Disney after Dark

The two boys remained rooted firmly in place. “No way!” Philby said.

“Silly, silly boy.” She clapped her gloved hands together. Philby seemed to lose every bone in his body. He fell to the floor in a heap of unwilling limbs and muscle, a lump of flesh.

“I’m giving you a very generous opportunity here. Terry knows better than to disobey, don’t you, Terry?”

Maybeck’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

“I can add some pain, if you like,” she said to Philby.

“No!” Maybeck said, reaching for Philby.

“Go!” Fi

They looked pained to hear this from him.

“Go,” he repeated.

Losing her patience, Maleficent asked, “Or do you prefer fire?”

Her left hand suddenly held a ball of flame. She blew it out.

“Or wind?” The room swirled with a gale force that blew dust into their eyes and knocked the boys off their feet. Neither Jez’s robes nor her mother’s so much as fluttered.

“Want to play some more?” she asked.

Maleficent lit another ball of flame in her hand. She blew on it, sending it rolling directly for Maybeck. It exploded in a puff of black smoke just before reaching him.

Helping Philby up, Fi

Maybeck led Philby by the arm. They hurried out of the room.

When they were gone, Fi

She cackled an edgy laugh. “Me? Head? False compliments will get you nowhere with me, young man. I am but a humble servant to she who lives within. My powers are so small and insignificant. Do not waste your breath. I’m an errand ru

Fi

She instructed him: “Now, put it on the floor. Do so, or suffer. Your choice.”

“Make me,” Fi

Maleficent waved her right hand and Fi

“If you could make me hand it over, you would have,” he told her. “But you can’t. For some reason, you need me to cooperate. Why is that?”

He flashed open the cape again. And again, she averted her gaze.

“He protected against this, didn’t he? Walt Disney,” Fi

Maleficent dared to venture a look at the pens, her eyes sparkling, as if Fi

He took hold of the pens and held them out toward her. Maleficent cowered away from him.

“Interesting,” Fi

He stepped forward. She moved back, and away, ducking behind the nearest column. “The real quill can hurt you, can’t it? Dull your powers?” He understood then. This was how Wayne could stop the Overtakers.

“It can stop your plans, this pen, can’t it? You need to get rid of it. Destroy it. Even just its existence has threatened you all these years.”

“What do you know? You’re just a boy! And we all know little boys shouldn’t play with fire.”

With that, she pretended she was bowling. A large ball of fire rolled from her hand and across the floor at Fi

Jez “caught” the balls of fire on the opposite side and bowled them back toward Maleficent.

Fi

A ball singed his cape. He couldn’t keep this up for long. He found himself hopping around like an Irish step dancer.

“You will do exactly as I say,” Maleficent instructed him, still bowling her fireballs at him.

Fi

“No!” the witch shouted. With a wave of her hand, the flaming balls vanished into wisps of black smoke and the tangy smell that follows a lightning storm.

So, Fi

“You think yourself so clever?” she called out angrily. She walked right through his electric cage, straight for the pens.

Fi

When he was crossed over, Fi

He focused on the single idea: I am light. I am nothing but light. Nothing can stop me if I’m nothing but light. Nothing can harm me if I’m—

Wham!

Reaching the fence at full stride, he was knocked back off his feet and onto the floor. He felt as if he’d been stabbed in the chest.

Maleficent seemed to float, not walk, as she approached. She towered over him. Scowling, the witch raised her arm, about to deliver a spell. Fi

She flew back and fell to the stone floor.

“Your Grace?” Jez called out.

The witch lay on the stone floor, stu

Fi

“Lower the fence!” he instructed Jez. He never took his eyes off Maleficent. She seemed to be gaining her strength back. “Lower the fence, or I’ll do it again,” Fi

The bars of buzzing white lines sparked twice more and then vanished.

“Release Amanda and Charlene,” he told her. When Jez hesitated, he stepped closer to Maleficent. The feeling of cold increased. Her strength was indeed returning. He needed Jez to do this quickly, before her mother came to her senses.

He stabbed at Maleficent with the fistful of pens. A second burst of sparks threw her down again.

“Okay!” Jez exclaimed. She waved her hands. “It’s done.”

Fi

A weakened Maleficent lifted her head and said, “We will meet again, young man. We have unfinished business, you and I.”

Fi

31

The kids needed the plans that had been stolen from Fi

—with a vengeance. Whatever powers the pen and the plans possessed when combined, each side had their reasons for wanting what the other now possessed.

Before he left Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, Fi

“It’s always such a noisy night,” Wayne complained. He looked silly dressed in a pair of pajamas and a plaid robe. He wore Mickey and Mi

“We need your help.”

“So it would seem. So it would seem.” Wayne paced his small apartment over the fire station, glancing out the windows occasionally. Fi

“How’s that?” Fi

“I can help you—will help you—but it won’t come without additional risk to us all. She has to be desperate to be bowling fire at your feet. Revealing herself like that.” He studied the pens spread out on the small dining table, where Fi