Beacon's Hope (Potomac Shadows Book 2)

by Jim Johnson

  “Not sure. I guess I’ll take some of the monthly cash I just got and head down to the store tomorrow. I can’t afford a monthly payment so I’ll have to get a burner with a couple hours’ worth of prepaid minutes.”

  She made a little clucking sound with her tongue and then nudged me. I cracked open my eyes to look up at her.

  She smiled down at me. “I have a pretty good phone plan with my provider. How about we run to the store tomorrow morning and get you a new phone and put it on my plan? You can pay me instead of a phone company.”

  I stared up at her. “Wow, Abbie. That’s…that’s kinda big.”

  She tabbed off her ereader and closed the cover. “What do you mean?”

  I pushed myself up into a sitting position next to her. “I mean, on the same cell plan. I’ve never shared anything like that with anyone before. Heck…I don’t think I’ve ever shared utilities with anyone before until I met you.”

  She smiled. “Any reason we shouldn’t share a phone plan?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it and thought about her question. Was there any reason not to? We were happy together, had good times together, the sex was great, and I had no interest in dating anyone else.

  I stared into her eyes, amused that something so mundane as sharing a cell phone data plan would make me feel so tender toward her. I reached out a hand and held it against her cheek. “You’d really put me on your cell plan?”

  She shrugged and smiled, and rested a hand on mine and looked into my eyes. “Of course. What are you thinking?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, I guess…I’m just glad we’re in a good place?” I lifted my inflection at the end.

  Okay, I admit I was fishing a bit, but it’d been a hell of a day. Cut a girl some slack for wanting a little confirmation and assurance.

  Abbie nodded. “Even with the bumps along the way, I’m happy to share my life with you. I love that we live together, even if I don’t entirely love our living arrangements.” She flicked a look toward the closed door.

  I frowned. “Did something happen tonight?”

  Abbie shook her head but I could see a little storm rolling in behind her perfect eyes.

  “I mean, maybe. The new tenant, Jackie, got her stuff moved in and sorted, and made herself dinner before Penny and I got home, and she sort of left a mess for the rest of us to clean up. I talked to her before Penny could and tried to get her sorted out, but she wasn’t interested in hearing it from me.”

  I settled back into the bed by her side. “That seems odd. We chatted briefly when I got home. She seemed nice enough.”

  Abbie nodded. “I thought so too. But earlier tonight she was a little bit of a bitch. Hopefully it’s just the first week jitters of being in a new place, but I have to admit that I don’t have a real good vibe coming from her right about now.”

  I wrapped an arm around her and buried my face into her side. “That sucks. I was hoping we’d have another nice roomie for a while. I kinda liked Vinya.”

  Abbie snorted. “I tried to like Vinya, I really did. But the nights she insisted on heating up her fish dinners in the microwave were the worst.”

  I chuckled. “And her music.”

  “Especially her music.”

  Abbie shifted to drop her ereader on her table and shut off the lights. She shifted her weight in the bed and tangled her arms and legs up with mine. I felt her warm breath on my face. I didn’t have to open my eyes to accept her kiss, and we spent a few quiet minutes kissing and touching, saying hello to each other even as we were starting to say good night.

  She sighed against me and said, “We can go to the phone store first thing in the morning. I’ll go in to work a little late. Do you have anything going on tomorrow?”

  I nodded. “Gonna see Grandpa at Branchwood in the morning, then probably some training in the afternoon. Oh, and I gotta check on those job leads. You know, usual stuff.”

  Abbie nodded against me and then yawned. “I have to work late tomorrow, but on Thursday…want to do dinner in Del Rey with Bonita? Maybe Pork Barrel or that new sushi place?”

  I nodded and yawned as well, catching it from her. “Sure, sounds good. It’ll depend on how much I make at Bonita’s this week. I’ve got to try and budget my money.”

  She kissed me again, then settled in. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. I can treat you to dinner.”

