Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) (23 page)

44

Fable's
Dreamworld

"
Loki!"
Fable screamed back at him, titling her head as she rode. Cerené was scared to
death, refusing to leave as she had been ordered. Fable hated her for not
leaving, but there was nothing she could do. Cerené cared for everyone too
much. "Remember me?" Fable shouted at Loki. "You killed everyone
in my town, Furry Tell!"

This time
she totally remembered it. A big part of her memory began to come back. The
hardest was her hate for Loki.
How in the world did I hate him so much in
the past? It's the right feeling, but feels so wrong.

"My
pleasure." He smirked, glowing out of the shadows. "Sue me if I
offended you."

"I
will do worse!" Fable gritted her teeth, doing her best not to chicken
out.
This isn't the real Loki, Fable. It's some monster in the past.
Ironically, if you hurt him in this dream and take his Fleece, you will be
saving him in the Waking World.

"Ha!
If so, why don't you get off your horse and fight me, witch!"

"Nah,
that won't let you glimpse the darkness you shed on my town," Fable said,
as she struggled with her horse. It seemed scared of Loki. "I will burn
your heart out." She was just buying time until she glimpsed the red
Fleece wrapped around his wrist.

Finally.
That's what I came for.

Loki
laughed again, too confident he would get her, and the Princess slumped on
Cerené's horse behind Fable.

Fable
turned around and hissed at Cerené, "You're sure you can lead us to Jack's
treehouse?"

Cerené
only nodded, her eyes fixed on Loki. Fable realized how much Cerené feared him,
the boy who'd cut off her hands before.
Why didn't you just go, Cerené!
Fable
thought. But then again, how could she return to Jack's treehouse if Cerené
didn't stay? Also, Shew's body was bait for Loki.

"Look,"
Fable hissed. "It's going to be all right.
Just speed toward
the treehouse.
I will follow you and make sure he can't hurt Shew before
we get there. Once we're there, the Beast, Ladle, Jack, the Star, and Marmalade
can kill Loki. It will be seven against one."

"Six
against one." Cerené shivered.

"I
understand." Fable nodded. "Now, run!"

"We
split her heart among us!" Cerené felt the need to yell at Loki before she
turned away to run.

Brilliant.
Now he knows what we did. And I thought I was more inexperienced than her.

Fable didn't
wait for Loki's reaction, and rode away, following Cerené.

"You're
lying!" Loki screamed, his voice shattering like cursed glass.

"We
did." Cerené couldn't stop spilling the words as she rode ahead. "Among
the seven of us. You will have to get it from us all."

"You
filthy witches!" Loki's temper was now uncontrollable. He rode after them,
panting like a predator. If he caught up, killing them would be the least that'd
satisfy him.

Fable
panted, too. It wasn't like she had planned out the best solution to get her
hands on the Fleece. It had all been random acts from the beginning. But she
had just realized she was one of the Lost Seven a few hours ago. This was all
too much.

She
followed Cerené into the dark of the forest. It seemed to get darker and darker
the more they rode. Loki still pursued them.

"Why
is it taking so long?" Fable said to Cerené.

"I—"
Cerené stuttered as she began to detour in all kinds of directions. "I
think… The trees changed their places. This is wrong. The forest is working
against us."

"What?"
Fable's heart paced. Loki seemed to be so close now. "Are you saying…?"

"I
think we're lost," Cerené said, naively stopping her horse, all the fear
in the world painting her face.

Fable was
shocked. Why did Cerené stop? She didn't seem that fragile in Shew's Dreamory.
What had happened to her? So they were lost now?

Fable
looked behind her, imagining Loki only steps away.

45

The Queen's
Diary

The first
two days, I was able to stay with Angel on the same raft. We had little food,
but he had long stopped eating, as all he must have thought about was blood. He
had weakened into a paler version of himself, burying his head either in my
arms or his to avoid listening to the mermaids.

Their
humming song echoed in the whale, and they took pleasure in taking intervals of
silence, only driving us crazier. Sometimes they sang in unison, sometimes
individually, in every possible tone and tempo. They only stopped to sink into
the water for food, or giggle while combing each other's hair.

Sometimes,
Sirenia swam nearer and talked to me, advising I should give up on Angel and
come with them to meet the nameless witch who seemed fascinated with me.

I didn't
give in, but I cried a lot. Part of it was sharing Angel's misery, as I was
nurturing him like a baby, and another part was
me
being devastated by my own weakness. How could I not swim? How wasn't I strong
enough to kill the mermaids? And if I was so weak, why did everyone know who I
was?

The third
day, Sirenia educated me about who the mermaids really were. They weren't
mermaids. They were sirens. They looked very
much
like
mermaids. They lived all across the Seven Seas and played all day. And they had
one thing on their mind. Eating.

