02 - Rejected by Heaven

Series - The Unbelievable Mr Brownstone

Chapter One

Rehash Shay and Brownstone in Shay’s Fiat, reviewing what had happened lately. James would miss Leeroy all of his life. Alison would miss her mother. He wasn’t satisfied with just killing Walt. The recent convergence of events had disrupted his perfectly ordered and simple world. Nothing was the same now, and he couldn’t pretend it was. you got revenge for both of the Anderson women. “I wasn’t supposed to get revenge. I was supposed to bring Nicole back to her daughter.” What if I fuck her up?” Goes to Shay’s house, Alison there. All ready knows about her Mom. Calling it World War G (Gangster) Brownstone tells her of her Oriceran Heritage. (See Characters, Alison) Alison choses to live with Brownstone, with Shay as her “aunt”. Cries up a storm, worries about Brownstone. Alison worries that her Dad will come back for her- Shay tells her he’ll never be back again. Alison feels better about that.

Chapter Two

Sgt. Mack comes over, at Leanan Sídhe to talk. Chides Brownstone on leaving his DNA on Walt’s confession. Hard to not follow up on. Besides, sometimes people get killed when there is a bounty on their head (posted on him a week ago) Walt Anderson got killed during a retrieval gone bad. Mack invites him over for BBQ Sunday, wants to be friends.

Chapter Three

The three discuss disposal of house and contents with Alison. Will be sold, money in trust until eighteen, some artifacts in house might be worth something, all else sentimental value only. Want’s to keep them – might have been her Mom’s. Safe deposit box. Will go to School of Necessary Magic, so that she’ll learn to control her talents. Will be home vacations, week-ends, and can come back if she doesn’t like it. Jiro Ikeda goes to Harriken Executive meeting, a meeting for punishments, not promotions. “Grandfather” (honorary title) greeted him in English (an insult). Wants Jiro to explain his failures (dead men, destroyed buildings, crippled expansion plans). Jiro explained about Brownstone, was still held accountable, and lost his left hand as punishment. The Professor meets with Brownstone in their favorite bar, with leads on discovery of another artifact.

Chapter Four

Alison moving to school. Needs a few clothes, her phone and her braille reader. Shop for some more stuff, pick up Shay, go to school. Stopped at Church on way, James transferred some BBQ stocks over to the Church. Wait a week or two, sell, have lots of money. Calls shady stock broker to set up deal for fast rise in stock so church will prosper, then can drop back down, OK.

Chapter Five

Shay and Brownstone take Alison to the Magic School. Lots of explanations and descriptions (See Locations – School of Necessary Magic) Shay cries when they leave, Brownstone will miss her. Brownstone approaches her on working with him on newest artifact thing for The Professor, she agrees.

Chapter Six

In the Leanan Sídhe, two spies wait for Brownstone. Father O’Banion warns them not to cause trouble, they tell “the old drunk” to go away. Father has done his duty. Father calls and cancels his meeting with Shay and James that night. The Professor wanted Shay and James to go after the Green Dragon Crescent Blade (See Miscellaneous), perhaps in Mexico. James looks at his favorite show, Barbecue Wars: New Generation. T There was a discussion of the competition results from using different meats, barks, and rubs, some from Oriceran. Good discussion on BBQing! Left James wondering if he had any Oriceran background, and about his necklace. Maybe he couldn’t control a lot of things in his life, but at least he’d always have barbecue.

TUMB 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

TUMB 02/7 Blackstone looked in Bounty Lists for a job – chose Jordan Adams, “King Pyro”, a Level Four classification. a run-of-the-mill bank robber until two years prior, when he’d gotten his grubby paws on the distilled essence of a fire spirit in a potion which gave the man the power to control and manipulate fire. Goes to grubby bar, the Black Sun, to talk to the bartender, Tyler, to get info on King Pyro. Tyler refuses to give him any info on any Level Fours or higher. Too dangerous, so Blackstone goes away.

TUMB 02/8 King Pyro comes to bar, meets Tyler,, the bartender. Tyler tells him that Brownstone had been in earlier looking for him, and to get out of town. Pyro determines that he is King, and he will kill Brownstone first. Brownstone meets with The Professor and Shay. Professor told him, FYI, about two spies in the bar, looking for him the other night. Brownstone will take note.

TUMB 02/9 Brownstone goes out to Black Sun bar, puts on gloves so won’t burn his hands, goes in to take him. Sees him talking to three men at a table. They see Brownstone, and back away.

TUMB 02/10 Brownstone in the bar, with Pyro. Tyler had called the cops, and they came, wishing they had popcorn, to watch the pyrotechnics. They closed on the bar just in time to see the front door explode in a shower of burning wooden fragments. A body flew through the burning hole.

