The Horsemen Gather: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 17) Read online

  Agent McKenna snorted. “Franklin and Winters might be the sword, but Johnston’s swinging it. That damned old man is as much of a problem as that damned little band of self-righteous rogues.”

  “Maybe we should assassinate Johnston, then,” another agent suggested. “It’ll be easy enough to pin it on someone else. I don’t understand why we’ve let him live this long, considering how often he’s interfered with us.”

  Several agents nodded their agreement, no one showing the slightest concern about assassinating a US senator.

  Karl shook his head. “The only reason we haven’t been crushed totally is that we’ve shown a certain restraint. There’s a tacit understanding here. If we target other members of the CIA or aliens, the politicians can look away and pretend it has nothing to do with them, but if they start dying, they’ll be forced to act. But we have an even bigger worry.”

  “What?” McKenna asked, his brow furrowed.

  “That damned alien bounty hunter.” Karl’s hand curled into a fist.

  “Brownstone?”

  “Don’t give that thing the dignity of a human name. It’s just an alien pretending to be a man.” Karl’s face twitched. “He represents the worst-case scenario, long-term infiltration. And it’s obvious now that he or others allied with him used significant resources to hide his presence from us until such time as he didn’t care, but idiots like Johnston think they can use him. We should have let the Nine Systems Alliance take him. At least we’d have fewer threats.”

  “You don’t buy into Johnston’s theory that we can use the alien as a weapon?”

  Karl sneered. “A weapon is something you control, not something you have to bargain with. No. If we were lucky, he probably would have ended up killing a lot of the other aliens before they finished him off and we’d be safer overall. Now we still have both threats at full strength.”

  “Why don’t we finish him off ourselves, then?” another agent suggested.

  Agent McKenna stared at the man, disbelief on his face. “You’re not the first to suggest that. It didn’t go well for the Harriken.”

  “Pathetic gangsters who lacked our training and access to artifacts and technology.”

  “What about sending him to the World in Between?” Agent McKenna looked at Karl. “It doesn’t matter if he’s dead, just that he’s not on Earth.”

  Karl scoffed. “This wouldn’t be like a normal job. We’d need to gather a large number of magicals, and that’s without the full resources of the CIA. Purely mercenary wizards might lack the skill to do it, or they’d leak it, and then Franklin and Winters would come after us.”

  “We should have killed Winters years ago when we first suspected what he was doing,” Agent McKenna replied. “Troy Williams should have done his damned job.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Karl narrowed his eyes again. “We have to deal with the future, not the past. I’m not convinced the alien is invincible, especially considering some of the tech we have access to. We’re not going to purge the alien influence on Earth by being afraid of aliens. We need to try everything we can, and we do still have a few powerful tools left to us. Besides, the alien is one consideration, but Johnston’s latest scheme might help us there, too.”

  “How?”

  “From what I’ve been to able to find out, he’s going to recover some sort of anti-alien weapon, a powerful old magical artifact. If the assassination attempts fail, we can simply use whatever toy Johnston manages to dig up. The first step is to figure out what and where it is. Then we can make sure we get it before Johnston gets his hands on it.” Karl surveyed the table, enjoying the belief and confidence displayed on the other agents’ faces. “Earth will be safe with Fortis protecting it.”

  Chapter Two

  Damien Philips, the owner of Philips Bar-B-Que, set a tray of ribs in front of James, a huge smile on his face. “Haven’t seen you in a long time, Brownstone. I was beginning to think you hated my place, but then I figured, why would you have paid to have it rebuilt if you hated it?” He pulled some napkins out of his apron and set them on the table.

  James looked around at the heavy wooden tables and dark wooden booths. The restaurant looked nothing like the white plastic fest it had been the last time he visited. That wasn’t surprising. Getting blasted by Council goons had assured that some redecoration was necessary.

  Those fuckers really picked the wrong place to come at me. Dumbshits. Lucky the fuckers didn’t go after my house.

  He pondered that. He’d killed them, so it wasn’t clear what worse punishment he could have meted out.

  “You need to understand that I don’t always have the best luck,” James replied.

  Damien frowned. “Luck? You’re one of the most successful bounty hunters on the planet.”

  “Yeah, but that shit means people are always coming at me, and that means places like yours get wrecked. So after all that, I decided not to press my luck. You got everything fixed, and I didn’t want to walk in here and get your place blown up again because some crazy-ass Oriceran or fucking wizard had a hard-on for trying to kill me. That shit doesn’t happen to me nearly as much these days, but I can’t guarantee it never will.” James shrugged.

  “I never thought about it that way.” Damien laughed. “That makes sense. I know this sounds twisted as hell, but my place getting blasted by those guys was the best thing that ever happened to my business.”

  “Huh?”

  “You see, I was just kind of getting by, but now I’m raking in the dough. At the rate things are going, I might even be able to open up a second place soon. Not sure if I’m going to call it Philips Bar-B-Que Two or something else.”

  James sampled a rib, taking a few bites. Good sauce work. There was a reason he used to hit the place regularly. “How does that work? Somebody come in and invest?”

