He was no closer to finding his dog, though. It was time for stop four.
Lachlan, one of Trey’s newest recruits, pushed off the wall and headed toward his leader.
“Did you see that sweet-ass shit he was driving?” Lachlan said.
Trey shrugged. “It’s a truck. It’s sweet, sure, but it’s still just an old truck.”
“No, it’s a classic Ford F-350. That shit is old-school, and like you said, it was sweet. I mean, every time I seen one, they all fucked up and dented and shit.” Lachlan patted the Glock resting in the waistband of the back of his pants. “Why didn’t we carjack that lame-ass motherfucker and take his sweet-ass truck? Bitch comes over here crying over his dog? Since when are we the damn pound?”
Every other gangbanger stopped chatting and stared at Lachlan like he’d pissed on their mothers. Several glared openly. One even had his hand on the handle of his gun.
Lachlan blinked. “What? Who is that motherfucker? He connected, or some shit? ‘Mr. Brownstone?’ Sounds like some bitch algebra teacher.”
Trey slapped Lachlan upside the head. “That’s the motherfucking Granite Ghost, home-bitch! James Brownstone. You do not want to be fucking with James Brownstone unless you’ve got a death wish.”
Lachlan swallowed, doing his best not to tremble in front of his gang brothers. “Wait, that shit ain’t real. That’s just a story. They ain’t no such thing as the Granite Ghost.”
Trey looked up toward his great-grandma, who was staring down at him from heaven, to ask her for just a little fucking patience. He looked back at Lachlan. “He’s the real-fucking-deal, dumbass. He takes down major bounties, man. Human, non-human, magical, or whatever. The guy’s a living tank. I wouldn’t be surprised if the government drops him into foreign countries to clear out terrorists and shit.” Trey shook his head. “They say he’s human, but no one really knows, man.”
“My cousin Marco,” yelled another gang member, “he told me how Brownstone’s some sort of magic gargoyle or some shit the Pope brought to life to fight demons. It’s the Apocalypse, motherfucker, and the Vatican ain’t playing.”
Another man scoffed. “I don’t know about that, but a smart guy I know from Arleta told me that they drained a bunch of blood out of Light Elves and like injected it into him as part of some Army experiment. Like Captain-Fucking-America but with magic, right?”
“Nah, man,” another gangbanger spoke up. “That ain’t it. He was like this dude, just minding his own business, and some guy robbed and shot him. They said he was so pissed that when he got to hell, Satan let him come back and wreak vengeance. They say if he reaps like 666 sinners’ souls he gets to go to heaven, and that’s why he started bounty hunting.”
Lachlan scoffed. “That’s bullshit. None of that’s true.”
Trey tapped his ears. “We got motherfucking Elves casting spells and shit now. My mom knows a motherfucking Witch, and you saying James ain’t a gargoyle or a ghost? Who gives a fuck? You know what’s true? He kicks ass.” He gestured in the direction James had driven. “Two Harriken got their ass beat by him. He smashed one dude into the wall.”
“If he’s so tough, why can’t he find his dog?”
“He’s tough, motherfucker.” Trey shook his head, tossing another prayer to his great-grandma. “Not a damn psychic.”
“So what if he got lucky against some sword freaks? That don’t prove shit.”
Trey fished his phone out of his pocket. “Mr. Brownstone let me keep this video, as long as I didn’t put it up on the net.” He tapped around on his phone for few moments, then held it up. “Seeing’s believing, motherfucker.”
A half-dozen bikers surrounded James in a parking lot. A couple of them rushed at him and two quick punches sent them flying out of frame, a distance of easily ten feet. A flurry of punches and kicks followed, each ending with either a biker knocked clean out of the viewing frame or smashed into the ground with disturbing force. The short clip ended with James punting one of the larger bikers from the parking lot through a window fifteen feet away.
Lachlan winced. “Fuck.”
“You still want to jack his ride, bitch?” Trey asked with a sneer.
