Kingdom Keepers VII Page 31

  “So, the question is,” Willa says, “do we tell the Cryptos or not? Philby and I didn’t want to make a decision without you guys.”

  “Why wouldn’t we tell them?” Jess asks.

  The Keepers turn toward her, sighing almost in unison. The naïveté of the question is refreshing.

  Finn answers gently. “Sometimes the Imagineers go in a different direction than we would.”

  Jess nods, still confused.

  “How would we get down to Anaheim?” Maybeck asks. “That’s what you’re saying, right? That we do it ourselves?”

  “Absolutely,” Philby says, speaking for himself and Willa. “Unless we could get someone to do it for us.”

  “Like Storey,” Amanda says.

  “Or that girl Brooke,” Finn suggests. Heads turn toward him. “She helped me. It’s a good possibility.”

  “I like her,” says Willa, who stood guard with Brooke in the Court of Angels.

  “I have her phone number,” Philby says. “We texted.”

  Willa frowns; her face bunches.

  “Regardless, we’ll still need lab work to know what we’ve got,” Philby continues. “The advantage of telling the Cryptos is that they could handle that for us.”

  “Could you do it?” Willa asks Philby.

  “If I had access to a lab.”

  “Listen!” Charlene silences them all. “If it’s tar, if it’s Tia Dalma, then it’s either the beach, the La Brea Tar Pits, or an oil rig.”

  “She was living on the beach on Castaway Cay,” Willa says.

  “If she was at the Tar Pits, that can’t be good news. What’s she doing?” Maybeck asks. “Raising a dire wolf from the dead?”

  “Wait!” Jess leafs through her diary to the last page, her most recent drawing, and points to an object they’d tentatively identified as a grasshopper head. “It’s not a grasshopper! It’s one of those things on an oil well.”

  “The horse head,” Philby says. “It’s the business end of the beam in an oil rig. You had the right body part, but the wrong kind of animal.”

  “Wayne,” Finn mumbles.

  “Oh, Finn,” Amanda says, throwing her arm around his shoulders. But Finn ducks away from her offer of comfort, squinting tightly into the distance. “Wayne said…he said, ‘They must be stopped. Do not for a minute assume that earthquake in Mexico was a fluke. Be on guard to prevent it from happening again.’”

  Silence shrouds the group. Maybeck looks at Finn as if he’s worried Finn might be losing his mind. Jess studies her sketch. Like Maybeck, Amanda is worried about Finn. Philby and Willa look at each other; a special energy seems to cross the space between them.

  Willa says, “Oil well. Earthquakes.”

  Philby says, “Fracking. ‘Induced hydraulic fracturing.’ September 2013. This small Ohio town.”

  “Youngstown,” Willa says. “They had a hundred earthquakes, in a town where there’d never been one before.”

  To the others, it’s as if they’re speaking their own language. It’s hard to piece together what they mean, the way they’re finishing each other’s sentences. They continue prattling on about other fracking incidents in Texas and elsewhere. Before anyone can interrupt, Philby turns to the other Keepers and says, “The earthquake in Mexico was no accident.”

  “They’re planning another one here,” Willa says.

  Finn fights for breath. “Wayne warned me.”

  * * *

  Philby being Philby, he’s figured out the bus routes to get him and Willa from Burbank to Pepperdine University in Malibu. It’s more difficult sneaking out of the Studios than traveling over the mountains and through Los Angeles to reach the school.

  Philby and Willa stow away in the back of a small white panel van that makes routine courier runs between Walt Disney Pictures and the Disney-ABC television high-rise a few miles away. Getting in unseen is far easier than half the things the Keepers had to do on the Disney Dream; it’s all a matter of timing. Maybeck distracts the driver, and Philby and Willa climb into the back as the van is backing up to leave.

  On one of the many city buses they have to ride, they make eyes and play face games with a small boy in a stroller. Willa clutches Philby’s upper arm and squeezes every time the boy smiles or coos. It’s the first quiet time they’ve had since coming out west. For both, it passes much too quickly.

