Chapter 10: Speak of the Devil
Kim fell on. The walkway she had swung down from was now a tiny speck far above her. Something was beside her, falling with her. Kim glanced over. It was the girl in the pink dress. The dark visor of her helmet turned towards Kim. A slender arm darted out. It wrapped itself round Kim's waist. Darkness filled Kim's world. It was not just her sight; she could not hear, or taste, or feel anything. Images flashed before her. She could not tell if they were real or only in her mind. She saw a world of boiling shadow, lit by hundreds of yellow eyes. Then there was light again. Her head struck something solid and she lost consciousness.
When she came to Kim found that she was lying on the wide metal walkway running along the centre of the Hall of Doors. On her right was a stack of doors, waiting to be loaded onto the tramways. Darkwing lay on her left, unconscious. Standing over them was the girl in the pink dress. She seemed to be staring off into space. A little way ahead stood Waternoose, Ratigan and the armoured figure, the pointed visor still obscuring his face.
"Mr Waternoose!"
Kim turned. Mike and Sully were approaching. They were surrounded by a ring of Heartless. Kim could just make out Boo, a tiny pink bundle in the crook of Sully's arm.
"Mr. Waternoose… What's happening?" Sully asked plaintively. Waternoose sighed.
"I'm sorry you had to get mixed up in this, James," he said, "Just stay quiet you'll come to no harm. You have my word."
Mike and Sully sat down beside Kim and the unconscious Darkwing. The Heartless moved to encircle them. Kim repressed a shudder as one brushed past her.
"Sorry, Kim," Sully whispered.
"It's okay," said Kim, "You couldn't have done anything. How's Boo?"
Sully shifted his arm a little to let Kim see. Boo was shaking softly. Her eyes were red and her cheeks lined with tearstains. She had reached that dreadful point where you have no more tears left but you still want to cry.
A soft sound, like a sharp knife cutting through silk, drew Kim's attention back to the group around the armoured figure. A large hole, black as midnight, appeared in the air beside Waternoose. The silver haired swordsman stepped through. The hole closed behind him. The swordsman had Basil clasped tightly by the tail in his right hand, and the compass in his left.
Ratigan's hand shot out towards Basil.
"Stop," said the armoured figure, not moving. Ratigan froze.
"Leave him. We can use him as bait," the armoured figure continued. Ratigan's shoulders slumped. He stepped back.
"The compass," the armoured figure said, holding out his hand. The swordsman gave it to him without a word.
"Put him over with the others," said the armoured figure. The swordsman turned and dropped Basil beside Kim.
"You okay?" Kim asked.
"Yes," said Basil testily, not looking at Kim but glaring daggers at Ratigan and the swordsman, "The blackguard was too quick for me, that's all."
"Quiet!" snarled the armoured figure.
He crossed the walkway until he was standing at the very edge, his body pressed up against the handrail. He held his hand out, over the void, with the compass resting in his palm. Kim could hear him mutter something. A pale light shone around the compass, shimmering like heat haze. Suddenly it shot up into the air. It darted back and forth above them, leaving a trail of pale light in its wake. The armoured figure remained perfectly still, hand still outstretched.
Kim watched as the compass flew towards the rack of doors on their right. It began to flit in and out, disappearing down one row and reappearing at the end of another. It appeared to be searching for something. Nobody on the walkway moved. All eyes were fixed on the little pale dot that was the compass as it darted up and down and across the hall.
The compass returned to the armoured figure's hand as suddenly as it had taken flight. The pale light faded. The armoured figure handed the compass back to Ratigan.
"You have found it?" Waternoose asked tentatively.
The armoured figure did not reply. Now he raised both arms above his head. Pale light shimmered around his hands. Kim could hear the sound of something rattling dimly in the distance. There was a crash and an object appeared on her right, flying towards the walkway. As it drew closer she could see that it was a door, black and unadorned, surrounded by a cloud of pale lights.
On the walkway the armoured figure, arms still outstretched, took a step back and allowed the door to come to rest against the handrail. The cloud of lights faded. The door stood before them, as unremarkable as any other.
The armoured figure reached out, turned the plain black handle and opened it. It was an empty frame. He closed it again.
"Ratigan," he said curtly.
Now Ratigan stepped forward. Taking the sack that he had been carrying in his hand, he undid the knot at its neck and upended the contents in front of the door. It was a tiny little child, so thin and pale that Kim could not tell if it was a boy or a girl. Its clothes were barest strips of ragged cloth. It curled itself up into a ball, face buried in its arms.