The other guy shook his head.
Trey slipped his phone back into his pocket. “If Mr. Brownstone is looking for you, just go talk to him. If you run, he will kick your ass extra-hard for making him work. If it ain’t a bounty he’s after, he doesn’t care what you do...unless you do something to his friends. And if you have?” He shook his head. “Just walk into the police department and surrender. At least then there will be bars between you and him, unless you want to be his latest football.”
Lachlan swallowed and fell to his knees, shaking. He’d almost pulled a gun when Brownstone was talking to his leader. He’d thought it’d be a great way to prove he wasn’t a pussy.
He hadn’t realized how close he’d come to death.
“That’s right.” Trey wore a satisfied grin. “No one smart fucks with Mr. Brownstone.”
4
The small light-blue house looked like any other ranch-style home on the palm-lined street. It could have easily been one of thousands of houses in the greater metro area.
James could almost admire that. Being unobtrusive was one of the best ways not to get killed.
He snorted.
Not that he’d been all that shy lately.
James pulled his Ford into the driveway, taking several deep breaths. A faint feeling tugged at the edge of his awareness, most likely some sort of security spell. He wasn’t doing a raid so he wasn’t worried, but that meant the woman inside the house knew he was coming and would be ready for him in a far more annoying way.
Hell, given the occupant, James would have preferred to have just been shot at.
That only fed into the bounty hunter’s existing irritation, the main feeling fueling him. James had spent hours looking for Leeroy, with no damn success. Maybe if he’d found his dog, he would have been less pissed at having to drive all the way out to Pasadena.
James sucked in a deep breath. With a potential big job coming up, he didn’t have much choice. As much as he didn’t trust magic, sometimes it kept things simpler—especially when all you had to do was drink something.
“Damn potions,” James muttered, throwing open the door of his truck.
Being unprepared in this world meant signing your death warrant, and he had a lot of ass to kick before he could take the long dirt nap.
James checked his phone again, just in case he’d somehow hallucinated the earlier text from Smite-Williams.
Got the info. Job is a go. Come by the Leanan Sídhe tonight, if you’re interested. This is time-sensitive, and you’ll be working under someone else. Show up at 9.
James didn’t care if he had to take a few orders. The Professor wouldn’t set him up with an idiot partner. The guy might be a horrible boozer, but he was whip-smart, knew the right people, and had the best contacts.
A few quick steps brought James to the house’s front door. He raised his fist to knock, but hesitated as his stomach knotted.
Is there any way this won’t be annoying as shit?
The door swung open to reveal a young olive-skinned woman in a thin white silk robe. A sensual smile covered her face, and her long and wild dark hair hung to her waist.
“Hey there, lover,” the woman said. Her words were slurred, and her gray eyes were bloodshot. She twirled a tapered and stoppered translucent glass bottle in her delicate fingers.
“Hey, Zoe,” James said. “Long time no see.”
She motioned him inside. “You didn’t call ahead, you naughty boy.” Her breath reeked of alcohol. Then again, it always did.
“You’re a hard woman to get hold of.” James stepped in. “And when I do, half the time you’re drunk off your shit and babbling gibberish. I never know whether there’s any point in even leaving a message, you know?”
Zoe giggled and shrugged. “Guilty as charged on all counts, Your Honor.�
� She winked. “But come on, James, don’t be like that. The cost of brewing my potions is that I have to make my own little sacrifice to the spirits...of spirits.” She shrugged, and smiled at her joke.
“Yeah, nice excuse for getting smashed all the time.” James grunted. “If you weren’t the best potions maker in Los Angeles I wouldn’t put up with your bullshit, you know.”
She laughed. “Oh, just listen to you. It’s so adorable when you act irritated, and also when you play hard-to-get.”
Potted herbs and flowers covered almost every square inch of the living room, with only a few chairs and a faded brown loveseat breaking up the garden. Thick herbal smells clashed in his nostrils. The individual smells might have been tolerable—or even pleasant—but in combination they made James want to gag.
