“Don’t care. He had it coming, and I made a promise.”
The F-350 pulled into the church’s parking lot.
James looked at Shay, who was in the passenger seat. “You could always come in and unburden your soul. I’m sure the priests would love a new soul to save.”
“They don’t have enough priests in the world to take care of my soul.” She shook her head. “Go do your thing. I’ll wait here. I think I’d spontaneously combust if I went into one of those places.”
James chuckled. “Fair enough.”
He hurried out of the truck and into the church. The nave lay empty, so he hurried directly to the confessional.
A few moments passed before he heard Father McCartney sit on the other side and slide the grate open.
“Bless me father, for I have sinned,” James intoned.
“I don’t even know if we should repeat this process,” said the priest, weariness in his voice. “You already pre-confessed to what you were planning to do, so it seems a bit much to go over it again.”
James grunted. “Pre-confessed?”
“Aren’t you here to talk about the Belmont House? I presume that bloodbath was your handiwork.”
It took all James’ self-control not to laugh. “Not entirely. My handiwork, that is.”
“Not entirely?” Father McCartney let out a quiet groan. “You’re making new friends, then? Violent friends?”
“Yes. A friend helped me, and a woman who was tortured there also got her revenge. She was already dying, but she had powerful magical abilities.”
Father McCartney sighed. “Tortured? May the Lord have mercy on her soul. So much blood, James. This was different than your bounty work. This—”
“It’s over, Father. The woman who was tortured was at the center of it—all of it. She wasn’t human. She was a powerful princess from Oriceran. She’d taken a human husband, and was just trying to live a peaceful life.”
“Trying?”
James took several breaths. Rage flowed into him, but he wouldn’t let it spill out on holy ground. “I don’t understand it all, Father. Her people granted her a wish.”
“A wish? As in, a miracle?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“And what did she use it for?”
“Nothing. She wanted to give it to her daughter, but her human husband realized what she was and wanted the wish. That was why he set her up and sold her to the Harriken. Now, her daughter… That poor girl is without her mother.”
“Greed is seductive, James. It’s easy to justify in people’s minds, compared to a lot of other sinful motivations. But as you said, the mother is dead. Then it’s all over. The wish is gone.”
The bounty hunter considered lying. Father McCartney knowing about the wish could potentially put him in danger, but even if James was no longer confessing his sins, he was still talking to his confessor in a church and he couldn’t bring himself to stain the ritual space with a lie. He decided to split the difference and leave out some information.
“The wish is gone from the mom,” he said quietly. “It was...reassigned.”
“Reassigned?”
“It’s waiting for her daughter now.”
Father McCartney took a deep breath. “The girl you wanted me to take care of?”
“Yes, but I have an idea. You’ll probably think I lost my dam— That I’ve come up with better ideas, but it’s the only thing I could think of.”
James could hear the priest shift in his seat.
“What, James?”
“I’m not a good man, Father, and my hands are stained with so much blood. You of all people know that, but I can use my strength in a good way by protecting that girl until she gets her wish.”
“Penance can take many forms. In all the chaos and change that Oriceran has brought to our world, we should not doubt that our Lord has a plan for Earth and each of us. I believe this girl is part of his plan for you, James. Part of your penance for your sins.”
James swallowed. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will. Go with God, James.” Father McCartney slid the grate closed.
James turned to leave, but the grate slid back open.
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s the girl’s wish?” the priest asked.
James chuckled. “God only knows.”
FINIS
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Written April 4, 2018
First, let me say THANK YOU for not only reading this story, but going all the way through to the back here, as well!
I often write these author notes thinking, “Well, everyone knows me, so I’ll just keep writing as if they have read the hundred and some-odd other author notes…”
I’m going to assume you don’t know much about me, and this book is your first Michael Anderle story.
Two and a half years ago, I was just a guy who loved to read. So much that I read over fifty books a year for years and years and… Let’s just say I’m pretty old and leave it there, okay?
Like so many readers, I wanted to write as well and Amazon offered me the chance to be an indie author where I could publish my stories myself.
So I did.
Due to amazing fans, I was allowed the chance to write—and write more and more. Now, I’ve got over thirty of my own books, plus four under a pen name (Michael Todd) and over a hundred collaboration books.
I am learning all the time. One of the things that I heard in late 2016 was about what happens when your series ends and you have to start another one from scratch.
It seems dangerous! I was going to be finishing my Kurtherian Gambit series in just a year, and what was I going to do then? Would fans read anything else by me? Would I go to the dusty Author Corral up in the sky?
I was a little worried, I’ll admit.
The second issue I was having at this time revolved around character burn-out and “bright shiny ideas…” As an author, I usually don’t lack ideas.
This is true for most authors.
The difference between me and a lot of authors is that I am much older, and I know as a reader I don’t WANT my author to start placing a bunch of other stories and series and stuff when he is writing the main story I found him/her writing.
I had at least ten (10) books to go on the Kurtherian Gambit—and I wasn’t going to stop that to create something new—but I didn’t want to have nothing waiting for me when I finished TKG and was allowed a bit of time to go play with something else.
