Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl and the Tower Tomb of Time (9781941240076)

by Becket

  “Why did it bring me here?” she wondered aloud.

  A familiar voice responded, not the voice of her mom or dad, not the voice of Margrave Snick or his zombie henchmen. This was the soft voice of an elderly ghost.

  “I have the distinct impression, my dear child, that you might not have ever left this place.”

  Key turned and saw the ghostly bowler hat and ghostly umbrella and the dandelion pinned to the lapel, all softly glowing bottle green. He smiled good-naturedly at her from behind his ghostly mustache and goatee.

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my dear,” the elderly ghost went on in his same-old soft voice. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Fuddlebee.”

  — CHAPTER TWENTY —

  Old Queen Crinkle Attacks

  Behind Mr. Fuddlebee, still in the doorway, was Miss Broomble, only she wasn’t moving like him, but frozen in that moment in time, with her hand reaching towards her holster, her body leaning forward, as if she were about to dash inside at any moment.

  Key could not understand how these two had gotten here. Had they also come through the Doorackle Alleyway? If so, why then would Miss Broomble be frozen in time while Mr. Fuddlebee was not? Countless more questions flooded Key’s mind, but in the end all she could ask the elderly ghost was, “Did you follow me here?”

  “Follow you?” Mr. Fuddlebee floated closer. “Actually I was following Margrave Snick. His trail led me to this place – your home, I gather.”

  “Darling,” said Key’s dad, “who is this?”

  “What is he?” her mom asked, staring wide-eyed at the elderly ghost.

  Mr. Fuddlebee tipped his hat to them both. “Egbert Fuddlebee, Professor at All Hallows University, at your service.”

  “He’s a ghost,” Key offered as an explanation.

  Mr. Fuddlebee smiled cordially at them both. “Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

  “Do you mean,” Key asked him, “you didn’t come with me through the Doorackle Alleyway?”

  “I’m afraid not, my dear,” Mr. Fuddlebee said in a regretful tone, as if a bearer of bad news. “I must inform you that, although you might have known me for quite some time, I’ve never met you before, which leads me to the likely conclusion that you are presumably from my future.”

  Key nodded somberly as she studied her mom and dad’s expressions, feeling an old fear that they might punish her for something she’d done wrong, even though she hadn’t done anything deserving punishment.

  Mr. Fuddlebee then floated closer to the Doorackle Alleyway. “While I have not passed through all Doorackle Alleyways, I have seen quite a few, but I never knew that one this magnificent was even possible. Given our peculiar situation at present – someone from my future appearing in her own past – I can only conclude that someone has used the Eye of DIOS to open the Tomb of Thomas à Tempus. Is that not so, my dear?”

  Key gestured inside the Doorackle Alleyway.

  Mr. Fuddlebee peered through and saw Old Queen Crinkle, who could see them now and was trying to swim through spacetime to the Doorackle Alleyway. “Oh, Matilda,” he sighed wearily to her, “what have you done this time?” Turning away from her rather bemused expression and facing Key, the elderly ghost remarked, “If I was at Thomas’s Tomb – or I guess I should say, if I will be there in the future (time tense can be quite bewildering) – by the looks of things in this present, I doubt that I can effectively argue Crinkle out of using the Eye of DIOS. (One cannot convince others they’re wrong.) But if I will be there in the future, I shall certainly try to warn her that harnessing the Sparks of Timefire with the Eye would be about as useless as employing Silas the Cybernetic Cyclops to help her escape the Hand of DIOS. I certainly hope she won’t do that, either.”

  Key’s mom and dad looked at one another confusedly, neither understanding anything about the Eye of DIOS or the Cybernetic Cyclops.

  Key felt confused, too, but more specifically she wanted to know why she’d come to her old home. “Why this place?” she asked Mr. Fuddlebee. “Why come to this moment of time?”

  The elderly ghost gestured towards Margrave Snick looming over the nine-year-old Past Key. Her mom and dad, now seeing this gruesome sight for the first time, rushed over to free her from the large vampire. Together they tried pulling Margrave Snick away, but as he was frozen in time, he would not budge.

  “This is a present moment,” Mr. Fuddlebee said to them as he floated over. “Only the past can change it. There is nothing you can do now. This moment either has to move to the next, or it has to go back a few. But as the former is much more natural than the latter, I recommend patience.” With a contented expression he studied the ancient vampire, Key. “Everything appears to have worked out all right in the end.”

  Key calmly went to her mom and dad. “I’m right here,” she said to them. “You don’t need to struggle anymore.”

  Slowly, she drew them from Past Key. Slowly, they stopped trying to move the frozen form of Margrave Snick. Slowly, they turned towards their two hundred and fifty year old daughter, Key the vampire.

  “I’m safe,” she reassured them, smiling her fangs.

  “How can you be here and there?” her dad asked her, looking from one Key to the other.

  “For me, this moment happened a long time ago,” she tried to explain, although she feared she wasn’t succeeding. Pointing from Past Key to herself, she told them, “I already went through what she’s going through now.”

  “How is all this possible?” her mom asked in dismay.

  Mr. Fuddlebee examined Margrave Snick’s fangs. “I might have an answer,” he responded. “It is just as I thought. His vampire canines are gone. This is the very instant that I turned him back into a mortal.” Mr. Fuddlebee then turned to Key. “This is also the exact instant when you, child, became what you are – his child.”

  “His child,” her mom and dad said incredulously.

  “In a manner of speaking,” said Mr. Fuddlebee in an objective tone. “You see, your daughter is still yours, but she is also his, since he bit her and made her a Mystical Creature like himself – an immortal vampire, and a powerful one, too, it would seem.”

  Key’s mom and dad stared at her in fear and amazement, both struggling to understand what was going on, so that they might best know how to care for their daughter’s needs.

  Mr. Fuddlebee continued examining the frozen form of Margrave Snick while also speaking with Key. “I had to harness the power of the Hand to change Margrave back into a mortal. It appears as though you harnessed the power of the Eye from your time. You and I, using the power of DIOS, made them touch across time, it seems – your past, my future.”

  “How are you not frozen like everyone else?” asked Key.

  Mr. Fuddlebee considered this, tapping his ghostly fingers against his ghostly lips. “Who knows the workings of DIOS?” he said resignedly. “I certainly don’t; that’s for sure. I consider it a mercy that I am free to speak with you now. And that is indeed enough for me.”

  “But you’ve used the Hand of DIOS before, turning other immortals back into mortals,” Key replied. “Why didn’t my time touch with those other times?”

  He pointed to Past Key. “She must be the key.”

  “You’ve said that before,” Key said, “not about her – about me.”

  Mr. Fuddlebee held up his hands warningly. “Careful,” he said looking a little nervous. “I’m hoping to avoid time paradoxes. But, yes, you both might be the key to this particular paradox before us – two halves of the same key, one half who you are, the other half who you were.”

  “Are you saying that I brought myself here?”

  “Perhaps,” the elderly ghost conceded. “Perhaps, this moment of time matters to you. Perhaps, the Eye of DIOS and the Hand of DIOS worked together to bring you here.”

  Key considered this and she thought she was beginning to understand what he meant.

  Mr. Fuddlebee, seeing a spark of comprehension in her eyes, leaned close
r to fan the flame of her understanding. His voice became gentler, more sympathetic. “If I may be so bold as to suggest: Perhaps this is a moment of time that you have never left. You’ve lived your life as if you’ve been arrested to this very spot, imprisoned in your home, in the past, in this place of tragedy and trauma. After all these years, it is as though you’ve never left. Yes, perhaps it is your past that has been haunting you – and I should know a thing or two about haunting, being a ghost.”

  Key’s mom looked from Mr. Fuddlebee to Key. “What’s he saying, darling?”

  Key’s heart was beginning to hurt. “I’ve never stopped thinking about this night,” she admitted in a soft voice. “I’ve tried to forget, I’ve tried to stop remembering, but every time I lay in my coffin, every time I close my eyes, I see this night.” She looked at her mom and dad. “This is the night that I lost you both.”

  “What’s happening tonight?” her dad asked desperately.

  “You were taken from me.”