  Entering the university campus, with its green lawns, red roofs, and white buildings overlooking the Pacific Ocean, briefly lessens their sense of purpose. Only miles from the Hollywood Hills, this paradise disguised as a university is so surreally beautiful, it seems out of place.

  Philby has never met Brooke in person though Willa has described her as tall, thin, and pretty. Willa tells him this in the way girls talk about one another, as if these qualities are defects of some kind. Brooke greets them brightly and passes Philby the sample of oil from Toontown; she also has stained chips of the concrete pavement where they found the oil.

  “That took a little doing,” she says, grinning.

  “I’ll bet,” Philby says, impressed. Beside him, Willa groans.

  “There’s a chemistry lab open in ten minutes,” Brooke says, checking her Mickey Mouse watch.

  Philby and Willa work in concert for the next ninety minutes. Brooke has lab experience as well; she sets up ahead of them, and cleans up after. Soon they have a wealth of data, but no way of knowing what it all means. Brooke summons a senior, Austin, who’s been trying to get on her good side. He helps them feed the data into three different systems and hits Print.

  “Bitumen deposits,” Austin says. “Tar. I’ve compared the pure sample with the one containing the concrete, and dis-carded the inorganics we typically find there. Tar is basically oil degraded by bacteria, okay? So there are two things of importance to you in this sample: First, there’s identifiable bacteria here, which is a real find. If you follow the Web sites, the only place it’s been discovered recently was the excavation for the Black Gold Golf Club in Yorba Linda. Second, the contaminants mixed in with the bitumen include water, clay, and lauryl sulfate, a chemical used in—”

  “Injection wells,” Philby says.

  Austin smirks, confirming what Philby has said. “The bitumens are hard to extract because of their viscosity. It’s like heavy sludge. Lauryl sulfate thins the tar and allows high-pressure injection wells to pump it to the surface.”

  “So if you were guessing where this sample was from,” Willa says, “would this golf course be at the top of your list?”

  “Carbon Canyon, Chino Hills, Rowland Heights, Yorba Linda. Not the club itself. I don’t know if there’re any wells there.”

  “This may sound stupid,” Philby says. That’s a word he rarely utters, and in a tone he rarely uses. “But are there any fault lines that run between that area and Anaheim?”

  “Are you kidding?” Austin says. “Definitely. Anaheim’s located between two major fault lines.” He pulls up a geological survey map on his computer screen and points out areas as he talks. “The Newport-Inglewood and the Whittier-Elsinore fault zones—the Whittier-Elsinore is located just northeast of Anaheim.”

  “You all right?” Brooke asks Willa, who has gone pale.

  “What’d I say?” Austin asks. “What’s going on?”

  Philby looks like he’s been frozen in place. Finally, his gaze shifts until he’s staring straight at Brooke.

  “No,” Brooke says. Her eyes water, and she fights against crying by blinking rapidly.

  “What?” Austin says. “Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “You wouldn’t believe us if we did,” Philby says. He grabs his phone and texts Finn the news.

  “We have no proof,” Willa says. “We need proof.”

  “Do either of you have a car?” Philby asks.

  “My roommate does,” Brooke says.

  “I’m driving,” says Austin, intrigued.

  * * *

  Finn is no stranger to the power of playing for sy
mpathy. He’s used the technique effectively on his mother for years (his father is far less susceptible), and he’s become not just capable, but competent, even skillful.

  Now Finn dishes it out to Joe without having to play-act the grief he’s experiencing over Wayne’s death. Even talking about the event tightens his throat and fills his eyes with tears. He says he wants to “begin the process of closure,” though he has no intention of facing that demon for some time to come.

  As usual, Finn’s instincts differ from Philby’s. Finn works off intuition, while Philby maintains a procedural, forensic approach. From the moment Philby raised the idea of oil-tainted footprints, Finn’s mind imagined the oil’s origin being within Disneyland. The most obvious source of grease and oil is park maintenance; lubricants of various kinds keep the rides working. While hanging off the back of the train with Willa, Finn smelled lubricant and oil too, so another possibility is wherever park staff work on the trains and carriages.

