The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister - Landon Wark (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

She looked at him and sat reluctantly on the bench. Despite what he thought she had never even held a gun before, let alone fired one. It shook as she hoisted it, making a strange rattling sound that made her believe she had broken it. Once more she looked up to him with deference.

Jonah produced a small brass coloured cylinder from his pocket and shoved it towards her. “You have to load it first.”

The gun seemed like a viper coiled in her hands. “And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Here.” He leaned in close, so close that she could feel his breath on her hands. A quick motion and the breach was open. He took the cartridge and slid it smoothly into the chamber, slamming the bolt back into place after. Aegera looked at the weapon, and felt her stomach turn just a little.

“My dad took me hunting once when I was a kid,” he explained. “I got so bored sitting out there in the snow all day that I took apart one of his old rifles.”

“I’m amazed,” she whispered. “I never pictured you as the outdoors type.”

“Once was enough. When you’re ready the safety’s right next to the trigger. Just line up the sights on one of those targets at the other end of the field and squeeze the trigger. Oh, and put these on.”

He handed her a pair of what looked like safety glasses that she took skeptically. “You’re kidding right?”

“What?”

“I said—” When she looked back up at him he was wearing a pair of ear protectors along with a second pair of glasses. “Never mind… Where are my ear guards?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” She slipped on the glasses and awkwardly gripped the rifle. She had seen people use such a weapon before and knew somewhat how you were supposed to aim it. Just position the front sight in between the back ones and make sure what you were shooting at was in the background. A vision of an innocent bystander walking across the field at the exact moment of her shot filled her with a sudden dread and she hesitated. The nervousness was a bit of a shock. After all, she handled things more dangerous than this rifle on a daily basis.

“Don’t be nervous,” Jonah said from behind her. “We’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”

Bearing down her finger reached for the trigger and slowly curled over it. The tension in her muscles increased until the small lever began to pull back. It reached a point of resistance and she squeezed harder, and then a little harder than that, and a little harder than that…

“Crud.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I left the safety on. It’s this red thing h—”

A loud blast cut the air, the rifle’s report echoed off first the walls of the range and then the hills surrounding them. Aegera jumped where she sat, looking wildly around to see where the shot had gone, knowing on a subconscious level that she would never be able to see it.

One of the incandescent bulbs down behind the targets at the other end of the field exploded in a shower of glass.

“Oh my God,” Aaegera shouted in disbelief. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t even aiming for it. I wasn’t really aiming at all.”

Jonah looked at the notebook sitting beside him. "Okay. The control works." He calmly produced another cartridge from his pocket and presented it to her. “Try again.”

Skeptically she took the cylinder and this time managed to load the rifle herself as he started . The safety off she leaned in and focused in on the same target down the range as best she was able. The rifle clacked in her hand as the hammer came down. Although she jerked in anticipation there was no loud bang accompanying it.

"This gun you bought sucks," she said, shifting the weapon in her hands.

"It was on for a discount."

“What are you doing?” She turned to Jonah who was inspecting the tube beside her.

“I’ll show you in a minute,” he promised, producing yet another round. “Just try once more and this time—” He pointed downfield and handed her another cartridge. "Use this one."

Aegera pulled back on the small handle sticking out of the gun. 'Opening the bolt' she was pretty sure it was called. She carefully replaced the bad bullet with the fresh one and closed the bolt. With her hands still shaking though less than they had been) she closed her left eye and aimed down the field.

Clack

"This thing's not going to blow up in my face, is it?" she asked.

Jonah nodded his head as if the whole incident was a result he had been expecting and bit his lower lip thoughtfully. He produced one of the metal tubes from behind a wall and laid it flat on his palms so that she could get a good look at it. It looked like any sort of average metal tube.

“I found a way,” he began, “of making some materials reproducing the effect that our..." He swallowed. "Spells have. Beryllium, specifically. Can't have too much electron motion. Now the object in question has to be a certain size. Too large and everything gets diluted to the point where it won’t work. Too small and it breaks down too quick. It also needs to be a single composite item. You couldn’t do it to say, a telephone or a computer. In this case it prevents the primer in the bullet from igniting by increasing its stability.”

Aegera stared at the tube, disbelieving that she had any disbelief left in her. “So you can… enchant things?”

He bristled. “Essentially… yes.”

“Have you done this to anything else?”

“Originally I was going to make something that could deflect a bullet, but it would be too large to be portable. And anything stationary would