Disney in Shadow (25 page)

“It’s a combination of an
F
for Fantasmic! and a cross for the sword,” Finn said. He now knew the purpose of the sword and where he would use it.

But in his chest was an empty hole where his heart should have been.

Wayne was gone.

* * *

As the Norwegian stepped into the empty elevator, Charlene was hovering directly over him, each limb extended between the walls to hold her there. She looked like a four-legged starfish.

Just as he raised his head to look up, she let go and dropped, catching his shoulders from the back and using the momentum of her fall to pull him over backward. They went together, crushing the trolls and knocking them down like bowling pins. She released him just before hitting the floor so that she could land on her feet. The Norwegian hit the floor hard. The elevator alarm went off as the doors tried to shut but couldn’t. Philby must have overridden the safety feature, because suddenly the doors slid shut, catching and pinning the Norwegian’s legs. He tried to free himself, kicking out, but the doors held him. At the same time the elevator began to climb, lifting the Norwegian and hanging him upside down. The elevator stopped four feet off the floor, so that his shoulders were touching the carpet, and the elevator held his legs.

Charlene spotted a security camera in the corner and she threw a thumbs-up toward it. As the trolls attempted to recover, she took off out the front door but quickly skidded to a stop.

Two Foo lions—that should have been stone lions from China, but seemed not to be made of stone at all, but from flesh and blood that only
looked
like stone—blocked the path in front of her. The lion on the left cocked its head toward her—it held a lion cub with its left front paw. The lion to the right growled.

Charlene fought to catch her breath, terror rippling through her.

“Good kitties,” she said.

* * *

Maybeck held his phone to his ear. “It’s a trap,” he told Finn. “There are lions at the front door.”

“Lions?”

“Gigabyte’s at the back.” He spoke into the phone—“Wayne?”—and then listened. “They haven’t seen him leave.” He paused. “We were set up, man. This is a trap.”

“Is not!” Finn said, trying to make sense of it all. “Stop thinking like that!” But the truth was: he was thinking about the possible traitor as much as anyone. He and Maybeck had spent, at most, thirty to forty seconds coming down the ladder. Somehow the Overtakers had managed to move Wayne, an old guy who didn’t move that fast, in that short time.

“They should get back to Nemo ASAP,” Finn said. “No use in all of us getting caught.”

“No way anyone’s catching me,” Maybeck said, though his voice lacked his usual confidence.

Only then did an unwanted thought surface in Finn’s mind. The kind of thought that on one hand made little sense, but on the other hand could not be easily dismissed. Suddenly Finn feared that the Overtakers knew that the Kingdom Keepers were unable to activate the Return—that the fob was missing. What if the Overtakers had somehow determined the Keepers’ vulnerable status and were now set to exploit it? As long as that fob remained in the Lost and Found there was no way out for the Keepers. They were easy prey, in danger of attack and capture. Maleficent must have been licking her chops. Whether by accident or design, the Keepers had made themselves easy targets.

Maybeck took out his phone to relay the order to return to the Nemo lounge as Finn looked on, but he speed-dialed without thinking, and had no idea who he had called. Whomever he was speaking to, Amanda, Willa, or Jess—Finn guessed it was Willa—obviously tried to argue, but Maybeck shut her up. “Just do it!” he shouted into the phone before disconnecting the call. “Sometimes I hate girls,” he said to Finn. “All the talking….”

I would bet they don’t exactly love us either,
Finn was about to say, but he kept the thought to himself.

“Easy!” Maybeck pulled Finn against the wall. Through the lounge windows that looked out onto the pavilion’s dark lower level, lit only by the dim glow of exit signs, the boys could see two jesters and a crash-test dummy. They appeared to be searching the various scenes and attractions.

The crash-test dummy turned and raised its head toward the lounge. It lifted its robotic arm and pointed.

“Wayne must still be in the building.”

“Forget about him, would you?” Maybeck said. “Right now, we’ve got to get out of here. And we’ve got to make sure Charlene and Philby make it too.”

He pushed the phone’s direct-connect button. “Philby?”

“Here.”

“We’ve got—”

“Trouble. I know. I’m watching everyone. I heard Willa just now. Charlene’s at the front door, pinned there by the lions. Willa’s right: the snake’s at the back exit. That dummy—there are two of them, actually—looks like he’s headed for the stairs. I cut the lights. I don’t know what else I can do.”

“Direct us?” Finn asked, leaning toward Maybeck’s phone. “Can you get us out of here?”

“There are a lot of cameras, to be sure. But it’s not like I can see everywhere.”

