Kingdom Keepers III(104)
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.