by Jim Johnson
She shrugged. “They’ve been in place for more than three years. I installed the matrix shortly after I bought this place. Didn’t think I’d ever need them, given my particular focus with the ley threads, but once you and Malcolm Awakened and then started getting involved with the Veil and the Spinner, I decided to shore up my defenses, just in case.”
I nodded. “I guess it didn’t help when we started to use your basement as a training ground.”
She shook her head. “Correct. Now…if you don’t mind, I need to get started on Malcolm here.”
“Oh, right.” I zipped my lips and then closed my eyes and started to focus in on my breathing and my gathering of ley energies. The pain in my gut from the ley needles was a constant distraction, and it was pretty much all I could do to remain focused.
Bonita started to chant softly in Spanish, and then broke it off. “Malcolm, once you find your center, relax into it, and know that you’re in a safe place, under safe hands.”
She reached out with her senses and activated her ward matrix. A wall of aquamarine light sparked into view through my Sight, and it was dazzling to behold. The ward energies felt easily as strong as any ward I could create, though it carried that strange different-ness that utterly set it apart from how I worked the ley threads.
I sensed Malcolm settle down and slip into a calming state within the swirls of ley threads all around us. I felt the quiet strength of Bonita’s ward all around us, and for a moment, I enjoyed a moment of tranquility and utter peace that I had so rarely touched on before when in dire circumstances with my powers. Whether we were flirting with a connection with something, you know…divine, or otherwise, I really had no idea.
I did know the peaceful feeling felt really good, and I settled into my center and found my happy place, and let myself doze off and drift. Bonita had her hands full working on Malcolm, and while I had a wound that felt pretty bad, I had things sort of under control and I hoped I’d be able to keep it that way.
Bonita’s chanting in Spanish lulled me into a stupor, which I suspect was its intended effect. While I laid out on the desk, I sensed Malcolm dropping farther and farther into a fugue state, something that Bonita’s gentle ministrations were subtly encouraging.
I was having trouble focusing though, given how exhausted I was. It would be so simple to just slip away, I saw that now. Just give up fighting the Spinner, crack open the Veil to the Holding, slide through and into that other world, and never come back.
The notion appealed to me right off the bat, but a few minutes of consideration and reconsideration splashed water on my aspirations.
I centered again, forcing myself to push aside all the negative energy and harness cleaner, more positive energy for use in more healings.
I listened to Bonita’s chanting again, and again felt her shift the ley energies to work on Malcolm’s wounds. I drifted through my mind, and decoupled my living soul from my living body and sort of just floated there for a time.
As I drifted, I was sure I drifted off. I was bone-tired from the day’s events. If I could just curl up and…
No. You cannot sleep now.
Chapter Fifteen
FEELING LIKE MY HEAD WAS STUFFED full of cotton, I shook my head and glanced around. Nothing looked out of the ordinary save for Bonita’s hands on Malcolm’s shoulders, her head bowed so that it almost touched the crown of his head. I barely had the energy to move, but I did cast about with my senses for whoever might have said that.
In my Sight, Charity’s features moved into view, her black braids and flowerprint dress glowing in the ley threads. Her etheric form moved toward me and offered what looked like a tentative smile.
What happened?
“Oh, Charity. We went into the city to move that apartment, and we got ambushed by a pair of the Spinner’s ‘geists. And they were out looking for blood.”
Charity’s form moved closer to me. I felt tendrils of ley energy reach out and caress my aura, sure sign that Charity was checking me out.
“I think I’m mostly okay. One of the ‘geists got badly damaged and exploded, and sent shards of ley energy in all directions. Malcolm took a few in the leg and I got hit in the stomach.”
Dear God, Rachel. You could have easily been killed.
I managed a weak nod. “I know that. As it is, one of Malcolm’s day workers was killed. Maybe a couple more wounded.”
Charity’s etheric hands shot up to her etheric mouth. Oh! It’s even worse than I guessed. You had mundane witnesses?
I lifted an arm and threw it across my face. “God, yes. We couldn’t help it. Our first thought was survival, not containment. I thought it was more important to protect those people than to hide things from them and let them die.”
Charity shook her head. I wasn’t there, and can only imagine. She sent calming vibes along our ley connection toward me. I’m sure you did all you could. Now, where did you say you were wounded?
I settled my back on the desk, and indicated my lower stomach. “Got a bunch of pins in my stomach, maybe other places too. Hurts worst in my stomach.”
Charity nodded and then settled her etheric form near my body. I turned my attention toward Malcolm and Bonita, but they were quiet save for Bonita’s low Spanish chanting. They were an inspiring sight surrounded by candlelight and swirls of ley threads. Two of the most important people in my life and they were unified in action, in the ley threads.
I sighed in wonder. Jeez, what a turn my life had taken. It hadn’t been all that long ago that I was just a mundane college drop-out who had nothing going for her but a girlfriend and regular trips to visit my grandpa in the nursing home.
Charity cleared her virtual throat. If you’re done skylarking, we can get to work.
I sighed and then focused on her. “I wasn’t. Just realizing how far I’ve come over the last year or two. A lot has changed in my life.”
