Apologies for the lack of updates over these past months. There’s a long answer, but the simple answer is that my postgrad work load, coupled with some system shake ups at works, have meant that I haven’t had the energy to get into the place I need to be for writing Cold Ghost. I suppose that comes across as a weak excuse, but it’s simply how things have been for me.

With this in mind, I’m hoping that by summer, my initial training will be all nicely wrapped up and I might have at least a larger buffer under my belt in order to proceed. Until then, Cold Ghost will remain on an irregular update schedule at best.

In the mean time, if you just can’t wait and want to see my everyday rambling, you can check out my tumblr. Fair warning, it doesn’t have a lot of web-fiction related content and does have lots of content on social justice, cats and kimono.

For those of you who are still fans or reading after all this time, thank you so much. I hope that Cold Ghost can get back on track and you’ll enjoy where the story goes from here.

http://scr.bi/dFv2jX

Also, time is running out to vote on the short story which I will be writing for the Author’s Support Edition. Please vote in the poll in my previous announcement and comment to have your say. I want the short story to be something you would enjoy, so I’m counting on you all for feedback on this one!

On April 11, 2011 there will be the release of the first volume of Dreamers of Dreams: A Webfiction Anthology. This will be an Ebook release, released simultaneously on several popular Ebook and webfiction stores. It is a free book containing excerpts and opening chapters of several web fiction novels currently available for free online. The works that will be included in this anthology include works that have been completed and novels currently being serialized.  There will be a large range of genres available in this anthology, with everything from science fiction, urban and high fantasy, murder mystery and more dystopian apocalypses than you can shake a Boomstick at.

The intended aim is to try and introduce readers to new stories and serials that they may not have heard of, and raise the profiles of newer writers who are showing promise and are putting themselves and their works out their on the internet. There are also hopes that this is anthology which shall be released on a regular (but as of yet, undecided) basis.

Volume one of Dreamers of Dreams will include the following authors and stories:

Ted Campbell             - Flyover City!

Eva Shandor               – Cold Ghost

Cassandra Stryffe      – Zombie Diapers

Bex Aaron                   - Independence Day

J.J. Adams                  - The Undeadslayer

Alexander Hollins        – Phoenix 2125

Rebecca Wilson          – Soul Chaser

Christopher Wright      – Pay Me, Bug! 

Kyt Dotson                  – Black Hat Magick

G.L. Drummond          – Enter the Weird

Miladysa                      – Refuge of Delayed Souls

Meilin Miranda                        – Scryer’s Gulch

M.E. Traylor                – Guts and Sass

The anthology has been compiled and distributed by DreamFantastic Publishing. If you’re looking for more information on the anthology, or would like to find out more about the individual authors who are involved with this project, take a dander over to http://www.dreamfantastic.com/anthology/ . 

Even more exciting, a .99 cent edition of the anthology, the Author’s Support Edition, will be sold starting the end of April. Why should you buy this? Because it will contain additional bonus content from many of the authors involved in the project, some of which may not be available on their sites as of yet. You would also be supporting the authors and their works by purchasing this edition, and showing support for your favourite web serials. For those Cold Ghost fans wondering what will be in it for them, I am including a polished chapter for the regular edition, and will be writing an previously unseen short story for the Author’s Support Edition, which you will be able to vote on at the bottom of this blog post.

If you havea any questions or concerns, or even if you are interested in being included in future anthologys, you can contact the fantabulous Alexander Hollins at Editor@dreamfantastic.com.  Hopefully as and when the anthology does live, I shall link my lovely readers to it, so they can discover more material.

EDIT: If you vote other, or vote for the third option, then please PLEASE comment and clarify! If you all vote for supporting character and then don’t state which supporting character you are voting for, then it makes it much harder to write this vignette!

Author: Jude McLaughlin

Format: Serial

Address: http://wonder-city.dreamwidth.org

Genre: super-hero, gay online novels, soap opera

Review: I first came across Wonder City Stories last week during a cursory check of Web Fiction Guide, and managed to read the entire back catalogue inside of 2 or 3 days. Given that my new job involves a lot of between-site travel and a lot of planning at home, that’s pretty stupendous and should say a lot.

It’s a serial of vignettes following several characters who have intertwining story strands, who all live in Wonder City, home to many a great super hero and inter-dimensional hiccup.

A great deal has been made of its inspirations by other reveiwers, ‘Astro City’ apparently being one of the chief ones. I have to confess that I’m ignorant of most of the cited inspirations, so I’m not sure how this will dispose you towards the review. I’m more of a ‘Powers’ or ‘X-men’ kind of a gal.

The writing style has been described as light by some. Perhaps because there isn’t always a mass of description, but I find that McLaughlin always sets the scene well, detailing it gently, and does it in a way that you can imagine it sharply. While we do get to see some super-hero action from time to time, the main thrust of the serial is the minutae and more domestic side of super-hero life. Powers are cool, but have you ever thought about having to clean up after  a fight between super-powered folk, or even the burecracy that might be involved? Wonder City Stories does consider this, and provides us with interesting answers.

One thing that is certainly in Wonder City Stories’ favour, is its discourse with characters and the diversity of those characters. Many are super-powered, but they are all human and fascinating, and while each one has their own quirks and flaws, it is not to the point where one flaw dominates and/or destroys their lives in an over-dramatic way.

