Kingdom Keepers IV(73)

Charlene looked back at Finn through the gloom, her face a mask of worry and concern.

Finn suddenly felt horribly alone.

* * *

Fireworks exploded over the lake.

When Maybeck created a diversion, he did it Maybeck-style: big time. He knocked over a tall urn containing tiki torches. The resulting cacophony was like a stampede of wild horses, the chaos compounded by Maybeck’s intentional fumbling as he tried to rectify the situation. He kicked the torches around in a storm of rattling bamboo, and set the urn rolling toward the checkout desk. The two Cast Members remaining in the store hurried over to help.

Willa, standing alongside a straw basket containing a very real-looking cobra that flicked its tongue at her, grabbed the weaving spindle from the loom on display and pulled hard to break the yarn. But the display was deceptive. The yarn was not really yarn but some kind of unbreakable nylon string. It wasn’t going to break no matter how hard she pulled. So, with the Cast Members laboring to help Maybeck with the spilled tiki torches, Willa began unwrapping the string from the spindle as fast as she could.

Maybeck glanced in Willa’s direction several times, clearly annoyed and frustrated by her taking so much time. Finally, she reached the end of the string and the spindle came loose. She stuffed it into her pocket and nodded slightly when she caught Maybeck looking.

Together with the Cast Members, Maybeck collected the torches and stood them back up in the urn and the urn was moved back into place. Maybeck apologized profusely and slipped out one side of the store as Willa left opposite him. She turned left, toward the brightly exploding sky and the mobs of people watching the spectacle.

A Security guard on a Segway was headed right for her. Then she spotted a second Segway on Maybeck’s side. Willa turned around and walked in the other direction, deeper into Morocco. The stolen spindle felt like it weighed a hundred pounds in her pocket. She thought about tossing it. But if the Security guy was watching her, he’d see.

She glanced over her shoulder. The Security guy had stopped at the store.

She faced forward and found herself looking into the eyes of an old man—a street beggar. There was at once something sad about this poor man, and yet something else vaguely familiar. She stopped abruptly, both afraid and intrigued. Maybeck appeared behind the old man, coming around the far corner. Perhaps the old guy caught the shift in her vision, or maybe he had eyes in the back of his head, but he knew someone was there. He backed up, forming a triangle with them.

“Should I call the authorities?” he asked in a creaky old voice. “Do you think they might be interested in a missing spindle?”

“But how—?” Willa’s breath caught.

Maybeck stopped. He and Willa exchanged a look of despair.

“Go on your way, old man,” Maybeck said.

“Old man? Do you think so?” As he laughed, the silk veil that hung across his chin billowed like a sail. He paused a moment, looking between them, making sure he had their attention. “I…want…your…magic. I will spare your lives if you give it to me now.”

Willa felt a shortness of breath. There was something about the way he’d said “magic” that cut to her core. She’d never considered herself as possessing any magic, and yet here was this weird old man not only claiming that, but wanting her to hand it over. It was like someone trying to rob you of something you didn’t know you possessed.

“Wait a second! Who are you?” Maybeck stepped back and indicated for Willa to do the same.

“Think you can outrun me, do you? That would be a terrible mistake to make.”

“I can outrun you on one leg, old man,” said Maybeck.

The silk veil dropped, revealing a pointed jaw. The old man’s body stretched and grew taller.

Willa understood why his jaundiced eyes had seemed so familiar. The person who stood before them was not an old man at all. It was Jafar.

Willa’s gasp echoed off the walls.

“Lest you forget what I’m capable of…” Jafar said, and immediately transformed into a cobra—the clothes falling in a pile on the cobblestone street at his feet. The cobra lifted its head and its neck flared.

Maybeck muttered, “Willa, I don’t do snakes.”

No wonder the cobra in the store had looked so real, she realized. “Don’t…move!”

“Not planning on it,” Maybeck said.

The cobra aimed first at Willa, then at Maybeck.

“One leg, huh?” she said.

“Very funny. What now?”

Willa addressed the cobra. “We are willing to listen to your proposal.”

The snake moved with insane swiftness into the leg of the fallen pants, and suddenly Jafar stood before them once more.