For the better?
I nibbled on my lip, deep in thought, and then nodded. “Big picture? Yeah, I’d say it’s way better. The Spinner aside, everything to do with the ley grid and threads has been a positive change. I feel like I have purpose now, more so than ever before in my life.”
Charity started to pull energy from the ley threads around us, much as Bonita had done. That’s good to hear. I recall I time I was drifting through life, not sure what future I’d have for myself or whether I’d have any future at all.
She continued pulling energy and guided some of that gentle healing vibes my way. I think it was a combination of giving birth to my father and being freed from slavery that really opened my eyes. That and learning I could bend the ley threads to my will.
I could only shake my head in wonder. “That’s a lot of stuff to unpack, Charity. I can only imagine what you’ve had to go through. Then, and now. Getting ill and letting yourself be housed in a paper journal. I can’t imagine how hard that must be.”
She settled her hands to either side of my head. Her careful ministrations feathered down my body and centered on my stomach. I relaxed as much as I could and opened myself up to her, giving her all the ley power I could muster and in storage in my battery, and took on a passive, observing role, letting her do the driving.
I’d like to say you get used to it, but that would be a lie. I don’t think I’ve ever really stopped to think about the full ramifications of what I did. She focused the ley threads into a sort of tweezers shape, and gently took hold of one of the ley spikes in my stomach. This might hurt a little.
Before I had a chance to ask just what might hurt, she had yanked out the ley spike and tossed it to the side. The pain in my stomach was impressive, along the lines of the worst cramps I’d ever had.
I went fetal on the desk and moaned in pain. She sent calming currents into my body, which helped a lot.
Crap. I cleared my throat and then settled on my back again. “Do you mean to tell me I can use the etherics to minimize my cramping?”
That would have been useful from the very be
ginning, back when I had Awakened.
She shot me a grin. Miss Chin didn’t tell you about that particular application of our talents?
I let out a sigh but forced myself to not get worked up. “No, I’ll add that to the list of things she conveniently didn’t tell me about.”
Charity yanked another spike out of my stomach and I winced again, but this time clamped down and didn’t cry out. In her defense, it’s possible she doesn’t know it either, or perhaps never experimented in that vein.
“Hmm.” I thought about how to use the etherics to soothe my cramps, and that naturally led to another line of thought. “Charity…could the ley threads be used to stimulate, you know…other parts of the body?” Seemed theoretically connected, anyway.
She grinned at me and yanked another ley spike out of me. How about you lie back and try to relax, and think about that while I pull the rest of these things out of you? I’m sure you’ll put two and two together soon enough.
She grabbed and yanked yet one more, and that one made me yelp. I glanced at Bonita, still hard at work on Malcolm, and then rested my head back on the desk and let my whole body relax, letting the ley threads and the energies contained within them wash over me and permeate my entire body.
As if from a distance, I sensed the soft blue glow of Bonita’s ward matrix all around us, protecting us. Dimly I thought I sensed a few dark shapes probing the edges of the ward, but that might have been my imagination or a displaced memory of what the ‘geists had done to my warding dome earlier in the day.
Charity pulled one spike after another out of me, and with a focus of my will, the pain from them dulled to a twinge. I was sinking deeper into a healing trance, and in that deeper state I sensed dozens of lost souls outside the ward matrix, spiraling around Bonita’s store, certainly invisible to anyone without Sight.
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t much care that they were there. Usually I felt a sort of vague guilt while around lost souls, as if I had a job to do and wasn’t giving them what they needed right away.
For now, in this moment, I was in communion with them, but there was no expectation on their part, no fear, no need to be somewhere other than where they were.
And some part of me intuitively knew that my task right now was to rest, and to let Charity help me heal.
So I let my etheric form drift into the spiraling lost souls, letting them for once take over, letting my consciousness drift along with them, for a moment feeling what it might feel like to be permanently disconnected from my body and left to freely roam around the world and the ley threads as an immortal soul.
While some little part of my mind was terrified at the experience, I was mostly just struck at how incredibly free I felt. In this moment and in this form, I had no physical need, no worry, no fear. Eating, sleeping, sex, fighting the Spinner, none of it was all that important, really.
There was also a profound sense of peace permeating the air and the ley threads, and even the lost souls, being lost, were plugged into that certain serenity. Made me wonder if perhaps they had it better than the rest of us, even if they hadn’t moved on to the next phase of their existence.
And as I puzzled over that, I felt one more wrench from my gut, and then I sensed Charity calling me, pulling me back into my mortal human shell.
Crap. The etheric high was at an end. Time to come down off the mountain.
Come on back now, Rachel. How do you feel?
I lost my touch with whatever divine Other I might have glimpsed, and then surfaced, finding myself back in Bonita’s back room, laying back on a desk with my etheric friend Charity by my side. A year or so ago I’d have thought this an insane scene; now, it was home.
I took a moment to take a few deep breaths and then took stock of how I actually felt. Aside from some lingering aches in my belly, I didn’t feel any worse for wear.