As for diversity of cast, the serial deals with issues like gender theory and sexuality, disability, peer pressure, mental health and coping with grief. Quite a few web serials claim to deal with ‘difficult’ subjects, but this one actually delivers the goods. The prinicpal characters are all from groups that are often marginilised or under/misrepresented within in mainstream comics, so women, characters of colour, LGBTQ characters, disabled characters, older people, people from different religious backgrounds.

Special QI points must be awarded for having STRONG, FEMALE characters who are realistic and NOT ripped from Hollywood’s hard-bodied heroines – their strength does not magically become a weakness when the going gets tough. This is something of a pet peeve of mine, I admit. Words like ’strong’ and ‘fiesty’ tend to be abused in modern fiction, and I now have a habit of translating them to mean ’studied a bit of self-defense, but will be rescued by a dude with a machine gun or massive sword in critical moments’. Wonder City Stories does not do this, for which I am very grateful.

On the less positive side, initially I found the navigation of the web site itself to be a little awkward. I’d recommend you bookmark the table of contents, as the set up of the page is somewhat similar to LiveJournal, which may confuse some readers.

All in all, if you’re curious to explore a path not-as-travelled within super-hero stories, then Wonder City Stories could well be what you’re looking for.

Author’s Note: Apologies for the delay. I was travelling, and thought that I would have access Free Wi Fi to upload this. Sadly, due to the inclement weather in the UK I was stranded for hours on a train platform and did not return to the place where I would be staying until very late.

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Chapter 16: No Where To Run To

Index

Chapter 18:

Chapter 17: Use Somebody

Sometimes in order to get results you had to get your hands a little dirty. This was a precept that Suzuki was no stranger to. It didn’t particularly bother him, so long as it was done properly, minimum fuss and nothing could be traced back to the Hanaoka family.

It was all part and parcel of his job after all, codified, a prescribed role.

But then Ohno-kun had done something foolish. He angered the Yoshida and rather than stay and face the storm, disappeared. He left no word for Suzuki, no explanation of what had occurred. Not even Terashima Aniki would elaborate, beyond giving Suzuki the number for Ohno’s contact. Something had been taken, Suzuki knew that much. The way all of the other families seemed not to know anything, was highly unusual – there was always an idiot braggart who claimed to know more than he was capable of understanding. The crows were all silent.

The silence from the Osaka and Nagoya families was to be expected; this was not their turf. The Kobe crime lords at the top of heap had always made their position on friction between smaller families clear, that they should sort it out themselves. Yoshida had grown in power, but not even he could rival the Yamagata quite yet, safe in their concrete fortresses.

 It was the fact that even the other Tokyo families like the Matsumoto, the Iwasaki, the Homs and the Gao, and members of his own conglomerate, the Hanaoka, were suspiciously ignorant of the details of what had happened that made Suzuki worried. The balance of power had been slowly unfurling in Yoshida’s direction over the past twenty years. Only the Sun Kee Fong, with their international web of resources seemed to have any interest in helping.

Then, when he was finally close to catching up to Ohno-kun, the stupid boy got his face splashed all over the news. Well, that was something of an annoyance. It made it that much harder to clean up matters quietly.

The cops were all over it now, news broadcasts made on all the local channels and a very rough, unflattering artist’s impression of Ohno-kun plastered all over the screens. How was he supposed to extract the fool lad now?

So far, the Gao family had remained silent about the events of the Golden Lotus, and as far as Suzuki was concerned that was a smart move. He and the boys had done Gao Zhou a favour when they had shot up half of the Golden Lotus. Yoshida had made an over-sight when he had gotten his trigger-happy half brother involved in these things. Eddie’s involvement in business with Tokyo families was an indulgent courtesy at best.

As for the rumours of Ohno-kun taking a hostage – that had to be a load of crap. Bear probably didn’t even leave that poor bastard’s bones behind, he reckoned. Whatever the poor fool was up to, if he didn’t bring of the home gang with him then he must have wanted to go it alone.

Luckily for Suzuki and his boys however, another lead had popped up when Ohno-kun’s face had popped up on the evening news. He had been connected to a vicious bear attack, leaving one survivor visible. A word with Zhou meant someone did some rummaging and asked some questions for them, and came back with a name.

The idiot had a few names, but one stuck out. Jareth Morioka, who was Eddie’s right hand man and a first-rate nut job, was laid up at the University of Toronto hospital. Jareth had a reputation amongst even his own as being blood-thirsty and violent, probably even a sadist of some kind.

And it was for this reason, that Suzuki’s darker nature was taking immense enjoyment at sitting by Jareth’s sickbed with his cohorts by his side, frightening the life out of Jareth. At least what life was left in him anyway.

“Hello there, Morioka-kun. How are you getting on?” he asked brightly, sticking to Japanese for now.

This was the part of the job that Suzuki loved. When the arrogant light winked out of the little bastard’s eyes, when the fear took over his expression, it was just magical to watch him choke on his own short-sightedness, on his boss’ failure in sending him. He’d never even considered for a moment that there were bigger, more dangerous predators that had chosen to join in the hunt for Ohno-kun.

“Why, I’d almost say that you look unhappy to see us. How rude of you Morioka-kun, when we went to all the trouble of finding you hospital and coming to visit you in this awful weather…”

Morioka coughed hoarsely before battering back in English; it sounded like phlegm was building up inside him.

