Lightning Game Read online

  TITLES BY CHRISTINE FEEHAN

  THE GHOSTWALKER NOVELS

  LIGHTNING GAME

  LETHAL GAME

  TOXIC GAME

  COVERT GAME

  POWER GAME

  SPIDER GAME

  VIPER GAME

  SAMURAI GAME

  RUTHLESS GAME

  STREET GAME

  MURDER GAME

  PREDATORY GAME

  DEADLY GAME

  CONSPIRACY GAME

  NIGHT GAME

  MIND GAME

  SHADOW GAME

  THE DRAKE SISTERS NOVELS

  HIDDEN CURRENTS

  TURBULENT SEA

  SAFE HARBOR

  DANGEROUS TIDES

  OCEANS OF FIRE

  THE LEOPARD NOVELS

  LEOPARD’S RAGE

  LEOPARD’S WRATH

  LEOPARD’S RUN

  LEOPARD’S BLOOD

  LEOPARD’S FURY

  WILD CAT

  CAT’S LAIR

  LEOPARD’S PREY

  SAVAGE NATURE

  WILD FIRE

  BURNING WILD

  WILD RAIN

  THE SEA HAVEN/SISTERS OF THE HEART NOVELS

  BOUND TOGETHER

  FIRE BOUND

  EARTH BOUND

  AIR BOUND

  SPIRIT BOUND

  WATER BOUND

  THE SHADOW RIDERS NOVELS

  SHADOW FLIGHT

  SHADOW WARRIOR

  SHADOW KEEPER

  SHADOW REAPER

  SHADOW RIDER

  THE TORPEDO INK NOVELS

  RECKLESS ROAD

  DESOLATION ROAD

  VENDETTA ROAD

  VENGEANCE ROAD

  JUDGMENT ROAD

  THE CARPATHIAN NOVELS

  DARK SONG

  DARK ILLUSION

  DARK SENTINEL

  DARK LEGACY

  DARK CAROUSEL

  DARK PROMISES

  DARK GHOST

  DARK BLOOD

  DARK WOLF

  DARK LYCAN

  DARK STORM

  DARK PREDATOR

  DARK PERIL

  DARK SLAYER

  DARK CURSE

  DARK HUNGER

  DARK POSSESSION

  DARK CELEBRATION

  DARK DEMON

  DARK SECRET

  DARK DESTINY

  DARK MELODY

  DARK SYMPHONY

  DARK GUARDIAN

  DARK LEGEND

  DARK FIRE

  DARK CHALLENGE

  DARK MAGIC

  DARK GOLD

  DARK DESIRE

  DARK PRINCE

  ANTHOLOGIES

  EDGE OF DARKNESS

  (with Maggie Shayne and Lori Herter)

  DARKEST AT DAWN

  (includes Dark Hunger and Dark Secret)

  SEA STORM

  (includes Magic in the Wind and Oceans of Fire)

  FEVER

  (includes The Awakening and Wild Rain)

  FANTASY

  (with Emma Holly, Sabrina Jeffries, and Elda Minger)

  LOVER BEWARE

  (with Fiona Brand, Katherine Sutcliffe, and Eileen Wilks)

  HOT BLOODED

  (with Maggie Shayne, Emma Holly, and Angela Knight)

  SPECIALS

  DARK CRIME

  THE AWAKENING

  DARK HUNGER

  MAGIC IN THE WIND

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2021 by Christine Feehan

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Feehan, Christine, author.

  Title: Lightning game / Christine Feehan.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley, 2021. | Series: A Ghostwalker novel

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020038428 (print) | LCCN 2020038429 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593333099 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593333112 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Paranormal romance stories. | GSAFD: Romantic suspense fiction. | LCGFT: Novels.

  Classification: LCC PS3606.E36 L54 2021 (print) | LCC PS3606.E36 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038428

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038429

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman

  Cover image of man in blazer © Miguel Sobreira / Trevillion Images; image of woman © Zuzanna8 / Getty Images

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  For Kylie Wurst, who shares my love of research, experiments and all things unique and different in this world! Hope you love this one.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Titles by Christine Feehan

