by Becket
So that she might be ready with a response, she imagined the vampire taking the cake and thanking her for her kindness. However, when Margrave glared at Key’s gift, as if it were completely disgusting to him, she blinked in confusion, wondering why he wasn’t taking it, and wondering if he’d even heard of the deliciousness of birthday cakes before. So you can imagine that she was even more confused when the vampire suddenly backhanded the plate, sending the slice sailing across the room and against the wall where the plate shattered into several shards.
Key was so shocked that she let her mouth hang open, not quite knowing what to say or do. She’d never seen anyone be so rude and ungrateful. And she started to wonder if she herself had done something wrong to offend him.
One zombie henchman laughed at Key. It sounded like coughing and sickness.
The other zombie tried to laugh too, but his laughter did not last long as his rotting jaw dropped off his face. With a very embarrassed look, the zombie then scrambled to pick it up and attach it back to his head. He tried to smile but he had attached his jaw so crookedly that now his head looked lopsided with a cockeyed grin.
Margrave Snick sneered at Key as he loomed over her. His long fangs glistened with saliva. He raised his hands over his head like claws. Then he hissed like a crocodile in her face. “You have only one thing that can satisfy my appetite.”
And before Key could even think about what that meant, complete chaos suddenly broke out inside her once peaceful home.
One zombie henchman started chasing Key’s dad while the other chased her mom. Her dad was strong because of the farming he did and her mom was fast because she was always chasing after lost sheep. But Margrave Snick had increased the strength and speed of these two zombie henchmen, using a recipe of malice with a dash of magic mud, so that now they were much stronger and faster than most mortals. Now not even Key’s mom and dad could overpower the dead.
In a rush Margrave Snick grasped Key in his powerful embrace, pulled her close, and sank his long, sharp vampire fangs into her neck.
Key winced and tensed, tightly shutting her eyes. The pain of the vampire’s bite was like no pain she’d ever felt before. One moment his fangs felt as cold as ice in her skin; the next they felt as hot as fiery thorns. Key started shivering and sweating at the same time. Her body was tingly all over, from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet and everywhere in between. She felt sick to her stomach as she became weaker and weaker. She felt more tired than she’d ever been before; so tired in fact, that she felt like falling into a long, deep sleep.
Yet when things seemed to be as bad as they could possibly get, something happened that brought a little light into Key’s suddenly hopeless home – for right at that moment, Mr. Fuddlebee the elderly ghost came gliding in through the front door with ghostly trails of light swirling around him.
He then unlocked the front door and it burst open.
Now in the doorway stood Miss Broomble the witch, with the gadgets strapped to her arms and legs whirring, prepared for battle.
Mr. Fuddlebee took something out from inside his jacket pocket. It appeared to be no bigger than a grain of sand, for the elderly ghost had to pinch it between his ghostly fingers.
And as he held the grain high overhead, bright white light instantly shone out, which seemed at first as tiny as a pinpoint of starlight, but then grew into a radiance brighter than the sun.
The light filled the whole house. And to Key it seemed as though her house shone with the light of heaven.
Then in a startlingly powerful voice, Mr. Fuddlebee bellowed, “Margrave Snick, you are no longer a vampire! You are no longer immortal! Your power is taken back by the Hand of DIOS!”
The bright white light completely surrounded Key. It did not hurt her eyes, but it blinded her briefly.
She could not see her mom and dad. She could not see the vampire holding her. She could only feel his vampire fangs come out from her neck.
In her ears she could hear Margrave Snick’s voice sounding completely horrified as he gasped in shock, “No, it can’t be true. I can’t be mortal. I can’t be human again. I can’t—”
The vampire started to utter more, but at that very instant he vanished into thin air.
Key fell to the ground. Her head struck the floor hard.
— CHAPTER FOUR —
Mr. Fuddlebee & Miss Broomble
The grain of light pinched between Mr. Fuddlebee’s fingers dimmed slowly, before snuffing out altogether like a candle.
