Blood, Milk & Chocolate - Part 1 (The Grimm Diaries Book 3) Read online

  Fable rubbed her eyes and neared the sound of sobs. She ignored her utterly terrifying shadow on the walls. Finally, she found Shew sitting in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around Loki's coffin.

  "Is he breathing?" Fable's curiosity was piqued. There was no need to say "good morning" or that kind of fluff. She was sure Shew's mind was so occupied with the complex mystery of the Grimm fairy tales that there was no room for such gestures anymore.

  Shew nodded absently, arms hugging Loki tighter through the open coffin. It was the coffin Axel and his nerd-fighter friends had made for him. Loki was lying on his back with closed eyes and crossed hands. Sillily enough, Axel had dressed him in a tux with a yellow cravat and tucked a bouquet of roses between his hands. Loki looked beautiful when asleep, almost like a comatose prince in need of a resurrecting kiss.

  Why couldn't a girl's kiss revive a boy's life in fairy tales? Why was it always a prince charming and not a princess charming?

  Closer to Loki, Fable realized this was actually Shew's coffin in the castle, now fixed and used to accommodate Loki. Two lovers were taking turns in their coffins. The sweet and sad irony. The thought made Fable teary, pulling her real personality out of her tomboy frame for a moment and bringing her back to her usual self.

  She wondered if what was happening to her was something that came and went away all throughout the day. Was that some kind of madness, or had she really messed with her own mind through some wrong spell?

  She washed the thoughts away and neared Shew then patted her on the back.

  Shew was not only crying. She was sweating and shivering. Her face was drowned in sticky tears, and her paleness mixing with reddened cheeks made it almost look like she never was a vampire. Her beautiful black hair was wet and stuck to her cheeks, and swirled like a choking snake around her neck. Fable remembered how Shew had scared the hell out of her in the Schloss a few days ago. She looked unbelievably weak and vulnerable.

  "I killed him." She stared at Fable, her eyes pleading for forgiveness, as if Fable were a priest offering her redemption. With her boyish attitude, Fable wasn't the one you'd turn to in such situations. Didn't anyone know how fragile she was herself?

  "You did what you had to do," Fable said, clinging to her weird manly attitude on purpose this time. Normally, she'd be weeping until she could no longer see through her glasses. But she wasn't now. The tears that were threatening dried with the blink of her eyes. The weird manly feeling inside her seemed to help a lot with the situation. Could it be that she was only growing up and learning not give in to her emotion?

  "No, I didn't," Shew objected. "I didn't have to kill him. I was angry he hurt Cerené. I was angry he became the Huntsman again. I didn't kill him out of necessity, but out of anger, which I should be able to suppress, since I'm the Chosen One." Shew's fangs stuck out—not in a threatening way, but in a purely vulnerable gesture.

  Fable winced. She even took a step back. The fangs reminded her of Shew's demonic temper in the Schloss again. "No. It was necessary to kill Loki. You had no choice." Fable nibbled on the breadcrumbs to calm her fears. She thought they tasted incredibly good. "Mircalla, I mean Carmilla, controlled Loki through his Fleece in the Dreamworld. In order for one of you to survive the Dreamory, the other had to die. You didn't make the rules." Fable tried her best to make it easier on Shew. But mentioning Carmilla had her thinking about why she'd disguised as her foster mother all this time. What was so special about Fable and Axel for her to do so? "Besides, sometimes Loki is just annoying when he plays bad boy," Fable continued. Oops, why did I just say that? Who am I? It's like I woke up this morning and became someone else.

  "I'm not talking about that." Shew hiccupped. "I'm talking about me failing to read his message in the World Between Dreams."

  Save me!

  Both girls sighed at the same time. Fable dropped more breadcrumbs.

  If there were words to solace Shew, Fable didn't find them. She watched Shew nodding speechlessly, not for lack of words, but under the intensity of her sadness.

  Silence crept like a poisonous spider on the walls of the cellar for a while. It was odd how silence was such a scary thing. Sooner or later someone had to break and cut through its invisible cobwebs.

