Karma Is A Bitch: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 12)

by Michael Anderle

  “Yeah. Bounty hunter instincts, which aren’t the same as killer instincts.” Shay sighed.

  James shook his head. “But you’re not a killer anymore.”

  “That doesn’t matter, and that floating asshole probably isn’t the only bad guy in the world who has a beef with you.” Shay crossed her arms. “If it’s not some random crazy assassin or serial bomber or whatever, it might be you and Tyler coming up with some stupid idea to do another pay-per-view. Maybe that’s what’s setting me off. Maybe you’re hiding something from me.”

  He chuckled. “I learned my lesson about that. I’m not doing that shit again.”

  “Because you got ambushed?”

  “No, because you’re still bitching about it.” James shrugged.

  Shay sighed.

  Why am I so worried? Because I’ve been thinking about a future with him so much? Damn it. Love is nice, but it’s also fucking annoying at times.

  James grunted. “You keep forgetting how I didn’t die a single time before I met you. I’ll be fine. Go on your raid."

  Shay shook her finger. “Death isn’t like getting a cold. It only takes once, and if you’re already dead, it’s not like you can use the wish. Plus, you never know when someone will come at you. I blew that bitch Yulia down a well with grenades, and she kept coming back.”

  “Yeah, but you killed her eventually.”

  Shay rolled her eyes. “Yeah, eventually.”

  “Just saying.” James shrugged. “Besides, I’m taking it easy. Not doing any bounties for a few weeks, and I found my new dog, and now the only thing I have to worry about is barbeque. Even Father McCartney’s happy. I don’t have to go in there and admit much other than cussing. Oh, shit. I did feel a little wrath when I dislocated that guy’s shoulder.” He rubbed his chin. “But I didn’t kill anyone this week.”

  Shay snickered. “True restraint.”

  James nodded. “Yeah, it fucking was.” He shrugged. “Hard to get into too much trouble with barbeque, and we’re not even competing for a while.”

  “Knowing you, some barbeque demon will attack you while I’m gone.”

  A hungry look appeared on James’ face. “A barbeque demon, huh?”

  Seriously, James? There’s a hobby, and there’s an obsession.

  Shay slapped a hand to her forehead. “You probably wouldn’t be able to eat it.” She sighed. “Okay, screw it. You’re right. I’m being a crazy bitch. I’m gonna head to Warehouse Three and finish packing.” She pointed at him. “But only because you said you’re going to do nothing but barbeque.”

  “And I still have my promise to Alison about not doing any major building raids without backup.”

  Shay nodded slowly. “Good. I’ll make this little Alberta trip quick.” She walked over to the dog to pet him before heading to the door. “You should really settle on a name for the dog soon.”

  “Jessie Rae?”

  Shay shook her head and said nothing as she threw open the door.

  James grunted. “Okay, maybe not. Mean to call a dog Jessie Rae when he can’t even eat a lot of barbeque.”

  Kathy stared down at the tablet on the bar. She’d been scouring the dark web for days now but couldn’t find anything to suggest any unusual risk to the city. Most high-level bounties had been avoiding LA, and the Brownstone Agency had taken down a few level fours who’d dared pop their heads up.

  Is the Eyes just yanking my chain? He has to care if something dangerous is coming to LA. He’s not immortal, right?

  Tyler walked over and looked over her shoulder. “You’ve been up to some shit lately. Too much. You’re distracted. Even you have to notice it. Your tips are down.”

  “The Eyes,” she murmured. “He said it was a test. Did you have to put up with that kind of shit when you first met him?”

  Tyler snorted. “When I first met him? You can’t do anything with that asshole without him playing games. I’m sure he gets off on it as much as whatever he takes from people who go to his place, and he’s never clear at all, but yeah, he gave me a big speech about tests when I first talked to him. Three different things. Fuck, I didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to be testing: resourcefulness, ruthlessness, or something else.”

  Kathy eyed Tyler. “What about bravery?”

  “Bravery?” He shrugged. “He tested your bravery?”

