The bounty hunter’s expression remained unchanged as he reached out and snatched the shotgun from the man. He cracked the gun over his knee like it was a twig and brained the Harriken with the sharp remains of his own weapon. The man’s blood splattered on the bounty hunter.
“And you guys keep staining my shirts, too.”
The man collapsed to the ground, and Brownstone wiped some of the blood off his face. He mostly succeeded in spreading it around, making him look even more sinister—like some crazed barbarian from the Dark Ages.
Shay stared, agape. She’d seen people killed in many creative ways in her life, but Brownstone’s little display was a first.
“Damn,” she muttered.
Brownstone turned to look at her, and she gasped. He stared at her with vertically-slit pupils in speckled yellow and green irises, his eyes more like a cat’s than a human’s. A few seconds later his normal brown human eyes returned.
Shay couldn’t muster up anything to say. The man standing before her went well beyond the bounty hunter who’d raided the Harriken house.
Was he even human?
Shay finally managed to open her mouth to comment when she spotted movement from the balcony out of the corner of her eye. She fired without thought, nailing a Harriken holding a rocket launcher, and before she’d even fully turned the man fell backward, his payload blasting into the balcony’s overhang.
A fireball bloomed from the area, its roar deafening. The explosion launched a shower of bodies and wood over the circle drive. The remains of the balcony and the room connected to it burned, smoking pouring into the sky.
“Shit,” Shay spat. “We’re on the clock now, Brownstone—unless not needing to breathe is also on your lists of skills.”
“Nah, still need to do that,” Brownstone admitted with a shrug. “Let’s go get her.”
The bounty hunter reloaded his pistol with a fresh magazine and hurried to the front door. Shay ran after him, sparing a last glance at the shotgunner.
You assholes should never have fucked with him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ten more men waited inside the building in the foyer. They lasted less than thirty seconds, their screams echoing in the high-vaulted room.
Shay was still off-balance from Brownstone’s little trick with the shotgun. The man could be a lot of things, or it might be a side-effect of his magic amulet. She wasn’t about to question him about it in the middle of their shared bloodbath.
Brownstone took a moment to survey the bodies. “Huh, no Topknot Guy. I’m kind of disappointed.”
If he’s some weird creature or Oriceran, he doesn’t act like it.
Shay prodded a body with her foot. “Maybe that guy was the local leader, or the head honcho was smart enough to bail when he knew we were coming. Just because the Harriken value strength doesn’t mean the guy smart enough to run things is going to stay there and wait for a living tank to show up and kill him.”
The bounty hunter grunted. “So I might still have shit to deal with in the future?”
Shay almost wanted to laugh. The Harriken couldn’t be stupid enough to come after him again after everything he’d done. That went beyond arrogance to the realm of suicidal stupidity.
“Brownstone, we’ve killed a lot of people today, and you killed a lot of people the other day. I think the Harriken have gotten the point by now, and if they haven’t, well, they don’t have anybody left. They’ll probably start sending you a fruit basket on your birthday.”
The acrid smell of smoke floated from upstairs. “We’ve got to get moving. I’ll take point.”
Shay had run out of ammo for her Steyr, so she readied a pistol. Ah, that gun was so fun, too.
The smell of smoke grew stronger. The hungry fire would consume Belmont House. From Shay’s perspective that also meant it’d do a lot to conceal any evidence of their involvement.
It might be too late to worry about it now, but she preferred not to be the target of another international criminal organization.
Shay rushed after Brownstone down the hallway. They couldn’t spend too much time fooling around now that the house was on fire, even if it remained contained to the top floor for the moment.
A minute of searching revealed the basement door, but no other enemies, Harriken or otherwise. They’d finally run out of people to shoot or stab.
Fuck, I was just getting into it, too.
The door wasn’t even locked or reinforced, yet more proof of the arrogance of their enemy.
Brownstone nodded to Shay, raising his gun. “Three...two...one!” He threw open the door.
No bullets rang out. The pair rushed down the stairs. The stench of blood hung heavy in the air.
Unlike the storage room at the Harriken house, the Belmont House basement appeared to have once been some sort of torture room. A single table and carts filled with bloodied blades, screws, and pins filled the center of the room. One cart even held a few lead-acid batteries with thick alligator clamps. It was everything a sick-ass psychopath might need.
The elaborate twisted-metal light fixture hanging overhead lacked light bulbs, leaving a dim standing lamp in the corner the only source of light.
Shay twitched, her stomach churning. She might have been a killer, but at least she offered her victims a quick death. Torture was for cowards.
An ebony-skinned woman with long bright-white hair lay on the table, her hands and feet secured by ropes. She wore only a torn dull-green hospital gown. Jagged lacerations, bloodstains, burns, and abrasions covered her body, arms, legs, and face. The fingers on one of her hands were bent at extreme angles. There was some sort of metal sheet around her chest.
Brownstone let out a low growl.
Shay swallowed. She almost wished they could bring the Harriken back to life so they could kill them all again.
“Nicole Anderson?” Brownstone asked, a confused look on his face.
The woman on the table was as dark as night, unlike her