“You… can go fuck yourself, old man. You can’t touch me here, every fuck wit with half a brain knows it. No-one even knows your boss’s name anymore…” more coughing interrupted Morioka’s stream of bile. “You’re a has-been… ain’t gonna get respect from some fresh punk… Cops want me alive, Suzuki. Gonna let me testify… Ain’t your territory…”

Suzuki flicked his eyes towards Toru – no words needed. Blinds were flipped, and Toru hunched down in a seat just by the door, his gun rig in an easy reach. Casual passers-by would assume he was a bored visitor, and he could peer down to the nurse’s station.

Then, Suzuki leaned forward himself, not bothering to stand over Morioka.

“You think I’d let you testify, you little parasite? Fucker, I’ll end your miserable existence here and now. Don’t think for a moment that you can keep hiding behind Eddie Yoshida for the rest of your life, and don’t think for a moment that it will break the cops’ hearts if your miserable ass chokes to death on your own vomit,” Suzuki hissed.

“Don’t even realise how easy it would be, do you? You think I need my gun to take you out? You’re barely even alive! I could just twist one of your tubes round my finger, you’d go into some kind of arrest or fit. You’re only staying alive as long as you’re of any use to me.”

“Wouldn’t… you wouldn’t dare…”

“Don’t tell me what I will and won’t do, punk. Who the hell do you think taught Ohno, trained him up? What you will tell me, is what you know about why Ohno is on the run. How you found him. Or I will twist your IV and pop your bloated head off.”

That was Suzuki’s final offer. Jareth chose to accept: he started to spill his guts, about how they had poured pressure on the Gao Family, had kept his eyes open for any John Does. He spilled out a lot of stuff, and Suzuki sat there, just listening and waiting.

Suzuki knew now, that it was only a matter of time before Eddie Yoshida had someone erase Jareth, but the little fool could still be of use to him. Fear was a powerful weapon and motivator.

He was going to use it.

Chapter 16: No Where To Run To

Index

Chapter 18:

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Sadly, the month of November exploded, and I have been inundated with Real Life things, such as work and paper work for my work and course work for my training for my work. Looking at the updates, I realised that the last time I updated was at the end of October, and I do apologise for this unannounced hiatus. It came out of no-where, and before I knew it, November had come and gone.

I was called to my home town to pick up a large chunk of my belongings, and I have a large chunk of course work that is due in next week. Luckily, I have done most of it, but it still needs to be typed up as my trainers have an online submission system because it is an off-site class. I have Chapter 17 of Cold Ghost written up, but I have decided I should hold back until my other deadlines have been met for obvious practical reasons. Hopefully, Cold Ghost will then return to its usual schedule and I may have some catch-up writing time during the Winter Break.

I did notice however, that we had a huge surge in hits during November, especially from the Slash Pile. To any new visitors, thank you very much for dropping by and I hope you have enjoyed what you found here; please feel free to drop me a message. To my regular readers, thank you for your continued support at this time.

I am hoping that perhaps I can put up some Ontario Diaries to distract you in the mean time, which will happen some time this week. Cold Ghost will re-commence on the 17th of December 2010.

Synopsis: Joel was just a regular ol’ park ranger, minding his own business when Yukihiro, a recently retired assassin for a Tokyo yakuza family, burst through a window and into his life. 

Now, he’s trapped quite figuratively in a web of deceit and danger that goes beyond the usual ‘hilarious misunderstanding’ and driven straight to ‘running away for dear life’. 

Will Joel survive the adventure? Will Yukihiro ever explain what it’s all about or why Triads want him dead? Or will everyone just be eaten alive by bears?

Chapter 15: No Surprises

Index

Chapter 17: Use Somebody

Chapter 16: No-where To Run To

 “So how long are you going to keep this silence up?”

Yukihiro, slowly and mechanically looked up from his bacon and eggs, and fixed his unwilling travelling companion with a very cold stare. Joel seemed to flip-flop between sullen silence and incessant nervous nattering that made little sense to him. At this particular point, Joel had his sullen face on, but sadly he was not staying silent. Yukihiro sensed that it might be because he had made Joel cut his hair and dye it a rather Goth black; on top of the whole ‘kidnapping’ thing of course.

They’d stopped at a tiny café in a little town. Yukihiro couldn’t really figure the name, apart from the fact it was on the road down to the U.S. Oh yes, Joel had had plenty of questions about that one. ‘How can you cross the border if you’re on a wanted poster?’ ‘You do realise the cops are looking for us?’

Perhaps sullenness came from the lack of police activity. The weather had turned bad again, and since shearing Joel and buzzing his own hair and dyeing it blond, no-one had really given them a second look.

When he had first raided Joel’s belongings for scissors or a razor and brought out the bottle of bleach, Joel had actually laughed. The idea that he could change his appearance with such amateurish tools amused him greatly. Or that he thought that he could. But he’d started to learn how to hold himself, the art of the double-bluff. I am no-one, but I don’t want to scream it to the world.

“Until your mother says sorry,” he snapped in clipped tones, giving the waitress who topped up their coffees an overly sweet smile. She blushed a little – probably embarrassed to be caught out eavesdropping – and scurried away to the next occupied booth on the opposite wall.

