The Unbelievable Mr Brownstone Omnibus 3

by Michael Anderle

  Shit. Alison didn’t mention anything about a ring, but fuck, I shouldn’t depend on a teenager to tell me how to do this.

  James sighed. “Before it was kind of spur of the moment. I didn’t even think about a ring, but you’re right—I need something.” He shook his head. “Why can’t women be more like men?”

  Maria smirked. “If women were more like men, I don’t think you would be as interested in marrying one, Brownstone.” She leaned back in her seat, a relaxed look on her face. “You’re making this too hard, anyway. There’s no formula here. No recipe. It’s not like making barbeque sauce, and no, it’s not simple. Women are complicated, so this will be complicated. You’ll need to think long and hard about what Shay likes and how to best express your feelings to her while taking that into account.”

  He nodded slowly, thoughts and possibilities swirling in his head. “Okay, I’ll try and do that, but please do me a favor and don’t tell Shay I was asking about this shit.”

  “Sure thing.” Maria chuckled. “If anything, I can’t wait to see what you come up with and if it surprises her. If there’s one thing you do well, Brownstone, it’s being fucking epic.”

  After dropping Maria off, James started the next episode of The Dude’s Guide to Marriage as Explained by a Chick. It took him a few minutes to figure out how to get a podcast through the console of the truck, though, and then a few more to scroll through the episode list until he found the episode he’d left off on.

  Damn it. Really need that new phone.

  The last few episodes hadn’t been all that helpful since he didn’t care about the logistics of wedding planning. He figured Shay could handle that, or they could hire someone. For all he knew, one of the guys in the agency had a hidden talent.

  James chuckled at the idea of Lachlan and Manuel planning a wedding. At least it’d be interesting.

  “Today’s episode focuses on the most dreaded aspect of a wedding,” came the soft voice of the woman hosting the podcast. “Something that every man fears and which can lead to massive tension and suffering before the special day happens.”

  James nodded to himself. This was perfect. Anything they could offer about proposals would help.

  “The in-laws and relatives,” the woman intoned. “Unless you’re very, very lucky, at least one person on her side of the family is going to drive you up the wall. Don’t believe what you’ve seen in romcoms: a lot of them won’t come around to your plucky charm and boyish good looks. For the next few episodes, we’re going to discuss the different types of difficult family relationships and the best way to navigate this minefield, including key tricks about how to seat people at the wedding to defuse trouble.”

  James grunted. He was an orphan, and Shay left her original family behind when she was still a teen. They didn’t have to worry about that kind of shit. The family and friends they’d carved out for themselves weren’t a bunch of assholes who’d fuck with his wedding, and even if they wanted to, who would screw with James Brownstone on his wedding day?

  Yeah, just need to figure out how to propose, and all this shit will fall into place.

  He furrowed his brow. Maria had been right, though. He didn’t even have a ring. An epic proposal would require an epic ring.

  If I were Shay, what kind of ring would I want?

  James groaned. If asking around wouldn’t work, maybe it was time for a James Brownstone-style approach.

  4

  Shay glared at her phone, the forum message on her screen producing concentrated irritation in her mind.

  Sorry. Don’t have anything available like that at this time. You might want to ask around a few tomb raiding forums. Maybe someone could grab that kind of artifact for you. I hear Aletheia’s pretty good, if choosy with her clients.

  She groaned. Just what she needed: people recommending she hire herself to get the artifacts she needed.

  “How can it have been decades since magic returned fully to the world, but I have to jump through hoops to get shit that is probably growing on trees in Oriceran? Why hasn’t some damned gnome set up an American Magic Wholesaler’s Club or something already?”

  The scum swimming around the dark web liked to brag about how they could get anyone anything for the right price, but her attempts to find half-way decent defensive artifacts were slamming into wall after wall.

