Ever have one of those posts you would have sworn you already put online?
This is one.
Going through Blood Country, you may have noticed a few cute chapter titles.
1) Playing in the Sandbox
6) Dragon Punched
~The chop-saki jokes begin.
7) (Asian Fusion) Take Out
11) Napa Valley of Death
~That one just wrote itself.
18) Big Trouble, Little Napa
Yes, I have an evil wizard.
He looks like James Hong.
And I mean James Hong from today, the wizened older fellow.
And he’s playing…
“Roland Li.”
Marco’s eyebrows went up. “Well, that’s a name. Where did he get it, picking it from a hat?”
George opened the folder. There was a photograph of the older Asian man who threw lightning at Marco.
Marco pointed. “That’s him.”
Amanda nodded. “Certainly.”
“And that is Mister Roland Li.”
Marco frowned. “What the Hell is he?”
Merle sighed. “He’s a state senator.”
Marco rolled his eyes.
Amanda did as well. “Another evil politician. We just did that in Chicago.”
Rory chuckled. “Isn’t ‘evil politician’ redundant?”
Marco shook his head. “And of course, I’m sure he’s a Democrat, right? Obviously. This is California. If it were Texas, he’d be a Republican.”
George raised a brow. “Well, that’s an assumption.”
Marco gave George a look. “I assume that Frank Herbert was right when he said that it’s not that power corrupts, it’s that power attracts the corrupt. And psychopaths will gravitate to whatever positions and parties that will give them the most power. Tell me he’s not.”
George scoffed. “Roland Li isn’t even a politician. He’s a jerk. But you really gotta hand it to him. Most scandals are drug use or hookers, or bribes. Nope, not good enough for him.” He slapped Roland Li’s photo. “If Li had a weather-control machine, he’d be a Superman villain.”
Marco, Amanda and Merle all looked at George. Marco was the first to speak, “I didn’t know you were up on politics.”
George rolled his eyes. “Please, I’ve been reading Guns & Ammo since before vampires tried to mug me the first time. People like me know Li. He’s been perhaps the prick behind disarming law-abiding Californians.” George smiled. “He is the anti-gun poster child. He has an A+ from some anti-gun groups. So of course regular Californians can’t own an AR-15, but Chinese drug lords? Why not?” George took a drag on his beer bottle. “Know what makes this funnier? He’s against violent video games. He’s been trying to get them banned for years.”
Amanda laughed. “I guess that’s why he doesn’t like Grand Theft Auto. He lives it.”
Marco chuckled. “Yes,” he said dryly. “If only he hadn’t been exposed to Call of Duty, maybe he wouldn’t have been tempted to smuggle weapons.”
Merle laughed as well. “To MILF.”
Marco and Amanda glanced his way. “Wait, what?” Amanda asked.
Merle nodded. “Roland Li smuggled guns to a terrorist group called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.”
George nodded. “When you hear that a Green Beret bagged a MILF, it really could go either way.”
Marco rolled his eyes. “Who’s the guy I’ve been going round and round with? Do you know who it is?”
“The contact we found via a Ukranian arms dealer. We think it’s the same one who attacked you twice.” Merle slipped a photo from the back of George’s file. “Is this your card?”
Marco studied the photo a while, and nodded. “That’s him. Who is he?”
“Li’s primary Triad boy…” Merle held back a chuckle. “Benjamin ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow.”
Marco blinked, then looked to Amanda. “Did you hear Shrimp Boy Chow? Because that’s what I heard.”
Amanda nodded. “The same.”
Marco sighed and leaned his head on Amanda’s shoulder. “If this were made into a movie, I don’t think anyone would believe it.”
George laughed. “Yup. Li is so much more awesome at corruption than the usual losers. Hookers and blow? Boring. Li is a rock star. What’s a little gun smuggling between friends?” He pointed his bottle at the newlyweds. “Keep in mind, this guy is a statewide super star. People talked about placing him as Speaker of the House… if the current one ever drops dead or retires.”
Amanda whistled. “This is very impressive, George. Where did you get all of this? I cannot believe this intel came in overnight.” She frowned as she looked at the papers displaying the intelligence Merle and George had just briefed them.
George smiled cynically and shook his head. “Not me. I got it from friends in the FBI.”
She blinked. “What? They had this information?”
George nodded. “It took them five minutes to dig it up. I spent more time driving today than researching Li.”
Amanda leaned back in her seat and frowned. “That is not good.”
Galadren frowned and held up a hand. “Pardon me, I am as yet unfamiliar with the procedures of the modern world. But I must inquire about what you said.”
George Berkeley craned his head to give him a sidelong look. “Aren’t you in private security? Don’t you have to deal with the law all the time?”
Galadren shrugged. “My fellow Dunedain, my… employer… intercedes with them. He keeps me in the background, lest people find me bizarre. Also, he has a certain style that I find disrespectful, and would not emulate.”
Marco chuckled. “I’ve looked up his boss. Galadren means that he’s as likely to shoot someone as glance at them.”
Galadren frowned, opened his mouth to correct Marco, then nodded. “Correct. But in this instance, I wish to inquire about the Federal Bureaucracy of Investigation.”
“Bureau,” Amanda corrected.
Merle chuckled. “His version is more accurate.”
Galadren ignored them. “How can this Roland Li not be put in irons? If the FBI knows all you report, he should be imprisoned, should he not?”
George sighed and shrugged. “They know it, but some of it they can’t prove. Some they don’t want to prove.”
Galadren frowned and narrowed his eyes. “Why not? Is it not their duty to do so?”
Merle rolled his eyes. “It’s politics. And the FBI are political animals.”
“With no hunting season,” Amanda quipped.
“Or a hunting season all year long, if you approach it right,” Marco added.
Merle continued. “Li is a lord of his own fiefdom. He’s a party man in a party town. We’ve talked of organized crime before. He is organized crime, only a political party is technically legal. But once there, you can probably get away with murder.”
“See: the Kennedy clan of Massachusetts,” Marco added.
Galadren’s eyes narrowed. “So he is a lord with no king above him?”
Merle sighed. “He’s a lord with other lords above him, and as long as Li does what they want him to do, they don’t care what else he does.”
No. Don’t ask me when I started turning it into Big Trouble in Little China meets vampires. I haven’t seen the film in years.
It's all in the reflexes, my friend. All in the reflexes.