Mind Game (7 page)

“I’m trying to save
your
life,” she countered in a low tone. She could hear the note of desperation she couldn’t quite stifle. “I can’t explain to you what’s going to happen, but you have to believe me. If you don’t get away from me immediately, you’ll be in terrible danger.”

He had been looking away from her, back toward the collapsed building, his gaze moving constantly, taking in their surroundings, the flight of the birds and bats, everything but her. He looked down at her for the first time, his black eyes meeting hers. Dahlia felt the impact like a blow. Hard. Penetrating. Deep. She couldn’t read anything at all in his expression, but his gaze seemed to burn her as it moved over her face. He eased his body from hers, getting to his feet in one lithe movement, pulling her up with him. “You’re afraid of the energy you create, aren’t you?”

It wasn’t that she created energy, but how to explain the unexplainable?
She
didn’t create the energy—
it
found
her
.

It craved her. Raced to her. Dahlia had never experienced grief or rage at such an unrestrained level. That alone would have been enough of a danger to anyone close to her, but with the violence of death, with the explosion and fire, the energy was far beyond her capabilities to contain it. It was volatile. Unstable. And any moment it would explode in a fiery ball, destroying everything near her.

Dahlia stepped away from him, putting as much distance between them as she could manage while the energy raged and swirled and demanded to be used. The moment she did, the vortex of heat consumed her, burning her from the inside out, robbing her of her ability to speak, to breathe, to even function. The raw heat shimmered in the air, crackling with electricity. She wanted to cry out to him to run, to save himself. She couldn’t bear to be responsible for another death, but he just stood there looking down at her with his ice-cold eyes.

He deliberately stepped close to her, so close their skin nearly touched. “Look at me, Dahlia. Don’t be afraid of what will happen to me. Just keep looking at me.” His tone hadn’t changed. It was still as calm and as tranquil as a pool of water.

The moment he closed the distance between them, the temperature went down. The energy ceased roiling. Her lungs worked properly. She found herself staring into the black depths of his eyes. Cold eyes—cooling her skin, cooling the energy. Dahlia sucked in her breath. “Who are you?”

“Nicolas Trevane. I’m a GhostWalker, the same as you are.”

She wanted to step away from him, but she didn’t dare. He was trapping the energy, or more precisely, he was cooling the raging aftereffects of violence. She’d never been able to do it, no matter how hard she tried. She could channel it, aim it, and send it, but she couldn’t defuse it. His words caught at her, she wanted, no
needed,
to know more. “I’ve never heard of a GhostWalker.”

“I know you haven’t. Keep looking at me. Breathe with me. Find your center. Think of it as a pool of water. Don’t try to control it; let the water take the brunt of the energy. The waves can rage and reach higher and higher, but the walls will contain it for you. Visualize it, Dahlia.”

“How do you know me?”

“Just do this for me and then we’ll talk. They’ll come back. They know you’re here and they’re not going to go away without making a try for you. They’re pros, and they’ve got weapons that can reach us from a long distance. We need to move fast and that means you have to get rid of the energy so you’re not so sick.”

Sick
wasn’t the word she would have used. The overflow of violence incapacitated her. It was only his presence that prevented a seizure and unconsciousness. She knew her body, knew the load it could take, and she was far, far over the limit.

Nicolas took her hand. She immediately felt panic-stricken and yanked it away, rubbing her tingling palm along her jeans. “Don’t touch me. People never touch me.”

“They don’t touch me either. I’m sorry, I should have warned you what I was doing.” His tone was very patient and made her feel like a desperate child. “I want you to feel the beat of my heart. We have to slow yours down. I know you have no real reason to trust me, Dahlia, but if we don’t get this under control, we’re going to have to fight our way out of here and we’re outgunned and outmanned.”

Looking down at her, into her enormous black eyes, Nicolas felt like he was falling forward into a labyrinth, a trap, somewhere deep and beautiful he’d never managed to travel in all of his wanderings. Dahlia was a surprise, and few things surprised him. There was immense power in her small body. He could feel it swirling around the two of them, feel it
inside
of her. Dahlia Le Blanc was all about energy.

