Beacon's Hope (Potomac Shadows Book 2)

by Jim Johnson

  And that was mostly true. I was getting more comfortable with my powers and abilities, but I wasn’t stupid—after that near-disastrous meditation experience at home with Abbie, I’d forced myself to be more careful with my talents. The last thing I wanted to do was accidentally hurt her or anyone else by horsing around with power far beyond my ability to manage.

  “That’s good. Soon you’ll be able to operate at full speed without my supervision. But, I encourage you not to push it too far, too fast. There’s still much work to be done. Many rifts to seal.”

  To her credit, she kept any accusatory tone out of her voice, but I imagined it was in there all the same.

  I refocused on the Christ Church sanctuary. “I know you’ve been overworked, Miss Chin, and I’m sorry. I just didn’t know another way to stop the Spinner.”

  She shook her head as she rummaged around in the depths of her coat’s large pockets. “As I’ve said before, no apology is necessary, Rachel. I didn’t have time to train you properly to face the Spinner, and circumstances accelerated your fight faster than even I had anticipated. You did the best you could with the means at your disposal, and you managed to save your grandfather and most of the other residents of Branchwood.”

  “I know, but…was it worth the cost? I mean…you haven’t really told me the extent of the damage I must have caused.”

  I had faced off against the Spinner mostly by using my raw talents with the ley threads, and in a desperate, last-gasp effort, had pulled in as much energy as I could and dropped it on the Spinner, sort of like using an atom bomb to blow up a spider. I hadn’t had a clue what I was doing, and while I had saved the day, I had managed to basically nuke the Veil in the process.

  She met my eyes and shrugged. “I haven’t told you because I don’t yet know the full extent myself. I’ve been focused on training you and repairing the Veil where I can. I’m not one to navel-gaze at what could have been. The reality of the situation is that your actions, your choices, had repercussions, and some of those repercussions, the countless tears and breaks within the Veil, are my responsibility to monitor, and where possible, repair.”

  I nodded. “I’m trying to help repair the rift too. It’s hard work, though. I don’t have your precision of control.”

  She shook her head. “I have about fifty years of experience, Rachel. I don’t expect you to be able to match my repairing talents quite yet.” She smiled. “Besides, you’re a Beacon, not a Mender.”

  I sighed. Menders were one of the three classes of Weavers, along with Beacons and Wardens. “Do you know any Menders working to fix my…little accident?”

  She snorted. “Hardly little. Your etheric bomb ripped holes in the rift from here to points all around us, in a radius of some sixty miles, perhaps more. As I said, I haven’t had time to fully explore the scope of your, ah, incident.”

  I raised an eyebrow, amazed all over again at the damage my moment of desperate sacrifice had caused. “I really had no idea I’d cause so much damage.”

  She met my eyes. “Well, now you know, and I hope that knowledge is sufficient for you to be careful with what you do with your abilities when you are practicing independently.”

  She stressed that last word just a bit, though again I missed any obvious subtext if it was there at all. I was tired and skittish about training Malcolm on the sly, and had heard suspicion in most of her comments lately.

  She cleared her throat. “You did well tonight, Rachel. Well enough that I think it’s time I gave this to you.”

  I glanced over at her as she produced an old, battered leather journal out of her coat pocket. I could practically smell the age of the thing over the moist smell of snow on the wind. Its odor reminded me of Grandpa’s attic—musty, dusty, and ancient.

  She held it out toward me in both hands, like it was some sort of precious, fragile heirloom.

  I stared at it as if it might have had teeth preparing to snap out at me. “What is it?”

  “This is the journal of an ancient Beacon. It came into my hands only recently, though I wanted to wait to give it to you until you were farther along in your studies.”

  She offered it to me and I took it in hand, surprised at its weight. It had a heft to it that didn’t quite match what I had expected from a book. “Where did you get it from?”