Joel turned bright red as well, mouth gaping. Yukihiro was vaguely aware of the waitress and the café owner gossiping in urgent whispers at the payment counter. Apparently theirs was the first domestic of the day. Off of the pain meds, Joel was still rather attractive when he blushed. It was rather funny.

After about five minutes of violent bacon slicing and plate scratching, and the blush on Joel’s face still rather furious, a thought occurred to Yukihiro. He leant across the table.

“You don’t like gays?” he hissed surreptitiously, aware that if he played this wrong they would become the waitress’ new favourite entertainment.

“Oh wow, you’re really something,” Joel muttered, a bitter laugh echoing through his coffee cup.

Yukihiro didn’t get it. But then, he didn’t particularly care as cute had not been his type.

“If you don’t like it… quit with the bugging me, then. Otherwise, I ‘camp it up’ the next time she gives you coffee,” Yukihiro said, feeling very clever.

“Ah yes, because I’m the homophobe here…” Joel said, before finally shovelling a forkful of bacon into his mouth.

Now, Yukihiro did not feel so clever. His English was very high for someone who ended up dropping out of school. Mostly because it had to be, as his work often meant he was interacting with foreign representatives who didn’t like a street punk speaking their language. English could be an acceptable medium. The words Joel chose… they weren’t words he’d heard before.

He didn’t think about it very hard though. Just went back to eating his eggs and bacon, and left Joel to continue sipping coffee and staring out of the window. He sensed some barrier of etiquette had been breached, an unknown quarter that Joel hadn’t expected him to stumble into.

The rest of the day had been gloriously silent, and Joel had not tried to probe him on inanities as he sometimes did. While he was check the room for vantage points and escape routes, Joel slammed his open palm down on his twin bed and fixed him with a very strong glare. Yukihiro popped the snib on the door, and sighed.

“Yes?”

“Is it too much to ask to get a fucking shower around here?”

Now his mind had to be going. Perhaps it was a side effect of Stockholm’s, or he just was just crazy.

“There is a shower. There has been a shower in every hotel we have stayed in. I’d be grateful if you bathed, you don’t need permission to…”

Joel grumbled “Thank fuck!” and began to grab a wash-bag from his belongings on the bed beside him.

“… I just can’t let you close the door. Security reasons, you understand.”

“Security reasons? Are you fucking with me?”

“Yes, there is a window. If I let you close the door, you could try to escape through it, or leave some kind message or token. I do not think you are stupid, but I can’t risk you getting us killed either.”

He decided not to raise to the bait on the issue of fucking.

“Do you want to strip search me as well, make sure I’ve not stolen any of your guns?” Joel snapped. “Am I allowed to use my shaver or is that an offensive weapon too?”

Yukihiro rolled his eyes, and set about checking the clips of the gun he’d left out on the table, gesturing to the equipment with his free hand.

“I would know by now if you were carrying anything worth worrying about. And it is not as if I do not have contingencies. Now are you wanting your shower, or do I have to suffer your stink for longer?”

Joel grumbled under his breath and marched off into the en-suite. Yukihiro didn’t catch all of what was said but he did catch the words ‘contrary’ and ‘fucker’. Ignoring Joel’s grumbles, he sat down on the floor in front of the open bathroom door with his legs half-crossed and his back against the door, and set about cleaning his piece.

It had been a long while since Yukihiro had seen a guy naked, at least outside of the public baths. The baths never counted, that was the rule. And it had been a really long while since they’d been anything worth looking at.

Admittedly, he could only make out the silhouette of Joel standing behind the curtain and muttering to himself murderously as he scrubbed. He also knew it was rude to stare, and that this could only set a bad precedent for later on. At that point in time though, fit lines of a silhouette were better than nothing at all to let his mind wander.

“So for the third time already, how much longer?”

“Er, longer what?”

Yukihiro began to look at his work with a studied nonchalance as Joel’s soggy head peered around the shower curtain.

“THIS. This situation, me having my very own entourage in the goddamn shower, for how much longer do we keep doing this? It doesn’t take this long to get to the U.S. border,” Joel said.

“I thought I made my position on asking questions clear.”

“You have, repeatedly. About questions that would involve actually telling me anything about why you’re doing this and who is after us and what you’re going to do beyond meeting some guy. I just want to know when the hell I can go home,” Joel insisted, now dripping on the floor.

Yukihiro clenched his jaw, the cleaning of the gun becoming more vigorous than was necessary. It was a reasonable request. It could still put Joel in danger though – knowing the schedule meant Yukihiro had trusted him to some extent. It would mean he was no hostage.

“Specifics could get you killed. If… others catch up to us, people not the police, then specifics could most definitely get you killed,” Yukihiro said slowly, studiously not looking up at Joel.

“That line is getting real old, real quick,” was Joel’s muffled reply, as one hand flailed about for the towel rack. So he was still feeling coy.

“It doesn’t make it less true. It will not be for much longer, I can promise you that much.”

That statement was not taken with any greater grace. Joel only took to muttering again as he towel dried his hair, which had turned an odd dark, dark purple under the dyes that they had subjected it to. The bad grace and quiet continued through their dinner of gas station convenience hot dogs, Joel’s 10^th re-read of a book he must have had jammed into his baggage, and Yukihiro’s habitual gun cleaning.

