The Valkyrie's Guardian (2 page)

Maybe she would mend his trunks, but not until he asked nicely. He tossed an avocado slice in his mouth — part of his 4,000-calorie breakfast — and Cassie geared into neutral, brushing him aside. She hefted the opposite seat cushion up and produced Jack's gray neoprene vest from the storage compartment. She shoved the cushion back into place, rolling her eyes at his silent plea not to dent the chrome trim. Jack scoffed and slapped her backside. No way.

She shot him an icy glare. “Jerk,” she mouthed.

“Brat.”

On a bad day that would be prelude to a nasty fight. But today it felt more like terms of endearment. The smile he flashed her was nothing short of devilish, but at least he put the vest on without complaint. When knocked unconscious, 240-pound Jack felt like double the weight. Cassie knew; she'd once rescued him when his “triple-gainer” wakeboard stunt had disagreed with the canyon wall. That he hadn't completely crushed his skull was a miracle, but if she knew one thing, Jack MacGunn had a thick head.

I heard that.

Before she could fire back, he sprang from the deck, leaping fifteen feet into the air in a clumsy dive, hitting the water with his rear end sticking up. Of course she laughed, he always knew how to get it from her. Their quarrels never lasted long.

He yelled “Hit it!” before she could scramble back into the captain's seat. She geared the throttle forward, easing the boat into the insane sixty-three miles per hour speed he loved when skiing slalom. For Jack, a dozen loops around the bay at breakneck speed soothed him like a meditation ritual or yoga stretch.

She drove toward Stateline marina and looked back to check on him. He dragged his back foot on the surface of the water, spraying a cloud behind him. Cassie chuckled as he explained,
My foot itches, feels good.

Cassie compensated with the throttle as Jack tugged on the rope, preventing him from pulling the boat backward. She turned to watch as often as she dared and studied his form. She liked to ski too, but she couldn't do that near-horizontal trick he did when he cut. His extended arm made a straight line from his fist down to the ski, his body suspended horizontally only inches from the water. And then he snapped back so fluidly, the transfer of balance made a fan of water spray from the side of his ski in impressive rooster tails. Art in motion.

Whoa. What — Another boat careened across the bay, heading straight for them. Cassie turned to give them room, and they followed. She didn't like how they closed in, chasing her and pushing her closer to the canyon walls. The prow jerked every time the boat changed course, as though a toddler was driving. She maneuvered in sharp loops to get away, but they kept trying to corner her, pinning her against the wall of the canyon.

What's wrong with these people?
Cassie waved her hand horizontally from the wrist to warn Jack they approached a set of rollers, leftover wake from the other boat
.
She swerved as the yellow boat t-boned across her path. If this was some sort of prank, it wasn't funny. Jack was getting dangerously riled, on the edge of a berserker rage. He cursed and thrashed, gesturing at the other boat. If he lost control, the situation would turn ugly for everyone.

Let me at 'em, Cass.

No way.
She didn't say, “Are you crazy?” because they both knew he absolutely was.

I'm not gonna wait until someone gets hurt. Either you give me a tow or I'll get there myself.

Reluctantly she looped around to face the opposing boat, a flashy yellow Mastercraft Jack was sure to find inferior to his maroon and silver custom Nautique. He pulled hard against the rope to increase the momentum, swinging like a wrecking ball, then leaned on the back rudder to cut even with the boat, spraying a wall of rooster tail right into the yellow Mastercraft.

“Good mornin',” Jack's voice boomed over the dual roar of engines. “The way ye drive, it's dangerous. Not to mention piss-poor. Someone's goin' to get hurt. So sod off.”

Finally near enough to hear their thoughts, Cassie recoiled. A
wrongness
seeped from the boater's minds, a discordant static-like sensation in unnatural, stunted rhythms. By all indications the boaters were ordinary — though stupid and drunk — humans, the only extra-sentients here being herself and Jack. Yet something had to be tampering with their heads.

Jack, what is …
she trailed, disturbed to find his mindshield completely closed.