  She looked away. “My connections aren’t relevant. It should come as no surprise to you that I’ve been avoiding some of your magical questions.”

  She said it so matter-of-factly that I couldn’t help but be impressed at her self-awareness. “Yeah. I’ve noticed.”

  She glanced at me with a sidelong grin. “So I reached out for help—Beacon help.” She nodded toward the journal. “That was written by someone who was a powerful Beacon in her time. It seemed appropriate that you should have it.”

  I stared down at the book, rubbing my thumbs along the well-worn and scratched-up cover. The cover was tooled leather wrapped around heavy paper with plain edging. The book was fastened shut by a little metal flap and lock, which looked like they’d been added at some point later in the journal’s life. The little lock had no keyhole, no lever, and no obvious means of access.

  I glanced at her. “How do you open it?”

  She met my eyes and shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  I frowned. “Then what am I supposed to do with it?”

  She reached over and patted my arm. “Relax, rest. When you have time to meditate with it and use your Sight, I’m sure the answer will come to you.”

  I sighed. Great, just what I needed on top of everything else going on. I nodded at her and blinked hard again. God, the fatigue was really setting in.

  I pulled my satchel around and opened it, and dropped the journal into it and flipped the satchel shut. “I’ll be sure to spend some time with it as soon as I can.” I gestured toward the church bell tower and the veiled moon overhead. “It’s getting super-late, Miss Chin. Mind if we call it a night?”

  She blinked her eyes and I got the sense that she was about as tired as me. “Yes, I think that would be for the best.” She stood up off the bench and led the way out of the courtyard and toward her black SUV parked on Washington Street.

  I’d had about enough magical excitement for one night. A newbie Beacon has to draw the line somewhere, right?

  Chapter Three

  I WAVED AT MISS CHIN ONCE she dropped me off and pulled away from the curb. There was a medium-sized rental truck parked in front of my house. I cursed myself for forgetting that tonight was the night our new housemate was supposed to move in. I had hoped to be home earlier to meet her.

  After our housemate Vinya left unexpectedly a couple weeks ago, Penny, our de facto house matron, had posted a new ad on Craigslist for a new housemate and had spent much of the last two weeks interviewing candidates. Despite the hefty listed eight hundred a month rental fee, which both Abbie and I felt was insane given the condition of the hundred-year old house, Penny had received nearly thirty applications. Our house was located in the heart of Del Rey, close to a lot of walkable shops and good public transit options, and was just a few miles from the nation’s capital and countless office buildings. It was what retailers liked to call a ‘desirable area’.

  I took off my sneakers before opening the front door. I slipped into the house in my socks. I locked the door behind me and padded toward the stairs, careful to avoid the squeaky spots in the hardwood floor.

  I had to navigate past a couple dozen boxes of all shapes and sizes piled in the entryway and hallway leading toward the one bedroom on the main level. Our new housemate clearly hadn’t had a chance to move everything into her room.

  I glanced down the hallway toward the closed door that led to her bedroom, but it was closed and no light showed under the door. Vinya had been something of a night owl. I’d caught a light or television glow from under her door on plenty of occasions when I had gotten home late or gone into the kitchen to address a late night snack attack.

  The hous
e was quiet save for the sounds of the furnace pushing warm air out of the vents and muffled snores issuing from upstairs. Given their cadence and volume, it had to be either Penny or her boyfriend Cooper—I knew both of them snored but could never quite figure out which was the more vocal one. I guess they really were meant to be together.

  I crept up the stairs, careful to make as little noise as possible with my stocking feet. Penny hated to be woken up early. I was already getting grief from her for forgetting to put out the recycling bin in time for pick-up, and had no desire to add another item to her gripe list.

  The door to the room I shared with Abbie was closed, so I carefully turned the knob, pushed open the door, and slid inside the room. I gently pushed the door shut behind me until I heard the latch catch. I shed my clothes and my satchel as I walked toward our bed, and then slid my cold body under the warm sheets and curled up around my lover.

