The Unbelievable Mr Brownstone Omnibus

by Michael Anderle

  James shook his head. “I’m not letting you fucking poison me.”

  Shay put her thumb and forefinger together. “Just a little. How will we know if it works otherwise?”

  “I’ll live with the mystery.”

  Shay rolled her eyes. “Until some poison mage kills you.”

  James gave her a broad grin and shook his head. “I’d just kill him before he could do that.”

  Laena frowned down at the kneeling Drow from her throne. “Rise and report.”

  “Yes, My Queen.” The Drow stood. “We’ve verified what happened to the three you sent to Earth. They’re dead.”

  She snorted. “I know that already. What I need to know are the circumstances of their demise. That will influence everything going forward.”

  “The same humans who slew Widowmaker aided Brownstone against the three.” His hands hung loosely at this side, trembling slightly.

  “I see,” she hissed. “They are proving more resourceful than I imagined.” She rubbed her chin. “A failure of imagination perhaps.”

  “We’ve been able to verify that Brownstone himself is quite powerful.” The Drow messenger swallowed. “Although we don’t know the source of his power. Some of the magical signatures in the area are strange. They are like nothing we’ve ever encountered.” His face tensed as if he expected the queen to strike him down.

  Laena did no such thing. Instead, she merely nodded and leaned against the back of her throne. “The human found himself a special trinket, I suspect. We’ve underestimated him, to our loss.”

  “My Queen?” The Drow glanced behind him as if he expected someone else to be there.

  The queen didn’t care if he understood. She would make him understand, and even if he didn’t, he only needed to deliver her words to others.

  “Widowmaker was arrogant and depraved.” Laena flicked her wrist. “It didn’t surprise me that she was defeated, but Zavan and his subordinates lacked her flaws. For them to be defeated proves that Brownstone and his allies are worthy of respect. Continuing to throw more Drow at him on Earth will result in unnecessary sacrifices.” She threw out her arm in a grand gesture.

  The man blinked a few times, confusion written all over his face. “What are we to do, then?”

  Laena shrugged a single shoulder. “Nothing.” She settled back onto her throne.

  “Nothing?”

  “We shall pause.” The queen gave a pained sigh. “This will also resolve our problems with the Light Elves. They keep whining about our efforts on Earth. They are too cowardly to do anything about it at the moment, but if we push them, they may rediscover they have a backbone.” She frowned and shook her head. “We’ve been fortunate that the Fixer hasn’t involved himself in our efforts yet. The more we push, the greater the chance we play to their advantages on Earth.”

  “So we give up?” Something like a defiant frown appeared on the Drow’s face, but he withered under the queen’s glare, and his trembling became more pronounced

  “No,” she barked, her hand still raised and thoughts of magical punishment lingering. “As I said, we pause. This Brownstone might have a powerful trinket and friends, but he’s still human. We’ve let rumors and prophecies push us into hasty action.” She lowered her hand and rested it on her lap. “We’re panicking like short-lived humans when we should be conducting ourselves as proud Drow. We live longer, so we should think long-term.”

  The man swallowed before speaking. “Are you sure this is…a wise course of action? What about the wish?”

  “I doubt they even know about the wish.” Laena nodded. “The more I think about this, the more convinced I become of that. There is no way a human could resist using the wish if they knew about it. Our legacy and future are secure. No matter what strange mutterings have left the mouths of the Seers Oriceran might never suffer a dismal fate, and even if it does, it won’t happen in mere weeks or months.”

  “And what of the Princess?”

  Laena glanced toward several dark-shadow scrying orbs floating in the corner of the room. “James Brownstone has her hidden somewhere that we can’t easily track, which means she’s safe from others who might track her. It’s not like it matters if we wait a few months or a few years. We shall allow the others to go back to their petty day-to-day lives and forget that we even had an interest in them.” She squeezed her hand into a fist. “And then, when they’ve let their guard down, we can track and find the princess. She will leave the protection of Brownstone’s allies, and we shall seize what it ours.”

  James grunted and rose from his chair. “I’m not gonna try and get struck by lightning on purpose.”

  “Are you running away?” Shay snorted.

  “No, I just wanted a sandwich. But that doesn’t change what I just said.”

  Shay rolled her eyes. “I was saying you should build up to that with lower amounts of electricity, not start out with the lightning, you big baby. You’re acting like you don’t even have a Whispering Amulet of Doom.”

  Someone knocked on the door and she tensed, her hand reaching for the gun she didn’t have on her. It was hanging in the holster in the bedroom. Her fingers drifted to her knife’s hilt.

  James stepped over to the couch to pat her on the shoulder. “My house is safe.”

  “Really?” Shay scoffed, shrugged off his hand and stood, her hand still inside her jacket. “Your last house got blown up by a rocket launcher. Kind of hard to forget, even if you don’t have a photographic memory.”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t knock first.” James shrugged, grinning, and went to the door.

  No gangsters or terrorists stood on James’ porch. It was Sergeant Mack. Shay dropped her hand.

  The men shook hands before the cop spoke. “Sorry to bother you.” He glanced at Shay. “Had some stuff I wanted to talk to you about, but I didn’t realize you had company.”