  I sighed. “I know, I just…it’s important to me to pull my share of the weight.”

  I opened my eyes, surprised at how strongly I felt. I nudged her and kissed her closed eyes. She cracked them open and stared at me in the moonlight.

  “This is really important to me, Abbie. I want to be an equal partner with you.”

  She smiled softly. “You are, sweetie. You are.” She shifted to rest a palm against my face. “There’s a lot more to our relationship than money. You don’t have to pull half the load in that respect. I know you’ll get your finances sorted out with your family, maybe a new job, and we’ll figure it out from there.”

  She sighed, then added. “I had a good review with my boss the other day, and the congressman approved my raise request. So I’ll be making a little more. Between that and what you give me to help with, we’ll be fine.”

  I nodded. “I still want to help. Besides trying to get a better job, I’ve been thinking about how I can get back to school.” I hadn’t been thinking about it a lot, but some.

  She nodded then leaned in and kissed me again. “Just be sure you’re doing it for you and not for us. I think the ‘us’ part is just fine. Okay?”

  I stared into her eyes, the depths of love I felt for her stronger than ever, and then nodded, even though I felt a tug of guilt pull at my heart and soul. I still hadn’t told her everything about what was happening with me lately regarding the ley threads and Miss Chin and Malcolm and the ghosts and so forth.

  She closed her eyes and breathed softly against me, and I knew she was a few minutes from falling asleep. I guess another night would have to do for that particular conversation. Maybe I’d talk to Bonita about it and figure out how I was going to tell Abbie the rest of the details without freaking her out.

  Chapter Twelve

  HIS STRENGTH WAS RETURNING. OH YES, he could feel it. Not from his broken, pathetic mortal shell, no; but from his mind and his soul and his very etheric essence. The ley threads were within reach and he was able to manipulate them again. In so many words, he was back in the game.

  That bitch had hurt him worse than he’d ever let on, that much was for certain. The whole debacle with her and her allies had shown him that he wasn’t infallible; wasn’t unstoppable.

  For well over two years he had built up his knowledge of the ley grid and the Veil and the woven world largely on his own, cobbling together bits and pieces of research where he could, and experimenting with the etheric energy he could either tap into from the grid or steal outright from unsuspecting mortal fools out there in the world.

  But now that he’d encountered that girl, Rachel Farran, and her strange ally with the poltergeist, he knew he had something he hadn’t had before—a potential arch-enemy. The thought made him smile.

  Just as Bond had Spectre and Batman had the Joker, perhaps Rachel would turn out to be his nemesis, his arch-enemy, his foil. He grinned into the darkness.

  Or perhaps he was just being melodramatic. He had been out of action for some time and his mind did tend to wander. More likely she’d just become a punching bag, and a short-lived one at that.

  The Spinner settled his etheric form into a mediative pose and floated several feet off the ground of his virtual abode within the woven world. Once his mind had settled and he felt ready to work the weave, he reached out with tendrils of thought and sought out his secretly-placed conduit of energy that connected the ley grid beneath Washington DC to the etheric pool he had built within the woven world.

  Somewhat larger than an Olympic-sized pool and sealed against outside influence, his reservoir was barel
y a tenth full of latent etheric energy, but the flow was steady. A seemingly-endless trickle of electric blue energy flowed out of the conduit, slowly filling the pool. He had to keep the flow constant but slow; otherwise, he was liable to draw unwanted attention.

  It would take some time to fill the pool, though, if his suspicions were correct, the ley grid would not run out any time soon. In fact, if his theory was accurate, and he had no means at his disposal to determine otherwise, the ley grid would likely never run out of energy.

  His ‘why’ for that was still hazy, but he suspected that the Founding Fathers and others who had actually built the grid had been even more intelligent and talented than most historians gave them credit for. They had built something far more powerful and long-lasting than a new nation. Idly, he wondered how many career historians were also Weavers, and suspected that there couldn’t be all that many. There weren’t that many Weavers to begin with.

