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

by Cameron Jace

  "Listen," Shew said, facing her. "I'm really sorry about Loki, but there were too many things going on." Shew fiddled with Loki's necklace on her chest. "I'm really sorry."

  "I don't want you to apologize," Babushka said. "You'd be amazed to know that I have faith Loki is coming back. After all, he's been dying on and off the last couple of years," Babushka said proudly. "Like mother like son, I guess." Then her laugh vanished abruptly. "There is something else that worries me, Shew, if you don't mind me saying."

  "Really? What is it?"

  "I'm worried how you and Loki are in True Love," Babushka said. "I mean, if you are really in love, how weren't you able to read the necklace in the dream?"

  "What do you mean?"

  Babushka hesitated, then heard Fable call for them from inside. "Nothing," she said as she entered the house. "It's just that Loki never told me how he fell in love with you in Sorrow two centuries ago. Don't take this the wrong way, but I can't imagine how it happened. He was an…well…evil huntsman, and you were his enemy. How did you ever get together?"

  "Something incredibly beautiful must have happened," Shew said with giggling eyes. It was embarrassing she couldn't remember how she and Loki fell in love. But the feeling was undeniable. She loved him, so much it felt ridiculous at times—particularly after having to kill him in the dream. Shew rested a hand on her heart as a smile curved on her face. There was no denying—Loki lived inside her heart.

  18

  The Dream Temple took little time to prepare. Loki had explained how it worked when they were in the Schloss. Every little detail, from how to draw the Dream Temple to how to use the mirrors. It occurred to Fable that maybe Loki had sensed this would happen to him. Maybe he had intentionally prepared her without telling her, the same way Charmwill had mentored him. Feeling so connected to Loki made Fable feel better. She'd really liked him since the first day they met.

  Right now, Fable and Shew lay next to each other in the Dream Temple's circle in the cellar. Two mirrors were placed opposite each other, and the rest of the ritual had been prepared. Babushka brought two Obol coins and placed them on the girls' eyes as part of the ritual. Then she poured what was left of the baby tears in Shew's eyes.

  Shew looked drowsy as Fable whispered the Incubator in Shew's ears, the last thing before she entered the Dreamworld.

  "Wilhelm Carl Grimm," Fable said.

  As she waited to enter the Dreamworld, Fable turned her head toward Babushka and said, "Can you please put some breadcrumbs in my grip?"

  "You know no items ever pass through to the Dreamworld," Babushka said.

  "Still, it wouldn't hurt to try," Fable said, weakened by her addiction to the breadcrumbs. "Please?"

  Babushka brought her a handful of breadcrumbs and poured them in Fable's palm, closed her hands, and patted them.

  "Thank you," Fable said. "I feel safer now."

  Babushka waited until Fable had phased out and said, "Thank you, Fable, for agreeing to go through hell to save my son."

  Part 2

  Lost Souls & Magic

  19

  The Schloss

  "Why did you stop reading?" Axel asked Lucy.

  "Because I don't like this diary," she said, resting the book on her lap.

  "What's not to like?" Axel said. "It's the best diary I've ever read. Carmilla's conflict with the mirror touched something in me."

  "What are you talking about, Axel?" Lucy puffed. "This isn't the Queen of Sorrow I was expecting to read about. She is all too giddy and fragile. What is this?"

  "I thought you sympathized with her."

  "I did, and still do, but I want her to be stronger than a mere teenager who whines about wanting to see her real looks," Lucy said. "I really don't like this."

  "I'm sure the path she is about to take will turn her into the vicious Queen of Sorrow you like," Axel said. "How do you think she transformed to who she is now?"

  "What do you think she saw when she looked in the water?" Lucy's eyes glittered suddenly. "Do you think she discovered she was no beauty, but a beast?"

  "Only one way to find out." Axel raised an eyebrow and pointed at the diary while munching on Sticky Sweet Bones.

  "You're right," Lucy said. "Let's read on."