  Shay sighed and laid her head on the back of James’ couch. Her defensive artifacts had been dying out too quickly. Admittedly, she’d put them through their paces by engaging stronger foes more directly than in the past, but what good was a shield ring or a gauntlet that toughened skin if she couldn’t use it to take down some magical asshole much stronger than her?

  Upping her game as a tomb raider and having James’ back meant she needed something powerful and reliable, so she didn’t end up getting melted the next time some weird magical being like He Who Hunts showed up and decided to go after her man. She needed a permanent solution, something that would allow her to take punishment closer to what James could handle.

  “They’re right,” Shay muttered. “I’m just gonna have to find some kick-ass armor artifact on a raid. Maybe some less hateful version of Whispy.” She chuckled at the thought. Did enhancement symbionts have sisters?

  The door clicked and swung open, and James entered with a pensive look on his face.

  Shay lowered her phone and raised a brow. “Eating all that meat leave you constipated? Told ya you need more salad.”

  James grunted and shook his head. He held up a new phone. “Just getting this set up.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry your old phone got blown up.”

  “Shit happens.” James headed to his chair. Thomas was curled up beside it. The bounty hunter looked at her, a knowing glint in his eye. “Something wrong? You looked pissed off when I came in.” He shrugged. “More pissed off than usual.”

  Shay shook her head. “No, just trying to find some worthwhile defensive artifacts that’ll last more than a few fights. I thought the last few rings and that gauntlet I got my hands on would last, but once they actually had to take some damage, they stopped working.” She shrugged. “It’s starting to annoy me.”

  “Huh. I’m sure you’ll get something figured out.” James dropped into the chair. “That sucks. By the way, what do you consider fucking epic?”

  Shay smirked.

  Not so smooth, and no, you’re not getting off that easily, James.

  “Lots of things.” She shrugged.

  “Like what?”

  Shay set her phone to the side and folded her hands in front of her. “The collapse of a civilization is fucking epic. Small, big, whatever. Not something you can watch up close and personal, but still epic.”

  James grunted. “Yeah, sure, I guess. What else?”

  “Hmm.” She leaned forward. “Dragons.”

  He frowned. “Dragons?”

  Shay nodded. “You have to agree they’re pretty fucking epic. At least the grown ones.”

  James scrubbed a hand over his face. “What about epic Earth shit? Not like we have a lot of dragons around here.”

  “You didn’t say anything about it having to be Earth-based.” Shay offered him a mocking grin.

  He shrugged. “Now I am. Fucking epic and on Earth.”

  “Nuclear explosions.” Shay nodded and tapped her chin. “Don’t want to see one, but everyone has to admit they are pretty fucking epic. A stampede on the Serengeti. A rocket launch, I suppose.” She chuckled. “Did you hear they’re talking seriously about doing a moon base? A consortium-of-nations thing. It’s kind of funny when you think about it. Magic came back, and it’s like we forgot about all the epic achievements of non-magical humanity, but now we’re finally starting to remember. Don’t know if it’s just politicians talking, but it’d be pretty badass and epic to have a moon base.”

  James stared at her, his face twitching. “Nuclear explosions, dragons, huge animal stampedes, rockets, and moon bases? Those are what you consider fucking epic?”r />
  Shay nodded. “It’s a small sample of a much larger list. Why are you asking?”

  “You know why,” James rumbled. “I’m just trying to make this shit simple. Also, what do you want in a ring?”

  Shay shook her head. “Let me stop you right there. Nope.”

  James blinked. “Nope?”

  “Yep. Nope.”

  James groaned. “I don’t understand. What the fuck does that mean?”

  Shay grinned. “Nothing worth having comes easy. If I just tell you everything, what’s the point? I would have thought you would have accepted by now that some things in life are never going to be simple, no matter how badly you want them to be.”

  He frowned. “You’re saying it’s some sort of test?”

  “That’s one way to look at it.”

  James grunted. “What’s another way?”

  “Everything in life is a test.” Shay smiled. “Don’t worry, James. I’m confident you’ll figure this out. Whatever else one can say about you, you’re not a man who gives up easily.” She picked up her phone. “Just like I shouldn’t give up.”

