James shook his head. “A lot of the time, I want assholes to know I’m coming.” He tapped his forehead. “The lower the bounty, the greater the chance he’s a cowardly piece of shit. I’ve got a rep, and now the Brownstone Agency has a rep, and you can use that to make shit simple. The goal should always be to get the bounty, and if you can do that by scaring the shit out of them, might as well.” He glowered and stomped toward a side door. “If they know you’re coming, they have more time to think about it. Sometimes they’ll get scared and overreact, but if you’re prepared and not scared, it doesn’t matter. They’ll make all the fucking mistakes, and you can take them down.”
The heavy steps of the mass of bounty hunters walking in near-formation echoed between the decaying buildings and sheds positioned around the warehouse.
“It’s different for high-level bounties.” James narrowed his eyes as a shadow moved in one of the first-floor windows near the door. “A level four or five has enough power that they usually either have a decent reason not to be scared or will be so fucking cocky they won’t give up even if they’re outgunned. And if they have a stupid-ass nickname, it’s only gonna be worse. With those kinds of guys, you go in hard and fast and take them down before they have a chance to fuck you up.” He threw up a fist to indicate that the group should stop. “Let me open the door. It might be trapped.”
James reached for the door handle and turned. It wasn’t booby-trapped, but it was locked. Unsurprising. He pulled out his .45 and put several rounds into the lock before holstering the weapon. A quick tug opened the door.
A frowning thug with a shotgun stood on the other side of the door, and he pulled the trigger. With a roar, the weapon spewed a slug straight at the bounty hunter, who was less than a yard away.
The round didn’t even sting, but it did tickle.
Near complete adaptation previously achieved, Whispy reported, undercurrents of annoyance in the amulet’s thoughts. Eliminate useless enemy.
The thug on the other side blinked and fired again. James stood there and let the man empty all five slugs into him. At the end of it, he had five new holes in his shirt but only the barest hint of redness.
Surprised gasps swept the crowd of bounty hunters behind James.
Maria smirked. “Seeing is believing, right?”
James took a few steps forward until he was right in front of the thug. “It’s your lucky day, asshole.”
The man swallowed. “I-it is?”
“Yeah. We don’t get any money if I kill you.”
James glowered at the man and, with a quick grab, tossed him through the door. The thug landed hard on his arm, crying out. Three bounty hunters dropped on him like piranhas, pinning his arms and securing him with zip-ties before he even had enough time to fully register that he’d landed.
The entrance hallway ran straight toward the main storage area on the right. Shouts sounded from both directions, but there were more voices coming from the right.
Clear out the main group and then pick off the stragglers. This is why low-level bounties annoy me.
James stomped down the hallway to the right with a feral grin. He might not have bothered under normal circumstances, but Maria wanted a show. If anyone asked, he wouldn’t deny he was having a little fun.
Two men rushed around the corner, assault rifles in hand. The guns spewed bullets in full auto, further shredding James’ shirt but barely scratching him. He didn’t have a reason to bring extra equipment against a group of low-level losers, so the gray coat and tactical vest he would have otherwise worn had been left behind.
Maria and some of the others rushed in beside him.
Shit. Better not take too long. Somebody might get hit if I play around.
James charged with a loud bellow, and one of the men dropped his gun and ran. The other kept up until he got a first-hand introduction to James’ fist.
The poor bastard flew back several yards and rolled another couple after hitting the ground before finally coming to a stop. He groaned, on the edge of consciousness.
A dozen tables had been set up in the main warehouse to form a sort of dust-processing assembly line. Boxes filled with baggies containing the colorful powder were stacked on a table farther into the room, with a station for cutting the dust with razors and mixing it with various liquids in bottles on other tables, a drying table, and a final table to cut and pack the final product into plastic bags.
James almost admired the efficiency of the whole operation.
