Kingdom Keepers VII Page 38

  Sighing, Django fixes all four of his feet on the ground, lifts his right front paw, bent at the elbow, and then stretches and lifts his nose; his long tail goes as straight as a sipping straw. He’s imitating a setter—a pointer dog.

  Charlene looks, sees nothing but tiny amounts of dirt escaping the deep hole across the path. Then it occurs to her: lie down at the rat’s level, and look up. The greenery of the tree they face, the one beneath which the rats have been digging, is carefully shaped into topiary like a giant doughnut, its leaves and branches curved into a wide circle with a large hole at the center.

  “Oh, how pretty,” she tells Django, annoyed that he has distracted her for this, but trying not to show it.

  The rat shakes its tiny head back and forth.

  “No?” Charlene studies the tree again. “It is pretty,” she says.

  If the rat shakes his head any harder, he will snap his neck.

  Like a camera focusing, Charlene looks through the hole, allowing the tree to act as a round picture frame. In the middle of the frame she sees a twisting metal sculpture on the top of a spire that reminds her of the image Jess described.

  “Terry!” Charlene calls.

  Maybeck hurries across, wary of showing himself. Charlene points. He sucks in a sharp breath.

  “We won’t know until we check,” Maybeck says, but she can see him nodding.

  “We’re supposed to see, to look from that spire,” Charlene says.

  “You’re going to climb Small World,” he says, doubtfully.

  “I am.”

  * * *

  The idea is for the Keepers and the Dillard to act as a decoy out back while Minnie uses the front stairs to access the street and Walt Disney’s secret door into the Disneyland Fire Department. Once there, she can wait and then move effortlessly to safety.

  Finn checks with Willa and Amanda. “You realize the need for all clear?” The girls nod. “In the face of a tiger attack.” They look troubled, and their nodding slows. “Si will probably go for our eyes,” Finn says.

  “Up our backs and over our heads,” says Willa, “like in the wild. The tiger will go for our Achilles tendons or our necks.”

  “I can stop them,” Amanda says.

  “I hope so!” says Finn. “Without you this would be a suicide mission.”

  “But only once. I won’t have the strength after that.”

  “The Jungle Cruise is behind us,” Finn says.

  “Yeah, and the tigers happen to call that home,” says Willa. “We’ll need a better plan.”

  “The Dillard can help. He should be able to access maps and lead us through the Jungle. Both the Treehouse and Pirates are almost directly behind us. Both were built or were being built when Walt was still around. Even before it opened, Pirates had become his favorite. Where better to hide something than where there’s already buried treasure?”

  “Don’t worry about the tiger,” Violet says, patting Minnie’s shoulder and moving to join the group. “I can be really annoying.”

  “You’ll want to stay close to us until Amanda does her thing,” Finn warns. “Whatever.”

  Violet’s hair obscures so much of her face that it’s a wonder she can see. “If anything were to happen to you…” she says to Minnie, who places her hands on either side of her own round cheeks and shakes her head. Her expression says that Violet’s being silly. “If anything happens, Minnie, Bagheera is just outside on the sidewalk. I’m not a big animal freak, but I’m thinking a panther pretty much scares the tar out of a tiger.”

  Minnie nods and pats Violet on the head.

  “Be safe,” Amanda says to Minnie, who blows her a kiss.

  Violet opens the apartment’s front door. The Keepers watch Minnie go, each reeling from the intoxicating effect of having been in the presence of real Disney royalty.

  Pulling themselves together, they gather at the back door as tightly as they can. Finn plays the role of captain, bringing up the rear. Willa opens the door and they proceed in order: Willa, Violet, Amanda, Finn. They slither across the metal fire escape walkway and over the flat roof, moving toward the stairs.

  “Duck!” Amanda shouts.

  Finn dives and reaches for her ankles, holding on for dear life.

  Amanda pushes, throwing a force field directly at the charging tiger. Shere Khan lifts off his paws and is airborne, as if pulled up into a tornado. The tiger flips head over tail, a tumbling circus cat, and slams into the roof, sliding down, semiconscious.