He tucked the grain back inside his jacket pocket as Miss Broomble knelt beside Key. The witch gently touched the bite wounds on her neck, but Key was so dazed that she did not quite understand what the witch was doing, caring little about vampire bites, caring only for her mom and dad who did not seem to be responding when Key, in a weak, hoarse voice called out for them, “Mom? Dad? Where are you?”
Were they safe?
Mr. Fuddlebee glided over, with green ghostly trails of light swirling behind him, and he studied Key’s condition, his expression a mask of concern.
She heard the ghost and the witch talking, but she felt so strangely tired that she could barely understand them. The more she tried, the more her mind felt groggy and her eyes felt heavy with sleep. She struggled to keep them open and stay awake, but it was no good; she felt she might fall into a deep sleep at any moment.
“Mr. Fuddlebee,” the witch said desperately, “the child’s been bitten.”
“Yes, Miss Broomble,” the elderly ghost said more calmly, “she is no longer mortal.”
“Of course I’m mortal,” Key tried to argue, but she had become so tired she could barely open her mouth. Then she wondered, What does mortal mean?
Miss Broomble tensed her brow. “Margrave Snick has never made another vampire, Mr. Fuddlebee.”
“Quite true, Miss Broomble,” the elderly ghost said in agreement. “This child is his first.”
“There’s no telling who she’ll become, Mr. Fuddlebee.”
“True again, Miss Broomble. This girl might become quite powerful indeed.”
Me? thought Key. Powerful? She was not sure if she was awake or asleep. Is this real or a dream? She did not want to be powerful. She just wanted to live a quiet life in her simple home with her mom and dad.
She opened her mouth to try once again speaking with the ghost and the witch. But she stopped, her mouth still open, when she noticed a giant wolf with black and brown fur standing upright on two hind legs.
The giant wolf had suddenly stepped out of the shadows, seemingly out of nowhere, and was now standing behind the ghost and the witch. Yet they kept on talking as though they didn’t notice how the wolf’s eyes glowed like fiery torches, or how his breathing seemed as deep and rumbly as thunder.
Where did that wolf come from? Key wondered in alarm, starting to feel very afraid of him.
But the giant wolf seemed to be looking at her with an expression of deep love and devotion. He seemed to know Key the way one dear friend knows another. No, it did not seem that the wolf would hurt her at all, although perhaps he might lick her face with buckets of slobber.
Now, apparently noticing his presence for the first time, Mr. Fuddlebee turned and floated before the giant wolf. “Look here, Tudwal old boy,” he said in a reproving tone. “Miss Key will be all right in the end. Just leave her to us and we’ll take good care of her.”
The giant wolf growled at the elderly ghost. The whole house seemed to shake by the power in his voice.
“Goodness me,” the elderly ghost said in reply, not bothering to hide the shock in his voice. “Well, yes, I certainly understand you enjoy playing fetch with her, but I had no idea she lets you crawl on the ceiling. It’s not the most civilized behavior for an immortal puppy wolf. I shall have to speak with Miss Key about teaching you better manners.”
Key did not know what the elderly ghost was referring to. Was he talking about her? She had never before played fetch with a giant wolf who stood on his
two hind legs. She had certainly never let one crawl on the ceiling. I must be having a dream, she considered. It’s all very strange.
Miss Broomble stood beside the elderly ghost. “Mr. Fuddlebee,” she said, “because Margrave Snick made this child a vampire, other vampires are going to look at her but see him. Many did not like him, so they will not like her, either.”
Mr. Fuddlebee nodded. “Yes, Miss Broomble, I believe you’re quite correct. In the same way Margrave Snick was hated and feared, she too will be hated and feared, although the hatred and fear directed toward her will be entirely unjustifiable. That’s for certain. For the rest of her life, she must bear the burden of someone else’s bad reputation. Now her life is in for a lot of inexcusable pain and punishment. And she’s not even ten years old, it seems.”
“What are we going to do with her, Mr. Fuddlebee?”
“We are not going to do anything with her, Miss Broomble.”
“We can’t just abandon her, Mr. Fuddlebee.”
