“Yes,” she said. “Sure am.”
“If you climb up there,” Amanda asked, pointing into the staging overhead, “would you be able to jump or get down really fast somehow?”
“I could probably work something out. Why?”
“You see that curtain?” she said.
Charlene followed her gaze. She did see the massive curtain, and she intuited what Amanda had in mind just by looking.
“It just might work,” Charlene said.
“What might work?” Jess said. “Did I miss something?”
“I’m with Jess,” Maybeck hissed.
Charlene crossed to the wall and scampered up the rigging like a sailor up a mast. She moved from one stage rope to another, shinnied up a pipe, swung from a cable, and arrived quickly to the support bar that held the stage curtain.
“Terry,” Amanda said, “you’re going to need to back up about ten more feet.”
“I don’t love that idea.”
“Noted,” said Charlene from the rafters.
Maybeck stepped back and the two hyenas, Howly and Happy, scooted forward on their behinds, still wary of the giant lion mask. A few more feet of retreat, and the hyenas advanced an equal distance.
“Nearly there,” Amanda said. “Charlene?”
“Ready.”
“Are you sure you can get down fast enough?”
“Five more feet,” Charlene said from up above. “When I reach three, the mask needs to be on the floor facing them. You don’t want to spook them—”
“You think?”
“—so just put it down and back up slowly. Got it?”
“And then?” Jess asked.
“And then we run past the stairway and into the corridor and we get the heck out of here,” Amanda said. “You and Maybeck first. I’m waiting for Charlene.”
“No need to do that,” Charlene complained.
“Not open for discussion,” Amanda said, asserting herself.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Charlene said. “Everybody ready?”
They each acknowledged.
“Then here we go. One…”
Maybeck began lowering the mask. As he did, the two wild-eyed hyenas fixed on him like heat-seeking missiles.
“Two…”
The large mask touched the stage floor. Maybeck backed up first one step, then two. The hyenas inched forward, but could not bring themselves to challenge Scar.
“Three!”
Maybeck turned and ran as the whine of rope paying out joined the release of the curtain, the giant wall of fabric falling as a wave of ruby-colored smoke and covering the hyenas like a magician’s handkerchief.
Charlene came down a nearby rope like a spider laying its thread, joined Amanda an instant later, and the two held hands as they ran from the stage, quick on the heels of their friends.
“It’s him. Chernabog,” Philby said.
There were eight of them in all. The five Keepers, Jess and Amanda, and Storey Ming. They occupied a corner of the Deck 11 concierge lounge, access to the lounge compliments of their luxury staterooms. A warm, inviting space, with a rich, colorful carpet and wood-paneled walls, there were desserts, cheese, and grapes available along the far wall by an espresso maker, fresh juice, and pitchers of ice water.
For the most part they were left alone, the concierge at the desk having left to run some errand shortly after they’d arrived. If they heard the door open, they changed subjects to something mundane and teenlike. Taylor Swift’s new romance. The U.S. Olympic soccer team.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Willa said. She could hold her own with Philby.
“The Evil Queen mentioned bats,” Philby reminded her. “We know, thanks to Mr. E.’s class, that if you combine a bat’s face with the Minotaur you get something freakily similar to Chernabog. And then there’s the bar.”
“What bar?” Finn asked.
“The bar Charlie described. The structural support at the top of the crate.”
“It was some bolts!” Maybeck complained.
“It was four bolts on opposite sides of the top of the crate. What do you want to bet they’re holding a steel bar in place?”
“Because?” Charlene asked, almost afraid to open her mouth in this group.
“It’s easy,” Storey Ming said, drawing the attention of everyone. Especially Philby. Philby’s heightened interest drew the scrutiny of Willa. “The patches of stuff covering the holes make the crate dark inside while still supplying air.”
“Exactly,” Philby said.
“If Chernabog’s part bat—”
“A Mayan bat god,” Philby said.
“The rod is so he can hang upside down while he sleeps. Dark like a cave.”