  20

  The Queen's Diary

  When I opened my eyes, I was surprised I had no time to see my reflection in the water.

  Before I fully looked at the rippling waves of the pond, someone's arms pulled me from behind and dragged me. I first guessed it to be my father; he'd caught me before I succumbed to my selfishness and sent my family and land to hell.

  But the hands were too aggressive to be my father's. They weren't loving hands. They meant me harm. They were the hands of an enemy.

  I couldn't see my captors, whoever they were. They began choking me. In all my years in the castle I had been trained to ride horses and even use a sword, but none of this was good enough to handle my kidnapper. All kinds of sinister scenarios flashed before my eyes.

  What will happen to me?

  It didn't take long before I began fainting. As my eyelids draped my vision into darkness, I heard someone utter the name I feared the most—at least, I was taught to fear it. A name I had only heard on the tongue of my father. Someone was praising their king: Night Von Sorrow.

  ***

  When I woke up, I was tied up in chains in some underground dungeon. Realizing I was in some dungeon was the easy part. It was dark and filthy, not like anything I had ever seen. Grey walls and vaults with a small barred window, too high for a normal human being to reach. I was surprised I didn't panic yet.

  What I saw later made me panic.

  Desperate, I tried to free myself from the chains, kicking, swearing, and foolishly threatening my enemies that my father was going to hunt them one by one. It was all in vain. All I got back were some hissing laughs, reeking of blood and mockery.

  Then I realized that the chains were bolted to four sides of the walls, keeping me afloat in the air, not knowing what was underneath me.

  How was that possible?

  As I kicked and screamed, a strange smell soaked my soul. It was a collection and mixture of odors and scents I had never experienced before—at least not together.

  What was this? I needed to focus, rather than trying to separate each smell on my own.

  The first smell was unmistakable, and actually easy to identify. It was blood. A lot of it, fuming like a spreading disease up my nostrils. It was coming from right underneath me, but I couldn't twist my head enough to peek down there.

  What could hold such amounts of blood? A pool?

  The notion made me nauseated, but it also made me realize I was wet. Turning my head, I saw blood trickling down my arms and legs tied to my sides. Had I been soaked in that pool and brought up again? Why?

  I followed the trickling blood and pressured my body to a brief twist, which hurt my limbs and made me scream in agony. Finally, I could barely glimpse a surface underneath me. This time I could see what it was.

  I was floating above a bathtub. A bloodbath of sorts.

  The bathtub was filled with blood. But not only blood.

  There were other liquids I couldn't recognize immediately—because seriously, it didn't make any sense to mix them together.

  What kind of mixture was that, and why?

  The blood was mixed with something white, which spread like swirling tree branches through it.

  What was that? Milk?

  Then there was something else I hadn't enough time to see with my eyes. My limbs ached and begged me to turn back to a normal position.

  But I could smell it.

  It was something rare and preciously desired by kings and queens at that time. A treat for the elite only. Chocolate. Dark chocolate.

  I knew it because, similar to the Vampire Craze, there had been a Chocolate Craze in my time. In Styria, chocolate had been prohibited, and the poor couldn't afford it anyway. Only the likes of my mother had a fe
w precious amounts she offered for the elite kings and queens who visited us. The reasoning behind the prohibition had been announced after renowned physicians from London and France claimed chocolate caused madness. And madness had always been linked to diseases, which recently had been linked to being a vampire.

  But there was no more time for me to analyze why I had been dipped into that mix while my body was hung in the air. I decided I would annoy my captors with the only weapon I had.

  My scream!

  I screamed and screeched and squealed from the top of my lungs, wishing for a response or clarification why I was here—and where was here?

  All the shouting I did could not free me. The dungeon smelled of all things evil. It was as if the walls were smeared with rotten apples. I could tell there were tens of cloaked men and women standing silently in the shadows, not uttering a word. But I didn't understand why they didn't talk. Was this some kind of a ritual? Where they waiting for someone?

