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

"Before he died. My boy, I wanted to get him Christened, but we couldn't agree on a church and... If the Devil's real, if there's really things like witchcraft or even, if it wasn't witchcraft. If it was a miracle. How do you tell the difference?"

"It's okay, Mr. Wilson. I think you'd just know the difference."

"She made a ball of fire. Right between her fingers in the middle of the air."

Paul frowned, the religious intensity of the air was broken. “You know I think I’ve seen whatshisface do that online.”

Wilson shook his head furiously. “Nope. Not online or on TV. I…” His hands rattled on the pew as he rang the wooden railing, struggling for words. “Closest thing I can think of is going to see Santa at the mall when you were a kid. You remember?”

Paul’s frown deepened.

“If my parents asked me afterward if I believed in Santa I would say I did, I would maybe even believe it too, but there would always be some part of me that remembered seeing the strings that held his beard on his face, or seeing the black hair sticking out from under his wig. And part of me would know… you know? Maybe as a kid you don’t know you know, but you know, you know? But this… I know this was real. You know how I know?”

Paul shook his head. “How?”

“'Cause the next thing I know Jenny was holding one just like it. Maybe it was a little more yellow than the big girl's. And she held it out to me. I could feel... The heat coming off of it. No smoke, no mirrors, no strings. Just that feeling I used to get sitting on Santa’s lap getting washed down the drain. I stared at it there for like… I don’t know a minute or two, and I… I could hear Jenny laughing, like it’s the first time in nearly a year, since… I was scared outta my head. I don’t know if that was God or the Devil in that house, but... I never baptized my boy.”

Paul’s frown deepened yet again. It was clear Wilson was concerned about his wife, but as for the rest… Maybe Newman would have taken him seriously, as he had a tendency to do. Last month a parishioner had painted a mason jar with a cartoon devil for the annual chili cook off and been asked to leave church property. Paul thought this was more a case for an actual psychiatrist rather than an exorcist.

“Well...” Paul bit on his tongue a little bit. “I guess I could have a word with your wife. At least see if there’s anything to be worried about with these people.”

Wilson, sucking in a breath, removed his white knuckles from the back of the pew and wrung them nervously before slipping them through the hair past his temples. He nodded slowly and then exhaled.

"Can you tell my wife that... I'm sorry."

Paul put his hand on Wilson's shoulder in what he imagined would be a reassuring manner.

The next day Paul Kwon went up to the house. He did not return to the church.

There was the smell of animals and food, and feces. Exactly which was which was a topic for scholars.

Jonah McAllister looked around nervously and wondered how anyone could get nostalgic for such an aroma, let alone enjoy it. The mere inkling of the fried messes handed out in grease stained wrappers and containers was enough to make him look for a bathroom. Nevertheless the throngs of screaming children who ran about and poked and shouted at the animals suggested that not everyone shared his point of view.

He backed away as a carny leading a horse pushed through the crowd.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sandy asked, pretending not to notice a trio of kids scurrying away from her great mass.

He bristled. “I never liked the circus.”

She picked up a stick of cotton candy from the vendor, shoving some change at him in return. The man eyed her skeptically. “Everyone likes the circus. Besides, this is a carnival.”

"What's the difference?"

A performer wearing a large grease paint smile over top of his scowling lips walked past in a pair of baggy suspenders, nearly tripping as he tried to skirt the same trio of children that ran from Sandy. He raised a fist covered in an oversized white glove and shook it at the scattering brood like an old man in a cartoon. Jonah shied away, bumping into a speaker that was blaring calliope music.

“I think it’s the noise,” he said.

Sandy arched an eyebrow. “I think you’re afraid of clowns.”

He glared at her. “I’m also not a very big fan of magicians.”

“My uncle’s perfect,” she replied. "And he's an ex-magician. He's management now."

“That's almost worse.” Jonah shied away from a second clown, following the first with what looked like a bucket of paint and what sounded like questions about the act. He grumbled something before catching himself and began kicking at the base of one of the booths instead.

“At the very least we can get some... I don't know, hiring tips." The truth was she had more than a little stagefright after the incident with the Hernandezes. The results had been acceptable for a first time, she supposed: two recruits interviewed, two recruits inducted... But Jonah had been more focused on the fact there was someone who knew their secret on the loose. So much so that he had insisted on coming along, like some sort of micromanaging boss.

She clutched at a shaggy man passing by carrying a ladder. "Excuse me. We're looking for Ezra Mansfield." The man looked at her with a blank stare that likely transcended the request. "He used to go by the Irreverent Ezra?"

Jonah kicked at the stand a little more, but said nothing. Truth be told