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  For My Readers

  Acknowledgments

  The Ghostwalker Symbol Details

  The Ghostwalker Creed

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  FOR MY READERS

  Be sure to go to christinefeehan.com/members/ to sign up for my private book announcement list and download the free ebook of Dark Desserts. Join my community and get firsthand news, enter the book discussions, ask your questions and chat with me. Please feel free to email me at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As in any book, there are so many people to thank: Brian, for putting up with me during power hours on Skype so I can get the books written. Domini, for always editing, no matter how many times I ask her to go over the same book before we send it for additional editing. Every single time I FaceTime you, no matter what time of day it is, there you are working, and you stop what you’re doing to talk books with me when I’m so frustrated. Thank you a million times over! Denise, for staying up nights and letting me write while she does the brunt of the business I never want to do. I can’t thank you enough for working tirelessly to keep the machine going even when I have no clue what I’m doing and you’re endlessly patient and talk me through it. Sheila, my go-to woman, who will figure it out when we’re hanging by our fingernails. Renee, for making me laugh no matter what is going on.

  THE GHOSTWALKER SYMBOL DETAILS

  SIGNIFIES

  shadow

  SIGNIFIES

  protection against evil forces

  SIGNIFIES

  the Greek letter psi, which is used by parapsychology researchers to signify ESP or other psychic abilities

  SIGNIFIES

  qualities of a knight—loyalty, generosity, courage and honor

  SIGNIFIES

  shadow knights who protect against evil forces using psychic powers, courage and honor

  THE GHOSTWALKER CREED

  We are the GhostWalkers, we live in the shadows

  The sea, the earth, and the air are our domain

  No fallen comrade will be left behind

  We are loyalty and honor bound

  We are invisible to our enemies and we destroy them where we find them

  We believe in justice and we protect our country and those unable to protect themselves

  What goes unseen, unheard and unknown are GhostWalkers

  There is honor in the shadows and it is us

  We move in complete silence whether in jungle or desert

  We walk among our enemy unseen and unheard

  Striking without sound and scatter to the winds before they have knowledge of our existence

  We gather information and wait with endless patience for that perfect moment to deliver swift justice

  We are both merciful and merciless

  We are relentless and implacable in our resolve

  We are the GhostWalkers and the night is ours

  1

  Rubin Campo stood in front of the small cabin made of mostly broken lumber his brothers and father had dragged or cut from the trees in the forest and pieced together. No one had lived there in years, but he and Diego came back every year and fixed the place up. He had no idea why. Some compulsion buried deep in them that pulled them back, he supposed.

  They’d been born there. The cabin hadn’t been so large then. At the time it had been one room. His two older brothers and father had begun expanding it as the family grew in size. Eventually, there were nine children. Had their father not died when his horse stepped in a hole and fell, rolling on him, breaking his father’s neck, there most likely would have been more children.

  They had lived off the land and were distrustful of outsiders. He’d learned hunting, fishing and trapping at a very early age. By the time he was three, he had learned to shoot. Every bullet counted. None could be wasted. It mattered little what age he was—if he pulled a trigger, he was expected to bring home something to put in the cooking pot.

  “Someone’s been moving around the property,” Diego said, coming up behind him. “Tracks everywhere. Been coming here for a while.”

  “Stripping the place,” Rubin guessed. He’d noticed the tracks as well.

  The community was a very closed one. They didn’t let outsiders in, and everyone within several miles of their land knew the brothers returned to their property. They were doctors, and they came back and treated the sick. The people were so distrustful of government and everyone else, they refused to go to the nearest towns for medical aid, relying on homeopathic treatments. Rubin and Diego returning, two of their own, were welcome. No one would steal from them. Whoever was taking things from their cabin had to be an outsider, yet the tracks indicated that the person was coming and going on a regular basis.

  “Maybe,” Diego mused.

  Rubin didn’t know why it bothered him that someone would take anything from the old cabin. It wasn’t like they lived there or needed the things they’d left. People were poor. He remembered being hungry all the time. Real hunger, not knowing when his next meal was coming or even if it was coming. He knew exactly how that felt.

  Rubin was ten months older than Diego, and they’d been seven years old when their father had died, leaving their mother with nine children and only the land to sustain them. Their two oldest brothers, at fourteen and fifteen, had gone off looking for work, hoping to bring in money, but they had never returned. Rubin and Diego never learned what happened to them.

  The two boys, as young as they were, began to hunt, fish and trap to put food on the table for the family. The girls helped by gathering plants and roots and growing as much as they could to help provide. Out hunting rabbits, the boys discovered a spring up above their cabin. Both were already showing astonishing promise of their genius abilities in spite of their lack of formal education. By the time they were eight, they figured out how to use gravity to bring that water to their cabin, and for the first time, they had running water in the house.

