Greetings

Here is a collection of poems of mine, some of which have won hearts and lost some, won competitions and lost even more, but in general been quite interesting :) Also last up are Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of my upcoming novel, "Dragonride". Comment your opinion on these first few chapters :)

A wave

Of pleasure, joy, delight

Droplets warp along the edge of insanity

Flicking, flaunting, taunting

A wretched wave



Molecules of despair

Diffused in the brightened mix

Bountiful in colour, the river of cognition

Rippling in anticipation. flourishing in satiation



The wave of instant memories , loved and cherished bonds

Carries forth the love and feeling

Into the distant isles of thought

Emblazoned upon conscience, a mark of traversal

I was caught by the wave, then dumped in the sea of remembrance



Alexander Wojno







Trial

When the cool mystery fades into the depths of secrecy

When the magical wreath of initiation casts away the code

There is left but an empty skeleton

Of unfilled promises







Drive

The morning's sunrise drives off the dew

Of built up languor

Leeching off the blood of conspiracy, resting in calm assurance

A motivated devil, unhinged of desire

Revives his purity of ambition





The Passion

Duly rigour of perception

Keeps my mission burning bright

I wish for acquisition of flowering ideals

The roots of development

In the height of love



Atomic

Ignition

Of the greatest power borne

Within the smallest filaments in space

The waiting electric storm lies, humble

Silent, omnipotent

The great anticipation of a marvelous explosion

Unleashed in but a fragment of time







The Emerald City

The dark city of emeralds,



A blend of verdant hues



Wrapped in a blanket of darkness that is the night



Freezing hands claw at my skin, an icy fire ripples through my bones.



I hear an airy whistle



My heart lies hesitant



 The maiden of the night traverses through the forest.



Young, graceful, unravelling a molten carpet beneath her feet



Warm, glowing



The carpet grows



O shimmering goddess of light! Roll your crimson tongue over my ancient body!



Invest in me your heavenly strength



Renew my ivy blades and rouse my soul from its infinite slumber



The surreal blaze, flailing tendrils protest their fate



Once an arcane kingdom, beseech now the wondrous city of flames



Royal bronzed pillars burn



Leafy curtains shrivel into warped sheets of carbon



Ushered away by eolian hands



The maiden’s departure from a city, now dead



Such is the monument to her pass



Upon the Lord Sun’s rise, his golden crown upon the sky



He banishes the darkness



Flowering gems spark a bright renewal, the kingdom reborn



Into a lush infinitude of crystal green



Alexander Wojno



Verdant beauty

Your magnificent eyes, dark emeralds aflame



Your silky bronzed hair, still perfect in rain



The way you walk, a light antelope in prance



So cheerful and happy, ever ready to dance



Your lithe Brazilian figure, I marvel through the days



How beautiful you do become, in the wondrous sunshine rays



On those rare moments, when your eyes meet mine



I feel a warm pleasure and a chill down my spine



When I hear your sweet laughter, a melodious tune



I feel alive, full of joy; I could fly to the moon



I sit idly nigh always wishing you'd see



Perhaps even come and sit down next to me



I watch how you smile, and send jolts through my heart



Your sensual features a fine work of art



Sometimes I watch the evening's amber sun



And I calm myself down, from thoughts weighing a tonne



The soothing citrus tones allay



The long adventures of the day



- Alexander Wojno -



Dire

The calm, fortuitous dictator stands



An idle monarch guarding throne



Amassed a byzantine collection



Of withered. barren souls



Alexander Wojno





Ode to Jennifer

An exotic, foreign princess



Flaunts her royal, perfect grace



A piercing gaze of wondrous sensuality



Running rivulets of ecstasy through the channels of your heart



A river of silky black hair frames just gorgeous onyx eyes



Along with an innocent smile to melt your soul



The sweetest voice you can imagine



Pure, delicate, sincere



An icon of legendary beauty, unmatched on this earth



Alexander Wojno









Violet Storm

The tattered violet hues erupt, The headstrong tower put



As wind carries the shower of dark, mystical blades



Slicing the skin of the air, bleeding their scent into the spirit of the world



The purple cascade dapples the fur of the hare, struck, a sweet smelling aroma



A taint of glory driven to brilliance



Alexander Wojno





Moonscythe



  Charcoal shadows flash along the rocks



Then draconic echoes pierce the valley



Silver scythes slip out of hiding



Under the bite of the moon, a grin of shiny daggers



Then a shot of black lightning



A crimson explosion, preceded by the flash of a dark mass



Moonscythe’s savage a river of red



A glorious feast for the shadowed  cat



Alexander Wojno



Ode to Karina

The Queen to Me



Her majestic presence, a sure sight to behold



Instills silent admiration, for sure it is told



A wondrous beauty and a scholarly mind



She’s a brilliant gem, not so easy to find



Blue crystal eyes sparkle with vivacity



And bestow upon the world audacity



A true epitome of knowledge and grace



A reminder of how to give life a good pace



Hair as lustrous ribbons, flowing in the breeze



A smile of radiant warmth, to put your soul at ease



Smooth, angelic features, amidst a rosy glow



A passion wildly wrought within, a love that was to flow



Such a great inspiration, a relic of success



So highly revered it is hard to express



An enriching experience, to see this grand queen



When the moment is over, you think it’s a dream



Alexander Wojno



The Most Beautiful Maiden

The Most Beautiful Maiden



A magnificent sheen ripples through the air,



As her pristine hair flows like liquid bronze,



In a marvellous cascade down to her shoulders



When sunlight glazes over it, the surroundings glow in amber beauty



Her eyes, fiery emeralds, wrought with a crystalline brilliance, slay the hearts of all men who gaze upon them



