Kingdom Keepers VI (9781423179214) (7 page)

“Meanwhile,” Finn said, “we're keeping an eye out for the girl with the bright red streaks in her hair.”

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Maybeck said.

“Ha. Ha.” Finn wasn't amused.

“But, Finn, if she wants to be anonymous, shouldn't we let her be?” Charlene said.

Finn studied the people in the busy breakfast room. “She can help us,” he said. “But most important…the most important mission of all… Before we reach Aruba tomorrow, we need to find Chernabog. If we find him, if security locks him up, then it won't matter what's in the journal. We won't have to do any of this.” He thought back to his communication with Wayne. “We get Chernabog, and we spoil their plans, whatever they are. He's the key.”

“It's not like they can hide him just anywhere,” Maybeck said.

“Well, he's no longer in the box under the stage,” Willa said.

“But how far could he go without being seen?” Finn said. “Something like that? There are passengers, crew, cameras. Someone would have seen him.”

“So maybe he's still backstage somewhere. There's a lot of room there,” Storey said.

“Tonight, during the orientation,
we'll
be
backstage.” Philby's voice rose with excitement. “We're part of the program.”

“You remember what happened last time we were in the theater?” Maybeck asked. “As in: chaos?”

Maleficent had made a video appearance at an evening show that had resulted in thorny roses raining down on the passengers.

“But that's the point, isn't it?” Philby said. “What if the OTs are counting on us being too scared to go backstage?”

“They'd be right,” Willa said. “It's a miracle no one was hurt the first time!”

“We'll appear in the orientation as scheduled,” Finn declared. “But we'll arrive backstage twenty minutes early—as a group. That'll give us extra time. We meet at the stage door, starboard side. They're not going to make us wait out in the hallway. They'll let us backstage, and that's our chance.”

“I like it,” Philby said.

As if I care,
Finn nearly said. But the truth was: he did care. He not only needed Philby's support, he wanted it.

“Willa and I can say we need a place to work on our makeup,” Charlene said. “That'll get us separated into two groups, once inside. Two are better than one.”

“Nice,” Philby said.

“Boys take the backstage area,” Finn said. “Girls: the salon, costumes, and the other rooms downstairs.”

“There's no way Security missed him,” Maybeck said. “Has anyone thought about that?”

“Depends on how well the OTs hid him,” Finn said. “And
why
.”

“Meaning?” Charlene said.

“Maybe the OTs don't want Chernabog found because they haven't figured out how to wake him out of this torpor thing yet. Maybe Tia Dalma isn't doing so well with waking up her hummingbirds. Who knows? Maybe they're worried about how they'll control him.”

“The stuff in the journal,” Willa said, her voice a whisper.

“What if it's more like an owner's manual?” Finn said.

“You have to do it right. And then whoever wakes him…” Philby said, speculating.

“Yes!” Finn said. “Whoever decodes the journal properly and applies it to Chernabog as he comes out of torpor ends up in control of him.”

Maybeck coughed. “Us? Control Chernabog?”

“I like the sound of that,” Professor Philby said.

W
ILLA HAD DONE HER HOMEWORK
and was eager to share what she'd found. The first to arrive in the unremarkable companionway outside the starboard stage door to the Walt Disney Theatre, she waited for the others. Impatiently. Overcome by the hallway's dullness. Drab walls. No artwork. Several unmarked doors. At the end, the backstage entrance:
CAST MEMBERS ONLY PLEASE
.

In all likelihood, a monster lurked on the other side of that door. Where else would the OTs have hidden something Chernabog's size? The engine deck seemed like the only other decent possibility, but something that huge making it down there without being seen?
Impossible
.

Wayne's concerns about the balance of power were warranted. The OTs were dangerous enough, strong enough, without such a force on their side. With Chernabog, they'd be unstoppable.

Chernabog was the worst, Willa thought, feeling her gut twist. Evil incarnate. Both the Minotaur and the Mayan bat god, Camazotz, were said to have devoured their prey. Alive.

Finn was next to arrive. Willa fought to keep the disappointment from her face.

“Hey,” she said.

“You were hoping for Philby,” Finn said.

She shrugged. “We're not exactly seeing eye to
eye.”

“I don't think you have to worry about him and Storey.”

“I don't want to talk about it, Finn. Okay? Besides, he's not coming with us anyway. He's watching the cameras.” Willa waved at a hemispheric plastic globe in the ceiling, but it was a churlish gesture. “So, Finn. News alert: I may have deciphered the code.”

“Seriously? Already? Did Storey help you?”

“No,” Willa said tersely. “I had some extra time at the computers.
Ka'n
is ‘gold.' It's also the symbol in the upper left.
Pet
is ‘island,' upper right.”

“Gold island?”

“Patience!
Ch'en
is ‘cave.' Lower left. I haven't
figured out the fourth one yet.”