  Kathy frowned at the tablet. “He sent a shadow man to attack me.”

  Tyler frowned. “What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Kathy snorted. “What were you going to do about it? Go to the Eyes and make him apologize? Call the cops? I shot the bastard and that was that, but he called me and told me something was coming, a danger that I needed to find. He made it sound like it would be a big deal, maybe serious danger to the city.” She shook her head. “I’ve been looking around, but I haven’t been able to find anything. If anything, things are safer than they’ve been in a while. Everything’s kind of safe by the standards of LA.”

  Tyler smirked. “Oh, Kathy, I’m disappointed.” He smirked. “You’re so smart, but still naïve and young.”

  Kathy whipped her head in his direction. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Tyler shook his head. “He’s playing you. It’s easy because he’s such a freak, to begin with. That’s old-school fortune-telling con-artist bullshit. The con artist says something spooky as hell to work the mark, then they’ll believe whatever they say right after that.”

  Kathy frowned. “I don’t think he’s lying.”

  “So what?” Tyler shrugged. “He’s probably not, but it’s a useless warning. This is LA. There’s always something coming, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart? What the fuck?

  Sure, Tyler had a good fifteen years or so on her, but there was shit that she just wouldn’t stand for.

  Kathy’s face twitched. “First of all, don’t call me sweetheart again or I’ll tell Maria about those sites you’ve been visiting on your computer.”

  Tyler grimaced. “What sites?”

  “You let your guard down too much when you’re in the Black Sun, Tyler.”

  He held up his hands. “Okay, okay, you win.”

  Her face smoothed out. “Second, it’s my time to waste, right?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Sure. Your time to waste, but I’m telling you, he’s just fucking with you.” He pointed to a table in the corner. “For now, get them some new beers.”

  The dog barked as James surveyed the doggie training course he’d set up alongside the main obstacle course at Camp Brownstone. A series of ramps, tires, and cones lay before him.

  James nodded, satisfied, and set a plate with a steak at the end of the course.

  Doesn’t hurt to train the dog a little. Gets him some exercise.

  Trey and several of the other men lined the course, curious looks on their faces.

  “The Brownstone dog, huh?” Trey rubbed his chin. “We gonna take him on jobs?”

  James grunted. “Don’t know. Not anytime soon, but might eventually be nice to have a little extra help searching for shit. He found drugs on that guy, after all.”

  Lachlan snickered. “Your dog ain’t gonna do this course for that steak at the end.”

  The dog barked and wagged his tail happily.

  Trey smiled at the dog. “Need to give our furry brother a name.”

  “Fido,” Lachlan called.

  Trey snorted and shook his head. “I should beat your ass for that weak-ass name.”

  James walked toward the start of the course and the dog.

  “Cat,” Max suggested. “It’s all unexpected and shit.”

  James grunted, and Trey rolled his eyes.

  Isaiah slammed a fist into his palm. “Ass-kicker McGruff Brownstone.”

  The men all laughed.

  Trey shook his head, still laughing. “Y’all are terrible at names.”

  “What about you, then?” Lachlan asked. “What great fucking name you got, Trey?”

  Th
e other man shrugged. “I don’t have a good name, so I’m keeping my mouth fucking shut.”

  James arrived at the start of the course. He knelt and ruffled the dog’s ears, then pointed to the steak. “Just follow me, boy, and you can have that nice juicy steak.”

  The dog barked.

  James stood and jogged up the first ramp, and the dog shot after him. They proceeded over another ramp and a few tires before zigzagging through a series of cones and finishing up with a vault over low bars near the end of the course.

  The dog rushed over to the steak and started licking it after barking a few times.

  The men cheered.

  “That’s how you do shit,” Isaiah shouted.

  Trey grinned. “Your dog is damned smart, big man.”

  “Smarter than Lachlan,” Max offered.

  Lachlan frowned. “Fuck you.”

  James chuckled and knelt to pet the dog while the animal worked on the steak. “Still needs a name, but now that I’ve started getting some food in him, I should take him to the vet soon. Probably needs shots and shit. Also a microchip. Maybe I’ll take him tomorrow.”

