Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl and the Tower Tomb of Time (9781941240076) by Becket Read Free Book Online Page B

hurriedly tore away the wallpaper. Pega helped them, and Tudwal, too, scraping away the lower parts with his paws.
    Behind the wallpaper was another stained glass window. Yet in this window were glass images of a king, a queen, and only one throne. The king and the queen were arguing about which one of them was allowed to sit on the throne and make royal decrees.
    Miss Broomble placed her hand on Key’s back and urged her forward. “You say the password now.”
    At first Key spoke a little too softly for the king and queen to hear, but at Miss Broomble’s prompting, she spoke more confidently, “Higgledy-Piggledy.”
    At this utterance, the stained glass king and queen continued to fight as pieces of the stained glass window all around them folded away automatically. When the king’s left arm also folded away, the queen took advantage of his distraction, and she leaped onto the throne and shouted, “Ha! My new royal decree is this: There shall be no more —” But Key never got to hear the rest, as the stained glass window folded back into another golden doorframe.
    Miss Broomble took Key and Tudwal through another long tunnel of large spinning cogwheels and swinging pendulums, until they came out into another turret on the far side of the castle.

— CHAPTER SEVEN —

    Silas the Cybernetic Cyclops

    Miss Broomble led Key, Pega, and Tudwal out of the Doorackle Alleyway.
    Still atop the wall, though now much farther away from where they had been, Key looked out over the railing and saw tombs looking like townhouses; mausoleums resembling skyscrapers; and graveyards mimicking country clubs with golf courses. They had all been built along the gray-sand shore of the Lake of the Dead. The Lake was so large that it could have easily been mistaken for an ocean. Death-guards watched over it, chirruping bone-whistles whenever the lake’s murky waters made swimmers feel a little too alive.
    On this side of the City of the Dead, Mostly Dead street vendors in the Early Medieval District were selling cold-dogs out of their coffins to semi-charred tourists from the Perpetually Burning Forest. Bonemen from the Jazz District were playing music in one of the many pubs along the Necropolis streets. Zombie Merchants were riding Brimstone Buses from Cringeable Way to the Financial District downtown. Key marveled at the way everything seemed so lively, despite the fact that this place was indeed the City of the Dead.
    Miss Broomble pressed the button behind her ear and her half-mask unfolded outward, covering over her nose and mouth. She pointed down the side of the castle wall.
    “Silas,” she said beneath her breath.
    Key peered over the edge and now saw the full stature of the Cybernetic Cyclops. He seemed as broad as he was tall. His chest, one shoulder, and half a leg were plated in dinted pewter. His cybernetic joints were cogwheels of all sizes and shapes. One of his massive arms was completely robotic, at the end of which was not a hand, but an iron claw. Part of his bald head was covered in tarnished brass. Over his one eye was a mechanical monocle with a blood red lens, shooting out a blood red light that pulsed like a heartbeat.
    Silas the Cybernetic Cyclops was not as tall as the tallest castle tower, but he stood almost as tall as the castle wall. In his hands was a massive club made of stone and metal, which he used to strike the wall. Every swing was like the mighty blow of an earthquake. Every bellow of his outrage was like a thunderclap.
    Miss Broomble looked pensive behind her half mask. “He is angrier than I have seen him in a long while,” she remarked as she took the spyglass from her forearm. Gripping the smaller end she spoke into the wide lens.
    “Dynabow.”
    Like the Oscillobox that had transformed into a bridge when Key escaped from the flooded dungeon, the spyglass now folded into a crossbow with gauges and canisters. In each canister crackled a little bolt of electricity.
    Miss Broomble showed Key the