Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl and the Tower Tomb of Time (9781941240076) (17 page)

— 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.”

“Margrave, my old friend,” said Mr. Fuddlebee, a hint of sorrow in his voice, “you are neither. You are only the Betrayer.”

Margrave Snick replied by incanting, “
Manum suam misit hostis
.”

Time energy shot out from the scepter towards Key once again. But instead of hurtling her across the room, it gripped her like a fist, lifted her up, and carried her over to the Doorackle Alleyway.

The sight inside there suddenly changed. It no longer looked like the place Key had come from. All the stars within it appeared to have snuffed out completely, replaced by the blackest of black holes, a vast void of emptiness. The sight filled her instantly with dread. The scepter’s grip held her so tightly that she could barely turn her head towards her mom and dad. For a very brief moment, they shared with one another helpless looks.

“Give me the Hand of DIOS,” Snick ordered the elderly ghost, “or I will drop this child into the Abyss of Time. And if I do, you and I both know her fate.”

“To my knowledge no one has ever escaped from the Abyss,” Mr. Fuddlebee softly admitted. “However,” he went on, resolve in his voice. “As usual, Margrave, you do not know what you’re talking about. If you went through this Doorackle Alleyway, then, yes, you would be scattered into eternity. But this child did not come here by chance. She was drawn here by love.”

Margrave Snick screwed up his face in disgust. “Love?” he spat, clearly baffled by the word.

“You do not understand time because you do not understand love,” Mr. Fuddlebee went on to explain. “Time is not a straight line from point A to point B. Time is one truth with countless possibilities. It is a design that adapts itself to love, and to failures in love. This moment that the child returned to, it is not a coincidence of time. It is a perfect circle of love.”

Margrave Snick laughed cruelly. “Foolish man with foolish old beliefs. Love has no control over time and space.”

“My old friend,” Mr. Fuddlebee continued, “you already know that there is only one thing that unites love and hate. I taught it to you at All Hallows University. It is a string as thin as a spider’s thread. It easily supports the weightier matters of the world. Do you know what that thread is?”

Margrave Snick responded with a scowl, as if the word tasted awful in his mouth. “Choice.”

“You can choose to hate,” Mr. Fuddlebee went on, “or you can choose to love, or you can choose to do neither and nothing at all. The choice to love over all other failures in love turns the tide of all time and all space. The choice to love topples histories of pride, just as the choice to hate destroys undeveloped futures.”

“Where is this choice of love now?” demanded Snick, gripping the scepter tighter and holding Key closer to the edge of the Abyss beyond the Doorackle Alleyway. “There are no choices here. There is fear, and there is hope – fear about what I am about to do, and hope that I will not do it.”

Mr. Fuddlebee shook his head. He looked sympathetically at Key as she struggled to break free. “No, my old friend,” the elderly ghost said softly, “there is a choice to love here; for life is never without choice. And if life is never without choice, then it is never without love. And tonight we are especially privileged because we have before us the greatest choice imaginable, so also the greatest love.”

“And,” said Snick, cautiously eying Mr. Fuddlebee, “is it the choice for me to lay down this scepter?”

“Not at all,” said the elderly ghost. “It is the choice to lay down your life for someone else.”

Margrave Snick laughed cruelly. “Who’s going to lay down their life? You, ghost? You can’t hurt me. You can only pester me like a poltergeist. Now give me the Hand of DIOS. You have no choice! You have no love! No one will sacrifice their life for this wretched fledgling.”

 
“We will,” came two voices from behind Mr. Fuddlebee.

Then through his ghostly form stepped forth Key’s mom and Key’s dad. They had never heard of Margrave Snick before, so they were unafraid of his vile reputation. All they had was pure love for their only daughter, Key, no matter what she had become, no matter if she was a vampire or witch or ghost. They would choose to love her beyond any fear that could grip them. And they both looked at her now with love – if you’ve felt that from someone who loves you, then you know it; and if you haven’t, then no word can describe how wonderful it feels.

Together, as one love, husband and wife, Key’s mom and dad, they ran towards Margrave Snick. And with all their force, they thrust the scepter from his hand and knocked him backwards. In an instant Key was released from its grip. She fell to the floor and looked up just in time to see her parents dive with Margrave Snick through the Doorackle Alleyway, and go tumbling into the Abyss.

With a gentle flickering away, the light of time snuffed out, like the last candle flame of the universe, and the Doorackle Alleyway closed. And all that remained was silence and darkness and sorrow.

Then, gathering all her horror, all her outrage, like a perfect storm gathering together all its forces, Key’s heart broke open. And at her great loss for a second time, she screamed.

— CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO —

The Subcommittee Preventing Oddly Odious Kerfuffles

For a very long time, Key did not move. The sheer confusion of what had just taken place bound her to her spot, as if she were once again shackled to the wall of Despair. All she could do was stare in complete disbelief at the empty place where the Doorackle Alleyway had been, watching, hoping that it would return, that it would open, and that her mom and dad would step through it and into her arms. But the more time passed, the more Key came to realize that the Doorackle Alleyway was not coming back, and that she might never see her mom and dad again.

Mr. Fuddlebee floated patiently beside her. He did not urge her to move, or to move on. Instead he kindly encouraged her to mourn. “A good cry, my dear, releases many ghosts,” he said softly.

She was too shocked for tears, though, too shocked to accept the possibility that she had lost her mom and dad for a second time.

Finally, after a few minutes of solemn silence had passed, Key mustered enough courage to ask a very brave question, even though the tone of her voice was riddled with doubt, as if she already knew the answer to it.

“They are gone forever, aren’t they?”

“No,” Mr. Fuddlebee replied matter-of-factly.

Key looked at him in astonishment.

“In a way, they are here with us forever,” he went on, placing his ghostly hand on her shoulder. “They are spread across every moment, in every place, at every time.”

“Does DIOS know where they are?”

Mr. Fuddlebee nodded. “Yes, she knows.”

“How?”

“It is impossible to know how DIOS works; we know so little. However, we do believe that the Eye of DIOS sees all moments of all times as one moment. In a way, you could say that your parents are quite safe, for they are with DIOS.”

“Are they dead?”

“No, I do not believe so.”

“Then where are they?”

“Not where, my dear, when. They are every
when
– at all times, at all places. They are looking at time through the Eye of DIOS, which could be compared with looking through a telescope not merely at one moon or one star, but at every moon and every star that has ever been, and all at once.” He paused to reconsider this. “That being said,” he added, “I’m not entirely sure they would understand whatever it is they’re seeing; I do not understand it much myself. I just trust.”

“Are they in pain?” Key asked in a weak voice.

“Were you in pain when you went through the Doorackle Alleyway?”

Key thought about this. The only answer she could give was, “No. It wasn’t painful at all. Actually it was kind of peaceful.”

The elderly ghost smiled on her. “You should let that good experience be a comfort, my dear.”

“Will I ever see them again?”