Feared By Hell
The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book One
Michael Anderle
FEARED BY HELL (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2018 Michael Anderle
Cover by Ryn Katryn Digital Art
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, April 2018
The Oriceran Universe (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2017-18 by Martha Carr and LMPBN Publishing.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
BBQ Notes - Mike Ross
Recipes From The Fans
Other Revelation of Oriceran Universe Books
Books by Michael Anderle
Connect with Michael Anderle
Feared By Hell
JIT Readers
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Sarah Weir
Peter Manis
Kelly O’Donnell
John Ashmore
Kelly Bowerman
Joshua Ahles
Tim Bischoff
Kim Boyer
Micky Cocker
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If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!
Editor
Lynne Stiegler
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
to Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
to Live the Life We Are
Called.
1
Alison sighed as she walked down the street, then looked down toward the cracks under her feet and chuckled at herself. She couldn’t believe she was going through with this.
She pulled her jean jacket tighter around her to fight off the light breeze. She shivered, unsure whether it was from the weather or concern over her plan for the day. Meeting two strange men who’d been referred to her over the internet didn’t strike her as her brightest idea.
Bright or not, it was unfortunately the only lead she had.
The creepy dude from the internet forum swore up and down that if anyone had gone missing in the area, she needed to contact Denji and Naoko Ishida.
As far as she was concerned, internet forums didn’t provide the safest information very often. Or, well, ever, really, but she didn’t have any reason to think he was setting her up. It wasn’t like she’d told the guy on the internet she was a fifteen-year-old girl.
She wasn’t a complete idiot.
Thanks, Dad. I don’t know what you did to Mom, but you better hope I never catch you.
A red flare in the distance caught her attention. Alison tilted her head in its direction.
Pain. Fear.
Something yelped nearby and she rushed toward the sound, her heart beating hard.
Her trip brought her to a wide drain pipe. Something whimpered in the blackness inside.
Okay, I could reach in there, but what if it’s some sort of shape-shifting clown kid-eater from the other world that snuck over? Can’t trust anything, not with all the magic stuff going on.
At least that was what the more useful tidbits gleaned from the internet had taught her.
Alison sighed and shook her head. The red emotional flare couldn’t be easily faked, since that would require someone to know about her abilities. She reached down the drainpipe and gritted her teeth, hoping nothing would bite her and she wouldn’t encounter slime.
A wet tongue licked her hand. She gasped, then laughed as she leaned in farther. A quick tug later, she’d pulled out one poor scared dog.
The dog started licking her face, and she giggled and tried to dodge the anxious ministrations.
“You’re welcome, boy.” Alison’s hand traced his collar until she found a tag. “And you’re not a stray.” She ran her fingers across the raised letters on the metal tag to figure out who the dog belonged to.
“Annnnnddd here’s your owner.”
The Ishida brothers could wait. A scared dog needed his person.
James rolled up the street in his black Ford F-350 extended-cab. Its gleaming paint could have convinced some people the vehicle was brand new, and not just a well-maintained classic, but he didn’t give a shit either way. He took care of his truck because it took care of him.
Plus, older vehicles were better. They had less crap to hack.
The last thing he wanted to deal with was chasing a bounty only to find out the asshole had used some extender drone to get into his truck and fuck with his brakes.
Which would goddamned suck.
James grunted. If it wasn’t fucking gadgets, it was stupid magic—always something to kill you or make your life even more inconvenient. That was why he kept to the philosophy of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).
Not a lot of ways to screw up punching or stabbing a guy.
Sure, sometimes you had no choice, but when you did, picking something complicated would fuck you almost every time.
Crazy magic artifacts or fancy tech could backfire, blow up, or otherwise make your day—or month for that matter—a total fucking hell.
He spotted a lithe teen girl in a thin jean jacket standing on the sidewalk, a black lab sitting beside her.
Not just any dog… His dog Leeroy.
James slowed his truck and looked around for drones. The lack of drones didn’t prove it wasn’t an ambush, but it cut down on the chance that someone was spying on him. Most of the human criminals had gotten lazy and relied too much on tech—at least those who couldn’t get their hands on Oriceran artifacts or freelance magic practitioners.
Confident he wasn’t going to get shot up, James pulled the truck flush with the curb and rolled down his window.
