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

and... The whole voxikinesis thing is powerful, but... I wouldn't use it around people."

"Voxi—? Oh, yeah. I nearly annihilated the footstool trying to get the remote last week," she said.

"Recruits?"

"Five, including Uncle Ezra. Enough that the two of us won't have to make a go of the quarters for a good long while. The two new ones haven't even seen our act yet, but I'm going to show them the quarters. I mean, as soon as the one wakes up."

"Okay." Jonah began sifting through some of his loose pages, lines of concentration appearing on his face.

"You wanna come watch?"

"Not really."

"You could manage to find a little bit of enthusiasm."

"I'll be enthusiastic when I can make some headway," Jonah rose from his place on the couch and plunked his collection of sheets next to the textbooks which he began leafing through casually. "These plants are the biggest successes I've had and I could likely have done this with just standard techniques."

"You act like there's some huge deadline looming or something. We have time, Jonah."

He raised his eyes to her face as if it was the first time she had ever said his name. There was a concerned look in her eyes as he began firing through the crisp pages of the new textbooks. Sandy reached out a hand to place comfortingly on his shoulder.

"Repulsion," he muttered.

"I'm sorry?" she scowled.

"That's how we move things around. That's what makes them solid," he retrieved the loose papers and sifted through. "Maybe there's too much power flowing through it somehow..."

Before she knew what was going on Jonah was walking in a circle around the table, his voice dropping into a low mutter. On instinct Sandy drew away.

"Should I get out of here? Is this the danger zone now?"

Jonah grasped another of the textbooks lying on the table, breaking its new spine. The travel mug pressed against his lips as he began pacing around the room.

"But maybe we could work out a way to dampen the amount of power..." he muttered intensely. "Two clouds of electrons can't occupy the same location, right? It's always electrons."

"Yeah, okay, so I'm going to take care of the people we've trusted to learn the power to fuck up the world then." Sandy motioned towards the door.

"Good, good," Jonah said as he went back to his pacing. "I'm going to need to recalibrate the amount of electrons I can manipulate at once."

Carmen winced as the light streamed into the kitchen through the slats in the blind. Her eyes turned up involuntarily with what she imagined was a withering condemnation at the man who was twisting the rod that controlled them.

The passable euphoria of the previous night had faded into a narcoleptic feeling of needing to be asleep and at the same time being unable to close her eyes. Her head was now throbbing and an oozing slick of nausea was probing its way up her throat. Still, she supposed she should be grateful to the large woman, whom she only slightly remembered from their time in a small college town coffee shop, reading dreadful poetry-esque essays. She had gotten her all that there was to get from the guy on the street, even if it wasn't enough, and had given her a place to stay. Even though she was genuinely thankful for that, Carmen's guard was still up. Gratitude could turn into a sinkhole pretty damn fast if you weren't careful.

"Do you mind?" She finally got fed up enough with the man fiddling with the blind to give a voice to her headache.

"Sandy said we needed light," he replied in a way reminiscent of a child relaying instructions from a teacher.

"Well, I'm gonna listen to this little MLM pitch and then I'm getting the hell out of here. I'd like to do so with my head intact." Carmen was still wondering how far she would get without completely breaking down into dope sickness. There was a bit of residue left in the waxy wrapper and she could try to get more, but she didn't have enough cash to both get a ride share home and shoot into her veins.

"Hungover?"

Carmen rolled her eyes. "Something like that."

"I'm Clay, by the way." He extended a hand which Carmen glared at.

"A sculpture and a poet?"

Clay's brow furrowed and Carmen savoured the small amount of dopamine produced by his confusion. It wasn't much, but it was honest work.

He pulled out a chair and sat down, still looking as if he was trying to gauge exactly what she was doing there. Almost immediately the two of them were joined by a huge bulk of a man that bore a passing resemblance to Sandy herself. A younger balding man who was dressed like one of the youth pastors all too common in these parts emerged from behind him. Finally a small, thin woman in her thirties who looked like she had seen into the darkness of hell walked in behind them. Each pulled out one of the chairs at the small table in the side room. Carmen soon found herself squished into the corner by the huge man, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the terrible amount of cologne he was wearing.

"D'you mind?" she winced, trying to wedge herself out of the corner.

"I'm Clay," her reluctant comrade continued his attempts to introduce himself to anyone who would listen. The thin balding man shook his hand, but said something like 'Mall' or 'Gaul'.

Carmen tried to gauge the mood of the room. The three that had come in radiated an air of something that lay somewhere in between wariness and excitement, as if they had seen something that had opened a door for them, but were not quite sure what lay on the other side.

They all stared at each other for what seemed like an