  5

  Only the sound of Fable's nibbling broke the silence, which was rather embarrassing. But she couldn't stop her nibbling. If she hadn't left Pickwick up in the kitchen, he would be mocking her indecency now. Was she turning into a gorging monster like her brother Axel? Come to think of it, Axel would have made a perfect Hansel, she thought. "I don't get it," Fable said. "Loki tried to kill me and all those children in Furry Tell, then tried to kill you, then chopped off Cerené's hands. All those atrocities he'd done, and then he asked you to save him? Save him from what?"

  "From her, of course." Shew seemed slightly offended. "My mother." She lowered her head, looking ashamed of her own family. Fable sympathized. Sometimes she'd been ashamed of her mother, although she'd never seen her, being a lousy witch. "Loki was just a puppet to her. She played him through the strings of his Fleece." She seemed annoyed that she had to repeat herself to Fable. "I'm sure he would have done the best to save me if he'd been free of her power." Shew seemed so sure about her statement. Fable wondered about True Love for a moment. Did it really make people so sure of each other's love for one another?

  "But if he was controlled by her, how could he possibly send you a message?" Fable said. Normally, she'd be rooting for True Love, like so many times when Loki was about to give up on Shew in the castle, and she pushed him to believe in his love. Today, she wasn't that sure about it.

  "His subconscious sent me the message. He was able to do it through the World Between Dreams, one of the few realms in the Dreamworld uncontrolled by Carmilla."

  "Then why didn't he escape to that realm?"

  "He told me he couldn't stay long enough there. Carmilla would've noticed his absence, and tortured him through the Fleece in return. She was watching the Dreamory through a crystal ball, empowered by Loki's Fleece. That was the whole point of her sending him after me. I thought she wanted him to kill me. Instead, she had bigger plans. She wanted to know about my relationship with Cerené, so she could learn how to put the Andersen Mirror back together."

  "I still don't get this Andersen Mirror thing, but anyways." Fable sighed and collected fallen breadcrumbs from the floor. "So you asked him to save you two days ago in the castle, and then the tables turned and he asked you the same, only a day later?" It wasn't a question, really. She was reminding herself of how the beauty suddenly became the beast, and the beast became the beauty all of a sudden.

  "I am sorry, Loki." Shew gently rubbed his closed eyes. "I'm really sorry. I'd rather kill myself with a dagger right now."

  Fable was speechless. If True Love made lovers kill themselves, then it certainly sucked. Still, she stepped forward and patted Shew, playing the part everyone expected her to. The part she usually expected from herself. Have I awoken without my heart today? 'Cause I surely can't sympathize much.

  "I don't understand how I'm supposed to be the Chosen One," Shew continued, talking to Loki's corpse. "I couldn't save Cerené, and I couldn't help you when you needed me." She stopped then turned and faced Fable. "Oh my God. I even let down Cerené." She stood and clapped her hands on her cheeks. Fable thought Loki's death had turned Shew into some whiny damsel. She had liked her more in the Dreamory, killing and fighting for her rights. Or was this all just Cerené's doing from when she had breathed life into the pale Princess with her blowpipe? Maybe the effect didn't last beyond the Dreamworld. "This girl breathed life into me when I was left for dead on the table in my mother's chamber. And I let her down." Shew threw herself into Fable's arms, forcing her to drop the bowl of breadcrumbs. Fable wondered why everyone needed to hug her today. She hugged Shew back tightly, though. In fact, the more they hugged, the more Fable began sympathizing again. Was it the proximity of Shew's heart that made her feel that? Fable won
dered if she'd need to go to an asylum soon.

  "I love Cerené so much!" Shew sobbed violently, as if an invisible demon shook her. "And I loved Loki. I loved them, Fable! And I let them down."

  Fable pushed Shew away, only to gently wipe the tears from her eyes and readjust her hair. It felt good to feel sympathy. It was good to feel like Fable again. She hoped she wouldn't lose that feeling again in a few moments. "Tell me, Shew," Fable said. "Tell me about how much you love Loki. Tell me about True Love. What does it feel like?" It was a sincere question from a girl who had never dated a boy, although she wanted Axel to think she did.

  The question seemed to calm Shew down. She hiccupped once more and wiped her own tears. It looked as if she wanted to put a finger on what it really meant to be in love, but she seemed to not find the words. Finally, she put her hand on her heart, leaving Fable a bit puzzled. "All I can say is that I feel him here," Shew said. "Even when he is dead, he is right here inside me. I don't know how to explain it further."