Delicate yet enthralling features enwreathe a smile that imbues an electric passion, a fierce gravity of desire



The sweet melody of her laughter lightens the darkness in troubled minds



A sensuous angel, relaxed on the knoll, serves a powerful digression from outer tumult



An incredible serenity, bereft of sin



One hopes in vain for her attention, to have the aura of perfection pouring it’s youthfulness over your soul,



For an amorous glance, hope seems to disappear, a buoy in a sea of dolour



The arrows of her spirit piercing all monotony



A magnetic yearning



To beseech the flowering beauty,



Behold this serene, graceful maiden, such a sporadic rarity, almost unbeknown to a wandering world



Alexander Wojno



Manipulator

 Midst the barrage



Of glowing gamboge plumes



A grand manipulator casts control



The profligate employer



Of dark vicissitudes



Malevolence comes to fruition



With a charring of his soul



Drinking the cool spirit of the lively



A glass half full



Alexander Wojno



Tongues of Flame



The sublime, lucent beauty of fire



Is as mysterious as it is arcane



The abysmal molten web is strewn



As writhing tongues lick in vain



Prey wrapped in burning blankets, a death note sang pensive



The frenetic blaze carves its path strewn crimson shells alight, scattered free



Archaic moans reverberate throughout the battle ground



As almighty flame pounds his deathly blow



Unbeatable, hell risen





Alexander Wojno





Aegis

Under the Aegis of the sun



Broiled teens race on sand



A crystal beach of brilliance shines



Endowing beauty upon the screen



Of youthful cordiality



Alexander Wojno



And finally, DRAGONRIDE!

Chapter 1



      The greying office building on Lawson St offered little clue as to what lay within it. A passing pedestrian might have merely glimpsed a small dragon monument above the main door, but, in the pounding rain, he couldn’t be sure. The wicked silver eyes flashed crystalline as each droplet of water struck them. The pedestrian continued on, undeterred. Behind the dragon, hidden to the outside world, stood a brown elevator, the portal to a majestic network of pristine gold and red corridors underneath. The shabby mask of an office building kept its great secret superbly hidden, and the guardian dragon at the top of the main entrance held its gaze with all nescient passers-by, its small eyes glaring at them viciously, harbingers of terror.



      Several feet below him there was a severe commotion going on, an outburst of anger from a man which most people knew, was a man you most definitely didn’t want to anger. A simple mistake had cost them the luck of a peaceful encounter with their master. The master himself stood six foot five in his elegant shoes, a huge mass of muscle encased in a specially tailored white tuxedo, laced with black silk that curved elegantly around the side of his shoulders and upper back in the shape of two majestic dragons in flight. His wavy black hair fell on his forehead in multiple separate fringes, and his intense black eyes shone wildly through his aquiline features. A row of shiny white teeth, meticulously cared for, bared, and Shun Xiao Li’s smooth, tanned complexion flushed red with anger as he brutally berated his subordinates on their loss of his most prized vehicle, a satin silver Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4, through a failed transaction with a Russian.



      “You goddam idiots! I don’t pay you over one thousand dollars a year for nothing!” he yelled, pulsing with a turbulence his terrified men had never seen before. The men stared at him, frightened.



“Get the hell out of my sight!” he seethed viciously, and, as the six men fled, he slowly began to regain his composure.



      In the cleansing silence of the dragon-adorned chamber, Li pulled his chair back from the table and turned it around to the wall, where he sat down and marveled at the beautiful room he was in. The Xingyun boardroom it was called, one amongst thirteen others, in the Eastern region of his underground home, on the fourth floor down. This one however, was the most impressive of the boardrooms. 3 large, golden dragons wound around three of the enclosing walls, painted so that the heads all converged on the entrance, eyeing all visitors in a surreptitious gaze, flaunting their awesome power. Li turned to the three doors on the fourth wall. Paneled with a glossy Elm Burl veneer, they looked as professional as they came, rising up three meters into the air. A most professional, yet marvelously decorated room he was in, one that made him wonder at the wonderful things money could buy.



        He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. A wave of languor swept over him. Perhaps it was time to go home. He rested calmly for a few minutes, before forcing himself out of his chair and getting ready to go to his private quarters. He grabbed a handful of nuts from the small bowl on the table at the exit, before departing downstairs to his real home. Inside, already in the bedroom, was his wife Cai, reading a book.



      Cai was surely one of the most spectacularly beautiful women Li had ever met, and by god was he amazed she had ever fallen for him. She was always the pretty, silk haired girl of fiction in her childhood, and when she hit her 20’s, the transition from childhood to womanhood became all the more evident, as her figure grew, and she blossomed into a wonderfully youthful sexuality and grace that that turned all men into hapless beggars at her feet. Then she had met Li, and his herculean masculinity and overwhelming charm swept her into the wild river of lust and desire, and who would have known that her first and only boyfriend would become her husband? It was a morally gratifying thought for both Li and Cai, that they had never engaged in a romantic relationship with anyone other than each other.