He reached for her hand again, this time slowly, gently, letting her get used to the idea. His fingers slid over hers, almost in a caress. Her gaze locked with his. Her body reacted, shuddering, wincing. He kept eye contact, not letting her look away as he brought her palm over his heart. “We’re all part of the universe. Each of us shares energy. Slow your heart rate down. Think about it, concentrate on it.”

Dahlia swallowed hard and blinked up at him, all too aware of his muscles beneath his shirt. Aware of his heart, slow and steady. Aware of the heat of his skin. Heat was everywhere, surrounding them. Welling up inside of her like a deadly volcano. But she was also puzzled by the way he was keeping the violent energy at bay. “I’ve tried meditation, it doesn’t work for me. The energy consumes me. It gathers like a force inside of me. I attract it the way a magnet attracts things. And then I can’t contain it and people get hurt.”

“You can harness the energy though, can’t you?” Nicolas kept his voice very calm. They were running out of time. She had to get back in control so they could move fast. At least she was listening to him. It was most likely the shock and grief and the sheer surprise of finding someone who could contain the energy for her.

“Not when it’s like this. There’s too much energy, and it’s too powerful. It finds me—I don’t make it happen. It comes from an outside source. Actions. Emotions. Who even cares? I’ve studied meditation, Eastern philosophy. It can’t be controlled. It has to dissipate some way.” Why was she listening to him? Letting him touch her? She felt almost mesmerized by him. All the while the energy churned and boiled and waited, lurking like some terrible monster looking for a victim.

There was a strange push and pull effect on her with Nicolas Trevane. She never stayed long in anyone’s company, and already she needed her space. She was sick and dizzy and overwhelmed with grief and fearful of his safety. Yet he held the energy at bay. She recognized power in him. It was far subtler than her raw strength, but it was enormous for all its subtlety. And she couldn’t look away from the intensity of his gaze, no matter how hard she tried, or how much she wanted to.

“If you have to find a way to disperse the energy, Dahlia, we’ll do it together. Energy, even violent energy, can be directed.” Nicolas could see the signs of overload.

Grief was living and breathing in her. Taking her well past the point of thinking rationally for herself.

“Can you do that?” She didn’t altogether trust him. She didn’t trust anyone. Not Jesse, not even Milly and Bernadette, but that hadn’t stopped her from loving them. She felt lost and alone and had no idea what to do, but there was something solid about Trevane. Perhaps his calm. Or the power he so obviously was comfortable wielding.

“
We
can do it. Follow my lead.” Nicolas kept all anxiety from his voice. His skin was prickling, a sure sign of trouble. The hit team was probably dropping men back into the swamp and coming at them from all directions. There would be more violence and more death before he managed to get her away safely.

Dahlia did as he said simply because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. She concentrated on his breathing. Listened to the sound of his voice, the deep timbre, velvet soft and captivating, almost hypnotic. He built the picture of a deep, clear pool in her mind. The waves raged, wild and out of control, reaching endlessly to escape, but he kept building the walls of the pool higher and higher.

Dahlia felt better, less sick, but she knew he was fighting a losing battle. The energy was alive and looking for a target. Trevane was definitely holding the energy within the walls of the pool, but it was growing in strength, continually seeking a way to harm someone.

“No it isn’t. The energy isn’t alive, Dahlia. It may have the aftermath of violence within it, but it doesn’t have personality. It needs an escape, like water boiling in a kettle. We just have to provide it.”

“You’re reading my thoughts?” The idea was terrifying. She didn’t have the kind of thoughts fit for public reading.

“I’ll explain later.” Now the hair on the back of his neck was standing up. “We’re in trouble, Dahlia. We’re being hunted. If you want to live, you’re going to have to trust me to get us out of this.”

Her gaze moved over his face, assessing him. Assessing her choices. Slowly. A long inspection. “You’re a killer.”

She made the judgment just like that. Harsh, without any softening.

