Kingdom Keepers VI(102)
“Tia Dalma swapped herself with Dillard, you twit! We don’t know what they’re going to do next!”
“I’d love to debate you,” Charlene said. “Actually, not, because you’d win. But we don’t have all day. We need the van, and we need the boys in the back of the van. Do you have a plan? No? Because I do. So that’s our plan: mine.”
“We just can’t mess up,” Willa said softly.
Without meaning to, both girls looked back at Dillard’s body, his bloodless face haunted her. They had carefully propped him in the shadow of a column near the tunnel opening, making sure he couldn’t be seen.
Shaking her head, Charlene stepped into the stone corner near the main tunnel entrance to the labyrinth and looked at Willa expectantly. Willa sighed.
“The minute you’re out, I’ll climb up.”
“Promise. Do as I told you,” Charlene hissed, and peered outside.
Maleficent was squatting alongside the sitting Evil Queen, whose clothing was still smoking but no longer in flames.
She couldn’t make her plan too obvious. The witches were far too smart and cunning for that. It had to be subtle, but it had to be quick: Willa wouldn’t be able to hold herself for long, no matter how good a climber she was.
Charlene sprinted across the open terrace and hid behind a rock near the sacrificial table. Tia Dalma still lay on the ground. Wanting to win the attention of Maleficent and the Queen, Charlene ran a zigzag pattern toward the unconscious boys, made a point of appearing to reconsider, turned, and headed back to the tunnel.
Maleficent threw a weak fireball and missed. Charlene entered the tunnel. Her fingertips found the crevices between the stones that Willa had pointed out.
As the two witches entered the tunnel, Maleficent formed a fireball and rolled it ahead as a torch.
“My Lord’s prints!” the Queen said, pointing to the cloven hoof marks heading to the right.
Maleficent lit another fireball; held it at shoulder height.
The ball nearly burned Charlene’s face. Both girls were now stuck to the ceiling, pressed between the walls, directly above the two Overtakers. The flames threatened to set Charlene’s dangling hair on fire.
Maleficent hurled two fireballs. One into each tunnel.
In the flickering light, Charlene saw Willa about to fall. Her hands were ashen white.
Come on! Charlene willed the two witches. Move!
As if hearing her, Maleficent and the Queen headed quickly down the tunnel to the right.
There had been no hoofprints on the floor of the entrance; Charlene had scattered the dust so that Willa could be drawn to the prints and then wipe away her own, leaving only the hoof marks. Maleficent and the Queen were entering uncharted territory.
The two Overtakers first threw shadows, then nothing at all. Gone.
Willa lost her hold, rolled over in the air, and landed like a cat on all fours. Charlene released her hold and landed quietly.
“We did it!” Willa choked out as a whisper.
Charlene could not rid herself of the image of Dillard’s still body.
“Dillard,” she said. “The boys! The van.”
Together, the girls carried Dillard into fresh air, fighting back tears.
* * *
A shimmering silver thread of spider silk hung from the stone. For Finn, it looked like parade bunting, worthy of a brass band with trumpets and cymbals. He thought he might have kissed the spider if it had still been alive.
Finn followed the silk. Used his newfound 2.0 all clear to light up his way when necessary, he took a corner to the right. It got easier to invoke each time he tried.
At the end of a tunnel to his left—not the tunnel he was following—he saw yellow flickering light. Fire!
Two figures walked past the tunnel’s end, visible for only seconds: Maleficent and the Queen.
In a parallel tunnel.
The firelight grew faint.
Finn settled into all clear and reestablished he was following the silk road.
To his left, more light! The two had turned around and were heading his way. Finn reacted too quickly, stepping back instead of forward. Trapping himself instead of freeing himself.
No. He would not allow them to push him back the way he’d come. Finn lay flat on the stone and belly-crawled across the intersection. He was back on his feet and halfway up the tunnel when a giant shadow formed in front of him: his own. Maleficent had rolled a fireball as a searchlight.
“You!” she said, in a voice shrill and brittle.
Finn ran several more steps before sliding to a stop. He spun around.
Me! he thought.
How long was he going to run from Maleficent? How many years had it been? Cowering. Afraid. Always on the defensive.
Now, Chernabog was on the run. And a friend was dead.
Just the thought of Dillard made it hard for him to breathe.