  A few moments later, I could see a raven and dove fluttering beyond the barred windows near the ceiling. That was when my torturers slowly emerged from the darkness, pulling their black cloaks back and staring at me. Men and women with pointed teeth. Pale but beautiful faces, even with their unusual golden eyes. Those were definitely the Sorrows, my family's greatest enemy since the days when my ancestor escaped Transylvania.

  One man came a step closer to me. Everyone was sure to grant him enough space and slightly bow at his proximity. He seemed uglier than the rest. His eyes were red, not gold. He had long silver hair and a bushy beard, and edgy features—a bit too edgy, his cheekbones too sharp. He had a scar running sideways on his left cheek.

  The man rested both his hands on a cane. I could see his long white fingernails shining in the dimly lit room. They were old hands, though. I had no doubt it was Night Von Sorrow, because I hadn't seen anything scarier than him in my life. I hadn't seen anything more cold-blooded. The slight parting of his mouth, showing his fangs, confirmed my fears. He smelled of blood, milk, and chocolate.

  "Is she the one?" Night asked in a raspy voice that sent shivers to my soul.

  "Carmilla Karnstein in the flesh," someone answered him.

  "Weak is the flesh," Night said, taking a step forward and bending over. He held me by the jaw and parted his lips slowly, showing his sharp fangs again. "Strong is the soul that lives forever," he added, almost admiring me—or whatever his eyes were scanning my body for. "I can smell her soul already," he mumbled with envy and hatred, probably because he had no soul himself.

  "I know who you are!" I spat on him, wondering from where I got my feistiness. After the incident with my mother, this was the second time I'd realized how much anger I had inside.

  "Then you're not as afraid as you should be," Night said. "Although I despise all Karnsteins, I have always admired their foolish bravery." His eyes met mine. They were piercing, as if looking for something beyond me. "You're such a beauty, Carmilla, just like the ripe Blood Apples the Karnsteins produce." He laughed in a low drone as his long fingernails almost scraped my cheeks. "We have been waiting so long for you."

  "Let go of me!" I wriggled in my chains, not having a clue what he meant. "What is this bathtub? What do you want from me?"

  "It's a tub of blood, milk, and dark chocolate." He dipped his long forefinger in it, pulled it up, and licked it with closed eyes. "And not any blood, or any milk, or any chocolate." It looked genuinely delicious to him. "I will let go of you." He signaled for the other men, who came and unchained me. They were too tall and strong, so I decided against kicking against them or trying to escape. Not yet. I didn't know where I was.

  Night Von Sorrow turned back to the cloaked men. "Send him in," he ordered. "I want him to have her. Now!" he screamed, clenching his fists, red veins sticking out his strong neck. When he did, the liquid in the bathtub rippled, blood, milk, and chocolate weaving into each other's curvy threads. "Let's see if she is the one we're looking for."

  A few cloaked men pulled open an iron door and dragged a man in a red cloak inside. A tall man with broad shoulders. His hands were tied, and two giant henchmen barely held him. He seemed strong, only overruled by their numbers. Another hostage, I thought, as he tried to set himself free.

  "I believe you have met my son, Angel Von Sorrow," Night said proudly, removing Angel's cloak.

  "The apple trader?" My heart tore into pieces. Too many surprises. It was the first time I'd realized that Angel had betrayed my father and our land. He was not an apple trader, but a disguised member of the Sorrow's family. Didn't he say his name was Angel Hassenpflug?

  And he was a vampire who was supposed to kill me?

  I didn't really care if I died that day. How could Angel betray me? It was one of the first moments I realized the world wasn't as friendly as I had thought. I had been confined behind walls of conformity, not really knowing anything about the real world outside. Betrayal seemed the world's most common trait.

  "It was a nice little trick to fool you and sneak into your castle and learn about you." Night smirked at me. "You see, my dear son has not been fully turned into a vampire yet. We postponed the ritual of his full transformation so I could send him to Germany and then to Austria disguised as a human being. Being a half-vampire made him undetectable by your father. Karnsteins haven't developed the talent for sniffing half-vampires yet. For years, my son has been very useful to us, learning how humans thought and behaved so we can rule the world soon enough."

