Jamie was brain-dead.

She saw that immediately. The gunshot wound was simple but fatal. The damage to his brain stem was too severe. She absorbed the details of the injury almost reflexively and knew that if it were only a matter of healing the flesh, she could cause the damage to heal.

The problem was his spirit had already departed, probably within a few moments of the bullet hitting him. There was no psychic scar, as she had seen in the drones that had their spirits ripped out of them. Jamie was a smooth, quiet blank. His body still functioned, but that wouldn’t last long without life support. His blood pressure had already plummeted. Within the next half hour, his organs would shut down.

She closed her eyes and bent her head as a storm of reaction overtook her.

Outrage, grief, guilt. Fury.

This is our fault, she thought. Her mouth worked.

As soon as any of us had heard that Nicholas had been killed, we should have thought of it, especially Astra and Michael but even me as well. He went after my family. Look at what he did to Justin. Of course he would think about looking into Nicholas’s family too.

We were too wrapped up in our own quarrels and dramas to even think about Nicholas’s family. So sad, too bad, you just got in our way, because we’ve always got to think of our greater goal.

She wiped her forehead on her forearm and realized that Michael and Jerry were still talking. Michael must have asked about any supplies on the other boat, because Jerry was talking about bottled water and packaged snacks.

“We’re low on fuel,” Jerry said.

“I don’t care about that,” Michael said. “We used hardly any fuel on the way over, and we have nearly a full tank.”

She said in a hoarse voice, “Would you please talk outside?”

They stopped immediately and stepped out on the deck, closing the door to the hatch softly. She looked down at Jamie’s handsome face. He looked so peaceful, as if he had just stepped out for a little while. It was maddening to know that she could heal his body and yet lose the fight to save his life.

The growl of the boat’s engine started, and they lurched into movement. She ignored it. At the moment nothing mattered outside of this small room.

She looked up at Nicholas, who remained, intent on her. His dark, transparent gaze was the most distinct thing about him. She said, I’m so sorry, Nicholas. He’s gone.

Pain blazed at her. Is there nothing that you can do?

There’s plenty that I can do, she said bitterly. But none of it will bring him back.

The ghost bowed his head.

Nicholas, we have to have a hard conversation, she said. Jamie’s body is beginning to shut down. I can stop it. I’m pretty sure that I can physically heal the damage done to him, but his spirit is already gone.

She already knew he was a clever man. He knew where she was going, and he shook his head against it. No. I will not take my sister’s boy.

She nodded. I thought you might say that. It’s a natural reaction, when family members face some kind of issue of organ donation. Usually in a hospital, there’s a little more time to talk about it, and people can work through their emotions with a counselor. But we don’t have that option here, and we don’t have life support to keep Jamie’s body viable.

No, he said again. This time he sounded almost pleading.

She couldn’t look at him. His pain was too hard to watch. She looked down at Jamie.

I can’t tell you what to do, and obviously there aren’t any rules of ethics to follow in this situation. I just know two things. One is that we face so many risks, we may not get another chance for you. Look at what happened just this afternoon. There’s no guarantee we’ll survive from one day to the next. She paused then said as gently as she could, The other thing is, it isn’t fair that your father and sister have to lose both of you.

That brought his head up. Moments trickled by as he struggled in silence.

Finally he said, How long before I have to make a decision?

She averted her face and concentrated on Jamie again. She said, Twenty minutes.

Nicholas vanished from sight. She lost all sense of his presence.

“Goddamn you,” she muttered.

She wasn’t even sure whom she was cursing. The Deceiver, certainly. Herself, Michael and Astra, yes.

And fate. She definitely cursed at fate.

She didn’t wait twenty minutes. There was no clock in the room, and she had no way of telling time. She had wanted to give Nicholas as long as she could, but she was afraid that she had cut things too close. She wasn’t sure she could wait twenty minutes and still repair the damage to Jamie in time to prevent major organ damage.

