Beacon's Hope (Potomac Shadows Book 2)

by Jim Johnson

  They are too far for me to sense. What do they feel like?

  I frowned and focused hard in that direction. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they felt a lot like the poltergeist that Malcolm has been using as a strange sort of pet.”

  You will have to tell me more about that soon. In the meantime, how close are they?

  “Getting closer.” I reached out for more ley threads, really feeling the exertion at having to reach through the Veil to do it. I strained and pulled and forced a few more into my space. I hurriedly wove them together into a shield, but then I sensed alarm from Charity.

  No time for that now, Rachel. Run!

  Without knowing exactly why, I dropped the threads I was weaving together and turned and ran as she had asked, directly away from the approaching pair of ‘geists.

  I caught a glimpse of large forms with claws and teeth similar to the ones I had seen on Malcolm’s ‘geist, though these had much more mass and dark intent.

  “Where are we going?”

  Just run. I’m attempting to channel the threads you had pulled into the Veil into a portal. Head toward some of those residences to your left. Try to slow them down in the alleyways.

  I curved off in the direction of the housing block to our left. With clear ground ahead of me and no people or cars in the Holding to dodge or work around, my feet fairly flew. I was grateful all over again that I had bothered to make an effort to run consistently. I just now realized that it could pay off in more than one way.

  As I ran into the alleys between the houses, I sensed the dark forms behind me but I also managed to get a glimmer at what Charity was doing with the threads.

  She was knitting them together in a patten I hadn’t seen before, but which looked decidedly rectangular in shape, with decorative elements along the border. I’m sure the design had a name in knitting circles, but I was clueless as to that form of art.

  “What are you making?” I managed to holler as I ran out of one block and into another. I wasn’t about to pause to look behind me, but I could sense the ‘geists were closing in.

  A portal back to the mortal realm. Given the rushed nature of its construction, I cannot predict where we will come out. It will have to be a best guess on my part on the final destination.

  I had no idea what she was talking about, so just left her to work on it while I ran. I felt a little stitch start to form in my side, and out of desperation I tried channeling a bit of etheric energy into that area of my body and thought soothing, healing thoughts.

  Whether it was a placebo or just wishful thinking, the cramp did ease and I was able to run more freely. But, I could feel my energy starting to ebb. Pulling those threads in through the Veil had taken its toll on me.

  “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast! I don’t think I can keep up this pace much longer.”

  Just a moment or two more. Run straight toward that set of homes in front of us. Make for the doorway in the center unit. Most importantly, do not stop running.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Just run, and trust me.

  Fine by me. By that point I was running too hard to put voice to thought, so I just pushed toward the house she had indicated, and charged forward toward its front door.

  I sensed her finish the weaving on her etheric rectangle, and I saw the two-dimensional object shift from stable light into a shimmering field of blue etheric energies tinged with a deep, emerald green. Had to be Charity’s aura color.

  Her woven rectangle shimmered much as a rift in the Veil did, and in that instant I thought I understood what she had created.

  Now, Rachel. Run as hard as you can, right at the door!

  I put my head down and bulled ahead. In the moment just before we crashed into the door and ruined our day, she launched the woven rectangle toward the doorway. It shimmered in the air and then latched onto the doorframe, filling the space perfectly with a curtain of coruscating energies.

  I crashed into that glowing curtain full-force, though I was amazed to discover that there was no impact, no pain, just a jarring sensation all over my body, just as if I had stepped through a rift in the Veil.

  Time seemed to slow, and my stomach lurched as it usually did when passing through the Veil. Just when I thought I couldn’t keep it together and would throw up again, we were through the conduit, and I was running hell-bent out of an alleyway and into a busy street.

  I nearly got creamed by a postal truck on the left and then a VW Rabbit on the right, and then I was on the other side of the road, bent double to catch my breath, Charity clenched in my hands.

  “What…what the hell did you just do?”

  I wove an etheric portal and pulled it together in time to get us out of the Holding and back to the mortal realm.

  I nodded and gulped air to get my breath and bearings. I ignored the people walking to either side of me, some of who gave me a dirty look in the process. Judging from the foot traffic and the vehicles on the roads, I had to guess we were in the city.

  I stood up straight and looked around. Sure enough, the area around me was familiar enough to know I was in DC. I took a few steps toward the corner and checked the signs. Intersection of Seventh and R, in Northwest.

  I nodded. “We’re back in the District. How the heck do you know how to create a portal from one place in the Holding to another place in the mortal world that, you know, doesn’t match the geography?”

  Practice, Rachel. Simple as that.

  I shook my head. “Has to be more than that.”

  Really, not, though. Mostly just a matter of testing and practicing.

  I stared across the street toward the alleyway we had burst out of. “What of the things that were chasing us?”

  I felt Charity flex a ley thread. One was split when attempting to cross over, the other one did not come through.

  “What do you mean, split?”

  I mean it was partway through the conduit when it collapsed. It was meant to be active only long enough for us to pass through. Should give you a sense of how close they were to our heels.

