It wasn’t like he was going all-out. He hadn’t bothered to bring any grenades, let alone the necklace.
James grabbed a small protected metal case and slid it into one of his magazine slots.
“What’s that?” Shay asked.
“Two potions, healing and energy. Just in case.”
“Energy?” The field archaeologist’s gaze lingered on the case. “Does that make you bulletproof?”
A heavy question lingered in Shay’s eyes. She’d seen him take direct shots during the Harriken battle and not get hurt. She’d also seen the necklace bond with him. The woman’s sharp mind couldn’t have failed to put some of the pieces together.
James appreciated that she hadn’t asked too many questions. They’d worked together enough that he trusted her, but that didn’t mean he was ready to bare his soul to her. Until he better understood the necklace, he wasn’t going to talk to anyone about it.
“No,” James admitted. “None of the stuff I brought makes me bulletproof. I’m planning to shoot guys before they shoot me.”
“Always a good strategy.”
“Do you have any bounties you’re interested in yet?”
James shook his head. “Waiting for you to get your shit figured out before I go after anyone.”
With his load-out complete, James pulled on the jacket.
Shay laughed. “You look like a complete doofus in that jacket, Brownstone. I think I get your real strategy now. You’re going to wait until the other guys fall down laughing, then you’ll shoot them.” She made a face of mock disgust. “Shooting people while they are laughing, Brownstone? That’s cold.”
James glanced down at a tear in one of the sleeves and shrugged. “But you can’t see any of the holsters, can you?”
She looked him over. “No, I guess I can’t.”
He pursed his lips and finished with a shrug. “Then looks can be deceiving.”
Shay shook her head. “Nope. Just because you’re a dangerous doofus doesn’t change the fact you look like a doofus.”
James grunted.
13
Shay cruised along a worn and cracked road in a Forerunner. Brownstone sat in the passenger seat, idly watching the city pass by through the window, not saying a word.
She wondered what was going through the man’s head. Brownstone didn’t seem to get nervous about danger, and unlike their last job together, they didn’t have any reports that suggested anyone else was closing in on the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. The whole job should be a nice in-and-out grab, assuming there were no clever deathtraps or magical guardians.
Shay could have easily carried out the whole job without the man, but she’d understood that the Professor wanted him to come along. She didn’t know if that meant Smite-Williams didn’t trust her yet or not, but that didn’t bother her because she didn’t fully trust him either.
Her attention returned to James. She didn’t want to be alone with her own thoughts.
“You’re a very incurious man, James Brownstone,” the field archaeologist remarked. “Surprisingly so.”
He looked at her. “What are you talking about?”
“We show up in Mexico, and I grab a truck. Then I take us to get a totally different vehicle, and you don’t even ask why.”
“That’s not being incurious. I’m just not wasting time.”
“Oh?”
Brownstone shrugged a single shoulder and returned to looking outside. “I don’t bother worrying about unimportant shit that I know other people can handle. We’ve worked together, both on your job and on mine, if you want to call it that. You’re not a dipshit, so I trust you.”
Shay shook her head. Brownstone still managed to agitate her even when he was complimenting her. It was like most of her barbs bounced right off the man. That she wasn’t in control both disturbed and thrilled her.
“Still no questions?” She just wanted him to play along. “At least give me a little insight into your thought process.”
“Why?”
Shay chuckled. “Because I’m trying to figure out what makes you tick, Brownstone.”
“I’m guessing you needed this for some rough terrain. It’s not exactly a fucking mystery. It’s not like you swapped out the truck for an amphibious limo or a motorcycle.”
Shay snickered. “Yeah. Anyway, I’ve got the likely location of the artifact—some hidden caves in a small mountain range up north.”
“We’re not exactly deep in the Amazon here. How come no one has ever found the artifact before?”
“Glad you asked.” Shay did enjoy showing off, mentally or physically. “The caves were discovered initially during a satellite thermal survey, but weren’t there when they tried to image the area again in later surveys. It was chalked up to bad data. Later information suggests the caves are being cloaked with magic, and the satellite just got lucky that one time.” She sighed. “And if it gets lucky again, somebody else could end up finding it.”
James frowned. “There’s magical cloaking? Doesn’t that mean someone’s still there?”
“Nope. Or probably not. Just means some Taoist priests were very thorough back in the fifteenth century.” Shay glanced into her rearview mirror for a second. “Anyway, these are mountain caves, so the terrain might not be all that hospitable—hence the vehicle choice. But before we leave, I need to go hit up a local contact; someone who can put in a good word with us for one of the local gangs.”
“Why do we need a good word with the local gang?”
“Because too many damned people around here will kill you for a hundred bucks and a cheeseburger from the crappy McDonalds in Cabo San Lucas.” She rolled her eyes. “And the burgers there aren’t even that good. Don’t ever eat there, trust me. It’s like the people have no concept of what a burger’s supposed to taste like. Or are sourcing that meat from a strange Oriceran cow-like thing.”
“So, what…you think these guys might take a shot at us, otherwise?” James grunted, but a hint of a smile appeared.
“Something like that, but throw some money and a few polite words around and a lot of that goes away. As long as you know who to talk to—and I do.”
“Not afraid of some local gangs. They want to come at me, they can learn the same lesson the Harriken in LA did.” A vicious grin appeared on his face. “It might be a nice little workout.”
“No, no, no.” Shay groaned. She wanted to bounce her head off the steering wheel. “We need to keep our eye on the prize, Brownstone. Remember, half the point of this job is to get Smite-Williams to cough up something to you.”
She wondered what artifact the Professor might be sending Brownstone’s way. The man already had access to enough magic to make him a deadly threat. She had a hard time seeing what else he might need, especially since he was a real hands-on ass-kicker.
“Just sayin’. I can teach them the true meaning of fear,” James said, sounding far too enthusiastic about the idea.
“I know you’re not afraid of them and all that, Brownstone, but we can’t level half this town without it causing trouble for both of us in the future. That makes things complicated…and you like things simple, right?”
“Yes, I guess I do.” The bounty hunter rubbed the back of his neck and looked away, like a little boy who’d been caught pissing on his mom’s flowers.
“Good. Glad we’re on the same page. No blowing up the cartel or gangs while we’re here. We’re here to get the Green Dragon Crescent Blade and maybe score a bounty for you on the side. We good?”
“Yeah, we’re good. Unless they piss me off.”
Shay sighed.
They arrived at their location ten minutes later: an old warehouse with dozens of rusted-out cars dotting the area. James spotted at least six armed men, none of whom seemed to know how to smile.
Shay opened her door. “This won’t take long.”
“You want backup, just in case your guys aren’t as polite as last time you dealt with them?”
He understood that
they didn’t want cartel or gang trouble, but he wasn’t going to shy away from a fight if someone else picked it, either.
The woman laughed. “That’s nice of you, Brownstone, but I’ve been doing this without backup for a long time. No way I’m going to let myself get too used to having you around. No offense.”
James shrugged. He wasn’t offended. He understood the advantages of working alone.
Shay closed the door and walked toward two gang sentries armed with AKs. A short conversation followed, and one of them men gestured with his gun toward a warehouse door. She disappeared inside.
All these assholes think they have strength in numbers. It makes them stupid and easy to take out.
James tried to entertain himself by evaluating the security situation. He’d spotted four more guards roaming the grounds, along with a rooftop sniper.
The warehouse and the surrounding buildings could hide a lot of men, so the small number of gang members outside didn’t convince him the group couldn’t field a lot more bodies.
His examination convinced him that the rusted-out cars probably weren’t left over from better days, when the location had served as a part of the normal economy. The positioning of the wrecks was too careful, and the density was too high. They were really barricades and checkpoints designed to slow down attackers.
“These guys are brighter than I thought,” James muttered.
There was nothing worse than clever thugs. They could actually be dangerous.
He grew bored with thinking about how he might lay waste to the warehouse. Instead, he pulled out his phone, wondering if he should give Alison a call. She had sounded like she was fine during their last conversation, but she’d also wanted him to call again soon. He just wasn’t sure if the next day was too soon.
James frowned, wondering how much a call from Mexico to Virginia might cost. He really needed to get some sort of international plan for his phone if he was going to be spending much time outside the United States. Not that he was short on cash, but international rates were still murder.
Maybe I could set her up with some sort of VOIP app or something. I mean, shit—what if Shay wants to go to Ghana or something next time. How much would that fucking cost?
He shook his head, wondering how he’d gotten on this thought track. It was like he thought wandering halfway across the world with Shay would become something common.
James was a bounty hunter, not a field archaeologist. He was in Mexico right now to help Shay out because it’d end with him getting something he needed from the Professor, not because they were partners.
He shouldn’t have even been thinking about going off to exotic locales with her in the future. There were more than enough bounties to keep him busy in California, let alone North America if he got bored in the City of Angels for whatever reason.
A soft chuckle escaped his lips when he thought about how quickly things had changed with him in the last few weeks. James had spent years with no one close to him other than Leeroy. The Church was there to save his soul, not be his friend, even though he helped them. He knew how much pain and stress he caused poor Father McCartney. Now he had something approaching a friend in Shay, and with Alison he had something like a family.
Hell, he’d even hung out with the off-duty cops a few times. He was a damn social butterfly at this point.
James still wasn’t sure what to make of all this. It felt like a good thing, but at the same time it complicated his previously simple life. Maybe no one who wanted to care about others could in truth have a simple life.
When Shay emerged from the warehouse, he watched her for a few moments, looking for any sign of trouble. No tension lined her features and her movements exuded relaxation, so her conversation must have gone well.
The gang got to exist another day.
He returned his attention to the phone and deciding whether he should call Alison.
The driver-side door opened, and Shay slipped into her seat. “Don’t do it.”
He looked over. “Don’t do what? You just got here.”
She gestured toward his phone. “I bet you were going to call Alison, weren’t you?”
He looked back. “I just had my phone out.”
“Don’t call her. You’re acting like an overprotective dad. She needs a little space so she can figure out where she fits into that place. If you’re on with her every day, even if she wants you to call, she won’t be able to transition from her old life into her new one.”
James silently put his phone away. He didn’t want to lie about what he’d been thinking, but he also didn’t want to give Shay the satisfaction of confirming she’d been right.
The woman confused him. Sometimes she seemed to be able to read his thoughts and others, she seemed completely puzzled by something simple and basic he’d said—as if he were some sort of weird Oriceran transplant.
“Let’s get going,” Shay said, starting the Forerunner back up. “If I hurry and we’re lucky, maybe I can find the Blade and we can get back to our rooms before sundown.”
James pulled out his phone again, not to call Alison but to check the North American Bounty Hunting Alliance app. It wasn’t as up-to-date as the various city department apps when it came to bounties, but it would do for the moment.
First, he tried to limit the bounty area to Mexico and search.
Sorry, too many results. Please add additional criteria and search again.
He almost laughed. Of course looking for all the bounties in an entire country would be too much. He had to limit his search parameters just when checking Los Angeles. There were so many scumbags out there.
James limited the search area to Baja California Sur and the level to five and above.
Five records meet your search criteria.
He read through the possibilities. Three out of the five were very far north, and a lot farther than he wanted to drive. The fourth was some sort of revolutionary army leader in exile from Colombia.
James didn’t mind pissing people off, but he didn’t want to get involved in politics unless he had a good understanding of what was going on. Even though he took people down for money, he wasn’t a mercenary. His job used his strength to make the world a better place, and he never wanted to forget that.
He also wanted to be one-hundred-percent sure the target had it coming. He knew that not all bounties were fair or warranted, which is why he chose his carefully. Not pissing off an entire revolutionary army group was high on his list of smart moves.
Having eliminated four out of the five bounties, he looked at the details of the last, hoping for something worth pursuing. The final level-five bounty belonged to a man living in the same mountain range they were already driving toward, one Jose Padilla, who went by the name “Sombra.”
James grunted in satisfaction as he skimmed the details. Sombra was the kind of target he’d been born to take down. The man was a necromancer who kidnapped innocent people. Apparently the Mexican government had become so disturbed by his activities at one point, including raising a rather sizeable force of reanimated corpses, they’d sent fighters to bomb the mountains in an attempt to kill him.
“Motherfucking zombies,” James muttered. “I hate things that can’t be afraid.”
“What?” Shay asked.
The bounty hunter glanced at the time. They’d arrived in Mexico early, and Shay’s city business hadn’t taken that long. If she didn’t take all day finding the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, he’d have plenty of time to start tracking down Sombra without even having to sleep first.
“I’d like to take a little detour after your job,” James informed her.
“Oh, have some sightseeing you want to do?”
“Nah, want to take down a necromancer.”
Shay laughed. “That’s fun, too.”
14
Shay frowned as the rough terrain shook the vehicle. She missed the smooth ride of her Spider on a city street, but at least their target destination would be coming
up any minute. Vast canyon walls surrounded them on either side, and mountains rose in the distance.
Light caught Shay’s eye, and she slowed the Forerunner before bringing it to a stop. She narrowed her eyes, staring straight ahead.
“Problem?” James asked.
There were caves in the distance, obscured by dust. Finding her destination pleased her, but the faint semi-translucent shimmer in the air worried her as well.
“You see that, Brownstone?” Shay inquired.
“Yeah, I see it. Fucking magic.”
Shay slowly exhaled. “That must be the cloaking. From what I’ve read, you can’t actually see the caves unless you’re already looking for them and know generally where they are. Neat trick.”
James shrugged. “It might also kill you on contact.”
“You’re barrels of fun, Brownstone.”
“I try.”
The tomb raider shook her head. Brownstone was right. She couldn’t be sure about the secondary effects of the magic field. Dying in the middle of the desert didn’t strike her as fun.
“Wait a second,” Shay muttered. “See that?”
“The lizard?”
“Yeah.”
She narrowed her eyes. An iguana skittered across the parched landscape only a few feet from the field, seemingly oblivious to it.
“Come on, cross it, you lizard sonofabitch. Let’s see if it fries you. Take one for history and archaeology.”
“That’s cold.”
“It’s not like all that barbecue you eat comes from volunteer animals.”
James snickered. “At least they died for a good cause.”
Shay smirked at his reply.
The lizard rushed through the field after some tiny prey Shay couldn’t make out from a distance and there was no crackle of electricity, no screech, no explosion. The animal kept running. If the magical field had done anything to the creature, it wasn’t obvious.
Rejected By Heaven_An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure Page 11