Kingdom Keepers VII Read Online Free Page A

purpose. It is not a soldier in a boy’s imaginary army. This doll serves a far more devious purpose. Her purpose.
    Following her silent summons, the worker is drawn to the jungle’s edge.
    Tia Dalma adjusts the doll’s left arm—and grins perversely as the worker’s left arm moves accordingly. Right arm. Echo. Swivel of the head left to right—perfection!
    “The process must be compromised,” she says, speaking the man’s native Spanish so fluently, and with such a fine accent, that she might be this man’s mother. In his mind, the voice sounds like a fusion of his mother’s bidding and commandments from God. There is no denying it, no refuting its authority. To disobey would be tantamount to committing a sin.
    “You will do what must be done, or suffer the consequences,” Tia Dalma whispers. With that, she stabs a twig into the doll’s belly. The man buckles over, groaning in agony. “Yes,” she says. “You must obey the Black Mamba.”
    Tia Dalma works the doll. It is routine for her; she could do it in her sleep. Only the pesky Kingdom Keepers—five teenagers empowered by hologram technology who serve the good of Disney—are not fully susceptible to her black magic. The effects of her powers on the young people sent to defeat her are wholly unpredictable. Otherwise, she might have prevailed already, she and the other dark masters, the ones who have come together to overtake the parks—the entire Disney kingdom—for the good of bad, the dark of night, the sake of corruption and control. And don’t forget the three Ds: Danger, Desire, and Death.
    The worker responds to Tia Dalma’s manipulations like a child’s remote-controlled robot, pivoting and walking stiff-legged in time with the relentless, rhythmic clanging toward the machinery, the dials and tanks, pumps and pipes that sit like an open sore amid a swill of mud. The muck oozes around the man’s bare feet as he reaches the metal tangle. He is not without consciousness: to a point, he can think for himself. Tia Dalma has taken control of him physically and impaired him mentally; they work as smoothly as dancing partners, like a well-oiled machine.
    The man marches directly to a control panel of digital readouts so bright that Tia Dalma can make out their neon greens, ambers, and reds from where she lurks in the shadows of the jungle. He acts without haste as she raises the doll’s right arm, giving his brain a cue to work the controls.
    Immediately, the wheezing of pressurized pipes rises like a chorus. Steam valves cough; the generator revs to keep up with the demand for electricity. Three of the green displays turn amber; two of the amber, red. A wiry man with slicked-back hair and a tattoo of a snake that winds from his wrist to his neck approaches her worker. The supervisor wears a DayGlo orange hard hat, distinguishing himself from the yellow hard hats of his team. He barks angrily at the worker.
    Three more amber displays become red. The supervisor rants, gesticulating at the panel, and moves in to correct the changes his worker has made.
    Tia Dalma lifts the doll’s arms, pushes the hands together, and lowers them fast, like a sledgehammer driving down a tent spike. The supervisor collapses to his knees. Her worker smashes the man’s back a second time; now he’s down on all fours, shouting. Four other workers emerge from a small trailer.
    All the green is gone from the panel, replaced by amber, red…and flashing red. The sounds intensify. Tia Dalma doesn’t understand the process—she is no mechanical engineer—but by the look of it, steam and chemicals are being injected into the ground, flushing or pressurizing the cavity far below and causing it to disgorge its valuable natural gas. Some form of extraction that goes well beyond her limited knowledge. Whatever the case, the worker’s efforts are charging the well with added pressure; she needs no gauge or display to tell her that. The earth beneath her feet is trembling now,