"Till this day, you wouldn't have lasted through the night
Till this morn, you wouldn't have lasted through the light
Lay down these lies, and suffering things
Just taunt me with pearls, pendants and rings
Hop out of your window and softly below the street,
Follow tracks in the snow and wolves white as sheet
Witches come, singing songs in my head
Witches leave, and nine lay dead.
Witches come, singing songs in my head
Witches leave, and nine lay dead."
Raphael ran his fingers through his long white hair. His scalp tingled and itched, and as tempting as it was, he dared not scratch it. He knew the aching swell in his bowels would return at the sudden whiff of old blood, crusted beneath his fingernails from the sickly state of his scalp.
Raphael lifted his eyes to the stained glass windows of the cathedral. Darkness marred them for now, the splashes of colors blackened and shadowed. Saints white robes were tainted black in the moonlight, and eerie starlight crept through tiny cracks in the frozen windowpanes, streaking pale illuminations across churned slush and deep pilings of white dust.
Trees lifted their branches to the sky, exposed to the chilly wind which burned their skin with searing cold like black fire. The only heat was the smooth wind that whisked through Raphael's cracked dry lips and into the air like tiny grey clouds.
He limped along the side of the cathedral, dragging a bone white hand along through the brittle yellowing snow that clung to the bitter walls. His cloak of soft ebony feathers trailed behind him, causing silky white powder to mar the edge of the feathered blackness.
Through the gentle darkness and falling snow, there was a scream. A strange sort of plea for help, sailing on freezing winter's breath. Raphael turned his face towards the noise, limbs locked into place. He listened intently, and heard, "Christine!"
It sounded like the cry of a small child. A girl, in fact.
Raphael's eyes burned red, and blood dribbled down from the stinging creases. He pulled his scarred lips away from the paper white fangs which dripped with an odd sort of grunge and clear slime.
His right leg still ached from the fresh brand. The muscles were just tingling with needles and new feeling, and so his leg dragged almost uselessly when he walked, making him move with a terrible limp.
He limped quickly, his right leg burning with new pains and pulsing veins. It dragged in the snow, the slush leaving trail marks patterned in the fine whiteness.
Raphael turned his path onto the road, a river of melted snow and mud. He flashed scarlet eyes to the colorless circle in the sky and the abandoned black carriages which littered both sides of the road. The bodies are close…
And there. Ahead, on the silky surface of the white mounds, buried deep like queens. Two lovely girls.
Raphael's eyes grew terribly wide, and the ache in his throat consumed him, hailing him with lust and hunger. His tongue flashed out, moistening the smoothness of prickly thorn-like fangs.
He neared them, no longer feeling the pain of his initiated leg. Hunger dug through what might have been a heart, and manipulated any scent of human left in the crumpled and black soul.
Raphael towered over the girls. Their hands curled around curves of the snow like one might grip a quilt during a dark nightmare.
One of the girls had hair like gold, or like perfectly spun yellow thread. Her small body was covered in a ratty old cloth. The other looked a bit older, and had springy frozen curls, the color of churned mud and dried blood.
Suddenly, the curly haired one's eyes opened. She rubbed them, snapping a few brittle eyelashes off in the process. "Who….who's there?"