Kingdom Keepers V (9781423153429) (35 page)

“I
t's him. Chernabog,” Philby said.

There were eight of them in all. The five Keepers, Jess and Amanda, and Storey Ming. They occupied a corner of the Deck 11 concierge lounge, access to the lounge compliments of their luxury staterooms. A warm, inviting space, with a rich, colorful carpet and wood-paneled walls, there were desserts, cheese, and grapes available along the far wall by an espresso maker, fresh juice, and pitchers of ice water.

For the most part they were left alone, the concierge at the desk having left to run some errand shortly after they'd arrived. If they heard the door open, they changed subjects to something mundane and teenlike. Taylor Swift's new romance. The U.S. Olympic soccer team.

“We don't know that for sure,” Willa said. She could hold her own with Philby.

“The Evil Queen mentioned bats,” Philby reminded her. “We know, thanks to Mr. E.'s class, that if you combine a bat's face with the Minotaur you get something freakily similar to Chernabog. And then there's the bar.”

“What bar?” Finn asked.

“The bar Charlie described. The structural support at the top of the crate.”

“It was some bolts!” Maybeck complained.

“It was four bolts on opposite sides of the top of the crate. What do you want to bet they're holding a steel bar in place?”

“Because?” Charlene asked, almost afraid to open her mouth in this group.

“It's easy,” Storey Ming said, drawing the attention of everyone. Especially Philby. Philby's heightened interest drew the scrutiny of Willa. “The patches of stuff covering the holes make the crate dark inside while still supplying air.”

“Exactly,” Philby said.

“If Chernabog's part bat—”

“A Mayan bat god,” Philby said.

“The rod is so he can hang upside down while he sleeps. Dark like a cave.”

A stunned silence swept over the collective.

“It's Chernabog,” Philby said.

“But…why?” Willa said.

“That's what we need to figure out,” Finn said. “It all comes back to the stolen journal.”

“A ritual,” Charlene said.

“And a ceremony,” Willa added.

“We are way in the deep stuff,” Maybeck said. “I'm not talking knee deep, I'm talking neck deep.”

“That's gross,” Amanda said.

“Disgusting,” Charlene agreed. The two exchanged a thoughtful look. Both grinned.

“And you're here because?” Willa asked, turning to Jess and Amanda.

“Wanda Alcott wanted us available. Warned us we might cross over when we went to sleep at night. Jess had this dream—”

“About Charlie getting caught by the Evil Queen and Cruella,” Jess said. “Other stuff too, but I haven't put it together.”

“The link I installed,” Philby said to the others. “I thought Wayne wanted it installed so we could help out at Base. Looks like he wanted to use it as an uplink, going the other direction.”

“We need to return at some point,” Jess said. “Mrs. Nash will check the rooms around six. We need to get some sleep before then.”

It had been a long night, already past one.

“I can return you,” Philby offered.

“We have the autographing tomorrow,” Finn reminded them. “Walt Disney Theatre. It might give us another chance to check out the crate.”

“That sounds risky,” Storey said.

“Not if we make it look like one of us just wandered off in the wrong direction looking for a bathroom.”

“That could work,” Willa agreed.

“Unless Howly and Happy are out for a walk,” Maybeck said.

“Not during the day,” Charlene said.

“I know that,” Maybeck said. “I was making a joke.”

“Ha ha,” Willa said.

“We need to decipher the journal,” Finn said. “And locate the OT server. I'd love—love, love,
love
—to lock fat face in the Syndrome for a couple of days.”

“Like forever,” Maybeck joined in.

“We're talking about Luowski, I take it,” Professor Philby said.

Everyone laughed.

“Have you considered he's more valuable to us as a captive?” Philby said. “If we could find his lair while he's crossed over and be there when he returns…”

“We don't kidnap people,” Willa objected.

“Who said anything about kidnapping? We just play a game of twenty questions with him when he wakes up from the return.”

“With a couple of us holding him down,” Maybeck said, clearly approving of the plan.

“The entire crew has been searching for the stowaways for over a day now,” Storey Ming said. “I don't mean to be a buzzkill, but they know the hiding places on the ship a lot better than any of you—or I.”

“True enough,” Philby said. “But we have technologies they lack.”

“Such as?” she asked.

“Maybe later,” he answered, not fully trusting her.

“Not yet,” Finn told her, using the same phrase she'd used on him.

Amanda caught the exchange between the two and studied them disapprovingly.

“How many days at sea?” she asked.

“Two,” Philby answered. “Two sea days and then Aruba.”

“They could have brought Chernabog on at any of the ports,” Amanda said, “so why now?”

She silenced them once again.

A sleepy-eyed guest entered wearing a robe and slippers. He poured himself a glass of milk from a half fridge, drank it down, and left. He gave no indication he'd seen eight kids in the corner. The door thumped shut.

“Why indeed?” Willa said.

“They waited until Castaway,” Maybeck said, “because the Canaveral port is probably too well managed. I'll bet someone knows exactly what and who gets on the ship. Security especially.”

“Agreed,” said Philby.

“Castaway offers a way around that,” Maybeck said. “It's different than Aruba, the canal, Costa Rica—any of the other stops.”

“But why bring him aboard at all?” Amanda asked.

“It's got to have something to do with what's in the journal,” Finn said.

“You're going around in circles,” Storey Ming said.

“It's late,” Charlene said. “We need sleep. We need to keep our heads clear.”

“We're two days in. Thirteen to go,” Willa said.

“Just hearing that makes me tired,” Philby said.

