Read Online Kingdom Keepers VII by Ridley Pearson - Free Book Online
Authors: Ridley Pearson
Tags: Fiction - Young Adult
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not to be forgotten. Nor ignored. 3
A high-pitched voice pierces the air. A woman’s voice. A witch’s. The Evil Queen clambers from the same hole. Her robe is tattered and crusted with mud, her once gorgeous face as pale as the pink skin of a newborn mouse. She is in disarray, starved to half her former size, her lips blistered and bubbling with insect bites and disease, for she has fed on the very creatures that have just fled. Her voice is more that of a trapped animal than a woman. “Beware!” she calls to Tia Dalma. “He is of foul and perverse spirit, for the three years he has spent in this dungeon. Ripe with distemper and ill-will, a sorry soul of misery and malice.” The Evil Queen speaks in an ancient tongue. Beleaguered by three years in the tombs with nothing but a distempered bat god for company she has succumbed. Gone is the action figure; hello malevolent soul fueled by hatred, bent on revenge. Tia Dalma flinches. The Evil Queen’s blood has turned to venom.
“Our lord is more powerful than ever before. A god among those that live below, brother of Hades, lord of the dark.”
Horns appear. A pair of angry yellow eyes. A massive bull’s head.
Tia Dalma folds forward in submission, her arms outstretched in meek homage. If she possessed a human heart, it would be beating out of her chest. She offers but three small words before the Beast’s growl thunders through the jungle and rises into the sky: “Welcome, my lord.”
A LL THE K EEPERS AWAKE almost simultaneously in the back of the van, which is parked alone in the hotel parking lot. Maybeck sits up with a start, looks around for Charlene, then sinks back down and lies with his eyes open, staring up at the van’s ceiling.
“It’s going on four in the morning,” Brad says from the front seat. “Your parents have been notified and are on their way.”
“Wait…what?” says a groggy Willa. Fatigue remains a challenge for all the Keepers. Their activity while DHIs hardly counts as rest. On nights like this they must get by on three or four hours’ sleep if they’re lucky.
“The Archives are compromised,” Brad says. “We need you in Burbank.”
“What about graduation?” Philby says. He sounds perfectly Philby—alert, awake, ready for a physics quiz. The others look at him inquisitively. “What?” he says, seeming honestly to have no idea how he’s coming off. “I’m not missing my graduation. I’m summa cum laude. I’m giving a speech.”
“It’s been taken care of. You’re going to Burbank. That is, unless you want to drop out of the group and leave Wayne in the hands of the Overtakers.”
“He—” Finn blurts out. “We—The thing is, we don’t even know if that was him, right? It could have been a DHI.”
“The security cameras…we watched it all. You were all terrific, by the way. But listen, there are so many reasons Wayne couldn’t have been a DHI. First, you destroyed the OTs’ only server during the cruise. Second, they stole your data, not Wayne’s. Third: Why hasn’t he come forward to warn us that they might have his data?” Brad asks.
“You’ve never been in DHI state,” Philby answers. “It’s not that simple. Servers can be programmed. Data can be compromised. A little thing called identity theft.” Philby becomes belligerent when he knows he’s right—and he’s right most of the time. “He may think he had a horrible nightmare or something; he may not realize the breach at the Archives even happened. Not until he hears about it and it matches his dream. The same thing has happened to all of us before. Crossing over…you don’t know what it’s like until it happens.”
Brad has known Philby for many years now. He respects the Keepers individually and as a group. That respect is reflected in his level tone. “Wayne has a pattern of dropping off the grid. He was in the company of the Overtakers. But Wayne…the old man was directing things.”
“Possibly his DHI,” Philby
A high-pitched voice pierces the air. A woman’s voice. A witch’s. The Evil Queen clambers from the same hole. Her robe is tattered and crusted with mud, her once gorgeous face as pale as the pink skin of a newborn mouse. She is in disarray, starved to half her former size, her lips blistered and bubbling with insect bites and disease, for she has fed on the very creatures that have just fled. Her voice is more that of a trapped animal than a woman. “Beware!” she calls to Tia Dalma. “He is of foul and perverse spirit, for the three years he has spent in this dungeon. Ripe with distemper and ill-will, a sorry soul of misery and malice.” The Evil Queen speaks in an ancient tongue. Beleaguered by three years in the tombs with nothing but a distempered bat god for company she has succumbed. Gone is the action figure; hello malevolent soul fueled by hatred, bent on revenge. Tia Dalma flinches. The Evil Queen’s blood has turned to venom.
“Our lord is more powerful than ever before. A god among those that live below, brother of Hades, lord of the dark.”
Horns appear. A pair of angry yellow eyes. A massive bull’s head.
Tia Dalma folds forward in submission, her arms outstretched in meek homage. If she possessed a human heart, it would be beating out of her chest. She offers but three small words before the Beast’s growl thunders through the jungle and rises into the sky: “Welcome, my lord.”
A LL THE K EEPERS AWAKE almost simultaneously in the back of the van, which is parked alone in the hotel parking lot. Maybeck sits up with a start, looks around for Charlene, then sinks back down and lies with his eyes open, staring up at the van’s ceiling.
“It’s going on four in the morning,” Brad says from the front seat. “Your parents have been notified and are on their way.”
“Wait…what?” says a groggy Willa. Fatigue remains a challenge for all the Keepers. Their activity while DHIs hardly counts as rest. On nights like this they must get by on three or four hours’ sleep if they’re lucky.
“The Archives are compromised,” Brad says. “We need you in Burbank.”
“What about graduation?” Philby says. He sounds perfectly Philby—alert, awake, ready for a physics quiz. The others look at him inquisitively. “What?” he says, seeming honestly to have no idea how he’s coming off. “I’m not missing my graduation. I’m summa cum laude. I’m giving a speech.”
“It’s been taken care of. You’re going to Burbank. That is, unless you want to drop out of the group and leave Wayne in the hands of the Overtakers.”
“He—” Finn blurts out. “We—The thing is, we don’t even know if that was him, right? It could have been a DHI.”
“The security cameras…we watched it all. You were all terrific, by the way. But listen, there are so many reasons Wayne couldn’t have been a DHI. First, you destroyed the OTs’ only server during the cruise. Second, they stole your data, not Wayne’s. Third: Why hasn’t he come forward to warn us that they might have his data?” Brad asks.
“You’ve never been in DHI state,” Philby answers. “It’s not that simple. Servers can be programmed. Data can be compromised. A little thing called identity theft.” Philby becomes belligerent when he knows he’s right—and he’s right most of the time. “He may think he had a horrible nightmare or something; he may not realize the breach at the Archives even happened. Not until he hears about it and it matches his dream. The same thing has happened to all of us before. Crossing over…you don’t know what it’s like until it happens.”
Brad has known Philby for many years now. He respects the Keepers individually and as a group. That respect is reflected in his level tone. “Wayne has a pattern of dropping off the grid. He was in the company of the Overtakers. But Wayne…the old man was directing things.”
“Possibly his DHI,” Philby
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