“How many exits are there?” Finn asked.

“Twelve,” came Philby’s answer immediately.

“And they only have two blocked?” Maybeck said. “So what’s the big deal?”

“The pavilion is closed. Remember?” Philby said. “The other exits are locked—not electronically, but with actual keys. Front and back are the only ways out. The sunroom windows are locked as well. That stopped Charlene.”

“Roach motel,” Maybeck said.

Finn knew he was right: the Overtakers had let them in, but were now blocking their way out. The situation had every appearance of having been a trap from the start.

“Did you see where they took Wayne?” Finn asked Philby. Maybeck grimaced; he didn’t want Finn hung up on rescuing the old man.

“Never saw him,” Philby reported. “Not in any of the cameras.”

“Then he’s probably still on this floor somewhere,” Finn said to Maybeck. “We can find him and get him.”

“Leave it alone, Whitman. He was bait. That’s all. We need to get out of here.” To the phone he said, “Any ideas, genius?”

“Yeah, but you won’t like it,” Philby replied.

“How do you know?” Maybeck barked into the phone. “Let’s hear it.”

“Because it involves heights.”

Maybeck’s shoulders slumped. To Finn he said, “How did I know he was going to say that?”

Philby told them his plan.

C
HARLENE HAD MONITORED
the direct-connect call between Maybeck and Philby. She cut in.

“Philby, I could use a little help here,” she said. “The door is locked behind me.”

The stone lions were advancing one heavy step at a time, making the path shake.

With each step, Charlene had backed up until her spine was pressed against the pavilion’s front-door glass. The four trolls had collected on the other side of the door but obviously had no intention of becoming involved with the lions, even if, theoretically, they were on the same team.

“Philby?” she repeated.

Charlene considered running for it. Being made of stone, the lions were moving sluggishly. But maybe their slow movement was nothing more than them stalking her. She had three cats and loved to watch them stalk their toys, or a lizard in the backyard, or a seagull. She loved the controlled complexity of the hunt, the cats’ unwavering focus and fierce concentration. She saw that same look now in the gray stone eyes of the lions. She was willing to bet that they could move very fast if need be, and had no desire to test her theory.

“Okay,” Philby said after an exasperatingly long pause. “I’ve got it. My theory is—”

“Lose the theory,” she said.

The lions were less than fifteen feet away and moving steadily toward her.

“Now would be a good time to actually
do something
,” she added. “As in…right now. This very second.”

Right on cue, the lawn sprinklers erupted, spewing cold water. There were spray nozzles edging the entry path, as well as circular sprinklers out in the lawn. Thankfully, none of them was perfectly set, meaning that all the planters, the grass, and the entry path were suddenly wet and getting wetter.

The lions moved away from the edges of the path and bumped into each other, frantic to avoid the spray. Cats hate water!

Charlene vaulted over the green metal fence and took off running, keeping herself in the thick of the spray. She heard a collision as one of the lions attempted to charge her but struck the fencing, denting it. It whined as it was hit by the water.

She ran in a zigzag pattern in case one of the cats had dared to pursue her, but glanced back and saw with relief that they had not. Together they had moved to the one place the water didn’t reach—the front doors—conveniently trapping the ugly trolls on the other side.

Soaking wet, Charlene vaulted the metal fence twenty yards further on, pulled out her phone, and thanked Philby, telling him she’d meet him at the rendezvous.

“And oh, BTW,” she said, “I’d avoid the front door if I were you.”

* * *

Finn pulled the grille off the air conditioning duct. “I hate small spaces,” he said.

“Get over it.”

“I’ve seen this in movies, but I always thought it was fake.”

“If you’re not going in there, I am,” said Maybeck. He squeezed himself through the small rectangular vent opening, aiming to the right. “It’s tight,” he said, his voice now muted, “but I can see the other vent up ahead.”

Finn crawled in behind him, wishing his edgy nerves would have allowed him to fully cross over and not need to seek a human way out of the pavilion. It would have been so much easier to just walk through the second story wall and find a place to jump down.

But the truth was, Maybeck needed him; even if Finn had been able to all-clear, he couldn’t leave Maybeck alone. Finn struggled to pull himself through the horizontal airshaft. The ducting ringed the pavilion’s interior with vents on both sides, providing air conditioning to both the pavilion’s showcase area and the public and private rooms on the second floor that surrounded it.

“I’m going to suffocate,” Finn complained.

“Shut up,” Maybeck called back to him harshly. “I can see those clowns,” he added, meaning the jesters.