“Are you James Brownstone?” the girl asked, staring at him.
“Yeah,” he affirmed, his voice low and deep. “And that’s my dog.”
She gestured toward a nearby drain pipe. “He got trapped in there.”
James looked at the pipe and then back to the girl. “And you got him out?”
The girl nodded. “I wasn’t going to let him just stay stuck in there.” She stroked his neck. “Poor guy was terrified.”
James opened his
door and stepped down, or, more accurately, hopped down. The high tires paid for themselves when he needed to go over rough terrain, even if it made a few things more inconvenient.
Leeroy wagged his tail and barked, James opened the back door and patted the seat. The dog tore away from Alison and leapt into the back.
She laughed. “I guess he is your dog. Or he’s just stupid.” She wiped her jacket off.
“Both.” James slammed the door. “Thanks, kid. You got an account? I can transfer you some money as a reward.”
He looked her up and down, trying to judge her age and taking note of the little streaks of dirt Leeroy must have gotten on her.
Kids might as well be some weird-ass monsters from another world. He could never tell if they were ten or sixteen. Her dark hair ended in white tips.
He figured that was more a teenage thing.
“My name’s Alison Anderson,” the girl told him. She bit her lip and sighed. “I don’t need money.”
James shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“I do want something, though.”
He let out a chuckle. People always did.
“What?” he asked.
“I was wondering if you could maybe do a favor for me, since I did a favor for you by calling you about your dog?”
James was starting to like the girl. “Okay, payment in kind—fair enough. What do you have in mind, kid?”
“I’m trying to find my mom. She’s missing.”
He shrugged. “Sorry to hear that. You should go to the cops, then.”
Alison rubbed her shoulder. “I did.”
“And?”
“They asked a few questions and said they’d get back to us.”
James frowned. “Us? As in…”
“My dad and me.” She scowled, making it obvious what she thought of her dad.
James decided to ask anyway. Him and his damned stupid curiosity, and desire to know who the good people were in life. “And what about your dad? What’s he doing about this?”
An uncomfortable look spread over her face. “My dad’s doing his own thing right now.”
And which people were just a big bag of dick tips.
Getting involved in non-bounties was always a pain in the ass, and for all James knew, the girl’s mom was some junkie whore who had run off to avoid paying her dealer or pimp. But in a world going to shit more and more each year, maybe it’d help to reward a kid who’d gone to the trouble of calling him about his missing dog.
That didn’t mean he had to make it easy for the girl.
James stared at her for a moment before cracking a smile. “Finding my dog isn’t worth me tracking down your missing mom, kid. I’m a bounty hunter, and I tackle all types of bounties. I could go find myself some rogue-ass Elf assassin in the time it’d take me to track down your mom, and I’d make a shit-ton more money.”
Alison waved her hands in front of her. “No, no, no. I don’t need you to track my mom down. I just need you to take me to this meeting with these two guys. The Ishidas. They are supposed to know everybody in this area.”
The Ishidas? The name didn’t ring a bell, and James didn’t forget a name.
One perk of a photographic memory.
Alison offered him a bright smile. “All I really need is a quick ride. It saves me having to take a bunch of buses.”
This time he raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious, kid? You’re going to get in a truck with some random guy you just met?”
“I can tell you’re a good guy.”
“How?” he gruffed. Not too many could look at him and not think him ugly—and that was the nicest suggestion.
Alison shrugged noncommittally. “I have my ways.”
James waved his hand at his face. “None of this scares you? I had a guy tell me once he thought I was half ogre.”
He wasn’t. At least he was pretty sure he wasn’t. He assumed someone would have been able to figure that out from a blood test.
“Why? Should it?” Alison narrowed her eyes as if trying to look closer before shrugging. “And I’m pretty sure you’re not a half-ogre, if that’s even a thing.”
James blinked, stepping back. Most people took one look at the mottled patterns and ridges on his face and freaked out. Of course they did.
He was fucking ugly; had a face only a dog could love—and James was pretty sure Leeroy was half-blind, to boot.
Shit, the girl hadn’t even blinked at his voice, which someone once told him sounded like an old jet engine and a steamroller having rough sex.