“I feel really worn down, like after a hard day of training with you or Miss Chin.” I pulled myself up to a sitting position and rested a hand on my stomach. “And my belly aches, but nothing like the spears of pain I was feeling earlier.”
Charity nodded and held up an etheric spike. This is what that ‘geist threw out when it died. Really foul stuff. Like its dying action was to convert its form into a weapon. Definitely not something it could have done on its own.
I shook my head. “Meaning it was forced to do that. The Spinner.”
Charity focused on the spike and it dissipated into the etherics, its component energies reforming with the larger ley grid far below. Perhaps. Has the Spinner exhibited such abilities before?
I crossed my hands over my chest and thought that one over. “I don’t think so, though I haven’t directly run into him in a while.”
I glanced at Bonita, who had settled back into a chair and was sipping out of a steaming mug. Malcolm appeared to be asleep in the captain’s chair.
“I guess there’s a chance the Spinner had some time to study and to learn some new techniques.”
Perhaps. I just don’t want to overlook the possibility that this is someone else’s work and that we’re not attributing more talent to the Spinner than he deserves.
I stared at Charity. “God, Charity. The last thing we need is another threat even more powerful than the Spinner. Fighting him wrecked the Veil around here and nearly leveled my grandpa’s nursing home. Someone more powerful could do even more damage.”
She nodded. That’s right. Which is why I think we need to be prepared for the worst.
I frowned. “Now you have me worried. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
She looked away, more pensive than I’d ever seen her. I know that when I was an active, living Weaver and Beacon, my allies and I faced a number of threats in our area, threats that were occasionally independent of any other ley practitioner.
I stared hard at her, sensing something else. “But?”
Charity sighed. “But…sometimes we faced foes that appeared to have more resources and abilities than an independent operator should have any expectation to possess.”
I shook my head again. “I’m not seeing the train of thought here. Connect the rails for me, girl.” I must have still been foggy from the healing trance and my flirting with a Power far greater than myself.
While we struggled to find any consistent evidence by the time I died, we were working to piece together clues that suggested there might have been an organization at the national and possibly international level, that was involved in manipulating the ley threads and etheric grids for something other than noble purposes.
Oh, great. “And you’re choosing now to tell me this? After we’ve been together for a few months now?”
She shrugged, a hopeless looking gesture. It didn’t seem relevant at any other point, to be honest. Nothing the Spinner has done prior to now even triggered my memory of that work I did before my body died.
I raised a hand. “Fair enough. I don’t blame you, Charity, and I’m not mad. Just…frustrated. And worried. If what you say is true, then Malcolm and I are in really big trouble. We just barely took down those two ‘geists. If the Spinner or whoever is responsible for them really wanted to come after us and send more than few at us at the same time, I think we’d be screwed.”
“You have friends.” This from Malcolm, through our ley connection.
I jumped. “Sorry, didn’t realize you had been listening. You don’t use this line much.”
He opened his eyes and glanced at Bonita, and then said, out loud, “I don’t think to do it much. Just easier to talk, I guess.”
Bonita frowned and shot a look alternately between me and Malcolm. “Did I miss something?”
I shook my head. “Malcolm and I have a limited form of telepathy we’re able to use to communicate with each other without sound.”
Bonita raised an eyebrow. “No kidding? That’s pretty cool.” She sighed and raised her mug of tea to us. “More power to you. That’s not something I’ve ever learned or need
ed with my talents. I can see where it would be useful in your line of work.”
I stared at Malcolm and dropped the telepathy as well. It wasn’t fair to Bonita to carry on a conversation she wasn’t able to hear. We were using her place to recover, after all. No sense being lousy guests.
“How are you feeling, Malcolm?”
Seated in the chair, he flexed his legs and rubbed his knees and thighs with his hands. “Hell of a lot better than when I walked in. Pain’s mostly gone. Just feels like pins and needles now—like when you sit on your foot for too long and then get that weird buzzing pain as all the blood rushes back in.”
I focused on his legs. “Can you walk?”
“Good question.” He glanced at Bonita. “Doc?”
She shrugged. “Like I said when you first got here, there’s no physical damage. You should be able to get off that chair and walk wherever you want without a problem.”
He nodded to her and then glanced at me, then gingerly placed his hands on the chair’s armrests, then slowly pushed himself up onto his feet.
“Seems stable enough,” he said. He then took a few tentative steps toward me, and grew more confident the more steps he took. “This is great. There’s hardly any pain at all, just feels like muscle cramps more than anything else.”
I nodded. “That’s a relief. If we get attacked again and you weren’t able to walk or run, we’d find ourselves in real trouble.”
He moved over next to my desk. “And how are you doing?”
I shrugged. “Charity helped me out a lot. Taught me a few things, and got me cleared up from those ley spikes or whatever.” I smiled at him. “I feel a lot better too.”
He returned the smile. “Good.” He focused on Bonita. “Can’t thank you enough for your help.”
Bonita, characteristically, waved off the praise. “Don’t mention it. The least I can do for a friend.”
He offered her a smile, which faded once he turned back to me. “So now what do we do? I’m confident at least one of my day workers is dead, and the other two, plus my client have to be freaking out about now.”