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

Author:Becket
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Smashwords

— CHAPTER TWELVE —

The Bewitched Hobbeetle

Key slowly backed away from the Bewitched Hobbeetle, but with every backwards step, the Hobbeetle continued to follow her, as if studying her with as much caution and curiosity as she was studying him. Then the Hobbeetle began making snapping motions with the mandibles around its mouth; it looked like it might gobble her up at any moment. Not really liking this idea at all, she decided to flee.

Key ran up Trick-or-Treat Road, where several shops were just opening up for nighttime services. The Woeful Wandmaker’s Market, shaped like a long magic wand, was selling bone wands at half off; the Blood Brewer Company, shaped like a beer barrel, was having a blood drive; and the Warlock Candy Shop, shaped like a candy corn, was selling a new treat – sugar-coated gummy ghosts. Key dashed past them all, and more, while the Hobbeetle chased after her. She hurried past Monster Monastery, Saint Gingerbread’s Church, and Cobweb Academy. She hurried past several Mostly Dead bystanders, dressed in their burial clothes, dusty and sleepy, having just risen from their graves to do a little midnight shopping. Upon seeing the monstrous Hobbeetle chasing after Key, their dead eyes enlivened with sudden fright and they leaped into one another’s cold arms for fear of being trampled by its great claws.

Key meanwhile had only just turned up Autumn Alley, which was lined with trees covered in leaves of brown and red and gold, when she accidentally tripped and fell over a dead root protruding from the ground. In the blink of an eye, the Bewitched Hobbeetle was looming over her. Trapped beneath its hulk, Key closed her eyes, preparing to be devoured whole in its mandibles – but then she heard a sound that she had heard countless times before in the Dungeon of Despair, a sound she thought she’d never hear again, a sound that at once could lighten her heart while also shatter stone, for it was the sound of her immortal puppy-wolf barking wildly.

“Tudwal!” exclaimed Key gladly as she turned to see him turn off Macabre Boulevard and scuttle as fast as he could towards her.

Yet her gladness froze as instantly as it had warmed her when she also happened to notice that chasing after Tudwal with a very bad limp was the very same Mystical Creature that she had been chasing all night – Silas the Cybernetic Cyclops. The giant’s mechanical knee was still broken from the damage Miss Broomble had inflicted with her Somatic Wrench, yet that neither seemed to stop him nor slow him down. He was chasing Tudwal with a vengeful fury, raising his club above his head and knocking down various other shops that had only just opened for business. Heedlessly he knocked over the Banking Burial Chambers, Reaper Realty, and Fire & Brimstone Book Publishers. Impassively he toppled over the Perilous Postal Service, the Dark Deli, and Snake Oil Office Supplies. Remorselessly he crushed Louise Lyte’s Lantern Shop, Peter Prunk’s Potions & Plumbing, as well as Colleen Cringeworthy’s Costumes, Coffee, & Almost Comfortable Coffins.

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