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.