by Cameron Jace
“How did you get the boy tied up on the roof of the Cadillac?” Loki asked Lucy, gripping the wheel while driving down a bumpy road with creepy, curving trees above.
“Which boy?” she said nonchalantly, her eyes looking dizzy, and then let out an unnecessary laugh.
“Dork Dracula!”
“Ah, that, hmm,” she said, brushing her hair back.
“Ah, hmm, what?” Loki snapped. “Wait. Did you inhale some of the Magic Dust by accident?” Loki didn’t expect her to answer. The Magic Dust was designed to affect the eyes. Some people were allergic to its smell, and it made them hallucinate for several minutes. Soon, Lucy would start laughing uncontrollably until the affects wore off. “I let the doorman tie him up to the roof of your car, like luggage,” she laughed with big pupils, clapping her hands together. “Dork Dracula wanted to kiss me before I sedated him so I kicked him in the balls, and he fainted.”
“You didn’t sedate him?”
“He’d already passed out. Don’t worry. It always works. I kicked all my ex-boyfriends,” she was already hallucinating.
“This means Dork Dracula might wake up any moment now, and I can’t stop the car because the vampires from the party are coming after us,” Loki wanted to scream and pull his hair. “And why did the doorman agree to help you?”
“I seduced him,” Lucy brushed her forefinger across Loki’s nose, laughing still. “I showed him my…”
“You showed him your what?” Loki’s eyes widened. This night was getting mad as a hatter by the minute.
Trying to remember, Lucy’s face changed. She looked puzzled and vaguely serious. “I showed him my…something,” she tried to remember.
“You don’t remember what you showed him? At least you stopped laughing. That’s a good sign. It’ll only be a couple of minutes until the effect wears off,” Loki said. All he needed was to reach the location where Lucy had parked her four-wheeler, stake Dork Dracula, add him to the list and get some money.
Suddenly, it started to rain.
In Loki’s short life, it only seemed to rain when things went wrong. He turned the headlights on; a yellowing hue pierced into the night and split the darkness in half.
“With all this wind and rain, Dork Dracula will be waking up soon,” Loki said. “I will need to get on the roof and stake him, and you have to help me.”
Lucy nodded wearily.
“Take the wheel,” Loki said, pulling her arms. It wasn’t the greatest idea to let her drive, but he had no choice.
Loki pulled himself up to the edge of the window while Lucy shuffled to the driver’s seat, gripping the wheel. She was trying her best to stay focused, although she was having another laughing fit.
“This is awesome,” she squinted at the road. “Look at all those yellow…somethings.”
The weather outside was getting nastier, and the heavy torrent of rain blurred Loki’s sight. He held onto the edge of the roof, preparing to pull himself up.
“Keep your hands tight on the wheel or I’ll fall,” he yelled at Lucy through the wind.
“Don’t tell me how to drive,” she yelled back, wiping rain from her cheek. “Don’t talk through the window, either. You’re spitting on me.”
“You think I’m the one who’s spitting. This sky is spitting on the whole world,” Loki said, climbing up. “No one ever told me that killing vampires required the skills of a stuntman.”
Loki was head to head with Dork Dracula, who was tied lying flat on his back, his hands and legs stretched out on the roof. Out of nowhere, Dork Dracula’s head tilted to the side, staring at Loki with glaring red eyes. He was awake. A little drowsy, though.
“Hi, my name is Loki Blackstar,” Loki faked a smile. “And I’m going to kick your ass.”
Loki managed to punch the kid in the face to buy a few seconds. Then he clung to Dork Dracula’s body to pull himself up, while listening to the boy’s drowsy growling. Once Loki managed to climb onto the roof, the car hit another bump in the road. He lost balance and almost fell, but hung onto Dork Dracula’s body as if hugging him.
“Spread the love,” Loki couldn’t stop commenting on his ridiculous and misfortunate adventures in the Ordinary World.
Finally, Loki managed to sit on Dork Dracula with his knees touching the roof. He raised his stake in the air and aimed to stake the boy in the heart. “Finally, thirty eight!” Loki chanted his victory, “sixty-one to go.”