It wasn’t until around one o’clock in the morning, when Yukihiro was checking the perimeter from their window that his etiquette breach from that morning’s breakfast came up again.

“Do you have some kind of thing against gay people or something? Some kind of macho thing?”

Yukihiro nearly jumped away from his vantage point, and aimed at the noise. Stupid Joel – he was awake. In the low light, Yukihiro could make out he was flopped out on his back on the bed, eyes glinting in the darkness as he stared at the ceiling. He hissed and lowered his gun, trying to hide the fact he’d nearly started to hyperventilate. If Suzuki had managed to get inside and he’d had no warning, then they could have been….

“You are fixating on a conversation we had seven hours ago now? When I’m checking for people coming to get us?”

“Why, you scared to answer the question?”

Grinding his jaw, Yukihiro pondered why he had not just dumped Joel by the road side yet, apart from his pesky sense of responsibility. The personal questions and constant sullenness was beginning to grate.

“You care so much about what I am thinking, what I say? I don’t. I don’t care whether you like a woman or man, or whatever. My only interest is getting my job done right now,” he replied, snapping. “You bitching all the time does not make this any easier for me.”

The question irritated him, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. It wasn’t so much his former colleagues had been very open-minded, so much as when you were tough you were tough. Some of the younger guys, the chimpira, indulged in bravado when it came to their sex lives, but Yukihiro was high enough up the food chain not to get ribbed about personal matters. He wasn’t really allowed to have any as a matter of course, given the often solitary nature of his work. Certainly a love life would have interfered with it, and often he just didn’t have the time.

After a while, he had just learned not to care. Now however, for some reason, Joel’s questions and constant need for answers was starting to get on Yukihiro’s nerves. For the first time in a long time, he was aware of what a civilian thought of him.

Hell, a damn civilian was telling him exactly what he thought!

“Oh… okay then,” came the faint mumbled reply.

“Does that satisfy your curiosity then?” Yukihiro said, muttering sarcastically.

“To be honest, it just throws up more questions… but I’m starting to get tired of asking those.”

Chapter 15: No Surprises

Index

Chapter 17: Use Somebody

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Synopsis: Joel was just a regular ol’ park ranger, minding his own business when Yukihiro, a recently retired assassin for a Tokyo yakuza family, burst through a window and into his life. 

Now, he’s trapped quite figuratively in a web of deceit and danger that goes beyond the usual ‘hilarious misunderstanding’ and driven straight to ‘running away for dear life’. 

Will Joel survive the adventure? Will Yukihiro ever explain what it’s all about or why Triads want him dead? Or will everyone just be eaten alive by bears?

Chapter 14: Tourniquet

Index

Chapter 16: No-where To Run

Chapter 15: No Surprises

Knuckles white, Nathan gripped the steering wheel of his battered Citroen tightly. The heating was on, but it didn’t always fill the little car, and he still had his thick winter coat on. He eyed the house at the end of the driveway through a steamed window – there were a couple of cars parked outside, and all the ground levels lights were on. He could see figures flitting about inside.

“You know Hart, if you’re going to tell them, you’re gonna have to go up and knock on the door,” James said drily from the passenger side.

“Yeah, I know.”

That didn’t make it any easier though. Nothing was going to make this any easier.

“Let’s get this over with then.”

He’d left messages for Liu, but his father, Gao Zhou had cut down all lines of communication after what went down in the Golden Lotus. Said that his boy ‘needed rest’ – he would after receiving a pummelling, but it was pretty telling the way how everyone was playing dumb. The local families were disgruntled about interference from out-of-towner gangsters. There’d probably be some kind of reprisal, but they’d lie low while a cop operation this size was running. They’d want revenge, but they wouldn’t want to pique Organised Crime Unit’s interest.

Whatever the real name was of the guy who had taken Joel, all evidence pointed to a connection of some kind with the Gao family, and some kind of power struggle inside Asian-American gangs.

And time was rapidly ticking out for finding Joel alive.

Nathan kept a fairly brisk pace up the driveway. He heard the metallic slap of door hitting frame, and another pair footsteps crunching behind him. So James was coming with him then.

He tried to keep his cool as he knocked on the door, three times, rapid succession. Christ, he knew that he had to inform the family, but like this? Half of the damn clan had to be still congregated there.

The red door swung open, and an older teen opened the door, in baggy t-shirt and cargos. The blue grey eyes, they were very familiar though. The second he saw Nathan’s face, his brows scrunched up, and skinny arms crossed across his chest.

“He ain’t here.”

Nathan sighed. He didn’t want to have to do this.

“Michael, can you please get your-“

“He isn’t here, and don’t bother going to the cabin,” Mikey barked, moving back to slam the door in Nathan’s face.

James stepped up, and held up his badge. The indignant anger on Mikey’s face seemed to fade to confusion.

“Detective Max James. I understand that this the home of Mr Brian and Mary Miller, parents of Joel Miller, a ranger with the Ontario Park Ranger service. I’m assuming you’re Joel’s brother? Young man, myself and Detective Hart need to speak with your parents, please. We’re here on official business.”

Wow. James was much better with kids than Nathan had given him credit for. Now confusion gave way to fear, and Mikey slowly stepped aside to let the cops in, before bellowing “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD, MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.” A deep irony was that the force didn’t like having Nathan too close to task force activity on this case, but they were more than happy for him to have to do this.