  Shay walked over and kissed James on the cheek. “I need to get going anyway. I still have to do my daily workout.”

  Sergeant Mack frowned. “Don’t leave on my account.”

  “Nah, you’re just a convenient excuse.” She winked and turned to James. “Keep what we were talking about in mind.”

  James grunted and shook his head. “No means no.”

  Shay smirked as she headed into the bedroom to grab her coat and holster and left. Mack remained quiet until the woman had gone out the front and closed the door behind her.

  Mack clucked his tongue. “Don’t let her boss you around, Brownstone. My woman’s always trying to force me into boring-ass things that she likes, and I don’t. A good relationship’s about knowing when to just let the other person be and when you have to push back.” He mimed a pushing motion to emphasize his statement.

  “You don’t know Shay.” James stared at the door, half-convinced she’d kick it down and suggest some new extreme amulet test.

  Mack laughed. “Maybe not, but I know strong-willed women. Men like us need strong women. Normal women can’t keep up with us.”

  James stepped toward the kitchen. “I was about to make a sandwich. Want one?”

  Mack frowned. “Nah. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t like sandwiches?” James stopped.

  The cop shook his head. “Not hungry. It’s got nothing to do with that.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just one of those weird coincidences.” The cop shrugged.

  “Weird coincidences?” James turned around to face Mack.

  “Yeah.” The sergeant glanced toward the closed front door. “There’s a woman who kind of looks like Shay, or maybe younger. She’s been running around doing parkour in the evenings.”

  James nodded slowly. “Nothing wrong with parkour though, right?”

  “Well, not in and of itself, no. But this woman’s been bouncing through a lot of private property and restricted areas. It’s the trespassing, not the parkour, that’s gonna get her in trouble.” He shrugged. “Of course someone has to catch her first, and the way
she’s moving, it’s not like any of us cops are going to pull it off. Even AET can’t move like that.”

  Shit. Shay needs to be more careful, especially since she just got Hall off her back. Wonder if I need to do something about this?

  James grunted, consumed by worry, his appetite gone. “That’s LA for you. All sorts of freaks.”

  “Yeah, the weird thing is, although we’ve got some video from security cameras and that sort of thing, there’s a lot of other videos that have been sent to the station that don’t seem to be from security cameras.” Mack looked to the side for a moment as if he were trying to picture the videos in his mind. “Some from rooftops, so not just random people seeing something weird.”

  “’If you see something, say something’ and all that.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Mack waved a hand and nodded toward the couch. “May I sit? I didn’t come to talk about parkour women. I came to talk about something much more important.”

  “What’s that?” James nodded toward the couch.

  The sergeant sat down. “Barbeque and our team. We need to start talking about equipment, specifically our main pit.”

  James decided to return to his lounge chair now that he’d abandoned the sandwich plan. The chair didn’t fit him like his old favorite did, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about that.

  Thanks, rocket-launcher asshole.

  “What did you have in mind, Mack?” The bounty hunter shifted his body for a few seconds to get comfortable.

  “Something huge.” Mack pointed to the ceiling for a second before dropping his hand. “We need to show these fools that PFW is here to represent barbeque.”

  James nodded. “Yeah, and how do we do this?”

  “Like I said, something huge. Something that shows we aren’t afraid of anything.” He pointed to himself and then James.

  The bounty hunter gave him a quick nod. “I can get behind huge barbeque.”

  Mack grinned. “You know what? We should do a big-rig-sized pit.”

  “A big-rig-sized pit?”

  The cop spread his hands in front of him. “Imagine this, Brownstone. Imagine if we built something so large we would have to use a Kenworth to pull it.”

  “Yeah,” James rumbled, his eyes lighting up at the idea. “That would be fucking badass. We could make the entire county smell our barbeque.”

  James and Mack both laughed.

  The bounty hunter sighed and shook his head. While the rest of his life might have ripped past any possibility of being constrained by his old KISS philosophy, there was no reason barbeque couldn’t.

  “But we need to be practical.” James grunted and shrugged. “We need something my truck can handle. Not like we can always have a big rig around for competitions.”

  Mack sighed and nodded. “Guess you’re right.” He let his head drop against the back of the couch.

  “I’ll figure something out, but I need you to work on finding a good place to store our wood.” James’ gaze flicked toward his secured basement door. Good place for death-dealing tools, not so much for barbeque wood. “A place where we can keep it seasoned right and maintain good humidity. Not like we can make up for that shit once we’ve started cooking.”

  Mack waved a hand. “Don’t worry. I think I already know a place.” He grinned. “Hell, I can toss out my mother-in-law and use the room she’s living in. I won’t miss her.”

  The men shared another laugh.

  “What would your wife say if she heard that?” James wondered.

  “Something pretty loud and foul.” Mack leaned forward to whisper, “Guess it’s a good thing she’s not here. Like I said before, men like us need strong women.”

  “Don’t I know it! Hey, I got a question. You understand women? You understand your wife?”

  Mack sat back up and shook his head. “I’ve been married a hell of a long time, and I don’t think I’ll ever understand any woman, let alone my woman. Not totally.” He reached into his pocket to pull out a piece of paper. “But I do understand barbeque, and I wanted to talk about which boys we might want doing what.”