  “How do you lose us?” her mom asked with desperation also choking her.

  “I can’t remember,” Key admitted, breaking into tears.

  “Child,” Mr. Fuddlebee said with his usual calmness, “what do you remember about this night?”

  Key wiped her eyes. She glanced at him doubtfully through the corner of her eye. “Are you sure this isn’t going to start any time paradoxes, if I tell you?”

  “A greater paradox is a lack of love in the world,” he remarked. “I doubt you’ve ever told anyone what you’re about to say. The present moment seems as good a time as any to unburden yourself.”

  Key nodded, trying with some difficulty to swallow past the lump in her throat. “On this night, two hundred and fifty years ago – tonight, from your point of view – I was celebrating my ninth birthday. A vampire knocked on the door. He came in looking for food. He found us. Then you entered the house, Mr. Fuddlebee, and a bright flash of light came from your hand.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Fuddlebee remarked, “that light came from the Hand of DIOS. I had just used it to turn Margrave back into a mortal.

  “That’s all I know,” Key concluded. “The next thing I realized was that mom and dad were gone, and that you, Mr. Fuddlebee, were bringing me to the City of the Dead.”

  “The Necropolis!” the elderly ghost gasped with a horrified expression. “Why in the Name of DIOS would I take you there? They’d throw you in the dungeon, then throw away the key.”

  Key’s expression became angry. “They did!” she snapped with more rage in her voice than she’d intended. “For two hundred and fifty years. You said it was the only place that would accept me.”

  “Oh dear,” Mr. Fuddlebee sighed, looking downcast. “This has indeed most certainly become a very wretched paradox.” He lifted his ghostly bowler hat to scratch his ghostly forehead. “Ah well,” he remarked resignedly, “I must have known what I was talking about – or I must know what I will talk about – I can never get time tense straight. I fear we’re stuck in this choice. I wish you wouldn’t have told me about the Necropolis, my dear. Indeed the snake has most certainly bitten down on its own tail and it is now wincing from the pain. If we break this loop of time, who you are now will never come to be. We have no other option.” He gestured to Past Key. “This young one must go to the Necropolis, for you have already gone there.”

  “I’ve just come from there,” Key said wryly.

  “As have I,” a cackling old voice called out.

  Immediately following this was an electrical burst that shot straight out from the Doorackle Alleyway, struck Key in the back, and sent her hurtling across the room. She collided into the frozen figure of Margrave Snick and fell to the ground. Her mom and dad rushed to her and helped her up.

  With smoke coiling up from her, trying to catch her breath, Key looked up and she saw Old Queen Crinkle stepping out from the Doorackle Alleyway.

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE —

  The Vengeance of Margrave Snick

  Key had felt hurt many times, but she had never been in such pain before, for she now had a very large wound on her back where the electrical burst had struck. Her mom and dad observed in amazement as the wound healed almost instantly. Blood stopped pouring, muscles wove back together, and her skin smoothed over.

  But all the gadgets strapped to Key were now completely shorted out. Nothing worked, from her brass-plated pistol to her dented Crinomatic. They would need more than vampire powers to be repaired, perhaps a visit to the shop of the GadgetTronic Brothers, where she might also get a brand new Crinomatic. But there was no time for that now.

  Old Queen Crinkle stepped nearer to them, cackling cruelly. The Eye of DIOS on the top of her scepter flickered and fizzled with the electric energy of time. “I should have destroyed you, Troll, when you first came to me,” she said, pointing her scepter at Key.

  From its tip shot forth another electric burst of time energy.

  But right before it struck, Key moved with vampire speed, grabbing her mom and dad, and sweeping them out of the way. The burst missed them by a fraction of a second, struck Margrave Snick instead, and sent his frozen form crashing through the nearby wall.

  Past Key remained lying where she had been, but now she was sizzling all over with time energy, too. She began to move and breathe, the way her mom and dad had done when they unfroze from time.

