shrugged. “I was in a hurry to heal you the first time but after I healed Mal Ryn something niggled at me.”
Meg’s look of concentration turned to relief and confusion. She opened her eyes and looked at Serenity. “I don’t see anything.”
Serenity blew out a breath and shook her head. “That’s what I was afraid of.” She turned to Flinn. “May I?” she asked him and despite his confused wary look he nodded.
A moment later she shook her head. “Can you bring in the others from the hall? I need to find out how far this goes.”
Jas looked unhappy but he nodded to Flinn who went to the door and called the others in. While they were doing that she checked Meg, who gasped at the first feel of her power. Then Meg blinked and looked down, realized she still held Jas’s hand and her eyes widened. She let him go with a blush and stepped back before she gave Serenity wide eyes. “Do I have it?”
Serenity shook her head. “No,” but when she had checked everyone else, something that didn’t take long when she knew what she was looking for and where to find it. “But every one of the phoenix do, and Mal Ryn.”
“And you?” Flinn asked looking even more grim.
“No, nothing.” She assured him. “But then my powers are such that it would have already been dealt with if I had.” She pursed her lips. “I need to check out the rest of the crew and find out where this begins and ends. If it is just Mal and the phoenix then…”
No one looked happy at that idea. But if Meg had not been messed with, she doubted it was all of the OIP soldiers.
“We’re not taking you around the ship with the Councilman on board. You’ll have to make do with checking those that come here, or to mess when we have it again.” Jas nearly growled at something he was thinking. She didn’t blame him. If someone had put something in her head she would be angry too. The fact that none of them knew what it was, and it was shielded from Meg somehow meant that it was undoubtably a bad thing. “Can you tell what it does?” he asked finally.
She shook her head. “I’m not a scientist, or even a trained medic come to that, and while I’m sure I can remove it with my power, to take one out surgically so that it can be studied is beyond my abilities, and would probably prove fatal. If it doesn’t have its own failsafe preventing such things. From the way it shields itself from most healers I would say that’s likely. Whoever did this, didn’t want it discovered. That much is clear.” She blew out a breath. “We need to talk to Mal. If this is something he doesn’t know has been done to him and his men, it means…”
“Council,” Flinn spat out.
She nodded. “And if I hadn’t tried to heal Mal while he was in a rage I might not have seen it. It lit up, for want of a better description.”
“Because it was active?” Jas asked. “Tied to his emotions? What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But we need to find out.”
Flinn ran his hands through his hair roughly. “Why do I suddenly feel like there’s a countdown to our destruction sitting in my head.”
Because there most likely was, Serenity thought, but bit her lip to keep it in. She needed to talk to Mal and find out just how far this went through the ranks. While keeping out from under the eyes of Councilman Gren and his rotting death power.
“Can you get it out?” Jas asked on a growl.
She looked at Jas. “I need to see Mal Ryn as soon as he finishes with the councilman.”
“Now,” he said. “I don’t care what you think it does, I want it out of my head. Now.”
She opened her mouth to argue, saw the hunter fire and then just nodded instead. She placed both her hands on his head and sent her power to the nearly invisible box sitting on his brain. As soon as her power surrounded it she saw little shoots of power coming from it. She reacted before any damage could be done, and Jas dropped to the floor as if all his strings had been cut. She ignored the cursing and gasps from the room and followed him down.
When her tentative foray seemed to excite the