Liberty Island — 2071

LADY KILLER

The Near Assassination of Lee Kitchimoto

“May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
nor powers of darkness me molest.” — Rudyard Kipling

▾ Enter Boji-Tei

Book One

Behind the grand Gothic doors of Boji-Tei, the most dangerous women in the world pour tea. The geisha here hold all the secrets of the new world… and all the power.

Until a mysterious man arrives and threatens to undo everything — including the one woman charged with stopping him.

Boji-Tei

Two Wharves. Two Currencies.

Liberty Island has a unique power structure, one for the island and one for everyone else.

West Wharf — Liberty Island

Where the old world hides in plain sight. Lantern light, fortune tellers, geisha with sheathed daggers.

East Wharf Labs

Where the new world is built to spec. Steel, glass, and cranes over the water — and something the signage doesn't mention.

Behind the Gothic Doors

Boji-Tei — tea house and sociopolitical hub, and the place where the world's greatest atrocities are committed — politely.

Boji-Tei — main floor

Leela Matthews Junior Geisha

She has a genius for engineering and a special knack for invention.

Diego Martinez The Foreigner

A bloody beast in tailored togs.

Katerina Santiago Employer of Geisha

"Eyes that had witnessed countless horrors, many of which she had caused."

Lee Kitchimoto The Liaison

"I never was, am always to be. No one ever saw me, nor ever will…"

Orion The Oracle

"Come see me."

A moonlit courtyard, a fountain, a blade left in the grass

Prologue — Orion's Prediction

“His expression, this expression was starkly different from the one he usually wore, so cool, so confident. Not desperate, not like it was now. Now it was… murderous determination? Yes.”

“She gasped, but instead of air, searing pain rushed into her chest. Not from the blade that had been thrust deep into her breast, that was a pinprick, a paper cut by comparison.”

“Over the years, the smell of grass had become synonymous with death, and she had loved it… until now. Now it was her blood watering it.”

— Opening lines, Lady Killer

For Those Who Want to Go Deeper

The Currency of Consciousness

Marks still buy the drinks at Boji-Tei. But East Wharf Labs is quietly building an economy around something far harder to counterfeit.

The Marks of Rank

Every geisha at Boji-Tei carries markings stacked on the nape of her neck — one for each rank earned. Count the marks, and you know her rank… and exactly what she's survived to get there.

Before Boji-Tei

Katerina Santiago wasn't always the one pouring the tea. Before she ran the house, she was a hired hunter — trained in a regime even Lee opposed, and barely survived himself.

Shaky Jake's Riddle

Everyone who stops at Jake's cart on Common Street is greeted with a riddle. You better answer or at least try.

Three Knuckles or a Finger

What would you pay?

Seventeen Years Later

This book was first published in 2009, under a pen name — Vesper Strand. For seventeen years, it belonged to someone who wasn't quite me.

This edition is the first with my real name on the cover.

Noel Van Wagner

"I'm finally ready to be seen."