The large number of men who normally worked the stations now crouched or stood behind other overturned tables, crates, boxes, and even the dusty remnants of a crane in the corner, all armed with a rifle, shotgun, or pistol. Even SWAT or AET teams would be threatened by the show of force.
James stepped forward and cracked his knuckles. “You haven’t fired yet. Good. That means you aren’t total fucking dumbasses. If you surrender right now, maybe you’ll live through this. Otherwise, no fucking guarantees, assholes.”
The seconds ticked by, with James convinced the fight was already over. He was disappointed.
“Smoke his ass!” screamed one of the thugs.
Hot lead blasted from across the room. Bullet after bullet struck James and bounced off. His already damaged shirt was reduced to a few scraps of fabric, and his pants were now more appropriate for a fashion-forward punk rocker than a barbeque-loving bounty hunter.
The sustained volleys stung slightly, but they hadn’t pierced his skin—or if they had, Whispy was regenerating so quickly that James didn’t even notice.
Engage stronger enemies for maximum adaptation, Whispy suggested.
James roared and charged toward the nearest gunmen. The buzz of stun rifles sounded, blue bolts blasting throughout the warehouse. A few men groaned and dropped to the ground, victims of the stun attack, but their cover had saved the bulk of the thugs.
One of the gunmen went for a grenade on his belt, but he wasn’t fast enough. James backhanded him into another man hard enough that both fell to the ground unconscious.
“Hurry up!” shouted a thug hiding behind an old refrigerator to another unseen man.
James ran in his direction.
A few other thugs dared to duck out from behind their cover to take shots at the rest of the Brownstone bounty hunters. The luckiest thugs only took four stun bolts at one time. Most took more. More than a few thugs experienced a severe failure of their bladder control.
James closed on the refrigerator, which was chugging along at a good but leisurely pace.
A thug jumped from behind the old appliance with an RPG launcher over his shoulder. “Suck on this, bitch.”
At least it’s not some CIA shit.
The RPG roared away from the launcher. James broke into a sprint, not even trying to dodge. The projectile exploded against him, blinding him for a second and leaving a few minor cuts and burns over his body as well as minor pain, but all of the wounds started to heal immediately. The amulet was fully exposed now.
James growled more for effect than out of anger as he yanked the launcher out of the thug’s hand and batted the man away with it. The bounty hunter spun and slammed his makeshift weapon into the stomach of another man. The second thug collapsed to the ground, clutching his stomach and coughing up blood.
“Shouldn’t give me anything this heavy and large to hit you with.” James picked the man up and threw him into another group of thugs nearby, knocking them over like bowling pins.
Several dropped their weapons and ran, deep panic on their faces. The bounty hunters nailed most of them with their stun rifles, but a few of the criminals made it out the back door.
James rounded on the ones who were making a last stand.
Got to give them credit for keeping it up after everything they just saw.
One thug kept firing while screaming at the top of his lungs. Another man shook the entire time but managed to keep pulling the trigger. A few others stood there with resigned looks on their faces a
s they fired their rounds.
The bounty hunter didn’t charge them. Instead, he slowed, taking careful steps and growling the entire time. The thugs kept shooting.
Blue stun bolts came from either side of James and sent the men to the floor.
He looked around for more thugs, but everyone in the main warehouse floor lay on the ground, unconscious or groaning.
Ethan and several others surged toward the back, rushing after the escapees.
“Don’t bother!” Maria shouted. “The OGs will clean that shit up.” She gestured around the room. “Secure all the existing prisoners. We have to sweep the warehouse for holdouts.”
Ethan shouldered his rifle and whistled. “Was that for real?”
Maria knelt by a bounty and secured his hands. “What do you mean?”
The rookie bounty hunter pointed at James. “He took a missile from a rocket launcher, for fuck’s sake.”
“Technically, it was a rocket-propelled grenade. Slightly different.”
James chuckled. He was a little charred, but not in any pain anymore.
Find and engage stronger enemies for maximum adaptation, Whispy insisted.