So, I called up Martha Carr and asked her if she wanted to do a series together (The Leira Chronicles).
I said “series,” she heard “Universe,” and the Oriceran Universe was born. (There are WHOLE other stories we can talk about related to how the Universe grew with other amazing authors such as SM Boyce, Sarah Noffke, Abby Lynn Knorr, and Flint Maxwell – check out their stories as well!)
However, my first call to Martha was almost a year ago.
The first book in the Universe came out July 31st, 2017 and I had months and months and books and books to go before I was able to play in this new Universe.
Now you have read the first book in my new series. The first chapter was written about a year ago, but it took a lot of time to get the rest of these stories going.
When I first started writing, I wasn’t sure how well I would do with a male protagonist. It took me some time to mature as an author to create the kind of male protagonists I would want to read. It started with John Grimes in Queen Bitch (and the whole series), and that character would influence James Brownstone.
He’s a kick-ass guy who isn’t afraid to care about others.
The difference is that with James Brownstone, I wanted to have a guy who has a few problems.
John Grimes is damned good-looking. Brownstone has a face only a half-blind dog could love… Or females who can see his inner core, not his external looks.
He isn’t a well-heeled university catch. He is
n’t a billionaire or a SEAL or anything like that, for the romance types. He’s a bounty hunter, and he has a few secrets. He doesn’t mistreat women, but he doesn’t understand them, nor will he pander to them or their crazy notions (the lush witch, as an example, or Shay’s demands that he come out of the closet.)
A lot of critics will talk about having a character who needs to grow; to slowly gain their powers. However, I suggest that growing in ass-kicking skill is not the only way to engage a character arc.
I suggest you might have a good guy, who likes life simple. Then, throw in two females, one a multi-racial teenager whose mom comes from another world, and an adult female ex-killer trying to go straight who has a few hangups of her own.
Life just keeps getting more and more complicated for James Brownstone, having neither mother nor father in his life, who is trying his best to be a good father figure for a young girl.
A role life NEVER set him up to know anything about.
Jessie Rae’s
When I create stories, I start with the characters…for the most part. I want at least two (my preference is three) characters where I know just enough about them that I can see where the character conflict occurs.
Hopefully, with a lot of opportunity for fun.
For Brownstone, I did something VERY straightforward and very male in my neck of the woods (I’m Texan by birth)—the man loves his barbeque.
He eats barbeque…and sleeps it, and breathes in the nectar of the smoke every chance he gets. If he isn’t kicking ass, he is thinking about barbeque, or eating it.
The problem isn’t that I don’t know anything about barbeque; far from it. Rather, I know enough that I absolutely know that I don’t know enough!
So, what’s an author to do? GET HELP!
Here in Vegas, where we are domiciling for now, the only barbeque places I knew were in Casinos. That wasn’t the type of knowledge I wanted. I wanted someone who would know barbeque like James did. Someone he could chat with, and get down and discuss the fine nuances of different styles.
I happened to get on Yelp one morning when I was overwhelmed by a NEED to eat some barbeque. After looking at the different reviews, I chose to check out Jessie Rae’s across the 15 from Mandalay Bay.
Now, I live on the Strip not that far from Mandalay Bay, so It was easy enough for me to head south and then jump across the freeway to find the place.
It’s small. In fact, we couldn’t hold an event there for more than thirty people, I’d bet ya. They have their barbeque pits out back, not inside running on gas like many of the chain locations.
I was working at the restaurant—working out the beats for this book—and I worked up the courage to ask the guy (young guy) who seemed to be the owner if he would consider helping me by becoming a consultant on this book.
Fortunately Mike LOVES books, and thought being included in one in whatever form or fashion I contrived would be fantastic!
It was a LOT of weeks between that first meeting and now when we are about to publish the book I spoke to him about so long ago.
I have gone back to Jessie Rae’s quite a few times (the food is damned good, and the #GodSauce is fantastic…but I digress), and I saw Mike maybe every other trip. He was doing the delivery driving one time, taking orders another, back in the kitchen on a third trip, and so on. I’ve met his mom working there, and I think I saw/met his wife, but I’m not positive (she is the “Jessie Rae” the place is named after.)
Personally, I LOVE to put real people into my stories, and places that fans, if they want to, can visit. Now, I learned a lot from things I did in The Kurtherian Gambit and I’m amping up the coolness factor (for me, anyway) by inviting Mike to provide his own form of Author Notes.
Because, who doesn’t want to know about barbeque?
So, I’ll end by saying THANK YOU so freaking much for reading Brownstone. I hope you join us for the second book, Rejected by Heaven, which is coming out in just two (2) weeks. Continue turning the pages here to see what Mike has to say about his story…and barbeque.
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Rejected By Heaven
Rejected By Heaven
1
James sat in the passenger seat of Shay’s Fiat as they drove to her place. Recent events replayed in his mind.
He didn’t give two shits about killing Walt Anderson. Even most bounties he had gone after had more honor than that man. The greedy little bastard’d had a wife who’d given up everything for him.