The witch sashayed past the living room to the dining room, which also played host to a variety of plants, including several hanging from overhead hooks. Most looked normal enough, but several glowed. More than a few tendrils and leaves displayed bright geographical lines and other unexpected patterns.
One had a raised ouroboros glowing on a leaf. James didn’t even want to know what sort of messed-up magical plant it was.
He also doubted Zoe had all the necessary permits for growing non-Earth plants, though she probably cared about that as much as he cared about registering all his magical equipment.
The witch set her blue bottle down on a simple round wooden table in the center of the room, where several other stoppered glass bottles of different sizes and colors rested next to a mortar and pestle. Dozens of stoppered vials filled with different-colored fluids sat in a rack near the side of the table.
Zoe tilted her head and leaned against the table, letting her bare leg slip out of her robe. James ignored the flesh and concentrated on her face.
He didn’t have time for her little games today.
“You know what I’m here for,” James told her. “You still owe me for handling that...whatever the fuck that plant monster was.”
“You’re truly my hero.” Zoe snatched a small vial filled with a dull red liquid from the rack. “Healing.” She grabbed a translucent yellow liquid. “Energy.” She tossed both the vials at the bounty hunter.
James grabbed them out of the air with a frown. After examining them, he slipped them into his jacket packet.
Zoe stumbled, almost crashing into the potion-covered table. She shrugged and smirked. “The Dionysian Way might leave me a little...happy at times, but you can’t argue with the results.” She ran a hand up her robe, lingering on her ample breasts. “You know, there’s other ways to get me to work for you.” She licked her lips. “Much more enjoyable ways than fighting.”
“I’m not gonna fuck you, Zoe, so stop asking.”
She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout. “You’re so mean.”
James frowned. He didn’t get why Zoe insisted on screwing with him so much. There was no way she was truly interested in him.
The bounty hunter held no illusions about the ugly-ass face he’d been cursed with. It was nothing more than a drunken game for the woman—or so he figured.
He wouldn’t deny that she was attractive, but she was about as far from his type as he could imagine, and that was saying something considering he didn’t even know what “his type” was.
“Besides,” James added, “aren’t you a little old for me?”
Zoe sniggered. “Oh, you finally found that out?” She shrugged a single shoulder. “Not that I was trying to hide it.”
“It’s bullshit anyway.” James motioned at her. “You’re a witch. Aren’t you supposed to be ugly?”
Her face scrunched in confusion. “Whyever would that be?”
“You know, shouldn’t you have warts and green skin?”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so last century, James.” She leaned forward, her voice seductive as she said, “I promise you, the carpet matches the drapes. And nothing, and I mean nothing, is green.”
Okay, that was enough. James was done with her shit.
“Thanks for the potions, Zoe.” He pivoted on his heel and headed straight for the front door.
“I’m not the only one with secrets, James,” Zoe called to him.
He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “What are you getting at?”
“Don’t you remember why you first came to me, James?”
James grit his teeth. “Because you’re the best, as fucking irritating as that is.”
Zoe swayed on her feet. “I am, but it’s also because you kept getting hurt during your fun little people-collection job, and all those other potions just weren’t cutting it. But I experimented, and I gave you something that works especially well for you.”
“What of it? This is why I hate a lot of this magic shit. It’s all too complicated. I might not be able to build a gun from scratch, but at least I can tell you how it works.”
“That’s just it,” Zoe said in a sing-song voice. “I don’t even know why it works on you. Just be thankful that it does.”
James threw open her door and stepped outside, then closed the door behind him and spared the house a final glance before heading to his truck. There was only so much drunken rambling a man could take, even from a sexy woman.
Later that night James pushed into the Leanan Sídhe, an old moleskin notebook in hand. He spotted the Professor in a booth in the far back, and a woman with lush dark hair sat beside him. He took long strides until he arrived at the table.