“That's huge!” Finn said. “So maybe it is a treasure map. Gold. Maybeck will love this.”

“Whatever it is, it's buried in a cave on an island.”

“And the only island remaining on the cruise is Aruba. Tomorrow morning.”

“We'd be stupid not to follow the OTs, not to do everything we can to find out where they're going
and why.”

“That's genius work!”

“That's Google,” Willa said.

“You never let anyone compliment you,” Finn said. “What's that about?”

“Thank you for the compliment,” Willa said, effectively ending the discussion.

“You're welcome.”

“What's with you and Amanda, anyway? Or is it you and Storey, too?”

“Me and Maleficent is more like it.”

“Who do you think is more powerful? Maleficent or the Evil Queen?”

“I put Tia Dalma above them both.”

“Seriously? Because?”

“She's a witch doctor. She practices black magic. And she's more in this world—our world—than any of the others. She doesn't wear a costume. She doesn't play a role. She throws bones and stabs dolls with pins, and who knows what else?” Finn's eyes were haunted.

He's remembering his mom, Willa thought. She didn't know what else to say.

Next, Maybeck, then Charlene arrived to join them. Willa caught them up quickly on what she'd learned.

“So as promising as that is,” Maybeck said, “we're still hoping to find Chernabog and end this before it starts, right? Trouble is, no one ever said what we do when we find him.”

“We call Security,” Finn said. “Wayne said we can trust Uncle Bob.”

“As if,” Maybeck said. He had issues with authority and didn't trust anyone in a uniform.

“We pretend we didn't see anything and call Security. No heroics. Got it?”

“Hey, you and I are paired up, Whitman. No
heroics. Agreed.”

“Same for you two,” Finn said, mostly to Willa.

“Way ahead of you,” she said.

Charlene looked at Maybeck and he looked back at her, and for a moment Finn thought he was going to be sick.

“Let's do this.”

* * *

The Aruba orientation in the ship's Walt Disney Theatre began with a welcome to the audience from Christian, the director of entertainment. He stood alone on the huge stage in his ship whites, pressed and sharp. He cracked a joke about the ceiling falling while a slideshow of Aruba played behind him on a screen bigger than most houses.

Finn and Maybeck heard him clearly over the backstage speakers, and caught the blinding white of his uniform out of the corners of their eyes.

Charlene and Willa separated from the two boys upon entering backstage—two performers looking for the beauty salon. They descended the stairs leading to where Chernabog's crate had been found earlier, empty.

Upstairs, Finn pushed the walkie-talkie's button. “Clear?” he asked Philby, adjusting the iPhone earbud in his right ear.

“Yes. I don't see anyone.” Philby was monitoring the backstage cameras, running interference for both search parties.

Maybeck led the way, cutting across the back of the deep stage behind the giant projection screen.

Backstage areas were separated by drops—thick
fabric curtain dividers. As Finn and Maybeck approached, they saw the metal hull walls stacked with well-organized groupings of stage furniture and show props, all of it tied down and secured. Neon tape designated safe walking lanes. To his credit, and to Finn's astonishment, Maybeck remained inside the yellow.

They passed giant alphabet blocks used in a
Toy
Story
show, pieces of a disassembled castle, jungle vegetation, and a pushcart from
Beauty and the Beast
. They carefully searched for a possible hiding place for an eight-foot-tall half-breed monster with flaming eyes.

“Nothing big enough,” Maybeck told Finn in a whisper.

“Agreed.”

They passed a ten-foot tower of stacked tables, all fitting together like a puzzle. “But this is cool, right?” Finn said.

“Totally.”

“How about inside one of the alphabet blocks?”

“I guess it's possible,” Maybeck said, “but he'd be squished.”

“Maybe he doesn't care if he's in torpor. We could try to move them. Test how heavy they are.”

“Solid.”

The boys reversed direction just as Philby spoke into Finn's ear. “Red alert!”

“Hide!” Finn hissed.

The two boys slipped behind the alphabet blocks as two stagehands walked past the prop storage, silhouettes against the big screen. Their gait was stiff-legged, like robots or soldiers.

Maybeck sneezed, causing Finn to jump. One of the stagehands turned.

Finn spun away and slapped his back to the wood block. Maybeck's face glowed bluish in the dark; he looked thunderstruck by his mistake.

“Dust,” he said.

“Not good,” Finn said.

* * *

Willa and Charlene huddled at the bottom of the backstage stairs. Every surface of the hallway was painted black and dimly lit by blue neon to keep stray light from infiltrating backstage.

Male voices echoed throughout, giving little hint as to their source or direction. To the right, the hallway dead-ended in a T; to the left it ran straight, clear across the area beneath the stage and to the other wing.

