Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl and the Tower Tomb of Time (9781941240076) (12 page)

— CHAPTER FOURTEEN —

Grave of the Grim Goblin

The Necropolis Castle had seemed as large as a city, but the City of the Dead was like the size of a country – perhaps much larger. To explore the breadth and depth of its Death and Decay, to meet all the interesting Mostly Dead Mystical Creatures would probably take Key several lifetimes. But that night she didn’t have several lifetimes to catch Old Queen Crinkle. She had an hour at most, maybe two.

As she rode Penelope the Hobbeetle through the Necropolis streets, it was interesting to observe Phantoms glide a step back, Mostly Dead Trolls stare at her with eyes wide in astonishment, and Almost Dismembered Gorgons with all their snake mouths hanging open in awe. Key had never had such respect before, and now she felt a little embarrassed by it. Tudwal, who was always used to attention, sat up a little prouder, wagging his tongue and thumping his tail at all the students from Cobweb Academy who waved at him. Regardless of this, Pega’s invisible worrying could be heard, as she constantly muttered to herself, “Oh dear, oh dear, this beetle needs a bath.”

Key lost sighed of Old Queen Crinkle when she hid in the Graham Cracker House on Bobbapple Avenue. But on the advice of a few Badly Butchered Boggarts, who had happened to see the Old Queen sneak out the backdoor and dart up Spookton Street, towards the Grave of the Grim Goblin, Key drove her Hobbeetle in hot pursuit.

Tudwal and Penelope were quickly becoming as thick as thieves. They let Key do all the worrying and chasing while Tudwal playfully nipped the Hobbeetle’s antennae right before she cracked them like a whip upon his little puppy tail.

After a slight detour due to reconstruction on Yesternight Alley, Key finally caught up with Old Queen Crinkle on Dim Devil Drive, at the end of which was a large gravestone that appeared to be the oldest structure on the block. It was crumbling into ruins and covered all over in withering ivy. It seemed as if all the other tombs and crypts and graves had been built around it over the centuries.

Key hid her Hobbeetle behind Sybil’s Ice Cream Shop, which was in the shape of a crystal ball and run by soothsayers in cone hats. She watched intently as the Queen rapped the end of her scepter three times against the ground. As if on cue, several skeleton sextons pulled themselves up from the soft dirt. They put on their sexton caps and pulled up their sexton shovels, too, and they stood at attention before the Grim Goblin’s gravestone, above which was the epitaph:
Be gone or Beware
.

The Queen inspected the skeletons, as if she were their commanding officer, and they were her shabby soldiers. Once she determined that they were up to snuff, she ordered them, “Dig up the Grim Goblin.”

Upon hearing this, one skeleton fled in fear while another one fell apart. There had been eight; now there were six. And the rest began shaking so violently with fright that their bones began rattling like marimbas, for they all knew that the Grim Goblin had an appetite for marrow. But the Queen, offering to them her usual unsympathetic scowl, helped them to put their fears in order when she reminded them that the Grim Goblin might devour their bones and marrow, but she had the authority to throw them skull first into the Toag cage. Now that the six sexton skeletons saw reason, they hurriedly gathered their shovels and commenced to exhume the Grim Goblin’s coffin, tossing with their shovel-heaps of earth in all directions. Passersby might have easily assumed that the weather in the Necropolis had suddenly decided to start snowing dirt and roots and grubs – which did happen from time to time. Soon there came the familiar thump of a shovel striking hollow wood. The whole fearful party all understood with one accord that they had finally found the coffin of the one Mystical Creature whom they would have rather left six feet under.

It took all six sexton skeletons to lift the Grim Goblin’s coffin and prop it up against his tall gravestone, so that the Queen might look the Goblin in his grim eye. But just as they had set it upright, the gray-green hand of the Grim Goblin suddenly burst through his coffin lid and latched on to the nearest object, which happened to be the bony throat of a sexton skeleton. With knobby knuckles and long black fingernails like the talons of crows, the Grim Goblin’s hand yanked the skeleton inside the coffin. Following this was the nasty sound of bones being crunched.

Next from inside the coffin came the Grim Goblin’s throaty voice:

Whoever dared wake me

will be scared when you see

my gorgeous shape.

It’s like an ape,

only inside out,

and somewhat stout.

Not afraid of gore?

Never seen me before.

