There was noise in the hallway, and both of them instinctively looked for a place to hide. But the employee lounge offered them nothing: a few lockers, all padlocked.
A text message appeared on both their DSs
angelface13: the green one just left the ice palace.
“Maleficent just left the ice truck,” Finn whispered.
“Yeah…I saw that. But what’s it mean?”
“No idea. But it can’t be good.” Amanda looked terrified. “Okay, here’s the thing: try to look like you belong here,” he advised, bracing himself for whoever was out there to come through the door.
Instead, he saw a woman dressed in green nursing scrubs leading two adults and a string of four or five kids down the hallway. A tour!
“I’ve got an idea,” Finn said.
A moment later, he and Amanda were in the hallway trailing only a few feet behind the family. For anyone seeing them they would appear to be a group. The nurse, busy with her explanations, a memorized tour she probably did too often, seemed to pay little attention to those at the back of the pack.
The guide pointed out the purpose of several of the rooms, explaining in some detail about the care and attention lavished on the animals in the Park. This facility was so advanced it was used not only for Disney-owned animals, but for all sorts of wild animals rescued throughout the state. Finn found himself getting caught up in the tour as Amanda tugged on his shirt. They stopped, and the tour went along without them.
On the wall was a corkboard. Pinned to it were photographs of some of the recovered animals—including a gorilla with a broken leg. There were maps and brochures tacked to the board as well.
“The tattoo!” Amanda said.
She was right: the similarity of the subjects was unmistakable. A photo of a gorilla with a broken leg and a tattoo sketch of the same thing.
“But how does it help us?”
“I don’t know,” Amanda said, “but we’re in the right place.”
Finn studied the rest of the stuff thumbtacked to the corkboard. One of the items was a very large satellite photo of the entire Animal Kingdom. Finn spent a good deal of time—probably too much, according to his mother—on Google Earth. He loved everything about satellite photos. Using the image, it took him only seconds to establish where they were: in a complex of buildings near the top right of the photo at the end of a loop that was obviously the train line.
And then he saw them: an M near the bottom, and a C near the top.
For a moment his breath caught; it felt as if a bone were stuck in his throat. His hands were moving before he knew exactly what he was doing. He pulled the thumbtacks from the four corners of the satellite photo.
“How stupid could we be?” he muttered.
“Finn? What’s going on?” Amanda asked, the concern apparent in her voice.
“Hey!” came a man’s voice. “You can’t do that! Put that back!”
Finn glanced to his right. The man was a long way off, at the end of the hallway.
“Finn?” Amanda said heatedly.
“They’re both here: the M she wrote in her diary, and ‘Under the Sea’!” Finn answered. He pointed to the satellite photo, which he had turned counterclockwise.
The man picked up his pace, heading toward them. “Hey there!” he called out.
“It wasn’t ‘Under the S-e-a,'” Finn spelled. “But, under the letter C!” Turning the photo, he traced the prominent shape at the top of Asia. It was very clearly a big bold letter C, formed by an arched bridge. “She’s here. Jez…is under the C on the map.”
“Oh…my…gosh!” Amanda squealed with excitement. “You found her!”
“It’s the tiger yards,” Finn said, recognizing the route of the Jungle Trek. “Maybeck and I walked right by there.”
The man was nearly upon them.
Finn kept hold of the satellite photo, already folding it as he turned to Amanda and shouted harshly, “I think it’s time we…RUN!”
49
AMANDA AND FINN turned the corner. At the far end of the hallway glowed a red EXIT sign. Finn was already in the process of texting a D-Gamer message.
Finn: chernabog!
The green fairy rounded the far corner, coming between Finn and the EXIT sign. She held a black kitty in her arms.
She set the cat down, waved her hand over it, and it stretched and grew to the size of a panther. The man pursuing Amanda and Finn skidded to a stop.
“Silly, silly boy,” Maleficent said, aiming her finger at him. “Won’t you ever learn to mind your own business?”
“Who are you?” the man shouted from well behind Finn.
“Pest!” she called out, waving her finger at the man. The panther took off—running right past Amanda and Finn—and chased the man around the corner.
Finn pushed the fear from his thoughts and drove away his anger. He whispered, “Examination room,” and pointed subtly with his left hand, holding it behind his back. “Get the others. We’ll meet up at the trek.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Amanda informed him. “Not without Jez.”
He couldn’t allow her defiance to ruffle him. Above all, he had to clear his mind of any frustration, resentment, or ill will toward others. As he did, he felt the familiar tingling sensation in his toes and fingers, and he knew it was starting. Knew, without looking, that he was crossing over.
In the past, he had only been able to sustain his waking-DHI form for a matter of a minute or two. Somehow he knew it would have to be longer this time—that this was to be a test of his strength.
He suspected that by becoming his DHI, he risked the Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. This was uncharted territory, but he had to do something to counter Maleficent’s power.
“Go!” he called out to Amanda.
“No. I’m staying.”
Maleficent drew her scrawny hands toward her face, her fingers twitching, her lips bubbling with an incantation. Finn could sense a spell coming, but he would not allow himself to fear it. Even his frustration with Amanda for not listening had to be ignored. He would be no help to her if Maleficent’s spell affected him as well.
“You have a powerful master,” Finn called down the hall. He watched as Maleficent’s face became rubbery with surprise and wrinkled with concern.
“You know nothing of my master,” came the reply.
“More than you think. Is it control over the Animal Kingdom that Chernabog wants?”
Maleficent cringed at mention of the name; it was as if Finn had spoken a sacred secret. She curled her hands into a tight ball, and Finn could feel it coming.
“Look out!” he shouted at Amanda. He turned to warn her.
Amanda was gone. Vanished. No longer by his side.
Maleficent hurled a blinding ball of energy down the hall. About the size of a softball, it spun through the air, throwing off sparks like a tiny, blazing sun, and looked as if it would burn up anything in its path.
“Duck!” said Amanda’s voice.
Finn glanced up to see her floating horizontally near the ceiling.
“DUCK!” she repeated.
But it was too late for Finn to duck. The burning ball arrived and passed right through him. It exploded at the end of the hall, hitting a tile wall and erupting into a cloud of black smoke that rose to the ceiling. The smoke crept toward a blinking sensor mounted in the ceiling.
“But how…?” he muttered.
Amanda, still floating, said, “I told you Jez and I had unusual abilities.”
“You can fly?”
“Not exactly. I can levitate.” She sank then, and returned to her feet.
Finn knew this discussion would have to wait until later.
Maleficent twisted her ugly fingers. A cage of blue-white lines surrounded Finn and Amanda.
Finn wasn’t scared of the laser cage. His DHI stepped right through it, coming closer to Maleficent. Amanda floated off her feet and swam through the air, slipping through a gap between the electric bars. She sank back to the floor.