But something stopped Loki right in his tracks. It was the squeaky sound of a squirrel, stuffed under Dork Dracula’s costume, right above his heart. Loki knew it was a common trick vampires pulled. Every vampire knew Loki had a soft spot for squirrels so he wouldn’t dare stake them.
“Seriously?” Loki ripped Dork Dracula’s costume open and saw a squirrel duct-taped to his chest. “You bastard,” Loki screamed at the drowsy vampire who was smirking happily at him. “Why would you do that to this tiny, helpless animal?”
Loki freed the squirrel carefully, closing his eyes to the sound of pain it made when he pulled the duct tape away. “Are you OK?” Loki held the squirrel in his hand tightly. “Please tell me you’re OK? Talk to me!” Loki spattered rain onto its face.
The squirrel tried to pull Loki’s hand away because he was accidentally choking it. “I’m sorry,” Loki said. “I’m really sorry. Are you OK now? Talk to me, why don’t you talk to me?”
The squirrel nodded, Loki set it free, and then it climbed up and plastered a kiss on his cheek then fled away.
“They are coming after us!” Lucy shouted, sounding alert now.
Loki looked back, and he saw the vampires were after them in their Jeeps and Audies. He wondered why the Council of Heaven had given him an old Cadillac when everyone in this world had cool cars. Wasn’t he the half-angel?
Turning back, Loki noticed Dork Dracula was fully awake and growling, fangs out, red eyes glowing in the dark.
“Are those your fangs or are you just happy to see me?” Loki splashed the words out against the rain, happily spitting on Dork Dracula’s face. He didn’t look insulted.
“Stupid, Loki,” Dork Dracula grunted. “You’ll always be a kind-hearted loser, just like your father,” the vampire grasped Loki around his neck, ready to bite him.
“You knew my father? Who is he? What’s his name?” Loki asked, his stake slipping from his hand. If he was going to die in this awful Ordinary World, he wouldn’t mind knowing who his father was.
“Every vampire knew your father, the most famous loser of all, who gave up on Heaven for the love of a demon woman,” Dork Dracula smirked with crawling green veins in his face, waving like a mad snake. This was definitely not the nerdy dude from the party anymore. “If only you could remember who you really are. You used to be like us, one of us, Loki.
“Who am I then?” Loki pleaded. “Tell me what you know about me and my father!”
Suddenly, something hit Loki in the face. He thought this was the feeling of getting bitten, but it wasn’t. It was a thick branch from one of the creepy trees bending over the road that punched him.
Loki had been hit hard. He wrapped his arms and legs around the branch like an amateur monkey in a lousy circus.
When he opened his eyes, the night looked blacker and blurrier. He dangled his feet but there was nothing underneath to reach. He wanted to bang his head against something, watching Carmen disappear into the dark of the road in front of his eyes. He was simply left behind, hanging on a tree in the middle of the night.
Behind him, he heard the vampires getting closer, so he crawled deeper into the thick arched branches and hid behind the leaves, watching them chase after Lucy.
Loki wondered if Lucy noticed his absence. It wasn’t like you lose the guy on the roof of the car you’re driving every day. It would have felt good if she had noticed his absence. He wondered if he’d end up spending the rest of his life up there.
Sitting helpless on the branch in the dark, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He had never answered the
phone while on a tree before, so he struggled pulling it out with one hand while keeping balance with the other. “Keep your balance, Loki. One hand on the tree, one hand on the phone,” he mumbled. “That’s the kind of skill they don’t teach you in school.”
Loki checked the caller’s name. It was Lucy.
“Where the tic, tac, toc, are you?” Lucy shouted through the speaker, fully awake now.
“I’m on a tree,” Loki said. He didn’t feel exactly proud about it.
“How could you leave me alone with all those fang-gang vampires following me? This is no time for trees, Loki.”
“Actually it’s me who was left behind—” Loki fired back. His loud angry voice must have awoken some creatures of the night. Something was rattling in the nearby trees. “Actually it’s me who was left behind, not you,” he repeated, now whispering and lowering his head to hide from any malevolent night creatures. A wolf howled in the distance, and Loki wished he was a lizard so he could change his color to match the tree.