  Old Queen Crinkle turned her scepter towards the older Key, who was standing protectively before her mom and dad. The Eye of DIOS glowed brighter and Key prepared to be struck again with another painful blast. But right before that could happen Tudwal came scuttling over. He leaped up and bit down hard on Old Queen Crinkle’s wizened hand. She screamed at him furiously. More electric bursts shot out from the scepter. But Tudwal pulled the Queen’s hand away. Electrical bursts spread throughout the room and struck the two zombie henchmen. The force hurtled them like ragdolls through the walls of the house and into the sheepfold outside. Then they, too, started to move, slowly becoming unfrozen from time.

  Old Queen Crinkle took her scepter in her other hand and pressed the Eye of DIOS against Tudwal. The blast that shot out from it hurtled the immortal puppy like a comet across the room. He went soaring into the stone fireplace. The force of his impact destroyed the fireplace and its stones came crumbling down upon him.

  “Tudwal!” Key cried out. But she could not help him; she had to protect her mom and dad. Backing them into a corner, she stood before them as their shield.

  Old Queen Crinkle sneered at Key, pointing her scepter at her. It glowed hot with a forthcoming burst, and the Old Queen was about to fire again, but right before she could, her vision was blocked by the translucent form of an elderly ghost. Mr. Fuddlebee had glided in her way and was now floating serenely before her, blocking her vision. Smiling cordially he tipped his bowler hat.

  “Crinkle,” he said with an air of politeness. “It’s been ages since we last spoke. How long? Was it Jack’s Halloween Bash where you wore that lovely frock with the dead moths? At least that’s how long ago it was for me. How long has it been for you? A few moments, I presume.”

  Old Queen Crinkle glowered and she fired another burst at him. It shot from the Eye of DIOS and went right through his ghostly form. It almost struck Key, but Mr. Fuddlebee’s distraction had given her a chance to speed her parents to a safer place in the room. The Queen fired again and again. Each time the bursts passed right through the elderly ghost.

  He sighed pitifully at the Old Queen. “Crinkle, my dear, your staff might be hyper-charged with the energy of time, but it will not be so for long if you keep squandering it so wastefully. Haven’t you realized? It has no power over me.”

  “But it had a great effect on me,” came a gruff voice that Key had not heard in two hundred and fifty years, not since the night she had been made a vampire, for it was the very voice of the one who had done so – Margrave Snick.

  The blast from the Eye of DIOS had unfrozen him from time. And now he was looming over the
Old Queen with a ferocity that made her tremble with fear.

  Despite the fact that Mr. Fuddlebee had only moments ago taken away all of Margrave Snick’s vampire power, it was his reputation that everyone feared. The instant that Old Queen Crinkle saw his impressively tall figure bend over her like a dark cloud, she forgot that he was no longer as strong as she herself, forgetting, too, that he was now a weak mortal whom she could easily crush with her own vampire power. She could only recall all the terrible things he had done in his lifetime. It would be the same as if the Grim Reaper stood before you: You might quaver at his flowing black robes and his shiny, sharp death sickle; and you would most likely forget that his name is actually Tim, and that he adores long walks on the beach and Sunday afternoon barbecues. It was the same with Old Queen Crinkle. Margrave Snick’s reputation froze her with absolute fear.

  Now he snatched the scepter from her hand with such fearless force that she let him have it. All she felt she could do was put her hands to her mouth, stare at him with frightened eyes, and hope that he would have mercy on her.

  Aiming her own scepter at her, he hissed an incantation in her face, “Nisi in facie tua benedixerit tibi.”

  Another burst of time energy blasted Old Queen Crinkle through the roof, over the sheep, and far into the wheat fields.

  Margrave Snick then aimed the scepter at Mr. Fuddlebee. “Give me the Hand of DIOS,” he demanded, “or I’ll scatter you across time and space.”

  The elderly ghost seemed unbothered. “I will tell you what I told Crinkle: You cannot hurt me.”

  “Perhaps not,” sneered Snick, “but I can hurt everyone else.” Then he pointed the end of the scepter at Key, who was still standing protectively before her mom and dad. “Crinkle understood the power of DIOS the way a fool sees a hammer as a weapon. A hammer might be a weapon in the hand of a destroyer, but it is also a tool in the hand of a builder. Crinkle was only a destroyer, and a poor one at that. But I am the destroyer and the builder.”