Snow White Sorrow (18 page)

But he was too late.

Snow White attacked Dum on the spot.

Boy. The vampire princess moves fast.

Dum was executed as fast lightning from the sky could ashen a poor soul.

It was hard to see what Snow White did to her in the dark, but Dum let out a short scream before she supposedly rested in peace, and stopped talking forever.

Every one held their breath while the princess disappeared in the dark. It amazed Loki that no one ran for their lives. Fear did that to the people, paralyzing their thoughts and blinding them to the available solution.

Loki saw Big Bad stupidly approaching Snow White with his plastic stake. The vampire princess backhanded him and sent him flying. Loki saw it happen, but it appeared as if she hadn’t even touched Big Bad, as if she had the power to move things with the stroke of her hand. The scene was laughable; Big Bad was at least twice as big as she was, and she still managed to send him flying through the air like a huge cannonball. He ended up slamming against the wall like the frog in the fairy tale the Princess and the Frog— Charmwill had told Loki that in the original version the princess had thrown the frog violently against the wall.

“Who’s the fairest of them all now?” Loki couldn’t help himself, talking to the unconscious Big Bad. He was also calming himself down, knowing he had no clue how he would stake her if she attacked him.

I came last, so I guess she will finish me last. There is a pecking order, right?

Loki noticed that he was standing in a perfectly darkened spot now, and supposed that if he didn’t move she wouldn’t see him. If he survived this, he would go back and research how to kill the vampire princess. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to kill her tonight.

“What is going on in there?” Axel yelled from outside the castle. “Answer me, Loki!”

It was a good and bad thing that Axel had returned. The good thing was that Axel
was out there
. The bad thing was that Snow White had turned her attention to Loki.

Thank you very much, Axel Crumblewood!

Dum’s corpse smacked against the floor, falling onto the bag with the flashlight, causing the light to alter its direction, highlighting the Snow White princess.

“Some flashlight,” Loki spoke to it as if it could hear him.

Snow White floated in front of Loki, her dress and black hair waving awkwardly and horizontally to the left as if the castle had turned on its side. She let out a soft sound as if saying
ahhh
after a great vein-filling meal. She stretched her arms sideways and tilted her chin slightly up. Her eyes turned demonic black and she levitated another inch higher.

If he could only be brave, pick up the flashlight, and see her face. He had never been so curious about a demon’s face before, and he knew it could cost him his life.

Loki saw her villainous eyes again, blocking whatever soul hid beyond her monstrous persona–-if there was any soul left in the undead princess. A golden glint flashed in her eyes for a fraction of a second, so intense that it lit up the aura around her as if she were a fairy or a firefly lost in the dark of night. The glint was short lived, but enough to see that she looked diabolically enchanting.

Something about her was spellbinding. Her anger had a childish halo to it, as if she wasn’t made of real evil; some kind of evil candy maybe, something you’d like to taste even though it would kill you. Maybe she was just a bratty princess playing with her toy fangs.

Loki froze in the moment, looking at her. He could see nothing else but her face. She had consumed his mind and soul, and he was resisting the feeling of wanting to know her story, her real one.

He understood why Donnie stood staring at her and called her beautiful instead of running away. There was something about her that was indescribable. It was like having butterflies in your stomach when you fall in love, a feeling that could only be expressed with a brush in paintings, a beautiful song that could make you cry, a rhyme in a poem, or the delicate choreography in a dance. She was horribly beautiful in a way that could only be described using an oxymoron like terrifyingly amazing, wickedly lovely, or bloody white. Loki wanted to shake his soul free from her, but he knew he was too late.

Those she lays her eyes upon, don’t live long enough to tell about it.

They were right. Loki was taking his last breaths in his mortal life as she finally decided to come closer.

The vampire princess approached him slowly, soaring over the breathless air in the castle, like a long lost demon Loki was bound to face, like karma that came calling after years of waiting. Elegantly yet beastly, carefully yet deadly, she came down to him.

