by Jim Johnson
Ugh. This stuff would take a while to get down the stairs, though I was confident Malcolm and I could handle most of it. I’d discovered early on working for Malcolm that lifting and hauling furniture was hard work. Like, really hard work.
With Charity helping me with some experimenting, I had figured out how to harness the ley threads and my skill with the etherics to help me lift the heavier pieces. I couldn’t levitate stuff, not really, but I could flex my skills with the ley threads and make it easier to move heavy loads around.
Which sure comes in handy when your job is to move heavy stuff from one place to another. The first time I had done it, I didn’t tell Malcolm what I was doing and he’d nearly had a heart attack when I lifted my share of a massive china cabinet by myself.
The customer we’d been working with had been surprised but bought my story about working out and doing yoga, but Malcolm saw right through me. I explained to him what I was doing afterwards, and he had been alternately amused and pissed off that I hadn’t shared the trick with him earlier.
I finished my inventory and returned to the living room. Malcolm had finished the paperwork with the lady, and moved over to me and guided me to the front door. “I think we’re all set here. Any problems that you could see?”
I shook my head. “Looks pretty standard. No surprises. Just a lot of heavy wood furniture. It’ll take a while, but shouldn’t be horrible.”
He nodded and then led me back down the stairs to his car. “The truck and the other movers should be arriving shortly. Where do you wanna be?”
I shrugged. “I think to head off any strange looks and questions, you should put me in the truck. People won’t notice my elite lifting skills in there.”
He grinned. “No hauling furniture down the stairs for you?”
I shrugged. “I can do it, but some of that furniture is beyond me to lift without a little magical help.”
“Okay, got it.” He glanced toward the rising sun. “It’s gonna be a scorcher today; you sure you’re up for standing in the truck all day?”
I slapped his arm. “Enough. I’ve got this.”
He returned my grin and then focused on his smart phone to get the last details of the move in place. I gathered up what ley threads I could, to sort of ‘top off’ my internal batteries.
I set up a passive sensor net around the area, just in case more ghosts started coming around. I still had no idea what was setting them off, and the fact that it had happened twice in the last twelve hours had me on edge.
Malcolm didn’t seem to notice, but I caught him shooting a glance toward me a couple times as he shuttled moving supplies up to the apartment as we waited for the moving truck to arrive. Even if his senses weren’t as honed as mine, he had grown in his abilities and could tell that I was working the ley threads to monitor the area around us.
In short order, the moving truck and a trio of day workers arrived. They greeted us in Spanish. Malcolm herded two of the more beefy ones upstairs to the apartment to start hauling stuff downstairs.
I joined Carlos, one of Malcolm’s regulars, in the truck. He and I would be responsible for packing the truck with the furniture and boxes Malcolm and the others brought down.
I shared some brief greetings with Carlos and then focused my ley energies to leech off the energy I’d need to fill my reserve. I’d worked in the truck with Carlos before, and while I didn’t think he really understood how I could move heavy furniture as easily as he could, he wasn’t one to ask questions. He just gave me a sidelong grin and a thumb’s up and we were on our way.
Malcolm and his two workers, Benjamin and Antonio, started bringing down furniture first, starting with the heaviest accessible pieces first. The theory was you haul the heaviest stuff down the stairs first, when you’re the least tired and theoretically at your peak for the day. Malcolm liked to save the lighter pieces and boxes for later in the move, which made sense to me. After lugging boxes down stairs a hundred times or so, you’re ready for the move to be over.
Carlos and I settled into the rhythm of moving stuff around inside the truck as Malcolm and the others fed us a steady stream of furniture, boxes, and other knick-knacks one inevitably finds when moving an entire household. The woman moving, Mrs. Marby, had also rented one of those big haul-away dumpster bins, which was parked along the curb next to our moving truck. She had stationed herself outside her apartment building and was directing Malcolm and the others as to which pieces were actually moving and which were being scrapped.
Some curious folks and bargain hunters lingered in the area as well, either buying discards off Mrs. Marby or taking the ones she offered for free. A couple malcontents poked their head into the truck, presumably to see if they could get away with a freebie unnoticed, but a joint glare from me and Carlos sent them off.
I was pleased to see that the pile of stuff getting tossed into the dumpster or given away was nearly as large as the pieces Carlos and I were efficiently packing into the truck.
During a lull in the move to get everyone hydrated, I walked over to Mrs. Mabry. “You’re letting a lot of stuff go.”
She shielded her eyes from the sun beating down on us and glanced up at me from her little lawn chair. “Downsizing again, dear. My husband of forty years recently passed and I just don’t need as much stuff as I used to.” She sighed. “Besides, some of it reminds me too much of him. Better to let it go.”
I knelt down next to her and rested my hand on hers. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Mabry. Is there anything special you held onto for you to remember him?”
She smiled at me and then nodded. “Aside from forty years of memories, which I know at my age aren’t as reliable as they used to be, I have his old pocket watch and a silly little porcelain duck he picked up from somewhere in the Pacific during the war.”
I nodded. “That’s good. Sometimes it’s the little things that matter the most. My grandpa kept my grandma’s cross and necklace. Said it’s all he needs to remember her, aside from his memories.”