The short woman looked up at him. She wore jeans and a black T-shirt, which hugged an athletic and toned body. She was a little younger than James, he estimated; probably in her upper twenties at most. Then again, for all he knew, she was two hundred and using magic to look younger.
Smite-Williams gestured to the empty seat across from him and James sat down. He took a good look the woman.
She smirked. “Like what you see, big man?”
James shrugged. “Just wondering who you are.”
“Sure, pal.” The woman rolled her eyes. “Keep telling yourself that.”
James had no idea how to react, so he chose to ignore her. He opened his notebook and pulled a pen from his pocket.
In truth, given his photographic memory he didn’t need notes, but he couldn’t risk that some sort of injury or special magical attack might cost him that quality. The notebook represented a nice redundant intelligence source that he could always burn—and later reproduce—if he was in a dangerous situation.
The Professor cleared his throat. “James Brownstone, this is Shay Carson. I’ll tell you her role in this once I explain the job.”
James nodded. He trusted The Professor’s judgment. Shay must obviously have some useful skills for her to even be sitting there.
“And before I can go into the job,” the older man said, “I need to give you a little history lesson.”
“My least-favorite subject,” James muttered.
Shay snorted. “Why am I not surprised?”
The Professor glanced between them and shook his head. “Play nice, you two. You each provide complimentary skills for this job.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, James, are you familiar with the Cartagena Codex?”
James searched his memory as he scribbled down the name. He was familiar enough with South American codices, particularly the Mayan folding books written on barkcloth. The Conquistadors had destroyed most of them, leaving a huge hole in pre-Colombian history. That said, he’d never heard of a Cartagena Codex.
The bounty hunter shook his head. “Nope.”
Shay smirked, and the Professor shot her a harsh look. She shrugged but didn’t say anything.
“It’s a rather recent discovery,” the Professor continued. “From what has been decoded, it was apparently written after the conquest of the Inca Empire by Pizzaro, by what may have been refugees who had resettled in a small surviving Mayan city.”
“The Incas didn’t have a full writing system, you see,” Shay told him. “The Mayan
s did.”
James shrugged. He knew that.
The Professor leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him. “The point is, lad, that unlike most other codices from the early periods, this one wasn’t destroyed. It was transported from its city of origin and eventually ended up hidden in what is now Cartagena, Colombia. And it tells an interesting story.”
“A very interesting story,” Shay added.
James glanced at the woman. Nervous tension radiated from her, like she was desperate to prove something to him.
“A lot of what’s in that codex might not have been believed twenty years ago,” said Smite-Williams. “From what can be deciphered, it tells a story of Pizzaro gaining control of an ancient artifact, a rod that was supposed to be associated with the Inca god Supay, God of Death and the Underworld. His name is also associated with a race of demons, and the codex implies that Pizzaro actually made use of the artifact to summon dark creatures to aid him in fighting Inca forces.”
“Bet they left that out of the reports back to Spain,” James mumbled.
“You’ll love what they were called,” Shay added with a wink.
James shrugged. “All right, what were they called?”
“The closest translation would be ‘corpse-demons that walk again.’”
“Goddamn motherfucking zombies,” James spat. “Why does it have to be zombies?”
“Motherfucking zombies,” Shay echoed.
“Aye, lad, zombies,” the Professor agreed. He grinned. “Now, when you have your ear to the ground like I do, you hear a lot of things, and you can begin to piece disparate things together. Long story short, I have good information on the location of the Rod of Supay.”
James took a deep breath and nodded. The good thing about taking down something like a zombie was that he wouldn’t feel any guilt.
After all, they were already dead.
The Professor nodded toward Shay. “This is where Miss Carson comes in. She’s a field archaeologist with good tactical skills. Considering the nature of this particular mission, that’s a good combination.”
Feared By Hell: The Revelations of Oriceran (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 1) Page 4