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Stories from the Verse
Garden of Versers
Chapter 51: Slade 144
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Chapter 50: Hastings 150
Slade stood in the hot sun on what he imagined was the edge of their small camp, staring in the direction which his scriff sense told him was Derek.
Shella came up alongside him.
“You’re worried about him,” she said.
“Yes, it’s silly, but I am. I feel like I’m responsible for him, and he’s just a boy.”
“He’s a lot older than he looks, you know.”
“Yes, and when we met him he was already holding his own fighting vampires and ghouls--not by himself, but still doing it well. Since then, he’s been trained by the British Secret Service, who thanks to James Bond have the absolute best reputation in the spy business.” Slade realized that James Bond was a fictional character, but then, when you travel the multiverse the line between fiction and real wasn’t always so clear. There probably was a James Bond working for the British Secret Service in some universe; he just hadn’t been to it.
“So why are you worried?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Just am. I don’t think it makes sense, but I don’t think it has to.”
Shella nodded.
“Well, unless you’re keeping watch, you should come get out of the heat for a bit, have something to drink.”
Slade nodded. “Yeah, give me a few minutes to get the worry out of my system. Nothing I can do anyway, and in the next few hours we’ll know. Probably the longer we don’t hear from him, the less trouble he’s in. If everything goes smoothly, he won’t call us until he’s way up in the northeast somewhere. If he calls us before that, it’s probably because he ran into something on the way.”
“Well, I hope it’s sooner, not later. After all, finding him and getting a good look at him and his surroundings is going to be a lot harder if it’s dark.”
“Maybe not. In the day it’s going to be tough because he’s so small; at night, he’ll be the largest lightning bug on the ground, and I’d wager you could spot him from some distance.”
“Let’s hope the bandits don’t.”
“Yeah, now I’ve got another worry.”
“Sorry. Come sit down, as soon as you can.”
He nodded again. She turned and went back to the invisible shelter in which the others were resting.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twelve other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #291: Versers in Action. 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:
