She waved her hands. “No, no, no. You’re misinterpreting me. I’m only doing the hands-up thing because I didn’t want to start a fight that would damage your home and piss either of you off. You both could probably kill me if you tried hard enough, just maybe not with those weapons. Let’s be real, James. Can I call you, James? Anyway, if you got serious, I don’t know if anyone on this planet could win against you.” She smiled at Shay. “Can I lower my arms now? This is kind of annoying.” She nodded toward the couch. “And that looks really comfy, and I’m sure you’re not enjoying standing there ready to kill me, being preggers and all.”
Shay locked eyes with the other woman. After a second, she jerked her gun toward the couch. “Fine. Take a seat. Do anything sudden, you die.”
“You sure?” James asked, focused on the auburn-haired intruder.
“Yeah. Call it a killer mother’s instinct.” When Shay muttered something under her breath, her silver glow dissipated and the fire surrounding the dagger died out. “Thomas, get out of the chair, you sleepy old dog.”
The dog perked up and bounded out, barking once, his tail wagging before walking over to sniff the red-haired woman’s legs and feet.
“I’m Harper, by the way,” the woman offered. She leaned over to scratch Thomas behind the ears. His tailed pounded on the floor before he wandered off to go drink from his bowl.
James pulled his hand out of his shirt, confused but willing to trust his wife’s judgment. He didn’t sit. Even without bonding Whispy, he could close the distance and knock Harper into the kitchen with ease. Her confidence suggested some sort of magical defense, but he didn’t need to kill her on the first attack, just distract her long enough for Shay to reactivate her defenses.
Harper rubbed her hands together. “Wow. Tense, am I right?” She chuckled. “Sorry about all that. I have to say, I wouldn’t be able to get out a gun and knife that quickly if I were ready to pop. Say, before we get into things, do you have any tea?”
“Do we look fucking English to you?” James rumbled.
“Americans drink tea, too,” Harper replied with a faint pout.
“Who the fuck are you?” James demanded.
“Weren’t you listening? I’m Harper.”
“I know what your name is, but I don’t know why the fuck you’re in my house.” James narrowed his eyes. “If you’re some stalker fangirl, don’t think I’m not calling the cops and getting your ass tossed in jail.”
“Stalker fangirl?” Harper laughed, the sound light and breezy. She might be easy to like if she wasn’t breaking into people’s houses. “I appreciate your talents, James, but I’m not really the fangirl type.”
“Then answer the question,” Shay suggested. “Before we get more irritated than we already are or kill you anyway.”
“I’m a magical courier.” Harper scrunched her forehead and put a finger on her bottom lip. “I should be clearer. I’m not a magical courier. I’m a normal human courier who specializes in transporting magical things. In a previous life, when I used to do a little tomb raiding, I got my hands on some magical dampening artifacts. They’ve helped me carve out a bit of a niche in unstable-magic-type jobs. I’m a little different than a lot of high-value magical couriers because I’m always well aware of what I’m carrying since I need to know so I can safely transport it.”
“A courier?” James folded his arms. “You’re supposed to be delivering something to me? I didn’t order anything.”
Did Nadina send her? I don’t want to eat any meat that would require a special magical dampening courier to transport it.
Harper shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s more that I need your help on a job. I know you’ve helped high-value couriers in the past, and I figured, ‘Hey, I’m in a bit of a jam. Why not go find the Granite Ghost and get him to help?’”
James grunted. “I don’t work for fucking Andercarr or UPS. Yeah, I’ve helped couriers in the past, because I was doing a favor for close friends. I barely do bounties anymore, and you think you can bust into my house and ask me to help you? You should kick your dust habit if you’re gonna walk around high all the time.”
Harper placed her palms together with a pleading look on her face. “A teensy-weensy problem is all. My fancy magical dampening artifacts don’t mean anything when it comes to excessive conventional threats or normal accidents. There was a little problem when I was flying, and it went down in Central Texas with some cargo. Some very dangerous cargo. Magical, if that’s not obvious, and I need your help to handle it.”
James shrugged. “So? Why should I care? Shouldn’t you contact the PDA or FEMA about it?”
She sucked in a breath, discomfort on her face. “Yeah, I totally get where you’re coming from, but I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“The problem is, when I looked into things a bit more following the accident, I learned the people I was carrying the artifact for aren’t the nicest. If I go to the authorities about this, I’m likely to end up in tiny little pieces.” She pointed at her cheeks with both hands. “And when you’re this adorable, that’s a real waste.”
Shay rolled her eyes. “Who’s the client?”
Harper eyed Shay, her gaze calculating. “The Southguards.”
Shay barked out a laugh. “Yeah, you’re fucked. There won’t even be pieces left of you when they’re done.”
“I know, right?” Harper sighed.
“Who the fuck are the Southguards?” James rumbled.
“Powerful family,” Shay explained. “They’ve been trying to collect artifacts for centuries, and did a halfway decent job, even back when people like the Griffins were still sniffing around. The Southguards themselves aren’t magicals, but they are completely ruthless and willing to use artifacts to secure their power. They don’t think anything of killing whoever gets in their way. They’re actually a little pissed that the gates started opening again because their artifact collection meant they had some parity with magicals.”
James frowned at Harper. “Don’t you normally check on who you’re working for?”
Harper let out a little giggle. Her innocent act was starting to grate. “It kind of helps me sleep at night if I don’t know all the dirty details of who I’m working for. You know, money is money, right? Bad people are going to get certain things anyway, so why shouldn’t I earn a few dollars helping them? At least I’m not a total piece of trash, and I won’t use my personal money to hurt people, so really I’m kind of laundering their money from bad purposes to neutral.” She nodded with a satisfied smile.
Shay remained silent, her mouth pressed into a thin line.
“You still haven’t explained why I should give a shit.” James folded his arms. “I don’t rescue people from their own mistakes without a good reason, and you sound like a piece of shit.”
Harper gasped. “That’s so unfair, James. I’m not a bad person. I’m just not a good person. And this isn’t just about me. The artifacts I lost could hurt innocent people. Don’t you care about them?”
“All the more reason to call the PDA.”
“The Southguards have contacts in the government. I don’t even know who I could trust. If we get them involved, there’s no guarantee Southguard agents won’t collect those artifacts before the PDA shows up, so then I die, the bad guys get the goods, and innocent people are still hurt. That’s lose-lose for Team Cute Courier.”
“I so want to stab you in the eye right now,” Shay muttered.
“Hormones, am I right?”
“How do you go through life not getting slapped every five minutes?” Shay asked.
“Oh, don’t be a hater.” Harper winked. “We hot chicks have to stick together.”
James let a low, long growl. Thomas whimpered and ran upstairs.
“Now you made me scare my dog, and I’m trying to figure out why you’re stupid enough to explain that you’re a piece of shit, and why I should care if you die. I’m not a merc for hire, and I doubt these artifac
ts you lost are that big a deal.”
Harper sighed. “They kind of are.” She looked at Shay. “You’re a professor who studies this kind of thing. You ever heard of the Seasons of Rage?”
Shay grimaced, then gasped. “You’re shitting me. You were transporting those? Are you insane?”
“What are the Seasons of Rage?” James dropped his arms and creased his brow in worry. Shay being spooked wasn’t a good sign.
“A series of different synergistically-interacting artifacts.” Shay pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “I’ve only ever read the legends about them. They’re Oriceran, from the Great War. They were lost after the end of the war. Individually, they aren’t a big deal, but if you put all of them together, they basically produce a magical war factory. The legends say they can create an endless number of magical soldiers. Entire kingdoms have fallen to the artifact’s creations.”
Harper bobbed her head. “Yeppers. That’s the deal, and they kind of are on and already making soldiers. I was attacked on-site by some generated soldiers after they activated automatically when my dampening was disrupted. The only thing we have going for us is the lower level of magic on Earth and a few preparations by yours truly. Otherwise, you know, Texas would be kind of screwed.”
James pointed at her hands. “Those rings are artifacts? Enough that you weren’t afraid of our guns or Shay’s knife.”
Harper nodded and then tugged on the collar of her sweater. “This too.”
“And you couldn’t win?”
“Somehow, the stupid soldiers are adaptive.” Harper waved her hands in front of her chest. “I have no idea how it works, but for most of my artifacts, even my nullifiers failed pretty quickly.” She threaded her fingers again, her eyes wide and her bottom lip out. “Come on, James. I need your help. If the Seasons find a way to tap into a kemana or something, it’s going to start popping out serious trouble, and then it’ll be a Great War starting in Texas. We don’t have a lot of time. I’ve set up a few artifacts in the area to try to slow it, but it’s only a matter of time before it adjusts to those as well.”
Shit. Adaptive magic? That’s even worse than what I have.
“Why didn’t you just run and hide?” Shay asked, a curious look in her eyes. “The PDA and military would eventually get involved. The Seasons are powerful, but even if they’re adaptive, they can be defeated. The Oricerans did it before. They were just too dumb to destroy them. Or too greedy.”
“It’s like I said earlier. I might not be a good person, but I’m not a bad person. I simply have a little moral flexibility. This is professionally embarrassing too, and I’m not going to let a bunch of people die while I go hide. Even I have my limits, and once I realized it was the Southguards, I couldn’t bring myself to let them have it.”
James shook his head. “But your moral flexibility means you still won’t risk going to the PDA?”
“A girl’s got to keep breathing, right? No offense. I don’t want anyone else to die, but I don’t want to either.” Harper smiled, an almost playful joy in her eyes. “I just need you to be the muscle. I can kill the entire factory with the Eye of Winter, which is kind of the failsafe device. I can take it to the central core of the little base the Seasons have made and end this all, but there’s no way I can make it there alive without your help. And before you say something like, ‘Why not just give it to me?’ this girl needs a little insurance. Since I’m kind of sort of doing the right thing, I don’t want to end up in jail or dead. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Yeah, this is all about being fair to the mercenary courier who almost delivered a magical war factory to an entire family of evil bastards.” Shay leaned back, weariness on her face. “The plan is, James and you go to Texas. He kicks some magical soldier ass, and you kill the Seasons?”
“Easy-peasy,” Harper replied with a nod. She pointed at James. “As long as I have him. We’ll drive straight there. This will all be over in a couple of days, and the Lone Star state doesn’t become a war zone.”
James furrowed his brow. “I’m not a huge fan of flying, but if this is such a big deal, why not take a plane?”
“Evil rich guys with piles of cash and influence, remember?” Harper rolled her eyes. “Right now, some of those very much bad and not nice people are looking for me because they’re wondering where their missing artifacts are, and they have a lot of money to throw at looking for me. If it weren’t for my artifacts, I’d probably already be dead. If I show up at an airport, it’ll be easier for them to potentially spot me.”
“What about a portal?” Shay suggested.
“If I take off the artifacts that are stopping them from using magic, either from a rental wizard or an artifact, they might be able to track me, and then it’s game over. If they get me, they’ll also get the only halfway decent way to stop the Seasons without blowing up half of Texas once that thing really gets going, or they’ll grab everything and do something dangerous with it later.”
James pointed at Shay’s stomach. “My wife is weeks away from giving birth. I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Even if it involves saving people’s lives?” Harper batted her eyelashes.
Shay groaned. “Do that again in front of me, and I will stab you.”
“Touchy.”
“That said,” Shay continued, “you should go, James.”
“Huh?” He frowned. “You said no road trips.”