So, sick at heart, she sank into Jamie’s body, stabilized his blood pressure, stopped the bleeding and began to work on repairing his brain stem.

God help her, if Nicholas came back and said no again, she was either going to have to stop Jamie’s heart herself, or ask Michael to help her. Otherwise his body would continue to function until it starved to death.

She finished sending basic commands to his brain stem and started repairing the rest of the wound. She worked on the skull next. There was so much damage she plunged into an entirely new area of healing as she tried to coax the bone into regenerating.

And it did.

Slowly, very slowly, the bone began to grow back over the jagged holes left by the bullet. Tears blurred her eyes. She didn’t know if she cried from gratitude or grief. She wiped her face on the rough sleeve of the poncho.

The last thing she did was focus on the skin at his scalp, both entry and exit. She didn’t take a real breath until the wound had sealed over. Then she slumped.

Nicholas formed in front of her again. She looked up at the ghost, her eyes raw.

Yes, he said.

Chapter Twenty-one

AFTER RETRIEVING JERRY and Jamie’s blue and white cooler of water bottles and packaged snacks, Michael untied the cords that held the two boats together and pushed away from the smaller one. He shoved a water bottle at Jerry, who looked shell-shocked.

“Drink,” he said.

The older man obeyed. His hands shook.

Taking the helm again, Michael accelerated away. In the back of his mind, where he kept a tally of estimates, he guessed they probably had been stationary for around five minutes. “The simplest thing will be if you and Jamie come back to the island with us.”

“No,” said Jerry. “Thank you, but we need to get to Sara and make sure that she’s all right.”

Sara, Jamie’s mother, lived and worked in Muskegon. Michael’s jaw tightened. Jerry was right to be concerned. He thought through their options, came to a decision and turned toward Charlevoix. Jerry lived roughly twenty minutes outside of the city, traveling by car, but they could reach it a lot quicker by boat.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’ll get close enough to Charlevoix that I can swim the rest of the distance into the docks. You’ll pilot out to deep water. I’ll get my boat and meet up with you. Then you and Jamie can take this one. I have weapons, money and a sat phone.” He nodded to the black canvas bag that he had set in the corner. “You can go to one of our safe houses and wait there until you hear from us. You’re not his main focus. He’s too busy to spend too much time searching, if we make it difficult enough to find you. And in a week or two, we can hope that it won’t matter anymore.”

Jerry’s gaze focused on the bag. “Sara’s probably on her way home from work at the bank. I need to call and tell her not to go home.”

“Keep the call brief. Don’t explain or identify yourself by name. She’ll recognize your voice. Just set a place to meet. Make sure it’s somewhere that you are both familiar with, but don’t mention it by name or talk about directions. Then hang up.”

Jerry knelt and dug through the bag until he found the phone. Then he paused as he held it. “What about Charlevoix? Won’t they be watching the ports?”

“They are,” said Michael. “But they should be focused on watching the shore. They won’t be expecting me to swim in alone underwater. I’ll slip onto the boat and take it out before anybody notices.”

Probably. Projecting the null space would help with his chances. It was always a matter of weighing risks.

Jerry called his daughter. Michael tuned out of the brief, frantic conversation. Instead he thought about what was happening below. Mary hadn’t contacted him or surfaced, which meant that Jamie was in a bad way but hopefully salvageable. With luck, she would be done with healing him by the time they had to split up.

If he were a kind and generous man, he would give Jerry and Jamie his sleek, fast cigarette boat.

He wasn’t a kind and generous man. He had helped to rescue them from certain death, and he would give them a fighting chance. That would have to be good enough.

The late afternoon was beautiful on the lake. The silver-topped sapphire water looked limitless, as did the sky. Violence and gun battles seemed a lifetime away, whereas he knew better. They were never a lifetime away. They were always in this lifetime. He carried them with him wherever he went.

