Two men slowly got out and gave each other a furtive glance. The husky passenger had on long red shorts, and the driver looked as yuppie as they come in his polo shirt and loafers. All he needed to complete the ensemble was a pink sweater tied over his shoulders.
He ran a hand over his gelled hair and tossed his sunglasses into the car.
Christian and I knew better than to underestimate anyone, but this guy didn’t strike me as a hardcore thug.
“What’s in the van?” the yuppie asked.
Christian tucked his sunglasses in the collar of his tank top. “Your mother with her legs spread wide.”
Red Shorts turned his baseball hat backward and put his hands on his hips. “Something’s in the back,” he said to his friend. “I’m tellin’ you.”
I smothered a laugh. “You don’t even know what you’re chasing after?”
Red Shorts turned to his friend and said something under his breath.
“He thinks we have something worth a lot of money,” Christian relayed to me quietly. “He’s just got a funny feeling about it.”
“I call bullshit. Our van isn’t marked.”
The yuppie gave his friend a look and jerked his head toward their car. Red Shorts walked back to the window and reached inside. When he stood up again, there was impalement wood in one hand and a knife—one I could only presume was a stunner—in the other. He held them both out to his friend as if he were offering him a choice between candy bars. Yuppie contemplated for a moment before choosing the blade.
These guys actually thought we played by the rules.
I checked to make sure my shoelaces were tied. “This is your last warning to get lost.”
“Afraid to fight a real man?” the yuppie said, taunting me. “I can feel your energy leaking all over the place, Mage.”
Annoyed, I leveled down and sharpened my light.
He laughed haughtily. “Show me some of those girlie moves.”
I shot a look at Christian. “Let’s have some fun.”
Instead of going after the yuppie asshole with the stunner, I flashed toward Red Shorts. His arm swung down, and the impalement stake narrowly missed me. I clutched his trachea and threw him off-balance. When we hit the ground with a thud, the air knocked out of his lungs. I scrambled to my feet before he had a chance to recover. The buildings next to us were lower, offering us plenty of privacy.
Christian attempted to fight the other man, but the yuppie was a Mage and flashing all over the place. I heard his blade hit the concrete.
“Get over here, you blundering eejit!”
“Get on his car!” I shouted.
Certain that Red Shorts wasn’t a Mage, I stepped closer to blast him with energy. His arm swung toward me, and pain lanced through my leg when the stake grazed my calf.
I picked the wrong day to wear shorts.
I released enough volts to singe the hair off his chest. After he quit convulsing and foaming at the mouth, he lay still—conscious but not lucid.
Incensed by the cut on my leg, I ripped off his red shorts and underwear and flung them over the edge of the building. Then I marched over to their flashy red car. While Christian taunted the Mage by denting the roof, I searched the ground for the stunner, but it was nowhere in sight.
So I pulled the keys out of the ignition.
“You win! Get off my car,” the man pleaded. “I just bought it.”
“Did you now? It’s a real dandy.” Christian put his hands on his hips and flashed him a wicked grin. “How did an insipid little man with no socks and bad hair manage to get his hands on a classic beauty such as this?”
“My Creator bought it for me.”
“Ah. Daddy’s little boy.”