This normal-ass teen girl didn’t even blink. She was either brave, or desperate. He wanted to reward the former, and keep her from making a mistake if she was the latter.
James nodded toward his truck. “Get in on the passenger side.”
She eyed the truck. “Probably gonna need help, or a ladder.”
“Whatever. Just step forward and I’ll pull you up.”
“An alley?” James said, shaking his head. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? Are you trying to get killed?”
Alison rolled her eyes. “Look, Mr. Brownstone, sometimes you have to dig through garbage when you’ve lost something important.”
“I’m not going to let you meet two guys you heard about on the internet by yourself,” James told her.
“If you show up, they might decide to run.” Alison bit her lip. “Okay, here…just wait around the corner or something. I’ll talk to them, and you will see. Everything will be okay.”
James grunted. This whole thing reeked more by the second. He liked the girl’s spunk, but she was the absolute definition of naïve. “Whatever. Be careful, kid.”
Leeroy whimpered from the back seat.
He reached around and scratched Leeroy behind the ears. “It’ll be okay, boy. This will be over soon.”
Alison opened the door and hopped out of the truck, landing with a little high-pitched grunt. James chuckled and got out on his side.
He waited, watching her look up and down the street before darting across it toward the alley. Information brokers who hung out in alleys didn’t exactly strike him as reputable. The chance that the girl’s mother had run away to avoid her dealer had just gone up.
He grunted and looked at the sky. Why am I here? This shit isn’t even my problem.
Alison entered the alley and James jogged down the street a double handful of steps before crossing. He didn’t want anyone in the alley to spot him. Another quick check for drones spotted a few bright security models hovering in the distance near a store, but the walls on either side of the alley stood tall enough to block line of sight.
The Ishidas had selected their location well…which worried him.
James hurried back to the mouth of the alley, flattening himself against a nearby wall and listening.
He could hear her voice. “I have money,” she offered. “I can pay if you can help me find my mom.”
“So you’re Alison Anderson?” a voice asked. Definitely a thick accent; James was no linguist, but it sounded Japanese to him.
“Yeah, and I need your help to find my mom, Nicole Anderson. I was told you were the men to talk to about that.”
A mocking laugh echoed in the alley.
“Stupid little girl. You’ll come with us now. I’m sure we can find a way for you to make money for our organization—much more than you could pay us.”
James’ stomach tightened. These guys had earned a future ass-kicking right here, right now.
“No, I don’t think so,” Alison said. “I came here to get information on my mom, not get kidnapped by you assholes.”
The sound of a loud smack echoed in the alley, and Alison cried out.
“You will learn to hold your tongue, girl, or I’ll cut it out,” one of the men growled.
James rounded the corner.
He’d had enough of this shit.
Two heavily-tattooed Japanese men in dark suits stood over Alison in the middle of the alley. A scabbard sheathed a Japanese
short sword, a wakizashi, on the belt of each. She knelt on the ground, holding her cheek.
James let out a long sigh. If the men were being this blatant, that meant they had major connections—probably big enough that they didn’t worry about cops. That pointed in only one direction: organized crime.
Japanese organized crime in this part of the city was controlled entirely by one gang: the Harriken.
The Harriken, for when your local Yakuza were too gutless to play.
One of the men looked at James and frowned. “Leave, or you’ll end up covered in your own blood.”
James recognized him as the first speaker and decided his new name was “Cockbite One.” He didn’t give a shit which Ishida he was.
“If I wanted to stay clean,” James said, his guttural and deep voice resonating in the alley, “I wouldn’t have come here to make sure this little girl got home in one piece.” He pointed at Cockbite One. “And you’re already smacking her around?” He scratched an eyelid. “Let’s just say I’m a guy who likes a semi-fair fight. I say ‘semi-fair,’ because you assholes don’t have a chance against me. I’m trying to warn you.”
Cockbite Two laughed and indicated Cockbite One. “Do you know who we are, meatbag?”
“Two guys who love to have their asses kicked? Perhaps closet masochists who get their jollies slapping little girls because they can’t handle a twenty-year-old without whimpering?”
Cockbite One clucked his tongue. “We are Harriken.” He leaned back and grinned.
Feared By Hell: The Revelations of Oriceran (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 1) Page 1