Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

She looked around her. “If I’m up here, anywhere out in the open, no matter what you do, the lead stroke will find me.”

“Then you’ll have to go to lower ground with Diego and find somewhere you’ll be safe.”

Diego had turned away to start down the trail to find a refuge where he could still record but not be in the path of the lightning strikes. Using a camera so close to the actual storm could be dangerous. Jonquille didn’t want to go with him. She wanted to stay with Rubin. She knew she could protect both of them by drawing the lightning away from Rubin. She thought he was crazy for attempting to direct the actual strikes when he had no decent protection.

“Diego, are you really all right with him doing this?”

“No, but you try talking him out of it,” Diego groused. “He’s stubborn as hell. You might want to remember that, Jonquille, when you’re getting all melty over him. He has some really bad traits that outweigh the good ones.”

“I don’t know, Diego, those kisses kind of make up for a lot.”

“He doesn’t kiss me and I’m just fine with that. You coming?”

She didn’t want to.

“Yes, she is,” Rubin said. “Get moving.”

She could feel the building energy in the air. The pull on her body was already showing in the form of white-hot light. The storm was moving toward them, the wind pushing it right where Rubin had predicted.

“He is bossy,” she conceded. “The memory of those kisses is fading fast.”

“I don’t have time right now to remind you. Get under cover.” Rubin sprinted away from the two of them, across the bare, bald landscape, toward some spot that he seemed to have in mind.

“Move it,” Diego snapped, proving he was just as bossy as his brother. He began to sprint in the opposite direction.

Jonquille followed him, but she wanted to be with Rubin. She wished she were in his mind the way Diego was. She had the capability, but she didn’t have the pathway.

Diego and Jonquille had to travel quite a distance in order to get across a gorge to allow them to see the flat, bald top of the mountain where Rubin planned to conduct his experiment. Diego spotted a crevice Jonquille could fit her smaller body into to keep the lead stroke from finding her.

“Can you see Rubin?” There was no way to keep the anxiety out of her voice.

“Yeah, I’ve got him, he’s lying flat just to the right of those boulders. See them? Left side up near the highest point.”

Thunder rumbled. There was little to stop the wind or keep it from slamming into them. She couldn’t imagine what it was doing to Rubin, exposed as he was. Overhead, the clouds were dark, black and purple. They lit up, lightning forking inside them as the charges bumped against one another repeatedly, causing enormous friction. The pull on her body was horrendous.

“You all right, Jonquille?” Diego asked. “You’re glowing like a Christmas tree.”

“Just keep your eyes on Rubin. I’ve done this a million times now.”

“You really are worried about him. I’m sorry I thought about killing you so often. That would have been a tragedy.”

She wasn’t so certain, not when her core temperature was so hot now she felt like the ground around her was melting just from the contact with her body. This was never going to end for her. She’d done so much research. Rubin, as far as she knew, was the best mind in the field working on the possibilities, and yet he couldn’t help. She’d been at her research for years. It didn’t seem as if there was any hope for her. Maybe Diego’s bullet would have been a kindness.

Static buildup was fast. The charge was coming. She couldn’t help herself. She was folded into a little ball, crammed tight into the crevice, but she stuck her head out to look up at the sky just as the bolt of lightning slammed to earth. She saw the trajectory in her mind. Knew where it would hit. Out of nowhere a blast of energy every bit as strong hit it, diverting the path, knocking it off course so that the spear moved from its intended target to another. Sparks flew up in all directions.

“He did it. That son of a bitch actually did it.” Elation poured out of Diego. “He said he could, and he hit the target dead-on.”

“What target? There were no targets.” Jonquille felt like a turtle, with her head stuck out of the crevice trying to peer at the bald mountaintop.

“Rubin mapped the entire mountaintop into various coordinates. He told me where each strike would be directed.”

Another was coming. She felt the pull on her body. “Watch your eyes, Diego,” she warned.

Thunder crashed directly overhead as the blinding flash of white-hot electrical energy burst down looking for the charge coming from the ground. Again, before it could reach its target, it was struck and knocked off course. Diego was muttering continually to himself. “This is insanity. No one can do this.”