Beacon's Fury (Potomac Shadows Book 3) Read online

  Beacon's Fury

  Jim Johnson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jim Johnson

  The Fine Print

  Chapter One

  THE ETHERIC GRID HAD NEVER FELT so oppressive. The electric blue sparks of energy flowing all around me carried a distinct sense of menace, even malice. The gridwork the threads were plugged into, the gridwork me and my friend Malcolm were following, was laid out in stark lines that offered neither comfort nor joy. Even though I was in my etheric form and had no body or means with which to sense it, my mind’s eye and other senses told me that it was colder than usual. The place stank like bitter copper and sickly-sweet, overripe tangerines.

  In short, we weren’t in Kansas any more.

  Malcolm, my friend, student, and boss all rolled into one complicated dude, coughed nearby. Well, actually, his etheric form did. His body and my body were far from here, safely encased in a warding dome beneath my friend Bonita’s secondhand maternity clothing store in Del Ray.

  “What’s with the threads, Rachel? I’m having trouble holding onto one.” Malcolm coughed again.

  Through the etheric weave flowing all around us, I could feel him reaching out with his abilities to attempt and lasso one of the etheric threads of power and pull it into his will.

  I nodded, trying to pull a few threads to myself. “This area of the grid is definitely A.D.R.”

  “A.D.R.?” His etheric form coalesced into a reasonable match of his dark-skinned features. “The hell is that?”

  “Oh, sorry. It’s something Bonita uses to describe some of her clients when they’re not due to have their baby but when they call her with worries or concerns. It stands for ‘ain’t doing right’.”

  His etheric form stared at mine and then chuckled. “Hey, that’s pretty good. I’ll have to remember that.”

  “Yeah.” I frowned, focusing on the threads I had pulled into my mind’s eye. I checked one, and then methodically checked the others, attempting to confirm my suspicions. “Charity, what do you make of this?” I suspected I knew, but I figured a second opinion wouldn’t hurt.

  The other presence with me in the etherics, my strange friend Charity, formed into the shape of an old book by my side. Charity is, well…it’s a long story, but Charity used to be like me, a Beacon dedicated to guiding lost souls home to the Holding, a waypoint between life and whatever comes after.

  I am uncertain, Beacon Rachel. The etheric threads here do seem off. Quite an unusual sensation.

  I paused in my drifting along one of the ley lines. “No kidding. It’s like the threads around here have…” I fished around in my mind for a word, but the best I could come up with was “…spoiled.”

  “More like rotted. I’m not getting much power out of the threads I’m managing to catch.” Malcolm gestured toward the threads all around us. “I mean, I’m sure you and Charity are able to pull in a lot more threads than me and maybe aren’t feeling the difference, but just the couple I’ve managed to grab feel far less powerful than the ones we get when we’re back in our bodies on good old Earth.”

  He opened his right hand and focused. He shifted the etheric energies and a little blue-tinged bronze flame lit up inside his palm.

  I quirked an eyebrow at him. “Are you holding back?”

  His dark eyes met mine. “Nope, this is the best I’ve got. These threads just don’t hold the juice I’m used to.”

  I frowned, considering that. “Like they’ve been spoiled.”

  Or drained. The etheric form of Charity’s book drifted ahead of me, following along one of ley grid lines and then taking a 90 degree turn to the left and then moving forward. Follow me. I think I sense something ahead, a nexus of some sort that might explain the power drain around here.

  I didn’t hope to understand everything Charity said. She had been a Beacon some two hundred years before me, and had a ton more experience weaving the threads. “Lead the way, my friend.”

  Malcolm’s etheric form slid up next to me and moved at my pace. “I still can’t quite accept that we’re interacting with the soul of an ancient Beacon trapped inside a book.”

  Charity chuckled. Not trapped, Malcolm. I told you. My physical body was dying, and some of my fellow Weavers figured out how to build a ley matrix inside a book for my soul, my consciousness, and since I was afraid to die, I jumped at the offer.

  Malcolm snorted. “Literally jumped, yeah? Like right between the covers.”

  A ghostly pair of lips formed on the cover of Charity’s book, and curved into a smile, but then faltered as Charity’s etheric form floated close to a strange dark mass, a rough cylinder connected to one of the ley threads with thick ropes of blackened threads.

  I stared at it, unable to comprehend what I was looking at. “What is that?”

  Malcolm slid in next to me. “Shit’s messed up, yo.”

  Charity floated closer to the mass, and sent out tentative feelers through the etherics.

  I focused and reached out as well, though, like Malcolm, I found that the threads around here were thin and nearly lifeless, a marked contrast to the other threads I had so often used. “This is really weird, you guys.” I muttered.

