NOVEL NEXT Interlude 4: Slayer Companion
It was sunset, and everyone loved the night views of the Seattle skyline from Gas Works Park. Best views in the city, and it shone with perfection as the last glimmers of sunset threw gold, orange, and pink across the night sky.
My Slayer Companion did exactly what I'd expected. Dogs and their guardians adored the park with its open expanses of lawn and water-front views, and the Slayer Companion didn't let me down.
I raced to the concrete refuge at the far end of the park, and behind me, the murder pizza flew through the air like a giant cheese-covered frisbee, black dog hot on its trail.
The concrete pillars were exactly as I remembered them: all in a row like giant, house-sized croquet wickets. The perfect trap for a vampiric, doughy monster. I ran through the first five wickets, then side-stepped right, depositing Harley behind a concrete column. She promptly fell to the grass with an "Oomph," poor thing.
But I had no time to concern myself with Harley's well being. The murder pizza'd flown past us, just as I'd predicted. Three wickets down, it stopped, meaning to back up and head for me, but the black dog barred its way, snarling and growling with fury.
The pizza took a move out of my playbook and darted left around a concrete wicket.
"Spoon up!" I yelled at Harley, who was already on her feet, brandishing her favorite wooden cooking utensil like a mad harpy who wanted to take down the vile dinner-escaping marauder.
"I'll kill it!" Harley hissed. "Goddamn whole day blown. It should've been perfect. It was perfect—"
But I had to move, needed to keep the murder pizza focused on me. Engaging all the Vigor I could, I ran full speed around the outside of the concrete pylons, all the way to the end, and the monster followed me, black dog letting out a series of staccato, furious barks, chasing it.
I zoomed around the wickets and plunged through the center of them, circling back towards Harley.
"Spoon up, Har!" I shouted at her, brandishing my own over-sized wooden fork home decor. "It has a weakness!"
Harley was running the same direction as me on the outside of the concrete pillars, and she got it! The plan! Just like I knew she would, she'd anticipated me. All those years gaming together kept us in perfect harmony. We could do this!
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I slowed my pace to give her time to get in place, black dog panting behind me on the heels of the pizza that was now chasing me.
Perfect! Harley was at the end of the wickets, standing like a marinara-soaked goddess, wooden spoon pointing before her in defiance, eyes ablaze with the fury of a cook denied the meal of a lifetime.
But the dog? What would it do when I enacted my final phase of the plan?
New Skill accessed: Slayer Companion Communication
And suddenly, I knew its mind. The black dog wasn't just a companion animal; it was a highly-trained agility machine on four furry paws. It would have no trouble with what came next, so I showed it what I was going to do.
I felt her— for she was definitely female— excitement. She wanted to do it; wanted to show me and Harley what she could do. Excellent!
Shikha— for that was the name of the fierce, black, shaggy, German Shepherd— chased the murder pizza, herding it after me, determined to block every avenue of escape. No frisbee-shaped dinner would be allowed free in Gas Works Park. This monster was going down.
Good. Slayer Companion on board with the plan, I pulled my attention back to the scene before me. Twenty feet more. Ten. Five.
I dropped to the ground feet from my wife and slid, spinning on my back, giant wooden fork held aloft as Shikha herded the pizza towards my sliding form. I thrust upwards with my weapon, timing perfect, and yelling, "Now, Harley, shove a spoon down a bitch!"
The murder pizza I'd speared on my fork snarled in rage at my wife, but Harley was undaunted.
"You will pay, bitch," she hissed, and smacked the pizza a good one with the flat of the spoon. It opened its mouth wide in horror, and my wife did not hesitate; she shoved that wooden spoon down its gullet and fed it the cure for its madness: Ash wood.
At that moment, Shikha lept, black furry mass like a bolt of lightening in the air, flying over both me and Harley in one leap, effortlessly clearing the fight below her. The fight which was now over, my wife having destroyed the vile enemy.
Wanna tame a rabid, foaming, vampiric pizza? Shove Ash wood between its fangs and you rob it of its un-life. It only took seconds for the mad pizza to loose its crazy, and then we were left with something only Harley and I could appreciate.
A giant fork covered in a perfect, airy, whole-wheat crust topped with homemade tomato sauce, melty mozzarella and cheddar, and thin-sliced smoked turkey with jalapeños.
"Oh, Harley!" I sobbed.
"I know, Red. I've been dreaming of this pizza ever since we had it at Nashville Pizza Co., and I couldn't wait for you to come home and have it on your birthday," she winked her violet eye at me. "I don't think it's dangerous anymore—"
"It's amazing, Har, amazing. Thank you!"
I couldn't imagine a better end to a fight for our lives, and there were three of us who got to vanquish that pizza together.
