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

incanted mysterious words, “ Nolite timere pusillus grex —” There was more, but that was all Key heard right before the engine suddenly exploded back to life. Miss Broomble pulled the handlebars back and the MotorHog swerved up from the ground and soared back into the air.
    They had returned to a speed just barely able to keep pace with Silas’s great strides, but they were still too far to stop him, close enough only to hear his footfall booming thunderously, nearly drowning out all other noises. He left massive footprints in old graveyards, crushing charnel houses, flattening vaults, leaving a wake of ruin in the City of the Dead.
    Sometimes the giant swatted something away from his face, as though a gigantic bug was biting him. When Key took a closer look, she saw that it wasn’t a bug at all, but Tudwal. Her immortal puppy was scampering around Silas’s shoulders and neck, biting him anywhere there was flesh, sinking his teeth into the giant’s ear and chin and cheek and hairy moles. Silas would howl in pain and then swat Tudwal away. Sometimes the puppy could scamper away quick enough, but other times he got swatted off. Key shrieked in fear for a moment. But when she saw him gingerly float back up to the giant’s neck, she knew with relief that he could only have been saved by Pega the ghost maid.
    Miss Broomble spoke into the Scuttlecom on her wrist. “Mr. Fuddlebee, we’ve almost reached Silas, but we’re still not close enough to stop him or the Queen.”
    The voice of the elderly ghost came crackling through. “You’ll probably only catch him if you go by William’s Doorackle Alleyway.”
    Miss Broomble cringed. “I’d rather not.”
    “And I’d rather glow mauve instead of green, but there you have it.”
    Miss Broomble sighed after a moment, then nodded and said reluctantly, “All right. Making a course correction now.” She turned the MotorHog away from Silas and sped towards what appeared to be brown fields.
    Miss Broomble was about to sign off from her Scuttlecom communication with Mr. Fuddlebee, when someone else spoke through it. “Wingtips! Wingtips half off! Get ‘em before they’re gone!”
    “Mr. Fuddlebee?” the witch asked doubtfully, though she hid a secret smile, for she knew her friend’s charming weaknesses. “Aren’t you on your way to the Tower Tomb?”
    “Of course,” replied the elderly ghost matter-of-factly.
    “You sound like you’re at Saul’s.”
    “I just had to make a small stop.”
    “For shoes?”
    “Well,” said Mr. Fuddlebee, “as I was floating by I happened to notice that our dear Centaur Shoemaker is selling wingtips at half off – making quite the killing on the sale, too – literally – it’s almost manslaughter down here – thankfully without the men.”
    Miss Broomble looked a little bothered by this news, and Key thought she was about to yell at Mr. Fuddlebee, so she was pleasantly surprised when she heard the witch say into her Scuttlecom, “Are there any platforms?”
    “Just your size,” sang the elderly ghost.  
    “Grab ‘em.”
    “Righto! See you at the Tower Tomb.”
    The Scuttlecom fizzled off.
    As Silas and Old Queen Crinkle were heading towards one direction while Key and Miss Broomble were flying towards another, Key thought about the interchange she’d just overheard. She understood some of it. But she had a question concerning something Mr. Fuddlebee had said about the direction they were now heading.
    “We have to go through another Doorackle Alleyway?”
    Miss Broomble nodded towards the direction before them. “Do you see that patch of brown land?”
    Key could just barely see fields covered in what looked like dead things – grass and trees and leaves. “Is there another Doorackle Alleyway?”
    Miss Broomble, grimacing, looking miserable, nodded. “It’s a shortcut to the Grim Goblin’s Grave.”
    “You don’t seem too happy about it.”
    “It’s my least favorite Doorackle