Loki felt that both of them had a lot in common. He could see it in those black eyes. Looking at her was like looking into a mirror that only reflected the darkness he possessed; the darkness Charmwill had told him about. Loki felt like asking her the same question he’d been asking himself all the time:
Who the heck am I? And who the heck are you, wicked princess? Do we both have the same darkness inside us, and is it so awful I deserved being banned, and you deserved being turned into a demon?

They shared a certain pain, and it struck Loki as ironic that they both wanted to kill each other. It was inevitable, though, one of them had to die and one had to live. Only Loki was the weaker of the two.

Loki held his pose, hoping she wouldn’t sense his fear. Mesmerized by her presence, he waited for her to come even closer. He thought that when she was close enough, he’d give it a shot and stab her with the Alicorn. He hoped this Alicorn was really special because he needed it now. He’d even tried to whisper ‘Ora Pedora’ to it, but nothing happened.

It’s my only chance. It’s my job, and for all I know she is tricking me into liking her like she did Donnie.

He was eye to eye with his tormentor.

Snow White stretched out a hand and touched his face with the back of her smooth hand, sliding it across his cheek. She did it slowly, almost tentatively, yet it made Loki’s skin crawl. How was she capable of stirring all these contradicting feelings in him?

When she pulled her hands away, he felt undone. Why did he feel like he wanted her soft hand back on his cheek?

Focus, Loki! It’s your weakness that caused you to spend the last year in Ordinary World.

She tilted her head and looked at him like cute dogs do sometimes, as if he were a baby she was supposed to love and take care of, but slit its throat afterwards.

Loki let her run her fingers across his other cheek. It was a feeling of pleasure and pain. He stared at her, held his breath, persuading himself that she wasn’t close enough to stake her.

Who are you fooling, Loki? Do it! Just do it!

Once it showed on his face that he was about to stake her, she choked him with the same hand that caressed his face, pressing hard against the veins in his neck, her fingers marking the flesh as if it was clay. Her reflexes were too fast.

Loki missed her heart, and staked her in the stomach, which was a careless mistake. It had to be the heart.

Loki cried out. She didn’t.

It was an intense moment, Loki still gripping the Alicorn that was half-buried in her stomach while Snow White was still gripping his neck. They could have both died right then, him staking her, and her asphyxiating him.

She pressed her thumb against his Adam’s apple so hard it forced him to twist his head in pain, unable to readjust his body to stab her again.

How could this tiny girl do that?

She lifted him off the floor with her hand as her black eyes turned bloody red. Loki wrapped his arm around hers, trying to defend against her attack.

She pulled the Alicorn out of her bleeding stomach and threw it into the darkness, stabbing Dee. Like a skilled knife thrower, she hit Dee square in the head.

On the other hand, Snow White’s wound didn’t cause any real damage. It would heal in a matter of minutes. Loki had seen it before. For the moment, Loki had to concentrate on the fact that the vampire princess was choking him to death, and there was very little he could do about it.

A sudden ray of light came from behind and hit her in the face.

“Leave him a-al-alone,” Axel stuttered. Loki was surprised Axel had the courage to venture into the castle, trying to save him—or die with him.

Snow White didn’t flinch, and disregarded Axel’s presence, but shied away from the white light aimed at her eyes as they turned from red to black again. Nobody seemed to acknowledge Axel’s presence, even demons.

Instead, Snow White continued staring at Loki in a way that made him feel guilty, as if he were the one grasping her by the neck.

Then something amazing happened.

The fine tender skin of her face loosened up. Although she was undead, Loki saw some of her life force coming back into her pale face.

It was true. Her face was white as snow. Her lips, curved in the shape of a broken heart, red as blood; cherry blood, strawberry blood, or life-saving blood. Her hair was as black as if it were cut from the fabric of the mysterious souls of night. Her eyelashes were like ancient Roman feather fans, majestically waving like a ship’s sails flying in the stratosphere.

There was a slight touch of golden-green mascara over her eyelashes, reminding Loki of ancient Egyptian goddesses.

She
was
a goddess.