Nicolas refused to wince. Refused to look away. He met her steady gaze with one of his own. The ice was there. The distance between him and the rest of the world. He damn well wasn’t going to apologize for what he did. “Yes.” If she wanted to name him a killer, he would accept it. Let her deal with what he was if she wanted to live.

“Why would you risk your life to save mine?”

“What difference does it make? I don’t make casual conversation. Let’s do this and get out of here.”

“I didn’t realize the conversation was casual. It isn’t to me.”

He wanted to swear—and he wasn’t a swearing man. She stared up at him with her dark, enormous eyes and her exotic, Asian beauty and somehow slipped past his guard and got under his skin. There was something about her he couldn’t quite grasp, something important, elusive, something that floated in his mind but refused to be caught. It had to do with feelings, and the one thing Nicolas wasn’t good at was dealing with emotion.

He let his breath out, determined not to let her get to him. He had to keep them alive and that was all that mattered. “Focus away from us. Think of the energy like a charge. Something you’re detonating. Direct it to a specific area.”

She shook her head. Her heartrate might be following his, but her lungs were starved for air, the energy choking her with wanting to get out. “I can’t.”

“Focus out there.” He indicated the bog several hundred yards away from them. “Think of it as an arrow. You’re sending it right there. Picture a target and get as close to the center of the bull’s-eye as you can and send the energy there.”

“It will burn everything.”

“There isn’t much to burn.” His gaze shifted restlessly, examining the areas around them. Instinctively he was crouching now, pulling her down with him so that the trees and bushes gave them more cover. “Send it.” This time, deliberately, there was hard authority in his tone. They were out of time. He didn’t mention that he had seen shadows move in the bog.

Dahlia sent up a silent prayer that it would work. She stared out into the night, wishing the moon didn’t keep going behind clouds so she could actually see an image. She felt the force of the energy moving within her. And she felt something more.
Nicolas Trevane.
His strength, his determination.
His
focus.

The energy poured out of her, dark and terrible, raging and churning as it leapt toward the bog. The night exploded into flame, everything turning red and orange and burning blue-black. Screams erupted, horrible, agonizing. Gunfire burst through the night, like angry red bees streaking out of the heavy swamp.

Nicolas heard a distinct thump. “Incoming.” He knew the sound of a M203 when he heard one. They were in for trouble.

Dahlia was backing away from him, a horrified expression on her face. He simply caught her smaller body and slammed her down into the muck, his body covering hers as the grenade hit somewhere behind them, spreading destruction in all directions. The force of the blast rushed over them. Nicolas was up, dragging her with him, hurrying now, heading away from the water back toward the interior.

“Head west,” Dahlia said. She kept her head down while hell erupted around them. “The ground is firmer and we can move faster.” Her stomach was churning, but her mind was blessedly numb. The backwash of energy was already racing to find her, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She worked at keeping her brain from functioning past survival. If she allowed the energy to find her too quickly, she had no hope, and perhaps Nicolas would die as well.

“We’re going to have to go into the water, Dahlia.” He wanted to prepare her. Alligators and snakes called the bayou home. He had to know if she was going to balk. Again he heard the distinctive thump of a grenade fired and pressed her to the earth. She made no protest and didn’t fight him. It was the most he could hope for under the circumstances. The blast landed to their left, a distance away.

Nicolas never questioned himself. He made decisions fast, under life and death conditions and didn’t believe in second-guessing himself. It was a useless and detrimental trap, yet he found himself regretting using her abilities against their enemies. He glanced at her as they ran again. She was impossibly pale, her eyes enormous. Her body trembled beneath his and she winced, shrinking from the contact each time he took them to the ground to avoid the blast from the scattered grenade shells.

He tried to tell himself it was the shock of losing her home and the people she loved, but he knew it was more. He knew the repercussions of harming their attackers had somehow turned back on her. She was game enough, forcing her body to move, to keep from slowing him down, but she was in trouble and he was responsible. It was the one problem the GhostWalkers faced and would continue to face. They were living in untried territory. The backlash of using psychic talents was enormous, and they often had no idea what could happen until the aftermath of the results reared up to bite them.