  The dog lifted his head to bark and wag his tail.

  Max shrugged. “I’ve got a name. How about Lachlan 2.0?”

  Lachlan flipped him off.

  Shay stared into the mirror of her Alberta hotel room. She sighed and shook her head.

  Lily bounced on her bed a few times. “Problem?”

  “I wish I had precognition like you.”

  Lily snorted. “Yeah, it’s limited and totally unreliable. Other than that, it’s great. Love it.”

  The senior tomb raider sauntered over to the other bed and sat with a deep frown. “Every instinct in me is telling me something is wrong, and that James might still be in trouble.”

  “You sure this just isn’t you being overprotective?” Lily shrugged. “Not going to tell you your business, but it seems like you’re getting more and more protective of James. He’s your boyfriend, not your kid.”

  Shay sighed. “Maybe. Not gonna lie, I’m still not used to the nice feelings and giving a shit. I still don’t always know how to react.”

  Lily laughed. “And I thought I had issues with learning to trust.” She brushed a few strands of hair out of her gray eyes. “Why are you so convinced he’ll be in trouble? Because of that last raid?”

  Shay ran her tongue inside her cheek. “Everything just felt…too easy.”

  The teen stared at her, her mouth open. “Easy? Four wizards ambush James out of nowhere and hurt him, then you guys go have a fight with a bunch of weird-ass crazy monsters in the subway, and that’s easy? If those guys had shown up when I still lived in the tunnels, we’d have all been killed.”

  Shay shrugged. “That’s just what it means to hang out around James. We’ve taken down a lot of fucking deadly enemies together. Maybe that’s the problem.” She narrowed her eyes. “Something just doesn’t feel complete about all this—not until I see a few more bodies. Those guys smelled too much like cannon fodder.”

  Fuck. I hope I’m not freaking Lily out with this.

  Lily sighed. “I might have powers, but you have years of experience. If something’s not sitting well with you, maybe you should trust yourself, you know?” She took a deep breath. “Everything about the job is easy, or as easy as a tomb raid gets. I’m thinking it doesn’t take two tomb raiders to go into a mine with a few traps and grab an enchanted pickaxe.”

  Shay frowned and shook her head. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you just because I'm paranoid.”

  “Why not?” Lily smiled. “You already told me that I’m ready to solo. This is as good a tomb raid as any to try it. I’m in Canada, not an exotic country. I speak the language, or at least one of the languages, and getting the artifact through Customs will be easy because it just looks like a regular old item.”

  Shay stood and nodded. “You sure about this, Lily?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m ready.” She smiled. “You made me ready, Shay. I’m a tomb raider now. Go check on James. The worst thing that happens is you have extra time to go on a date.”

  Shay grinned. “I need to buy a new plane ticket.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kathy knelt on her couch, her laptop on the table in front of her, and stifled a yawn.

  What the fuck time is it? Five? Six?

  She looked at the clock.

  Fuck, it’s already 8:00 AM? I’ve been at this for hours. Maybe I should have taken that little nap last night like I was thinking.

  Kathy blinked her tired eyes a few times and continued scrolling through posts and checking her messages. There was an answer to find. There had to be. The Eyes couldn’t have sent her on a wild goose chase. Something awful was coming, and she needed to find, anticipate, and prevent it to prove herself to him. To prove something to herself.

  I’m better than anyone thinks.

  Tyler didn’t understand. He didn’t give a shit about anything but money. Being an information broker was just a way of gaining money, influence, and status for him.

  A puzzle lay before her now, and Kathy refused to let it defeat her. She picked up her coffee cup and downed some of the now-lukewarm brew. So what if she hadn’t gotten any sleep? The damned answer was still out there, hiding from her and taunting her.

  Her eyes scanned post after post as she looked for something—anything—that would give her a hint about what might be coming to Los Angeles.

  Maybe I need to hit up more informants. There’s got to be something more than a bunch of low-level bounties coming to town, but that’s all I can find.