“Why are you whispering?” Lucy yelled.
“You have to lose the vampires and come back to pick me up,” he said.
“I can’t believe you need my help again,” Lucy sighed impatiently. “You’re supposed to be the vampire hunter,” she huffed and hung up.
“Goodbye to you to you, too,” he said to an empty line.
Loki saw his shadow reflected by the moonlight on the road. It looked a lot taller and a little bent, which he was fine with. What troubled him was the other shadow next to him. It was of something short and chubby with what looked like spiky feathers. He wasn’t alone on the tree.
Slowly, biting on the phone like a dog with a bone, Loki turned to his right. It was an owl; a friggin’ white owl with yellowish eyes, standing firm and proud, looking like a happy stuffed pillow. It said nothing and only blinked occasionally.
Loki held the phone in one hand so he could shrug.
“Hi,” Loki paid his respects. It was hard to tell if the owl was friendly or a blood sucking vampire.
Usually animals talked back to Loki when they were alone—or maybe he was only hallucinating—but this owl didn’t respond. It didn’t even nod back. They shared a long moment of silence. It seemed that Loki was of no interest to the owl, which made him feel even lonelier.
When Loki’s phone vibrated again, the owl let out a sigh, and Loki held tighter to the tree branch so it wouldn’t vibrate him to his death.
Loki apologized to the owl for the disturbance, hoping he could count on its continued silence as permission to pick up the phone. This time, he didn’t know the caller’s number.
“You think I should pick up?” Loki asked the owl. Talking to it kinda eased his fear. The owl blinked once, so innocently Loki was about to fall in love with its coolness.
Loki picked up the phone.
“Mr. Loki?” a man on the phone inquired. His voice struck Loki as foreign, probably German. “Loki Blackstar the vampire hunter?”
“Speaking,” Loki furrowed his eyebrows, exchanging looks with the owl.
“My name is Igor the Magnificent,” the man said in his old, archaic German accent.
“And I’m Loki the tree hugger.”
“I’m calling to offer you a job, Mr. Loki.”
Loki asked permission from the owl, clamping his hand over the speaker. He saw another owl-friend had joined their small party on the tree. “He’s offering a job. Probably a magnificent job,” Loki explained to the pair. “I need the money, you know. I need an education in case I can’t kill ninety-nine demons and get back to heaven. It’s either that or I will have to apply to American Idol, and sell my soul to the devil so he will gift me with the talent of singing.”
The owls became three, still not uttering a word. To Loki, silence was a sign of approval.
“Sure,” he said to Igor.
“I need you to come to visit me in Hell,” Igor said.
“You’re in Hell?” Loki thought that talking about selling his soul was a mistake, not to mention the grand irony in asking a half-angel to do Hell a favor.
“It’s a town called Hell. Haven’t you heard of it?” Igor said. “On behalf of our town, I am asking you to help us kill a vampire that has been threatening our families.”
Although the offer reeked of weirdness, Loki was happy he could compensate for failing to kill Dork Dracula.
“The town’s council will reward you with a year free of school fees in our town high school if you kill her—I mean the vampire.”
“Wait a minute,” Loki shrugged. “Did you just say her?”
“The vampire is a girl, yes,” Igor confirmed. His tone had changed, gone softer, as he preferred not to tell Loki she was a girl.
“I’m sorry Mr. Igor. I can’t do it,” Loki said without thinking. His heart pounded so fast it felt like it was going to burst out of his chest, and his mouth went dry. “I don’t kill demon girls.”
“Please, Mr. Loki. We really need your help,” Igor said. “She has been killing and scaring everyone in the city for the last one hundred years. People are afraid to speak her name now. The children exchange spooky stories about her. The town is terrified. It’s a nightmare, and she has killed every previous vampire hunter we’ve hired.”
“A hundred years?” Although Loki should have worried about the fact that no other vampire hunter survived her, it was the least of his concerns. He had never heard about a vampire who stayed in the same town for a hundred years.
“Yes, her name is…” Igor hesitated. Loki almost thought he’d hung up then Igor ended his sentence, as he tried to hide the name Snow White behind a fake cough.