“There’s a ladder,” Maybeck said a moment later, his eyes on the vent. “Some kind of work going on. Philby’s right: it might work.”

It had to work, Finn felt like pointing out. Once they popped out of the ventilation system through one of the vents, the jesters and crash-test dummies—and anyone else down there in the showcase—would see them. At that moment the chase would become a footrace. Only their unexpected route might save Maybeck and Finn, and only then if they could really move fast once they left the safety of the duct.

“We have to wait,” Finn said.

“I’m aware of that.”

“So be patient.”

“You be patient, if you want to. I don’t exactly feel so patient.”

“He’ll make it.”

“Yeah. Okay. But if he doesn’t, maybe we’ve wasted our chance of getting out of here. And what if that’s the plan?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Isn’t it a little too convenient that we and Charlene were attacked and Philby wasn’t? He turned off the lights. Why didn’t they go looking to turn them back on?”

“How do we know that they didn’t?”

“I’m just saying.”

“You’re accusing him.”

“Am not.”

“You are too. Listen, Maybeck,” Finn whispered while lying on his stomach. “We can’t do this to each other. We just can’t. Okay?”

Maybeck was silent.

“He’s going to show up. We don’t have to expect the worst in each other.”

“Excuse me. I left my violin at home,” Maybeck said.

Another three minutes passed. Even to Finn it felt more like an hour.

“How long do we just wait here?” Maybeck asked. “At some point they’re going to come looking for us, and that vent grille we removed is out there sitting on the floor, and it’s not like you’ll be turning around and pulling it back into place. I say we go for it. If Philby makes it, he makes it.”

“Call him.”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t get my phone out of my pocket. You can’t either! That’s ridiculous.” He waited about two seconds. “We’ve got to go without him.”

“We can’t!”

“There’s no choice. I’ll tell you what: it has been too long. I’m going. If you want to stay, then stay.”

“It’s going to take two of us,” Finn said. “He said it was going to take two people. If we don’t wait for him, there’s no one to help him.”

“Like I said: you can wait. But I’m out of here.”

Maybeck popped the grille free of the vent and pulled it back inside. “So far, so good,” he whispered back at Finn. “I don’t think anyone saw that.”

Finn desperately wanted to wait for Philby, but the small confines of the ventilation shaft were making him nauseated. He’d broken out in a sweat. His hands were shaking. He had to get out, Philby or no Philby.

“Go!” Finn said.

Maybeck squeezed out of the open grille, and onto the maintenance scaffolding Philby had spotted behind Cranium Command. Finn couldn’t move fast enough: he crawled ahead, pulled himself through the vent, and was helped to his feet by Maybeck.

“Check it out,” Maybeck said softly.

The pavilion, lit only by ambient light coming through the sand-dollar skylights in the roof, was enormous, forty or fifty yards across, its floor filled with colorful marquees announcing attractions, kiosks, red and blue street lamps, and lush green garden beds. At its center was a large carousel. Finn and Maybeck were level with the carousel’s roof, and this was their destination.

Finn didn’t immediately spot the jesters or crash-test dummies, wondering if Philby had somehow distracted them.

Where is he?
Finn wondered, glancing toward the open vent and wishing Philby would arrive in time.

“I’m going for it,” Maybeck said. He bent to pick up one end of a narrow aluminum plank from the scaffolding. Finn pitched in, grabbing the opposite end. Together they fed the long, slender piece of metal out toward the tall stepladder, attempting to build a bridge between them and the carousel. On the third try, they managed to land the end of the plank across a step in the ladder. Maybeck tested it and it held his weight. It aimed slightly uphill.

“We’ll need another from there,” he said, removing a second plank from the scaffolding. Together they placed this plank atop the first. Maybeck drew a deep breath and walked across, his arms out at his sides for balance. Finn stood on the planks at the near end to steady them and caught himself holding his breath. Maybeck was anything but steady. He wobbled and dipped and leaned, and several times appeared to be going over the side but managed somehow to reach the stepladder. He grabbed hold of it like a drowning man to a raft, and looked back at Finn as if to say, Whoa.

Maybeck fed the second plank out toward the carousel’s canopy, extending the bridge. He crossed to the carousel and waved Finn forward.

Finn had excellent balance. He crossed easily, being careful to take it slowly, and reached the stepladder without incident.

“Three o’clock!” Maybeck called out.

Finn looked down to see the two jesters running toward him. His eye measured the distance to the carousel as his brain calculated the time required to reach it. Maybeck held the end of the plank.

“Come on!” Maybeck shouted.

