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

And then—I don't know, what the hell were you all yelling about?"

"It doesn't matter." Jonah kicked at the wheel on the corner of the bed once, and then immediately stopped when he saw Sandy shaking in the bed. "I mean, we can change things up, maybe have Jenny or Paul do more. I mean, I don't really think Paul has..." He trailed off.

"Jenny's not in the right place to do any managing. And... I don't want to do less."

"But—"

"Jonah, I don't know if you know this," she croaked, "but, THERE'S ACTUAL MAGIC!"

She tried to shout this, but it came out as little more than a half yelp.

"I'm not going to walk out on that, or even scale back my part even if it kills me."

"I can't let you do that," he said.

"You know..." she tried to readjust her place on the bed again. "Of all the books I've read about the heroic girls... not one of them had to deal with weird medical shit. Like... you would think, statistically, one of them would have irritable bowels or something."

"I don't think you're—"

"There was a whole bunch of nerve wracking shit that those girls went through."

"Sandy—"

"Not one of them farted during a dragon attack. Not even Jorja, and that was a big fucking dragon. Erdhorn the Shadow of Consumption. The disease, not the concept. Could eat an elephant in one bite. Well, two bites. You don't want a live elephant sliding down your throat."

"You're just going to keep rambling until I get fed up and leave the room, aren't you?"

"Especially when you have an organ that makes fire in there."

"Did they give you a whole bunch of drugs?"

"Maybe it's like some kind of pilot light?"

"Because it's going to get worse, Sandy."

"Huhn?"

"It's going to get worse. Between Paul and Ezra, Clayton and Jenny I don't know what's going to happen. The group could schism. And I don't know what to do about it."

"You don't."

"I... I don't want anyone to get hurt, we need more work, but... the longer I hold on, I... It’s too big for me. I've started getting these ideas. I hear people shouting my name. I see oceans of them gathered below me and I feel this intense… flash that the world was made for me to… I don't know exactly. The only way to stop it is to give it all away, but it may be too big even for that. It’s not meant for mortal hands.”

She blinked. He had never spoken like this before. The words had an almost religious quality to them. It was nearly painful to see him like this.

"That Order of Convenience sure would be helpful right about now."

"It would."

"They'd show up here and say, 'You can't share all of this with the Mortals. It is against our ways. Things can never change. Not for the Mortals.'"

He shook his head.

She laughed weakly. "It's so weird. The world turns out to be so much stranger and amazing than any of us thought and—" She paused, sucking in a breath around the tube. "We all still get to argue over the same damn things. And I have to lie in this damn bed. Carmen's still an addict. We all... we all still get to be losers. Nothing really does change for the mortals. And... it doesn't even take some shadowy organization in some dark backroom. We just... do it to ourselves. Huhn."

Jonah felt his fists clench as the ample fat around her eyes and mouth went slack with the thought. He took in the tragic scene of her laying on the adjustable bed with transparent plastic tendrils snaking out of her skin and nose.

"Then maybe we need to be more than mortals," he said quietly.

"What?"

"You wanted to be that girl on the cover of the book, Sandy. There's a new world coming. I'm going to make sure you're standing on the hill to see it dawn before anyone else."

"Huhn? Jonah, I..."

Her voice faded into the din in his mind and his fists balled up too tight that the tendons stood out on the field of white flesh veined with blue ropes, Jonah McAllister marched out of the hospital room, fumbling for his wallet stuffed full of cash.

Clayton and Carmen, the latter a little unwieldy on her feet and more than a little paranoid about walking into a hospital with the thin baggy slipped in her hip pocket, entered the floor more than an hour later. A step and a half behind them was the large form of Ezra who had run into them in the lobby. Worry and redness ringed his face.

Jonah barely noticed him. The darkened hallway was illuminated by the small device sitting on his lap, a cord winding from the outlet next to him, crossing the cellophane and box that had once encased it and lounging lazily in the charger port. In its light his face was a scowl of concentration as his bony finger flicked around the screen.

The speed of American enterprise had startled him at first, settling into a state of worry about the accidents waiting to happen in such an unregulated environment. But for the moment that lack of oversight was working for him, so he gave it a pass.

"How are things going?" Clayton asked as Carmen looked around nervously.

"Good. I've managed to get a hold of three mouse models of human obesity in triplicate and three control mice. They'll be delivered in two days," he said without looking up, his voice a mix of mania and determination. "They're even willing to overlook the lack of ethics approval if you give them enough money." He paused for a moment. "The irony is palpable."

"I meant how are things with Sandy. Why are you ordering lab mice?" Clay's eyebrows arched.

"Sandy needs help and