  “Nope, just better business. Lots more pick-up orders and foot traffic. It didn’t cost me anything to rebuild, thanks to you.” Damien pulled out a chair and took a seat across from James. “And because the attack was related to the Council, I got a lot of publicity. All sorts of news types wanted interviews about the attack, about you. Hell, about barbeque.” He gestured to the ribs. “Turns out they’re right.”

  “’They?’ Who is ‘they?’”

  “You know, ‘they.’” Damien made air quotes. “The they who always say shit like, ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity.’ I always thought people would be too afraid to come, but I was wrong. Once my place reopened, tons of people wanted to come to the restaurant where Brownstone took those bad guys down. A lot of barbeque people figured if you were a customer here, there was a good reason.”

  James grunted. “True enough. I was coming here because I liked the barbeque.” He held up a rib. “I still do. Sorry I made you think I hated it.”

  “No problem. The important thing is that you’re here now.” Damien pointed to a picture across the room. “I’ve even got a photo of the burned-out old place next to the picture I have of you on the wall. I think this is what they call creative destruction. It sucked at the time, but I’ve got no problems with how things went down now.”

  James chuckled. “You’re a much better businessman than I am. I would have just been pissed and kicked ass until I felt better. Fuck, I was pissed at the time, and I did kick ass.”

  “You’re the reason this is happening, though. You even paid my staff’s wages during the construction. I still don’t know how I can thank you. If it wasn’t for you, I’d have been so screwed and so would they, thanks to my worthless insurance company.” Damien snorted. “I got a new one. Don’t know if they’ll be better in that situation. We’ll just have to see, the next time I get blown up. So thanks for all your help.”

  “It was my fault your place got fucked up, and I clean up my messes. Simple as that.” James shrugged. “You’ve got nothing to thank me for. I’d be pissed at me if I was you. I brought you a lot of shit, and you had to deal with the aftermath. That wasn’t fair.”
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  “I’m not pissed, I’m grateful. Let me make that clear.” Damien shook his head. “It doesn’t sit right with me that I haven’t paid you back somehow. Can I at least offer you free food when you come? Like the ribs you’re eating?”

  “No. I pay for what I eat.” James grunted. “If you want to do anything, you can offer a discount to my guys. I’ll let them know, but don’t let any of those fuckers try to con you out of free ribs. I don’t want Brownstone Agency employees running around freeloading.”

  “In other words, more business for me.” Damien looked thoughtful. “Can’t say I don’t like the sound of it. Not a bad deal at all.”

  “Yeah, and a lot of them are on our barbeque team, too, so it’ll help for them to sample high-quality barbeque. Also, having Brownstone Agency guys coming here regularly who aren’t me will probably cut down on the chance of petty robbery. The big guys like the Council come after me, not my guys.” James frowned. “Well, usually, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

  Damien waved a hand. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’d love to have your guys.”

  It wasn’t as if he needed the business. Every table and booth was filled, the occasional person lifting their phone to take a picture of James.

  Several people had already come and asked for autographs, but he had made it clear that once his food had arrived, people were to leave him the fuck alone, other than pictures. He didn’t get the appeal of some random phone picture of him, but it didn’t hurt him, either.

  This barbeque was great even before the place got wrecked, but he said his business sucked. Flavor isn’t everything, huh?

  “Did you always want to have your own barbeque place?” James asked. “Is this like a family deal or something?”

  He felt bad for never asking before, but he tended to care about taste first and everything else a far distant second.

  “No, not a family deal. Everyone I knew said I was a damned fool for opening a barbeque place. My family was the loudest about that.” Damien folded his arms as he pondered the question. “I was an accountant before opening this place.” He laughed. “I worked in a big fancy auditing firm for a while. I can’t complain about it. My bosses weren’t dicks, and I made good money. It was a good, steady job. Easy in its own way.”

  “How did you end up doing barbeque then?” James watched a woman take a bite out of a brisket sandwich.

  “I always liked cooking barbeque, but I always figured owning a restaurant wasn’t a stable career path, and like I said, everyone I knew kept telling me that, too. It’s hard to swim against the current when no other fish is even trying.” Damien nodded to a couple in a booth gobbling down ribs. “But I asked myself at one point, ‘When am I happiest?’ And the answer was always the same. I was happiest when I was cooking barbeque for people. It wasn’t like I hated my old job, but when that time hit where I was questioning choices, midlife crisis or whatever you want to call it, I decided to open a restaurant instead of buying a sports car.” He chuckled.

  James finished off another rib. “Do you ever regret it? Ever think you should go back to your old job?”

  “No, not for a second.” Damien shrugged. “Every day, I think I made the right choice. I make good food that people like, and I’m doing something I like. Sure, margins were tight at first, and I could have made more money at my old job, but there’s something to be said for doing what you love. And now everything’s going my way. I just needed to hang in there.”

