Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

Finally, the wind shifted the clouds away from her and she sank down into the grass, exhausted as she always was after a meeting with lightning. She lay with her hands behind her head, a makeshift pillow, waiting for the men to approach her, hoping they weren’t so afraid by that little display that they chose to drug her again.

“Are you all right, Jonquille?” Sean asked.

He was first, of course. She should have known. The man had courage. She had a lot of respect for him, and that scared her just a little. She didn’t want to like him. “Yes, just tired. Weak. It will pass. Give me a few minutes and I can walk.” Her voice was scratchy, another by-product of using her strange talent.

“Are you thirsty?”

Naturally, Sean would notice. He was that good of a guy. She really didn’t want to see him in that light. “Yes. Water would be good.”

He disappeared and came back right away with a canteen filled with water. “Spring water,” he told her as if she might suspect the drug was in the water.

She wouldn’t have cared. Her throat hurt. Propping herself up on one elbow, she allowed the cool water to run down her throat a little bit at a time, easing the terrible burn. It felt wonderful. She managed a smile. “Thanks, Sean. I really needed this.”

“Watching that light show was pretty incredible.”

“Whitney wasn’t so appreciative. Did you read that part in my file? I was one of his greatest failures.”

Sean nodded gravely. “Yes. I saw the word stamped over and over in big red letters on many of the hundreds of experiments he tried with you.”

“He was always stamp happy. I had this persistent nightmare that he would tattoo ‘FAILURE’ in bright red letters across my forehead.”

Sean laughed. “I can imagine. Whitney always did seem uptight. Chandler is a kiss-ass and he plays the part very well. Whitney eats it up.”

“Don’t trust him,” Jonquille warned. “He can spot a kiss-ass a mile away. He might not know that Chandler is creating elite soldiers for himself. I believe he’d shut that project down, but he wouldn’t fully trust him.”

“So far, he’s given Chandler everything he’s asked for.”

Sean sounded so tired that Jonquille sat all the way up and studied his face, trying to look at him not as her kidnapper but as another human being. There were lines of strain around his face, lines etched deep. Kidnapping her had really been out of desperation.

“Maybe you should tell me what’s really going on, Sean. If you don’t get Rubin on your side, you know you don’t have a chance in hell of coming out of this alive. Any of you. I think you already know that.”

He stood there for a long time and then paced away from her. “Can you reach him again? Ask him to talk before he tries to kill any of us?”

“Yes. Whether or not he’ll agree is something I can’t guarantee.”

Sean nodded. “I understand why you both would feel that way.”

“It’s Luther.”

“Who’s Luther?”

A little spurt of anger flashed through her and no doubt he could see it in her eyes. Heat crackled around her. “The man who owns the property your ground crew decided they could use to land a plane on. The man they decided they would kill.”

“Whoa.” He put his hand up. “Wait a minute. That place looked deserted. We didn’t think anyone even lived there. Suddenly I’m told we have a dead sentry and blood on the ground. Then the old man vanishes like he’s a ghost. The man is waging war on us and we’ve never laid eyes on him. I told them to take him prisoner, not to hurt him, but Terry told me he was dead already. I’m really sorry about that. We didn’t come here with the intention of harming any civilian.”

“You had taken over his home,” she pointed out. “Wouldn’t you defend your home?”

Sean was silent. “I get your point. I’m not able to raise any of my crew, Jonquille. Not a single one of them. Do you know if they’re alive?”

Jonquille didn’t want to tell him. She could already see sorrow in his eyes. Her silence told him. He shook his head and then stared down at the ground, the rain falling softly on his head, running down his face like tears.

“You can go if you want to. This was never going to work anyway. It was madness. We were so desperate we didn’t think our plan through. We sure didn’t count on Rubin or Diego Campo interfering. Just go, Jonquille, before I change my mind, or one of them does.” He jerked his thumb at the other men still sitting a distance away. Sean sounded tired.

“You still haven’t explained to me what’s going on. If you did, it might make all the difference in the world. Why don’t you let me set up a meeting between you and Rubin? Just tell him what’s going on. If he can help, he will. If he can’t, you just walk away.” It was the best she could offer him. She wasn’t certain Rubin was in a helpful mood—or if Diego and Rubin at this point would let any of them walk away—but she would try.