      “Oh Shun, dear, how was your day?” She looked up from her book, smiling. Li yawned slightly, shaking his head in despair.



      “Not good Cai, we lost another one. The men are becoming lazy and untrained; we need to give them a good disciplinary session. In this business, they have the best resources to achieve absolute human perfection, and if they wish to remain working for me at such a high pay, they have to maintain it.” Li exclaimed. Cai gave an apologetic look.



      “I hope it all gets better honey, I’m sure everything will work out.” Cai soothed his troubled mindset. “There are good days and bad days for people like us.” She said.



      People like us? That struck him harder than it should. She made it sound like they were some outlaws, some kind of vile creatures of crime, slandering humanity of its possessions for their own accretion of wealth. An un-fanciful description, Li didn’t like it.



      “We work like any other citizens of society. Yes it’s illegal, but it’s our method of survival” He said bitterly.



      “Of course honey, I agree with you, why would you think otherwise?”



      He wondered, perhaps he was really overreacting. With a groan, he undressed himself slowly before sliding into the double bed, next to Cai. Leaning to his side, he turned off the bedside lamp, and his hand fell meekly onto the soft white sheets. He was so tired. He drowsily mumbled something into his pillow.



Cai thought her bright reading light might disturb Li, so she shut her book and turned it off, before shuffling back under the sheets. Li watched peacefully as her wonderfully slender figure inched closer to him. She settled comfortably in the warmth of his chest. Li caressed her long, silky, black hair, and gazed down into her dark eyes, onyx gems gleaming in the dim light filtering in from the corridor.



      “You are so incredibly beautiful Cai, it just amazes me. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love you.”



      She giggled. “Oh Shun love, you’re so sweet. How could I not love a darling like you?” she smiled, and closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep. Li did so too, and together they fell asleep in a splendid tranquility, two lovers in a world of their own.



      The following morning, Li awoke with a marvelous freshness, one that he hadn’t experienced in a long while. Looking to his side, he noticed Cai had already left. He picked up the small note on her pillow, and read through its roughly scribbled contents.



      “Gone to arrange something darling, I’ve made you some Egg Foo Yung for breakfast, it’s in the fridge ready for heating. Hope you have a good day honey!”



      That was nice of her, he thought to himself. Though he wasn’t quite sure he remembered her telling him what she was doing today. An uncharacteristic disappearance it was. As the primary financier of the business, it wasn’t often she left the multi floor building on Lawson street. It was hardly ever necessary really, though walks and city exploration were commonplace on her weekly agenda, so it wasn’t completely uncharacteristic all in all.



      He hopped out of bed and dressed himself in his favorite suit, colored with an elegant raspberry sorbet hue, so deliciously purple that he even felt an urge to grab real raspberry sorbet from the freezer. Checking his livid tie, he smiled. The semi-tight suit enhanced his musculature all the more than usual.



      “Oh wow am I sexy…” He said out loud to himself, grinning. He was an incredible narcissist sometimes.



      In the kitchen downstairs, Li savored the perfect texture and creaminess of his wife’s Egg Foo Yung, indeed, she had become something of a culinary master in Chinese Cuisine. The origins of her mastery were unknown, whenever he had asked how she had acquired such audacity and finesse in culinary pursuits, she simply remarked,



      “A magician never reveals his secrets”



      This had always irritated him at first, then he thought, perhaps it was quite a fun sort of gamble he had with Cai, The mystery of not knowing what wonders brilliant meal she would construct next. It made mealtimes all the more exciting. And today he didn’t want to finish, it was just too good, and yet, all good things must come to an end. What a horrible thought to start the day. He willfully gulped down the last mouthful, and checked he had all his things before heading upstairs to the office.



      Just finishing the last flight of stairs, Li’s phone rang and he answered quickly.



      “This is Li,” he spoke rigidly.



      “Sir, the dealer has informed me of a change in location,” the voice of his secretary, Bingwei, replied quickly.



      Li cursed, anger building up inside him straightaway. Though, why should he be angry? He had a superior set of guards, trained extensively in multiple martial arts and marksmanship in his own professional establishment, he just had to laugh when he realized how good his protection was. He had absolutely no reason to fear. The armed guards stuck to him like glue, and he had a specialized group of snipers that were always there, yet never seen, skyward beacons of protection, ready to resolve a possible impasse should it arise.



      “Bingwei, I assume you’ll be in the office soon? tell me everything then,” Li said, a little louder than necessary. As soon as he ended the call, Bingwei already rounded into Lawson street in a black Maserati GranTurismo.



      Arriving at the decrepit office building, He parked neatly across the street and made his way to the main door. Entering a poorly furnished hallway, Bingwei gagged at a piercing lemon and vanilla fragrance, one that stung his nose so painfully that he doubled over with disgust. Some new spray used by the cleaners, he guessed. He quickly jogged over to the brown elevator that pulled him away, down to the network of corridors below.