  Indeed. I have never seen such a thing before. Charity’s tendrils of power roamed around the mass, touching it gently here and there. But I recall some of my colleagues debating the possibility of such a thing existing.

  Malcolm’s etheric form crossed his arms. “Well, what is it, theoretically?”

  Charity sighed. It’s…well. Think of it as a transfer box.

  That raised the suspicious hackles on my etheric form. “Transfer box? Like power transfer?”

  Charity’s lips smiled. Exactly right. Someone has created this conduit here to transfer energy from the ley grid toward…somewhere else. I don’t know where.

  “Can we find out where?” I asked, just as Malcolm asked, “How much power?”

  Charity paused, as if taking the two questions in stride. How much power is unknown. My initial scan of the conduit suggests that it has been here for some time, at least two months, perhaps more.

  I tried to think about the last few months working with the ley grids. “I don’t think I’ve ventured out this far, though…” I frowned and called up my old etheric map, a handy thing I created some time ago while training with my sometime mentor, full-time thorn in my side, Miss Chin. “I wanna say I’ve been this way on the grid before, but…”

  I focused on the map I had created of the etheric grid, and started scanning for the waypoints I generally create when wandering around the etheric threads with no particular destinati
on in mind. It was good to wander sometimes, and it was a great way to train with Charity and Malcolm.

  “I don’t think I’ve…wait.” A tug of remembrance pushed me toward one of the first waypoints I had created on my mind map. I called it up and studied it in comparison to the location of the black conduit cruelly plugged into the ley grid.

  Sure enough, I had wandered this way before. Way back when I was first getting used to the ley grid and the threads, and had wandered around, lost in the beauty of the grid. I had started to sense some sort of darkness in the grid, but had to leave a waypoint so that I could find my way back to investigate further.

  Shows how busy I’ve been lately, since I hadn’t gotten back until just now.

  “I’ve been here before. A few months ago, actually. I don’t remember this conduit being here, though.”

  Charity’s lips drooped into a frown. No, I don’t think you would have noticed. It must have been tiny when you first encountered it, or first thought you had encountered it.

  “It’s also possible it was here all along and I just wasn’t attuned enough to the threads to understand what I was even looking at.” I moved my etheric form closer to Charity and focused my threads on the conduit too. It was a dense weaving of etheric threads bent to some sinister purpose.

  “So why would someone want to pull energy out of the grid?” Malcom glided over and joined us next to the conduit.

  Charity finished her slow circle of the conduit and sighed. The main reason my colleagues postulated was that one would drain power off the main grid in order to fuel either a special project, or a small grid of one’s own.

  Malcolm frowned “What?”

  I bit my lip, then said, “I bet that’s it.”

  Malcolm focused on me. “What’s it?”

  I reached out and shifted my senses and then focused on the energy aura of the conduit. At first all I saw was the customary light blue light, but more focused examination revealed what I had feared I’d see. I swore under my breath. “The Spinner. Has to be.”

  Malcolm offered his own choice swear. “Ugh. Not that dickwad again!”

  Charity’s lips curved up into a grin. ‘Dickwad’. I don’t believe I’ve heard that particular turn of phrase before.

  Even given the situation, I caught the mirth in her etheric tone. “Get used to it, Malcolm knows a whole slew of phrases like that.”

  I sensed Malcolm’s shifting energies well before he gasped in surprise. “Ah, shit.”

  I instinctively grabbed at a few threads to pull them close to do my will at a moment’s need. “What do you feel, Malcolm?”

  He had a gift for sending danger through the etherics, a gift that I had started to train him with. Miss Chin had taken to Malcolm with a will, and had ferociously trained him up in ways I couldn’t.

  I nudged Malcolm’s etheric form with my own. “What do your Warden’s senses tell you?”

  He focused on me, a mix of anger and wonder marked on his etheric face. “Geists. A lot of them.”

  Chapter Two

  I STARED AT MALCOLM, A SPARK of fear mixed with adrenaline coursing through my body. “Okay, let’s try it like we practiced with Miss Chin.”

  I sense at least six ‘geists, maybe more.

  “Thanks, Charity,” I said. I reached out and pulled at as many threads as I could gather and offered several to Malcolm. “No time for heroics. Just take what you can get and use it.”

  He shot me a glance but readily gathered up the offered threads and added their limited power streams to his reservoir of power.

  I did likewise, sensing that Charity was doing the same. “Power around here is at a premium, but let’s do the best we can.”

  I focused my energies and wove several of the threads under my control into a protective shield wrapping around the three of us.

  Seven marks coming in, just ahead! Charity sounded concerned, but not panicked. Her threads shone in my mind’s eye, a warm contrast against Malcolm’s cool bronze glow and my own silvery-white blaze.

  I could just imagine the crystal hanging around my neck back on the living plane blazing with light.

