Tyler chuckled and started pouring her drink. The other customers returned to their chatting, and one of the waitresses unmuted the TV.
Cops guaranteeing the safety of my place, and AET at that? Fuck, this is turning out even better than I’d planned. Oh, Brownstone, you think you’re big shit, but all you’re doing is turning me into big shit. Eventually you’ll be begging to kiss my ass.
14
Shay smiled at her phone when she spotted John Candle step through a boarding gate in the Tom Bradley International Terminal. The light-haired man wore a large scowl on his face and a thin jacket and jeans rumpled from his time on the plane. A briefcase rested lightly in his hands, the accessory clashing with his casual outfit.
Smuggled your guns on that easily, huh?
The tomb raider resisted the urge to go for her 9mm and open fire. A gun battle in an airport terminal filled with people would turn bloody quickly. Even if she hadn’t cared about collateral damage, every traveler in the area could serve as a shield for Candle.
“Guess it’s time for the plan.”
Shay rose and sauntered toward Candle and the man tensed and froze.
Good instincts, asshole. Just don’t go for it.
“Hey,” Shay called softly. “Um, you just got off the flight from Tokyo, right?”
The assassin stared at her, his fingers twitching on the handle of the briefcase. He could probably open it and have a weapon out in seconds. She shifted the large purse she carried to conceal her weapon.
“Who’s asking?” the man growled, his low voice filled with menace.
Shay shrugged. “Some guy with a weird face and a lot of tattoos gave me some money to give you a note. Well, I think it was you. He described someone who looked and was dressed just like you.” She slowly held out a small hand-scrawled note on her palm, batting her eyelashes to look less threatening.
Take the bait, asshole.
Candle snatched the note from Shay with his free hand and walked away without another word. Even though she hadn’t read it, she knew the exact contents:
You think you could come to my town and I wouldn’t know?
I’m waiting. Come and get me. I’m just past the construction in Terminal 5.
-JB
Shay headed to a nearby coffee shop, sparing a quick glance after Candle. About fifty feet up the walkway the man’s head finally dipped and he read the note. His pace picked up after that.
The tomb raider smiled, letting her previous killer instincts rise to the fore. She pulled out her phone and sent Brownstone a text.
Contestant #1 is on his way. Make him feel welcome.
Shay waited until Candle turned a corner, then hurried into a nearby bathroom. She glanced around, but no one was inside. Her fingers went to a silver bracelet on her wrist. She wasn’t sure if there were cameras in the bathroom, but it wouldn’t hurt to jam them if there were.
She pulled an auburn wig from her large purse and slipped it on, followed by some oversized sunglasses. She hoisted the strap back onto her shoulder and headed toward Terminal 5.
Shay reached a row of roped stanchions and cones marking the construction zone. The foot traffic was light in the area, given that the terminal was out of use. Due to a fake message sent by Peyton, none of the workers thought they had to show up for work today. She assumed they’d figure it out before the end of the day, but the fight would be long over by then.
The woman waited for the area to clear to duck under the rope between the stanchions and hurried toward an intersection leading to a broad hallway. She pulled her gun out of the purse and slipped the extra magazines into her jacket pockets.
Shay didn’t have enough ammo for a long engagement, but she’d assumed that between Brownstone and herself it’d be over damned soon.
Candle’s echoing footfalls reached her ears, and she paused for a moment to take in the potential cover: commercial-sized metal garbage bins, several different stacks of wood and gypsum boards, a forklift, and pallets topped with boxes filled with moving walkway parts. The power tools that littered the ground wouldn’t provide any cover, but they could trip someone.
Shay readied her weapon and waited around the corner, keeping her breathing deep but quiet. She was waiting for her phone to buzz to signal the attack.
“You here?” Candle called. “I didn’t figure you were a hide-and-seek kind of bitch, Brownstone.” Something clicked and then there was a thud.
Okay, our boy is now armed.
“Wait, you thought you could sneak up on me?”
Shay’s eyes widened, and she dropped, her heart thundering. A half-second later a bullet whizzed around the corner. It took a hard right turn in flight, surprising Shay even though she’d expected something like that, and flew right over her.
Reading about the man’s ability didn’t do justice to the bizarre sight of a bullet changing direction midflight. If she’d hadn’t dropped right then she would have taken a round to the head.
Candle grunted, and she could hear him thud and roll to the ground. Several loud shots from a .45 echoed.
Shay pushed off the ground and sprinted toward the forklift, laying down fire as she turned the corner. She spotted Candle crouched behind a stack of empty pallets. The man snapped his gun back up and fired her way without even looking.
The tomb raider leapt behind the forklift as the bullet again jerked from its straight path toward her, but it struck the forklift, creating a spark and a loud ting.
That is fucking annoying. Damn it, Brownstone!
The bounty hunter’s refusal to use the amulet against Candle was making the fight harder than it needed to be. Shay couldn’t shake the feeling there was something about the artifact he hadn’t told her, something that freaked him out even more than the pain involved in using it.