The world seemed to fade away a little, as Mr and Mrs Miller invited them into the living room. They tried to usher Mikey away with his younger cousins who had been playing some board game, but he insisted. A much older man, Nathan assumed to be Joel’s granddad or great uncle of some kind, shepherded the cousins and some of the adults away.

An awkward silence hung for a few moments. Mr and Mrs Miller held hands tightly. James was silent, letting Nathan take the lead on this one.

It didn’t feel real. He’d sat across a table from Mr and Mrs Miller before, nice couple, very accepting of Joel and they’d always made Nathan feel welcome. He shouldn’t be here, telling them that their son had been kidnapped, or at least, that was what they though. They should have passed it onto Violent Crimes, the damn case had landed on them first.

When Mrs Miller started weep silently, in shock, and Mikey wrapped his arms around his mom, staring blankly at both detectives, it didn’t feel like Nathan’s life. No, no-one had contacted them about Joel, no demands or ransoms had come through. Yes, they would accept a police officer on stand-by. But, why, that was what Mr Miller wanted to know. He said it over and over. Nathan wondered if his old man would have gotten half as choked up as this, and decided Joel was a lucky bastard in many things.

“Since, no demands have been made Sir, we can’t narrow that down. As we understand, one of the men involved might have escaped from the university hospital…” Nathan said quietly, feeling helpless.

“Escaped from a hospital? Like a psychiatric ward?” Mikey snapped. Both detectives heard the implication, but it was Super James who leapt in to save the day.

“We’re not really at liberty to discuss too many of the details, since there are still things we’re trying to verify,” James said flatly, giving them the usual official line. “We realise you must feel very frightened and frustrated at this time, and obviously everything that can be done to get Joel back is being done. But we need your family to be vigilant as well, report anything strange…”

“You don’t know what’s going on, do you.” Mrs Miller looked frail and defeated; she looked Nathan right in the eye, refusing to back down or let James diffuse. “You don’t know if…”

Pain burned in Nathan’s throat. He hated this, feeling weak, feeling unprofessional. Other things should concern him when some nut had kidnapped his ex, but he hated seeing Joel’s family like this. He felt like it was his fault somehow, like there was something he could have done and… No. He had to stop thinking useless thoughts now.

“I promise you Mrs Miller, Mary, we’ll do what we can to bring him home. But we can’t think why he’d be taken, apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s why important for you to think hard about Joel, if he was in any trouble or you suspected any trouble.

I know he was a smart guy, always dependable. But if you can think of anything odd that might have happened, you have to let us know. We’re doing everything that we can and…”

Other blandishments poured out. Standard procedure: don’t promise them the moon, but prepare them for the worst. James helped with that. Nathan hated it, hated that he was having this conversation about someone real. It was the first time a conversation like that felt so real and yet so numb.

Uniforms would be coming over later, and someone higher up in Organised Crimes would set up a mini-base at their house, just in case someone called with demands. The grandfather and grandmother came back in a little while later, deciding firmly that they would stay and the other relatives could sod off. As soon as a uniform car rolled up the street, Nathan and his partner took the opportunity to melt away politely.

It wasn’t until angry drivers started to honk at him when he stalled on Bloor Street that he started to feel again. He was aware vaguely of James shouting at him, asking him what the hell was going on. Was he okay? Just pull off into this side street, easy does it. He even helped him steer a little, and then they sat in silence for a while, until the burning pain in his throat subsided a little.

“We need to get him back… I swear Max, this isn’t a creepy ex thing. Just, fuck man, what if this is all my fault?” Nathan heard himself mutter hoarsely.

“Nate…” James hadn’t seen him like this in a while now. “Man, don’t think like that. You know what this was, it’s just bad luck. It’s like you told his family, we’re doing everything we can, pumping every damn lead. Don’t kick yourself like this.”

“Yeah, but is it gonna be enough?”

Chapter 14: Tourniquet

Index

Chapter 16: No-where To Run

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I’m hoping that from now on I can learn how to balance the two, as well as my own personal life. I hope that my readers do enjoy this chapter. The new chapter will go live roughly two weeks from now. Thank you so much for all your support.

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Synopsis: Joel was just a regular ol’ park ranger, minding his own business when Yukihiro, a recently retired assassin for a Tokyo yakuza family, burst through a window and into his life. 

Now, he’s trapped quite figuratively in a web of deceit and danger that goes beyond the usual ‘hilarious misunderstanding’ and driven straight to ‘running away for dear life’. 

Will Joel survive the adventure? Will Yukihiro ever explain what it’s all about or why Triads want him dead? Or will everyone just be eaten alive by bears?

Chapter 13: Linger

Index

Chapter 15: No Surprises

Chapter 14: Tourniquet

Today was not going to be a good day. Joel realised he should have figured this out when the snows let up and actually let him head out when he wanted to. The phone call from James probably should have been a pretty big hint as well, but it wasn’t like he could have foreseen that.

He couldn’t exactly have foreseen being held at gun point by some nut job gangster either.

After the… incident in the parking lot, his memory was patchy. Joel had a vague memory of Nathan blathering about how high-stress situations could do that, push the limits of people physically and mentally, meaning they could do some really cool and strong stuff, and then not remember it twenty four hours or twelve hours later.