       Stepping out into the shiny black and white main corridor, Bingwei then realized the incredible contrast between it and its branching red and gold halls. Walking along, he could hear the faint hum of a Konghou, a Chinese harp, but otherwise the place was uncharacteristically quiet. His boss always had some projects going on at one time or another, necessitating a fair amount of manpower to function daily. He quickly walked to the fifth door on the left, where his office was, and slid open the door to see Li standing there impatiently.



      “Have you got everything here?” Li inquired. “fill me in on the details please,” Li declared, striding back into his own office, through a second door. Bingwei only then realized the terribly awkward position his office was in, before any great powerful associates of Li’s got into his office, they had to pass through his. The many dignified and highly professional faces that had passed his office made him all the more reverent to his leader when he saw firsthand the kind of people Li was dealing with on a daily basis.



      Bingwei quickly strode into Li’s larger office, upon the back wall of which was inscribed a great wooden dragon’s face, polished smoothly and radiating oriental elegance. He stopped a meter before the table.



      “I have it all here yes” replied Bingwei, retrieving a small pile of printed documents from his large leather briefcase, whose contents he thoroughly went through with Li. The documents detailed the profiles of the man he was going to encounter in the next few hours, along with his higher profile subordinates and elite members of staff. Li was going to need to go in prepared. Any meeting with a Russian is a risky one.



      Finishing in thirty minutes, Bingwei excused himself and returned to his desk. Li was left alone. He wringed the chills out of his back and relaxed his enormous neck, looking up idly at the ceiling. He knew he had over twelve hours to spare, so he decided to squeeze in a gut-wrenching workout, to get his blood pumping and ready for the mission.



      Li opened a door past his office into a plush, well-furnished room, which was in fact large enough to be considered a small hall. with sparkling white towels and a few LazyBoy chairs, along with an enormous Liquid Crystal Display screen mounted on the far wall, the place was the entry and exit from physical exhaustion, as employees filed through to the adjoining gymnasium, where they brutally worked their muscles to grow fantastically strong and powerful, a trait every man needed in order to function effectively in this business.



      Li of course had the whole disciplinary thing much easier. He was top dog, he took orders from no one. He could, theoretically, slack off and not bother working hard, but he himself, like all the others, needed to maintain a powerful physique. So he worked himself just as hard.



      Outfitting himself with a gray singlet and blue “power” shorts, he stepped into the enormous gymnasium with a towel loosely flung over his shoulder, and started his workout with a thirty minute cycle. His bike was incredibly futuristic, rimmed with black blades which, in a way, looked comical, but for the most part, were intended as a motivation.



      Drops of sweat soon began to trickle down his forehead, and when they reached his nose, Li watched gravity take hold. Seemingly in slow motion, the droplet smoothed out its shape on the journey down, and shortly after struck the mauve rubber matting in the slightest of a “tap” he could discern. He began to lose awareness of the outside world, of the other employees entering the gym capriciously strutting around the place, and he looked straight down at the mats, focusing intently. Exercise sure felt good.





















Chapter 2



      Alexei Tomolov sat quietly in his office chair at home, resting his head on the desk, his mind a maelstrom of reminiscence. As the son of a high profile KGB controller, his parents always expected him to grow up and readily fill his father’s shoes after he died, he was expected to come to great power in what they called “The most efficient organization in the world”. And indeed it was, certainly classified internationally as the most efficient information gathering organization. They sent information gatherers and information relayers, known as Agents and Controllers, throughout most of the countries in the world. They knew everything and worked everywhere, sometimes resolving situations before they even occurred.



      Yet Alexei did not feel his heart belonged in such a place, he despised the very thought of joining such a filthy organization. Ever since he acquired a comprehensive understanding of the whole idea, he knew he wasn’t going to go down that pathway in his life. And the enormous burden he faced, which was the choice to conform, or run away, had arrived in an untimely rapidity.



      When he heard of his father, Anatoly Tomolov’s death, that day was the closest he had ever come to a heart failure, from fright. His first thoughts were that it was much too early, and he hadn’t even come to a concrete conclusion as to what he was going to do with his life.



      At the age of 48, it certainly seemed Anatoly Tomolov had a while to go before he “kicked the bucket”, as the saying goes. Alexei was just 22 years old, he had never been faced with a more stressful situation than that day.



      The funeral was held forty eight hours after he heard the news. It at least gave him some time to complete his research and learn as much as he could from the information he was given by an officer at TRIZA, an employment agency in Moscow. They had connections in a place called “Sydney” in the country of Australia, and had offered to send him there to establish a new life outside of Russia. He had a solid plan of escape, and the night before the funeral, at least he had his plan fully laid out.



      After the funeral itself, Alexei’s mother, Eva, had walked over to him briskly in a solemn state. He stared at her sunken eyes, yellow crisps accumulating underneath scarred and ancient skin, and he felt a moment of utter sorrow for this old woman. Sorrow that he was about to abandon such a caring mother who had raised him since childhood and cared for him and tended to every one of his whims, a mother who had developed him into the man he was from a single cell. He had his life to owe to Eva. And here he stood, six feet tall, a grown man past the days of immaturity, ready and willing update his modus operandi.