Ethan’s gaze rested on the amulet half-sunken into James’ now-exposed chest, the tendrils under his skin obvious.
“You’re not just a badass,” Ethan observed. “You’re a force of nature.” He pointed at the amulet. “We going to get one of those eventually?”
James shook his head. “Trust me, you don’t want one. They’re annoying most of the time.”
Maria grinned at Ethan. “That doesn’t mean you can’t work your way up to some nice artifacts. Trey can almost solo level fours now.”
Ethan blinked. “Really? And he went from guys like this to that?”
“Yeah.” James shrugged. “Everyone’s got to start somewhere.”
7
Shay took a sip of her wet martini. “You keep asking James to do shit like that, he’s gonna get a big head. I know he’s a badass, but at least he’s not insufferable about it.” She took a moment to check around the crowd in the Black Sun. Tonight’s group was more upscale, mostly higher-class criminals in suits and nice dresses, fashionable underworld types rather than gang members or street hustlers.
I used to worry in a crowd like this. Now I wouldn’t care if an entire group of cartel enforcers came in.
Maria gulped some beer from her bottle. “It was good for the guys. And it’s Brownstone. Sure, he can change, but he’s not exactly the kind of guy who’s going to become a diva over beating minor dust dealers down. That’s like an NBA player getting more arrogant because he can dunk over junior high kids.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Shay laughed. “Maybe I should have come along, too.”
“No offense, Shay, but you’re great when someone needs their ass kicked, not so great when you need a lot of people alive afterward.” Maria shrugged. “We were looking for powerful, inspirational, and non-lethal.”
Shay shrugged back. “Can’t claim I’m always good at not killing people. Inspirational? Seeing James beat down thugs is inspirational? I would have figured seeing him do that sort of thing would convince the regular guys they were kidding themselves about what it means to be a bounty hunter. It’d be like they couldn’t reach him or shit like that. I don’t know. I just have Peyton and Lily, not some huge staff I have to worry about.”
“No, you have to think like a guy.” Maria set her bottle on the table and gestured to a passing man. “When they see a badass, a lot of them instantly imagine themselves as that badass. It’s all inspirational. I used to see it all the time in the LAPD: leadership by example. A good alpha male can be very inspiring, as long as he’s not a dick otherwise. Brownstone might not exactly be the master of social niceties or subtlety, but he gives a shit about his job and his people. The men sense that, so when they see him also being badass, it inspires them. They don’t resent him or themselves; they just want to be like him.”
“Huh. Makes sense.” Shay sighed. “Just keep me in mind. I have to live with him, but you’re right. I haven’t heard him say anything about it.”
“Hey, I accepted that Brownstone was a ridiculous badass a long time ago. You can’t fight reality, and since you’re marrying him, you should as well.” She looked over her shoulder. “Where is your fiancé, anyway? When you texted me to come out for a drink, I assumed he’d be coming along. There aren’t any level fours or fives in town, and he had his fun the other day.”
“He’s having a daddy-daughter-night thing with Alison. They’re out playing mini-golf, actually.” Shay smiled.
When she’d met James, he had been so closed off. The only living things he had given a damn about were his priest, the kids in the orphanage, and his first dog, and the Harriken had killed his pet. It had been like he was a bounty hunting machine, barely existing, and his one reason to care about getting up each day had been taken from him.
While Shay would have liked to have claimed credit for awakening the man within, in truth, Alison’s love had opened the door. Shay had just stepped through it later.
I’m pretty sure I fell hard for him before he did for me, but I have him now, and we both have a lot of reasons to get up in the morning.
“Mini-golf? That’s surprisingly non-lethal and non-dangerous sounding.” Maria furrowed her brow. “It’s not like explosive mini-golf or something like that?”
“Nope. Just standard-issue putt-putt mini-golf. Alison’s actually halfway decent at it.”
Maria nodded. “She doing that magic pulse trick? You know, like she does when she runs the obstacle course?”
