Mind Game (GhostWalkers, #2)(64)

“You can save him, Nicolas,” Dahlia said. “I know you can. I feel the power in the room with us. You have to try. He won’t last until the ambulance gets here. You know he won’t. You told me your grandfather felt it in you a long time ago. He could heal, so can you.”

“I told you I couldn’t heal anyone, Dahlia. I’ve never been able to.” Failing her left him feeling worse than he had felt at any other time in his life. “I’m sorry, I wish I could save him for you, but I can’t.” It wasn’t as if he couldn’t feel the power moving through his body. It was there, a tight coil he could never unfurl. He had tried so hard in his youth to learn the secret, spent time in the mountains on vision quests, had meditated, all to no avail. He couldn’t bring the power out of his body and into another’s no matter how grave the injury or how important the need.

“There’s all this energy bombarding me, surrounding us. It’s violent and ugly, but we’ve mixed it before, we can do it again, this time use it for something good. You have my crystals in your pack. I can aim and focus the energy through the crystals. You kept us joined while you were here alone, you can keep us joined so you can use the energy. I’ve never been able to release energy through crystals but I think you can.”

“I don’t know the first thing about crystals, Dahlia.” He didn’t. His people used herbs and smoke and spirits, not rock and mineral.

“I know about crystals.” The energy was flowing to her from every part of the house, rushing to overtake her like a great tsunami. She rocked back and forth, pressing her teeth together, fighting to stay conscious. “We have to do it now, Nicolas.”

He dropped to his knees beside her. “We can’t stay here, Dahlia. It’s too dangerous, and the cops are going to be trigger-happy when they find the dead bodies outside. I’ll try, but we have no more than a few minutes. Then we go.” He was already pulling her crystal spheres from the pack. “Which ones?”

“The amethyst to focus. The rose quartz for healing.” She reached for the familiar balls, her fingertips gliding over the surfaces. At once the calming affect relieved some of the terrible pressure building throughout her body.

Nicolas put his hands over Jesse Calhoun’s chest. His hands felt icy cold. He felt the power moving inside him, but there was a barrier he couldn’t begin to bridge. For Dahlia’s sake, he began the age-old healing chant his Lakota grandfather had taught him.

Dahlia reached out, the crystals tight in her fists, and laid her hands, palm down, over Nicolas’s. At once he felt a jolt through his body, a sizzling whip of electricity, and the hot flow of energy pushing through Dahlia to him and back again. The heat emanating from the spheres seared his skin as he passed his hands over Jesse’s body. His discipline stood him in good stead, not allowing anything into his mind but the healing of the NCIS agent’s torn and mangled body. The steady beating of the heart. The flow of blood through the arteries and veins.

Nicolas felt the burn of the energy swelling in volume, flowing around him and through him, a turbulent mass increasing in strength as Dahlia focused and aimed it through the crystal spheres. She pressed the amethyst into his hands. For a moment time seemed to stand still. A strange purplish-pink light glowed beneath Nicolas’s palms and radiated out over Jesse’s body. Nicolas blinked, and it was gone, perhaps only a figment of his imagination, but the heat was all too real. Power shifted inside his body, the tight coil slowly began to unfurl, to spread and grow.

He no longer felt himself, but a part of something vastly larger, atoms stretching through the universe, flowing around him, gathering inside of him. Dahlia put the rose quartz in his hands and at once he felt the flow of energy. It moved through his body, sizzled in his veins and arteries, even his brain, drawing always toward his hands, toward the crystals there. Toward the mangled body of Jesse Calhoun. The light glowed brightly beneath his palms, radiated around Jesse and seemed to sear over the wounds, almost cauterizing them as the power flowed from him to the man lying so still on the floor.

Red lights flashed along the walls, breaking the spell. Nicolas let his breath out slowly and pulled back into himself, feeling strangely drained. He slumped over Calhoun, staggering for a moment. Dahlia reached out to steady him. He looked down at her small hands on his arm and then at Jesse Calhoun. The man’s eyes were open, and he was staring at him with a kind of awe.

“What did you do?”

“The police are coming. An ambulance. I’ve got people standing by to intercept and keep you safe, Calhoun. We’ve got to go, but you’re going to live.”

Calhoun’s gaze shifted to Dahlia. “Someone wants her dead.” His eyes closed and he seemed to slip back into an unconscious state.

Nicolas answered him anyway, just in case he could still hear. “She’ll be safe with me.” At once Nicolas tossed the spheres into his pack, noting almost absently that they were still warm. “We’ve got to go now, Dahlia.”

She stared down at Jesse’s body. He was breathing easier, and the blood no longer seeped from the wounds on his calves. The bones were obviously shattered, but his color seemed better and the bluish tinge was gone from around his mouth.

“I think it helped, Nicolas. I really do.” Dahlia took the agent’s pulse. “His heart is stronger.”

“We’ve got to get out of here now, Dahlia.” Nicolas caught her arm in a firm grip, tugging at her to get her away from Calhoun’s side. “Can’t you hear the sirens? The police are going to be swarming around this building soon, and we can’t be here.”