When they were about a third of a mile out from the city, he said, “This is as close as we should get. Take the wheel and head out exactly due west. Keep the speed steady, but don’t go too fast or do anything else that might call attention to you. If I don’t catch up with you in a half an hour, go straight to the island. Understand?”

Jerry nodded, his craggy face determined. “Just get back to us in a half an hour.”

“I will.” He unlaced his combat boots and toed them off. Then he took several deep, rapid breaths, held the last one and dove over the side.

The water was bitingly cold. He ignored it and swam hard, keeping the null space firmly around him. After a few minutes, his body temperature spiked from the exertion, which made the cold swim much easier to tolerate.

The psychic realm felt as unsettled as it had yesterday. Things ghosted along the periphery of his senses, and he felt creatures roaming up ahead. After swimming roughly half the distance, he eased to the surface for a fresh breath of air and a quick look around. He adjusted his course to aim straight for the docks and slipped underwater again.

He rented a slip for the boat in the Charlevoix City Marina under a fictitious name. The slip lay close to the marina exit. While he was certain that watchers had been stationed at Charlevoix, their job was made more challenging by the fact that the day was so sunny and beautiful.

Traffic was heavy on the water with all kinds of pleasure craft. The most dangerous part of the swim was making sure that he kept well below the hulls and propellers of passing boats and Jet Skis.

Also, he belatedly realized, it was Friday of Memorial Day weekend. All of that conspired to work in his favor.

He stayed low in the water until he reached the slips. Then he surfaced underneath one, alongside a metal railing. He had come in close to his boat, just three slips away.

The rest of the maneuver went as smooth as butter. When he reached the correct slip, he climbed up the railing and eased over the side of the boat. He untied it, started the engine and accelerated gently out of the marina. The whole thing took less than three minutes.

When he reached open water, he increased his speed until he traveled at a carefully sedate pace. The wind sliced through his wet clothes, cooling him rapidly from the heat of his swim, until his body tightened into a miserable knot. The farther out he maneuvered from the other craft, the faster he accelerated, until he hit over 120 mph and the boat skimmed along the top of the water with a high, smooth growl.

The sight of land slid away behind him. He adjusted his course to travel at a slight northwestern angle while he scanned the horizon. With Jerry’s trajectory, they should come in sight soon.

They did. As soon as he spotted a likely speck on the horizon, he headed straight for it. The speck grew rapidly. Soon he could make out identifying details on the other vehicle.

He didn’t relax until he knew for sure it was them. Then the tight snarl of tension between his shoulders eased. He grew aware all over again of how cold he had become. Shudders wracked his body. He kept extra clothes, plus other supplies in the tiny cabin space below, but he didn’t want to stop until he had reached the others.

Jerry had been keeping an eye out for his appearance, because the other boat slowed to a stop as he came closer. He shifted down and approached them slowly. Jerry left the cabin to catch the ropes that Michael tossed to him. Together they hauled the two boats close together. Michael leaped aboard the other boat.

“Your lips are blue,” Jerry said with a frown.

The other man started to shrug out of his lined jean jacket. Michael waved at him to stop. “I have clothes I can change into in a minute. We need to finish this and separate.”

Mary and Jamie sat close together on the deck. Jamie had a blanket wrapped around his broad shoulders, and Mary had her arm around him. Her face was smudged from recent tears, but she looked calm enough.

Michael was pleasantly surprised. She had found some way to wash some of the blood off of Jamie. His clothes were still bloody, but his face and neck looked somewhat cleaner. So did his long, dark hair, which spilled loosely down his back. Dark hollows etched the skin around Jamie’s eyes, and the rich copper tone of his skin carried an ashen hue, but he looked a hell of a lot better than he had earlier when he had been covered in blood and unconscious.

Jamie lifted his head and met Michael’s gaze briefly. Michael paused at the power and intelligence in those dark, too-old eyes. He had underestimated the younger man.

That was good. That meant Jamie would be a real asset to Jerry and his mother with the challenges they would face over the next several days.

Precious time was ticking away. Michael said to Mary, “Ready?”