Meet William Langston King, Monster Hunter

So I have been getting some writing done, a little here, a little there. I've gotten enough together on this work in progress to show you a teaser. Remember, this is just a first draft, and the part here is really just prologue.

 It's likely going to be a novel, and possible a series if the writing gods smile kindly. It's sort of a Dresden Files-esque doohicky, set in Singapore. This first story is tentatively titled Joo Chiat Blues.

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My name is William Langston King. Call me Will, please, or Bill if you must, but skip Billy or Willy unless you want me to call you something nasty right back. I currently live in exile in Singapore. If I return to the States, I'll be hunted down and executed. Ex-wives are funny like that.

Every man - every person - has two faces. There's how the world sees them, and how they see themselves. The truth may or may not lie somewhere in the middle. I like to think of myself as an ordinary guy. Average height, average build, nondescript face, pleasant but not handsome. Not someone you take a second look at. The perfect movie extra. I'm the guy that you don't notice walking down the street. I like it that way.

That's the outside, the surface. The most noticed and least important part of all of us.

On the inside I like to think I'm ordinary, too. In some ways it's even true. The little quirks of personality that make us individuals, but in a broader sense make us human, make us comfortably the same. After a hard day, I like to crack open a cold beer and sit in front of the television, not so much for the beer or the entertainment but because of the normalcy of it. I like cold pizza, and hate ironing. I think it's incredibly unfair that, as a man gets older, he loses hair from the places he wants it and gains hair where he doesn't. I like to sleep in on rainy mornings. I am, for all intents and purposes, your average Joe.

Except for the magic, and the monsters.

So. My name is William King. I am many things, just as we all are; good, bad, indifferent. But the words I had inscribed below my name on the plaque at the columbarium read MONSTER HUNTER.

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, and in the case of final resting places, you need to do it in advance.