The girls knew from their earlier attempt to find Chernabog that two of the rooms off this corridor accessed substage service rooms, where the elevator
lifts from the stage's three trapdoors were loaded and
unloaded. But there were other doors as well. Chernabog could be in hidden on the other side of any of them.

Twenty feet down the corridor, the sounds became clearer.

“We are walking
toward
the voices, Willa,” Charlene hissed.

“I've got that,” Willa said. She tried a door.
Locked
. She waved the crew member ID card supplied by Wayne.
Unlocked
. They stepped inside and switched on the light.

Four green-metal electric panel boxes on the wall, each the size of a washing machine, produced a loud humming. They carried stickers warning of electric shock—the stick figure lying down apparently symbolizing death. Metal conduits crisscrossed the ceiling. The room was small and was absurdly hot. It was not even close to being big enough to hide Chernabog.

The next door would not open to Willa's credentials. It was labeled
SERVICE BREAKERS—NO ADMITTANCE
. They took it at face value.

A door to their left was familiar to them both as the larger of the two substage service areas. Some of the voices were clearly coming from within this room. Willa shook her head, but Charlene moved the lever anyway; the door opened. Charlene poked her head inside.

“Oh!” she said, feigning surprise. “Sorry; I'm looking for the washroom.”

Four guys wearing the all-black uniforms of stagehands, each holding a water bottle, sat on upturned crates.

“Two doors down,” said a potbellied. “On the right.”

Charlene took a mental snapshot of the space. The lightbulbs were turned down lower than candlelight, the blue neon painting the room in an otherworldly way. Chernabog's smashed crate was nowhere to be seen. As before, the space was immaculately clean and tidy—shipshape—despite the dozens of props and pieces of furniture it contained. Every square inch was thoughtfully organized and accounted for. If Chernabog was still in here somewhere, it was far from obvious where he might be hidden.

“Your entrance isn't for another twenty.” The man who spoke had sharp, angular features like a mouse's; narrow-set, suspicious eyes; and the weight of distrust in his voice. He checked a clipboard. “Greenroom's at the top of the stairs, starboard.”

“Go easy on her, Dixon,” the heavy guy said.

“There's a washroom off the greenroom,” said Dixon. “But you know that.”

The subtext: What are you doing down here?

“Got it! Thanks!” Charlene said. She pulled the door shut.

Willa looked upset. Charlene made a face as if to say:
So shoot me, I
had
to look!
They had a mission to fulfill, and Charlene was more a field agent than an analyst; she liked action.

Not much bigger than a kitchen pantry, the next room smelled of engine oil and was filled with machinery. Again, no room for something Chernabog's size. This was the trouble for the Keepers: any space identified as backstage and therefore away from guests was filled and utilized; there wasn't an unused or unoccupied square inch on the ship.

“Trouble following directions?” A man's voice.

They turned to see Dixon, the rodent-faced stagehand, blocking their way.

“Funny, this doesn't look like the girls' room to me,” he said, his voice void of inflection.

“We…ah…”

His eyes didn't seem to focus. He stared past them in a daze. “Best if you come with me, please.” He produced a wooden billy club from out of nowhere and slapped his left palm with it. “We can do this peaceful-like, or not so peaceful.”

“You're not going to hit a girl,” Willa said.

“No, I'm going to hit two girls. If I have to. Your choice.” That same dreadfully calm voice.

A spell? Willa wondered. The idea was chilling: a thousand crew and Cast Members traveling on the ship, with some of them acting as undercover OTs? She didn't like those odds.

Charlene faked a cough to cover her saying, “On three.” Willa nodded.

Charlene patted her leg once, twice… Her third strike was accompanied by a front handspring and a one-eighty-degree pivot back handspring directly into the face of the zoned-out crewman. He flew off his feet and across the hall without having gotten the club to shoulder height.

Willa took off down the hall, running away from the room full of men, heading to port. The sound of the stage's public-address system played from small speakers. Some kind of scientist was being introduced. She went to speak to Charlene, but she wasn't there.

Willa stopped and looked back.

Charlene had knocked the club from the skinny guy's hand. She hooked a knee around his neck and leaped to her side, flipping the guy like a beached fish in some kind of MMA move Willa had never seen. Charlene tugged free a length of rope the man had tucked into his belt—rope meant for tying up two girls?—and bound his hands behind his back like she was a policewoman. Lacking a gag, she pulled his shoe and sock off and stuffed his dirty sock into his mouth. She waved for Willa to come help her.

Willa couldn't move.

Charlene gestured a second time, more desperately. Her eyes said,
Hurry!

The man kicked Charlene in the chest, sending her airborne across the room.

“Uhhf!” Charlene grunted as the wind was knocked out of her.

The man stood and reared his leg back to kick her while she was down.

He fell flat onto his face. With his hands tied behind his back, he couldn't protect himself. He was knocked unconscious. Willa looked down. She held his bare foot in her hand; she had upended him.