The door banged as it was struck hard from the other side.
She had to time this just right. The trolls were going to make a mess of that. The three had recovered and now joined hands with the fourth to form a semicircle of small, ugly dwarves taking small 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 trolls—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 trolls were too tall for her to hurdle over.
She stepped to the wall 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 trolls 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 fell into the trolls and they collapsed 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 full 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 trolls, 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 wall.
Something winked at her from high up on the wall: a piece of glass reflecting the small amount of ambient outdoor light that came through the glass ceiling and walls.
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—all 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. Maybeck’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 walls remained motionless, suggesting that the tent was empty.
Finn stepped tentatively toward the boardroom, Maybeck right behind him.
Maybeck’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 walls 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 fall to pull him over backward. They went together, crushing the trolls 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 trolls 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 all, 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 all. “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 all 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 called. Whomever he was speaking to, Amanda, Willa, or Jess—Finn guessed it was Willa—obviously tried to argue, but Maybeck shut her up. “Just do it!” he shouted into the phone before disconnecting the call. “Sometimes I hate girls,” he said to Finn. “All 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 pulled Finn against the wall. 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 still 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 Willa just now. Charlene’s at the front door, pinned there by the lions. Willa’s right: the snake’s at the back exit. That dummy—there are two of them, actually—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 electronically, but with actual keys. Front and back are the only ways out. The sunroom windows are locked as well. 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 still on this floor somewhere,” Finn said to Maybeck. “We can find him and get him.”
“Leave it alone, Whitman. He was bait. That’s all. 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.
CHARLENE HAD MONITORED the direct-connect call 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 trolls had collected on the other side of the door but obviously had no intention of becoming involved with the lions, even if, theoretically, 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 seagull. She loved the controlled 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 willing 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 actually 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 well as circular sprinklers out in the lawn. Thankfully, none of them was perfectly set, meaning that all 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 collision 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 trolls on the other side.
Soaking wet, Charlene vaulted the metal fence twenty yards further on, pulled out her phone, and thanked Philby, telling him she’d meet him at the rendezvous.
“And oh, BTW,” she said, “I’d avoid the front door if I were you.”
* * *
Finn pulled the grille off the air conditioning duct. “I hate small spaces,” he said.
“Get over it.”
“I’ve seen this in movies, but I always thought it was fake.”
“If you’re not going in there, I am,” said Maybeck. He squeezed himself through the small rectangular vent opening, aiming to the right. “It’s tight,” he said, his voice now muted, “but I can see the other vent up ahead.”
Finn crawled in behind him, wishing his edgy nerves would have allowed him to fully cross over and not need to seek a human way out of the pavilion. It would have been so much easier to just walk through the second story wall and find a place to jump down. But the truth was, Maybeck needed him; even if Finn had been able to all-clear, he couldn’t leave Maybeck alone. Finn struggled to pull himself through the horizontal airshaft. The ducting ringed the pavilion’s interior with vents on both sides, providing air conditioning to both the pavilion’s showcase area and the public and private rooms on the second floor that surrounded it.
“I’m going to suffocate,” Finn complained.
“Shut up,” Maybeck called back to him harshly. “I can see those clowns,” he added, meaning the jesters.
“There’s a ladder,” Maybeck said a moment later, his eyes on the vent. “Some kind of work going on. Philby’s right: it might work.”
It had to work, Finn felt like pointing out. Once they popped out of the ventilation system through one of the vents, the jesters and crash-test dummies—and anyone else down there in the showcase—would see them. At that moment the chase would become a footrace. Only their unexpected route might save Maybeck and Finn, and only then if they could really move fast once they left the safety of the duct.
“We have to wait,” Finn said.
“I’m aware of that.”
“So be patient.”
“You be patient, if you want to. I don’t exactly feel so patient.”
“He’ll make it.”
“Yeah. Okay. But if he doesn’t, maybe we’ve wasted our chance of getting out of here. And what if that’s the plan?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Isn’t it a little too convenient that we and Charlene were atta
cked and Philby wasn’t? He turned off the lights. Why didn’t they go looking to turn them back on?”
“How do we know that they didn’t?”
“I’m just saying.”
“You’re accusing him.”
“Am not.”
“You are too. Listen, Maybeck,” Finn whispered while lying on his stomach. “We can’t do this to each other. We just can’t. Okay?”
Maybeck was silent.
“He’s going to show up. We don’t have to expect the worst in each other.”
“Excuse me. I left my violin at home,” Maybeck said.
Another three minutes passed. Even to Finn it felt more like an hour.
“How long do we just wait here?” Maybeck asked. “At some point they’re going to come looking for us, and that vent grille we removed is out there sitting on the floor, and it’s not like you’ll be turning around and pulling it back into place. I say we go for it. If Philby makes it, he makes it.”
“Call him.”
“Are you kidding me? I can’t get my phone out of my pocket. You can’t either! That’s ridiculous.” He waited about two seconds. “We’ve got to go without him.”
“We can’t!”
“There’s no choice. I’ll tell you what: it has been too long. I’m going. If you want to stay, then stay.”
“It’s going to take two of us,” Finn said. “He said it was going to take two people. If we don’t wait for him, there’s no one to help him.”
“Like I said: you can wait. But I’m out of here.”
Maybeck popped the grille free of the vent and pulled it back inside. “So far, so good,” he whispered back at Finn. “I don’t think anyone saw that.”
Finn desperately wanted to wait for Philby, but the small confines of the ventilation shaft were making him nauseated. He’d broken out in a sweat. His hands were shaking. He had to get out, Philby or no Philby.
“Go!” Finn said.
Maybeck squeezed out of the open grille, and onto the maintenance scaffolding Philby had spotted behind Cranium Command. Finn couldn’t move fast enough: he crawled ahead, pulled himself through the vent, and was helped to his feet by Maybeck.
Kingdom Keepers Boxed Set Page 70