      “Moi syn, your father would have wanted you to know... “ She began. Alexei quickly interjected.



      “Ja znayu, I understand. I have known for many years mother, he is in the KGB. It was a fact which had initially caused me great concern, but I have learnt to accept it.” He said, a somber tone of reverence piercing his speech.



      “You must meet with the heads of the local branch tomorrow; they want to recruit you now that your father is gone.” She wasn’t brutally authoritative by any means, like one would expect a motherly figure to be in such a situation, but more requesting and sincere.



      “You may go home son, prepare for the important day tomorrow.”



      He knew for certain that he wasn’t going to attend the meeting. A different agenda provoked his emotions.



      “I shall likely see you at home mother. Thank you for everything.” He said. Alexei then kissed her on the cheek and waved goodbye as he strode away rapidly to his waiting Mercedes Benz SLS AMG Gullwing. He felt bad for lying, yet it was in his very best interest to escape from Moscow as soon as the time allowed. He glanced at his watch, 3:34. He had a plane flight leaving for Sydney at 7:10 from Domodedovo airport, on a large Boeing 747 decorated with the icon of Russian aviation, the Aeroflot symbol. The time was right. This 7th of December 2013 was going to be a day of absolute transformation in Alexei’s life. He started the engine and sped off from Novodevichy cemetery in the direction of the airport, with all his necessary possessions already packed in the back of the car.



      The decent trip of 45 kilometers was over in an unpleasantly brief period of time. As he pulled up to the futuristic mass of what was known as Domodedovo airport, Alexei began to feel a little queasy. The sight of the great rectangular building with translucent glass and seemingly fragile levels made him feel as though he was encapsulating himself in some sort of great trap, a trap which was to hold him against all odds and pin him down from escape. He felt as though someone was watching him and wanted to keep him here for good, to ensure he didn’t get away from the pain and suffering that came with membership of the KGB. He screamed with fury and slammed the steering wheel with his fist. Astonished at his outburst, he quickly glanced around to make sure no one saw. They would think him one of those “special” people. Thank god no one saw.



      He stepped out into the chilly air in his warm winter jacket and got fully unpacked, and went to look for the motor vehicle transport place, if he was going to take anything with him into his new life; it was going to be his beautiful car. The transfer was about to begin.



      A light above Alexei flickered. He returned to the life he led, all the years after that event. Here he stood, in a life of his own, wrapped in luxury, albeit criminal. He loved every minute of it. Living in the pleasant suburb of Epping, he owned a four story house with a sheer grandeur that shone high above the rest of the houses in Wingrove Avenue. The main entrance had two large white columns holding up a balcony and a marvelous cathedral-arch, that made for splendid photography. Having a large garden and enormous rooms, the house seemed perfect for raising a family. But to his misfortune he had not been able to find a suitable woman to match his lifestyle. Living alone in such an enormous house ranked as one of the greater disappointments of his current lifestyle, however he vowed to change that very soon.

























Chapter 3

There was a lot to do on this Saturday night, especially considering Li had over five hours before the meeting, scheduled at 10pm. Li strode around the empty halls of his office, thinking. Just thinking to himself, in a completely arbitrary manner and from a completely uncircumstantial train of thought, about teleportation. Such a wonderful concept it was, the very creation of the idea was such a simple exercise of thought, yet the process itself the most marvelous physical phenomenon ever. Science Fiction, sadly, was the only medium of action for teleportation. He felt a curious passion for the idea. A childish fanaticism, obviously never to come true. Li wondered about how it would ever work, he had always wanted to know the theory behind it, what would be required to achieve it. Thus he often thought about it, and could chew up hours coming up with theories and ideas about the various possibilities in teleportation.



There was the idea of space and time itself, how marvelous it was. To think about the fact that humans maneuver throughout a three dimensional space, with their own brains powerful enough to generate an awareness of their own existence, was amazing. Humans could reflect upon their own actions and analyse the space around them, in a deductive fashion. The development of mathematics led to such a precise and methodical, even ingenious set of methods to construe meaning from the universe that humans live in. And the string theory even suggests an eleven dimensional universe, in which three space and one time dimension are unfolded and visible, while the other seven space dimensions are folded very tightly around on themselves into structures called calabi-yau manifolds or orbifolds. Such a marvelous thing, the universe. With all its physical intricacies it truly gave meaning to the word "Complexity".





      Li was overwhelmed by the wonders of science. He had a lifelong passion that drove him, and the flame of enthusiasm had never faltered. He quickly glanced at the clock. 9:41pm! Where had the time gone! Li quickly jogged to his office and armed himself with his personal bolt-action pistol before taking the stairs up to the garage.



      How ridiculous, he thought. Barely out of the place, and already he was obsessing over how conspicuous he was. Starting his bulletproof Dartz Prombron Nagel, Li drove up the ramp into Lawson street, quietly rolling down to the intersection in his monster of a car.