But sirens
liked to sing, too. They had beautiful voices. Singing gave them strength and
longevity. When I asked her why they couldn't just sing and leave us alone,
Sirenia explained: in order to sing and live long, they had to eat. Only one
type of food helped: human males.

"You're
lulling and eating the flesh of man to sing?"

"What
would you do if you knew there was a flesh that grants you immortality,
Majesty?" Sirenia said. "We also discovered that our music lured
mostly men. Rarely did women give in to our power. We used to keep to ourselves
and live on abandoned islands in the Seven Seas. We used to sing by the fire
all night until our voices seduced sailors. They came in willingly to our
island. We played with them for a little while before we killed them and ate
them."

I didn't
know if I should believe her. I didn't know if I should believe anything I
heard. Was there such contradiction in life?
Beauty that was
nothing but a beast?
Killers who killed, not because they were plainly
evil, but to survive and live longer?

"Why
have you left the islands, then?" I said. Angel was still sleeping in my
arms. He had lately acquired a habit of fainting from the pain of music.

"Because
of the damn Moongirl." Sirenia rolled her eyes. "She began killing us
one by one, Majesty."

"Stop
calling me Majesty." It felt insulting being praised by an evil siren like
her—no matter her excuses, I still considered her malevolent.

"But
you're my Majesty, My Queen." She smiled. The mermaids smiled. "Always
will be. You just don't know it yet."

"What
do you mean by that?"

"He
still didn't tell you, did he?" She pouted at Angel in my arms.

"Tell
me what?"

"About
the prophecy?" She exchanged pitying looks with the other sirens.

"What
prophecy?"

"Hmm…
I guess I have to tell you myself, then." She shook her shoulders. "There
is the prophecy of a girl, a Karnstein, who will love and marry the son of the
vampire king, a Sorrow. This girl will have a pivotal role in history."

"Go
on." I thought I had begun to put the pieces together already, but I was
wrong. More was to come.

"It
was said that she will have the power to end the drought of seven years,"
Sirenia said. "That's why our nameless witch cursed your land into a
barren womb, unable to produce apples."

Silence
consumed me. Was I cursed or was I blessed?

"The
day that girl is born, no other mother in the land will deliver their babies.
Their birth will be either delayed or they will be born dead." Sirenia was
happy about it. A dark fairy tale, like the one the Grimm Brothers wrote years
later.

"So
that's why she cursed our land in the first place?" I mumbled, as if the
mermaids couldn't hear me. I was inside my head. Inside my childhood memories,
looking for more answers.

"Indeed,"
Sirenia said. "The nameless witch wanted to find you for her own reasons.
Night Von Sorrow kidnapped you later for the same reason."

"Because
I was the prophecy girl who'd fall in love with his son," I commented
absently.

"Night
Von Sorrow wanted to turn his son into a fully transformed vampire, and bite
you as well, because the prophecy said that would be the best way to get rid of
you, Majesty," Sirenia said. "As it was told, you're stronger than
anyone thinks, even stronger than what you think of yourself. Killing you wasn't
going to work. But turning you into one of the Sorrows
was
going to end the curse."

"That's
why they lied to Angel and told him they thought I was a vampire," I said.
"They wanted to tempt him into biting me. Trying to make it easier on him."

"I
don't think Angel believed that," Sirenia said. "He was only
questioning why you
can't
look into a mirror—which,
frankly, none of us know." She gestured at her army of sirens, now silent,
not singing, listening to a bedtime fairy tale, as dark as they had always meant
it to be.

"Is
that why you're not hurting me?" I asked. "You want to pressure me"—I
remembered Cinder's words—"so I give in and come with you, to save
Angel."

"The
same way he fought for you until now," Sirenia said. "You have no
idea what he went through in those two years. Tortured, exiled to a tower under
the sun, and beaten each day, to force him to end the prophecy by biting you.
In the end, he decided he couldn't live without you, and that he would protect
you forever." Sirenia pursed her wet lips, pouting at Angel again. "But
what a pity. Look at him. So weak, sleeping like a beautiful princess."
She snickered again.

"Why
am I so important to the nameless witch, then?"

"That,
also, we don't know," Sirenia said. "She"—Sirenia neared
the log and whispered—"is very demanding, but also patient enough to
get what she wants the way she wants it. She has lived since very long ago, and
has nothing but time on her side."

I brushed
my hands into Angel's hair, contemplating what to do. Soon we both wouldn't be
able to stay on the same raft. Soon he would be thirsty and want to bite me
against his will. I couldn't even escape to the water I feared the most. Was I
supposed to give in and go with the sirens, only to save Angel—and
myself? A stepping stone in our journey, maybe, until we could meet again and
find the Tower of Tales. But why should I keep sacrificing myself—first
for my land and family by not staring into mirrors, and then for the one I
loved by surrendering to a nameless witch who definitely wanted to hurt me?

