Kingdom Keepers III(115)

And then she disappeared.

Vanished.

Gone.

Amanda took Finn’s arm again, but her face was filled with exhilaration, not the terror and dread he felt.

“DHI shadow,” she said softly.

The terraced audience seating of Fantasmic!’s outdoor amphitheater sloped down a hundred feet or more toward the artificial lake in front of the stage. The back of the stage rose to the same height as the highest level of the audience area. Charlene had figured out that if she ran down to the lowest level—the stage-door entrance—she would be in a projection shadow.

“See?” Charlene said, causing Finn to jump. She was standing a few feet behind them. “I cut around and came back through the landscaping. The projection line is just about dead even with the door. It runs about a quarter of the way around that far side. I found the other edge. But there’s a nice solid shadow, thirty or forty feet or more.”

“That was some kind of risk to take,” Finn said.

“Would you have said that if Philby had been the one to discover it?” She waited for his answer, but he wasn’t going to encourage her. “I think you need to open your mind, Finn Whitman. It took some calculation, I admit it, but it wasn’t a total guess. There’s never been any voiceover work, never any green-screen work, never even any discussion of our taking part in Fantasmic! Why?”

“Because our DHIs don’t reach over here,” he answered.

“Or there’s enough interference to make it a hassle. And they’re not about to install one of those projectors for a single attraction. Not when they cost as much as they do.”

Finn had had all this same information at his disposal. Why had she figured it out while he had not?

“I can get you in there,” she said. “I can climb up there, find some rope—there’s got to be a ton of rope backstage, or strapping, or something, and get you both up there. Amanda’s new at this, so maybe she can’t touch stuff when she’s invisible, but you and I can haul her up. Once we’re in, we’re in. No one’s going to question our being there. I’ve counted twenty-five people so far.”

Finn realized that had been part of what Charlene had been doing earlier: counting Cast Members.

“There will be costumes somewhere. Stuff like that. We can make this work. We can get you onto the stage before Maleficent’s scene.”

Finn reminded her, “When you go to sleep, things in your pockets or a wristwatch or necklace cross over with you. Things held in your hands do not—maybe because as you fell asleep you let go. What if when I go down there into projection shadow, the sword doesn’t come with me?”

“Good point. So you’ll have to tie it to the rope. We’ll haul it up after you two have made it. That way it won’t give you away.” She pointed. “We’ll go this way, through the woods. Once we disappear, that’s it. We’re doing this blind. I’ll do my best, but I won’t know where you are, I won’t be able to see you, and you won’t be able to see me, so here’s the code: one tug on the rope means go. Three means stop.”

“What about two tugs?” Amanda asked.

Finn answered, “Two means nothing. We won’t use two tugs, just to make sure there’s no confusion.”

“You guys have done this before,” Amanda said in a voice of resignation.

“Just a little bit,” said Charlene, motioning for them both to follow.





42


THE PLAN WAS A SIMPLE ONE: to get Finn into position prior to Maleficent’s appearance in the show. Assuming the Overtaker Maleficent had taken the place of the Cast Member playing her—in order to “hide out in the open”—and that Chernabog had done the same thing as well, Maleficent’s appearance in Fantasmic! would be the moment for Finn to attack her with the sword.

Charlene had an equally difficult assignment: she was to try to figure out a way to trap Chernabog, hopefully preventing his becoming a dragon, as he did at the end of the show. The way it played out, the dragon was eventually subdued by water, which worked nicely for theater; but if the Overtakers realized they were under attack, they weren’t about to let some water stop them. The dragon would battle back with everything he had, including fire breathing. Finn didn’t want to get up close and personal with that.

The bigger issue facing Finn, Amanda, and Charlene at the moment was how big a grip the Overtakers had on the show. Was it just Chernabog and Maleficent, or were others involved? And if so: characters in the show, or stagehands, or both?

“Remember,” Finn said to Amanda, as they stared at an empty wall where they believed an invisible Charlene was climbing, “once we’re in shadow, you won’t be visible, and maybe we shouldn’t speak either. Don’t want someone hearing a ghost.”