  Abbie flinched a bit in her sleep as I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her shoulder. I settled my head on my pillow and scooted in so that I could bury my nose in her dreads and take a deep inhale of her almond-scented body lotion.

  She stirred in her sleep and turned her head toward me and mumbled something I couldn’t make out. I made a little ‘shushing’ sound and then kissed her cheek.

  “No worries, Abbie dear. Just me getting home.” I whispered into her ear and then nuzzled her again. “Sorry I’m so late. Miss Chin and I worked hard tonight.”

  She mumbled something into the darkness and then made one of her little sleepy sighs that I loved so much. She settled back into her pillow and soon started to snore quietly.

  She’d been working a bunch of long nights and had been getting to bed later and later. I’d had a few late nights too recently, which meant that our love life was out of sorts. Even though I was pretty tired, I kinda wanted to fool around, but knew well enough that if she was as exhausted as she sounded, it wouldn’t be a very fulfilling moment of passion for either of us.

  So, instead, I curled up around her, sharing body heat, and then closed my eyes and let my mind wander. I was still keyed up from the work I’d completed with Miss Chin. Weaving the etherics seemed to amp me up, and it usually took me an hour or so to come off the high.

  I focused my inner Eye and created an etheric spiral labyrinth, then proceeded to push my consciousness into and along the curving pathways. Down and down into the spiral I traveled, letting my whole body slide into the meditation. One after another my muscles relaxed, until I felt like I had melted into both Abbie and the bed and existed as little more than a consciousness within the blue and silver etheric energies swirling all around me.

  I continued to snake my consciousness down deep into the earth, and focused my Eye on seeking out the massive electric blue glow of the ley grid. I fell into it soon enough.

  The soft blue energy currents contained within the grid were a welcome sight. I settled along one of the massive grid’s lines, and then focused to try and get a sense of its scale. It still amazed me that someone, or even a group of someones, created this reservoir of power and left it for the use of anyone who could tap into it.

  I wondered how long it had been here. Miss Chin had stated that it had been built by the same people who had started the country. Which meant that the ley grid dated to at least colonial times, and that was hard to wrap my head around. Anything older than me felt old, and colonial times were hundreds of years ago. Ancient news.

  But I wasn’t sure—history wasn’t big on my list. Given that I lived in an old town in Virginia made me think that maybe I should make a bit of an effort to get more familiar with local history, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Maybe some time searching online would do me some good.

  I dipped a virtual finger into the pool of blue energy and swirled it around. The energy sparkled where I touched it and rippled outward from me, as if I were in a pool of opaque blue water sparkling under a bright sun. I’d gone to Hawaii on the one spring break I’d had during my brief time at UPenn, and the water there had been something like what the ley grid looked like within my Sight.

  Curious about the extent of it, I drifted my mind’s Eye along one of the grid lines and pushed outward, hoping to find one of the edges of the construction. If the thing had been built, it had to have some sort of border to it, as well as an end point.

  Unlike the Holding itself, which had form and substance and was something I could actually, physically, enter, the ley grid was more of a virtual space I could enter only with my mind’s Eye. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the concept, but somehow I was able to move my consciousness out of my body and project it into the ley grid and sort of float among the etheric energies.

  I lost track of the time gliding through the ley currents in search of an edge to the grid, and all sense of direction, speed, and space left my mind as well. From some great distance I could sense the fatigue in my body and even sensed Abbie’s quiet snores.

  The scale of the grid completely eluded me. The longer I drifted along, the farther apart the grid lines spread, which made me wonder all over again just how big it must be. I had no sense of how the ley grid might look when superimposed on a map of the DC metro area. Maybe I’d have to experiment with that idea.

  As I continued to drift along the grid line, a vague tightening in my core started to develop, getting stronger the farther along I drifted. It wasn’t exactly nausea, but more like a knot of negative energy forming in the center of my consciousness.

