be privacy-locked from the inside. No answer. She knocked again. And again.

  A DHI could lock the door from the inside and then step through it, leaving the room sealed along with whoever was inside, like the Cast Member Maleficent, Storey thought.

  DANGER!

  Her fingers hovered over the Wave Phone’s keypad. How far did she dare to go?

  Malef possible DHI

  * * *

  “Code red from Storey,” Willa whispered to Philby, being sure to keep her lips still. She didn’t want Andy screaming at her.

  The five Keepers were lined up against the starboard rail, a pale trace of sun skimming off the waves. It was too tranquil a setting for the suggestion of any kind of danger.

  “The shot is this,” Andy said. “First, Finn’s line about how every day is a beautiful day on the Dream—”

  “The Disney Dream!” Jodi called out.

  “The Disney Dream,” Andy repeated. “Okay. Charlene, you come back with ‘magical’; then Maybeck’s line; Philby checks his watch—we’re going to use some CGI there to make it glow or something—and then Willa, you spin your head around to see Maleficent. Finn, you give the line about running for it. Philby hoists the Return”—a film crew member handed Philby the prop—an automobile remote—“and then hold positions. In post we’re going to fade you out like holograms. Got it?”

  “This is just a walk-through?” Finn said.

  “A run-through. Yeah.”

  “No Maleficent yet,” Willa clarified.

  “You’re trembling, I suppose?” Andy was an incredibly nice guy. He just didn’t get it.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” Willa said. She held her hand out; her fingers shook.

  “You’re safe with me!” Andy cracked himself up. His crew laughed with him.

  The Keepers practiced their lines and moves four times, with small adjustments made by Andy after each new pass.

  “If she’s back there by the time you turn around…” Finn said privately to Willa.

  “Yes. It’ll be too late.”