  “On what?”

  She nodded at the phone. “On trying to find a more permanent and useful defensive artifact. Not all of us were given free transforming symbionts, but feel free to ask me any more questions. I think you’re getting close to something.”

  James shook his head. “Unless I can arrange a trip to the moon on a dragon that we fly over the Serengeti while outracing a nuclear explosion, I don’t think anything you’ve said will help me.”

  Shay laughed. “If you could pull that off, it’d go down in history as the most fucking epic proposal ever.” Her phone chimed with a message from Peyton, and she looked down at it.

  Need to discuss our very special friend from far away.

  She looked back up and winked. “I need to go do some shit at Warehouse Two. Keep trying, James. You’ll get there.”

  Shay was still thinking about the conversation with James when she rolled into Warehouse Two.

  Maybe I should have brought James along, but he’s got a lot on his mind. I’ll brief him later. It’s kind of cute to see Mr. Bash-Through-Walls try to figure out something that doesn’t involve him just kicking someone’s ass.

  She stepped out of her Fiat once the loading bay door had closed and headed toward the office. Quick movement in the corner of her eye led to her gun pointing that way until she realized it wasn’t an assassin, but a smug-looking orange tabby.

  “Watch it, Osiris,” Shay muttered. “It’s not a good idea to sneak up on me if you don’t want to get shot.”

  The cat meowed once and wandered off in the opposite direction.

  “Fucking cat thinks he owns this place.”

  Shay continued toward the office. Peyton sat inside, frowning at his computer and mumbling under his breath.

  She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “What did you want to talk about? Is our alien hacker active again?”

  Peyton nodded. “I caught the trail of someone who might have been her poking around some DoD servers but lost it. Maybe it’s nothing. After all, she hasn’t gone after you or James in a big way in at least a month. Heather and I have gotten stuff hardened now. I think she can get through, but she must realize she can’t get through without us knowing.” A smug smile settled on his face. “In other words, we’ve beaten an advanced alien. She’s probably whining about ‘lowly apes who dare defy me’ about now.” He snickered. “I wonder if she’s crying.”

  Shay snorted. “There’s no way she’s just going to give up, not after that speech and not after sending those nanites at James.” She frowned. “The way she talked, it was almost like she was on a personal mission of vengeance or something. I spent years as a professional killer, and I know the difference between someone killing someone as a job and someone doing it because it’s personal.”

  Peyton turned his chair to face Shay. “You know, I didn’t want to bring it up before, but we’ve got to consider what we’ve learned, and not just that there’s another alien out there who has a thing for throwing cryptids made of nanites at James.”

  “What are you talking about?” Shay narrowed her eyes.

  He held up a hand. “Look, James came here as a scared little kid, but this woman has traveled who knows how far to take him down because of what he is. Maybe that should concern us. It’s got some serious implications.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m just saying maybe she has a good reason to be pissed.” Peyton shrugged. “You just said this was personal for her, so we can’t dismiss it as her being a bitch for the sake of being a bitch.”

  Shay snorted. “Or maybe she’s some space racist trying to cull the wrong type of alien, from her perspective. Maybe her space-racist dad got booted out of the Fascist Star Empire or whatever because he let a few ‘impure’ aliens escape. It could be personal in that sort of way.”

  Peyton looked back and forth as if afraid someone else were listening. “James’ amulet doesn’t come off as the kind of thing made by a peaceful race. It’s powered by hatred and anger. That’s kind of messed up when you think about it.”

  She marched over to the chair and glared down at Peyton. “So the fuck what? Even if his people are the worst sons of bitches ever, he isn’t them, so I don’t give a shit what this bitch’s problem is with his race. He grew up on this planet, and his loyalty is to this planet. He’s proven that again and again. He’s put his fucking life on the line. He didn’t have to fight the Council.”