“Snow White?” Loki wondered if he’d misheard the name. A crow cawed somewhere nearby, and a couple of doves fluttered out of the trees. “Snow White?” Loki repeated, raising his voice so the owls could hear him. One of them raised a single eyebrow, the other sneezed, and the last one winked at Loki.
Loki felt dizzy all of a sudden, as if he were going to faint and fall from the tree. It was a strange feeling he hadn’t experienced before, but the headlights of his Cadillac flashing in the distance shook him out of it. Lucy arrived.
“Are you still there, Mr. Loki?” Igor wondered.
“Yes, but like I said, I’m sorry,” Loki replied. “I can’t do it. I don’t do girls—I mean I don’t kill demon girls.”
“Is there anything that could change your mind?” Igor sounded sneaky.
“Not a thing,” Loki said. “If she’s Snow White like you claim, then she doesn’t need a vampire hunter. She needs a true love’s kiss,” Loki mocked Igor. “Better find her a Prince Charming.”
Loki’s Cadillac was coming nearer.
“I have to hang up now,” he told Igor. “I’m about to jump from a tree onto the roof of a 1955 Cadillac, and I haven’t really practiced for this—“
“Could you just promise me you’ll think about it,” Igor the Insistent pleaded. “They say she is actually the Snow White from the fairy tales.”
Loki simply hung up.
The Cadillac was almost underneath him. Lucy waved at Loki. He wasn’t surprised that Dork Dracula wasn’t on the roof anymore. Loki had messed up twice today; failing to kill the vampire he was hired to, and bailing out on killing a vampire princess because he was afraid of demon girls. After being repeatedly told that he was banned from Heaven for falling in love with a demon girl, there was no way he’d risk it again.
Loki blew the owl a kiss and prepared to jump. One of the owls blew him a kiss back. Lucy wasn’t going to stop with all the cars tailing her.
“If Snow White is a vampire,” he told the owl. “Then I am Prince Jumping,” he said, hoping he’d successfully land on the roof of his Cadillac.
He landed on the muddy ground instead.
Lying on his back, he lifted his head up and saw the car following Lucy wasn’t the vampire’s. It was Donnie Cricketkiller’s car. They drove by, laughing, splashing mud on him and throwing their trash at him.
Loki saw why they were cheering victoriously; they had Dork Dracula staked in the backseat.
Still stretched out on the ground, Loki’s back ached from the fall, so he closed his eyes on the world where nothing really went right for him.
“You think it’s him? The One?” Loki thought he heard an owl on the tree talk to another.
“Nah, he’s a doofus,” the other owl replied.
Loki didn’t bother checking if he was hallucinating. He heard Lucy trot closer.
“Loki Blackstar,” Lucy stood in her devil outfit, her hands on her hips “How can anyone be as pathetic as you?”
Loki said nothing. The last thing he needed was someone to remind him of his failures.
“You know why I asked you to kill Dork Dracula?” Lucy said. “Because some people in my town think that you’re the only one who can kill the Snow White vampire, but you turned out to be a real loser.”
“You’re from the same town Igor called from?” Loki frowned.
“Yes,” Lucy said. “He is like our town’s council representative. He insisted on calling you even when I told him that you failed the test of killing Dork Dracula.”
“This was a test?” The hits kept on coming.
“Some ancestors in our town wrote a prophecy claiming that a fifteen year old vampire hunter would kill Snow White. Clearly, it couldn’t be you,” Lucy said. “If you want my advice, forget about vampire hunting. Stick to wearing that stupid kilt of yours.”
Loki was speechless. Lucy knelt down and pulled a small card from her pocket. She wet it with her tongue and plastered it on Loki’s forehead. “It’s our town’s address. Our town’s council still thinks you should give us a visit,” she held Loki’s head between her hands and looked at him, “Loki Blackstar,” she sighed. “What a waste of a cool name.”
Lucy left and Loki didn’t bother standing up. His time in this Ordinary World was painful. Even though he thought people were stupid and mean, there was no denying he was a total failure. When Lucy’s spit dried, the card fell and he picked it up. It read:
Welcome to the Island of Sorrow
East of the Sun West of the Moon