  With a sigh, she closed the laptop and picked up her phone from the table. She rested it against her head, trying to figure out who she might possibly call. She needed someone who would not only know what they were doing but also had useful information.

  Kathy smirked. Tyler wasn’t the only one who had cultivated contacts.

  Two hours later, Kathy lay on her back with a throbbing headache. She’d called a dozen contacts, and no one had anything more useful than information about the same low-level bounties she already knew about. It was like the entire underworld was saying everything was hunky-dory in greater Los Angeles.

  Sure, gangs and organized crimes groups dealt drugs, murdered each other, and spread corruption, but that was all the normal nonsense everyone expected from a town that had been steeped in darkness long before magic had returned to the Earth. There weren’t even any rumors about any major gang wars coming. It was like after Brownstone finished off the last of the Council, all the bad guys in LA decided to keep things lowkey for a while.

  The Eyes is fucking with me. Trying to destroy me. If he can see into my head, he might know how I can’t leave a mystery alone. Well, fuck him. I’ll show him. I’ll find something that even he doesn’t fucking know about.

  Kathy sighed. Time for another longshot—some new players in town led by a teen named Harry. He and his little gang used to be tunnel rats, but they’d come into money in recent months. Rumor had it that one of them had hooked up with a tomb raider, and that was why they’d left the tunnels. Kathy even heard a few descriptions that made her think the tomb raider might be Shay.

  Why does everything in this city always come back to Brownstone or someone he knows? It’s like he’s the damned heart of Los Angeles.

  Kathy sighed and dialed Harry’s number. The phone rang several times.

  “Hello?” he answered finally.

  “This is Kathy. I wanted to know if you or any of your friends have heard anything interesting lately.”

  Harry chuckled. “Interesting? We hear a lot of interesting things. Can you narrow it down?”

  “Magically interesting. I don’t care about anything else. You know what? Less interesting—maybe a weird rumor that everyone else is ignoring, but you and your little gang happened to pick up on.”

  Kathy didn’t care that desperation had crept into her voice. She hadn’t slept, and she hadn
’t eaten anything since the night before. Right now, only one thing would satisfy her: an answer.

  Harry coughed a little. “Okay, I do have something. Nobody’s asked about it, so we haven’t volunteered it. It’s not that important from what I can tell, so I’ll let you have it for…a quarter of what I charged you last time. I’m telling you, though, it’s probably not worth it.”

  “But you’re still planning to charge me?”

  “Do you give away information for free?”

  Kathy snorted and threw open her computer, bringing up one of her crypto wallets. “Aren’t you the industrious one?” She entered the transfer information and hit Send. “I’ve done it.”

  “One sec.”

  The silence stretched for several long moments.

  Harry laughed. “Okay, thanks for the money. One of my friends was at Happy Magic Land Amusement Park the other day.”

  “Amusement park?” Kathy snickered. “Doing what? Trying to get a princess’ autograph?”

  “The reason isn’t important,” Harry replied flatly. “The thing is, while she was there she saw something weird. A couple of times. People with weird, flat expressions, sunglasses, and maybe glowing eyes, but she kept losing track of ‘em.”

  “That’s the big piece of information I just paid you for?”

  Harry chuckled. “I told you it probably wasn’t worth it. Just saying they were acting strange, and when one of us notices strange things, it should be hard to lose us while we’re watching. Maybe it’s some Oricerans just running around with a spell to make them look human, but that’s all I got. The tunnels have been clear since Brownstone did his thing. All quiet out there. Quiet for LA anyway.”

  Kathy scrubbed a hand over her face. “Okay, thanks. Enjoy your money.”

  “I will.”

  She ended the call and tossed the phone on the couch beside her.

  Kathy groaned and rested her face in her hands. That was the best she could come up with—weirdos at an amusement park? Tens of thousands of people visited the place each day. Just based on statistical probability, she expected a few strange people to show up, whether from Earth or Oriceran. Harry’s information proved nothing.