  James considered the man’s story. Unlike Damien, the bounty hunter had millions of dollars in savings and a successful business that no longer required his direct involvement. Financial considerations weren’t relevant if he decided to open a place. He could operate at a loss until the day he died if he wanted.

  But he didn’t want to do that. If he was going to open a restaurant, doing anything less than striving for success was pointless. He already cooked as a hobby, but running an actual restaurant should be different. If he ran it like a hobby, it’d never be successful.

  “Must feel good, seeing all these people enjoying something you made.” James stared down at the ribs on his plate as he pondered the balance of spices in the sauce. “When you’re a bounty hunter, a lot of people aren’t happy when you’re doing your job.” He chuckled. “Other than the cops, but it’s not like they’ve ever been happy to see me when I have shown up at a bounty’s house.”

  “I can imagine.” Damien laughed. “Why? You thinking about quitting the bounty hunting game and opening a barbeque restaurant?”

  “Yeah, actually.” James looked up.

  Damien’s smile fell away, and he swallowed. “Seriously?”

  “I’ve thought about it. Never gonna quit all the way, but because of the Brownstone Agency, I’ve got a lot more free time. And my kid goes to boarding school, so I don’t see her most of the year. I’ve been doing a lot with my barbeque team, but opening my own place is the natural next step.”

  Damien nodded slowly as he paled even more. “Sure. We could always use more people in the barbeque game, but please, I’m begging you—don’t open your place near mine. You’re starting out with freaking Hollywood-level name recognition. You’ll dominate whatever neighborhood you open your place, and every place around you will get destroyed.”

  James grunted. “It’ll be a while before I open a place, but sure. I’m not interested in fucking over anyone else. I’ll check around. That’s assuming I even do. Not sure if it’s just bullshit running through my head.”

  Some color returned to Damien’s face, and he let out a sigh of relief. “I always figured you liked taking down bounties. You know, that it was fun.”

  “Sometimes. It’s satisfying to take down assholes like that mind-control fucker a few months back, but sometimes I’d rather just spend a week concentrating on experimenting with sauces instead of tracking down some asshole.” James nodded toward the window. “And there are fewer and fewer high-level bounties showing up in LA anyway. The roaches are all hiding somewhere else these days. They’ve learned their lesson.”

  There was such a thing as being too good at your job.

  “You could travel around,” Damien suggested. “I remember that big bounty you took down in Detroit. There is always garbage somewhere in the country, let alone elsewhere in the world. Maybe you could go around to every headquarters of all the different mobs and take them out.”

  James shook his head. “I don’t want shit to get complicated, and my fiancée just got a permanent position at UCLA. I need to keep my life a little more stable.”

  “Really?” Damien asked. “Congrats. I see your dilemma. You heard what I just said. I think running a barbeque place is great, and I think you’d be great at it, too, as long you build it far, far away from my place.” He stood and extended his hand. “I better get back in the kitchen before my staff decides to barbeque me. Thanks again for everything you’ve done for me, Brownstone.”

  James gave the man’s hand a firm shake. “No problem.”

  Damien headed back into the kitchen.

  I could do it. The way things are going, it won’t be long until I only see a level four or higher every six months in LA. That could be the side job, and I could spend the next fifty years experimenting until I made something even better than God Sauce.

  Shit. Don’t know if that’s even possible.

  James stared at Shay as she finished explaining an unusual punishment she’d doled out to a student. They’d been chatting about her day in the living room. Listening to her discuss dealing with college students instead of putting bullets in some mercenary’s head was still strange at times. He wasn’t sure if he was completely comfortable with the transition.

  “Wait,” he responded as he processed what she had just told him. “So you’re saying this kid thinks he’s haunted now?”

  Shay laughed. “Yeah. Once I realized the little sonofabitch was plagiarizing, I thought about how I should handle it. The easy thing would have been to go to the depar
tment and initiate a big, annoying formal process to get him in trouble, but I figured, in the spirit of second chances, I’d do something different to scare him straight.” She rolled her eyes. “Reminds me of Peyton’s brother. Too bad that shit didn’t work on him. It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. But some people can’t learn, no matter how hard you try to teach them.”

  “I don’t get it. How the fuck did you make some random college kid think he was haunted?” James thought the whole thing was too complicated. His solution would have been to throw the plagiarist through a window. Universities would probably frown on his straightforward Brownstone Anti-Plagiarism Method, simple and efficient as it was.

  Thomas stood up from where he’d been lying and moved to the couch by Shay. He circled a few times before sitting down in front of her and cocking his head to the side to watch her.

  “Peyton’s been a little bored for the last few weeks anyway, so I recruited him for a little fun.” Shay leaned over to scratch behind Thomas’ ears. “He hacked the student’s computer and sent him spooky messages and a few old pictures of some random professor-looking guy we grabbed off the web. The messages claimed to be from the spirit of a professor who died right after the gates began opening and was trapped between worlds. He now haunts students who don’t do their own work in a feeble attempt to find rest.” She snickered. “And this idiot bought it. He actually came to me and begged me to allow him to turn in a new version of the paper. Said he’d misunderstood some things.”