  He needed to continue to test his theory, of course, and the best way to do that was to lure more unsuspecting mortals to the Veil and then through the Veil and into the woven world.

  And that took work, but it was work he was only too happy to do. Sometimes he got to feed himself off their fear and their immortal energy, and tonight he was eager to do it all over again.

  He settled into his meditative pose and gradually gathered up etheric energies. He expanded his senses, seeking out the paths and gateways connecting the woven world to the mortal earth.

  There were far more paths, rifts in the Veil, connecting the woven world to the mortal world than he had ever seen before, certainly an unintended side effect of what Rachel had done to him several weeks ago.

  As a Beacon, Rachel had the means to enter and exit the woven world in her mortal form, something he was unable to do and no one else but a Beacon should be able to do, unless they’re pulled in against their will, much as he had done to that upstart boy, Malcolm.

  He wouldn’t make that mistake again, though. He still had the mental scars from where Malcolm’s poltergeist had scored a few psychic blows on him before he had managed to fend the thing off and send it whimpering back to its holder.

  Al that power Rachel had loosed on him had exploded outward upon impact, and the ripples from that explosion had rocked the woven world from its core outward to all its satellite areas of existence.

  In short, Rachel had accidentally used the latent power contained within the ley grid and, in destroying his old avatar, had caused a backlash of power that ripped hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tears in the Veil where no such damage had occurred before, other than as reactions to severe emotional and physical trauma or by way of his own machinations, such as the rift he had created in that nursing home.

  And what those countless tears in the Veil represented to him were countless opportunities to lure unwitting souls from the mortal realm to him within the woven world, where they would become quick meals for himself.

  He could even lay etheric bait for the souls lost in the woven world and lure them back through the Veil and back into the mortal world, where they would either become lost once again, or indirectly serve his purposes by getting in the way of Rachel or any other Weavers that might show up.

  Until just recently, he had operated largely unmolested and unstopped. There were too few active Weavers in DC as it was that tricking a few into looking the other way had been painfully easy. He had then set up his rift within the nursing home and started to feed off the old souls there, but then had encountered Rachel and Malcolm and had managed to somehow Awaken the potential in both of them, by means he was as yet still uncertain. He would puzzle that over at some point, but for now, had more important matters to tend to.

  With his strength returning, the Spinner wove simple traps for mortal souls that might stumble upon the rifts in the Veil. He also set up etheric prods that might serve to startle souls left to wander the woven world but which had not yet found their way to their final reward. Some of those souls would become unhinged and might even turn evil or at least thoroughly self-centered and mischievous.

  As for the lost souls within the woven world… He focused his energies and sought out those unstable patterns, souls that might serve admirably as poltergeists or worse back on the mortal frame.

  With the energy siphon from the ley grid working efficiently to fill his secret pool, he gathered up a few ley threads to enhance his senses, and began reaching out to some of the more unstable souls left to wander the woven world. They had not yet been guided to their final reward, which made them likely candidates to be forced into a new form of service for his use.

  For now, it was just him and his abilities, and his single-minded focus to gather up broken souls and send them in through the Veil to wreak havoc on the living world. In time, he would have an army of poltergeists ready and able to do his bidding, and Rachel and her allies would not be able to manage the onslaught.

  Chapter Thirteen

  AFTER AN ENCOURAGING MORNING OF CUDDLES and kisses with Abbie, which were nice even though I could tell we were still on a bit of a touch-and-go basis, I enjoyed a quick breakfast with her before we headed to the phone store so that she could add me to her cell plan. I got to pick out a sexy new slim smartphone with all the bells and whistles. The thing was more complicated than anything I had ever messed with, and the instruction manual was a joke. I guess all the controls were supposed to be intuitive now.

