by Jim Johnson
“My apologies, Rachel. You’re right. I should provide more trust than I feel. I will work on that.”
I nodded, tired and not really interested in making another fight out of it. “All right. We’ll get some rest and then call you in a day or two. We can meet back here and help close down these larger rifts.”
She nodded and spared a smile for both me and Malcolm. “Very well. I’ll see you two then.”
I turned and headed toward Malcolm’s parked Mustang. He nodded to Miss Chin and then fell into step with me.
I glanced at him as we walked. “Gonna give a tired girl a ride home?”
He put an arm around my should and pulled me into a friendly side hug. “Do I have a choice?”
I chuckled. “Of course you do.”
He gave me a little squeeze and then let me go when we reached his car. “Of course I will. You don’t even have to ask. As long as the Spinner’s out there somewhere, causing trouble, public transit’s no place for you, Rachel. I’d feel better knowing you were close at hand when I can do something about it.”
We climbed into his car and he pulled out into the street and started toward my home. I glanced at him. “That’s really thoughtful, Malcolm.”
He smirked. “Hell, it ain’t for you. It’s for me. You’re hell of a lot better protecting my ass than anyone else. I don’t want to get caught by myself against the Spinner.”
I nodded in understanding. “Hah, okay. I got it.”
And I did get it. We settled in for the long drive to Del Rey—it was deep into rush hour and it’d take at least an hour sitting in traffic to get me home.
Chapter Seven
THE DRIVE TO MY HOUSE TOOK forever, even longer given the car accident on the G.W. Parkway that blocked everything up for an extra thirty minutes. It took us so long to get home that I texted Abbie to tell her we were going to miss dinner and just grab something on the way home.
It was a little out of the way, but Malcolm agreed to swing by Haute Dogs, only after I offered to pay for the meal, the jerk. With half-smokes and cheese fries and milkshakes under our belts, he got me home.
I waved at him and his Mustang as he left the neighborhood, and then walked up the short path to the house Abbie and I shared with three other roommates. It was another hot July night, and Cooper was sitting out on the newly-installed porch swing, his usual red Nationals ball cap perched backwards on his head, and a sweating bottle of Pabst in his hands.
I gestured toward him as I walked up the steps. “Hey, Cooper. Got another one of those in the fridge, by any chance?” I knew the answer, of course, but it never hurt to ask obliquely.
He raised it in a sort of toast and then took a gulp from it. “You betcha. Just bought a fresh case this afternoon.” He gestured toward the world in front of us. “Friday night, don’t you know? We got the weekend to party.”
I managed to keep my eyes from rolling, but I failed to stop my mouth from letting out a little sarcastic noise. “You might have a lazy weekend ahead of you, but I’ve gotta work.”
He took another gulp. “That Malcolm guy got you working another move?”
I leaned against the porch bannister. “Yeah. Tomorrow morning in Southeast. Should take a few hours, maybe more.” I sized him up. He was a personal trainer, and despite the early signs of a beer gut, was in solid shape. “Want to come with and make some easy money?”
He raised an eyebrow toward me. “How much?”
The ageless question everyone asks when offered work. “Malcolm pays friends and day workers the same amount of money. Ten dollars an hour.”
He snorted back some more beer and then set the bottle on the rail in front of him. “I can make way more than that training clients at the gym.” He shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, girl, but I’m gonna have to pass.”
I shrugged. “More money for me, then. Thought you might like a morning away from…” I glanced through the open screen door and into the house, but as yet I hadn’t seen any sign of his girlfriend, the de facto head of the household, Penny.
He snorted again, a foul noise somewhere between a belch and a cough. “Penny isn’t here yet, Rachel. She had to drop off our rent payment and then run some errands. She should be back in an hour or so.”
He retrieved his beer and finished it off in three mighty swallows and added a thick burp as punctuation. “And you’re right. She’s been on a tear lately and while it’d be great to get away for a little while, we’ve already made plans to take a weekend trip to Harper’s Ferry for some camping and kayaking.”
Oh, right. I had forgotten all about that. I nodded. “Nice. I hope you two have good weather for the trip.”
Footsteps creaking the wood floor inside the house caught my attention. I looked through the screen door to see Abbie appear, her usual book in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. She was dressed in her evening casuals, gym shorts and a pink tee-shirt that contrasted nicely with her brown skin and short dreadlocks.
A warm smile sprang to my face, the warmth trickling all down my back and settling somewhere just below my belly button. I was tired from the day’s work but seeing her sent a little shiver down my spine.
I nodded again toward Cooper. “As long as I’m helping myself to a beer, want me to bring you another?”
He had already lost himself in his smartphone, but spared me a grin and a thumb’s up before diving back into his game.
I threw open the screen door and wrapped an arm around Abbie and guided her to the kitchen. There, I dropped my satchel on the counter, turned, and gave her a long, lingering kiss.
After we broke it off, she gave me a wide grin. “Long day?”
I nodded as I moved over to the fridge to root around. “You have no idea. Long day at work.”
She took a sip of wine. “Moving job, or…you know. Light work?”