  With Philby off playing chemistry professor, Finn’s impatience for answers about Wayne’s death propels him to manipulate Joe into offering him permission to travel to Disneyland. Several times a day, Imagineers head to and from the park. Finn asks to bum a ride, visit Toontown, and pay his respects. He promises to be punctual and meet up with whoever’s driving at the specified time. Joe is openly skeptical.

  Finn says, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m going to do this with or without your help. I’d rather not break the rules if I don’t have to.”

  This softens Joe, who nods and says, “Don’t make a habit of it.”

  An hour later, Finn is on the freeway. Two hours later, the van parks backstage.

  He’s in.

  * * *

  True to his word, Austin’s behind the wheel, driving Philby, Willa, and Brooke around north of Anaheim, looking for oil rigs.

  “Nothing,” Philby says after thirty minutes.

  Brooke, riding shotgun, has been running searches on her smartphone since they left Pepperdine, muttering in disgust at the lack of available information. They’re passing through a small hillside town called Sleepy Hollow when she lets out a squeal.

  “Four miles directly east is an entire oil field! The fastest way there is to hang a U-turn!”

  Austin swings the car around in the parking lot of Canyon Market, which advertises liquor, beer, and free deliveries. In the backseat, Willa wedges her hands nervously between her knees.

  “What’s wrong?” Philby asks. “You look like you’re about to implode.”

  “Sleepy Hollow,” she says softly, embarrassed. “Don’t make me talk about this.”

  “About what?”

  “What I’m talking about, Dell!”

  “The teepees,” he says.

  “The teepees,” she agrees.

  “The Headless Horseman.”

  “If you’d been there, you wouldn’t be grinning like that. Sleepy Hollow is where he comes from…I’m sorry. I know it’s stupid.”

  “Not even close,” Philby says, and then raises his voice. “Brooke, Austin, keep an eye out for anything unusual.”

  Brooke looks at the backseat. “Meaning?”

  “Out of the ordinary.”

  “Overtakers?”

  “Say, what?” Austin says. “What’s that about an overeater?”

  “Overtakers,” Brooke says.

  But Philby signals her not to go there, worried Austin will think they’re raving maniacs if they attempt to describe how they have reached this particular moment in time. Brooke doesn’t know the half of it, and at this point, she already knows more than only the Imagineers, the Cryptos, and the Kingdom Keepers themselves.

  “Think outlaw,” she says to Austin, obeying Philby’s wishes. “You know, like thieves. Highwaymen.”

  “In Southern California in broad daylight.” Austin cannot contain his skepticism.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “But what are you saying? That bandits are going to carjack us? This is a country club ’hood, like a hangout for old hippies.”

  “Just keep an eye out,” Brooke says.

  “Fine; I’ll keep my six-gun handy, pardner.”

  “Wish I had one,” Willa mutters, her hands still pinched between her knees, her body folded in on itself.

  Philby presses his face to the window; Brooke cranes forward to search the landscape. A shadow flitters across the grassland, and Philby twists to look up at the sky. He sees a jet on approach to landing—and catches the darting black triangle of a bird’s wing.

  “Nothing but a bunch of crows,” Brooke says.

  “Define ‘bunch,’” Philby says, pressing his face against the glass as he tries to see upward. It’s useless. Only pure blue California sky interrupted by a few soft cumulus clouds looks back at him.

  “Yeah,” Austin says. “I see ’em too.”

  “Eyes on the road!” Brooke says, bumping his shoulder with her hand.

  “Shut up.”

  “How many?” Philby unbuckles, leans across Willa and, as she lowers the window, looks outside with her—to see a black bird dive-bombing. Philby can’t get his head inside as fast as Willa; the bird’s beak and talons scratch his forehead.

  “Oh, Philby!” Willa exclaims. “You’re bleeding!”

  “Cripes,” Brooke says, her face pressed to the windshield. “There are tons of them.”

  In fact, there are so many birds overhead, they block out the sun, making the car’s interior dark.

  “Those aren’t crows,” Philby says, mopping his forehead with his sleeve. “They’re ravens.”

  “What’s it matter what they are?” Austin asks.