  Si, a Siamese cat, comes from the side, launching herself at Amanda. Finn, having lost his all clear, floats in midair, held only by his grip on Amanda’s ankles. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the darting cat and warns Amanda at the last second.

  She strikes the cat as if hitting a tennis backhand, diverting Si around and past her. The cat lands on all fours.

  Willa is already down the ladder. Finn lets go, gripping the metal banister, and Amanda follows. Then Finn rolls, throws his feet over, and finds the rungs with his toes.

  Shere Khan is treading with both front paws, his head held low, haunches flexed, preparing to spring. The big cat’s front claws tear loose shingles, rip free entire boards. His wild yellow-and-black eyes are the size of beach balls.

  Finn stops. There’s not time to get lower on the stairs; he’s exposed from the waist up. He closes his eyes, exhales in a steady stream, and searches the resulting blackness for a pinprick of light. As he opens his eyes, Shere Khan sails through the air, snapping his white-toothed jaws shut on Finn’s neck. Finn is eye to eye with the beast; he can see his own face reflected in the curve of the cat’s corneas.

  Failing to gain a purchase on the landing, Shere Khan begins to fall, no man-child caught between his jaws.

  Finn punches the cat with an uppercut to the windpipe as, letting go, he swings one-handed off the ladder. Loosening his hold, he slides like a fireman down the handrail. His panic makes him whole again, and when Si drops like a hat onto his head and sinks his claws into Finn’s eyebrows, Finn cries out. Shaking his head instinctively, Finn bonks the cat against the stairway handrail, once again flinging Si off. Just as he is about to crash onto the bottom stairs, Finn’s own fall is cushioned by Amanda and Willa.

  “Thanks for the warning light,” Finn says to the Dillard.

  “But I did not give you the signal,” the Dillard replies.

  “Never mind,” Finn says. They’ll work on sarcasm later. His mind flashes to the music box from Rahway, New Jersey; if only they’d had time to investigate further. But they didn’t. Finn refocuses, saying, “We need to get through the Jungle Cruise to reach Tarzan’s Treehouse. You’ll lead, so run fast.”

  “I’ll take second, to protect him,” Violet says.

  “Done.”

  They take off at a run. The Dillard actually has to slow down to allow them to catch up.

  “Funny thing,” Finn tells Amanda, the two running alongside one another. “Dillard—the Dillard I knew, I mean—was not exactly an athlete. Slow doesn’t begin to describe him.”

  “I heard that!” the Dillard calls back. His image sparks and sputters, as do those of the others; the jungle interferes with DHI projections. Only Violet remains entirely herself.

  “Just FYI,” she calls back, “you guys are freaky.”

  “Wait till you meet the rest of them,” Amanda says. “Us!” she corrects, and gives Finn a smile. “I still can’t get used to that.”

  “You’re doing fine,” he tells her. “Just fine. It’s us we need to worry about.”

  * * *

  Ever impetuous, Charlene puts her climbing skills to use before consulting Philby or Jess. Maybeck sees it all go down, but is unable to stop her because of a slight distraction. Or not so slight: skeletons—in chains.

  They’re first spotted by Jess, who’s hiding in the trees. Her reaction to an army of bones, some bound by rusty chains, some swinging the links at their sides like whips, is pure terror.

  Where they may have
come from no one knows. For Maybeck, they appear like something out of a zombie movie. There’s no clatter of bone on bone, no creaking or cracking, only the singing of chains and the distinctive rattle and scrape of bony feet on the pavers. The sound is repetitive, like drumming with chopsticks on the edge of a table.

  The skeletons aren’t fast, but they aren’t slow, either. Something about their motion is hypnotic, their approach mesmerizing; it stuns and freezes their prey. Maybeck wills his feet to move—Run!—but they disobey. The chains continue to spin, to blur and purr and chew their way through the warm night air like airplane propellers. Here we go, he thinks.

  But now the rats emerge as fast as a quickly spreading plague, out around Maybeck, up the spindly legs of the skeletons, ascending a pelvis, shinnying up a spinal column, and plunging their muzzles into eye sockets. Down go a few of the walking dead, colliding and tripping, crashing and splintering. When they fall, they come apart like toppled Lego sculptures.

