Kingdom Keepers VI (9781423179214) (30 page)

The two Overtakers first threw shadows, then nothing at all. Gone.

Willa lost her hold, rolled over in the air, and landed like a cat on all fours. Charlene released her hold and landed quietly.

“We did it!” Willa choked out as a whisper.

Charlene could not rid herself of the image of Dillard's still body.

“Dillard,” she said. “The boys! The van.”

Together, the girls carried Dillard into fresh air, fighting back tears.

* * *

A shimmering silver thread of spider silk hung from the stone. For Finn, it looked like parade bunting, worthy of a brass band with trumpets and cymbals. He thought he might have kissed the spider if it had still been
alive.

Finn followed the silk. Used his newfound 2.0
all
clear
to light up his way when necessary, he took a corner to the right. It got easier to invoke each time he tried.

At the end of a tunnel to his left—not the tunnel he was following—he saw yellow flickering light. Fire!

Two figures walked past the tunnel's end, visible for only seconds: Maleficent and the Queen.

In a parallel tunnel.

The firelight grew faint.

Finn settled into
all clear
and reestablished he was following the silk road.

To his left, more light! The two had turned around and were heading his way. Finn reacted too quickly, stepping back instead of forward. Trapping himself instead of freeing himself.

No.
He would not allow them to push him back the way he'd come. Finn lay flat on the stone and belly-crawled across the intersection. He was back on his feet and halfway up the tunnel when a giant shadow formed in front of him: his own. Maleficent had rolled a fireball as a searchlight.

“You!” she said, in a voice shrill and brittle.

Finn ran several more steps before sliding to a stop. He spun around.

Me!
he thought.

How long was he going to run from Maleficent? How many years had it been? Cowering. Afraid. Always on the defensive.

Now, Chernabog was on the run. And a friend was dead.

Just the thought of Dillard made it hard for him
to breathe.

Finn could run, or he could stay and stop this woman and her kind from killing his friends.

She threw a fireball. Halfway to him it slowed perceptibly. Finn dodged it effortlessly, marching toward her now, one confident step at a time.

D
IABLO FLEW DOWN
the tomb tunnel, aimed squarely
at Finn's head. But in his current state, the bird of prey came at Finn more like a butterfly. Finn reached out, pinched its wing between his fingers, spun it like a stadium towel, and delivered it into the tunnel's stone wall. Knocked unconscious, the raven fluttered to the floor.

Maleficent wailed, as if some part of her had gone dead. Finn continued his march through the dying flames of several fireballs.

I will not fear you. I will not be intimidated
.
Bring it on
.

Maleficent's eyelids fluttered shut; her lips moved almost imperceptibly. Her neck began to elongate disgustingly; her arms, held out to her sides, thickened.

In a normal state, Finn would not witness the stages of her transfiguration, only the change itself. But with time slowed to a crawl, the woman grew limbs, her chest and body widened and grew scales, her long chin became a dragon's snout.

Just as it had been too small for Chernabog, the stone tunnel was too small for a dragon—Maleficent's anger had misguided her. She'd misjudged.

A green dragon, on folded knees, plugged the tunnel. It scrambled forward, cried, twisted, but could not move.

The Queen was hidden.

The dragon opened its mouth.

Finn's slow-motion world allowed him to turn and dive for the fallen raven, Diablo. He held the bird out as a shield—
a sacrifice
—making sure the dragon could see the crow as he advanced one cautious step at a time.

The dragon wiggled, could not move. It cocked its head, then roared so intensely the tunnel's stones shook. Sand fell.

But no fire from the dragon's mouth. Maleficent would not burn her precious Diablo.

As Finn continued his advance, Diablo in front, the dragon's limbs began to shrink, its head changed shapes. Maleficent was returning to form.

But in Finn's time-shifted world, he charged, dropped Diablo at the dragon's feet.

He closed his eyes and willed away all thought, dropping into
all clear
.

Her transformation continued.

So did his.

He'd never tried this feat, but there was always a first time. Dillard's voice returned in his head.
“If you
don't take a chance…”

Finn spoke aloud. “You don't have a chance.”

Eyes shut, mind calm, he plunged his hologram hand through the transfiguring flesh at the base of the dragon's neck. His eyes popped wide open, and he felt his “self”—he felt Dillard's self.

He lost his DHI, his arm and hand solid
inside
Maleficent
.

The dragon wailed, a shrill, deathly cry. Flames rolled down the tunnel ceiling from a mouth half-human, half-dragon.

Finn pulled with all his strength, creating a fist-size wound.

The fire abruptly stopped.

He stepped back as this creature—half–woman fairy, half–green dragon—curled in on itself, blood flowing in great quantities from its neck.

As the dragon-woman's eyes began to pale in the dwindling firelight, Finn remembered the same light leaving Dillard's eyes. He cried out in agonized victory, turned and walked away as Maleficent choked and coughed wetly, gasping for breath that wouldn't come.

The Evil Queen was a speck of dark, fleeing him, into the tunnel,
away
from any hope of finding the entrance.

