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

quite quickly become bored with the commonalities between all the light show tricks. They were great for getting attention but when it came to changing... things, they were all but useless. It might be beyond his purview as a substitute teacher, but if he could get a half dozen kids beyond flash and towards substance, this whole thing might be worth it.

As he listened without interest to the others tossing out their names and two sentence back stories he decided there was something he was working that could use an airing among the rank and file.

"Well, all right, duckies." He pushed—shoved really—himself off the stool and half-walked, half-hopped the several steps over to the workbench. "Today we're gonna learn a little bit of practical magic for an impractical thing. Let's do a little bit of body modification."

A couple of hours later each of the Adepts had what counted as a decent tattoo on their forearms, or at least as decent as their innate artistic ability would allow. Pietro was in the process of finishing the small firebird, tracing a red line with his voice over top of one of the more prominent veins.

"These... Aren't completely permanent, are they?" Lanying asked, rubbing her own lumpy design in a way that shielded it from the sight of the others.

"Aggy told me a way she used to get some unwanted spots off her hand," Tom replied. "I wrote it down somewhere. Don't rightly remember where."

Lanying grumbled and stopped rubbing her arm, instead hiding it behind her hip. "When is Aegera coming back?"

"All right, so, to review:" Tom tapped a pen on the sheets of paper where he had written the formula. "We've got this bit here that can shift the colour of the line, and this one here for width. Maintain your focus—"

"Has anyone figured out why a person's attention directs the spell?" Lanying asked.

"Wish we k—" Tom was in the process of saying when the lights overhead flickered and then went out. Flood lamps positioned in the corners clicked on, throwing an eerie yellow tinge over the workspace.

Tom's pulse quickened and his brow lowered.

A powerful bang broke open the personnel door, lifting it almost entirely off its hinges. As the heavy wood swayed back and forth on the twisted metal tabs a small metal canister sailed through the air and bounced with a clang against the floor.

What exactly it was registered only briefly in Tom's mind before it split apart with a bang louder than the one that split the door by a factor of ten. A bright blossom of light overwhelmed his eyes . He threw his arms up over his face on pure instinct, the world around him becoming a cacophony of the ringing of his ears, the panicked blood pounding through his arteries and the shouting of the Adepts.

They're after us. Tom's brain spun a fast rationale for what was happening.

"Get—" he managed before the blurry outlines of human-like figures against the glare from the door gave him pause.

Out.

Gathering what little was left of his clarity he spat a spell into the floor. He had no way to tell if it was successful or not, but the space within the garage should have become an impassable haze of blur for everyone. Aggy had once told him that it could make a car undriveable.

You fuckin' wankers are coming for my kids!

There were shouts all around and as his hand came down on what he instinctively knew was a human body he shoved it towards the side of the shop furthest from the personnel door. As he reached the far wall Tom's vision began to clear of the effect of the blinding light and he could make out black figures stumbling through the blurry room along with the Adepts huddled down with him. One of them, he couldn't tell who exactly was pawing at a panel next to the corrugated metal wall.

A door. The large rear garage door for automobiles.

He thought there might be a spell that would lift the door from the ground enough for them to duck underneath, but any that were swimming around his head within reach would likely obliterate them standing this close to it. A switch. There had to be a switch to operate the damn thing. But as his eyes took in the dark, greyish in the thin light coming in through the windows he could tell there would be no power to lift it.

One of the black blobs reached what looked like a tendrils out at him, clutching almost blindly at his shoulder. Tom wrenched away and lobbed a spell at whatever the thing was. It recoiled, the plastic of its helmet visor bubbling under the heat of it.

The follow-up was the entirely instinctive thrusting of his fist into the Impenetrable blackness of the man turned creature.

Tom's father had tried to teach him how to make a proper fist and throw a punch. Something about bullies at school that was a lifetime away. But little boy Tom had been more interested in nail polish and eyeliner (which might have explained the bullies, especially in rural England).

Impact shot up his arm and he recoiled, almost certain that he had broken something. The fog of adrenaline and shock quickly numbed the pain. The blur dropped back a step, but was already shouting over its comrades who were still bumbling around blindly. The other blobs carefully swept closer.

Hand up over his face one of the Adept blobs slipped past him and shoved the soldier who staggered another few steps into the others. Another Adept rose up and took a swing at Tom who pulled away and suddenly cursed his fashion choices. The first Adept got a handle on the second and pulled him back towards the door which refused to open regardless of the amount of pawing the Adepts performed.

Aw, fuck