“Yeah, same basic idea. She wouldn’t be able to pull it off at long range for normal golf, but mini-golf is just close enough that it works. We’ve gone a few times this summer.”
“I’m less surprised by a blind girl going mini-golfing than I am by James Brownstone doing it.” Maria’s face scrunched in concentration, and she laughed. “I can see him threatening an obstacle blocking him.”
Shay laughed hard and hit the table. A few people looked her way with frowns.
“He totally does!” she replied. “The last time we all went together, he was all like, ‘I will fucking end you if you block this shot, you asshole windmill.’”
Maria chuckled. “What happened after that?”
“He got a hole in one.”
“Of course, he did.”
Shay nodded. “Anyway, I actually suggested James take her. She loves it when they do cutesy shit together, but she’s not always forceful enough, and she doesn’t make it clear what she wants. She thinks she’s training him to be more thoughtful, but even if she can see into his soul, I think she overestimates how quickly he can pick up emotional cues.” She sighed. “But it’s not like he’s not thoughtful. If anything, he can be too thoughtful.”
“Too thoughtful?” Maria raised her eyebrows in question.
“Yes. Because he’s clueless about women or girls in a lot of ways, he ends up focusing on the wrong stuff. I made him sweat with the proposal, but the truth is, the best strategy when you’re dealing with him is to just be straightforward. Once he has a clearly defined target, he knows how to handle it.” Shay shrugged. “And he handles it well.”
“And is that what you did? Just told him to take Alison out to mini-golf because she’d like it?”
Shay grinned. “Well, I’ve found that I can often get James to do certain shit on his own in the future if I frame it a certain way.”
“And how did you frame it this time?”
“I gave him a big line about how it’ll help her judge distances better in case she ever needs to throw a grenade.”
Maria laughed. “I think he forgets she’s a teenage girl at times.”
“No, he never forgets that. Just ask him about her boyfriend sometime.” Shay held up a finger. “The problem is that he doesn’t really distinguish between what a grown bounty hunter male should do versus a teenage girl. To be fair, though, neither
do I. I was doing nasty stuff when I was her age, so it only seems natural for us to train her.”
“You’re the weirdest family I’ve ever known, but somehow you make perfect sense together.”
“Yeah. We do.” Shay set her drink down and shrugged. “I’m also not sure which of them misses the other more when she’s off at school. That girl’s lucky.”
“Um, aren’t you lucky, too?” Maria eyed Shay. “You’re marrying him.” She gestured to the jade ring.
“Yeah, but…that’s different.” Shay sighed and shook her head. “I’ve told you about my shitty childhood. Hell, I just alluded to it. We both know what that led to. I’m not gonna apologize for my earlier life, but I’m not gonna pretend I’m all that proud of it either.”
Maria’s face tightened and she gave a shallow nod.
“And I didn’t even have any magic,” Shay continued. “Imagine if Alison had gone through all that shit without James. If she’d even survived the Harriken, her powers might have awakened in a vicious way.” Shay stared into her glass. “She might have found out she had a talent for killing and enjoyed it, but instead, she found James, and she’s happy. She’s got friends like a normal teenager, even if they are all magical, and she goes to a magic school. All thanks to James.”
Maria frowned. “Hey, don’t discount your part in this. You’ve known her basically as long as James, and you helped deal with the Harriken, too. I know you’ve been trying to resist it, but that girl sees you as her new mother.”
“Yeah, but it’s because of him that we have any connection.” Shay shook her head. “Don’t tell him I told you this, because again, he doesn’t need a big head, but I’m not sure I’d be this…normal if it wasn’t for him. I’d probably be barely better than I was when I first left my old job.”
“I don’t believe that.” Maria crossed her arms. “You’d left your old job before you met him. You already knew it was a dead-end.”
“And I was just marking time until I could retire away from people. I didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything.” Shay shook her head. “I just didn’t want to die in my kitchen, murdered by my own friends.”
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