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

different story. These people needed something. Miracles were one thing, but they would need to be supported by righteous actions. Regardless of who provided them, miracles required God. Lightning bolts from the sky chief among them.

"You might just be right, Ezra," Paul said, cautiously playing an ace.

"Go," Ezra replied.

Clay, Jenny and Carmen sat in a triangle on the bed in the latter's bedroom. In between them sat a crumple of plastic wrap containing a yellowish powder that Jenny was eyeing like it was a rattlesnake having a leisurely nap on the bedspread. Clay inhaled, carefully in case any of the powder somehow wafted off the plastic and slipped into his nose.

"Can you both stop looking like we're about to sacrifice a baby?" Carmen said into the silence of the room.

"Well, the implications are pretty big," Jenny replied.

"I know about the implications."

Clayton drummed his fingers on his knee. "Irregardless—"

"Ugh," Carmen groaned.

"This isn't going to solve the problem. It's a band aid at best. Your tolerance is going to keep growing and you're going to need more to get the same effect."

"And having access to infinite amounts of temptation to use too much to recapture the old highs is going to be huge. Thanks, big guy, you've summarized the situation admirably."

"Just making sure you appreciate the consequences.

"Then why does it feel like you're holding something back?" Carmen asked.

"It's just an idea. More of a 'what if' really. I need to know a lot more."

"I'm thinking I... would really father not be here," Jenny said.

"You're the best of us at the pronunciations," Clay replied. "We need to give this the best shot of working."

As he looked over at where Jenny was nervously clutching at the folds of the bedspread Clay thought that she might bolt from the room at any moment. She tucked some loose hair behind her ear and exhaled slowly. Having next to no experience with the world of underground narcotics himself the whole thing rebelled against the sensibilities that had (perhaps unknowingly) been pounded into him by his father.

You better not come back from that school a junkie! Whether or not he had said that while sucking on a cigarette, Clay couldn't remember.

What he could remember was that junkies were perhaps the worst people that existed, worse even than Commie Millennials. He had learned a little empathy in his time away from home, or at least that he should feel empathy, but the thoughts that an addict was ultimately a shitty person was never far from the surface, that they could get well if they just smartened up. But Carmen was smart. She wasn't a bad person. It... it just all came down to how vulnerable your chemistry was, he decided.

"You know, I kind of thought, when I first came up here, that I was going to end up selling drugs," Jenny said nervously.

"I was more of a 'shaved head, harvesting pinto beans'." Clay replied. "Possibly axe murdered... At first."

"I don't know what you two are talking about." Carmen smiled weakly. "Everything about this place screamed: Twenty-somethings learning actual magic."

And it was swam in her veins. It was not pleasant, but it was not horrible. At first she thought she felt an itch working its way up from the puncture site, but dismissed it as psychosomatic. After a few seconds she was far more concerned that the two of them had seen the collapsed black and blue veins running up and down her arms. She pulled the bedspread up and over her lower body so that only above her shoulders were visible as the shadow that had once been a bliss settled over her. It had been a bliss, now it was just shame. Shame and a knowledge that she had put off the inevitable one more time.

After a few moments she was aware that Clay and Jenny were staring at her.

"Sorry you had to watch that." She slurred the first part of the sentence a little. Maybe there was a little bit left of the old euphoria in her still.

"Better than if we hadn't," Clay said.

"Thanks for letting me be your lab rat."

"So, do you always attack the people who want to give you some help rather than admit you need it?"

"I..."

"Fair question," Jenny chimed in.

"Can you just go back to being a good natured wall flower?" Carmen slumped back against the pillows.

"Well, I think we should tell our supervisor about this," Jenny muttered. "How's that for being a wallflower?"

"A bit much," Carmen said.

"But we probably should," Clay agreed. "At least, we should tell Sandy. And let her tell the kid. 'Cause I ain't gonna tell him."

Carmen tried to push herself even farther into the pillows and take whatever solace she could in the lack of migraines and nausea. The little relaxation that was allowed flowed into her fingertips and toes, dripping with the unease that came with Clay's reminder that she was still circling the drain, but now... with magic!

"You two go ahead. Get everyone together. I... " she said slowly. "I want to lie here for a few more minutes."

Jonah McAllister Socializes

In the middle of writing notes in one of the famous blue notebooks, Jonah McAllister sat up and looked around him. The small cabin was quiet. Dreadfully so. A swift wind rustled the trees outside and clouds out the window foretold of a coming storm. But it was none of these things that caused him to look up from his note taking. It was the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. At first unrecognizable, it gave itself voice in a rumbling sound that broke the quiet.

He had put off eating for far too long. It had been since breakfast and his blood sugar had dropped to such a level that he was developing a hitherto unnoticed