William Emerson
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William Emerson (aka Theodore Lumley)

Concept: Martial arts student

Tradition: Akashic Brotherhood

Essence:

Nature:

Demeanor:

Mentor:

Appearance:

William has short black hair, brown eyes, glasses and very pale skin. He is 5' 7" (1.70 m)  and weighs just over 150 pounds (68 kg; 10 stone 10 lbs), and he does not look like he could handle himself in a fight, although some people have found to their cost that this is not true.  He works as a private detective.

Personality:

William would be a natural for the Akashic Brotherhood, if he was really aware of them.  As it is, his wing chun kung fu teacher has been leading him along the philosophical path of Do and the Brotherhood without William's conscious awareness.

Attributes

William's/Theodore's Professional Life: For years Theodore worked at a company called ValueCorp which handled health insurance claims. He started out in the mailroom, then went on to customer service. After deciding he didn't like callers yelling at him for mistakes he didn't make, he transferred to claims processing. After a year in this position, Theodore was promoted to the fraud investigations department. This is where he first developed a taste for the field he would eventually enter.

At first Andrew wasn't thrilled was his son wanted to be a private investigator, but he relented when he saw how excited Theodore got over it, even going so far as giving his son some money toward his first office.

For the first few years things went great. His client list grew at a steady pace. Soon he was making enough money to get an apartment (for years the office had doubled as work and living space). Most of his clients were women looking to find out if their husbands were cheating on them. Despite the fact that many women had offered to pay Theodore with sex instead of money, he'd been able to refuse them. He never let passion get in the way of business.

That was until Maria Chiusano walked into his office. She was different from all the others. Here was a woman who was beautiful, intelligent, and funny...a woman who would give up anything for her man and would be grateful for anything he gave her in return...a woman who stuck by her partner through ups and downs. In other words, she was a dream woman. Theodore couldn't help the fact that he was attracted to her, especially once he detected the feeling was mutual. Both of them managed to keep their emotions buried for a while, but the air crackled with a strong sexual undercurrent whenever they met.

Like all the other women who walked through his door, Maria had come to Theo because she suspected her husband of infidelity. At the time, the name Freddie Chiusano meant nothing to Theodore, so he had no problem taking the assignment.

For several weeks Theodore followed Freddie, noticing the man always had at least two bodyguards with him. Some investigation into his background revealed Freddie was vice president of a company called Rosano Olive Oil. At this point, a red flag went up: there were plenty of VPs in the world who didn't walk around with bodyguards. Why did Freddie need them?

The next time he talked to Maria, Theodore addressed this issue. With some prying he got the truth out of her: Freddie was with the mob. Images of THE GODFATHER flickered through Theodore's head, and his immediate reaction was to tell Maria he was dropping the case. It was too dangerous, and besides, he'd been following Freddie for weeks and saw no proof that he was cheating on her. Maria begged him not to drop the case, but he stuck to his guns. Then she suddenly changed tactics, asking him to meet her at a bar near his office. He agreed to this request right away.

When they met at the bar (for history's sake, the Four Leaf Clover), Maria revealed the truth: she was ratting her husband out to the FBI. All the pictures Theodore took of him were immediately handed off to the Feds. It took Theodore some time to calm down after he found out he was just a pawn in Maria's game. Once his temper had settled down, he asked her one simple question: why rat him out now? The answer was quite simple: she could handle the fact that Freddie hit her now...she could handle that he brought home new women every other night...but what she could no longer tolerate was, quite simply, Freddie's evil. All the innocent lives he took meant nothing to him, but the ghosts of his victims haunted Maria every night.

Against his better judgment, Theodore pulled Maria flush up against his body and kissed her right there in the middle of the bar. She returned the gesture with equal enthusiasm. They ran out of the bar, then headed across the street to a seedy motel (the Phoenix Inn), where they made love all night.

When Theodore woke up the next morning, Maria was gone. He decided to spend the day out on the town so he could work on some open cases he'd been ignoring lately.

Toward the evening he went back to his office, where he found Freddie Chiusano and three thugs waiting for him. (One of the thugs was holding a box, and Theodore made it a point to keep an eye on the goon throughout the entire exchange.)

"Mr. Lumley," Freddie said, "at last we meet. Do you know who I am?"

Theodore didn't say anything. He just nodded.

"Of course you do. After all, you're the man my wife hired to follow me...to report my
every move...to take pictures of me," Freddie said. "Well, Mr. Lumley, maybe you'd like to work for me now. How about you take a picture of this...Carlo?"

The goon with the box opened up his package and took out its contents: the severed head of his wife and Theodore's lover, Maria Chiusano.

"Gentlemen, it's time we force Mr. Lumley into an early...and permanent...retirement," Freddie said. "Don't worry, Mr. Lumley. This will be fast and painless. You should be grateful to me. I'm sure there are lots of other husbands out there who'd take their time if they got their hands on you. Not me. That's not my style. Anyway...gentlemen, please proceed."

Freddie's thugs pulled out their guns, aimed at Theodore...and never had the chance to pull their triggers. There were three loud explosions, but when the smoke cleared, Theodore was alive. All three of Freddie's thugs were dead, killed when they had been impaled by the shrapnel of their exploding handguns.

Theodore and Freddie looked at the carnage in utter disbelief. It was the PI who broke his trance first, pulling out his gun and emptying its clip in Freddie's chest. Theodore fled his office before the mafia don's body had even hit the floor. Only one thought that kept running through his head: no one can help me now.

After a while, Theodore found a hiding spot where he could catch his breath and think. He had no more future...not as Theodore Lumley anyway. There was a business associate of his (Jared Faulkner) who had a knack for helping people disappear. Jared helped Theodore procure the identity of William Emerson, going so far as to develop a PI license for Theodore's new name.

But Theodore (now William) knew the mafia still had a good chance of finding him. Then he remembered his grandparents' house in Little Totterington. That was the answer: not just a new identity, but a new home.

Of course, he knew his plan had one problem: he could not claim his inheritance without exposing himself. The whole point of moving to England was to start life over in a place where no one knew him as Theodore Lumley. The solution was simple but painful: he'd have to let the house go. After all, there was no point in sticking his neck out after such a narrow escape from death.

William rented out a flat in what qualified as the business district of Little Totterington. This doubled as his apartment and office (just like the good old days). In no time, suspicious housewives came looking for his services. Ever since the incident with Freddie, he hadn't had a moment's rest to stop and wonder what ever happened to the mafia goons.  (What were the odds of all three guns exploding at once like that anyway?) Every now and then William would ponder that strange evening, but he didn't think about it often. What happened in NYC was history. Theodore Lumley had vanished.  The storm had passed, and it seemed to William that he was going to have the chance to lead a relatively peaceful, calm life.

Or so he thought...