  Fable stared at where Shew's heart was for a while. She was embarrassed to put her hand on her own heart, for she knew that no one was in there. As much as she thought it was clichéd, she wondered if anyone was going to be there at all. "Then we have to bring him back." Fable pulled herself out of her own thoughts. It was Shew and Loki who mattered now. If she couldn't find love, it didn't mean she should act envious when she could help someone who had found it. "If Charmwill can be resurrected through his True Name then Loki should be resurrected too. We know his name is Loki Van Helsing now. It's a True Name. All we need is to find the right spell."

  "I don't think so," Shew moaned. "He was killed in a dream. No one wakes up from dying in a dream. It's the first rule in the Dreamworld. I'm sure Loki told you that. He is dead for good."

  "No, he isn't," a voice declared from the top of the stairs.

  Fable and Shew turned to see it was Axel. Fable squinted for a moment to read the words printed on his white t-shirt. It said: Alexus the Great is Never Too Late!

  "According to the Brothers Grimm, Loki is in a Sleeping Death, just like Shew was in the books when Prince Charming came and kissed her awake. Did you try kissing Loki?" He turned to Shew.

  "I did," Shew replied, her cheeks reddening. "It didn't work."

  "Gross!" Axel said. "But you had to try. I kissed him once too outside the Schloss, trying to give him CPR."

  "If you're so grossed out, why did you ask her?" Fable frowned.

  "Had to see how far people go with True Love." Axel shook his shoulders. "Nah, joking." He waved a hand. "Why don't you girls drag yourself out of the cellar and get up here. I think we need to discuss a few things."

  "Like what?" Shew murmured, reluctant to leave Loki's side.

  "Like what?" Axel squealed. "Seriously? Like what we're going to do with Charmwill Glimmer's True Name. How Charmwill Glimmer is Wilhelm Carl Grimm. Why Carmilla disguised as our foster mother. Should we look for Cerené in Murano Island to stop the Queen from finding her, and thus controlling the Andersen Mirror? That's if we know who Cerené, the Phoenix, is reincarnated into. So many questions that my head is exploding already, and you're asking me 'like what?'"

  "He is right," Fable said. "We have to find some answers, or we won't even have time to save Loki."

  "Besides, Alexus the Great"—he pointed proudly at himself—"has an idea what to do next."

  "You do?" Shew said.

  "Definitely," he said. "I know who can help us bring Loki back."

  6

  Although everyone was eager to listen to Axel's theory about resurrecting Loki, they had to wait for Shew to wash in the bathroom. She hadn't only been soaked in tears, but also in Cerené's and Loki's blood from the Dreamworld. It seemed like Shew hadn't even slept last night when Axel was snoring and Fable was having nightmares.

  As Axel waited in the kitchen, trying to befriend Pickwick, Fable couldn't resist those breadcrumbs at the porch again. She told Axel she was returning in a few, enough time to let Shew wash and refresh. Axel seemed in a hurry with those repeated missed calls and messages he received. He told her that she and Shew had only fifteen minutes before he had to go do something important.

  Fable walked as if she were hypnotized, following the breadcrumbs. She still couldn't explain the feeling, nor could she tell what was happening to her. She felt comfortable in her boyish outfit, though.

  She kept walking until she reached Loki's car again. This was when she really knew why she was here. It was Carmen. How was Fable capable of hearing the radio when it only played in Loki's presence?

  Fable opened the door cautiously. She put in one foot slowly after the other and then sat by the steering wheel. No radio played his time. Fable wondered if there was a way to trigger it, but couldn't think of any. She tapped her fingers on the wheel, giving it a prolonged thought.

  "Carmen?" she whispered reluctantly. "Can you hear me?"

  Carmen showed no sign of acknowledgment.

  "If you do hear me, please answer me," she whispered. "We need all the help we can to get Loki back."

  Carmen did nothing.

  Fable wondered if she had imagined the radio playing a few minutes ago. She leaned back in her seat and tapped her hands on the wheel. It took her some time to bring herself to kick Carmen like Loki used to. She gave it a feeble kick at first before she followed with a heavier one.