  "Why would you do that?" If I was going to get killed, I needed to know.

  "Because humans have been haunting and killing us for years, thinking we're just like rats, infecting the world with a disease." Night Von Sorrow sounded hurt for a slice of a moment. Soon he raised his raspy voice again, as if he were an actor in the Shakespearean theatre. "You have been wrongfully burning everyone who was different from you; the women whom you called witches, for instance. Humans have been exterminating everything that's new to them because they just couldn't understand it. They couldn't look at the beauty behind the fangs and the blood. You treat us like a walking plague, thinking you are the greatest species on earth. We, vampires, are the greatest species. Not you. We are an evolved human being with much more powers than any of you. We're something new and beautiful. I know it looks like we are the evil creatures, but it's the other way around. Vampires are just different from people, with their own lifestyle. Humans should have made a space for us so we could all live together."

  "What kind of crazy ideas are you speaking of?" I snapped. "You kill people. You suck their blood."

  "Humans suck other humans' blood every day," Night said. "Just look at the wars and poverty all around you. But you are a Karnstein. You wouldn't understand." He turned around and pulled his son by his hair. It was a violent move. Angel's eyes went red as he tried to avoid looking at me. I didn't know if it was fear or shame that paralyzed him. He had looked like a ferocious, strong man back in Styria. What had happened to him? "Take her, my son," Night demanded. "She looks sweet. She'll be your first, so you can turn into a full vampire. And maybe she is the one we're looking for."

  This was the second time he'd declared that. I wondered who he thought I really was.

  "I don't want to!" Angel moaned, resisting his father's pull. "I don't want to become a vampire. I don't want to be like you!"

  Night slapped his son on the face. It was more than a slap. He'd granted him a scar across the cheek, one very similar to his own. Unlike Night Von Sorrow, Angel's scar healed instantly. I was confused. "You're a vampire like me." Night held his son's strong skull between his long-fingered hands, forehead to forehead, as if pleading. "You are a Sorrow. You don't have much of a choice. The time you spent with humans has softened your heart. You were supposed to taste her blood while you were in their castle. I brought her here for you, so you have no more excuses."

  "I can't," Angel pleaded. He somehow still loved his father, although it was a weakened kind of love. "I just can't. Tortur
e me all you want. I'm not like you. If there was ever a way I could turn human, I would have sold my soul for it."

  Night Von Sorrow slashed his long fingernails at his son's face again, cutting him in sharp lines. "That's the problem with half-vampires. They still have what they think is a soul. You still think you're not like me? You think if you were human you'd heal, just like that?"

  "I might have the blood of Sorrows, but not their heart," Angel said, trying his luck one more time with the henchman chaining him.

  "You don't have a heart." Night rolled his eyes. "You don't a have a soul. You just think you do. Now take her or I will force you."

  "You can't force me!"

  Night took a step back and pulled a small flute from under his cloak. It was made of wood and had seven holes in it. I couldn't understand the panic that swept over Angel and the henchmen when they saw it.

  Strangely, Night began playing a melody on his flute. The image instantly reminded me of the Pied Piper my father had told me about. Was Night Von Sorrow the Pied Piper himself? Was this tune the one my father had told me about? I didn't know. Let me rephrase that—I couldn't know. The tune was strangely unmemorable. I mean, I could hear it but never repeat the melody or remember it.

  And more importantly, it had a great effect on Angel. He lost the golden hue in his eyes; it shifted closer to a bloody red with each note Night played. Since he could not block the music while his hands were chained behind his back, Angel squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, futilely wishing he wouldn't hear his father's melodies.

  I didn't understand why. What was the power this flute possessed? I could only imagine it was related to the Piper, the man the Lost Seven had escaped centuries ago.

  The tune seemed to get hold of Angel's darker side. I had thought he'd fooled me at first, but I was wrong. He was supposed to bite me in Styria and didn't for some reason.