  At last free to think, Maybeck hoists the stone marker and holds it outstretched between his hands like a barbell. Its weight deflects the first spinning chain. The second wraps around the stone, which Maybeck releases, its weight pulling the approaching skeleton off to the side and allowing Maybeck to kick its legs out from under it. Again, the cacophonous percussion of two hundred bones scattering.

  The rats, meanwhile, have put meat on the bones, covering the skeletons, bringing them down with their furry weight. As one falls, another is attacked. The marionette strings are cut, the dancing done. Maybeck dispatches three more before a remaining skeleton lifts one arm high, a signal to the few that remain standing to retreat and withdraw.

  * * *

  Charlene sees the approach of the skeletons and holds on tightly, transfixed by the aerial view of battle, believing in her heart of hearts that the skeletons are meant for her, that by her climbing, she has unleashed a darker spirit that intends to stop her.

  Charged with new determination, she makes her way up the final few feet to the spire’s pointed tip. A golden cone of coiled metal beckons. On a lightning rod ball mounted to the spiral is engraved the all-seeing eye from the hieroglyph.

  “Yes!” Charlene cries.

  She’s impossibly high up, with no rope or net to catch her should she fall. Her fingertips hook a piece of tin fashioned like an Elizabethan collar below the golden spiral. There, inside the coil, standing like a sentry, is a small Mickey Mouse crafted of cast iron, rusted and pockmarked, welded to the metal beneath it. Its tiny mouse hand points decisively into the park, aiming at the carousel.

  Charlene’s heartbeat quickens. She has climbed to a great height, but it’s not the altitude that excites her. She hugs the pointed peak of the spire and scans all of Disneyland, spread out below her like a glistening magical carpet: Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Matterhorn in all its magnificence, Main Street, the white spired roof of Space Mountain, the red rock of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad—all places she has been on an opposite coast, on another quest. In another life.

  Swinging her head this way and that, over her shoulder and around the spire, Charlene absorbs as much of the view as possible. Whether it was put here by Wayne or Walt Disney himself, the miniature Mickey is no simple discovery. Combined with the piece of the Osiris hieroglyph discovered below, it has to mean something. It’s a clue. Quite literally: a pointer, directing the Keepers toward the southwest, a vast section of the park. Too vast.

  The pavement below is littered with the bones of fallen skeleton soldiers, and a swarm of rodents is moving like a stretching amoeba back toward Maybeck’s solitary form. Charlene can’t budge or remove the Mickey, no matter how hard she tries; the other Keepers will have to believe her. Working herself around to a position behind the miniature, she sights down his pointing arm. It is not pointing toward the horizon, the way a conquering general’s arm might be. Instead, it is lowered a few degrees, pointing down toward a large boulder on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Charlene memorizes the location and begins to make her way down.

  This can’t be a coincidence, she tells herself, charged with excitement. But as she descends, a nagging question eats away at her. It was left there, sure. But for whom?

  Charlene’s whole body trembles; she’s suddenly exhausted, and she holds on more tightly. The feeling grows inside her, as if the very earth is shaking. She fights off fear, knowing it will weaken her all the more. She is her own enemy, fighting a battle within to remain all clear. She wonders, as Finn has before her, if the betrayal the Keepers were warned of was internal, if the enemy within has nothing to do with a spy and everything to do with self-control, the ability to overcome and contain fear.

  In a few seconds, her trembling ceases. The descent goes smoothly; she meets up with Maybeck and the others and, escorted by Remy, Django, and their fellow four-legged friends, the group makes for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

  As they’re walking, Philby says, “I’m so glad you could hold on.”

  “You’re a climber, too,” Charlene says. “It wasn’t that hard.”

  “I meant during the tremor. The whole park shook. You didn’t feel it?”

  “I felt it!” Charlene looks over at the spires of Small World, wondering if the purpose of that tremor had been to cause her to fall—to her death.

  THE DILLARD’S DATABASE identifies the locations of three rescue boats on the Jungle Cruise. He leads Finn and the girls to the nearest one and they nearly make it before Shere Khan catches up.

  “It’s no good!” Willa calls out. “Not going to make it.”

  “Yes, we will!” Violet hollers. “I’ll catch you later!”

  As the Dillard leads the group to the left, Violet shifts right and stands her ground.

  Finn looks back in time to see her turn invisible just as the leaping tiger is about to land on her. Shere Khan flies into a patch of prickle bushes and lets out a roar of pain.

  The Dillard is in the small skiff, sitting there like a schoolmarm. Finn unties the boat and pushes off as Amanda and Willa climb in.

  As Shere Khan recovers, Violet tauns him. She takes off at a run, leading him in the opposite direction, and out of sight.

  “The tree house?” Willa says. “Sure, we’re looking for connections to the throne icon in the Osiris hieroglyph. Sure, an Egyptian throne may have been made of wood, and a tree is also made of wood. I heard the Dillard’s percentage stuff, but this kingdom has so many princes and princesses, dozens of characters with thrones. Has the Dillard factored that in? This seems so…lame.”

  The Dillard hears a question and answers. “The percentage chance that a connection exists between—”

  “Pause!” Finn addresses his group. “The Dillard initially put Swiss Family Robinson second on his list. Now it’s called Tarzan’s Treehouse. It’s a big tree that could have ‘grown up around’ a box or container that holds the hidden piece of the Mickey illustration. Look, it has to be an older attraction, right? This tree was here early on. Maybe the people in that photograph were breaking ground for—”

  “No way!” Willa says. “That photo was dated 1957. Right, Amanda?”

  Amanda looks pained but nods.

  Finn bites his tongue, fighting down feelings of stupidity, and says, “Resume.” He’s feeling bad about pausing the Dillard. “What are the current odds of Overtaker presence in the Tarzan attraction?”

  “Oh, really!” says Willa.

  “Should I factor in the previous encounter?”

  “Yes,” Finn says. “And then compare the normal like-lihood to the current likelihood, please.”

  “There is currently an eighty-eight-point-six percent chance of Disney villain presence in the Tarzan tree. During normal hours of operation, that is…zero-point-seven percent. The difference is more than one hundred times greater.”

  Finn addresses Willa. “If the threat’s a hundred times greater than usual, there’s a matching chance of our finding something of value here.”

  “Thrones, Finn. Thron
es.”

  “Tarzan was king of the jungle,” Finn says.

  “Don’t give me that. This didn’t become the Tarzan attraction until long after Walt Disney was gone.”

  “Willa, you can search where you want. I won’t stop you. Amanda, are you good, going with Willa?”

  Again, Amanda looks pained to leave Finn, but again, she nods. “Sure.”

  “We’ll split up. We’re still in pairs.”

  “You’re not. You’re paired with a projection. The Dillard may be smart, but he can’t help you in a battle. You’re basically flying solo.” Willa looks worried.

  “Finn,” Amanda pleads.

  “You two check out the princesses. It’s worth a look. Don’t forget to use the glasses.”

  “Where do we meet?” Amanda sounds desperate.

  “Pirates,” Willa says. “Third on the Dillard’s list.”

  “Is that a question?” asks the Dillard.

  “I definitely need a break from this guy,” Willa says.

  “Pirates, then.” Finn eyes the stairs at the base of the Tarzan tree, feeling the heart inside his partial hologram beat faster, as if trying to convince him that he’s human.

  The girls are off, Amanda looking back at Finn no fewer than four times.

  “Okay, Dillard, we’re looking for the hidden piece of Mickey. It’s inside something, and it could be as a small as a thimble or as large as a trunk. Help me find it, please. Also, listen and look for any sign of active Disney villains and warn me the moment you detect them. Do you understand?”

  The Dillard repeats Finn’s instructions, putting them in formal language that sounds more appropriate to a military intelligence operation.

  “If I come under attack, you will plot the most effective escape route and the best defense, and you’ll stay by my side, advising me. Got it?”

  Again, the Dillard repeats the instructions.

  “You’re good to have around, Dillard,” Finn says.

  “Is that a question?”

  “Never mind.”

  As he starts up the stairs, Finn can’t get Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” out of his head. The song’s a guilty pleasure, one he’d never confess to his friends. He’s put the Dillard behind him—Finn wants to lead, and this reminds him of Wayne in ways he’d rather forget.