Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

There was a moment of hesitancy. His heart did a funny little hitch.

Be there in a minute.

His heart resumed beating normally, although she didn’t feel normal. He couldn’t take his gaze from their enemy long enough to look behind him to find her. I need to know if you’re doing all right, sweetheart.

Diego spoke for the first time. Jonquille, you have to tell us the truth. If using your gift tires you out, we need to know so we can take steps to protect you when we ask you to use it. We’re a team and we work together. We’ll do the same, let you know when we need you to take our backs.

Like that’s ever going to happen.

It happens all the time, Diego said. We go into combat. We get shot. There are accidents.

Rubin took over. You seem to have a very big problem with the fact that you’re the first-generation GhostWalker and we’re the fourth. Team One, Ryland’s team, is every bit as respected among the GhostWalkers as Team Four. We don’t look at each other’s psychic gifts and put one ahead of the other either. Or we shouldn’t. Diego is a little arrogant because he thinks he’s a hotshot tracker with mad skills, but now that you’re with us, his status is in jeopardy.

The man on the ground was definitely becoming much harder to see. The clouds had darkened. The electrical activity had died down, leaving behind very black clouds that were drifting away on the wind. The light from the moon came only in strange patterned tears like rips, streaks of thin stripes when the thick cloud formations parted just enough to allow a small beam to escape and slash across the ground. In a way, the streaks looked like a giant claw had ripped at the grass, tearing at it and leaving it blackened and torn in the wake of a massive cat taking its aggression out on the world.

Rubin thought in terms of a predatory animal. The man sprawled out on the ground didn’t remind him of prey, not even now, when he should have been dead. He hadn’t been struck by any of the lightning bolts or the plasma spheres—but he had been shot.

Can you tell if he is bleeding, Diego? Fresh blood. That would indicate he’s alive.

He fell covering that side.

How convenient. More and more, Rubin was convinced their quarry was not dead and that he was just as lethal now, if not more than he had been. Don’t approach him. I’ve got a bad feeling about him. Remember Whitney’s last experiments? All of the women could inject lethal poisons. We don’t know what this man is capable of. I don’t believe he’s dead. He may have been stunned for a few minutes, but he isn’t dead.

He isn’t dead, Jonquille confirmed. She sounded a little stronger, but she wasn’t closer to them. I can feel him. He’s very aware of us. Of me in particular.

Rubin didn’t like the sound of that. What do you mean, of you in particular? Are you connected to him in some way? Did Whitney connect you? Pair you? There was sharp demand in his mind. Even anger, when he wasn’t an angry man.

Mellow out, Rubin. How could she possibly know the answer to that? Diego said. I’d like to tell you he’s sane most of the time, Jonquille, but since he’s never been crazy over a woman before, I have nothing to go by. Judging by his behavior with you, I don’t think there’s much hope that he is.

Jonquille’s soft laughter sounded like music, a breath of fresh air, clearing out the dark stirrings of strange jealousy that had crept into Rubin’s mind unbidden, striking such a discordant and unnatural note.

It doesn’t feel like a pairing, Jonquille mused, after a moment. But he’s tuned specifically to me. That device he used was to draw me out. You weren’t supposed to be here for another three or four weeks. If Whitney sent him to get me, why now? Why bring me in all of a sudden after all this time? That would mean the retrieval team is after me, not you.

It was impossible not to catch the worry in her voice. Jonquille had thought of herself as being flawed, and because of that she was off of Whitney’s radar. He shouldn’t want her back. If Whitney had sent a team of very sophisticated supersoldiers after her, he meant business. He wouldn’t risk his multimillion-dollar high-tech soldiers for the return of one flawed orphan experiment that had gone seriously wrong. She might be imperfect and a mess, but she was still lethal. Why risk his elite soldiers?

Rubin, none of this is making any sense. You and Diego should back off. This might be some elaborate trap. Diego? Can you sense anyone else near? Rubin? We’ve been concentrating on this man. Is it possible he’s the bait? We’re exposed out here just like he is.