      He felt remarkably at ease for the journey, uncommon for a leader who specialized in the false acquisition of rare and powerful sports cars. With his window parted for some fresh mountain air, he was close to actually enjoying himself. When he arrived on the western highway to the city, he got a small shock when a barrage of vehicles raced past him, the blending beams of light obscuring his vision momentarily. Li battled to maintain control of his car. His first thought was a street race, and when his vision cleared he only saw small specks of light disappearing behind him. Li accelerated slightly, driven by a spurt of anxiety. He was unable to calm the pulse radiating throughout his entire body.



      At 9:47pm Li pulled onto Mathers Road, the main street of the shopping district, which also housed the main sporting venue in the city, the AFA soccer stadium. He brought his Dartz to a stop in the darkened alley between the Stadium and the supermarket next to it, glancing around for anyone in the vicinity. He thought he’d better give Bingwei a call. Li dialed the number, each of the seven digits firing off a loud beep, somewhat painful after such a prolonged period of silence. The tone rang twice.



      “Bingwei…”



      Before he could enunciate a sentence, Bingwei quickly interjected.



      “Sir!” he spoke in a fearful tone, which scared the shit out of Li. “Did you by any chance, on your way to the meeting, come into contact with a substantially sized group of racing cars?” Bingwei spoke rapidly.



      “Yes I did as a matter of fact, what’s that got to do with Tomolov?” Li replied.



      “I’m afraid sir, that racing is a professional league largely operated by Tomolov in Sydney, I have an uncomfortable feeling that the cars were sent out to…”



      Li then noticed the methoxyflurane canisters softly buzzing beneath his feet. The goddamn window! How the hell did they throw it in so quickly? He lost receptivity to Bingwei’s voice and started to feel dizzy. The world blurred and grossly mutated in his eyes, twirling furtively in an attempt to faze him of consciousness. He saw his face approaching the steering wheel, and then he hit it, but he felt no pain. Shun Xiao Li drifted off into a dreamless sleep.























Chapter 4



      “Mr Tomolov!” Alexei’s secretary, Evgeny, ran into the elevator, panting heavily.



      “I just received a call from one of our men at the AFA, he’s severely wounded, bullet wounds to the legs and lower torso, all other comrades have been killed. He says they were just about to take out the target, following preliminary gassing by the racing cars, then a shower of bullets hit from nowhere. They don’t know from where or how it all happened.” Evgeny’s bloodshot eyes strained with the stress.



      “What…We had 15 men sent to take Li out!!! How the fuck did almost all of them die??? I’m going over now” Alexei smashed the elevator keys to go back down to street level. The flustered secretary held onto the rail of the elevator as Alexei barged out violently and stormed towards the exit. The fluorescing street lights brightly lit up the dark street, and Alexei’s white Koenigsegg Agera sparkled in the light, poised at the ready, like a wild cheetah rippling with anticipation, ready to accelerate onwards at any moment. He fired up the engine and sped down the street, en route to the stadium.



      Li woke up thirty minutes later with a startle. His face still pressed against the wheel, he glanced up and swore. Right infront of him, leaning drunkenly against the wall, was a dark skinned man with so many holes in him that Li felt nauseous looking at it. Glancing to the right, he saw three more men shot down with such a vicious maleficence that he began to feel slightly dizzy. He got out of the Nagel, and, looking around, even more men were lying all around his car. Like battered insects, the men lay quietly on the floor, in fact it looked almost as if they had been right about to pounce, to eliminate him, their target, armed with powerful tools of murder, before being perforated at the last second by some unseen force in a mass extermination, and a rapid one at that, it seems. Shaking with disgust, he reached for his phone.



      “Bingwei, I don’t know what the fuck just happened, but it looks like 15 of Tomolov’s men were shot down trying to capture me. I don’t know who shot them through so bad, but thank god for that. Goddamn, I can’t believe how close this was. I didn’t even bother to be cautious! The asshole could have had me out in a snap! I don’t know who did this, but I owe my life to him. Or her, though it seemed unlikely to be a female. The ideals of psychopathy just didn’t seem to suit the female gender. It seemed to be much more of a masculine characteristic, maybe even a defining characteristic of masculinity, in certain situations.|



      Well thanks for that philosophical statement… Bingwei wondered. He hoped Li was alright.



      “Sir our snipers weren’t there, for some reason they weren’t anywhere to be found, so I really don’t know where you got your protection from” Bingwei replied.



      “I know the damn snipers weren’t there! I thought I could handle this one myself!” Li yelled into the phone.



      “Im coming back to the office now, we need to figure this out” Li said, and with that, he started the Nagel again and began the drive back to the office.



      Alexei had arrived 11 minutes later, and looked on in horror at the scene that lay before him. So many holes scattered throughout their bodies, like the holes of a thousand needles on a balloon. This just wasn’t right. He looked at the surrounding buildings, eyeing the steely roofs of all the massive buildings, scanning for a single sign of a man, or maybe even a woman, maybe several men or women, who managed to take out all of his men so quickly. His eyes narrowed on the roof of the electronics plaza, which had a bent drainpipe curved around the front corner of the building. Maybe there… It was too late now. The killer had disappeared. But that single sight of the curved drainpipe….It somehow connected all at once. The killer was a fast travelling rooftop sniper, who took covered corners from three enclosing walls. Alexei had a feeling he knew exactly how he would strike next.



      Kto vy, ya naidu tebya. I shall find you. Alexei cursed. He went around picking up the rifles of his downed men, it was a terrible waste to leave them there, and he packed them all into the Koenigsegg before getting back to the office. As soon as he arrived, 21 minutes later, he simply dropped off the guns in the garage and left to go home. It had not been a day of promise for Alexei Tomolov. He was going to get vengeance against the bastard who did this to him.



      Li was in an incredible state. Bingwei had never seen him so agitated. They were in the Karate Dojo on the 6nd floor below ground, in one of the conditioning rooms. He stood with his shirt off, outfitted in light white pants and a black tae-kwon-do belt, smashing a wooden mannequin with brutal kicks to the head and neck. The cracks  of the wood sent shivers down Bingwei’s spinal cord.



      “I don’t know how the hell I could have been so easily tricked! So easily they slid the canisters in on the highway! How the fuck!” He swore repeatedly. He was Shun Xiao Li, great criminal master, upon whom misfortune was an event unheard of. His fully defined abdominals and serratus muscles gleamed in sweat, and the mountain of muscle exploded again, breaking off the right leg of the mannequin.



      “Oh god…” He stopped.



      “We can get a replacement sir, no need to worry.” Bingwei said feebly. Li ignored him.



      “Bingwei, I need to get those cars from Tomolov. We’re going to get back my Lamborghini as soon as possible. Tell him we’ll be in the botanic gardens at the opera house in 72 hours time at Midnight, tell him we have the money for the Porsche Carrera GT and the Lamborgini in cash, and we require perfect cooperation if he is wishing to continue doing business with us.”



      “I’ll be right on it sir.” Bingwei replied. No unnecessary questions. Li liked that. Bing was going to go far in life.



      Li, panting heavily, jumped high into the air and did a final kick into the head of the mannequin, which then flew off and slammed into the wall.



      “And replace these goddamn mannequins. We need some tougher wood.”



      As Bingwei walked away, Li grabbed a towel off the bench at the end of the room, and wiped himself down from the sweat. He sat down, completely exhausted. For the meeting with Li, he perhaps will need some protection this time. And he was going to need to update his stock of firearms for his men to use. He shoved all his clothes along with the sweaty towel into his gym bag and walked up to his quarters.



      As he opened the door, he noticed that Cai had not yet returned. It bugged him to have no knowledge of what his wife was doing. It seemed so unnatural for her not to at least tell him. He hoped she was alright at least. At this time of night, even a trained martial artist like Cai is in danger from a thug attack.



      Li threw his bag across the room, and it landed on the other side of the bed with a dull thud. His ears attuned to a distinct splashing sound, and then he heard the shower was on. So Cai had in fact returned from her long day out.



      “Shun, honey, are you there?” came a muffled sound behind the bathroom door. Li curiously walked over to it and peered inside, still with his shirt off, muscles flaring from the intense session at the dojo. Past the small crack of the sliding door, in a haze of water vapor, was Cai, as sensual as ever, holding an onyx black towel, drying off her hair. Other than the towel itself, she was stark naked, and her beautiful figure entranced his gaze. Her lean legs danced from side to side, and he caught sight of her perfect breasts when she turned around. The sheer sight of her gave him an erection. Cai finished drying her hair, and flipped it over her shoulder and smiled, revealing two rows of brilliant white teeth. Just the most amazingly beautiful woman he had ever seen. He slid the door open fully.



      “Hi Shun! What have you been up to over the past few hours?” She said cheerfully. Still eyeing her up and down, entranced, he replied meekly



      “Oh, uh, nothing much really. Got in a bit of a hassle at the AFA, then went down to Dojo with Bingwei for some training.”



      She hung the towel neatly on the drying rack and turned to face him, hands on her hips.



      “Well you’ll never guess what I did today, I spent the whole day getting all the information required. But I have actually purchased us executive memberships at a Lasertag Arena in Chatswood! How awesome is that!” She giggled.



      Oh dear. And here he was thinking something big was going to happen. Something important maybe. At least he knows now the 25 year old woman that is his wife hasn’t lost her love of fun and excitement from childhood. He laughed out loud and turned around, then walked over to the bed and lied down, relaxed. It was good in a way, to have an action-packed marriage than a boring dull one. His emotions were sort of mixed about the whole Lasertag thing, but hey! It was a hell of a lot of fun, he knew that much. He’d only ever been to a Lasertag Arena once, in Stockholm in Sweden, when one of his high school friends invited him to stay for a few weeks. Those few weeks were the most enjoyable weeks of his lifetime to date.



      Cai went over by the TV, where the closet stood. She picked out her favourite playboy lingerie and dressed herself in it slowly, eyes turning ever so seductively at Li. He let loose a wide grin. This was going to be a fun night for sure.

















Chapter 5



      The following morning, Li shot up out of bed, ready and fully alert.



      “Shun, what’s up?” Cai asked.



      “There’s less than 72 hours till I meet Tomolov again. I think I’ve missed something on his profile. We’ve been following his activities for the past 6 weeks Cai, we know almost everything there is to know about him. But we just can’t just go in there and blast the hell out of him and his people, we need the goods. The cars, the money. We can only get that with his cooperation.”