‘Light work’ was our goofy little code-name for my calling as a Beacon, and for the work I did guiding lost souls to the Holding, through the etheric Veil that separated the mundane world from the Beyond. We thought it better to use a sort of code-word around the house, just to try and spare us from getting weird questions from understandably-confused house mates.
I pulled out two cold bottles of Pabst, took aim, and popped the caps with a little focus of ley energy. The metal caps flipped through the air and landed in the open recycling container on the far side of the kitchen.
I grinned at Abbie. “Two three-pointers! Mystics for the win!”
She shook her head, but I saw the smile cross her face. “Show-off. Don’t let anyone else in the house catch you doing that.”
I grinned. “I’m careful, Abbie. No one’s gonna…”
I stopped mid-sentence when a blur of motion crossed the kitchen window outside. I’d only caught a glimpse, but the image and the connected flutter through the ley threads told me all I needed to know.
A ghost had just done a drive-by on my house.
Chapter Eight
I SHOT A GLANCE AT ABBIE, but all she was looking at was me. I must have looked like I’d literally seen a ghost, because her eyes got wide and then followed my gaze to the window.
“What did you see?”
I carefully placed the two open bottles on the counter and then rushed over to the kitchen door that led out to the back deck. I yanked it open and rushed out, pulling ley threads and quickly knotting them together into a protective shield, just in case.
Once out on the deck, another ripple in the ley signaled the approach of another ghost, and I turned to focus on it just as it sped past me. I flipped on my mental Sight as it passed, and saw the subtle blue ripple in the ley it left behind in its wake.
What is going on?
Ah, Charity! I reached into my satchel, still strung across my chest, and pulled the leather journal out, and laid it open on the low metal table on the deck. I senses Charity’s presence move out of the book. She found a position near me on the deck as another ghostly form passed by, and then anothe
r, in quick succession.
I anchored my makeshift shield in place so that any ghosts that touched it might arc around and away from the house and the deck. Abbie joined me on the deck.
“Rachel, what the hell’s going on?”
I raised an open hand to her and then started pulling more ley threads together. “Hold on a sec, honey.”
I pulled the new batch of threads together, and focused my will to extend the shield up and over the house as well. With some effort, much of the house was soon cocooned in a protective net that glowed blue, though only to those with the Sight to see it.
Abbie, as yet Unawakened and unaware of the deeper mysteries me and Malcolm had been exposed to, stood near the back door, concern clearly written in her expression and her stance. “You’re making me a little nervous here, hon. What’s the matter?”
I steadied the nets in my mind, and shored up a couple of the anchors that were a bit loose. Another trio of ghosts glided into the area, and slid along the shield and on down the street.
I connected up with Charity. “What’s going on here? Have you seen anything like this before?”
Charity’s mental image formed in my mind, a middle-aged black woman in a corset and long skirt. Not in years, not like this.
I focused on her. “What’s going on?” The last two words came out more shrill than I had wanted. I was feeling the stress of the situation and feeding off Abbie’s worry.
Something’s got them riled up, for sure. The unquiet dead isn’t just a concept; sometimes it’s a living, breathing thing that we have to deal with from time to time.
I glanced at Abbie. “It’s all right, babe. It’s, uh, light work.”
Abbie looked around the backyard and ended her scan on me. “I don’t see anything.”
I shook my head. “You wouldn’t.” Thinking that came out harsher than I had intended, I shook my head. “I mean, you couldn’t be expected to. You’re not a Weaver, or a Beacon, like me. This sort of stuff is normally invisible to, uh, normal people.”
I’d almost said ‘mundane’, but thought that might not be the best word to use.
Abbie crossed her arms in front of her chest and stepped closer to me. “All the same, is there anything I can do to help?”
I bit my lip, thinking it through, but then shook my head. Another ghost bounced off the shield, and I flinched. That one had been a harder strike than the others—either the ghosts were moving faster, or were getting less careful about their direction of flight.
“No, honey. I don’t want a repeat of last time you helped. That was my fault, I don’t want you to get in the way of trouble again.”
I’d once asked Abbie to join me in some meditation and had tapped into the etherics to give her a taste of what my new life was like, but the Spinner had chosen that moment to reach out to me, and Abbie had gotten way more involved than I had wanted her to. Since then, I’d tried to be diligent in protecting her from all the weirdness that I was involved in.
“Can you at least show me what you’re looking at? It’s really disconcerting to see you stare at things flying past the house when all I see is the backyard and the trees fluttering in the wind.”
A steady stream of ghosts was now flowing past the shield and the house. “Charity, why so many here, and now?”
Charity’s image shrugged. “You’ve been working as a Beacon for the last several months, Rachel. And you’re the only one in the area. I think these lost souls and recently deceased ghosts are becoming attuned to your presence.”
I stared at her as more ghosts flowed past us. Idly, I realized I recognized some of their forms. They weren’t flying past the house—they were circling it.
“I don’t think I understand.” This wasn’t something we’d talked about yet, and Miss Chin hadn’t told me anything about it.