Shay popped up to lay down some suppressive fire near Candle. Only a quick and immediate roll after her attack saved Shay from taking a magic bullet to the shoulder.
Her heart pounded and she licked her lips.
Okay, his bullets can change direction, but it seems like they only do it once. Otherwise, the fucker would have finished me by now. Just need to keep moving. He can’t see around corners, he can just shoot around them.
Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out to look at the message. Next time they’d need to set up some comm gear if they were going to coordinate attempts at clever tactics.
Fucker opened fire before I could give the signal.
Shay let out a quiet groan.
Candle sent two quick shots her way and a bullet flew over Shay and dropped straight down, jerking her phone out of her hand. Shards of plastic and glass sprayed her face.
Great. Good thing I have so many spares in the warehouse.
Shay resisted a curse or anything else that might draw the man’s attention. He could obviously key in on quiet sounds somehow.
Magic is so damned annoying.
Brownstone opened up down the hall and Candle responded in kind.
Shay took a deep breath. She didn’t need to hit the man, she just needed to make sure Brownstone could.
The tomb raider popped up again and fired near but not at Candle. She changed position with each shot, stepping back, forward, or to the side. Someone watching the battle might think she was doing some sort of strange dance.
Candle’s bullets narrowly missed her. Only her bizarre dubstep kept her from taking a round.
Get with the program, Brownstone.
“What the—” Candle yelled.
Shay was so focused on the assassin she wasn’t paying much attention to Brownstone’s position. She had only a moment to register the reciprocating saw cruising through the air before it smacked into the assassin’s face. He flew back with a grunt and his gun skittered across the floor.
The tomb raider didn’t hesitate, just emptied the rest of her magazine into the downed assassin.
Shay changed magazines and approached the man with her gun pointed at him. A pool of blood grew
beneath him and more leaked from his mouth.
“Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” Candle said between coughs. “Mrs. Brownstone?”
“For now I’m just a friend.” Shay put a bullet into his head, then blew out a breath.
Brownstone jogged down the hall dodging pallets and tools. Blood matted his hair to his forehead and ran down his arm.
“You okay?” Shay asked.
“I’m fine. Nothing a few stitches or bandages can’t take care of. Is he done?”
Shay looked the bounty hunter up and down, concerned about his wounds. She nodded. “Yeah, and we need to get the fuck out of here, but I’m taking a little souvenir.” Shay glanced at Candle’s weapon and grimaced. “Or not.”
The tomb raider had hoped to grab herself a magical gun, but there was one minor issue. It was now a pool of glowing liquid.
“It fucking melted?” Shay slapped a hand to her forehead and nodded in the opposite direction. She’d already disabled the fire alarm on a side door. “I can’t believe you threw a saw at him.”
Brownstone grunted. “It got the job done, didn’t it?”
Shay smirked. “It did at that. Hey, remember to give that prick a call to goose the odds.”
“Tyler?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, by the way, I could tell he was pissed when I called to place my bets.”
They hurried toward the fire exit. “Over the ass-kicking day thing?”
“Yep. That, and calling him a small-dicked loser.”
James chuckled. “Tyler’s a petty little prick, but he cares more about money than pride in the end.”
Shay laughed. “You don’t care that you’re helping him get rich?”
Brownstone shook his head as he pushed open the fire door. “Better the Devil you know.”
Maria Hall stared at the drone footage playing on her computer screen. The images weren’t great given the distance of the surveillance drone from the fight, but she could clearly ID Brownstone.
No other man on this planet has a face like that asshole.
“Fucking Brownstone. You bring nothing but trouble to my town.”
About the only thing good that might come out of the situation was the Caribbean cruise she’d be able to afford after winning her bets—all pro-Brownstone. The bounty hunter might be a menace, but only an idiot would bet against him at this point.
I’ll enjoy the Bahamas, where I don’t have to think about you.
Maria tapped the screen to halt the video, then pinched and zoomed the image. There was a woman with him, a redhead by the looks of it. Her oversized sunglasses covered most of her face, but her gun-handling skills proved she was no starlet hanging out at the airport.
“What now, Brownstone? You got a girlfriend? I don’t need this Bonnie-and-Clyde shit in my town.”
The AET officer picked up her phone. She had some calls to make. She needed to start looking into this woman.
James rubbed the bandage over the side of his head. Candle’s little gun trick had been impressive, but better for assassination than a straight-up fight. He nodded, satisfied with the results of taking on the gun mage directly.
He glanced at Shay. The tomb raider was in the passenger seat of his F-350, hands folded in her lap and a pensive look on her face as they drove toward her Warehouse Three. She needed to gear up for the next part of their plan. After he stopped there they would head to his warehouse to grab a few trinkets, including the amulet and some explosives. Avoiding direct routes was annoying, but given the people after him security was more important than ever.
“You sure about this?” James asked.
“Yeah, Peyton’s dug deep and there’s nothing to suggest the others are coming to LA. Guess we don’t have a choice other than to take the fight to them.”
James shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.”
Shay looked over at him. “Look, I’ve got no problem with you knowing where Warehouse Three is. It’s not even that I don’t trust you about Warehouse Four, more that I just don’t trust you to...I don’t know, get greasy barbeque fingerprints on my rare books.”
Why are so many people calling me greasy lately? My hands aren’t greasy, and I haven’t had any barbeque since yesterday.
“I’m just saying you don’t have to come to Tokyo,” James told her. “These guys are after me, not you.”
“Fuck that, Brownstone. I’m coming. This isn’t like rural Mexico. You’re gonna need back-up.”
“If you’re sure?”
“Damn sure.”
“Then let’s go grab your shit.”
With several suitcases of Shay’s gear stowed safely in the back, the F-350 now hurtled down the highway toward Warehouse Two.
Does she really need five warehouses?
James grunted. Maybe she did. He only kept a small number of artifacts, but she needed a whole library and a place to potentially store large numbers of artifacts from her jobs. For all he knew, she had a warehouse filled with clothes. She had a lot more outfits than he did.
Ignoring fashion, being a bounty hunter was straightforward. Simple, really. The scumbags he went after weren’t great about keeping a low profile. Field archaeology—tomb raiding, or whatever she wanted to call it—seemed more complicated than being a lawyer.
Shay glanced between two fake IDs she’d made with a machine at Warehouse Three, one for James and another for her.
“Still don’t see why we need those,” the bounty hunter rumbled.
The woman shot him a disbelieving look. “So, your brilliant plan is to fly over to Japan, the home of the Harriken and a place where four top-level assassins are still waiting to kill you, under your real name?”
“Yeah. It’s simpler. It’s not like I use aliases when I go down to Mexico on jobs.”
Shay slipped the fake IDs into the glovebox. “Yeah, because you want the guys to be scared.”
“I want these fuckers to be scared, too.”
“This won’t be like the Mexican wilderness. This is Tokyo, one of the largest cities in the world, and the Harriken have deep roots there. What they don’t control the Yakuza do, and the Harriken can call on favors from them.” Shay shook her finger. “And to the cops in Tokyo you’ll be nothing more than another foreign bounty hunter, not some local celebrity. No, we need to play this smart, which means we don’t fly into an island nation where killers are expecting us yelling at the top of our lungs that we’re there.”
“We could. Not like the Harriken are hiding. From what I’ve read, their headquarters and buildings have their gang symbol on the door. I read they even throw parties for the local neighborhoods to show their benevolence or some shit.”
Shay snorted. “Harriken arrogance has gotten three buildings of theirs destroyed. Nope, we’ll play this my way. At least until we’ve thinned out the assassins, then we’ll go all Brownstone on Harriken headquarters.”
“Not fond of the decoy either,” the bounty hunter growled. “I’m not about risking other people’s lives to protect my own.”
“Calm down, there. Sure. I’ve got a guy on a different flight with a fake passport linked to you, but he doesn’t look like you. Assassins at the level we’re dealing with don’t shoot random people; it leads the cops to them. They’ll take one look at the guy and realize they’ve been fucked with. Easiest money the guy’s ever made.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Still don’t like it, but whatever. I’m still gonna have to check in with the police when we get there. What about the fake IDs then?”
“Hey, I just want to make sure they don’t ambush us at the airport like we did Candle. Once we’re there, if you want to start shouting from the top of Tokyo Tower, be my guest.”
James grunted and lapsed into a silence that lasted several minutes.
“Something on your mind, Brownstone?” Shay asked after returned to surface streets.
“Nah, just trying to figure out how my life
got so complicated.”
“Isn’t that what life does? Gets complicated?”
James changed lanes after checking for tails or drones. “Maybe. At least I can finally end this Harriken shit, and then...wait. Shit.”
“What?”
“I better pay my rent for the next few months.”
Shay gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m pretty sure it won’t take us months to finish this.”
“Yeah, but if I end up in some Japanese hospital after being gutted, I don’t want my landlord to put my shit on the curb.”
“I thought that cop liked you?”
James grunted. “Doesn’t mean he’s gonna provide me with free storage.”
Shay laughed. “You barely have any shit anyway. It got blown up.”
“I like the stuff I have.”
She winced. “Sorry. Kind of a bitchy thing to say.”
“You’re not the one who blew up my house.”
Fucking Harriken. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about all the signed cookbooks I lost.
“Okay, okay.” The tomb raider shrugged. “Next time you can just store your important crap in Warehouse One.”
“Not Warehouse Three?”
Shay grinned. “Not valuable enough.”
15
About half an hour later, James stepped out of the truck and eyed the strange cubicle maze dominating Warehouse Two which extruded from the small office at the side of the room. It was as if the walls had started breeding near the office.
The layout of the walls wasn’t parallel, which annoyed James.
Just make a regular layout. Why is this shit so random?
Bring The Pain_An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure Page 11