  I sighed in relief. “I’ll say. So…is there, like, a body in the alley we need to deal with?”

  No. The poltergeists are etheric forms. There should be nothing left of it but our unfortunate memories of it.

  “Well, is there any chance of more of them coming through the rifts in the Veil and, you know, hunting us down and rending us to pieces?”

  Well, yes. There is that possibility.

  Oh, God. I brushed my hands off on my pants and then started walking quickly toward Rhode Island Avenue nearby. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and flicked it on.

  Wonder of wonders, the thing still worked. I hadn’t quite figured out why some electronics worked and some didn’t around etherics. I glanced at the journal. “It’s later than I thought. You weren’t kidding when you said that time was different in the Holding.”

  Indeed. And we neglected to set a timer for ourselves this time through. Perhaps next time.

  I nodded, but was distracted by my phone. I didn’t know who to call or what to do, really. If we had ‘geists coming after us, was it better to call Miss Chin for help, or someone else?

  I took a moment or two to stand there in brain lock, then I asked Charity, “What now? Let’s assume we have ‘geists coming after us. Who do we talk to?”

  Your friend Bonita. Is she talented with the ley?

  I shook my head almost immediately. “She’s great at meditation, but her talents lie in, ah, healing and midwifery.”

  Your lover, Abbie?

  Again I shook my head. “Not Awakened. No way am I risking her.”

  Malcolm.

  I stared at my phone, at my favorites list that contained just four names—Abbie, Bonita, Grandpa, and Malcolm. I don’t even remember when I had added him to the list—when he had made that weird progression from stranger to uncertain ally to phone favorite.

  “Uh…well. He knows how to work the ley,
though he’s even less trained than I am.”

  But he has talent, and he has experience with a poltergeist.

  I nodded, my fingers moving just as fast as my thoughts. “And he’s based in the city, and, more importantly, he has wheels.”

  Wheels?

  “Transportation.” I hit the call button. Time for Malcolm to become a big damn hero again.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A RAGE THAT HE HADN’T FELT for some time boiled within him and sent him bursting out of his private pool of stolen etheric energy.

  The Spinner gasped for virtual breath and attempted to shrug off the tingling feeling sparking from every bit of his avatar’s form. He felt his mortal body shudder in reaction, and forced himself to calm down, to steady his nerves and his rattled mind.

  Somehow that girl, Rachel, had gotten into the woven world undetected for a time, and further, had managed to escape two of his newly created ‘geist-wolves. A flexing of the threads at his command confirmed that both were dead, gone from his service forever.

  He had no idea and no care as to who the souls had been in life—they had both been wandering souls that he had impressed into service as creatures to do his bidding. It was inconvenient to lose two soldiers, but then, soldiers were expected to die in war.

  He clenched his fists, the rage inside him still white-hot. He would have to develop more and stronger wards and alarms to help him detect when the woven world and the Veil was entered. For now, he needed the energy he had at his disposal to create even more ‘geists, and to send them forth into the world to confuse and alarm Rachel and whoever she was working with.

  She had tipped his hand, and he would have to take advantage of it now, while she was as yet off-balance. He didn’t know how she had managed to escape the woven world so quickly.

  He decided to change tack, to be agile. He took a deep, cleansing breath, sensing the blood pressure in his mortal shell starting to drop back to a more normal level.

  Yes. It wouldn’t serve him to unleash his last few ‘geists onto the world and toward Rachel now. He needed to understand why she had been in the woven world, what she had been doing, and if she had brought anyone with her.

  Time enough to be patient now. He could unleash his forces on her soon enough.

  He moved his avatar out of his secure point within the woven world and reached out through the Veil for a double-handful of ley threads, and then wove them together into a fast-travel conduit. He used a couple more threads to enhance his senses.

  He cast out and soon found the location where his two ‘geists had evaporated. He aimed the travel conduit in that direction, and then shot his consciousness that way, traversing the unknown distance in the space of several heartbeats.

  Once at the shadow of an old residential site, the Spinner transferred energy from the travel conduit and fed it into his senses. He opened himself up fully to soak in as much knowledge as he could.

  Rachel was apparently a very fine runner, and had given the ‘geists a significant race through the alleys of the residential block.

  If he was reading the glittering remnants of etheric energies correctly, someone had helped Rachel escape. He moved toward one residence that had a doorway with a strange afterimage seared onto it.

  He studied that doorway and reached out with his senses to get a taste of who or what might have affected it. The weave pattern had a strange texture to it, and, for lack of a better world, felt old. Like a technique that had not been used in a long time.

  He studied what remained of the pattern closely for some time, attempting to learn what he could from it so that he could adapt it for his own purposes. He wasn’t sure of all the specifics, but he had seen enough to know it was a form of Veil rift, but one that had apparently been easier to create than an unsecured rift and had the capability to have a targeted destination.

  Which could be of great use to him. Once his army of ‘geists was ready, he could either send them through the existing gaps in the Veil, or create new ones much as this Weaver had done.