Now, he sat on a sofa in some tiny motel, in some tiny town just off a highway, with a very haggard freak huddled beside the bed on the floor, eye-balling him and pointing a gun at him. Joel had tried to insist they take refuge at a local sheriff’s office, but as soon as he to press his point, Ohno or whatever the hell his name was pressed a gun into his side and demanded they go somewhere quiet and warm.

“You really need to ease up with that thing man, you could get someone hurt with it. Just put it down, and I can get you a doctor.”

He’d been pleading with him like this for five minutes, trying to keep any quiver out of his voice.

“No. I’ve been to doctors, it’s not much safer than the wilderness… I’m not stupid. I know you will contact police as soon as you’re out of my sight,” he mumbled, the sight of the gun faltering.

Never before in his life had Joel been torn between sheer terror and pure frustration. His arguments for why Joel couldn’t move from the room had been changing every five minutes since they had got in, his eyes were over-bright. At the same time, arguments some how sounded more concrete when waving a gun around.

“Then at least me take a look at your injuries, make sure they’re not bad. I’m a First Aider at my work. No funny business, yeah?”

‘Please Lord, let me have left the bear tranquilisers in the First Aid, let me have been lazy…’ he silently prayed. Ohno had insisted he emptied the back of the truck of any valuables when they got the room book, his work’s first aid kit amongst the baggage from Christmas.

“How can I trust you? You could still pull funny business,” Ohno wheezed.

“YOU can’t trust ME? Buddy, you do realise you can wave that damn gun at me as much as you want, it’s not going to stop you from bleeding out if your stitches burst earlier,” Joel heard himself say coldly, still holding his hands at eye level. “During your little standoff with Fredo, yeah? And if your stitches are burst, I’m the only thing that will make the difference between you bleeding out here and you walking away in the morning. I can kill you by doing bugger all.”

That seemed to click in. He seemed to understand ‘bleeding out’ anyway, since as soon as it was out from Joel’s lips, the gun’s aim faltered. He squinted up at him, before letting out a deep breath from his nose, and slowly lowering the gun to sit it on top of the bed, releasing his finger from the trigger.

Two soft words could be heard. “You win.”

Joel let go of the breath he didn’t know he was holding in, and gently slid the gun across the bed covers and hopefully out of “Yuki-chan’s” reach.

So why was he bothering to help, when he could easily get out of all of it just by letting Ohno tire himself out. Why was he bothering to help when he was ‘expendable’.

He didn’t even know how to fix stitches.

“If you want to take off your shirt, I’ll check the bandages,” he heard himself say. He sounded a hell of a lot calmer than he actually was.

At this point, one of Ohno’s eyebrows shot up, even though he was very obviously appeared to be tiring and pale. Did he have an accurate gaydar, or was he just a bit of a prude? Joel rolled his eyes – he was happy to wave a pistol around, but he was afraid of needles and stitches.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Joel said, not bothering to keep annoyance from his voice. “I can’t exactly cut patches out of your damn shirt, now can I? I need to see the bandages in order to check them, so take of the shirt. It’s not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before.”

As he started to strip it off with a rather resigned air and Joel helped him sit on the bed, it turned out that he had a few things that he hadn’t seen before.

Little, round puckered scars that had tiny purple lines running through them – he had a few of those on his arm and his upper chest. Some were new, and some had to be a few years old. Given that Joel put his age at around his early twenties at the latest, this was pretty frightening. One or two long scars, like he’d been badly cut on his fore arms, maybe it was evidence of knife fights. He had the physique of someone who did a lot of physical work – not in a creepy, bodybuilder way. Just a lot of muscle across a compact build.

The piece de resistance was a grand full-back tattoo: of great orange and red and yellow fires, an angry man with a dragon who was gnawing on the innards of lots of little men, who quite rightly look horrified, terrified. Some of the dragon’s coils knotted along his side, but a lot of those were covered by the bandages and gauze pads. It looked like it had taken some time to complete.

It wasn’t until Ohno spoke again, that Joel realised he’d been staring at the rather morbid tattoo for a little while.

“Is the damage very bad then?”

Joel remembered he was meant to be surveying the bandages, not Ohno’s body. Oh crap. Hunkering down, he ran his hands across the bandages gently, probing for any fissures, looking the signs of burst stitches. Ohno’s face was very pale though, his breathing even seemed to be a little bit laboured.

“I, uh… don’t really know.  I mean, what I mean is that I can’t see any bleeding, feels like the stitches are holding…”

“It hurts like hell,” Ohno snapped, enunciating each word roughly. “Been getting worse all day.”

A thought occurred to Joel that he supposed should have occurred to him much earlier on.

“Well, you were on some very heavy pain killers before… Intravenous ones… And before that you were asleep for a few days. You’re probably tripping up because you’re coming down from whatever you were on in the hospital, and you’ve been pushing yourself hard,” he mused aloud.

The assassin grunted and began ease his shirt back on again. He already seemed to be getting worse.

“Shimatta… Tabun mou chotto kangaeta wake da,” he grumbled – Joel had no idea if he was swearing or if he was constructing a concierto.

“Look man, I’ve not got that kind of stuff on me… obviously… But I’ve got some extra strength ibuprofen,” Joel continued, kneeling away to go through the first-aid box. You weren’t really supposed to carry pain killers in first aid kits, but Joel got lazy with tidy-ups on occasion.