Mrs. Mabry nodded, clearly understanding and feeling the connection. I patted her hand and then headed back to the truck when I saw Malcolm and the others start back up the stairs for the next load.
I rejoined Carlos inside the truck, which by this point was nearly half-full. He moved over to the open back door of the truck and took a few gulps of fresh air. I opened the side doors of the truck to see if we could get some cross-breeze going.
As I shifted some of the boxes around to a more effective stack, my sensor net fired off a warning and I had enough time realize something was very wrong when Carlos was bodily pulled out of the truck through the open door.
I turned quickly but saw only a dark blur of motion. Someone, possibly Carlos, let out a cry of pain, and then there was a sudden sickly snap.
A moment of silence hung in the air, and then Mrs. Mabry screamed.
Chapter Thirteen
I RUSHED TO THE DOOR OF the truck. Carlos’s mangled body was splayed out on the street, a widening pool of blood beneath him. He had a surprised look on his face that horrified me.
I let out a scream almost as loud as Mrs. Mabry’s, and then I rallied and fired up a large ley shield around the truck and dumpster, encompassing me and Mrs. Mabry and Carlos’s body.
I started scanning for threats just as I pushed an urgent call through the passive connection I had with Malcolm that we rarely used but had in case of emergencies.
And this sure as hell qualified.
“Malcolm! We’ve got trouble down here, now!”
He didn’t say anything, but I sensed that he had gotten the message loud and clear and was on his way.
I focused on the area around me, looking for whatever had wrecked Carlos. I forced myself to take another look at his body.
The deep gouges on his face and chest, along with the rips in his clothing, suggested a tiger or possibly a bear, but the lingering glimmer of ley energies around his wounds and hanging in the air like a foul arcane m
iasma told me that this was something etheric, something of another world.
It bore all the markings of a ‘geist attack. This had to be a foul, feral construct courtesy of the Spinner.
Son of a bitch. That bastard was back and he wasn’t fooling around.
I focused my will, and even though I knew it was a long shot, I sent off a burst of warning down the ley lines toward Charity, hoping she was awake and receptive to messages. I doubted there was much she could do, and I had no idea how far she could travel from her journal, but I had to at least try. Other than her and Miss Chin, I had no allies I could trust to help with a rampaging ‘geist.
Something big and fast crashed into my shield, soon followed by another powerful impact. I pulled more ley energies out of the threads all around me and fed all that power into the shield, determined that no one else was going to get killed.
One ‘geist howled, and another scraped its massive claws against my shield, leaving glittering streamers in their wake. My shield held, but it seemed like the ‘geists were determined to try and cut their way through.
I closed my eyes and focused, adding even more power to the shield, shifting it into an opaque warding dome. I shot a glance toward Mrs. Mabry, who had fallen out of her lawn chair and was staring up at the dome with a mix of wonder and fear in her eyes.
Shit. Nothing to do about it now. We’d have to clean this up later. Right now, the most important thing was to keep everyone safe. Just then I realized that there were a few other people within the arc of the dome as well, all of whom were either staring at the silvery dome, or straight at me.
I managed a weak smile, then refocused on shoring up the shield to protect everyone from the ‘geists. The creatures started hammering on my shield, alternating turns, testing different sections of it, looking for a weak spot. I spun the threads and did all I could to ensure there were no weak points, that I was forming a solid line of defense.
Through my etheric connection with Malcolm, I heard his voice clearly, as if he had been standing next to me.
“Rachel! I’m just inside the apartment building. I told Benjamin and Antonio to lock themselves in the apartment until I called them. I see two large ‘geists pounding on your shield, and when I say see it I mean that I can see it without my Sight, if you get what I’m saying.”
“I get it, Malcolm! I built the dome and didn’t think to hide it from plain sight. I was more worried about saving everyone’s lives. Carlos is dead.”
“Shit. All right. You do your thing and I’ll do mine.”
Oh God. I pulled even more power from the ley threads, grounded myself, and channeled it all into my warding dome. Malcolm was going to cut loose with his fire, and I had to make sure the dome held up against that.
Through my connection with the ley threads and with Malcolm, I sensed him draw on the ley currents, and practically felt the power surge within him, even though I was separated from him by a couple dozen feet and the crackling energies of my warding dome. My friend the Warden was about to unleash his own private version of Hell.
Malcolm’s power reached the maximum holding point he could manage, and then I heard him yell out an indistinct challenge. Bright bronze fire erupted from both his hands, which he held out in front of him as if he were wielding twin pistols.
The bronze fire rippled out toward the two ‘geists, but they were so fast that the fire splashed onto the pavement, the moving truck, and skated across the surface of my warding dome.
“Dammit!” I cried out. I shifted the energies to compensate for the damage, but Malcolm had already shifted his attack away from the dome. He fired more bursts of bronze fire into the air, working hard to bracket the two swooping ‘geists.
Everyone in the dome with me screamed and ducked from the bronze fire, though none of them cut and run. They all hunkered down near the dumpster, along with Mrs. Mabry. I spared them all a glance, but they seemed more interested in watching me and Malcolm and the dome and the ‘geists than they were in running away.
