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Stories from the Verse
Con Verse Lea
Chapter 30: Beam 132
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Hastings 240
“Good evening,” the white-haired man said to the soldier at the door. “I am Emperor James Beam, and my entourage and I will be staying here tonight. We would appreciate it if you and your companions would evacuate the building.”
Gutsy, he thought, but he was pretty sure that Dawn and Bron, flanking him, could prevent the man from doing any harm if he tried--almost as sure that the man was going to try. He was not disappointed, as the guard flashed a blade from his belt with incredible speed--but not swift enough to outdraw Dawn, who put the first of three pistol bullets in the man’s sword arm, the second in his chest, and the third between his eyes.
He collapsed. Beam dragged him out of the way, and said to Dawn, “After you.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” was the reply, and the killing machine led the way inside.
Bron spoke. “I guess Ashleigh took out the--you called them ‘snipers’?”
“I was pretty confident that she could do that. More importantly, she seemed to think it was a simple enough task for her.”
He put a bullet in a downed man who was still moving, and continued following Dawn. There were probably easier ways to kill everyone in the building, but Beam didn’t want to damage the building--just yet. A few bullet holes and some bloodstains wouldn’t matter, but he didn’t want to risk structural damage.
Having cleared the ground floor, they checked the basement quickly. Ashleigh caught up with them as they were returning to the main floor. “All clear upstairs,” she said. Beam nodded.
“All right, we want to shift the bodies out of the rooms we’re using--kitchen, dining room, bedrooms--into the rooms we’re not going to use, and settle in for the night. Bron, see what you can scrounge up for supper in the kitchen. Ashleigh, you and Bob keep watch for the moment. Dawn, we're going to begin the next phase we discussed. Any questions?"
There were no questions, and by the time Beam had finished setting up what Dawn had to do Bron had concocted something edible, and the team gathered in the kitchen to eat it. There was rice beer to drink, but Beam limited his intake and that of his companions because, he said, they had to be up and moving at dawn.
That also was the instruction he gave to Dawn, as he left her to watch and took Ashleigh to the master bedroom for the night.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #463: Characters Unsettled. 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:
