So. I've decided to rewrite the first chapter of my novel (which has been completed, for those of you who aren't aware -- clocking in at 80,000 words) due to some consistency errors and because I felt that my writing style had radically changed since I pounded the original chapter a seven months ago.
So here it is.
A link to the original chapter: topic18658.html
If you'd like to read the original chapter, tell me which one you prefer and whether or not you feel that this rewrite is constructed more effectively.
Thanks,
-Kylan
HONOR
Tai Po district, Hong Kong
Tattered shadows haunted the house like contorting wraiths, attaching themselves to the limbs of trees, wedging themselves into stone ruts, and slumping in doorways which gaped like coagulating wounds. Perimeter lights smoldered softly, radiating a jaundiced glow that whispered of dark corners and cigarette smoke. An iron fence tore it's way around the yard; spindly spider legs.
Curtained windows bubbled like lit champagne.
The owner of this house was obviously wealthy. Wedged in between sprawling residential palaces, the building practically glittered, like some kind of structural beacon, screaming opulence and corruption and pulsing with blue-blood veins. A halo of pollution from the seedier part of the district cloaked the house in hazy darkness and behind it, spires of skyscrapers and high-risers had been planted liberally, like rabid weeds staring down at the house and it's neighborhood like patient predators.
But this house was unmoved.
People on the street glanced at it hungrily.
A taxi pulled up to the curb, the side door opened and a man stepped out, staring at the house with a half-smile.
Only the best, he thought as he payed the driver. Jin Lee was the picture of twenty-first century decadence. He practically sweated crumpled dollar bills and bled liquid gold. Like some kind of Midas, whatever he touched, whatever he shot, whatever he stabbed – vicariously or not – there, money somehow grew. And he reflected his wealth on his lifestyle. Greco-Roman architecture, handmade silk, blistering new electronics, Italian furniture, cars like chariots.
Nero.
He had melted down the gold to make a temple.
And tonight – finally – he would be serenaded by his own violin as he watched his empire burn.
He nodded at the taxi driver, whose grinning face was veiled in cigarette smoke, and began walking towards the gate.
The silenced gun in his pocket was burning his hand. The crossbar, the rope, the pulley, and the blade of his loaded chamber guillotine eating at his flesh. It screamed to be drawn out, it screamed for air, it screamed to be pulled, to be shot.
Bullets shattering air, carving boiling holes in faithless bodies.
Patience. Not yet.
First, we talk.
The man shuddered.
Smiling up at the star corrupted sky, he walked up to the gate and pressed the communication button below the receiver and speaker mounted to one side. “A visitor for Jin Lee.”
Static fell gently to the sidewalk like drifts of snow.
And then, “Name?”
The man gave it.
“Jin Lee isn't expecting you tonight, sir,” said the body guard on the other end. “It's also ten in the evening and – ”
“This is urgent. Just open the gates, for God's sake.”
A pause.
“Mr. Lee will see you now.”
Like some sort of angelic gargoyle stretching it's wings, the gate split open and hissed inwards. The man started up the pathway to the brooding house, still smiling, imagining Jin Lee's expression as he drew the gun, rammed it against his temple, and pulled the trigger. Painting his blood across the opposite wall in broad and masterful brush stokes.
The artistry of murder.
The Lee dynasty was over. It had been over for years. Things had to change for the Black Dragon Tong, things had to shift. Mutiny laced the air like arsenic on the rim of a wine glass and members – especially important ones – were whispering of splitting off into their own factions. And that wouldn't do. The Tong had to remain intact. And the man, by whatever means necessary, was going to see that it did.
The old man had gone senile. He didn't recognize true opportunity anymore. The Tong needed someone charismatic, powerful, ruthless, and modernistic. And unfortunately, Jin Lee believed he was still living in a world where organized crime was family, where extortion and drug dealing was an art, and everything was decided on the basis of honor. A world twisted and distorted and obstructed by mazes and mazes of shattered glass in a carnival House of Mirrors.
Honor.
The man smiled to himself and knocked on the door.
Quiet footsteps on the other side and then a middle-aged man, dressed in an Italian designer suit, opened the door.
“Jin Lee is waiting in the – ”
The man pulled the gun out of his pocket and shot the body guard in the stomach.
The bullet hissed out of the gun like an arrow from a drawstring.
The man jerked back and grunted, his hands flying to his stomach which was blooming crimson corsages, the suit already saturated. Choking, his mouth open, his eyes open, the housekeeper rammed against the opposite wall and slid down, staring at the man with unrestrained shock.
How could you?
Easy.
The man shot him again. This time in the head.
The panting stopped.
Moving down the hall, the man inhaled deeply and drank the pungent odor of blood, of death, and set his jaw. They would talk first. They would chat. And then he would kill Jin Lee.
Grunts. Rasps. Choking.
Beautiful music.
The hallway was tastefully lit by shaded lamps, lacquering the walls and shag carpet with dribbling shadows. Shadows that pooled. Collected. Percolated. Fingering paintings – both exotic and traditional – that had been mounted carefully; canvas windows into other times and other places and other nightmares. The man recognized a Monet as he walked towards the study doors at the end of the corridor. Sunrise. A scene swathed in gritty smog, overlooking a bay, pierced by a bloodshot sun.
This new dynasty would be red in every sense of the word.
The man reached the study doors.
He didn't bother knocking.
Shouldering his way in – the doors rebounding against the walls of the room – the man lifted the gun and pointed it at Jin Lee, who looked up at him and frowned. His pepper stained hair oiled firmly against his scalp, the frown faded and was replaced with a tight smile as he took off his glasses and folded his hands on the desk in front of him.
Light burned at the man's eyes like acid.
His ears were ringing.
“What can I do for you?”
“You could've had it all, Jin.”
The old man snorted and tapped a Camel out of a pack of cigarettes lying on his desk. “I don't want it all, kid.”
He blinked pearls of sweat out of his eyes and tightened his grip on his gun. Jin Lee lit the cigarette, pulled on it, and exhaled and mushroom cloud of smoke. “Certain things are just out of line, you know.”
“Hell, Jin, what do you know about 'out of line'? You know how many people you've killed?”
“I'm not a terrorist.”
The man smirked. “Sure. Godssakes, you're practically a saint.”
“'Here are my three treasures. Guard and keep them! The first is pity; the second, frugality; the third, refusal to be foremost of all things under heaven',” Jin quoted and took a drag on the camel pinched between his fingers.
“Don't give me that Confucius-say crap. Because of this idealistic binge, there are some important people who want you dead.”
“Laozi said that, not Confucius.”
“Do you have any last remarks?”
Jin Lee paused, glancing out the window as streamers of cigarette smoke coiled into the air and grains of ash stumbled to the desk. He opened his mouth and turned towards the man. “You know – ”
The man pulled the trigger.
And the silenced gunshot shattered seemed to shatter the air around him, corkscrewing through Jin Lee's unspoken words. His head snapped to one side and he toppled out of his chair, eyes throwing the curses trapped in his throat in the man's direction like hand grenades.
“Too bad.”
The man thought that the blood spray-painted across the wall behind the desk looked a little like Monet's Sunrise.
And walking out of the study, into the hallway, and around the dead body guard the man could have sworn he heard violin music playing, echoing from behind Jin Lee's desk. His kingdom was burning and the old man was playing. The fashionable and uptown architecture, furniture, and paintings were being hungrily consumed by dancing flames. Moving to Jin Lee's music. Twisting and bending and thrusting while the violin sobbed.
As the man stepped down onto the curb outside and hailed a taxi, the house – looming, bathing in velvet shadows – suffered quietly behind him.
I haven't read Honor in forever and a day. You made my day! Again! *hugs*
Stop it! You're messing with my head! Lol! 
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