"You
haven't told me why it was so important a Karnstein married a Sorrow," I
said to Sirenia.

She eyed
me, as if it had been only common sense. "But, Majesty, don't you know?"
She winked. "Your offspring. Another girl will be born, the daughter of
Carmilla Karnstein and Angel Von Sorrow."

"We
will have a girl?" I smiled in the middle of all my sorrows.

"Two,
maybe," Sirenia said, then waved her hand as if it were a trivial detail. "Who
cares about numbers? The point is that one of them is really, really a threat
to the Sorrows."

"How
so?"

"Your
child, Carmilla, is said to have the power, an unknown one, to eliminate all vampires
in the world, if not all evil in the world."

46

Fable's
Dreamworld

"Where
is he?" Cerené asked with terribly scared eyes. Fable could see her chest
rise and fall, her eyes scanning the night, looking for the boy who had cut off
her hands before.

"I
don't know, Cerené." Fable realized she was as scared as her. She reminded
herself that if Loki killed her in the dream, they'd probably prepare another
coffin for her in the Waking World cellar. "The problem right now is that
we don't know which direction he could attack us from," Fable told her.

She looked
at the dense trees surrounding them. How did people find their way in such
forests?

"Maybe
he won't attack us," Cerené suggested. "Maybe something happened to
him. Or why would he have stopped?"

"Loki
likes to play games, remember?" Fable said, taking hold of her scared
horse.

"He
didn't sound like he wanted to play games this time. Something must have
happened."

"Let
me take a look," Fable offered reluctantly. It occurred to her that Loki
might have been setting a trap for them.
But why?
He
was strong and angry enough to kill them both. It didn't make sense.

"Be
careful, Fable," Cerené said. Fable rode slowly toward the trees.

"Which
reminds me." Fable stopped and turned around. "What happened to me in
those last three months?" If she was going to risk checking on Loki now,
she preferred to know.

"You
know what happened," Cerené said, grimacing. "You're the one who told
me the details."

Fable
sighed. "Remind me, please."

Cerené looked
puzzled. "You want me to tell you all that you told me happened to you?
Right now? It's a long story."

It seemed
Fable had no choice. Cerené seemed curious already about Fable's behavior.
Better turn around and check on Loki.

Fable's
horse led her past the dense trees into a darker part of the forest. With her
poor eyesight, she felt terrible. But it didn't take long to realize that
something was sprawled on the ground. Fable squinted, but all she could see was
a silhouette. She kept squinting until the scene made sense. She was looking at
Loki's unicorn lying on the ground.
Oh my God!
It had one of its legs
chopped off. Poor thing. Fable's horse stepped back. She held it tighter by the
reins while she kept squinting. And she was glad she did. Looking closer, she
saw Loki lying unconscious on the floor. Someone had chopped off his unicorn's
leg and…killed him?

"Fable!"
Cerené called worriedly from afar.

Fable
turned back, and rode as fast as she could. If someone or something had killed
Loki, she didn't want to confront it.

"Someone
cut off his unicorn's leg," she told Cerené, as she rode ahead. "Follow
me!"

But Cerené
wasn't following.

Damn it,
Cerené.

"Come
on!" Fable yelled, tilting her head.

Cerené
stood paralyzed, pointing at something behind the trees. Fable had to stop and
turn around again.

She saw
what it was.

A figure,
dressed in black, showed partially in the darkness. It must have been who
killed Loki. Cerené sat on her horse, pointing at it.

"Let's
go," Fable shouted, and slapped her horse as hard as she could. The horse
complied and ran.

"Don't
look back," Fable panted as they escaped. "We're not going to slow
down. We're heading to meet Jack, even if takes us forever in this forest."

Cerené
nodded, saying nothing.

But it
wasn't too long before Fable's horse tripped on something. She flew into the
air, appalled by whatever was going on,
then
landed on
her side on the ground.

Fable's
small size privileged her with a sort of agility. It didn't hurt badly when she
fell. She mopped her mud-stained head and propelled herself on all fours,
looking for her horse. Cerené was lying unconscious next to Fable's
three-legged horse.

What? I
didn't trip on something? Who chopped off my horse's legs?

Someone
had chopped Cerené's horse's leg off, too.

Who was
it? Who was the person in black?

Shew came
to mind. Fable, still a bit dizzy, crawled to her. She lay a few feet away,
sprawled on the ground. Fable crawled and crawled.

What was
happening?
How is everything falling apart so fast? I'm supposed to save Shew
and Loki.

She
crawled faster, hoping nothing bad happened to the comatose Shew. But then
Fable stopped on all fours. Slowly, she raised herself up. A dark someone was
hovering over Shew's body.