Even if they’re not aware of who you are, they are drawn to your etheric presence within the ley grid. You may not realize it, Rachel, but as a Beacon, you stand out within the ley grid as a pillar of light that some ghosts, some souls, are drawn to.
I frowned. “Is that why it’s sometimes easier to find lost souls to guide to the Holding?”
Yes. Sometimes they seek you out as much as you seek them out. Not all souls are lost.
I shook my head again. “But I thought my job was to guide the lost souls to the Holding. Can’t the ones that aren’t really lost sort of…find their own way?” And make my job just that much less stressful?
I’m not certain lost souls and recently made ghosts necessarily think in such concrete terms. I mean…they are dead, after all.
“Oh, well. Yeah. There is that, I guess.”
I glanced at Abbie, who was still standing on the deck, staring at me with a mix of frustration and worry in her eyes.
I leaned over and took her hands in mine. “I’m sorry, Abbie. I’m just preoccupied.”
She shook her head and gave me a sad smile. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were having a conversation with someone I couldn’t see.” Her eyes widened. “Is there a ghost here? A lost soul you’re talking to?”
I shook my head. “Do you remember me talking about Charity?” I rested my hand on the old leather journal.
Abbie shot a glance at it and then focused on me again. “Well, yeah. But I haven’t spent much time thinking about you talking to a book.”
I sighed. “Not really the book itself, but the soul contained within the book. Charity is an ancient Beacon who lost her life but managed to get her soul bound to the book.”
Abbie shivered despite the late afternoon heat. “Why would she do that?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it and shook my head. “It’s a long story, and I promise to tell it to you soon. For now…hang on a second.”
I closed my eyes and focused on the ley threads swirling around me. I pulled them together and plugged them into the internal battery Charity had helped me create, and then I reached out and took Abbie’s hands in mind.
“If you’re willing, I can show you what I can see by using my powers. It won’t last long, but it should give you a sense of some of what I can see on a daily basis.”
She held my hands tight. “Is this going to be like last time?”
I shook my head emphatically. “No! I have shields up, sort of like Star Trek? Nothing’s going to hurt us this time.” At least, I sure as hell hoped not.
Abbie stared into my eyes and then nodded. “All right. Show me what you got.” The little twinkle in her eyes reminded me all over again why I loved her so much.
I slitted my eyes against the evening sun and the seemingly-endless swirl of ghosts all around us and focused in on Abbie’s senses, then reached out with a couple ley threads and tweaked her aura just so.
She flinched hard and would have let go of my hands if I hadn’t maintained a vise-like grip on them. Her physical eyes opened wide and she looked all around her, and I knew exactly what she was doing.
I held her hands tight and pulled them close to my chest, where my little crystal pendant blazed away with a cheerful silver light. “No, no! Abbie, relax, love. Relax.”
I pushed some calming vibes down the connection I shared with her through the ley threads. “Take a few deep breaths, and close your eyes. It’ll help with the double vision.”
I remembered the first time Miss Chin had shown me things with my Sight—I had been confused with the two sets of images as well. The mundane world as seen through my eyes and the magical world as seen through our Sight—they were very different, even with their similarities.
Abbie clamped shut her eyes and breathed deep, and I could tell she was trying as hard as she could to rein it all in and muster some control over her feelings and actions.
I continued to send down comforting vibes to her, even as I struggled to dampen the impact of the many swirls of ghosts rotating all around us. I spared a comment for Charity, who’d been silently watching me and Abbie all this time. “Charity, have you gotten a count on how
many souls are here?”
Well over a hundred, perhaps more. They’re moving so fast now that it’s hard to keep count. Something definitely has them agitated. I’m sensing real fear from them, as well as confusion.
I shook my head. I had subconsciously added filters to my shields to block out most of that, mostly because I didn’t want Abbie to get caught in the blowback.
I focused on Abbie, who now had good control over her breathing and was holding my hands more comfortably, her death grip having eased off. She stared up above us with a look of wonder on her face that made me fall in love with her all over again.
“Rachel, this is…amazing. You see this…this silver light, these streamers, every day?”
I glanced up at the shield threads, how I had woven them together into a protective skein around us and the house. Ghostly souls zoomed in on the shield and either bounced off it gently, or skated across it like leaves on a frozen pond.
“Most days, I guess so. I don’t always have a shield erected. But the threads—those are my source of power and I see those every day, almost everywhere I go.”
She shook her head but kept focusing on the shield-skein stretched out above us. “And what are those…blurry things hitting your shield? Birds?”
I shook my head and gently squeezed her hands. “No, Abbie. Those are lost souls…ghosts…what remains of people who have died. They’re waiting for me, or for someone like me, to show them the way.”
She lowered her eyes to focus on mind. Dots of tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Souls? Ghosts? My God…Rachel, do you know what you’re saying?”
I locked eyes with her and simply nodded. “I have some idea. Ghosts are real. We do have some sort of immortal or near-immortal soul.”
She shook her head. “I just…I can’t imagine what that must mean.”
I shrugged. “It means some religions were right, and some were wrong. I don’t go to church any more, and don’t think I’m equipped to think about the religious aspects of what I know, but…”