  James glanced out at the front, thinking about Shay.

  I’ve been trying so hard to understand her, but maybe I never will. Guess I’ll just have to ride this shit out and see what happens. It feels good in the meantime.

  “Let’s do it.”

  3

  James allowed himself to smile as he appreciated the sheen of his polished kitchen counter. Shay might call it OCD, but he insisted it was nothing more than keeping his life simple. Food poisoning didn’t make for a simple day.

  He frowned, thinking over that explanation. He hadn’t had food poisoning that he could remember, which meant every day after his earliest childhood years. Maybe the amulet, even when off, or his alien physiology somehow protected him.

  His phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

  “Hey, Shay,” James answered.

  “So I’m going to be heading off on a job for the Professor soon, but I wanted you to come over to Warehouse Three for a few tests before that.”

  “Tests?” James grimaced. He thought he knew what she was talking about, but maybe he was wrong.

  Shay laughed. “Yeah, concerning your little whispering pal.”

  James grunted. “I don’t think that’ll be very helpful.” He set the phone down and put it on speaker mode. Might as well get in some more polishing while they were chatting.

  “Bullshit, it won’t. Knowing the exact limits of your defenses means you can kick ass in a more tactically-sound way.”

  “I don’t put that much thought into it.” He grabbed his rag and spray bottle to head to the other end of the counter. “I kick ass and ask questions later.”

  James could almost hear the eye roll over the phone. “Sure, James. Sure. Just get your ass over here. Let me put it another way. I don’t want to have to worry about your ass when I’m out on a job. I don’t know if I can pull off getting my ass teleported back from overseas next time you’re in trouble.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll come over soon. I’ve just got some shit to take care of.” He squirted the bottle a few times and set it to the side.

  Shay snickered. “Let me guess, you’re polishing your already-ridiculously-clean counter, and you’re going to dust a bunch of shit like a sixty-year-old Victorian maid.”

  “I’ve got some cleaning to do, yeah.” James grunted and rubbed the rag on the counter.

  “Just hurry it along there, Mr. Maid. See you soon.” Shay hung up.

  James frowned at the phone, then put his rag down, retrieved a pair of earbuds, placed them in, and started up a new podcast. It was Grilling Satori, which was focused on yakiniku. His first love would always be American barbeque, but his jaunt to Japan had opened his eyes to other grilled meat possibilities.

  James reached for his rag as his phone rang again.

  “Hold your damned horses, Shay.”

  When he pulled the phone out of his pocket, he chuckled. It was Alison, the other bossy woman in his life.

  “Hey, kid, what’s up?” James adjusted the phone so he could hear better.

  “Hey, Dad. Just excited to be coming home soon.”

  James eyed the rag and decided to devote his full attention to talking to his daughter. “Regret taking on the special project?”

  “No, no. Just it’s been too long.” Alison let out a wistful sigh. “Two weeks, and then we can spend most of the summer together.”

  James smiled. “Yeah, sounds good. I’ve been looking into concerts and sh…stuff we can go to together.”

  Alison let out a contented sigh. “Plus, if I’m there maybe I can keep you out of trouble.”

  “Out of trouble?” James stepped out of the kitchen so the rag wouldn’t tempt him.

  “I’m still upset about what happened with those Drow.”

  “It’s fine, Alison. They’re dead now, and with the AET and the consulate looking into things I doubt the Drow will try anything
anytime soon.”

  James grunted and glanced at his door. Never knew when some magical asshole might kick it open.

  “It’s not just the Drow, though.” She muttered something under her breath about kicking dark elf butt.

  “What?” James dropped back into his lounge chair. “The Drow were the big deal.”

  “That stuff in Las Vegas, too. That was important.”

  “What about it? That wasn’t anything special, just a level four.” His hands itched to do something. He hadn’t realized he was so obsessed with multi-tasking.

  “But I also know you didn’t have your amulet.”

  James grunted. Shay must have passed that little piece of information about his confrontation with the Red-Eyes Killer along. Even though he’d brought up the existence of the amulet with the girl previously, he still wasn’t sure if he felt comfortable with her knowing about it. It was just more crap the poor teenager had to worry about.

  Still, it wasn’t like he’d be able to keep many secrets from her. If she started asking too many questions when they were in the same room together during the summer, it’d only be a matter of time before she pushed and found out about his alien origin.

  What the fuck am I so afraid of? Alison’s half-Drow. It’s not like she’s gonna be that freaked that her new dad isn’t human.

  “I didn’t need my amulet for a level four, and I had a healing potion with me,” James rumbled.

  “A healing potion isn’t going to do anything if you’re dead,” Alison snapped. “I read about that Red-Eyes Killer online. He was cutting people’s heads off.”

  Yeah, and then I cut his head off.

  James smirked and extended his footrest. Might as well get comfortable. “I took him out okay.”

  “And you got lucky with the Drow because you knew they were coming. If they had ambushed you at home or something without your amulet you’d be dead.”

  James grunted. “Like I said, they weren’t a problem.”