  I tried to focus on the feeling, but I was so tired that even my inner Eye was starting to see double. I had enough presence of mind to establish an etheric waypoint within the grid, something I could easily find again later, after I’d gotten some rest and could come back and explore in more detail. Something about this area of the grid didn’t feel right, though what it could be I couldn’t hope to guess at.

  Exhausted, I turned my consciousness around and hurried back up into my spiral labyrinth and worked my way back to my body, my bed, and my home. The mysteries within the ley grid would have to wait for another day.

  Chapter Four

  A SLOW, STEADY BEEPING ROUSED THE Spinner from his deep sleep. He brushed aside the fog clouding his senses and reached out with hungry, grasping etheric fingers for the threads contained deep within the ley grid.

  How long had he been under? His internal clock was a wreck of biological and etheric springs and gears. The drug-induced haze forced upon him and his frail, mortal shell lingered, reluctant to give up its grip on his senses.

  He fought as hard as he could to keep his head above virtual water. He reached out for one of those ley threads like a drowning man flailing for a safety rope. He missed the first time, but the second grab was sure. He pulled the thread toward his center as fast as he could, its faint blue glow a comfort amidst the unrelenting black tunneling the rest of his Sight.

  He wasted no time in plugging the thread into his core, using it like an etheric jumper cable to give his flagging energy core a much-needed boost.

  His mortal body rocked back in surprise and not a little pain, but then settled in as the connection took hold. He drew hungrily on the endless well of power contained within the ley grid.

  If anyone with skill happened to be monitoring the energy flow from the grid, they’d probably pick up the sudden power drain. As far as he knew, though, no one in the DC metro area, Weavers or otherwise, bothered to keep that close an eye on the grid itself. They likely were focused more on the many breaks in the Veil that had been created after that bitch had dropped that etheric bomb on him in a vain attempt to destroy him.

  Rachel Farran. The Spinner rolled the name around in his mind for a while as he drew strength from the ley grid. That girl had proven to be a raw Weaver, one with incredible potential.

  If he had known what he was dealing with the first time he had encountered her, he would have destroyed her the first chance he’d gotten. He would have thrown her through that wall rather than just tow
ard it; might have even pulled her into the woven world and feasted on her soul’s very essence before discarding her lifeless shell.

  He shook his head and stopped that line of thought. There was no point in playing the ‘what if’ game or blaming himself for past errors. What happened, happened. Now he had to move forward with a new plan.

  Or a revision of the plan already in progress, anyway.

  A glance with his Eye around the room his mortal body remained trapped in gave him no useful information—the room was essentially bare save for the equipment keeping his body alive and some ugly, generic artwork on the neutral-colored walls. No calendar, no clock, nothing that would suggest the passing of time save for one tiny window set high into the wall behind his headboard. If he opened his mortal eyes and craned his neck back as far as he could stretch, he could just make out the top edge of the little window.

  It had no curtains and was tinted an opaque gray, but he knew the difference between the lighter gray of daytime and the darker gray of night.

  Feeling stronger than he had, the Spinner pulled up another ley thread and focused his will to create a small tear in the Veil. The rift formed almost immediately, bright blue energies wreathed in his aura’s golden-yellow hue.

  He pushed his soul through the rift and spun into the woven world, pleased that his talents with the ley threads and the Veil hadn’t atrophied over however long he had been out of action.

  He had no idea how long he had been out. He pushed his Sight and his consciousness through the woven world, exulting in the freedom from his broken mortal body, and then pushed through another, permanent, rift in the Veil that he had used before and slipped out onto the streets of Washington, DC.

  A glance around with his inner Eye showed him to be in a dingy alleyway late in the evening. He’d been her before. If his memory served…yes. He turned his Sight and looked toward the setting sun. The spire of the Washington Monument glittered in the distance, poking over the nearby buildings, dominating the skyline.