“Indeed no, Miss Broomble. We are going to do something for her.”
“What do you have in mind, Mr. Fuddlebee?”
“My dear Miss Broomble, we are going to escort this child to the one place we all end up.”
Miss Broomble thought about this before responding. “The pub?”
The elderly ghost sighed. “No, Miss Broomble. I was referring, of course, to the Necropolis.”
The witch shuddered and her eyes widened with alarm. “The Necropolis?” she asked in an affrighted whisper, putting her hand to her mouth. “You want to take this girl to the City of the Dead?”
“No, Miss Broomble,” said the elderly ghost. “I do not want to. Yet it must be done.”
“Certainly we have other options, Mr. Fuddlebee.”
The giant wolf growled again at the elderly ghost.
But he addressed the witch first. “Miss Broomble, take a good look around you. All you’ll see is a lack of options. Our hands are tied.”
The elderly ghost then turned to the giant wolf. “And as for you, Tudwal old fellow, I ask you to trust my judgment. Your suggestion is good, but we must think more seriously of Miss Key’s future and yours. So, no, although it sounds quite fun, we simply cannot take her to live in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle with its windows down.”
“Mr. Fuddlebee,” said Miss Broomble. “We can’t simply leave this child with the Deadlings.”
“The Deadlings, Miss Broomble?” the elderly ghost said, his ghostly eyebrows raised doubtfully behind his ghostly spectacles. “Surely you – who are now roughly one hundred years old – are not using that callow term to describe the Necropolis Vampires. They are an ancient race, after all.”
“They’re monsters, Mr. Fuddlebee.”
“We’re all monsters, Miss Broomble. Yet not all monsters are bad. Just look at Skulk the undertaker. The Christmas card he sent me last year was filled with so many nice words that I was tickled a lighter shade of green. Granted, the words might not have made sense all together, and they were written in blood, but they were very nice words all the same – words like butterfly and fudge and cotton.”
The elderly ghost sighed.
“No, Miss Broomble, this choice I fear is as unavoidable as death. I may be an amateur enthusiast when it comes to DIOS, but I can say without boasting that I am an authority on death – being a ghost and all. Miss Key here must go to live in the City of the Dead, or else all that we have seen tonight might never happen.”
“It might turn out for the better, Mr. Fuddlebee,” suggested Miss Broomble, sounding a little hopeful.
“But it might turn out for the worse, Miss Broomble,” Mr. Fuddlebee replied, sounding a little hopeless. “Margrave Snick is a mortal again. We should count our blessings. We have done our job as well as we could have, considering the circumstances. We cannot risk having the success of our mission turn out differently for the sake of this child. She must go to the Necropolis. She must suffer Despair, for her sake, for all our sakes.”
Miss Broomble looked from the elderly ghost down to Key, still lying on the ground. She pursed her lips in frustration. Then she appeared to suddenly brighten as she smiled and her eyes widened with wonder. “This child’s parents should take care of her,” she said, a sound of hope returning to her voice. “We could ask Lord Odio McHorrim to change them into vampires, too.”
The ghost hung his head sorrowfully. “Alas, the child’s parents are gone. Do you see them? No, of course not, and neither do I. They disappeared along with Margrave Snick, I fear.”
Key did not like the sound of this. Her parents would have never left without telling her goodbye. Why did they leave? Where could they have gone?
“This child is now an orphan vampire,” Mr. Fuddlebee continued. “She has no one to take care of her, except us and DIOS. And we must trust that DIOS knows what she is doing. She would not have led us here, to this very place, to this very moment in time, without having a very important plan.”
Key had never before heard the word “orphan,” or “DIOS” for that matter. And she did not like being called an orphan. Nor did she have a reason to trust this DIOS person, whoever or whatever she was.
Miss Broomble looked down helplessly at Key. Then the witch let out a long melancholy sigh. “I wish I understood the plan of DIOS. Then it would be much easier to accept it.”
“I share your feelings, my dear Miss Broomble,” Mr. Fuddlebee said, “but sometimes accepting that we do not understand is the first step in understanding.”