I’ll fight you, bite you,

skew you, then eat you

like a shish kabob

or corn on the cob.

Ever seen Jack the Ripper?

Next to me he’s a kipper.

I’m grim; I’m gross;

I define morose!

I have boils; I have warts;

I am Windows tech support!

I scowl;

I prowl;

I howl

yet never towel

since I never shower;

my odor is my power.

My grimace is a disgrace.

You’d fear to see this face.

So go far from me.
 

Run and flee!

Go sprinting! Go hobblin’

from me, the Grim Goblin!

By the tone in his voice, Key got the distinct impression that he could have gone on like this for another five to ten minutes. But Old Queen Crinkle had already had enough of it as she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Oh, put a sock in it, Gary.”

There was a slight pause in the Grim Goblin’s voice. Then he spoke in a tone that had altogether changed, no longer so throaty, but more fluty. “Matilda?” he inquired cautiously. “Is that you? How long has it been? Jack’s Halloween Bash, 1792, right? You were wearing that lovely frock with the dead moths —”

“Gary, open the lid,” the Old Queen snapped irritably, rapping her scepter on his coffin.

Another long pause ensued. The coffin never opened, but it shook violently, as if the Grim Goblin was floundering nervously about inside.

“Gary, stop spinning in your grave!” the Old Queen snapped, rapping her scepter on the coffin with such force you might have easily mistook her for a lumberjack. “Open this lid right this instant!”

The coffin stopped shaking. A short silence ensued. Then the Grim Goblin replied rather sheepishly, “I can’t.”

Old Queen Crinkle blinked in confusion. “And why, pray tell, not?”

“You see – the thing is,” the Grim Goblin stammered nervously, then lowered his voice to an embarrassed whisper: “The thing is – I have
coffin breath
.”

“Coffin breath,” she sighed flatly.

“You understand.”

Old Queen Crinkle rubbed her brow in frustration.

“Gary?”

“Hello? Yes?” came the Grim Goblin’s voice, trying to act natural, as though surprised to have visitors.

“Look, I just need the Eye of DIOS.”

“Sorry, but I can’t.”

The Queen furrowed her brow, looking even more puzzled than before. “Did Fuddlebee put a spell on you?”

“No.”

“Is the Eye magically bound to you?”

“No.”

“Is magic or mechanics in any way preventing you from giving it to me?”

“Not at all.”

“Well,” growled Old Queen Crinkle, “why can’t you?”

“It’s hanging over the fireplace.”

“Over the fireplace,” the Queen repeated deadpan.

“That’s right!” the Grim Goblin replied, his voice merrily bright. “It’s become quite the center of attraction at my parties. Dead friends are always saying to me, ‘Gary, you’ve outdone yourself this time. You’ve got quite the conversation piece.’ So you see, Matilda, I just can’t give that up. No one would come to visit me anymore. And being lonely is quite grim, you know.”

Old Queen Crinkle looked as though she might tear out her hair at any moment. But she calmed herself and said, “Gary.”

“Yes?”

“This is a nice coffin you have.”

“Why, thank you! This season’s top model. The Caskettron 2021.”

“If you don’t give me the Eye of DIOS now, I’ll bury you in the Caskenator.”

There was a sudden shriek from inside the Grim Goblin’s coffin. Following this were the sounds of feet thumping down stairs, doors slamming, mugs clinking, and finally more feet thumping back up stairs.

Then the Grim Goblin’s hand shot out from the coffin again. Between his knobby, gray-green fingers was a pinpoint of light, as small as a grain of sand.

“The Eye of DIOS,” said Key softly, in wonderment.

Filled with great curiosity, she leaned a little too far forward on her chair and slipped off the edge of her seat. She tried to stop herself from falling by grabbing on to one of her control panels. In doing so she accidentally struck an ominous-looking green button.

A small compartment opened on the Hobbeetle’s machinery and out rolled Maggie Incanto’s Magical Immobilization Laser. It shot a bright blue beam at the Grave of the Grim Goblin. In a second, the Grim Goblin’s hand, Old Queen Crinkle, the skeleton sextons, and a group of Slightly Lifeless Leprechauns on a lunch break at a nearby cafe – all froze to their spots. The only thing they could move were their eyes, which now glanced back and forth in frozen, wide-eyed bewilderment.