  “It matters,” Brooke tells him. “Because Maleficent and the Evil Queen have pet ravens.”

  “Disney characters? Give me a break!” Austin says.

  He might as well have signaled the birds. Within seconds, the unkindness of ravens envelops the car like a blanket dropped suddenly over the roof. Outside, it’s a blur of feathers and beaks. Bird poop smears the windshield.

  Willa is pressing the button to close her window—it will only ascend as fast as its electric motor allows. Before the window is all the way up, a head and beak stab through. Willa screams instinctively. Philby pulls her toward him, out of reach of the bug-eyed bird’s menacing beak. He kicks with one foot at the bird while trying to reach the window control, but nothing happens.

  “Ew!” Willa cries, stretching to reach for the window-control button while keeping her head in Philby’s lap. She pushes the control up accidentally and the window squeezes the bird, forcing its black tongue from its beak. Willa quickly reverses the window, but the bird drops and falls to the highway, its neck broken. It is immediately replaced by a dozen more ravens, forcing their heads and beaks in and out of the closing window. As it shuts, the ravens begin to peck the glass. It sounds like machine gun fire.

  Unable to see, Austin slams on the brakes. The kids lurch against their seatbelts and rebound off the seats. The drumming attack on every surface is deafening. Covering their ears, the kids shout at one another simultaneously so that no one can understand anything. It’s chaos. Austin engages the windshield wipers and fires the wiper washer jets, diluting the mess on the windshield and startling the ravens.

  Yet still the thunder grows. It sounds as though several tons of gravel are being dumped on the car. Willa resorts to singing a single note, trying to overcome the sound with her own. Austin leans on the horn, futilely trying to scare off the ravens.

  Philby slips out of his shoulder belt and cranes forward between the front bucket seats, pointing off-road. “Bushes!”

  Austin drops the car into low gear, bouncing off the asphalt, across the hardpack, and into a stand of tall bushes. The screeching of branches against the sides of the car is nearly indistinguishable from the noise of the attacking ravens.

  Finally, the car comes to a stop. Then it’s just the deep cawing of birds, held at bay by the bushes that surround the vehicle. The abnormal dar
k returns as hundreds of ravens swirl overhead and cluster nearby.

  But the kids can hear again. Austin curses. Brooke whispers to him, “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  “What exactly are we into?” he says to her privately. “Look, I admit it, I wanted to impress you. I like you, Brooke. But who are these two? What are they?”

  Outside, the birds fight desperately to reach the car. Their black feathers become streaked with red blood as they flap and claw through the thorny shrubs.

  “They’re not going to give up!” Brooke says. One poor bird strikes her window, leaving behind a red smear as it sinks out of sight.

  “They’re enchanted, under a spell,” Philby says. “They’re not going to quit.”

  “Okay! Time out!” says Austin. “Now I need an explanation.”

  “Later,” Brooke says.

  “Never,” says Philby. “If we get out of this, you’ll just have to forget it happened.”

  “As if! Is this like reality TV or something?”

  The dark inside the car, the relentless efforts of the birds, and the terrible self-inflicted wounds they’re incurring combine to break Willa. She covers her eyes and screams, “Stop it! Stop it!”

  Philby shakes her, but it’s no use. The windows are disgusting—a true horror show.

  “I smell smoke!” Austin shouts.

  The interior of the car falls silent. Willa drops her hands from her face; all the kids sniff at once.

  “You’re right,” Brooke says. “Is the car—”

  “It’s wood smoke,” Philby says. “Not oil.”

  “Not for long,” Austin says. “And, oh, by the way, somebody owes me an explanation!” He looks intensely at Brooke, who purses her lips and squints uncomfortably.

  “The catalytic converter,” Professor Philby says. “There’s your explanation!”

  The fire rises from beneath the car, ignited by underbrush coming into contact with the extreme heat of the vehicle’s emission control device. Austin is quick to back up and drive; as he does, they see that the tall bushes are black from the hundreds of ravens impaled on their thorns. The fire rises, feathers lifting with the smoke. Brooke turns away, averting her eyes as the conflagration consumes all but a handful of the birds.