Key did not understand what he had just said, it sounded very much like a riddle to her, but that mattered little. She could not stay awake much longer. Her eyelids became too heavy. She blinked to keep awake.
But right before she fell asleep completely, she happened to notice another girl standing beside the giant wolf, whom the ghost had called “Tudwal.”
This other girl was clinging onto Tudwal’s monstrous leg. This other girl did not care that he had enormous teeth and claws. This other girl was lovingly stroking his thick brown-black fur. In fact, the more Key thought about it, the more she realized that Tudwal the wolf was this other girl’s pet.
Key thought this other girl looked very familiar, although her face was a little too out of focus to place.
The other girl let go of the giant wolf, stepped between the ghost and the witch, and she knelt before Key. Now her face came into focus, and as it did, Key saw that this other girl’s face looked like a mirror reflection.
This other girl was another Key!
This other Key had the same bright blue eyes as Key. This other Key had the same long thick curly red hair as Key. This other Key almost had the same smile, the same walk, the same everything.
But this other Key also had long fangs like Margrave Snick. And her skin was as pale as a porcelain doll.
Key had never seen herself look so beautiful – and so scary.
This other Key was wearing a very strange outfit, the likes of which Key had never seen before. This other Key had on a long dark green jacket over a white blouse. Around her middle was a copper bodice covered with gauges and cogwheels. She wore black fingerless gloves, violet shorts, and a pair of mechanical boots with lights and gauges and wires. Above her eyes were metal goggles with several swiveling lenses of various sizes. Holstered to her side was a brass-plated pistol. Clutched in one hand was a bronze rifle, much taller than her, and loaded with copper canisters and wrapped in glass tubes filled with blue and red ink.
This other Key seemed the same age as Key – nine years old.
But her eyes looked like the eyes of a much older woman. They were red with tears. They had seen too much Despair.
Am I crying, Key wondered, or is she?
This other Key wiped away the tears from her own cheek. Then she wiped away a tear rolling down Key’s cheek also.
They both smiled at one another.
The other Key’s smile did not look happy, but sorrowful.
Then this other
Key spoke in a voice as gentle as a lullaby. “I wish I could save you from the suffering you’re about to go through. I wish I could save you from the Deadlings and the Necropolis Castle. I wish I could save you from Old Queen Crinkle. I wish I could save you from the Dungeon of Despair. But I can’t. You need to go into Despair so that I can come out of it. But I want you to know – because you need to know – that I love you very much, and that you’re going to be all right, Key the vampire.”
Now the other Key’s smile seemed a little happier.
“Happy birth-night,” she added.
— CHAPTER FIVE —
City of the Dead
Key awoke in the back of a black carriage.
Outside it was night; the half-moon was high in the sky. The carriage was riding through a dark forest.
All of a sudden she noticed she wasn’t alone. Mr. Fuddlebee the elderly ghost was sitting beside her, inasmuch as an elderly ghost can sit in a carriage bumping along a dirt road. Key had the impression that he was not riding in the carriage, but floating in a seated position along with it because, whenever the carriage hit a bump along the way, he briefly passed right through it, or it passed through him – Key could not tell which.
He had been looking through one of the windows. And when he sensed that she had awoken, he turned to her and smiled a warm greeting. “Welcome back to the living,” he said, “so to speak.”
Key looked around the carriage. She’d never been in one before, and she wondered now if all carriages looked like this one.
All around her were dials and gauges and copper wiring. There were levers and switches and buttons with blinking lights. There were clocks and gears and brass rods with currents of electricity zapping between them.
There was also a strange brass horn coiled into a dumbwaiter on the other side of the carriage. In case you don’t know (because Key didn’t and she had to ask Mr. Fuddlebee about it) a dumbwaiter is a little elevator about the size of a shoebox. “Having them in your carriage is a rare treat,” Mr. Fuddlebee explained, “for most dumbwaiters are in mansions. All sorts of things are sent through them from one part of the mansion to another.”