      “Well honey we’re quite unstocked here at the moment, if you’re going to beef up our protection for that operation then you’ll need top quality defenses. Tomolov is an international agent of crime, he’s got connections all around the place and the last thing you need is to bump into one of his branches in Europe and find yourself a dead man. I recommend you go to Italy, that’s where I have been travelling over these past few years for comfortable exchanges away from the risk. Italy is the one place Tomolov truly has left to dominate, you can continue unhindered there.”



      “Well then it seems that’s where I’m going. I’ll need to arrange airfares and all that crap now ohh god…” and with that, he grimly sat down to his desk and retrieved his large Toshiba laptop, starting the arduous process of organizing international travel. And he needed to postpone the Tomolov meeting again! He texted Bingwei the instructions on postponing and let him deal with it, Li didn’t want the stress on him.







Exactly 120 hours from that moment, he was standing in the middle of the Campo de’ Fiori markets of Rome, clad in a shining white suit, tie and shoes, with only a black undershirt that made any contrast. He stood in the purchase of an intricately designed amulet, with a polished emerald centre wrapped in a gold web further studded with rubies. It looked to be a very pretty gift for Cai, upon his return. Being in Italy for four weeks, he had plenty of time to enjoy himself.



      “Quanto costa questo amuleto, signore? How much does this amulet cost?” Li asked a stocky little man across the table.



      “Smeraldo colombiano, 2.19 carati. E 'dalla miniera Muzo Boyaco nel distretto di Columbia, luogo molto famoso, 1149 Euro, amico.” The man replied humbly. Incredible! 2.19 carats, from the mine of Muzo in Columbia! He quickly retrieved his dark wallet and took out two 500 euro notes and one 200 Euro note. He handed over the money eagerly



      “La ringrazio molto, signore. Spero che ti piace il vostro prodotto. Thank you very much sir, I hope you enjoy your product”



      Li thanked him and turned away, slowly walking down the street in awe at his new, beautiful amulet. It was going to be a fantastic gift for Cai, upon his return to Australia. However now, he had to get down to business. He had been at the markets long enough. He glanced at his watch. 11:03am. He had bucketloads of time. Li’s primary purpose of coming to Italy was to collect munitions and keep a constant lookout for Tomolov. So now he had to get to it.



      Li caught the bus up a few streets and looked around for the gunshop that he had read about on the internet. It was a somewhat famous little gunshop in a market area of northern rome.



He had to purchase a lot of new rifles and explosives, to stock up back in Sydney, for general safety as well as difficult operations, to arm himself and his men.



      Far ahead down a rocky little pathway he turned into, he noticed the sign “Fucile Negozio”, gun shop. He was there. He walked for several minutes eyeing the dirty little yellow sign, making sure he wasn’t lost in the crowd walking in all sorts of directions. Being as tall as he was at least had its benefits, as he towered over the mixture of tourists as well as native Italians, walking into the various shops on both sides of the street. The street he was on appeared to be a street of “Shady businesses”, with pawn shops and sex shops and clubs amongst the only shops along the entire street. The only reasonably legal shop he noticed was a small Asian café, with a vulture of an Asian woman screaming in welcome to buy her cheap coffee. He smiled courteously as he walked past her, and she beamed back at him, almost as if he was the first person to have given her any attention at all.



      He approached the doorstep and lightly pushed the door of the Gunshop open. He was out of the place after 2 hours, with a large pile of papers and contracts, and no guns. The papers were all relating to the transport by air of the various firearms and explosives he had purchased, to his humble office building back in Australia. He didn’t want to have such trouble on his shoulders, so he left it to the man and his connections.



      Now that all the technicalities had been taken care of, he could spend his time as he pleased. To explore Rome in itself was an activity which few citizens of the world could engage in, and he felt proud and privileged to continue sauntering along the intricate maze of streets that comprised Rome’s northeastern quadrant.



Though all in all Li wasn’t into the whole sightseeing thing, he mainly travelled places on his wife’s request, and indulged in the native cuisine wherever possible, and restaurant owners often failed to satiate his appetite. His one and only attraction was the food. Which was “Kind of pathetic” of him, in the words of Cai. He always laughed it off. Food was one of the truly glorious gifts in life, he didn’t see why anything else mattered when travelling.



      Strolling casually along, Li was rapidly approaching a very thin Caucasian man, who bore a highly menacing expression, eyes directly on Li, as if he was about to attack. The years of Martial Arts rigor and brutality returned to him in an instant.



      Almost in slow motion, or so he felt, the thin Italian man lunged at him with a flying kick, extremely high, aimed for his head. Li balanced on the balls of his feet, at a ready stance, he waited until the moment the man’s foot was within arm’s reach and grabbed it with both hands. The iron grip of Li almost snapped some muscle fibers in the man, as he lifted the man up and swung him around and over his head before brutally slamming him face first into the ground.



      The man didn’t utter a sound. Li thought he heard a crunch, but the man had managed to put his hands out infront of him just in time, to protect his face. His hands were the things that crunched.



      The man spoke calmly, in English, in the comical human wheelbarrow position.



      “From your combat skills and appearance I feel it feasible to assume you are Mr Shun Xiao Li. I am Sergio Vassano, the Assassin you are seeking.