And he still wasn’t satisfied.
Vengeance hadn’t fulfilled James as much as he would have liked. Killing was easy. Living was hard. He’d miss Leeroy for the rest of his life, like Alison would miss her mother…he supposed.
He never had a mother, that he could remember.
Shay glanced at him. “I don’t know what crawled up your super-armored butt, but shit happens, Brownstone. You gotta shake it off. This can’t be the first time something’s gone south for you?”
“My life has gone south from the beginning,” he replied matter-of-factly.
Shay made it sound so easy—and she was right—but the recent convergence of events had disrupted his perfectly ordered and simple world. Nothing was the same now, and he couldn’t pretend it was.
“I mean, look, we’ve both got our issues,” Shay continued, “but you did the right thing back there. And you’re doing the right thing with the girl. And you got revenge for both of the Anderson women.”
He looked out the window of her car. “I wasn’t supposed to get revenge. I was supposed to bring Nicole back to her daughter.”
Shay shook her head. “We were both supposed to bring her back, but we didn’t make it in time. That’s the cold reality. You got some time-magic mojo in your warehouse, Brownstone? Otherwise it doesn’t matter, and beating yourself up over it isn’t going to help.” She sighed. “You know the real difference between men and women?”
He grunted. “Dicks and pussies?”
That pulled a snort from Shay. “That too. No, it’s that women understand—like on the level of our DNA—that not everything can be fixed. That sometimes you just have to roll with it. But men? Oh, you men…somewhere you’re always thinking, ‘I can fix this shit. Just give me a big enough tool.’”
James chuckled. “Maybe there is a bit of truth in that, but things are still weird.”
She made a quick left, and a horn blared behind her. “Fuck you!” She flipped off the other driver. “It’s Los Angeles traffic, asshole!” She pushed a wisp of hair out of her face. “Given some of the shit I’ve seen you do, I’m surprised to hear that. Weird is relative, you know?”
He shrugged. “Kicking ass, I get. Bringing in the bad guys, I get. Taking care of a girl, Shay? Especially one who’s half-Oriceran? What if I fuck her up?”
She clicked her tongue. “Can’t do worse than the dad, who tried to sell her to a group of gangsters who were torturing her mom.”
He winced. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Don’t overthink it, Brownstone. Kicking ass is your strength.” Shay grinned.
The Spider pulled up to a nice two-story brownstone townhouse with an attached garage. The well-kept lawns and upscale houses in the area were a sharp contrast to James’ rougher neighborhood, where fresh paint was as rare as hope. Shay’s neighborhood was the kind of place the head of the gang lived, rather than his foot soldiers.
“Nice place,” James mumbled, looking it over.
Shay smirked. “Hey, Brownstone, how do you like my brownstone?”
He eyed her sideways. “You’ve been probably waiting to say that for days.” He snorted. “You should quit the tomb raider gig and do stand-up comedy. I’m sure there’s some magic that would actually make you funny.”
“You know I’m as funny as I am hot.” She pressed a button on a garage door opener connected to her sun visor, then pulled in and parked the car. A sober look settled over her face. “I’ll let you take the lead on whatever
you want to tell Alison.”
James’ only response was a nod as they got out of her Spider.
The field archaeologist tapped a code into a pad near the door, and then leaned forward for a retinal scan.
The door clicked open.
“Actual security, see?” Shay pointed to her setup. “On the whole house, not just the Red Room of Pain.”
James followed her inside. Two earth-toned loveseats dominated the open-plan living room, and a huge TV hung on the back wall. Fine white carpet covered most of the floor. A quartz-topped island stood in the center of her kitchen. The overall vibe he got was clean and modern, yet comfortable.
“Whatever you do, don’t look in my refrigerator or my cabinets,” Shay commanded.
“Why? You got body parts in there?” he asked.
“Nope. Because nothing’s organized.” She laced her fingers together, then pulled them apart. “Your OCD will explode.”
“I don’t have OCD. I just like to keep things si—”
“Simple,” Shay finished as she walked into the kitchen, clicked something in there and came back out. “Sure.” She snickered. “And let’s not even get into my bedroom.” A few beats passed, and she added in a sultry voice, “Unless you ask nicely.”
James plopped himself down on a love seat and didn’t say anything in response. He didn’t want to get into another stupid conversation that ended with her accusing him of being gay.
He was still trying to wrap his mind around Alison being a more permanent part of his life.
Shay would have to take a number.
“You’re so boring,” the woman mumbled.
“Better boring than annoying,” he responded.
She pursed her lips, then nodded. “You’re that, too.”
Light footfalls came down the stairs. Alison tightly gripping the bannister as she took each step. The girl stopped at the bottom and looked toward James, her eyes slightly unfocused as always. Now that he knew what to look for, he could easily see that her eyes didn’t track people and objects.
The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Boxed Set One (Books 1-3): Feared By Hell, Rejected By Heaven, Eye For An Eye (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Boxed Sets) Page 19