In the early morning, sunlight streamed through the window and spread across the white bed, white sheets, and white silk quilt.
John Leighton’s eyes were shut tight, still deep in sleep.
As the light crept across the bed and reached his face, he frowned a few times before opening his eyes.
Even in March, Los Angeles was pleasant.
The temperature sat comfortably above twenty degrees, the kind of mild, reliable warmth that made the city genuinely liveable year round.
The temperature never swung too far in either direction, which was part of why people came and never quite left.
He glanced at the sunlight outside, still groggy, threw off the covers, got out of bed, and went straight to the bathroom.
…
After washing up he stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself for a moment.
Mixed heritage had its advantages.
His face was distinctly handsome without the deeply set features of full Caucasian ancestry.
High nose bridge, black hair, blue eyes.
His skin sat between the lighter tones of Westerners and the warmer tones of East Asians.
As he had grown older in this life, his face had taken on an increasingly East Asian quality in its overall shape, which made him appear younger than most Western teenagers his age.
He already had the beginning of a proper build.
Pectoral muscles were visible.
Chest hair was coming in.
He examined this last development with particular satisfaction.
In his previous life he had never had any.
He had always heard that men with chest hair carried a certain appeal.
Now he could verify the claim from the inside.
He muttered something to himself in front of the mirror, thought of Charlize Theron next door, and grinned.
…
He glanced at his wrist.
The watch.
A black strap, titanium case, the kind of object that made a person feel differently about the day simply by existing on their wrist.
Jerry Yang had given it to him after the financing closed and the cash portion had cleared.
David had given Zach one at the same time.
Both were Patek Philippe, the Swiss manufacturer that occupied a category of its own in the watch world.
If someone asked which brand held the highest position in watchmaking, the answer was Patek Philippe, and it was not a close contest.
This particular piece was the Ref.
5004, the first Patek Philippe in titanium, released at the start of 1995.
Only twelve were produced each year.
John Leighton knew that by 2017 a watch like this at auction would not sell for less than one or two million euros.
When Jerry Yang had presented it, John had been genuinely startled.
This was not something money alone could simply acquire.
Zach’s was a 1993 model.
The 1995 edition had proven essentially impossible to obtain, and only one had been secured between the two of them.
Zach had accepted his without the slightest ceremony, declared the 1993 model perfectly excellent, and beamed for the rest of the day.
John Leighton had found this deeply undignified and said so.
Zach had not stopped beaming.
…
He finished dressing and checked the time.
Past ten already.
A genuine sleep-until-you-wake-naturally morning.
He thought about staying on the balcony until late last night talking to Charlize and felt a small, uncomplicated surge of good feeling about that. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
It was unavoidable.
She was, after all, who she was, and even in 1995 with the baby-faced softness still in her features, the presence was entirely real.
He wondered if she had already left for wherever she needed to be today.
The sound of the front door interrupted the thought.
Zach.
He always arrived relatively late, knowing John Leighton’s sleeping habits well enough not to come earlier.
Zach knocked on the bedroom door, confirmed John was up, and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.
John Leighton took his usual spot on the balcony and began his morning meditation.
Two sessions per day, every day without exception.
Zach had long since stopped asking about it and simply accepted that this was part of the routine, filed under what he understood to be a martial arts practice of some kind.
An hour later, John Leighton completed the first session and sat quietly for a moment.
The density of magical elements in the atmosphere of this world was frustratingly low.
He had no clear sense of when the breakthrough from the peak of the apprentice stage would come.
The slow pace was simply the reality of practicing magic on Earth.
The one advantage was that magical meditation did not carry the restrictions of other cultivation methods.
It could be done at any time of day.
Two hours across the day was the practical ceiling for his current level.
More would not accelerate anything.
He went inside and ate what Zach had prepared, which was, if he was being honest about the hour, closer to lunch than breakfast.
They cleaned up without much conversation and John Leighton’s quiet, unambitious day resumed.
…
For the following week, his days were comfortable and largely uneventful.
Mornings went to meditation.
Afternoons to television and browsing the internet.
Evenings to the balcony, where Charlize had become a reliable presence, and the two of them would talk across the railing for hours.
It was, he thought, a genuinely pleasant way to exist, even if it bore some resemblance to the homebodies of his previous life who rarely left their apartments.
The difference was that he was fifteen, the world outside had limited use for a fifteen year old, and he was waiting for events that were still months away.
There was no particular urgency in going anywhere.
That evening, he and Zach had just finished dinner and Zach was clearing up when the doorbell rang.
John Leighton extended his mental perception before moving toward the door.
At this point it was as natural as simply looking.
The figure outside registered immediately and he paused for a moment, genuinely surprised.
He went and opened the door.
…
“Mr.
Allen Francis.
I wasn’t expecting you.
What brings you here?”
Allen Francis stood in the hallway in his usual presentation: large gold chain, tattoos visible at the collar and wrists, hair in the familiar tight braids.
John Leighton looked past him briefly.
The corridor was empty.
He had come alone.
“Li.
Are we not friends?
Is it wrong for a friend to visit?
And you don’t need to check.
John Leighton was briefly speechless at the sheer confidence of this, then stepped aside and gestured for him to come in.
He was already here.
Leaving him in the hallway was not a realistic option.
“John.
Who is it?”
“Zach.
Your good friend Allen Francis is here.”
Allen spotted Zach emerging from the kitchen and moved toward him with the enthusiasm of someone greeting a long lost companion, pulling him into an embrace before Zach had time to form a reaction.
John Leighton and Zach made brief eye contact over Allen’s shoulder.
Neither of them had quite the words for it.
…
“Allen.
Honestly speaking.
I’m not entirely sure I want you here.
We are from very different worlds, and we have no interest in trouble.
We are ordinary people living ordinary lives.”
“Relax.
Things in the south are settled now.
I run the area.
I came to see the people who saved my life, nothing more.
I’m not bringing any trouble to your door.
That’s a promise.”
John Leighton listened to this assurance with the same quiet scepticism Zach was visibly applying.
A gang boss promising not to bring trouble was the kind of guarantee that had a complicated track record.
But Allen said it with the directness of someone who took such promises seriously, and that counted for something.
Allen made himself comfortable on the sofa without being invited and began talking.
He covered the recent conflicts in the southern districts of Los Angeles with the easy thoroughness of someone who had been waiting for an audience.
The substance of it, once you filtered out the colour, was that the Black Python Gang now effectively controlled the southern slums of Los Angeles, and the crew that had come from New York had been driven out entirely.
Whether the full account was accurate was impossible to verify.
But the broad conclusion seemed credible enough.
…
The three of them settled into a conversation that was, in practice, mostly Allen talking while John Leighton and Zach listened.
The gang boss turned out to be a remarkable talker.
The energy in the room was unusual but not uncomfortable.
From what John Leighton could observe across the conversation, Allen’s personality, whatever his profession, was not without its decent qualities.
He had come back specifically to see the people who had helped him.
He had sent money without being asked.
He kept his word.
For someone operating in the world he operated in, those were not nothing.
John Leighton was also thinking practically.
His wealth was going to grow significantly in the coming months and years.
Large wealth created exposure, and exposure created threats that most people in his position did not think about until too late.
Having someone like Allen Francis in a position of goodwill toward him, a man who controlled the streets of the southern districts and had the kind of local authority that no lawyer or private security firm could replicate, was not a resource to dismiss.
He watched Allen talking with animated ease, completely unaware that he was being quietly evaluated as a potential asset.
The Black Python Gang’s leader had come to visit of his own accord, convinced he was the one doing the favour.
He had no idea that John Leighton had already begun to think about how to use that.