  Peyton swallowed and paled. “I’m not saying he isn’t loyal to Earth. What I’m getting at is, unless he’s the last of his race, how do we know some of his cousins won’t show up? What if they’re not as nice? Before, the whole idea of there being different aliens on Earth might have just been theoretical even with the information we’d found, but the attack in Canada proves he isn’t the only one. There could be hundreds or thousands, for all we know. It’s easy to hide as an alien on a planet overrun with weird magic, especially when everyone’s still getting used to different races. I’ve been thinking about that a lot myself lately.”

  “Shit.” Shay took several steps back until she hit the wall. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. Sure. It’s not like I haven’t thought about that possibility, but what good does it do for us to worry? We can’t do anything about it. I’m only gonna worry about problems I can solve through force or otherwise.”

  They stared at each other in silence. Shay’s heart pounded. She wanted to punch Peyton in the face for daring to associate James with something dangerous, but it wasn’t like she could deny his logic, or even that similar thoughts had crossed both hers and James’ mind more than a few times. Hearing someone else voice them so directly unsettled her, though.

  “Think of it this way,” Peyton began, his voice quiet. “Maria hated James for a long time, right? From her perspective, he was a dangerous, out-of-control monster, but when she got to know him, she came around. She even works for him now. That proves that his enemies can become his friends.”

  Shay shook her head. “Maria never tried to kill him. It’s not remotely the same damned thing. Maria wanted him to go to jail, and it’s not like she didn’t have tons of opportunities to shoot him when his back was turned, as opposed to Little Miss Wendigo.”

  “I’m just saying that even if this alien woman’s a ruthless bitch, if we can somehow get more information about her, then maybe we can find out more about where James comes from and also make sure he’s the only one like him coming here. After everything you and I have seen about Project Ragnarök and Project Nephilim, we both know that if there’s another alien like him around who makes any sort of noise, the government will come for James. We don’t know anything about this alien woman other than that she hates James and considers him some sort of monster. We need to know more, or hell, maybe we can even get her to back off if she understands he isn’t a threat.”

  Shay sno
rted. “What’s your great plan, then? We’re supposed to wait around until she comes at him again with some ridiculous technology we can barely hope to counter? And we don’t even know if it’s a female.” She shrugged. “The alien might have used a woman’s voice to try and manipulate me. You keep assuming everything she said was the truth. Maybe it’s the opposite.”

  Peyton blinked. “The opposite?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, maybe she’s from some fascist galactic empire or some shit.” Shay sneered. “Let’s say you’re a dangerous alien or the scout for a group of dangerous aliens. You come to Earth and start checking things out. It’s not so safe for standard invasion because magic’s around, so you take it easy, check things out and try to find individuals who are particularly dangerous. After all, you’re an advanced alien with nanites. You can probably hard-counter things like missiles, but maybe magic is rarer and harder to deal with.”

  Peyton shrugged. “We have no proof of that, but I’ll admit it sounds plausible. Where does James come into all of this, then?”

  Shay clapped a hand to her chest. “Because of that amulet, that ‘enhancement symbiont’ as it calls itself, you have at least one being on this planet who can remain unaffected by almost anything. Maybe you and your band of planet-invading assholes have run into his species before and they threw back your invasion, so now you’re careful whenever you see one.”

  Peyton rubbed his chin and nodded. “You’re saying he isn’t from the bad guy race, but her people are?”

  “Exactly. Invading asshole aliens wouldn’t send a little kid with that kind of potential away. James had no fucking clue about most of Whispy Doom’s abilities until this last year. He barely wanted to use the thing and could have been killed. I don’t care how bloodthirsty his amulet is—everything about the way he arrived makes it sound more like he was the one running away, or he was sent away.” Shay shook her head. “I think that bitch and her friends are chasing down the only real threats to their plans. I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason they haven’t invaded in a big way is that they don’t know how many like James might be around, but obviously he’s enough of a problem that she’s shown her hand already. He might be the only thing standing between us and an alien invasion.”