She shook her head. “It’ll be annoying if you have to leave in the middle of labor because the government needs you to stop an army of magical soldiers, or they declare martial law after dropping a nuke on Austin to stop the Seasons. If she’s right and these really are the Seasons of Rage, this could get bad.”
“And if she’s wrong?” James asked.
Shay grinned. “Punt her through a window.”
Harper made a gagging sound. “You two are so messed up.” She stopped and sidled over to James, extending her hand. “How about it, James? I need you. Texas needs you. The country needs you. And maybe the planet needs you.”
James shook her hand. “I’m only doing this because I don’t want to have to worry about it later.”
Harper clapped once. “Great! I would really suggest we keep this between the three of us. The more people we involve, the more danger there is to all of us. I’ve already taken extraordinary measures to get here without the Southguards tracking me down.”
“One last road trip it is,” James rumbled.
“Okay.” Harper skipped to the door with a joyful smile. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow morning? Aren’t we on the clock?“
“Yeah, but I’ve got to lay down a few more trails for the Southguards,” Harper explained. “If they catch up with us, it’ll end up being too complicated because they can bring a whole army of goons. They’re sniffing closer than I would like, but I’ve got a nice, secure rental Toyota for the trip.”
“A Toyota? Why aren’t we taking my truck?”
“Because it’s kind of famous. Duh.”
Harper gestured toward the door. “Every time you go somewhere, you make too much noise, so we’re going to try to keep this on the down-low, okay?”
It made perfect sense once she said it, but he still didn’t like the idea of taking a road trip in another vehicle. A quick job to beat down someone in his own city was one thing, but it almost felt like he was cheating on his truck.
“But I don’t want to make a road-trip in a Toyota,” James mumbled.
Chapter Eleven
Shay glanced at her watch. “Harper should be here in a few minutes.”
James finished checking the pockets of another gray coat grabbed from the closet. There was plenty of ammo for the .45, along with more than enough Shay treats if he needed them. He didn’t care about bringing anything but a single change of clothes. His plan was to drive straight through and finish the job as fast as possible.
“There’s something I want you to hav
e. Wait here.” Shay disappeared into the bedroom and reappeared with a small clear rock. She held it out in the palm of her hand. “Take this.”
James took the smooth rock and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. “What is it?”
“Single-use portal artifact. Swallow it, then focus on where you want to go, and it’ll open the portal. The portal will stay in place for about ten seconds.”
“Why do I need a portal?”
Shay glowered. “Because that woman, besides being annoying as fuck, is trouble. The minute you’ve cleaned up her mess for her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to steal everything but your belt buckle and leave you for dead.”
“I can handle trouble.” James grunted. “And if she thinks she can win against me because of a few magical dampening artifacts, she can have a discussion in Hell with Jonathan about how that shit doesn’t work on me.”
Shay folded her arms and gave him a stern look. “I’m your very pregnant wife, and I demand that you take the damned portal stone. If this somehow goes badly, I don’t want to have to go on a bloody vengeance spree right after giving birth. I haven’t tried it before, but I can only imagine it’s hard to shoot at people when you’re breastfeeding.”
“You could have Maria watch the kid while you get your revenge,” James suggested. He lifted his hands at Shay’s angry glare. “It’s fine. I’ve got it. I’ll use it if I need it.” He tucked the artifact into a pocket.
A boring gray Toyota sedan pulled into the driveway. The tinted windows denied a look at Harper at the wheel. She honked twice.
Shay leaned in to give James a soft kiss. “Save the world. At least save Texas.”
“I’ve got to save Texas. It’d hurt the barbeque world too much to lose them.”
Harper drummed her fingers on the wheel as they joined a HOV lane on I-10 east. “Thanks, James. You’re a real peach. I won’t lie to you; I thought about just ducking out on all this, but that seems like a real bitch move.”
Road Trip: BBQ Delivered with Attitude (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 20) Page 9