Ohno shook his head, a greenish cast starting to come over his cheeks.

“No… I can’t get dull. Morioka might be dealt with, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe out here,” he said, reclining back on the bed.

“Well duh, the entire Ontario Police Force is going to be looking for us, especially if they ever find that guy’s remains,” Joel snapped, the stress of the situation over-taking his common sense once again.

A tiny part of his mind realised that was happening a little too often now. Why was he even trying to help this psycho anyway? Was he complicit in a murder now? Did it even count as murder if the weapon was an enraged and confused bear?

An awkward silence sprang up. Joel didn’t really notice it until after he had snapped shut the first aid box and put the pain killers away beside his duffle bag. Looking up and glancing over his shoulder, Ohno had tried to slouch up and was staring at him intensely.

“You weren’t talking about cops.”

That was a statement of fact.

“I really was not talking about cops, no. Where I’m from… Well, this is usually the kind of thing they’d let us handle internally.”

‘Handle internally’? What the hells-ass-balls?

“Why are cops after me? I have committed no crime, at least not in this country,” Ohno demanded, a calm, cold gaze boring into Joel. He tried not to gulp.

“The hell if I know, but I saw your APB on the television. They’ve handed out your photo to local news networks, so it’s only a matter of time now,” Joel blurted, staring down at the bags.

The lie came to him easier than he would have liked to have admitted, but given the situation and the crack about cops in his home country, he didn’t feel too bad. Maybe if he just dropped hints, maybe he could talk the guy into letting him go. It wasn’t like he had anything to gain by holding onto him.

Of course the whole ‘expendable’ thing meant that Ohno might be amenable to getting rid of him in a much more literal way, especially if there were people besides the cops looking for them. He’d have to dodge that as well.

Hissing and slamming his fist down on a bedside table, Ohno began to spill out a strain of venomous sounding syllables, before burying his face in his hands for a few moments. Joel stayed still – maybe if he stayed very still, he’d forget about him? Eventually, Ohno looked up again, that same intense, calm look he seemed to have most of the time.

“I don’t want to ask who the other people are, do I.” Joel had figured this one out all on his own.

Ohno shook his head, an almost mournful look, almost as if he had a regret.

“It’s better for you if I say very little. Although since you went to the foolish effort of saving me at the parking, they will already assume the worst,” Ohno replied, shrugging. “They will assume you are involved too.”

“WHAT? Now wait just a minute, I…”

Ohno swiped his hand in a curt manner, as if to cut Joel off. Picking up his gun once more, he fiddled with it, checking the cartridge. At least Joel assumed that’s what it was called for that model – they were allowed rifles at his office, but they were pretty old models.

“Yes, yes I know you are not my friend, and you know you are not. But your opinion counts very little in this occasion, Officer Miller. If I may call you that? You see… how to put this… I have something. There are powerful people who want to take it. I think that much you could have figured out for yourself, so I don’t think I am making your situation more dangerous when I tell you this. But this people will assume that either you know what they want and what I have done and are an accomplice, or you are very greedy and you are an accomplice. They’ll want to kill you to.

“However, I still have some things that I must do. I think I have just enough time and not much more to get them done… If you help me, then I’ll see to it you’re… expunged as my associate. Is that how you call it?” he said, rather dispassionately, all while seemingly cleaning out his gun.

Joel thought that was what he was doing, but in all honesty, he was operating in auto-pilot and still hadn’t gotten over the whole ‘assuming you’re involved too’ shtick. He’d never even got so much as a parking ticket before, and he was vaguely aware of the fact he was gaping at this arrogant git.

“Why can’t you expunge me now?” he eventually croaked.

Ohno sighed, and muttered under his breath in venomous syllables again before continuing in English: “Because the other thing that I cannot tell you in detail about must happen before the sponging. I do this thing, then I can get you off. People will owe me favours, you will have real protection. But right now, all I can do is shoot others before the shoot me or you.”

Rather than correcting his sponging – didn’t really seem to be the time or place – Joel tried to contain his own irritation. The situation was simply beyond surreal now, and while normally he had confidence in himself, the prospect of trying to run away from this guy and get to safety in this weather… That probably wasn’t happening, even if he was vulnerable. He still had that frigging massive cannon he was cleaning.

“So basically, I have to take you at your word that you’re going to protect me from… whatever, until you’ve completed your mission? After you kidnap me, and hold me at gun point?”

Ohno gave him a look – the look evil overlords everywhere must have thrown at their hapless minions.

“No, I have priorities First things are first – where do we find food in a run-down dump like this, and where do I get clippers and pharmacy?”

Chapter 13: Linger

Index

Chapter 15: No Surprises

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A friend linked me to this review of Sega US’s latest game, Yakuza 3. She’d asked me about Cold Ghost, and then said I might enjoy this. Interesting thing is, the review has been done by 3 yakuza bosses, conducted and translated by Jake Adelstein, a former crime reporter living in Tokyo and author of Tokyo Vice.

While admittedly, the bosses do not actually explain the yakuza system, they do comment on the realism and unrealistic parts of yakuza life as portrayed in the video game, and give us some insights on day-to-day life. If you’re curious, or looking to be entertained for the next fifteen minutes, give the review a peek.

Link to the Review