“It gets worse,” Storey said, winning their attention. “Not all of you attended the Beach Blanket Barbecue opening. I don't know for sure what kind of contract you have with the line—if any—but if that were other Cast Members, there would be discipline. Privileges taken away. Certain areas set off limits. I'm not saying that's going to happen to you, but I'd kind of be surprised if it didn't.”

“Oh, perfect,” Maybeck said. “That's all we need!”

“Hey,” Storey said, “I don't make up the rules. I'm just warning you something like that might happen.”

“Can I share something?” Philby asked. “When I was monitoring the security camera recordings I just happened to take a peek at the daily log—”

“Just happened, I'll bet,” said Maybeck.

“The last entry…second to last, if you count the alert I caused to get the guy out of there…this was at ten twenty-two, so after the all-aboard and once we were already sailing…it read: ‘VQ sighting.' The note in the comments box read something about checking with shipboard entertainment that VQ was ‘authorized.'”

“Authorized?” Storey questioned.

“Yes. That specific word. Do you know what it means?”

“Authorized?” she repeated. She whistled. Without thinking, they all leaned a little closer to her. “Just after we sailed from Canaveral we had a freak shipboard occurrence. A double Mickey sighting.” She went on to explain the term and the crew's failure to turn up the imposter mouse. “Asking Entertainment if a character is authorized means checking to make sure the character belongs on the ship. Because you guys are on here, all sorts of extra characters have been added, including Maleficent, crash-test dummies, court jesters…all your so-called enemies.”

“How can you be sure it's a character?” Philby said.

“For one thing, because he's checking if it's authorized. That's the only thing that makes sense if he's calling Entertainment. And of course the initials themselves. ‘Captain M.' ‘MM' for Minnie, ‘C and D' for Chip and Dale—a ton of the character names are abbreviated by Cast Members. Some are referred to by their initials. Like JS for Jack Sparrow.”

“But VQ?” Charlene asked. “Who's that?”

It wasn't Storey who answered; it was Philby.

“They've abbreviated her nickname,” he said.
“Voodoo
Queen.”

“Tia Dalma's on board the ship,” Finn said. “And I'm guessing she's unauthorized.”

* * *

“So please join me in welcoming Disney's very own Disney Hosts Interactive!” The ship's director of entertainment, Christian, dressed in his crisp dress whites, gestured across the Walt Disney Theatre's stage. He had made a big deal in his warmup about the cutting-edge technology represented by the DHIs, about the company's effort to get them into every park, and how excited they were to now introduce them to the cruise line. But in the back of Finn's mind he couldn't help reliving his conversation with Storey Ming, his sense that the company might already be on the verge of retiring the original DHIs in favor of a second generation. He wondered if that decision had anything to do with the fame and lore that now surrounded him and the others, with the stories and rumors of their battles to save the parks. Had they grown too big too fast, overshadowing the traditional Disney characters? Did the company hope to return the Disney Hosts to just that, and not have to deal with the public's appetite for controversial stories of witches and villains attempting to overthrow the parks?

All of this tempered his enjoyment of the moment. A thousand people were standing and applauding. Cheering and screaming. The kids waved from the stage. It felt in many ways like the best, most lavish welcome the five kids had ever received. But they were no longer young middle schoolers, and Finn sensed this wasn't just an introduction—it was a retirement party. Disney had plans no one in the audience understood.

“Thank you!” Finn said, wearing a wireless microphone. He spoke the script he'd been asked to memorize. It was short and sweet, a message of harmony and magic and enthusiasm. He told them they'd be staying to autograph cruise posters and announced that their DHI holograms would be on deck that evening for tours and photographs. The crowd went wild.

A short video celebrating the DHIs ran on three screens simultaneously—a large central screen onstage and two displays on either side. It was part tribute, part promotional piece. Finn noticed that there was little to no mention of them personally; instead the video focused on the concept of in-park guides and personal hosts. If anything, taken in a certain light, it seemed to be priming the audience for a new set of hosts. He wondered if anyone in the standing-room-only crowd caught on to this subtle message.

When a fishing net fell from the stage rafters, covering the five waving kids, and Maleficent appeared stage left, her green face enormous on the three screens, the crowd went wild. A team of pirates converged on the stage, contained the net, and pushed the trapped kids back several feet; then the stage dropped out from under them, a hydraulic lift descending. The cheers of the crowd grew even louder.

“Behold the New Order,” Maleficent said in her eerily calm and grating voice. “The dawning of a new age.” Another huge cheer from the adoring crowd. “Enough of all this prince-and-princess spun-sugar nonsense. It's time for the Grimm in the fairy tales to express itself. The woods are dark, my dears. The beasts within them will eat you for supper, not sing you a song. Wake up and smell the roses.”

The last thing Finn saw of the auditorium was the fanatic crowd looking up to see thousands of falling red roses released from high overhead. The attendees reached up to welcome the flowers, apparently not thinking through that the stems of roses carried thorns, and thorns could scratch. As the hydraulic lift removed him and the others from the stage, Finn heard the cheers turns to shrieks and cries. Then the world went dark as they were hauled off the platform, which quickly returned to seal the stage's trapdoor shut, removing all sound and light.

“
All clear
,” Philby said the moment they were pulled as a netted knot from the platform. Perhaps only he understood the seriousness of the situation—or maybe he was just bragging.

If the Overtakers had the nerve to capture the Keepers in broad daylight in front of an audience while announcing a New Order, there would be only one intended outcome.

Death.

The pirates drove their swords through the net and into the kids without warning. No tear-jerking speech from Maleficent, no end-of-the-movie apology or dramatic summary. Just swords into their chests.