“What a horrible night to have a Christmas curse…”
Christmas this year would be wet with aquaponic fragility. But that would have to wait for the annual Slay. A winged creature swooped over the Valley of lights. Wander stared over the giant winking dirt bowl, home to millions hoping billions of secret commercial yearnings. He wanted this to be his last fight for home, one where he could die with dignity. Running for the billionaire red-suited man fit no longer.
A great hawk-like claw raked the clouds above, followed by whooshing like a low aircraft. Rain came down light but sure.
“Alright you sonbitch’, You gon’ be my last hunt. This time fur real, fur real.”
He drew a giant sledgehammer from the rocky earth. Persuader was his favorite tool, no one could argue with it. Especially when it was hitting the foot at a careful angle with wrecking speed, and ESPECIALLY tonight, when it shone with those green, red, and blue LED seasonal lights that should have been stapled to a house or wrapped around a living room tree.
The creature— a Joy Leech the size of a Cessna— screeched down from gray Heavens. The damn thing didn’t belong in the desert. “Just like me.” Wander let out a single chuckle. Joy Leech dove fast at downtown.
Wander flash ran to meet it, a quick burst through the sewer-smelling Vegas streets.
In the middle of an overpriced parking lot, he planted his boots and looked up. "Come own den. I gotta get you free." Persuader was in the posture of readied-repose.
Leech hit the ground ten feet away, wings kicking up a storm of gravel and discarded lottery tickets. It smelled like a wet chicken and looked as ugly as a headless uncooked one. Wander swung. He put his three-centuries of indentured service behind the strike. Steel drivin’ John Henry-energy caught the beast square in its chicken-knee leg.
“You gonna get dis hurt!”
Sound from a snap cracked over the sparse morning traffic. The creature howled, a cry that made the neon lights of the distant Strip seem to dim in sympathy. The vibration rattled Wander’s heavy-duty skeleton. There was an untreated ache somewhere in there he ignored.
"Think u're the only thing dat's hungry tonight?" Wander said with a gravely utterance. "The whole valley's starvin'. They're eatin' themselves alive down there, and you're vermin pickn at the scabs of this city.”
The Leech lunged, a blur of feathers and malice. A claw caught Wander's shoulder, ripping through his heavy wool coat. He didn't feel the sting, only the cold weight of the rain soaked into the wool. He rolled, his movements sluggish but practiced, the muscle memory of a thousand Decembers taking over. He brought the hammer down again with the finality of a door slam. A popped squelch like a pumpkin exploding smeared the air, and the thing lay twitching in death-sleep.
The lights on Persuader winked— red, then green, then a dying blue. The weapon got the last word like always. With one last, guttural heave, Wander drove the head of the hammer into the creature's skull. There was no grand explosion of magic. Just the hard thud of a job finished, then it was a wholly silent night.
Joy Leech dissolved into a grey sludge that the rain immediately began to wash into the thirsty desert street.
Wander stood there for a long time, leaning on the handle of his hammer. Dots of rare rain hit his glistening face.
The "red-suited man" wouldn't be coming to thank him. There were no cookies, no milk, no gratitude in this line of work. Just the quiet satisfaction of a predator removed from a valley that already had enough problems. Just more work.
“You see?!” He bellowed at the sky. Some bum yelled up too, then flashed a thumbs up. Wander walked away.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. Not from fear, but from the sheer effort of existing in a world that had outgrown his kind of magic. If you could call it magic at all.
He dragged Persuader behind him, the lights finally going dark as he descended toward the city. The Strip beckoned with brightness.
He had no fight left in him. The Season had left him bruised and bright. The curse remained, but that Christmas morning, he’d found the most imperfect peace.
There’d be no retirement tonight.
Behind the story
After I watched one of those cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies, I came up with a more interesting concept.
The original idea was novella length and involved some complex mess of a redemption arc.
But I ran out of time.
So I squashed it to lifting a curse and an epic fight in grimy downtown Las Vegas.
"Christmas Slay" was a fun song to make. My wife even hopped on the track with the humming.