Cassie heard a burst of malicious intent from the driver. He yanked the wheel, spearing his prow right at her. She steered at a ninety-degree angle to avoid the collision. It made her hit a four-foot tall roller square on the nose, jarring the hull. The engine whined in protest as she worked the throttle. The two boats churned the water into dangerous white-capped waves, and the canyon walls reflecting them back only aggravated the stew. They could capsize — if they didn't get battle-rammed first.

She tried to veer left and escape into the open channel, but Jack cut across the wake and jumped, shed his ski, dropped the handle of the rope, and landed squarely on the nose of the yellow Mastercraft with a jarring
boom
. It cracked the fiberglass — she heard splintering.

The driver startled and dropped the throttle, and Jack made a snakelike lunge to balance himself as the boat sank to the rails then bobbed at the abrupt halt. In comical silence everyone gaped at Jack, who looked like a pissed-off superhero, even in his pink shorts. He dripped water that seemed to evaporate to steam, and his windblown hair stuck straight up like an animé character. With their heads craned to look up at all six-and-a-half feet of Jack, fear seeped through the odd static of their thoughts.

Collectively they startled as Jack leaped from the prow into the aisle. The driver with a scraggly bleached goatee wet his pants, but moments later his arm jerked to aim a pistol at Jack.

Motion blurred as Jack snatched it, twisted the silencer off the barrel, then field-stripped the pistol, tossing each piece in the water. He wore a puzzled expression, as though he expected something other than standard factory pieces inside the Beretta 9mm semi-automatic.

Jack opened the cooler on the back seat, seemingly suspicious of the six-packs of beer and bottles of wine coolers and whiskey. He tossed those in the water too, after crushing them with his bare hands — to prevent them from floating, or because he thought they would explode or something? His dripping blood mingled with water, painting the floor pink. The drunken blond woman in the front seat swayed and whimpered in fright.

Jack MacGunn: mascot for creative DUI prevention.

Considering the interference in the boater's minds and Jack's strange behavior, there was more going on than a case of reckless driving, and Cassie wished she knew what. Jack hadn't reacted much to the gun, and the driver had seemed to pull it without consciously deciding to do so. She gripped the steering wheel and watched Jack's eyes for warning that he would fly into a rage.

Jack leaned over the driver — who crouched, whining like a girl — and yanked the keychain apart. Sunlight glinted off the key as it flew in the air then fluttered down into the water. Jack wrenched the emergency oars out of the side compartments, mindless of the paraphernalia he sent flying, and shoved the oars into the laps of the cowering men.

Jack articulated each syllable, “Now get off my lake. And don't come back.”

Though the first time seemed to happen in a flash, it appeared in slow motion when the man sitting across from the driver raised his arm to point the barrel of a gun at Cassie. Jack pivoted and stepped in front — point blank. At the same time the man squeezed the trigger, Jack slapped the gun aside with a wet
crick
sound that meant the man's wrist had broken clean through. Cassie heard the bullet ricochet off the sandstone wall behind her and far to the right.

Jack made a growling sound, raw tenor with a feral edge that raked down her spine. He snapped the pistol in half like it was plastic, then stared the man down, flexing his hands alternately into fists then claws. Cassie held her breath, waiting for him to lose control, wondering what she should do, if there was anything she
could
do to stop an enraged berserker.

Jack
,
she nudged his mind, but he was still closed off. “Come on, let's get out of here.”

He shook his head and slapped a hand over his eyes, probably trying to hide their iridescent glowing. His shoulders heaved in a visible struggle for control. Finally he turned, wearing a stricken, miserable expression.

She fished his ski out of the water while Jack leaped back across, ripped off the ski vest, and shoved the boat in gear. He tried to wave her away, but she knelt at his side and ignored his seething as she healed the lacerations on his hands. At least her abilities proved useful, limited though they may be.

She kept her thoughts quiet so Jack wouldn't think she needed comforting. She didn't. She'd only worried he would do something highly illegal, like commit aggravated murder; he did
vaguely
illegal deeds constantly. Just now Jack had staved off his berserker rage, control she didn't know he possessed.

What was the matter with those people? Bad enough to be drunk at dawn, but the chaotic noise in their heads? And the silencers on their guns — not typical equipment for civilians. Once Jack calmed down she'd fish for intel. He seemed to know something.

