I hadn't. And she made sense, sadly. Maybe that's why Abernathy wanted me to talk to her, instead of killing her. He understood.
It didn't change the fact that she wasn't sharing, but consuming. Stealing. Keeping magic for herself. That wasn't acceptable. If I'd learned anything in school, it was that tyranny never won out in the end. People would always fight against oppression.
"It is your choice," I snapped. "You've been alive for seven millennia. You've ruled six. When is enough, enough?" I took a step toward her, my hands out, imploring. "Release the magic you've taken. Allow the magical creatures to roam freely once again."
Sharra leaned against her chair. "Perhaps you're right. Maybe I should stop. Life is hard, and it just gets harder." She snorted. "I've accomplished all I could possibly want anyway." She closed her eyes.
I took another step toward her. Behind me was a flurry of voices. The Worker vampires were restless. Sharra's words disturbed them. Or excited them. I couldn't tell. Sadly, I understood their excitement. She'd said everything I wanted to hear. "At least step down," I pleaded.
Chapter 8
"You are a senseless, foolish girl, Snow White." Her eyes were still closed, but her words bit through me and held on, like vice grips. When they finally flashed open, they blazed with fury. "How about I start killing the Marked now? Liberate them from their miserable lives." As she spoke, three of the girls fell forward, out of the sheet of magic surrounding them.
"Noooo," I yelled, rushing over to the nearest body. Their faces were frozen in terror, their eyes wide, as though they witnessed horrors, even in death. I felt for a pulse on the neck of the closest girl. She didn't have one. Sickness rose in my throat.
The remaining girls screamed, and tried, once again, to escape. But the magic held them fast. Each tear, every cry in pain, tore at my insides.
More senseless death, I thought.
I moved over to the next girl, hoping against hope she still lived, and checked for a pulse. Nothing.
Several more girls fell forward. One smacked into my shoulder, knocking me off balance. I skidded against the floor. The rough surface scratched my arm, but it healed immediately. I gently lifted the dead girl, and laid her on the ground next to the others.
"Stop. Stop it," I murmured.
"Make me," she hissed. Four more girls fell forward.
I pushed aside my devastation, and stood. My whole body shook, with frustration, and fear. It dawned on me I had no idea what I was doing. I'd been alive eighteen years. Had almost zero life experience. And I'd decided to go up against a vampire seven thousand years old. Sharra was right. I was a senseless girl.
An image flashed in my mind. It was of the time Sharra brought me to her realm, and I killed some of the Workers.
I could retaliate. A death for a death.
The power of the Seal burned through my fingers. I whipped around. Lifted my hands and shot two bolts of red light into two Workers. They immediately began to burn. I glanced at Sharra, my jaws clenched in frustration. "Stop," I shouted.
She snickered, and four more girls fell to the ground. "You seem to think I care for them."
I lowered my hands. I wouldn't kill uselessly. "But you did care for them. The night you brought me here. You screamed when they started burning. You were upset. You were-"
"Faking it," she finished with a shrug. "It was for their benefit," she waved her hands in the Worker vampires' direction, and then went on, "as much as it was for yours."
I stared at her in disbelief.
She sighed. "I do care, of course. I've created them for a purpose. Despite what you may think, every creature in Sharra and on Earth is important to me. But I must take into consideration cause and effect." She smiled genially at the Workers. "My need for a new body far outweighs anything else." She pointed at her Workers. "That includes them." She pointed at the girls who were Marked. "Them." Then she pointed at me. "Even you, dear Snow. But the difference between you and them is they understand."
I shook my head. "But why? What more do you need?"
She made a tsking noise with her mouth. "I don't expect you to grasp my rationale. How can you? Your life is nothing but an infinitesimal blip on the timeline that is my life." She steepled her fingers, resting her elbows on the arms of her chair that had somehow reformed themselves. "If you agree to become the Vampire Queen, allow me to have your body, I will free the rest of the Marked."
"Just until they turn nineteen. And then they die anyway, right?"
She gave me a knowing look. "No. I will remove the mark. They can go on living until such time as they would've died anyway.
Don't trust her, my inner voice shouted.
If I agreed, she could do what she wanted. I wouldn't know whether she kept her word or not. But if I disagreed, they would all die now. If I said yes, Sharra would possess the Seal. No one would ever be able to defeat her. But if I said no, hundreds of girls would die. My mind whirred in circles.
What do I do? I wished I would've brought my friends, my family, my...
"Christopher?" I shouted.
He appeared from a door near the Vampire Queen's chair. He pushed a person, a guy by the looks of him, forward. A burlap sack was over his head. But something about him was familiar.
"Christopher," I said again, and took a step in his direction. He let go of the guy, and moved so I thought he was coming toward me, but at the last second swerved. A smirk creased his lips. Lifting Sharra up by the waist, he dipped her into an embrace, and kissed her.
On the mouth.
I blinked several times; sure my eyes were deceiving me. But he continued to kiss Sharra, and she was kissing him back. Passionately.
I wanted to run away. I wanted to hide. To go back to the night I'd been bitten and have everything, all of my memories wiped clean. "I don't understand," I finally said. Even though I was beginning too. Christopher betrayed me.
When the Hunter first bit me, Professor Pops told me he wasn't to be trusted. That he desired power above all else. I hadn't believed him. I didn't want to.
After several minutes, they stopped kissing. But Christopher kept his arm around Sharra. They both looked at me, gloating.
I still couldn't believe it. "Are you... really Christopher?" I asked, knowing I wasn't making sense, but too shocked to care.