Lethal Game (GhostWalkers 16)

Malichai’s heart gave another hard jerk in his chest. He knew the answer was going to be bad. The leg hurt like a mother all the time. All the time. Joe and Amaryllis had worked on it continually and it hadn’t stopped forming the tiny cracks in the bone. In fact, he was certain the damage was happening at a much faster rate. He knew this was going to be bad, and he dreaded the answer.

He took a deep breath and tried to keep all expression off his face. It took effort not to crush Amaryllis’s hand in his.

Rubin glanced up at him, meeting his eyes. There was compassion there. Understanding. Things Malichai didn’t want to see. Then Rubin was all business. He didn’t speak to Ezekiel or the others in the room, only Malichai.

“I’m going in and repairing the bone again. But I’m only able to repair the damage to the bone itself that is happening at this moment. Whatever the Zenith is doing to the bone is beyond my ability to help. Perhaps Lily has ideas. We just need to keep the bone from fragmenting until we can figure out how to stop that process. You have to baby the leg, Malichai. No more hero stuff. No running. No kicking the crap out of someone. You’re in the control room, not in the field. One more stunt like this one and you’ll lose the leg. There will be no going back.”

The thing about Rubin was he always spoke in a low, velvet-soft southern drawl. He never raised his voice, and by doing that, Malichai knew he meant every word he said. The room went absolutely silent and Malichai’s heart dropped. He knew that everyone else would be hopeful, but Rubin wasn’t. He had essentially grown up with Rubin. He knew him, all the subtleties of him, and Rubin knew him. Sidelining him when his team was in trouble was asking the impossible of him.

Malichai closed his eyes and just let himself think about Amaryllis while Rubin performed the impossible—psychic surgery. She’d chosen him. She could have chosen anyone with her looks and her intelligence, but she had thrown her lot in with him. Right now, she wore his ring. He put his thumb on the ring he’d given her and rubbed back and forth over the top of it as if it could magically transform his life and what was happening to him.

He thought about the house he’d been building. Had he considered what his woman would want in the house? He had looked at it from every conceivable line of defense. Even the windows. He liked the outdoors and often felt cooped up inside a house, so he needed a ton of windows. Bulletproof windows. Tinted windows. Windows he could see out of, but few could see into.

“If we talk, is that going to disturb him?” Amaryllis whispered.

He shook his head. “Everyone just likes to observe him.”

“Observe him?” she echoed. “I can’t tell that he’s doing anything. Every now and then there’s this flash of light and then nothing at all. When Joe heals it’s so cool because you can see everything so vividly.”

Malichai caught Rubin’s small flash of a smile. It was rare to catch a Rubin smile. Malichai had once asked him why there was so little light or heat when he worked. Rubin said he conserved as much energy as possible in case he had to perform multiple surgeries on several patients or just on one. That made sense but it wasn’t as flashy. Rubin explained it wasn’t about flash, it was about control. The healer had to get a handle on the gift.

“Should I give everyone the day off that day?” Amaryllis whispered. “All my workers. If they are here, cleaning rooms, or working in the kitchen, they’ll be at risk, won’t they?”

It was mesmerizing to watch the colors burst out from under Rubin’s palms from time to time. It was dark in the room and the color would flash momentarily and then be gone. Because it was impossible to know when the phenomenon was going to occur, Malichai couldn’t take his eyes from Rubin and the way he inched his palms over the leg. It felt like laser points moving along in a crooked, almost drunken pattern.

Ezekiel answered Amaryllis. “Honey, Rubin isn’t actually going to set the bed-and-breakfast on fire or kill your guests. We might decide it’s necessary to fake their deaths, just to draw out Callendine and his crew, but we’re not going to set this place on fire. The workers aren’t going to be in danger.”

Amaryllis laughed nervously. “I didn’t think that through. Of course no one is going to set the place on fire.”

Malichai brought the ring to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “This has been your home for the last year and it’s Marie and Jacy’s livelihood. Naturally, you’d be worried about it and all those here.”