Key slid off her Hobbeetle and dashed towards the Grim Goblin’s Grave. Tudwal scrambled after her while Pega went shouting after him, “Get back here, you ragamuffin of a puppy!” And Penelope the Hobbeetle, not wanting to be left behind, chased after them, as Key had forgotten to press her parking brake.

With slowing steps of trepidation, Key approached the Grave of the Grim Goblin. She was not sure if the effects of the Magic Immobilization Laser would last long, and she had no desire to be around to find out, yet she could not help the concern she felt, or the fear shivering down her spine. What if they started moving again? What if the Grim Goblin’s hand snatched her into his coffin, too? What would the Queen do if she caught her? All sorts of terrible possibilities rose and fell like sandcastles in Key’s imagination. Yet, in reality, there was only one thing she could do, which was to get the Eye of DIOS before the Queen did. So, continuing with very cautious steps, she crept past Old Queen Crinkle, whose eyes followed Key like the eyes in a haunted painting, as she slipped nearer and nearer to the Grim Goblin’s knobby hand.

— CHAPTER FIFTEEN —

The Eye of DIOS

The Magic Immobilization Laser seemed to have turned them into unbreakable blocks of marble. Key, despite all her vampire strength, struggled to free the Eye from the Grim Goblin’s grip. While she did this, Tudwal was playing with the hem of the Old Queen’s patchwork dress, clutching it in his teeth and tearing at it as though it were a chew toy. Pega wrung her invisible hands and did her best not to make a sound around Old Queen Crinkle, but at the same time she could not let the puppy go undisciplined. She kept thumping him on his puppy rump and hissing at him, “Stop that this instant, you wicked beast!”

Neither Key nor Tudwal noticed the Hobbeetle making gestures with her mandibles. Only Pega happened to see them, but Penelope’s beetle-speak was moving so frantically in her mandibles that it took the ghost maid a few moments to understand their meaning. Yet she did. And if Key could have seen the ghost’s invisible eyes, she would have observed them widen with sudden shock; for the Hobbeetle’s message was that Old Queen Crinkle’s lips had begun to move ever so slightly.

The ghost maid took a closer look at the Old Queen and saw that the Hobbeetle was correct. Pega leaned her ear a little closer and she heard whispers as soft as hissing snakes slithering past the Queen’s lips.

“Twisters, bats, and blackened oceans, give my limbs back their motions.”

Suddenly the Queen’s dark magic broke the immobilization spell. The force of her counterspell knocked back Key, Tudwal, and Pega; and even the Hobbeetle was bowled over on to the back of her shell. The bones of the sexton skeletons scattered like leaves in all directions; their skulls looking at one another helplessly, hoping someone would put them back together again. The Grave of the Grim Goblin was lying lopsided now, over his headstone. His hand was still extending outward, trembling frightfully, with the Eye of DIOS still pinched between his fingers.

The Old Queen snatched it away from him and hobbled off down the street. Key instantly got to her feet and dashed towards the Old Queen, without any plan, without any hope, only the drive to stop her from hurting anyone else. But the Queen immediately tucked the Eye of DIOS into the folds of her patchwork sleeves, reached her hand out towards Key’s chest, and cast another evil spell.

“Meteor, hail, stones, and owls, fly this thing like winged fowls.”

A force like a shockwave shot forth from the Queen’s hand and thrust Key backwards. She went tumbling through the air, head over feet, as if she were nothing more than a mere ragdoll tossed carelessly away. The power of this spell cast her one full city block and thrust her through the wall of a shop that sold teacup dragons as family pets. She came to a stop against the metal mesh of several dragon cages. The cages broke open and released a flock of teacup dragons into the City of the Dead like pigeons. And also very much like pigeons, the teacup dragons ruined many windshields that cruel night.

Witnessing the ruthlessness of Old Queen Crinkle triggered something magical and horrible in Tudwal, for despite the fact that he could only transform from his puppy form into his wolf form during the half-moon, and despite the fact that the half-moon was still many nights away, the immortal puppy suddenly started to transform into an immortal wolf monster. How this happened, no one knew – and it’s still a mystery to this day. But beholding this could only be compared with watching a teddy bear transmogrify into Sasquatch. Old Queen Crinkle looked on with great curiosity, while his hindquarters became upright legs, his paws exploded into humungous claws, his snout enlarged, and his canines lengthened into long daggers.