She'd seen him like this before; jaw clenched, muscles tensed, eyes narrowed and all expression wiped from his face. It meant he struggled to douse his anger so he could think, the berserker battling the soldier for dominance inside his head.

Jack vented his frustration on his fancy boat, which was up to the task. He shot around the channel like he auditioned for a James Bond movie. He had worked as a stuntman before, so he knew his business even though it felt risky. They whipped passed Gunsight Butte, and Cassie was about to ask him to drive back to camp for breakfast when his luck ran out.

“Mind if I stare at you close up instead of from across the room?”

—Jack MacGunn, King of the Bad Pick-Up Line

Hard-core, reckless Jack
never
got caught, never got pulled over — until now. Cassie should have warned him the rangers at Lake Powell were à la Barney Fife. If Jack's temper hadn't still been in precarious balance, Cassie would have teased him without mercy.

She bit back a smile as Jack acted respectful to a shrimpy officer half his size, who seemed near orgasmic for catching a hot rod boat going “excess speeds which compromise the safety of boaters.” Jack had been doing seventy-seven miles per hour, but there was no enforceable speed limit at Lake Powell. Only two other boats occupied the water, one being the ranger tug and the other a yacht-style cruiser on the opposite side of the channel. Obviously the ranger was hard-up for excitement.

Jack rubbed the side of his nose and shifted his feet. “Uh,
speed limit,
mate? I don' think I can break a speed limit that doesn't exist.” His tone of voice was just barely on this side of polite and his brogue grew heavier; he'd already been riled by the encounter with the drunken zombie-like boaters.

And then they debated over the decibel output of his custom-built engine and if it met regulations, if his boat registered in California passed Arizona inspection for zebra mussels, and whether he had a working fire extinguisher on board and as many life vests as passengers. The latter was plain stupid, as Barney Fife had to have noticed the pair of ski vests on the back bench. The man wanted to nail Jack for something
and grew desperate. Cassie hoped Jack didn't fold the man into a shape that would fit inside the glove box.

A deputy climbed out of the cabin onto the deck. Cassie took one look at the man and freaked out. A breathtaking infusion of rage and power arrested her entire being. She couldn't explain it — she trembled with unholy desire to rip the man's throat out. Dark, electric heat coursed through her veins, churning an internal storm. Without reason she grew even stronger — bones hardening, muscles tensing, instincts sharpening.

It came with an attitude to match. She wanted nothing more than to decimate the man standing silently on the deck, arms crossed over his beefy chest. She wanted to rip his ribs apart one by one and crush them before his eyes. She would stand over his carcass and laugh herself insane as she conjured lightning to immolate the unworthy remains.

Her breath heaved, her vision narrowed to a focused tunnel where she perceived in painstaking detail. A predator evaluating its prey, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Her spine twitched with anticipation, her fingers clenched, aching for the moment she would crush his throat —

Cassie.
Jack stroked her mind, the sensation like the gentle rasp of his fingertips.

Her brain short-circuited, then rebooted.
What?

Stay cool, lass.
He purred low and soothing, but she sensed his worry.

I want to kill that man, Jack. What's happening to me?

Dunno, Cass, but you're scaring me. Sit down. Let me handle this. And do not eliminate the ranger.

His mind sealed shut and she saw him behaving minimally, every movement and word calculated and controlled. He was in soldier mode. It meant the situation verged on chaos and he was reacting with that false calm. She sat and forced herself to do the same.

What just happened? I admit I'm grouchy, but not murderous. Not usually.

Jack didn't answer, his soldier façade strictly in place. Something was definitely wrong.

But not a clue from Jack.

Two minutes of deliberate breathing, and she nearly doused the urge to do bodily harm. Cassie wished she or Jack had the ability to mindwipe Twitchy Barney and his creepy sidekick and send them on their way with blank stares. “Jedi mindtricks,” as Jack dubbed them, would be handy right now. Barney was seriously annoying, and the deputy — the one she wanted to murder — eyed Cassie shamelessly. Primitive, crude thoughts wafted from his head, appraisal and basic lust. She'd stared him down with bloodthirsty malice, and it turned him on. Gross.