Finn stepped out onto the wobbly plank. Two steps toward the carousel the first jester hit the stepladder, trying to tip it over. But the two planks complicated his efforts. The ladder rocked, but did not fall.

Finn, however, did.

He slipped and banged down onto the plank, now halfway between the ladder and carousel.

The second jester arrived and immediately jumped onto the stepladder and climbed with an unnerving confidence: he, too, rocked the ladder side to side, trying to dump Finn.

Maybeck reached out a hand toward Finn, whose knee slid off the plank, dumping him to the right. He stretched out a hand for Maybeck, but their fingers only danced around, unable to touch.

The climbing jester lunged heavily to the left. The stepladder tipped and Finn felt it reach the point of no return: it was going over. He scrambled forward, grabbed Maybeck’s hand, and felt the plank and the whole contraption go down. Maybeck swung Finn strongly like a pendulum. Finn hooked the carousel canopy—metal, not fabric as it appeared—with his knee and, with Maybeck’s help, rolled up and onto it.

The ladder and bridge collapsed with a crash. The boys watched as the jester jumped away from it at the last second, landing effortlessly on his feet.

And there was Philby on the scaffolding. He’d come through the air vent but was now stranded by the fall of the bridge.

Finn saw him, looking for some way to get him over to the carousel.

“Go!” Philby shouted.

“No way!” Finn said.

The silent jesters hopped and ran around frantically. Then one disappeared beneath Finn, who realized with dread that the thing was climbing toward them.

“Go!” Philby repeated.

“We go together,” Maybeck said. “Or it won’t work.”

Finn looked up. Overhead was a large mobile of metal arms and colorful shapes. Above the mobile was a projection room—a booth with lights and projector lenses aimed out of it. Philby’s plan had been to evacuate the pavilion through the small projection room. But now Philby was stuck on the other side—a world away.

“The arms of the mobile are balanced,” Maybeck said. “We have to do this together or we can’t do it at all.”

* * *

Finn saw he was right. If he tried grabbing onto the end of any one of the sculpture’s arms, the arm would simply tilt down to meet him. But if both boys took hold of opposite arms they could balance the structure, keeping it level. With three of them—including Philby—they could include one boy to hold on at the fulcrum in the center of the arc. But if Philby were left to follow, even if he reached the carousel, he wouldn’t be able to climb the mobile alone.

“I’m not going without him,” Finn said.

“Are you
kidding
me?” Maybeck said. “He’s a freaking genius! He’ll think of something.”

“We go together,” Finn said.

“In case you missed it, the joker and his buddy are pretty much planning a different ending.”

Finn strained to figure this out. Philby wasn’t the only one capable of thinking. And there it was, right in front of his eyes.

“The wire!” Finn shouted, across the void.

Connecting the top of the carousel to both sides of the pavilion was a wire that had been strung to hang lights. It looked thick and strong enough to bear a person’s weight.

“You’ll have to tightrope!” Finn called to Philby.

“But I can’t tightrope!”

“You’re a DHI,” Finn called back. “You weigh less than half what you normally do. Maybe less than that. You can do this. Push for all-clear. The lighter you are, the easier it’ll be.”

Two crash-test dummies marched into the space. The jester Finn could see picked up the tall stepladder and dragged it toward the carousel. This was not good.

“You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to hurry,” Finn shouted.

“Grab that flag for balance,” Maybeck said, suddenly into the idea.

Philby reached the end of the scaffold, removed a flag from the wall, and climbed up to the wire. He tore the flag off the short pole and held the pole in both hands at waist level. He put one foot onto the wire and shot Finn a look of pure terror.

“No sweat,” Finn said.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Close your eyes. Be as calm as you can be.”

Philby shut his eyes and took a step out onto the wire. He fluttered back and forth, then found his balance and took another step, and another.

“Wish I had a camera,” Maybeck said.

The stepladder was pushed up against the edge of the carousel awning.

“Hold me,” Maybeck said, going down on his knees.

Finn grabbed Maybeck’s ankles as Maybeck lay down and stretched to reach the edge of the canopy and the top of the ladder just beyond.

“Lower!” he called back to Finn.

Finn leaned forward, clutching Maybeck’s ankles. If he let go, Maybeck would fall to the floor.

Maybeck’s outstretched hand reached the top of the ladder just as the jester’s hand appeared. Maybeck made a fist and smashed down onto the jester’s fingers, then took hold of the ladder’s top step and shoved.

The ladder went over, taking the jester with it.

Finn pulled hard and Maybeck scrambled back up the metal canopy.