  They were nine years old when Mary left to marry a man on the farm closest to theirs: Mathew Sawyer. There were few choices for men or women to find anyone where they lived, but he was a good man. She was barely of age and she died in childbirth nine months later. Their mother didn’t smile much after that, no matter how many times the boys or their sisters tried to coax her.

  Rubin reached back and rubbed at the knots in his neck. “I swear, every time I come to this place, I think it will be my last, but I can’t stop.” He turned away from the cabin. “It’s really beautiful up here. I need the isolation of it. I love the swamp in Louisiana and our team, everyone there, but sometimes . . .” He trailed off.

  Sometimes he needed space. He had gifts—psychic gifts that were rare. He belonged to an elite and covert military team called GhostWalkers. All of them had psychic gifts. His entire team. It was just that his gift or one of his gifts happened to be extremely rare, and so they protected him. They shielded him so that any enemy would never find out that he had such an ability. As far as they knew, only two people in the world had the gift of being a psychic surgeon. He was one of the two. The team tended to hover until sometimes he felt he couldn’t breathe.

  Diego sent him a small grin. He got what Rubin meant without a huge explanation. “There’s nothing like the fireflies in the spring, is there?”

  Rubin referred to the fireflies as lightning bugs, and he always looked forward to dusk. The setting of the sun brought that first note in the beautiful melody, as the fireflies rose up to dance in harmony along the edges of the grass. He used to sit with his sisters and whisper to them of fairies and fey creatures, telling them stories he made up to entertain them. He knew Diego listened just as raptly as his sisters did.

  The lightning bugs represented peace to him. Magic. Their world was one of survival and grim reality. But in the spring, when the fireflies came out at the setting of the sun to dance and provide their spellbinding performance, Rubin took his sisters outside and would sit with them in spite of his mother’s forbidding silence. He would spin tales for them to go along with the glowing dips and spins of the fairy-like lightning bugs.

  A traveling man had once told stories to them when he had stopped by, trying to get their mother to purchase cloth from him. They had no money. They made their own clothes from hand-me-downs. Most were too small or too big because they traded with other families from farms. Rubin and Diego had kept a rifle on the man the entire time he was near them. He never saw it. They concealed their weapons under a blanket. Rubin had followed him off the property while Diego had gone up into the trees to cover Rubin. Rubin hadn’t liked the man, but he liked the stories.

  “I miss the lightning bugs when we’re in the swamp,” Rubin conceded. His throat closed at the memories welling up. His sisters. Lucy, Jayne and the twins, Ruby and Star. They would sit so still when he told them stories, rapt attention on their faces.

  Rubin and Diego were ten when they managed to find a way to get in the old mining shaft, found the equipment and stripped it. They figured out how to mak e a generator after taking apart the one at the mine. It was the first time their mother ever had hot water and electricity. That winter was a good one. They were able to keep food on the table. Their mother didn’t smile, but she participated a bit in the conversations.

  That next summer, four men hiked the Appalachian Trail and camped just past their land. Lucy, their twelve-year-old sister, had gone night-fishing with eight-year-old Jayne. It wasn’t uncommon for them to be gone most of the night, but when they didn’t come home in the morning, Rubin and Diego went looking for them. They found Lucy’s body half in and half out of the stream, her clothes ripped off her and blood under her fingernails. Little Jayne lay beside her, drooling, clothes torn, head bleeding from where someone had struck her a terrible blow. She screamed and screamed when she saw her brothers, not making any sense at all.

  Rubin carried Jayne home while Diego carried Lucy’s body. They left both to be looked after by their mother and Ruby and Star, the thirteen-year-old twins, while they collected their rifles and went back to look for tracks. They caught up with the four men the second night. The men had camped up by a little waterfall and were laughing and talking like they didn’t have a care in the world. The boys each chose a target, took careful aim and shot them through the heart. Two shots. Two kills. Just like they’d been taught from the time they were toddlers. They couldn’t afford to waste ammunition.

  The other two men took to cover, hiding. Scared. It didn’t matter. They were varmints. And they were being hunted by experts. They might be boys, but they were elite trackers already. They both could call on animals to hunt with them, usually raptors. They knew the land. This was their world, and they were merciless when they had to be. By early the next morning, the other two men were dead as well.