Patreon or PayPal Me keeps this site and its author alive. Thank you. |
Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 199: Cooper 63
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 355
Mister Justice walked back from the church, and looked up at the building, fire coming from several floors and working its way up. In the sky above he could see two flying creatures, one of them in the likeness of an angel.
It struck him that he had never seen Derek transform, but had been told that one of his forms looked very like an angel. It was doing battle with something that looked basically human, but not quite. It was choking, something wrapped around its neck, and then it started plummeting.
The angel seemed to want to do something, but at that moment a man with a jetpack flew into view, headed straight for the angel, who abruptly spun, falling several yards, and then started flying. He obviously was otherwise occupied.
Whoever, or whatever, was falling was going to land very close to him. He wondered whether there was anything he could do. If he tried to catch a body that large falling from that height, he would undoubtedly break quite a few bones. There suddenly seemed to be some merit in those psionic skills Derek was teaching Tommy. On the other hand, just because something might be useful, even for good, didn't make it good or right.
Lord, what do I do? he prayed.
A wind blew, and the body shifted slightly and landed in bushes alongside the road.
That would have killed a man, he thought, but this wasn't a man, so it was anyone's guess. Drawing his sword and setting it alight, he walked over to the now obviously alien creature. There was a familiar chain wrapped around its neck, and with his left hand he loosened it. The creature was still breathing, but he kept his sword at the ready. It then opened its eyes, but the sight of the flaming sword so close to it seemed to give it pause.
Justice vaguely remembered being told that the sword had enabled his predecessor to detect lies, so he decided to test it. He asked, "Why were you burning down the BBS building?"
The creature said, "For fun," and the sword suddenly flared up, which obviously frightened it so it said, "Hired! Hired, by Mordenslice! He was paying us to burn down the building."
Mordenslice? Why would he want to destroy BBS? Unless--
The question now, though, was what to do with their prisoner. "Up," he said. "I'll be escorting you to prison, and you will stand trial for arson. That was quite a fall; can you stand?"
The creature seemed to test its body, and then nodded.
"Then let's go."
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #521: Versers Act. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