  Or, he could do both. With practice and effort. He could learn this particular woven technique and then have even more flexibility into who he chose to loose a ‘geist upon.

  Curious. Rachel’s escape might have provided him with the means to her destruction. He grinned at the potential irony.

  His senses continued to gather information, and he paused. There had definitely been a second presence within the woven world with Rachel. But its life signature…it was all wrong, almost absent entirely. Like…like an echo of a life, not a life unto itself. Very strange.

  He had never experienced something like it before and was desperate to know more. And the only person who could tell him more was Rachel, and she was on the other side of the Veil, in the mortal world.

  And he, as yet, did not have his full strength back. The damage she had done to him had been extensive, though not insurmountable.

  He was not yet ready for a direct attack on her personally. However, he had built several ‘geists, to be used in whatever means he felt necessary, and now was as good a time as any to use them.

  He focused away from the residential block and the few remaining secrets from Rachel’s visit to the woven world, and then adjusted his ley threads to call forth all of the ‘geists he had twisted into being.

  In ones and twos they arrived, a dozen lost souls who had been wandering the woven world for some sort of peace or relief, pressed into better service as his minions.

  He stared at the group of them, a mix of mutated souls in a variety of beast forms—wolves, bears, tigers; and even a few modeled after birds of prey—an owl, a raptor, and a little kestrel.

  He focused his attention on them all. “Enter the Veil. Pursue the creature called Rachel. Destroy any with her and bring her to me here, in the woven world. Alive, preferably.”

  He shifted the energies connecting them to his will, imprinting Rachel’s etheric signature on them so that they could track her. He then raised his hands in dismissal. As a group, the dozen ‘geists moved away from him and darted off toward various rifts in the Veil, the same rifts that Rachel had accidentally created in the Veil when fighting him.

  Once they were out of his sight, he turned back to the residential block and resumed studying the area for any new insights he could gather about Rachel and her allies.

  The ‘geists he had sent off had been a scouting party, little more than a skirmish line. It was an exploratory movement prior to any greater move he might devise. The bigger push would come much later.

  For now, he had inroads to make. Whatever happened, he was prepared to lose this battle. If it meant winning the war to come, he could afford to lose the occasional skirmish.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  IT TOOK MALCOLM A LITTLE WHILE to get to us, time in which I was able to grab a quick bite to eat at a nearby deli and regain some of my strength.

  He pulled up to us on Rhode Island Avenue and I wasted no time in piling into his Mustang. He gave me a worried look as I buckled in.

  I glanced at him. “Lincoln Memorial, as fast as you can!”

  He pulled out into traffic as I pulled Charity out of my satchel and stuck my thumb in between her pages. While we had waited for Malcolm to pick us up, she had asked me to try and keep her opened while I talked to Malcolm.

  I figured we’d need to experiment and try to find a workaround to the fact that she couldn’t see or sense things while the journal’s cover was closed, but we just didn’t have the time right now to figure that out.

  Malcolm glanced at me as he drove through the city toward the National Mall. “Wanna tell me what this is about or am I just chauffeuring you again?”

  I popped him on the arm. “Come on. I asked you to pick me up and drive me somewhere just a couple times. I don’t see you as just a driver.” I focused on him. “Honest.”

  He glanced at me again and then chuckled. “Good. That’s no way to treat your potential employer, if you decide to come
work for me.”

  I raised a hand and waved it off. “I haven’t even had a moment to think about it.”

  He glanced at the journal in my lap. “That the book Miss Chin gave you?”

  I nodded and rested a palm on one of the pages. “Yes. This is Charity.”

  “Strange title for a book.”

  I snorted. “That’s her name, Malcolm. Not the title of the book.”

  He shot me a look. “You name your books?”

  “No! Hang on.” I took a breath as Charity chuckled under my hands. “The journal is, well…” I tried to come up with a way to explain it that didn’t sound ridiculous, but nothing came to mind.

  “Well, this will be about as weird as everything else we’ve done together.” I paused to organize my thoughts and to pull a few ley threads together into a passive sensing sweep. Charity had suggested I remain alert to anything weird in the etherics.

  “This journal contains the soul of a Beacon from long ago. Her name was, and is, Charity.”

  Malcolm glanced at me and then the book, and then focused on the road again. “Man, this shit gets weirder and weirder. So there’s a person in that book?”

  I nodded. “Essentially, yes.”

  He scratched under his chin. “Sort of like my ten-dollar bill and my ‘geist?”

  I mentally slapped my palm against my head. How had I not made that connection before? I focused on Charity. “Anything like that?”

  The glowing inks flowed around the pages and spun into her smile again. Very similar, though the underpinning magics to construct the journal and to house me in it were different. But, a variation on a theme, yes.

  Malcolm shot me a look. “Are you making those blue energy swirls on the pages?”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s all Charity. She can manipulate the energies to form pictures on the pages. But she’s speaking to me through the ley threads, in my mind.”

  He raised an eyebrow and pulled into the traffic circle near the Lincoln Memorial. “You can do that now? Is that something you can teach me?”