Finn found his silver silk adhered to the wall. He collected it so that others could not follow.

Home
…he thought.

A
STONE-FACED
F
INN
drove the white van, careful to obey the speed limit in case there were any police patrolling the Mexican back country. They had covered
Dillard's face with a rag, unable to look at him. Maybeck's and Philby's sleeping bodies were stretched out, the girls on either side of them. Willa was crying.

Tia Dalma was gagged and blindfolded, both wrists and ankles bound tightly. It had taken three of them to lift her into the back of the vehicle.

Charlene looked ready to choke the witch doctor. They'd covered her head with Dillard's bloody shirt so they didn't have to look at her either, and so she couldn't aim a spell at them.

“Don't do it, Charlie,” Finn said. “She's for me.”

“What are we going to do?” Willa sobbed. “It's like the Syndrome. You get that, don't you? Both Philby and Maybeck are under a spell! They're…gone.”

“Dillard's gone,” Finn said in a brutal monotone. “Philby and Maybeck are still breathing. They can still be saved.”

“We'll get them onto the ship,” Charlene said. “We'll figure something out. Maybe Wayne can help. The Imagineers?”

Finn started to speak, but at the mention of Wayne his voice broke. He shifted in the seat and was poked by something in his pocket. He reached in and came out with a piece of the broken knife blade that Chernabog had shattered. It had found its way into his pocket as he'd ducked from it. He could suddenly feel the knife sinking into Dillard, the knife he'd held. He stopped the van, rolled down the window and threw up out the window. His hand was back on the gearshift when Willa called out.

“Wait!”

Finn couldn't think, he couldn't feel. He wanted to blame it on going
all clear
so often in the tunnels. He knew better. He pocketed the chip of the blade.

Willa said, “It was the Queen, the Evil Queen who did this.”

“So what?” choked out Charlene.

“The Queen made them drink a potion, like with the apple in Snow White.”

Charlene was with her. “OMG! Snow White. The Evil Queen. The apple.”

“And that means…?” Finn asked.

“The seven dwarfs drive her to the mountaintop. The lightning. She goes over into the… Then the prince… Don't you see? True love's—”

“Kiss,” Willa said, finishing it for her.

Charlene looked paralyzed. “Fine for you, but what if it's not…true?”

“The story, or do you mean—?”

“If it's not real love?”

“What are you two suggesting?” Finn said, impatient.

Willa addressed Charlene. “I don't think it has to be forever love, just
true
love. Real love. Honest love.”

“You think?” Charlene said hopefully.

“No. I
know
,” Willa said. “True love isn't reserved for weddings and ceremonies. It's from the heart. That's all it has to be. All it ever is.”

Charlene tried to contain the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Well then, we have to try.”

Another nod.

Finn interrupted. “What are you—?”

“Shut up!” Willa called to the front seat.

“Not just any kiss. It has to be—”

“Real.”

“Yes.”

Charlene looked into Maybeck's face. She saw kindness. Felt warmth. Sorrow. Joy. Laughter. Frustration. Concern. Envy. Light-headed fear at the thought of losing him.

As Willa leaned down toward Philby, Charlene bent and kissed Maybeck.

“T
HE DOCTOR GAVE YOU
something to wake you up,” Uncle Bob said as Luowski's eyes began tracking
the two security men in the room. That included Clayton Freeman.

“We need your cooperation,” Freeman said.

“Where…am…I?” Luowski said.

“Aboard the
Disney
Dream
.”

Clayton Freeman cupped his hand whispered into Bob's ear. “You see his eyes? I swear they were
green
when I took him into custody.”

Bob's astonishment bordered on disbelief.

“You came aboard
illegally
,” Bob said.

Clayon shook his head, trying to keep Bob from being so stern with the kid who was clearly delirious. “We will be more lenient than the Los Angeles Police Department. We're taking you off the ship in a matter of minutes.”

The kid looked totally lost. “The witch,” he mumbled, as if remembering something for the first time.

“You are a stowaway. You can go to jail for that,” Bob said.

Freeman stepped closer to the boy on the exam table. He talked to him confidentially. “The witch. What did she say? What did she do to you?”

“Oh…give me a break!” Bob roared, but Freeman quieted his boss with a sharp look.

Luowski said, “I was supposed to get one of them for her. I wouldn't do it. She…got…me. Instead.”

“Maleficent,” Freeman said.

Uncle Bob was about to burst a blood vessel, he was so mad at Freeman.

Luowski nodded. “Bigger than she thought.”

“What's bigger?” Freeman asked, leaning in. The boy was speaking so softly that his voice was barely wind from his lips.

“There…are…others,” the boy said.

“Who?”

“Homeless…”

“What? Who?”

“An…army.”

The kid's eyes rolled in his head and his eyelids fluttered shut.

“What'd he say? What'd he say?” Bob asked.

Freeman looked at his boss, back at the kid, and then to Bob again.

“I think he said there's going to be a war.”