Lethal Game (GhostWalkers 16)

A car backfired and Amaryllis injected the poison into Callendine’s ankle, immediately sliding back beneath the SUV and out the other side. Callendine was distracted momentarily by the loud bang, so that the sting barely registered. Then the pain began to overtake him fast. He started to reach down toward his leg but then looked carefully around again before crouching low to rub at his ankle.

Weirdly, his hand missed his ankle as if his coordination was off. He stared at his hand in fascination. His fingers had multiplied. The gun slipped from his palm to drop to the ground beside Treadway’s body. He watched it fall, but there seemed to be two guns clattering to the floor of the garage, not one, and both were so blurred he could barely make them out. His ankle burned and hurt with a fiery pain. He’d never felt anything like it.

Someone crouched down beside him. A woman, yet he couldn’t quite make out her face, it was too blurry. He knew it was important to note she was a woman, but he was sliding to the floor right over top of Treadway, which seemed indecent, but he couldn’t stop himself, his body was no longer his own to control. He could barely find a way to breathe.

“Malichai Fortunes is my fiancé, Callendine, and I didn’t much like you having your man try to kill him. Nor do I take kindly to you and your merry associates attempting to murder innocent people. You didn’t get away with it. Not a single one of you.”

She got up and sauntered away. He tried to watch her go, but his vision was too blurred, and he was fighting for every breath, his lungs burning and his diaphragm laboring. He lay there for a few more minutes struggling, and then there was silence.Malichai worked as fast as he could, moving through the wires, grateful whoever had built the bomb had used a much simpler method than the more sophisticated ones that he’d learned to take apart. Those took time they didn’t have. He had to block out everything around him but the bomb itself. The people running. Their screams. The sounds of crying children. The fact that Amaryllis was out there somewhere unprotected. The excruciating pain in his leg that caused every nerve ending to send shards of glass through his nervous system.

He ignored his body and concentrated on the bomb, even when Ezekiel threw himself down beside him to disconnect the second bomb Major Roseland Salsberry had attached to the main one to add an extra kick to bringing down the center on top of the innocent people.

He felt sweat trickling down his forehead and more down his chest. He wasn’t like the men in the movies who just disarmed bombs so nonchalantly and easily as if they did it daily, yet he’d always had a knack for it. He knew part of that was his psychic gift, his hands moving like the surgeons’ might in a body. It was instinctive as well as trained. He was fast because the movement was almost without thought, but yet guided by both training and instinct.

Time passed and he was at the end, cutting the last wire and turning his attention to the bomb Zeke was working on. Ezekiel had it nearly finished with the clock ticking down. Malichai looked at it for a long moment, frowning. Something wasn’t quite right. He studied it, staying his brother’s hand. Zeke looked at him over his shoulder, but didn’t insist he was on the right path, although he’d stopped this bomb once before.

Very cautiously, Malichai used the tip of his snippers to ease open a small door built into the side of the bomb. It was very small and seemingly incongruous. There was no reason for it to be there at all. So why was it there? Two blue wires trailed innocently up to the detonator along with two red ones.

Zeke looked at him. Shook his head and sank back on his heels. “I would have blown us up. How did you know?”

He hadn’t. Malichai couldn’t tell him why or how his body reacted to explosives, it just happened, and in this case, it had not only saved their lives but also saved the lives of the people not yet evacuated from the building. It wasn’t easy getting a couple thousand civilians out of a building, even for military teams working together.

Malichai followed the blue and red wires back to the detonator. All four were twisted around one another and around other wires. Major Salsberry had deliberately made this as difficult as possible. Malichai had to trust his gift—and he did. The timer had counted down far too close to the last minute. He chose a blue wire and snipped it, hearing his brother’s gasping protest as he did.