Not in the wow super-duper way, but in the regular, kind-hearted girl next door kinda way. Loki imagined her like a child; so innocent that when they cussed, you couldn’t get mad because you were defenseless against their charms.

Slowly she let him down, loosening her grip. She did it with grace and care. It made him feel like the woman in King Kong’s huge palm, awkward.

Standing on the same ground now, she was an inch shorter than him—not that it gave him any credibility.

She looked up into his eyes as hers turned slowly from black into ocean blue with a hue of gold.

“What the h—” Axel said, still holding his flashlight with both hands as if it were his magic wand.

Loki let out a sigh. Snow White’s blue eyes had that fabulous shine he didn’t see in most Minikins’ eyes. It was the type of shining there was no name for, but implied that the person was full of life—and that they had a great story to tell.

She is fooling you again!

But why would she do that? Why didn’t she just kill him?

With the blood dripping from her lips, and with her pale skin, she was just an excruciatingly attractive sixteen-year-old girl living in a castle of her own hell. There’s nothing wrong with that, right? Loki thought. He’d been living in this hell called Earth for a year now.

In her new state, she looked so lovely she could sneak up and kill you without you even noticing it, a girl who knew when to kiss and when to kill.

Loki understood why no vampire hunter could ever kill her. It wasn’t her strength or superpowers. It was her hypnotic and charming magnetism.

Loki wanted to shake the trance of her presence off, but he couldn’t.

Big Bad moaned behind him on the floor.

“You’re still alive, monster!” Big Bad roared at her. “Monster!” his voice seemed different as if he were a monster himself. Loki couldn’t see Big Bad in the dark, although he thought he’d heard his bones breaking or something without anyone touching him.

The vampire princess twitched at his words as if she was about to turn into something more sinister than what she was minutes ago. Instantly, her eyes turned black again.

Loki sensed her anger. It was as if she was humiliated by Big Bad calling her a
monster
.

Axel followed her with his flashlight, acting as if he were the lighting supervisor on the Broadway play: Wicked. Snow White was certainly turning nastier than the Wicked Witch of the West, and it was all because of Big Bad’s foolishness.

Her head twisted around on her shoulders as the chandeliers above her flickered and swung violently over their heads. Loki didn’t bother looking back at Axel, the light supervisor. He heard the sound of his knees clanking together like the chains around the neck of the ghost of Christmas past.

A swirling wind of chilling snowflakes filled the room. Loki didn’t think she needed to kill them. She could just leave them to freeze in here. She stretched her arms sideways like a witch casting a spell, her arms showing purplish veins curling like tiny snakes all over her body, all the way down to her bare feet. Her head rotated back into normal position, and she looked down at them with her mouth wide open, snarling with her white fangs.

Loki couldn’t explain how he felt exactly. This roller coaster of emotions in one single night was too much confusion for him. Her angry eyes were fixated on him. He continued to feel guilty in a silly way. Whenever she looked pleadingly at him like that, he thought she wanted to tell him something, which made him question why she never talked.

She shifted her eyes to Big Bad who was still invisible in the dark, and Loki could still hear him growling and his bones breaking.

What was going on with Big Bad?

There was no time to figure it out now. The vampire princess rushed down, as if upon an invisible transveyor belt, faster than the speed of light toward him, and finished Big Bad in the dark.

Axel was too scared to follow her with the flashlight, keeping it on Loki as if he were the star of the show.

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the scariest of them all?” Loki mumbled again.

Axel and Loki exchanged reluctant gazes. Loki wondered how fast, and far, they could run. He thought he’d save himself tonight, so he could think of an effective way to come back and kill her later.

Snow White turned back to Loki. She wiped her lips with the tip of her white dress then grunted at him. She took a step closer, smelled his neck, and inhaled the odor of his body. She breathed over his neck slowly like cold wind upon the water and then she brushed her tongue softly above his earlobe. The chilling touch caused the veins on his neck to show like a singer singing his highest note. Her edgy teeth touched his veins slightly. It felt like the tip of a needle flirting with his skin.