Charmwill allowed Loki inside, and continued reading. Loki sat next to Pippi who couldn’t stop looking at him and was sitting too close for comfort. Sometimes, Loki didn’t always think of Pippi as a bother, even if she was a little bit off her rocker. He could relate to that. What really aggravated him was that he actually found her attractive.
Don’t trust her. She might be a demon. She just enrolled in school last week, and you know nothing about her. Are you going to make the same mistake that got you kicked out of the pearly gates?
Loki avoided Pippi until the bell of freedom rang and class was over. He had to meet up with Charmwill to report his failed attempts at killing Dork Dracula, and he wanted to discuss the weird phone call from Igor the Magnificent.
Walking the empty corridor on the last floor, which led to Charmwill’s office, the storage door opened suddenly and someone pulled him inside. Loki didn’t have time to pull out his stake, but he eased up a bit when he saw it was Pippi. She closed the door, leaving them stuck in the tight place among brooms and stinky cleaning buckets.
“Kiss me, Loki,” Pippi pulled him closer to her.
“What?” Loki panicked while detergents fell from the shelves.
“Kiss me, just like in fairy tales,” she closed her eyes, and pursed her lips, stretching them out like a duck’s beak. “Let me know if you’re the one for me.”
“Get off me, Pippi,” Loki said. She had wrapped her legs around him and he couldn’t set himself free. Looking at her, he confessed, “I don’t want to kiss you, and I don’t believe in that crap about true love’s kiss!” he said; trying to push her away, but Pippi had limbs like an octopus and they were sticking to him.
Pippi opened her eyes, disappointed with Loki. She pulled him even closer and plunged her lips onto his. Loki felt like he was struck by lightning. He’d never kissed a girl in ordinary life before—and he couldn’t remember if he had before he was banned. Even from Pippi, it felt so…so…good. Why hadn’t he tried this before? Ah, he forgot. He wasn’t allowed to.
Suddenly, Loki forgot he was a vampire hunter. The hell with going back home, this feels so good. This kissing thing was awesome. It didn’t really feel like true love, but it felt pleasant. He found himself giving in to Pippi and kissing her back, closing his eyes.
After she pulled away, he had a dreamy smile on his face, neglecting the stinky smell of brooms. He felt as if tiny lovebirds tweeted all around his head.
Happily, he opened his eyes, and that was when something crazy happened.
Pippi Luvbug, the quirky redhead wasn’t herself anymore. She had simply turned into a red eyed, pale skinned, vampire with fangs and yellow eyes. Something crawled under her skin, and Loki thought wherever it was looked like tiny eels.
“Welcome to hell, Loki,” she said in an awful voice that reminded him of croaking frogs again.
What have I done? I messed up again.
The storage room was too narrow, and there wasn’t enough time for Loki to reach for the stake from his backpack. He was about to get bitten by a vampire. One thing that crossed his mind was that he really didn’t want to die in school. What an awful place to die.
Suddenly, the door sprung open and light shone through. It was Charmwill Glimmer. He pulled Loki back and staked Pippi mercilessly in the chest, almost pinning her to the wall. Shocked, her body kept wriggling for a while before she gave in and died.
“Wait for me in my office,” Charmwill said. “I will take care of the body.”
Running back to the office, Loki thought about how crazy it would look like if someone saw Charmwill killing Pippi. Maybe they would think of him as a sadistic, mad teacher who kills his students. Most of the town’s people were looking for the person who murdered their children at parties, and if anyone saw him it wouldn’t look good. Loki entered the office and waited for Charmwill. He just hoped he wouldn’t be furious with him.
“I am sorry, sir,” Loki said once Charmwill burst into the room and locked it from the inside.
“I don’t think that I taught you to spend your life apologizing,” Charmwill said as his Book of Beautiful Lies turned back into Pickwick the Parrot.
“I am Pickwick,” the parrot said to Loki. “And I am mute.”
“I’m Loki,” Loki patted Pickwick. “And I am hopeless.”
Charmwill eyed Loki for a moment, but he didn’t comment. “I assume you killed your thirty-eighth vampire yesterday,” he said.
“No, sir,” Loki lowered his head a little. “I failed.”
“And what was it this time? Did Donnie Cricketkiller kill the vampire first?” Charmwill inquired, leaning back at his desk.
“He did, eventually. But that wasn’t why I failed,” Loki shrugged. “The vampire had a squirrel taped over its heart, and I wanted to save the squirrel.”
“Saved the squirrel, huh,” Charmwill lit up his pipe, staring out his window.
Sometimes, Loki didn’t understand Charmwill. He wished he could read his mind. Had Charmwill become accustomed to Loki’s failure at killing vampires?
“Hmm…” Loki broke the silence. “I wanted to tell you something strange that happened to me yesterday.”