“Do you have any idea why they’re raiding this village?" Shew asked.
"I can't hear them from here,” Cerené said. “I could try the earth again.”
“Not necessary,” Shew said, about to run down to Furry Tell.
“I wonder why the huntsmen are gathering so many children," Cerené pointed.
Shew stopped. Cerené was right. Loki was killing the elders in Furry Tell as the huntsmen gathered the younger ones in the middle of the village. The children knelt down with their hands behind their backs while the huntsmen checked them out one by one. They pulled the children violently by the hair, sniffing them and looking into their eyes.
"What’s going on?" Shew said, hesitating again. Should she just run down and face Loki, or?
Stop hesitating!
"I wish I knew," Cerené replied. "Look, he is letting one of the children go."
"Where?"
"That blonde girl!"
It was true. Shew wondered why the huntsmen freed one of the children. She noticed they let another one go, then another one. The huntsmen yelled something, the same phrase over and over.
“Can you hear what they are saying?” Shew asked Cerené.
“Wait,” Cerené knelt down and put her hand on the ground again, trying to listen to figure out what the huntsmen were yelling. Shew wondered if that was normal or one of the powers Cerené possessed. “I think they’re saying something like ‘winter in their eyes’,” Cerené said.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Shew said. “Why would they say that?”
"I’m sure this is how the words rhyme, but maybe it’s something that sounds like ‘winter in their eyes.’ I can’t be sure,” Cerené stood up again, unable to listen to the massacre anymore.
Furry Tell was swimming in blood, and Loki finally got off his unicorn, walking among the children. They lowered their heads while shivering and pleading for forgiveness.
Loki said nothing. He pulled a girl’s hair and cut a slice of it with his sword, and used it to wipe his sword clean as kicked a victim’s head and sent it rolling into a well.
“I will stick to liking the prince,” Cerené mumbled.
Shew said nothing. She was tongue-tied. She’d just realized that if she failed in bringing Loki back to his senses, they were destined to become enemies in this dream. As long as Carmilla owned his Fleece, he was one of those she was prophesized to kill.
Unless she found a way to bring him back.
Be honest with yourself, Shew. If you could save him, could you forgive him for the things he’s done in the past, the people he killed, the children he is about to kill right now?
Shew shrugged, dazed by the thoughts in her head. Why wouldn’t she forgive him for the horrors he’d done in the past when he’d forgiven her for all the blood she’d shed in Sorrow. She had killed hundreds of teenagers in the Waking World, and yet she was prophesized to be the Chosen One. Was it possible that becoming the Chosen One wasn’t a quest, but a redemption for her past sins?
“Cerené,” Shew turned to face her. “Are you sure this veiled Huntsman is Loki?” it was illogical to ask, but love was blind, and wishful thinking was its middle name.
Shew wished she’d gone def before she could hear Cerené’s inevitable answer, “Of course, it’s him, Shew,” Cerené said confidently. “It’s him, the Huntsman. The ever famous Loki Van Helsing.”
22
The Name of the Huntsman
“But Van Helsing is just a character in a book,” Fable had never looked so shocked before.
“He is a character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula to be precise,” Axel said. “And yes, the characters in the books have just all jumped out in our faces in Sorrow. It’s so crazy I’m worried I’d discover I am Humpty Dumpty eventually.”
“Stop taking this lightly. This is crazy. I need you to explain how you discovered this in the first place,” Fable said. “Then I will decide whether I still want to be part of this crazy world or not.”
“For a start, you should ask yourself why most articles written in the Dreamhunters Guide were signed by a V.H.,” Axel said.
“V.H.,” Fable considered, “Van Helsing.”
“Loki told me that Charmwill Glimmer gave him the Dreamhunters Guide because it was written by his father,” Axel said. “That’s why Loki cherished this book.”
“Van Helsing is Loki’s father,” Fable circled the purple light, thinking it over. “So Van Helsing was an angel, a Dreamhunter?”
Axel nodded, folding his arms.
“Could you please remind me who Van Helsing was in the first place, as a character I mean?” Fable said.
“Abraham Van Helsing, was a titular character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” Axel explained. “In the book, Dracula is the villain vampire that no one was able to kill. Van Helsing helped a group of people kill Dracula after a great hunt. Van Helsing was an expert with vampires, and it was never really clear why.”
“Did the book say he was a Dreamhunter?” Fable said.
“Of course, not,” Axel said. “Don’t you get it, Fable?”
“What am I supposed to get?”
“That ‘Dracula’ must have been forged, just like the Brothers Grimm tales,” Axel said, “I bet most of the books in the world were forged, hiding some kind of a secret history, disguised in the pages of novels, fairy tales, and fables.”
“That can’t be,” Fable shook her head.
Axel thought it was amusing how Fable refused to believe it when she still considered Sherlock Holmes was real and Shakespeare was a wizard. He didn’t make an issue out of it, though. He was focused on his own discoveries. “Remember when I told you about Carmilla Karnstein’s name before she trapped us in the kitchen, and how it was also mentioned in historical novels?”
“Yes,” Fable said. “You claimed there was this old novel called ‘In a Glass Darkly’, written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. One of the book’s novellas was called ‘Carmilla.’”
“Exactly,” Axel said. “In fact, the antagonist of the book is a ruthless vampire girl; her name was Carmilla, and she came from the House of Karnstein, a well known family in Austria.”
“Our Carmilla, the Queen of Sorrow?” Fable tiptoed.
“I surely believe so,” Axel said. “Some historians say that Carmilla, the novella, is the very first documented vampire novel ever, even before the famous Dracula—well, there were a couple older books about vampire, but Carmilla was the first to stir questions by historians about the nature of vampires,” he stopped to make sure Fable followed. “Flipping through the book on my phone, I discovered that Carmilla was portrayed as feeding on a young girl named Laura.”
“Why is that of importance?”
“Because Laura herself never turned into a vampire and never died. Carmilla was feeding on her to stay alive,” Axel said. “Doesn’t that sound like our Carmilla who bathed in the blood of young girls to stay alive? The Queen of Sorrow is Carmilla Karnstein, the first documented vampire woman ever.”
“But the stories and timelines aren’t exactly consistent,” Fable rubbed her ear, thinking and analyzing.
“We’re not going to discuss this again, are we?” Axel dared her eyes.
“I know, I know,” she waved her hands in the air. “All these books have been forged. They are bits and pieces of the reality we were led to believe was different. It’s as if some books were forged and some were hidden clues disguised in novels.”
“Written in codes and innuendos for geniuses like me to figure it out,” Axel said.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Humpty Dumpty” Fable teased him.
“Is that so?” Axel craned his neck and squinted one eyes. “How about this discovery? Remember when Loki told us Shew called her mother ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’?”