Jennifer Rardin [Jaz Parks series book 2] Another One Bites The Dust

 Bergman ducked, as if some two-hundred-pound jock had just thrown a Frisbee at his head. “What was that?”

 Cassandra swept aside the curtains. “It’s too dark outside to tell.”

 “Close the curtains!” we all yelled. Her hand jerked back like the cloth had grown teeth and snapped at her.

 The cracking sound came again, two, three, four more times. By now Bergman was practically under the table. He motioned for Cassandra to join him. “Get down!” he ordered Cole. “That reaver might be back for Jaz!”

 “I’m checking out the bedroom monitor,” said Cole. Bergman and Cassandra, thinking that was a bright idea, followed him to the back of the RV to see what the security cameras had picked up. Vayl and I preferred the direct approach.

 He’d already stepped out the door. I shadowed him, drawing Grief, activating my night vision, snapping the band on my watch to shield the sounds of my movements. Vayl motioned for me to skirt the back of the RV since he’d chosen the frontal approach. Another round of cracking sounds accompanied me, along with hurried whispering.

 Though my instincts told me our attacker wasn’t a reaver, I still rounded the corner carefully. I sighted my quarry almost immediately. Just as quickly I pointed Grief at the sky and thumbed the safety. “Kids,” I muttered with disgust.

 They stood about twenty feet away in the pool of light provided by the barbecue cook-off competitors. They wore jeans, plaid button-down shirts, and tennis shoes. They’d combed their short hair neatly to one side. Not the types I would expect to catch heaving eggs from the white eighteen-pack they’d set on the green picnic table between them. However, I did recognize them. They were the boys I’d picked to go AWOL from theother -hating picketers. But to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl till they puked. Not to plaster our pullouts with cooking essentials.

 I holstered Grief and strode forward, preparing to grab them by their collars and shake them until they pleaded for mercy. Vayl had other ideas.

 The bottom half of his cane shot through the air and impaled the carton. Eggs flew everywhere. I almost laughed when the boys jumped, yelped, and darted off into the night. Well, they tried.

 “Stop,” Vayl ordered. So, of course, they did. “Be seated.” They parked it on the benches. “Tell me your names and ages.”

 The kid on the left, who’d apparently chosen to fight his acne battles with a steady diet of donuts and Doritos said, “James Velestor. Fifteen.”

 The one on the right, a brown-haired twig whose glasses kept slipping toward his braces, muttered something. “I cannot hear you!” Vayl barked.

 “Aaron Spizter, fourteen.”

 “Who brought you here?”

 The boys looked at each other and smirked. I stepped forward. “Come on, Vayl, this would be a lot more fun if you’d let me bang their heads together a few times.”

 That sobered them up. James looked up at me, both chins shaking slightly as he demanded, “Why do you hang withothers like that psychic? She’s an abomination in the eyes of God, you know.”

 Aaron piped up, speaking more to his buddy than to me. “What aboutthis freak?” he said, jerking a thumb toward Vayl. “I mean, look how it’s working its mind control on us right now!”

 “You sound like a couple of brainwashed little ruffians to me,” I told them in my let’s-read-a-nursery-rhyme voice. “I’m guessing Mommy and Daddy have made it clear to you that the human race is by far superior to anyother , and therefore you should feel free to damage their property and treat them like dirt every chance you get. I’m guessing they went so far as to buy you the eggs and give you directions to our place. Am I right?” I leaned over and looked hard into the brats’ faces. They couldn’t believe how I’d figured them out on such short acquaintance.

 “Where are they?” Vayl asked grimly. When he didn’t get an immediate reply he bellowed, “Where?”

 James and Aaron both pointed shaking fingers over their shoulders. Eventually we deduced that their fathers were parked in the hate-crimes van near the marina. Vayl put his dripping sheath back where it belonged and we escorted the boys, along with their eggs, to the real scene of the crime.

 Generally Vayl’s power feels like a calm arctic ocean, mystic blue with countless tiny waves on top and an icy cold current running beneath. But as we followed the boys, I decided any decent sailor with my increased Sensitivity would agree the bottom had just dropped out of the barometer and we were in for a helluva blow.

 “Um, Vayl? Are you sensing how I’m feeling right now?” I murmured. Usually I want him to stay clear of my emotions. Like continents away. But at the moment . . .

 “No.”

 “Well, pay attention.”

 I allowed myself a small sigh of relief to see not a spark of red in his eyes when they met mine. After a moment he asked, “Why are you concerned for me?”

 “Because I know what I do whenI’m too pissed off to think straight. And the aftermath is never pretty. So I’m thinking maybe you should not follow your first instincts when we speak to these boys’ fathers, because tearing their arms off and beating them over the heads with them is not going to solve the ultimate problem.”

 “Huh.”

 Oh God, he was even beginning to sound like me.

 However, he did not pull a typical Jaz move when we arrived at the van. He walked over to the driver’s side as the boys took refuge within and stood patiently until the man rolled down his window. I took my place by the passenger—a guy with the pasty, sagging features of the perennial couch squatter.