  Malcolm focused his energies and guttering flickers of blue-tinged bronze fire sprang up in his palms. “I’m about as ready as I’m gonna be.”

  I focused on the approaching dark shapes and nodded, but before I could offer a response to Malcolm, the ‘geists were on us. I shifted the energies of my shield and two of the ‘geists caromed off it and fell away, stunned.

  Malcolm raised both hands toward a third and scorched it with bright fire spraying from his palms. It too fell back, wounded but not out of the fight.

  I called out, “Charity! Are these constructed like the ones we fought before? Living souls that have been corrupted by the Spinner?”

  I am uncertain, but I will attempt to confirm.

  I sensed her shift more threads toward her center, and felt her power surge out toward the ‘geists that were busy taking turns crashing into my shield.

  I winced at the last barrage. The things seemed to have a will to break through, and if they kept it up, they were going to be successful.

  Malcolm flamed another one, that staggered back and fell over onto the glowing ley grid. He glanced at me. “I’ve only got so much juice to work with. I’m gonna need help!”

  I frowned as I shored up the defensive shield, weakened by the continuous barrage of diving ‘geists. “If only I had some to spare. They seem determined to get in!”

  Indeed, they are powerful. I can’t get a good read on them. They feel like they might have once been lost souls looking for the way home, but…it’s possible they’ve been corrupted so thoroughly that…

  Her comment was cut off when several ‘geists dove and crashed into my shield in a near-simultaneous gambit. I fell to my virtual knees from the impact, and in that moment lost my grip on my ley threads. The shield around us flickered and then went out.

  I shook the stars out of my eyes and cried out, and forced myself to grab hold of the threads once more to get the shield back up and running.

  I was too late. A ‘geist swooped in and scored a raking cut along Malcolm’s back. He cried out in pain and it was all I could do to deflect the anger and pain pulsing out from him.

  Malcolm drew on the few remaining threads around us and funneled their energies into a new burst of bronze fire that shot from his hands and engulfed the ‘geist that had attacked him.

  The think stopped dead in the still air, and then shuddered as Malcolm immolated it with arcane bronze fire.

  I winced as I willed myself to pull what thread energies I could together. “Malcolm, no! We don’t know if they can be saved!”

  Either he couldn’t hear me over the din of combat, or chose not to hear me. He kept his flaming gouts aimed on the ‘geist as it writhed around on the surface of the ley grid, and then stopped moving as it slowly collapsed into a pile of chunky ash.

  I shook my head. “Okay, Malcolm! I think you got it!”

  He shot me a look but then had to duck a swat of claws from another ‘geist.

  Rachel, get the shield back up!

  I flinched from Charity’s loud tone, reverberating through my head like I had a set of headphones on with the volume set to eleven. I reached out and pulled thin threads toward me, but even as I did so I realized there just wasn’t enough power there to make a meaningful shield.

  A ‘geist crashed into me and nearly captured Charity in its claws. A flick of a thread from me and a deft slide by Charity was enough to make the ‘geist catch only air.

  More coming, Rachel!

  Shit. I spared a moment to focus on the area around us. There were still five ‘geists harassing us where we stood, and now there were another six coming on. Screw that.

  “It’s time to go, Malcolm!”

  He glanced at me as he shot another burst of flame toward a ‘geist but cursed as he missed. “You don’t think we can take them?”

  I shook my head and start
ed taking a few steps away from the approaching ‘geists, swatting at one as it rushed me from above. “No time! That conduit has siphoned off most of the usable ley energy here. We’re outnumbered and outgunned. We’ve got to beat a hasty retreat.”

  He cursed as another ‘geist crashed into him, forcing him to stumble toward me awkwardly. “I hate running from a fight!”

  I nodded, but kept moving away from the ‘geists and away from that black conduit that I realized was serving as a sort of an etheric black hole.

  “Me too, but this time I think it’s better to get away from here and fight another day from a position of strength.”

  Yeah, right, like that was so easy to say. Another ‘geist swooped toward me and I ducked underneath it. I saw three more moving in. That was it. “Okay, friends, time to go! Back to the Veil, now!”

  Charity zoomed her etheric book form over to me. Grab hold! I’ll try to deflect them as they swipe at our backs!

  I nodded and then reached out and grabbed Malcolm’s etheric form. “Come on! We are leaving!”

  He flicked some bronze fire into the face of a screaming ‘geist, but the burst was weak, like a butane lighter low on fuel.

  He stared at his hand and shook it, a move I would have thought was comical if I weren’t so terrified for my life. “Crap. No power. Come on!”

  He linked arms with me and rushed toward the rip in the Veil I had created earlier, which stood open some distance away from us. He rushed his form toward it and I fell into step with him, tucking the etheric form of Charity under my etheric arm.