“I still want to,” Donnie said. “But something here isn’t right.”
“What’s with Donnie?” Axel wondered. “How come he’s so scared now?”
“He’s a vampire hunter, and he senses that something is very wrong with this castle,” Loki said. “I can feel it, too.”
Loki wondered if he should summon Donnie and his friends and convince them to turn back. But why would he do that? He didn’t care about anyone, let alone Donnie. He was here to find his way home, and it meant that he had to detach himself emotionally from everyone else. He wasn’t here to know the truth about the vampire Snow White, or to solve a puzzle. He reminded himself that he didn’t like Minikins, Donnie Cricketkiller and Big Bad topped that list.
But I like Axel, even if he’s annoying. And boy, I like Fable so much that I’d adopt her as my sister.
Loki fidgeted at the voice in his head.
I walk alone. I don’t belong to this world. I am from a place called Heaven, and this place is part of a bigger town called Hell. I don’t belong here.
As Loki’s head was about to explode from the conflicting thoughts, he tilted his head casually to the castle’s second floor, looking at the waving ghosts behind the windows.
This time, there were no ghosts.
No curtains.
There was something even scarier. He let out a short squeal.
It was her, Snow White.
He saw the vampire princess up there, behind the pearl-framed glass on the second floor, standing in the middle of the window as if she was the Mona Lisa sitting in her framed portrait, watching her intruders tentatively with a slight smile on her face. She was watching them, surveying their weakness, and sewing their dreadful fate like a spider’s web, seducing them with the power of the Schloss. Except that she was much younger than the Mona Lisa, much scarier in her inanimate silence, observing from above like an eye in the sky, looking right at Loki, straight into his half-angel eyes.
10
Scariest of Them All
Snow White was looking down upon the intruders of the castle in her white dress, a shade darker than her pale skin. Loki couldn’t make out the details of her face, but her hair was as black as the dark night surrounding him. Still, it was a different kind of black; the root of everything dark. There was a red ribbon placed in her hair, making her look like an innocent child. Loki doubted she’d still look childlike when he got closer to her.
He stood speechless. No words dared to leave his throat. His heartbeat slowed down like a train avoiding a catastrophic crash. Time stood still, and flashes came before his eyes again; flashes of her running in the Black Forest. A wild urge ran through Loki, making him want to take a closer look at her. She was like the Schloss, shining beautiful but deadly, like forbidden candy, or a lullaby that sent its listener to eternal sleep.
Axel woke Loki from his trance, tugging at his arm. Loki breathed steadily, and gazed at Dum and her friends, wanting to stop them, but he was too late. They were already inside the Schloss.
Loki looked up again for Snow White, she was gone.
He pulled out his Alicorn, gazing at the front door of the castle, now slightly open. Walking through the thick snow that started falling in front of him slowed him down. Axel panted behind him.
Donnie and his friend’s flashlights shone from inside the Schloss, sending thin beams of light toward the walls and windows. Their shadows looked tall and scary behind the curtains. Some of them were on the second floor already.
“Is that the moment when another shadow suddenly pops up and devours Dum or Dee?” Axel wondered.
A cold breeze whirled into the pants legs of Loki’s jeans, spiraling right through his underwear. It felt ticklish and was extremely cold. Loki uttered a painful chuckle.
“Why are you chuckling?” Axel wondered.
“Funny how pain and laughter sometime sounds the same,” Loki said, adjusting his jeans.
“Keep mocking me like that, and we both die tonight.”
Loki saw Big Bad’s silhouette, pulling Dee into a room and kissing her while forcing his body against hers, causing her to draw back.
“Why do they always have to make out in haunted houses?” Loki mumbled.
“Is that Dee?” Axel asked.
Loki nodded.
“Isn’t Dum Big Bad’s girlfriend?”
“What do we care?” Loki responded.
A denser mist orbited slowly around the Schloss. It started whirling upward, picking up speed as the midnight-sky above faded to a dark-purple that looked like a bruise meshed with a faint brush of yellow and orange. The mist dwelled up high enough for Loki and Axel to lose sight of the castle.
“Hey,” Axel said. “I just remembered I forgot to lock the house,” he was trying to avoid the mist by standing in Loki’s shadow. “I’ll go back and make sure it’s locked.”
“Be brave,” Loki said.