Kingdom Keepers(16)

Finn looked back. Four glowing eyes, like cats’ eyes, shone from behind a tree. Charlene and Philby.

“What are you doing with those cars?” Finn asked the captain, stalling. Think!

“You might could say I’m borrowing them, laddie. Or you might could say the Space Ranger Spin is under repair.” He tilted his head and cast an evil eye in Finn’s direction. “I’ve seen you before, Jack Sparrow. Now, where would that be?”

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Finn said.

“He’s one a’ them hosts, Captain,” a smallish man with frog eyes called out. The man’s right arm continually lifted up and down, up and down. This was apparently the motion he made in his role in the attraction, and he couldn’t stop it.

“A host!” the captain declared. “A new ride? Is that what ye’re telling me?”

His pirates mumbled.

“We don’t much care for new rides,” the captain explained in a dry, cold voice. “Don’t much care for them at all.”

“Do I look like a ride?” Finn asked. His voice trembled. “I’m just a boy.”

“You’re my boy now,” the captain declared. “Ain’t he, lads?” His pirates all nodded in chorus. He said to Finn, “Now…be a good boy and lend us a hand.”

“I’d prefer not to,” Finn said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way.” He summoned his courage and turned.

“Ye don’t turn yer back on the captain, youngster! I said halt!”

Finn stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. The captain signaled his crew, and they reacted immediately, like a bunch of well-trained dogs. They fanned out. They were not exactly fast on their mechanical legs and feet, but they were steady and worked well as a team.

One of the pirates climbed into a Space Ranger car. He aimed its toy laser cannon at Finn and fired. A bright red pulse of light shot through the night, narrowly missing Finn. He’d ridden the Space Ranger Spin himself a dozen times or more. He knew there was nothing to fear; he’d put his hands into the laser’s light stream before. Nothing ever happened. The laser cannons were no more dangerous than a flashlight.

Another thin red line of light flashed. Again, it missed.

But then Finn realized the cars were not plugged in, were not attached to any ride, had no power source. So where did the electricity for the cannon come from?

As if to answer him, the next pinpoint of light struck his arm. A red bead flickered on his shirtsleeve. The fabric instantly turned brown, then gray. Then…ouch!

It burned him! Finn leaped out of the way.

“Hey!” he blurted out.

He smelled burning hair. His hair. His skin.

The laser was real.

Another flash. Finn dodged out of the way. He avoided the next few attempts as well, the red beams flying past him like glowing arrows. He danced left and right, his arm stinging.

Now the other pirates circled and closed in on Finn, their knives extended.

If a toy laser can burn, what is a very real-looking knife going to do? Wayne had warned him that he was half hologram, half human. Only now did he realize his human half could hurt.

His wounded arm looked less transparent all of a sudden. He wondered if his fear made him more human than hologram. He pushed against the fear, as if he were trying to shut a heavy door.

A gray-haired pirate with a peg leg thump, thump, thumped his way closer. The circle closed around him. Now Finn could smell the pirates: oily, like an old car, and faintly electrical.

Charlene called out to him from behind the tree.

The captain raised his sword higher, trying to follow that voice. “Reinforcements, mates! Be ye ready!”

Two of the younger pirates closed in on Finn. They walked stiffly and slowly, like six-foot-tall toy soldiers. Finn circled to his right, away from them. He dodged two more attempts from the laser. One of the pirates was hit in the process; the captain raised his hand to stop the laser assault.

The two young pirates, their knives glinting, pressed ever closer.

The captain, with one knee cocked, his foot perched on the lead car, thundered, “Well, now, laddies! Serve him up like a fine filet!”

“Hey, dog breath!” It was Philby. He stepped out from behind the tree.

All six pirates turned toward Philby at once.

With the pirates’ attention briefly diverted, Finn sprang for the nearest Space Ranger car. He grabbed hold of its laser, swiveled and fired. A pulse of red light shot out. Finn was a veteran of Space Ranger Spin. He winged the pirate in the car ahead of him, not ten feet away. The pirate didn’t seem to feel it—he was a machine.

Another pirate charged. Finn shot his knee out, and the thing toppled over, its one good leg moving, still trying to walk.