  Nothing happened.

  Fable rubbed her chin. She let out a defeated sigh then reached to open the door and go back to Candy House.

  Carmen's motor sprang to life immediately.

  It was absurd and unexplainable. Fable sat paralyzed for a few minutes with the car humming. She tried to talk to Carmen again, but all the car did was stop. No more kicks brought Carmen back to life.

  Fable found herself pulling the door open and running away, back into Candy House. She was confused, and felt an illogical scare in the pit of her heart. How was she capable of igniting Carmen when only Loki could? She began wishing this weird day would end so she could start a normal day tomorrow.

  ***

  Back in the house, Shew had changed into a dress from Fable's wardrobe. It was a bit too tight, but the Princess didn't complain. Actually, Fable felt honored she wore her dress.

  "Nice outfit," Shew commented on Fable's clothes, as if she had only had enough peace of mind to notice it now.

  "She looks like a boy," Axel teased.

  "She looks badass," Shew said, winking at Fable, who blushed momentarily.

  "Whatever," Axel said.

  "So, tell us about how to resurrect Loki," Fable said.

  "Before I do, I have to explain to you why Loki's our only hope," Axel began. "Let's begin with the fact that although all of this is complex and confusing, our main mission is to find the Lost Seven before the Queen, so she can't tear out their hearts and eat Shew's, like she always wanted to."

  "I agree," Fable said. "The more I think about all the many confusing things happening, I come back to this. Carmilla wants Shew's heart, and to get it she needs to find the Lost Seven. The Andersen Mirror and other riddles are subsidiary to the main problem."

  "Well, then she succeeded by knowing that Cerené is the clue to controlling the mirror," Shew said. "At least now she is sure of one of the Lost Seven."

  "It's the same to us," Fable said. "We also know the first of the Lost Seven, and we have clues through the J.G. diary with Axel about the other six."

  "I know," Shew said. "Axel showed it to me. The problem is I don't remember any of them. All I remember is Loki was the Huntsman. I've known this since I was trapped in the Schloss."

  "Which is somehow confusing," Axel interrupted, having managed to persuade Pickwick to sit on his shoulder. "I mean, if you don't remember any of the Lost Seven, how do you remember Loki?"

  "It's all about the timeline," Fable offered. "Most of the things that happened before she split her heart, Shew can remember. She must have met the Lost Seven after that. Right, Shew?"

&nb
sp; Before Shew could answer, Axel said, "Then how didn't Shew remember Cerené?"

  Shew looked puzzled. She seemed to try to squeeze her memory for explanations, but she looked like she had none. Fable wondered if Shew felt the same mild split of personality she had experienced today. "I'm not sure," Shew said, looking embarrassed that she was of no help with the matter. "Some things I do know, and some things I don't know. I have no idea how."

  "Know or remember?" Axel grimaced.

  "What is that supposed to mean?" Fable was annoyed with Axel again.

  "He is right," Shew told Fable. "There are things I only know and don't remember."

  "What?" Fable didn't understand this.

  "For instance, I remember vividly some scene with Loki being the Huntsman," Shew explained. "But I don't remember how we fell in love."

  "Now, that's not helping at all." Axel's grimace was still fixed. Fable saw that he didn't like this statement at all. So far, Axel's research and theories had been mostly accurate. "Then how do you know you love him?" he said, asking the same question on Fable's mind.

  Shew lowered her head for a moment and laced her fingers. She knew the answer, Fable was sure of that. She was just embarrassed to say it. "I just know," she finally said.

  7

  "You just know?" Axel's shoulders tensed. Pickwick fluttered away.

  "Why is that important, Axel?" Fable said, knowing Shew could falter under the pressure right now. "He did send her a 'save me' message, didn't he? And she met him in the World Between Dreams, where they were lovers sitting in the poppy fields."

  "That's not the point," Axel said. "Do you know how many missed details we don't know about when she doesn't remember? Can you imagine how crucial it is to know how the cold-blooded Huntsman fell in love with Shew?" Axel clenched a fist and bit on it with his teeth.

  "You're overreacting," Fable said. "Besides, what does all of this have to do with what you were about to tell us?"