The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

(To any of you who speak/read/write Swedish, I am so sorry).

I just can’t catch a break. Seriously. This was supposed to be a quiet night at home. Face masks and Ikea furniture assembly. I have the best of intentions, but it always seems to go wrong. This kind of thing always happens.
Well… okay, maybe that’s not fair. This specific thing has never happened to me. Honestly, before tonight, I didn’t even think this was possible.
I’ve been staring blankly at my wall for I don’t know how long. The aforementioned face mask is cracking and flaking off like old paint. A sudden crack of thunder from the storm outside snaps me out of my trance. I blink rapidly to moisturize my eyes and turn to face the hulking form of the Norse demon reclining casually on my bed. He’s got his hands behind his head, eyes closed, one leg crossed over the bent knee of the other. He’s bouncing his cloven foot on his knee and singing to himself in a language I don’t recognize.
“My roommate’s gonna kill me,” I whisper.
“Cool. Can I have your soul when she does?”
I narrow my eyes at him and open my mouth to tell him that he’s not funny, but the unimpressed glance he throws my way kills the words on my tongue, and I snap my jaw closed. He looks bored, as if it’s not at all shocking that he just appeared in a flaming ring in my bedroom. The candles that I scattered about to light the space sputter sheepishly. My eyes return to the circle of singed fibers surrounding my new Ikea bookcase and I sigh, “I am definitely not getting my deposit back.”
“Relax, girl. It’s just carpet. Not the end of the world. Yet.” He chuckles. I think I hear him whisper, “Nice one,” to himself. My left eye twitches. I’m not sure that my brain is prepared to handle the reality of a demon with his own inside jokes.
“How?” I ask no one in particular. The demon answers.
“I don’t know,” he pulls himself up with a grunt and strides across the room toward me. He’s so wide that he completely blocks out the lightning flashing through my window. “All I do know is that you apparently don’t watch enough horror movies.”
“I hate horror movies,” I mumble defensively.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, then rests his fist on one fuzzy hip, “There are four basic ingredients needed for any summoning. One,” he begins counting off on his fingers, “wax.”
I glare accusingly at the candles. It’s been storming all week, but tonight has been the worst of it. The power finally went out just as I walked in the door this afternoon. I’d borrowed a few candles from my new roommate. She has like… a thousand of them, but she told me I could only use the white ones. Something about them being “cleaner.”
“Two,” he continues, “blood.” Before I can blink, he snatches my right hand from where it hangs limp by my side and holds my index finger aloft. In the candlelight I can just make out a speck of blood from a papercut I got while reading the assembly instructions. The demon’s skin is dry and so hot that I feel like I should be blistering in his grip, but when he drops my hand my skin is unblemished.
“Three, a circle.” He gestures vaguely to my melted carpet, still steaming.
I crane my neck to glare up at his face. Looking at him gives me a headache. Maybe it’s the smell of beer and fish that clings to him. “That wasn’t there until you showed up!” I hiss.
“I can’t come through without a circle. So there’s gotta be one there somewhere,” he shrugs and strokes his massive blond beard.
“But—”
“Four! The name of the creature being summoned, repeated thrice,” he rocks back on his hooves and smirks at me, full of smug pride in himself for educating me. I fight the urge to roll my eyes at him, since I did technically ask.
Something about what he just said gives me pause, though. "Hang on… I didn’t say your name.” I knit my brows.
“How would you know? You didn’t bother to ask. Just started screaming.” He turns away from me, arms folded, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. The effect is comical, but I get the feeling that letting him know would be too big an ego boost, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
“Okay, fine, but you didn’t bother, either.”
“Yes, but you see, I don’t care.”
“Well that’s rude.”
“I’m a demon,” he shrugs.
"You’re in my bedroom!”
“You invited me,” he growls and leans down, his face precariously close to mine, and flashes a wide grin, full of fangs. I can see a channel carved into the ivory, filled with blue pigment. The sight sends a chill down my spine. This close, I can see the individual marks made by the blade that carved the intricate beads in his hair. I gulp audibly. He leans back abruptly, “Fine. I’ll bite. What’s your name?”
I shake my head and square my shoulders, “Bobbie. Short for Roberta.”
The demon throws his head back and shouts laughter at my ceiling, so loudly that I can’t tell if it’s him or the thunder shaking my window.
“Oh ‘ha ha.’ And what mystical bull did I supposedly invoke to bring you here?”
The demon wheezes, wiping a tear the color of blood from the corner of his eye. Come to think of it, the tear probably is blood. Once he’s composed himself, he raises one bushy, golden eyebrow over an unsettlingly icy blue eye, and sweeps his arm in a grandiose arc toward the empty bookcase standing sentinel in the center of my bedroom.
“Bookcase?”
“Ha,” says the demon, humorlessly, and repeats his gesture with an edge of irritation.
“Ikea? Wood? Nails? Dammit?” Admittedly, it’s probably not wise for me to be baiting a creature of darkness like this, but I’m obviously not in my right mind right now. Lucky for me, the demon’s irritation doesn’t appear to be genuine. I cast my eyes about the scene of the crime, thinking back to anything that I could have repeated three times. Then it hits me. “Um… wait. No way.” My eyes land on the assembly instructions, sitting innocently on my bedside table, displaying the product name in large, bold letters. I look back at the demon, dumbfounded. He nods solemnly.
“What kind of demon is named ‘Billy?’”
“It’s better than Barnmörker…” he mumbles.
I snort, “Whatever.”
“Rude.” He sighs and cracks his back, "All right. So what do you want?”
“Excuse me?”
“You summoned me. That means I’m under contract. I do something for you, and then I get your soul.”
“I didn’t summon you on purpose!”
“Not. My. Problem.” He cocks his head to the side and gives me a smile that I’m assuming was meant to be friendly. Unfortunately, the effect is more predatory than pleasant. As if Billy the Viking Demon could pull off “pleasant.”
"Well I’m not going to hell because of cheap Swedish furniture,” I fold my arms over my chest and stare at him stubbornly.
Billy stomps his foot and growls lightly, "Like I said, that’s not my problem. I’ve got a job to do.”
Okay, this is heavy. I’m not wrong for refusing to endure eternal torment over an accident, right? I mean, I’m a good person. I’ve never cheated on my taxes or anything.
“What if I just ask you for something really small?”
“I still need a soul, girl. Them’s the brakes.” Billy shrugs.
I groan, “Is there anything I can give you instead? Seriously. Anything.”
Billy strokes his beard again, clawed fingers clicking idly against beaded beard braids, and ponders. There is no sound but the clicking, the tapping of rain against my window, and the sputtering of candles burning low. They’re going pretty quickly. I only have a few minutes of light left.
Finally, Billy flashes another toothy smile and points a long finger at my nose. “Face mask.”
“Seriously?” I giggle.
“Seriously. Now what do you want?” He folds his arms over his chest, unfazed by his bizarre request.
I glance around the room, trying to think of a good, safe application for a demon. I could ask for just about anything, I guess, but the idea of receiving eternal youth or beauty or super strength from a demon just feels… icky. And then I see it. A largeish flat box, opened and leaning forlornly against the wall. The perfect task for Billy.
“Will you put together my Brusali?”
A convenient peal of thunder shakes the building like an earthquake, and I get the sinking feeling in my stomach as the candles fizzle out one by one. Billy flashes his most frightening smile yet in the light of the one remaining flame, before it also flickers and dies. Then, his eyes are the only lights in the room, glowing with a chilly blue sheen like a wild animal.
In a voice that seems to come from everywhere and everyone, he says, “Done…”