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

Jenny started them walking toward the ramshackle carnival ride a couple of dozen meters away. "Vengeful spirits from beyond the gra..."

She trailed off and her pace slowed, but Clay, seemingly oblivious to her broken sentence kept going.

"I just got proof there's an afterlife. What the hell am I afraid of?"

"Hell," Paul said simply.

"Hell is different from ghosts. The existence of one does not imply the existence of the other."

"The existence of the supernatural always implies the existence of God."

"I hate to break it to you," Clay replied. "But as more things get taken off the supernatural list, your god's just getting smaller. And now... I don't know about you, but miracles are looking pretty scientific lately."

There was silence amongst the group.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Clay said. "My dad, he's big on that whole... thing. I just... I like to push his buttons, is all."

"Regardless." Carmen pushed Clay aside and continued walking towards the haunted house. "We all know the question that's on the table here. Be it resolved: does the existence of—" She looked around suspiciously. "Magic implies the existence of the divine?"

"All miracles do," Paul said.

"Maybe it's really witchcraft," Clay said. "Maybe we all secretly sold our souls to some demon-god by passing through the door of that house."

"I don't recall sacrificing any cats or virgins for quarters," Paul muttered.

"Yeah," Carmen picked up the ball. "Maybe the kid—"

"Jonah," Jenny interrupted.

"Maybe Jonah is on the run from some secret cult. Black robes, weird tattoos, the whole megillah."

"He doesn't seem like the weird tattoo type," Jenny said, her voice nearly cracking with a laugh.

"That's why he's on the run," Carmen let her own voice rise a little bit.

They reached the worn steps to the haunted house with its fading paint and rusting metal tracks running towards the door, Jenny and Paul wincing at the loud mechanical sounds and blaring sound effects.

"And then he started his own cult out in the country," she continued. "With a bunch of dumb yokels as his unwitting acolytes."

Carmen turned around as the laughter died away.

Amid the silence that followed the question Clay turned around in place. "And where the hell is Ezra? I thought that fat bastard was just going to tell off his old boss or something. How the hell long could that take?"

"Can I ask you all something? Seriously?" Jenny grasped her arm by the elbow sheepishly. Twenty of her thirty some years seemed to melt away.

"Of course," Clay placed a foot on the stairs next to Carmen.

"I had more sarcastic cool-girl banter, but go ahead." Carmen came down a step.

"We've been making money for a few weeks. It's been great, not... not having all the... pressure I guess, hanging over my head. But... Not to sound ungrateful, but, do you feel like there's more we could be doing?"

"Like what?" Paul frowned.

"I just think there's people out there who need help," Jenny said. "We could pay a lot of medical bills, or buy a school or something."

"And that would drop a lot of attention on us," Carmen said. "Maybe it's best to fly under the radar for now."

"We should be bringing in more people. Do you know what physicists could do with just what the four of us know?" Clay muttered.

"Yeah, make a fucking bomb," Carmen's voice rose and turned the heads of several of the people passing by. "Decide that only the 'worthy' should be able to use it. Patent it and lock it away because someone at the mint is pissed. All of the above."

"Scientists aren't like that," Clay ran his fingers through his hair.

"I agree with her," Paul said. "Use of this thing is going to require some... discipline. She should know better than anyone."

"Okay, great. That makes me feel good," Carmen grumbled.

"The point is, I think the kid's right to be cagey. They don't even know us. We've been around what? A whole week? You two, half as long as that."

"I'm against it," Jenny sighed.

"Me too," Clay said.

"What about the four of us?" Paul pointed around at each of them in turn. "Do we trust each other?"

They all exhaled at the same time. Clay and Jenny nodded and turned their eyes to Carmen.

"Yeah," she said with non-existent enthusiasm. "Okay? Why am I the stand out here?"

"And what about Ezra and Sandy? Do we trust them?"

"Sandy sure. I can't get a read on Ez," Clay replied.

"I think he's okay," Carmen said. "He's just... old, I guess."

"I'll talk with Ezra, get him on board and then we'll take it to Sandy. I don't think we should be driving to the hoop right now, but at the very least maybe we can get a feel for where we're all headed."

As glances were given to the four corners of the group and assents were given Carmen felt a thought creep into her skull, a little traveller attached to the soft beginnings of a migraine in her frontal lobe.

I trust all of you, it said. It's myself I'm not too sure about.

"All right," she said, more to keep that train of thought from leaving the station than anything else. "New topic. If it's not God and it's not witchcraft, then where does all of this stuff come from?"

Greased Lightning

"All right, so, really all you have to do is to put your foot down on the clutch... That pedal there. Make sure the throttle is all the way up into the choke position, but keep your hand on it, 'cause you're gonna have to turn it down right away," Clay adjusted the small lever slightly as Jenny sat, practically frozen in the seat of the lawnmower.

"And if I get out of the seat this thing will stop, right?"

"Yeah, safety feature. Ezra, you taking notes?"

Where he sat