Ratigan, discarding the sack, seized the child and hauled it to its feet. Keeping his left hand on the child's shoulder, he took the child's arm in his right hand and twisted it round behind its back. The child whimpered but it was powerless to resist the steel fingers of Ratigan's man-like machine.
"Do it," said the armoured figure.
Ratigan forced the child's arm up its back. The child gave a yelp of pain.
"Stop it!" Kim cried. She was halfway to her feet when she froze. The two helmeted youths were standing over her, their keyblades crossed at her throat.
"Sit down and shut up!" snarled the armoured figure.
"Or," he said, turning to face Kim for the first time, "I'll burn the kid alive."
Kim caught a brief glimpse of two dark eyes, glittering above the beak of the visor. She sat back. There was no doubting it: the armoured figure would carry out his threat without a second's thought.
"Get on with it," the armoured figure said, turning back to Ratigan.
Ratigan wrenched the child's arm again, pushing it even higher. The child screeched. It sounded more like an animal than a person. Kim's whole body was shaking with impotent anger. She longed to leap forward, to pitch Ratigan over the handrail and down into the void, but she could do nothing surrounded by the Heartless and the two fearsome keyblade wielders.
Again Ratigan twisted the child's arm, provoking its loudest cry yet. A strange detail reached Kim, even through the fog of her anger. As the child's scream reached its highest pitch, a red blub fixed above the black doorframe flickered into life. It was only for the briefest of moments but, somehow, the scream had affected the door.
Ratigan pushed the arm still higher. The child slumped forward, sobbing. Kim could feel faint warmth coming from the stack of doors on her right. Could it be that the screams were affecting all the doors, not just the black one?
Ratigan forced the arm to its highest point yet. Kim's stomach lurched as she heard the crack of bone. The child's scream echoed even in that vast hall. It reverberated between the racks of door, amplifying its pain again and again. Above the black door, the red bulb flared into life.
"Back!" shouted the armoured figure. Ratigan sprang aside, leaving the child where it lay. The armoured figure made a gesture with its arm and the black door swung open.
A wave of darkness, as high and wide as the door, vomited onto the walkway. It engulfed the weeping child in a second, flowing across the walkway and down into the void in a waterfall of shadow. For a second, Kim thought she could see yellow stars (or were they eyes?); countless pinpricks of light in the darkness just beyond the door but then another wave surged forward, greater than the last, blocking her view.
It rolled across the walkway, carrying with it some great, dark mass. The shape, a lump of shadow, sat in the centre of the walkway for a moment as the stream of lesser darkness flowed around it. It began to swell and stretch. Two great, black arms were thrust out, with two stubby legs behind it. Then it rose, and the shadows slipped away from it like a butterfly shedding its chrysalis. Kim saw a jowly cat's face. A pair of tiny black eyes, brimming with cruelty, swept the scene.
"Why, it's good to be back!" said Pete, grinning.
Something in the dark beyond the door stirred. Pete darted aside. A third wave spewed forth. This time there was no lump. The shadows that pooled on the walkway twisted up; the slender black tendrils rising to merge into solid matter. This form was very tall, thin as a whip, and crowned with a pair of great, curling black horns. The last thing to appear was the face: a woman's, pale and proud as a queen.
Maleficent's gaze passed over the hall. It finally came to rest on Boo, as if puzzled by her. Boo's eyes met hers. Boo screamed. It was a sound of pure terror, drawn from the deepest fears that lurk in the heart of every child.
Kim knew this was the only chance they would get. She leapt to her right and wrenched open the topmost door in the stack, which had been activated by Boo's scream.
"Go!" she shouted. Her hand flew to her belt, opening the first pouch that came to hand and hurling its contents at Maleficent. By chance, it contained smoke bombs. Thick white smoke rolled in all directions, obscuring everything.
Kim glanced round just in time to see Mike and Sully disappearing down through the open door, Sully carrying the unconscious Darkwing over his shoulder. Kim was after them in an instant.
There was a disorienting moment as gravity reasserted itself on the far side of the door (they actually entered the room feet first, in mid air) but Sully kept his head. It was the work of seconds for him to slam the door closed behind them and then rip it from its hinges.
"Will that work?" asked Kim, staring fearfully at the now empty frame, expecting Maleficent to appear there at any moment.
"Yeah," said Sully shakily, sitting down heavily beside her, "There has to be a door at both ends for the connection to work. They can't follow us here."
"Great," said Mike, "the only question now is: where is here?"