  I thanked Abbie profusely with hugs and kisses once out of the store, and I might have even squealed in glee a couple times. It’s not every day you get a new cell phone. She was amused, and while I was sorely tempted to have my way with her right there in the parking lot, she stayed strong and drove me back home.

  Practically floating on air, I washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen while Penny and Cooper ate their breakfast and ignored me. I generally got along with a lot of people, but, for whatever reason, I’ve never been able to quite find Penny’s good side. I always seemed to do something wrong or couldn’t quite please her or do whatever it was she expected me to do at a level that would make her happy.

  In that way, she reminded me of my mother, though without the family baggage associated with it and without the vise-grip on my money. Penny at least isn’t into me for any money, even if she gives me the dirty eyeball whenever she’s around and I happen to give Abbie some money to contribute to our monthly share of the rent and groceries. I guess Penny is just one of those people who can’t be pleased.

  Cooper…well, Cooper is Cooper. He seems like a good enough guy and clearly makes Penny happy, though I had seen plenty of his kind at UPenn and he was about as ‘bro’ as ‘bro’ can be. If I had to be honest, I’d say he was about the most whipped bro I’d ever met. He had the look down pat, with the muscle tee, cargo shorts, and sandals look going pretty much year round, usually topped with a sports team baseball cap perched backwards on his short-cropped hair. I suspected he kept the hat on full-time to cover early baldness, but that was more a catty guess than anything based on fact. I didn’t get close enough to the guy to learn that much about his personal physical issues.

  I knew he went to the gym regularly, was even training to be a fitness instructor, but even then he had the early makings of a beer gut thanks to his weekend jaunts with his boys on the occasions he got out of doing something with Penny, which, near as I could tell, was pretty rare anyway.

  At any rate, after seeing Abbie off and then finishing up my chores, I took a quick shower and headed off to catch the bus to get to Branchwood, my grandpa’s nursing home. It was Wednesday, my most favorite day of the week because it meant I had a chance to catch up with my grandpa, the one member of my family that I had a good relationship with.

  Wednesdays were the days I had blocked aside to spend time with him. He had finally gotten to the point where he needed regular monitoring and more help than he could get at home. There was no one left there to take care of him—Grandma had died, my mother and father had divorced, the fami
ly had removed me from the house, and my brother was living (in sin, according to my mother) with a girl in Arlington. Real fun family dynamics.

  So, I considered my grandpa the most sane and stable member of my family. In the last few weeks I had grown closer to him, thanks in part to his helping me beat up the Spinner in that battle at Branchwood. That he couldn’t remember much of that fight was really sad for me to bear. The doctors thought it was Alzheimer’s starting to set in, which sucked, naturally. Probably why I wanted to spend a lot of time with him while I could—I honestly didn’t know how much longer he’d be around, mentally, if not physically.

  Even though he didn’t remember the fight with the Spinner, I had decided not to tell Grandpa much about my newfound abilities or my training with Malcolm or about Miss Chin. I figured I’d just confuse him, and like I said, he was the one member of my family I was on good terms with, and I didn’t need him to think I was crazy or something.

  I got off the bus and stopped off at the nearby Starbucks for a caramel latte for me and a big slice of lemon cake for him. He loved the stuff, and even though the nurses told me that he really shouldn’t have sweets, I got it for him anyway, because… Well, because I’ve always been a little bit of a rebel and also because if I somehow manage to make it to my late eighties like he had, I’m going to damn well eat lemon cake if it makes me happy.

  Besides, I think he earned it. He had nearly had his soul ripped out and devoured by the Spinner, and surviving that sure as hell had to be worth a slice of cake.

  So with cake and coffee in hand, I headed to the nursing home, signed in, and made my way to his room. He’d settled in pretty well to the nursing home, and now that the Spinner had been evicted from the premises, the urge to find him a new place to live had decreased. And, thanks the the Spinner’s machinations, there had been several vacancies at the home that had since been filled, which gave Grandpa a bunch of new people to meet and interact with.