Page 52 of Slayer Mom
“That sounds incredibly tedious.”
“But satisfying.” The guy winked at me and then caught a glare from Brika and fell silent, focusing on the pavement instead of talking. It was almost like they didn’t allow flirtation with married women, as long as you weren’t the Grand Master. He could do whatever he liked.
“How would the Grand Master kill him?”
“Many ways. His assassins are also very talented at such work. It is slow, though,” Brika answered. Of course, the Grand Master could kill him many ways, and all of them should be slow, because torture was his favorite thing. He could probably kill him fast, too, if he were so inclined.
I was walking towards the water, almost to the end of the dock, when a grunting scraping sound came from below. Brika grabbed my arm and threw me closer to the shore right before the dock broke off and crashed into the river, taking Brika and most of the other vampires with it.
fourteen
. . .
I only hadthe sharp-toothed guy for my defense. Would he eat me without Brika’s supervision? Zombies came pouring over the broken edge of the dock towards me, faster than the usual variety, with more teeth in their skulls. In other words, less decomposing, and more dangerous. Much more dangerous.
The water swirled just past the jagged edge of the dock, beneath the high drop. Did vampires know how to swim?
I chopped up two zombies and turned to take another one, while sharp-tooth moved in beside me, protecting that side so I wasn’t completely surrounded. I liked working with Hazen better, but he was okay. He didn’t go after zombies, just kept them from getting through him. He didn’t seem panicked at the loss of his buddies or interested in munching my neck.
A few minutes later, Tom slipped in on my other side, swinging a knife with precision as he took his place.
“Sorry, I’m late. Gloria and I had a conversation that she probably considers an argument.”
I almost rolled my eyes, but who has time for thatwhen slaughtering zombies? “How unreasonable of her.”
“Not at all. From her perspective, it was definitely an argument. She argued very well.”
“And you didn’t argue? You just gave in?”
“No, I held my ground. Can you feel the dock? We’ll need to retreat closer to land if we don’t want to be sucked in when it goes. Hopefully, your car doesn’t sink. I parked up on the road.”
“Thanks for the advice. Next time, maybe you could tell me before I park in the danger zone. What did she argue about and you not argue about?”
“I invited her to go to dinner with me. She argued that it was old-fashioned, antiquated, and chauvinistic of me to ask her. I am not fast-moving when it comes to females. Maybe it is all the reasons she gave for me, but I think that I like to be certain.”
“She’s never certain,” I said, kicked back a zombie so he could rip apart its brain.
“She is. She is incredibly sure of who she is and what she wants. She is not influenced by the opinions of others. I believe that her certainty changes, not that she doesn’t have any. I could be wrong.”
“There’s definitely truth to that. She’s strong-willed and fickle. What are you going to do?”
Brika came over the edge of the dock, soaking wet with a wet weed slicked across her forehead. She screamed and charged the zombies, ripping them apart with her teeth and claws like she’d taken the dunking personally. So much for being above extermination.
“Well,” he answered, doing a fancy double-cut, to take out three zombies in one slash of his two knives. “I’m going to continue being slow until she’s decided whether or not she is interested with all of her multi-faceted heart. There’s no hurry.” He sliced and diced, then turned in a graceful spin to off another zombie’shead, stabbing the brain with the other knife, and flipping both of those into the next zombie in line.
“Those moves are slick, Tom. When are you going to give me some actual training?”
“Don’t copy me. Stick to what you’re already doing. After a few years of that, you move onto prettier things. Go this way,” he said, nodding towards the land.
Brika broke past us with a war cry and started ripping and tearing a path towards the parking lot. Was it that desperate?
The dock shuddered and then splintered under my feet. Sharp teeth guy lunged towards me, but a slimy body hit him, knocking him away into darkness while I plummeted. It was like cliff jumping, only with boards and splinters. I hit the water with a force that knocked out my breath. It was so cold. The goopy bodies of zombies falling around and on me were super fun. Fine. I’d do water extermination, no problem. I was an okay swimmer after all the mom and kiddie classes I’d taken with Wat and Lock. Hopefully, Hazen would find Wat soon.
Hopefully my phone didn’t go down with my car, then I couldn’t call him for an update. I shoved my knife into a zombie and felt teeth chomp my other arm.
I spun around, exploding those brains, and then cut through another, and another, and another, while that wound bled, and ached, and possibly turned me into a zombie. Fine. My life expectancy hadn’t ever been great once I’d been marked, but tonight, I was going to take as many of the monsters with me as possible. I gritted my teeth and found a board full of nails to smash and slice a creature while I stayed afloat.
Something sank its teeth into my leg. Fun. Like going to a birthday party with fifty three-year-olds. IfI could cope with that as a twenty-one-year-old, I could cope now. I dove down, and sliced through brains, then kicked down, away from the shore to faster water. I needed to get room to maneuver, and I needed to wash off the scent of nutmeg until I could get these bites treated. The Grand Master’s antidote should help slow down infection, but it wouldn’t last forever.