Hell, one even had a smartphone in hand and was recording everything! I kept the dome shored up, and spared a single charged thread to fling at the smartphone. The phone sparked in the kid’s hand and then went blank and started spewing acrid smoke. The kid swore and tossed it aside. It wasn’t much, but I knew somehow that I needed to contain the scene as much as possible.
More bronze fire splashed into the dome, and I heard Malcolm curse, both with his regular voice as well as his etheric one.
“Rachel, I’m gonna need your help to stop these two. Can you lock off the shield and get out here and help me?”
Crap! Normally I’d have Charity take over the shielding and go help Malcolm, but I’d heard nothing from her—she was probably too far to have heard my call. I shot an affirmation toward Malcolm and then reached out for the ley threads once again.
I gathered up as many as I could in my etheric hands, and then wove them together into an anchor in the ground that I was fairly confident would not move until I made it do so.
Once that was in place, I withdrew my direct feed into the dome, letting it feed off itself and the anchor in sort of a closed loop. I fashioned a smaller shield for me personally, and then headed for the nearest side of the dome. Before I stepped out of it, I glanced back at the group of people hiding by the dumpster.
“Stay where you are and do not leave this silver dome under any circumstances. You’ll be safe here. Please trust me.”
They all stared at me as if I were speaking crazy, which I guess maybe I was, from their point of view. None of them said anything. I met Mrs. Mabry’s eyes, shrugged, and then turned and stepped through the dome.
A burst of bronze fire just narrowly missed me, crashing into the ground nearby. I shifted my shield more tightly around me, and then ran as hard as I could for the apartment building’s entrance.
Malcolm was pressed up against the inside wall of the entrance, occasionally poking out of his cover to loose some fire at the two ‘geists, which were taking turns swooping and careening toward him and the building.
I crashed into the far side of the entrance, opposite Malcolm. “What the hell’s going on?”
He gestured outside. “Those two are damned fast! Faster than anything we’ve fought before.”
I glanced outside and sure enough, the two ‘geists were swinging around through the air, dark blurs against the cloudless blue sky. I then realized that both Malcolm and I were drenched in sweat. It was supposed to hit the mid-nineties today, and it felt like it had already surpassed it.
“I’m open to ideas!” I called out. I shifted my shield to cover both myself and Malcolm.
Malcolm shot some more fire toward the ‘geists, but missed again. “Gotta distract them somehow.”
I adjusted the flow of my power to split between our protective shield and a new creation, a large ball of silvery energy. I sagged against the wall before the ball was fully formed. I was feeling the effects of my exertions and of the heat. We needed to take these two things out soon or I was gonna collapse.
I rallied and forced myself back up to my feet. “Malcolm, I’ll try to distract one of them. See if you can take it out!”
He spared a glance for me and then nodded. “Do it!”
I finished weaving the ball of energy and then launched it toward the nearest ‘geist, attempting to give it a solid whack. I missed the first attempt, and Malcolm’s bronze fire went wide.
I shifted the ball around as if it were a morning star on a chain, and this time connected with it, a glancing blow that just barely slowed it down.
But it was enough. Malcolm slammed it with a double shot of his bronze heat, and the ‘geist erupted into flame, but amazingly, kept coming at us. It bounced off my smaller shield and then dive-bombed the warding dome. The gonging sound of it hitting the dome reverberated across the street, not enough to shatter windows, but enough to rattle my teeth.
The impact seemed to stun the ‘geist, and I took advantage of the m
oment to hammer it again with my ball of energy. Malcolm followed up with a sustained burst of fire from his hands. This time the ‘geist was fully immolated, and was soon left a writhing, smoking ruin on the ground.
We had no time to celebrate, as the other ‘geist swooped straight toward us and crashed into my shield. I wasn’t prepared for the ferocity of its attack, and my shield buckled. Malcolm and I both fell to the ground from the impact, but the shield held, but only just.
I reached out for more ley threads, and got a feeble handful for my troubles. Malcolm and I were really draining the area of its power for now.
“Malcolm! We’re running out of juice. We gotta end this thing or cut and run.”
Malcolm swore and got back to his feet. “I ain’t running away.” He reached into his pocket and produced a crumpled ten dollar bill. Oh hell.
“Malcolm, I thought you had stopped using that!”
He smoothed out the bill. “Only in dire need.” He met my eyes.
I stared at him, and then nodded. “This is dire enough.”
He focused on the bill, a strange relic he’d picked up from our strange friend Cubes. He channeled some ley energy into it and within seconds, a massive darkling form full of shining claws and teeth emerged from it. It was Malcolm’s own personal ‘geist, which he kept under close lock and key.
Malcolm focused his will, and then sent his ‘geist out into the world to do his bidding. Almost immediately, his ‘geist launched itself into the air and streaked straight toward the other ‘geist.
Malcolm and I focused our respective talents toward the fight as well, attempting to distract the Spinner’s ‘geist so that Malcolm’s agent could score some hits.
Faster than I would have thought possible, Malcolm’s ‘geist had traded cruel strikes against the other ‘geist and the two of them crashed into the moving truck, denting the top of it and flattening several tires with the impact.