TUMB 02/11 Brownstone takes Pyro by main strength and punches. Gets only slightly singed. New hole in leather jacket., shoulder singed. Police arrest Pyro, take him away.

Chapters 12, 13, 14, 15

In prior chapters, Shay had been relaxing. Goes dancing (Chap. 9), talking about Brownstone to her girlfriends (Chap. 10), decks a guy who tried to make a move on her (Chap. 11). Gets down to business in Chap. 12.

TUMB 02/12 Shay and Brownstone pack, go to airport for flight to Baja. Shay worries about Brownstone carrying all of his weapons, and them being stopped before they even got started, but then sees him go through Security, with special privileges granted for all level weapons, and is jealous. Doesn’t want to learn to depend on him. Has been working by herself too long. Brownstone has not brought the necklace with him. Brownstone dreams about the necklace, putting it on, -burning his skin. Problem was, the dream was a reflection of his memories. When he wore the necklace, something whispered to him. He’d tried to ignore it, thinking he was just psyching himself out, but there was no denying that whatever was calling him to him was getting stronger. The whispers had been louder, especially this last year.His free ride with the necklace was coming to an end, and whatever dark magic powered it would want its due sooner rather than later. Does NOT take the necklace with him. When they get to Baja, and go into their rooms, Brownstone loads up, arming himself with guns, and knives , both throwing and stabbing. Be prepared!

TUMB 02/13 The Green Dragon Crescent Blade. Likely location of the artifact—some hidden caves in a small mountain range up north. The caves were discovered initially during a satellite thermal survey, but weren’t there when they tried to image the area again in later surveys. It was chalked up to bad data. Later information suggests the caves are being cloaked with magic, and the satellite just got lucky that one time. Magical cloaking? Doesn’t that mean someone’s still there?” Nope. Or probably not. Just means some Taoist priests were very thorough back in the fifteenth century. Need to pass the word to local gang (and cash), to leave them alone. No blowing up the cartel or gangs while we’re here. We’re here to get the Green Dragon Crescent Blade and maybe score a bounty for you on the side. If I hurry and we’re lucky, maybe I can find the Blade and we can get back to our rooms before sundown.” Shay made him stay in the car, while she went into the caves. You’re great at killing bad guys, Brownstone, I’ll give you that, but I think it’d be pretty embarrassing if you died in some six-hundred-year-old trap. Just make sure no one sneaks up on us, Nazis or otherwise.”

TUMB 02/14 Coming to the caves, Shay donned her augmented-reality interface goggles, which translated ancient writings, (yes, this was the place), found writings from I Ching, probably indicating spells and incantations. (See Miscellaneous- Green Dragon Crescent Blade for full details of retrieval.) Whille Shay is in the caves, doing her retrieval thing, Brownstone is waiting in the car, covering their external exposure. James calls Bounty Hunter line, narrows down target to one person, living on mountains near where they were going, Jose Padilla, who went by the name Sombra, was a necromancer who kidnapped innocent people. Apparently the Mexican government had become so disturbed by his activities at one point, including raising a rather sizeable force of reanimated corpses, they’d sent fighters to bomb the mountains in an attempt to kill him. When Shay finishes, Brownstone will stop by Sombra's location, and take him as bounty prize.

TUMB 02/15 While Shay was investigating the caves, Brownstone notices a narrow plume of dust approaching in the distance. Two vehicles barreled toward his location, old open-bed trucks filled with men. The angry-looking bandana-wearing men with their AKs and pistols obviously weren’t there for sightseeing. One bastard even held a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

TUMB 02/16 He looked around, chewing on his thoughts a moment. He needed to get the men in a position where he could question them without any of them throwing too much lead at him or blowing him up. Otherwise, he risked fucking up things in this area for himself or Shay in the future. He climbed a nearby canyon wall, setting up an ambush from on top of the road on which they would pass. He’d shoot out their engine block. The men took cover, both sides yelling at the other. Brownstone asked who they were, in English. They did not reply, and shot again. Half of being successful in a dangerous situation was talking trash and intimidation, and he couldn’t speak Spanish worth a shit. Shay started to rush out of the cave, the Blade in her hands, when the sight of skeletons reminded her that there might still be traps around, so she re-activated her goggles, and took careful step after careful step. Upon exiting, she found Brownstone talking with the leader of the group, about going after the Granite Devil-Ghost. The leader was the head of the local police, who had thought that they were drug runners, and had come out to investigate. Now, he and Brownstone will go and hunt the necromancer, Sombra.